"A good question," I admitted. "I'm not entirely sure, beyond ensuring all of my factory equipment has runes added. They'll set up to be powered by the wards around the building, so I won't have to worry about constantly recharging them. After that, however, I want to work on trying to find a way to turn them off. I have some ideas, like a dial or sliding blocks that would move runes out of sequence when not in use, so I can disguise some of it as technology. But I'm open to suggestions."
"Making toggleable runes? Crafty," Sirius praised. "I think Lily was working on something like that before… before the incident."
"Indeed? She sounds like an incredible witch. I truly wish I could have met her," I sighed. Both men nodded sadly.
"Let's talk about some good news," I suggested, and they agreed quickly. "I've finished another batch of Oath Binding Ink, so I can finally start hiring new workers. And this time, I've enough of the stuff I should be able to hire a couple of mages."
"I have six you might be interested in," Remus said. "Three are werewolves, and another has a kid who is a werewolf, but they're solid workers who had good grades at Hogwarts. They're also Muggleborn, so they've no interest in running to the Ministry if they find a way around the contracts."
"I see. And the other two?" I inquired.
"Half-bloods, but they suffered a lot from Pureblood bigotry in the Ministry. One was fired for a mistake his superior made, and the last was sexually assaulted by her boss, and quit afterwards when they refused to do anything about it."
"Mmm. They sound like good candidates," I said slowly. "And do they have many attachments to the magical world?"
"Some, especially the Half-bloods, but not enough that they would spill the beans."
"Makes sense. Do you have any info on what they can do, magic-wise?" I inquired.
"Here are their resumes," Remus said, passing them over, and I quickly looked over what was written. All in all, decent looking folks. The Muggleborn even had references from the few jobs they'd managed to work in the mundane world, and I resolved to contact them. And they'd all managed to finished a couple N.E. , which was good, as that meant they had a firm understanding of spellcasting which would definitely help as I began to try and find new ways to market magic to Muggles.
"Alright, let all them know I'll be inviting them over for interviews. Make sure to tell the ones who have lycanthropy about the mandatory time off and free Wolf's Bane Potions," I said after a moment.
"I already have, that was what convinced them to let me put their names forward," Remus said with a smile. "Thank you for that, by the way."
"No problem, I think it's literally criminal the way werewolves are treated by the Ministry. People like Greyback give 'em a bad rep," I replied with a shake of my head. "Now, any ideas for new potions?"
"Have you considered trying to make Skele-gro?" Sirius wondered.
"I have. There's a pretty simple recipe I found. It's just milk, bonemeal, and figs." I confirmed. "Does not have a long shelf life, however. Only lasts a week after being brewed."
"That would be tricky to sell," Sirius muttered.
"But a potion to mend bones would be better sold to hospitals directly in the first place," Remus pointed out, causing me to think it over.
"That might work… I'd have to make a lot more per batch to keep up with demands, though," I said.
"I can help with that," Sirius said. "My family has some properties in England which could be repurposed. And I'd be happy to lease it to you for a reasonable sum."
"Ah, that's thoughtful, but I don't think a mansion would be the best place to set up an industrial scale potion's lab," I said.
"Good thing I'm not talking about mansions, then," Sirius chuckled. "The Blacks made their early fortunes as cursebreakers and ward-forgers. And we had a bunch of buildings out in the countryside we used as test sites where we'd experiment with curses and wards and how to break 'em. Most are abandoned now, and we could rebuild on the land they sit on for whatever purposes we need."
"That could work," I said slowly, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. "And actually, we could use some of them for our own experiments. Testing certain things in London won't be easy."
My mind drifted to the runic weapons I'd been thinking about for a while now, and having a secret spot out in the countryside to test that idea out would be ideal.
"We'll put a pin in that, then," Sirius nodded.
We spent several more hours discussing things, such as the terms and conditions for the investments, as well as other projects we could start researching.
Sirius couldn't exactly invest a lot of money at the moment, as while he had full access to his Gringotts funds as the lord of House Black, people would notice if he tried to extract any of it, and the goblins weren't so eager to work with a known criminal if it meant the Ministry would breath down their necks about it. But he could still get into Grimmauld Place, and there were plenty of treasures in there for us to make use of in the meantime. He could also give us permission to use various Black properties, though he and Remus would have to check to make sure they were safe.
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