Chapter 1176 Infiltration
Hogsmeade, Honeydukes Candy Shop.
Ambrosio Froome is restocking the shelves in his shop with sweets in preparation for the arrival of Hogwarts students to Hogsmeade.
"well!"
Frum sat back behind the counter, stared at the notebook on the table, and sighed softly.
The candy store owner has been in a bad mood recently. Since the rise of Fred and George's "Fun House" joke shop, he can clearly feel that the business in Honeydukes Candy Store has declined significantly, which makes Frum the most angry. It was Joko's betrayal. He had clearly agreed to suppress Fred and George's business together, but the guy turned around and defected directly to the enemy, and now he is still making a lot of money. This makes Frum feel like he has eaten shit. Uncomfortable, he was hesitating whether he should accept the invitation.
The magical candies sold by Fred and George are actually not the same as the candies and desserts he sells. There seems to be no conflict between the two parties. However, there are so many people in the British wizarding world, and the purchasing power of most children is limited. Once someone I bought candies from "Fun House", so I didn't have enough money to buy candies from Honeydukes.
At least, for the vast majority of Hogwarts students, magical candies are more attractive to them when they are younger.
Even though his Honeydukes candy store is famous throughout the UK, Frum knows very well that most of the customers in the store are students from Hogwarts.
Honeydukes’ candy shop is apparently almost outnumbered by those magical candies, but he has never been able to crack it and create more attractive products.
"My dear, please help me look at the store first, and I'll go talk to Zuko." Frum closed his notebook, handed over the task of looking at the store to his wife, and walked directly towards Zuko's Magic Joke Shop go.
At a glance, he saw Zuko chatting with John from the post office. After the two of them finished chatting, Frum walked over to say hello.
“It seems like your business is booming.”
“It’s not very popular, but the business is okay, but it doesn’t have much to do with me.” Zuko seemed to remember something, and sighed helplessly, “Why, are you planning to join too?”
"I have indeed considered it and planned to talk to Fred and George first, but I can't contact them for the time being." Frum did not hide it, who made Zuko's business boom made him jealous.
Who can have trouble with Gallon?
“Don’t look at me, I can’t contact them.” Zuko shrugged and motioned for Frum to come to the store to talk.
“Is there nothing you can do?” Frum frowned slightly.
"There is no way." Zuko complained: "I heard that they were targeted by Death Eaters, and I don't know where they are hiding now. No wonder they asked me to help sell products. I always feel like I was deceived by them. .”
"What did you mean when you said it had nothing to do with you?" Frum ignored Zuko's complaint. This meant that unless the Weasley brothers were killed by Death Eaters, the store would reopen. It's just a matter of time.
"I am actually equivalent to the owner of this store. I can receive a fixed salary every month and a small commission on the items sold. However, I originally chose to retain ownership of the original products in the store, so the commission rate is low. ." Joko was a little depressed when he talked about this, because he found that many of the products in his original store could not be sold, even if they were discounted. If he had chosen a higher share, he would have received a monthly increase. Long is quite impressive, and it is sustainable. What makes Joko most depressed is that Lee Jordan has reminded him of this many times, and he still stubbornly makes the worst choice. It is almost like a Big fool.
Frum frowned slightly after listening to the conditions offered by the Weasley twins to Zuko. Because the other party's conditions are not attractive to him at all. Although Honeydukes Candy Shop is not as popular as before, it is still very profitable. If Zuko's contract is followed, it will not be attractive to him at all.
"Well, it would be great if the Ministry of Magic could limit their monopoly." Frum was a little regretful. It's not like he hasn't studied those magical candies, but he has never been able to crack the secrets. Even if he cracks the raw materials, the effect will not be the same. It's far less effective than those magical candies.
"Don't think about it. If we could restrict them, we would have succeeded a long time ago." Zuko understood Frum's depression. After all, the situation of Zuko's Magic Joke Shop was even worse than that of Honeydukes Candy Shop. Otherwise, He would not accept the invitation to cooperate. Living such a busy life, just receiving, consignment and bill settlement every day would make him tired to death. Sometimes Joko wanted to hire someone to help him, but when he thought about the salary of the other person, he would not accept the invitation to cooperate. After wanting to go out on my own, I gave up this tempting idea.
"If you can contact them one day, tell them that I am willing to talk to them about cooperation." Froome feels that he should leave a way for himself, lest the other party plans to enter the candy field one day, Honeydukes Candy Store Maybe he will end up like Jokowi closing his shop.
"I will, but you'd better not have any expectations." Zuko looked at his old friend and shook his head.
When Frum walked out of the joke shop and planned to return to the candy store, he saw two employees of the Ministry of Magic who had just finished their patrol and were chatting with Ms. Rosmerta, the proprietress of the Three Broomsticks.
After the eyes of the two parties made contact with each other, Froome just nodded slightly towards Ms. Rosmerta, then turned and returned to his shop.
This scene fell into the eyes of the middle-aged member of the crisis response team in charge of patrol.
“Is something wrong?”
Another young member of the crisis response team stopped and looked back at his colleagues.
"nothing."
The two returned to the temporary base to rest, made themselves a cup of black tea, picked up the newspaper, read the latest news, and chatted about the current situation.
“Do you think there are really people in Hogsmeade who are controlled by the Imperius Curse?”
Since the Ministry of Magic stationed people in Hogsmeade, they have conducted inspections on the residents here more than once, but they have not found anything unusual.
"If there is, it must be under a profound Imperius Curse, otherwise the flaw would have been exposed long ago." The middle-aged wizard took a sip of black tea and continued to read the newspaper in his hand.
“Why are you betting that someone in Hogsmeade will be controlled by the Imperius Curse?”
“I don’t know, maybe the Auror office has received some new clues.” The young wizard stood by the window and looked outside with binoculars.
“Perhaps they planted a spy with the mysterious man.”
“How is it possible that you go to work as a spy for a mysterious person? Do you think your life is not long enough?”
This job is actually not bad anyway, at least it doesn’t require as much busy work as others. "Looking at the news reported in the newspaper, the employee of the Ministry of Magic sighed, "I always feel that those guys are crazy. Now things are getting bigger and bigger. Once things can no longer be covered up, I really don't know how it will end. "
“That’s not very good…”
"What?"
“I’m saying this has nothing to do with us, let’s leave it to the minister to worry about.” The middle-aged employee secretly raised his wand and chanted a spell at his colleagues.
(End of this chapter)