Tom considered the question for a moment and nodded. "You know, now that you mention it, I genuinely don't have much fondness for North American wizards as a general rule."
"And me?"
"Before you started making me money, you were just another face in the crowd."
Cassandra shot him a withering look, but didn't bother arguing the point. Instead she moved on to the current state of WhatsApp sales across North America, which could be summarized in four words: demand outstripping supply.
Both the standard and professional editions were selling out within two days, every single time a shipment was Apparated in. Every. Single. Time.
By now, Ilvermorny students were basically all carrying at least one copy - some had two or three, because no matter what world you were in, there would always be people who liked running alternate accounts. The sharpest shortage remained in the professional edition. Many buyers had money to spare, but simply couldn't get their hands on a copy, and were making do with the standard version in the meantime.
Cassandra had since recruited a substantial network of student resellers, who sold to family and friends beyond the school's walls, each earning a cut of every sale. It was a decent source of pocket money for the young witches and wizards involved, and it had elevated Cassandra's standing among the student body to something approaching legend. "Big Sis Cassandra" was no longer an ironic nickname.
Tom nodded along as he listened. The frequency with which Cassandra had been requesting restocks had already told him business was good. What he was most eager to know right now was how much he'd be walking away with this trip.
"I've earned six hundred thousand Galleons in total. Most of it came from the consumables and the professional edition - especially the professional. I'm currently selling that at four hundred Galleons a copy. I'll give you three hundred thousand."
"That much?" Tom was genuinely surprised.
"What do you mean, that much?" The girl tilted her chin up in her characteristic fashion. "What I don't understand is why you ever set the price so low. This is a completely monopolized product - there are no competitors. You should be repricing based on the spending capacity of each individual market."
Tom smiled and shook his head. "Money is only part of the equation. What I'm after is influence. If the price is too high, how does the WhatsApp actually change the way wizards communicate?"
"You think I've priced it cheaply - and that's because you are who you associate with. Most of your friends come from families with a degree of wealth, pureblood households, parents with respectable incomes and comfortable monthly earnings. Naturally they gravitate toward quality. Naturally they buy the professional edition."
"But what about ordinary families? I'd wager that even a single Galleon increase in price would be enough to make some people walk away. Or they'd buy one copy and stretch it as far as possible, cutting down on every roll of enchanted parchment they could."
"Which is exactly why I won't be raising prices. I'll be lowering them once production scales up enough. I want a WhatsApp in the hands of every single witch and wizard alive."
Cassandra studied him. The boy across from her was currently eating a burger with zero elegance and sauce at the corner of his mouth - but she felt it anyway, unmistakably: the ambition behind the words, vast and quietly burning. An involuntary feeling of inadequacy settled over her.
In ability, in vision - she was behind him by a distance she couldn't easily measure.
But Cassandra also knew herself well enough. She had no business entertaining dreams of reshaping the world. Without the matching talent to back it up, no matter how perfect a plan looked on paper, it stayed paper.
...
"So... we go collect the money after we eat?" Tom asked, words slightly muffled, sauce still decorating the corner of his mouth.
Cassandra stared at him.
Had everything from the past five minutes been a hallucination?
"We go to Gringotts after we eat. Happy?" Cassandra conceded defeat with remarkable speed, and without ceremony produced a handkerchief to wipe the sauce off his face.
"But..." The girl's expression shifted, something conflicted moving through her features, as though she hadn't quite decided whether to continue.
"Say what you want to say. Wait - you didn't lose the money, did you?" Tom's expression changed instantly.
Cassandra shook her head. "You really are - your money is untouched, it's... it's a family matter."
In the end, she told him everything.
The operation she'd been running for the WhatsApp Directories had grown impossible to ignore. What had started as a small side enterprise had expanded until the majority of Ilvermorny students and their families were carrying a copy. It was, inevitably, the kind of success that drew attention.
Other interested parties Cassandra had brushed aside without a second thought. But her father had developed ideas of his own - and considerably larger ambitions. Andrew Voray wanted to become Tom's exclusive representative for all products across North America, and upon learning that Tom was coming to collect, had ordered Cassandra to arrange an introduction.
"That's all?" Tom's expression didn't so much as flicker. He twirled his straw idly. "What do you want? Would you rather continue building this yourself, or hand the business over to the Voray family?"
"I..." Cassandra drew a slow breath. "My father is more capable than I am. And I still have school - there are real limits on my time and energy. Handing it to him is probably the more practical choice, and he would..."
"None of that." Tom cut her off cleanly.
"I'm asking what you want. Don't factor anything else in."
Cassandra fell into a long silence. Tom finished the last of his juice. Only then did she lift her head, something settled and certain in her eyes.
"I want to do it myself."
"Then that's that." Tom smiled for the first time in the exchange. "You can tell your father I declined on my behalf. Actually - no, let's meet. There are things a daughter can't exactly say to her own father, but I have no such limitations. I can make sure he drops it completely."
"One more thing - didn't you say he had strong opinions about me? Something about putting me in my place?" Tom's expression remained perfectly pleasant. "If I accidentally go a little too far, you won't hold it against me, will you?"
Cassandra stared at him.
...
What exactly was the correct response if Tom put her father inside the wall? Should she go after him? Or pretend she hadn't seen anything?
Being on the receiving end of that particular humiliation had been quite enough for one lifetime. She had nightmares about it already. The absolute last thing she needed was a repeat appearance - even in a dream.