While explaining the real purpose of what he had just done to Draco, Tver let the pure-bloods keep making noise for a while, giving them a chance to vent some of the frustration they had been bottling up.
After all, for proud pure-bloods, having been utterly powerless to resist Tver's pressure was not the sort of humiliation they could just shrug off in a moment.
So it was only after quite some time, when they saw Lucius and Ingus, who had originally stayed hidden, come over and sit down beside Tver, that they gradually calmed down.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Tver said with a smile, sweeping his gaze across the room, "I'm very grateful that you chose to stay. To be honest, I half expected you to look down on me for being too soft."
Soft? If this counts as soft, then what are we supposed to be, ants?
Naturally, none of them dared say that out loud. At most, they grumbled inwardly, then put on smiling faces and said, "This is your mercy toward us. How could we possibly be as ungrateful as the Carrow siblings?"
"Good. Since we're allies now, then I'll just speak plainly." Tver's tone was relaxed. "I've never really considered Voldemort all that formidable an enemy. In fact, he isn't even worth several years of careful planning."
They all froze on the spot.
Looking at Tver's meaningful gaze as it met theirs, they suddenly did not know what to say.
Arrogant.
That was the Dark Lord.
Even Dumbledore, hailed as the greatest white wizard, treated the Dark Lord with the utmost caution.
They had chosen Tver's side only because he had good ties with Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and because his own strength seemed impressive enough that this side appeared more likely to win.
And yet Tver, with even greater bluntness than when he had threatened the Carrow siblings, had gone so far as to belittle the Dark Lord to this extent.
That was enough to keep them all silent.
They dared not offend Tver, yet did not want to agree with words this arrogant either, so they could only glance around awkwardly and pretend they had heard nothing.
Tver watched them with amusement.
"Of course, I have no intention of putting on some display of strength here. That would only make me feel like a zoo monkey."
"What I want to tell you about is the future of our business."
"The future?" young Avery raised his head blankly. "I don't see any problem..."
"Gentlemen, it's not that there's no problem. There's a very big problem!" Tver suddenly raised his voice, making them jump.
And the content of his words startled them even more. Even Ingus, who had kept his composure through the earlier pressure, showed a trace of shock, even alarm.
Those businesses were now the main source of income for Gringotts and the pure-blood families alike. If something went wrong with them, none of them wanted to go back to the constrained lives they used to lead.
"Our business is not actually all that legal. I trust none of you would dispute that?" Tver said with certainty.
After all, even the dullest among them knew perfectly well that all their evasive maneuvering existed for one reason only, to keep the Ministry from tracing and shutting them down.
"So the more magical products we sell in the Muggle world, the greater the risk that we'll be exposed, isn't it?"
As they sank into thought, Tver casually took out a box of face masks.
"Our face masks are meticulously designed. Even if a wizard uses Scarpin's Revelaspell, they still won't be able to analyze the potion ingredients inside."
"But gentlemen, potions are still potions. Once they build up on a large enough scale, they can still be identified by certain powerful magical detection methods."
"Don't think I'm exaggerating. Can any of you guarantee that such a thing will never happen?"
They all shook their heads immediately.
As long as something is possible, no matter how remote the chance, given enough time it is bound to happen eventually.
That was a principle the thousand-year-old pure-blood families understood more deeply than most.
And besides, face masks piling up in warehouses was far too common. If a truly capable wizard came along, they might very well detect even the faintest trace of potion residue.
"Then what do we do? If the Ministry discovers the potion in the face masks, then even if they can't trace it back to us, this business is finished!" young Avery asked first, unable to keep his composure.
The face-mask business was their main source of Muggle currency, which meant it was the foundation of all their other business operations.
If that foundation collapsed, everything else would collapse with it.
Tver did not answer directly. Instead, he turned with interest toward Draco beside him.
"Draco, do you know how to do openly what is technically illegal business?"
Caught off guard, Draco blinked blankly. Lucius, beside him, frowned deeply. Ingus, meanwhile, was almost unable to hide the excitement in his eyes.
"Give it a different name?" Draco guessed uncertainly.
"Useless. That would only buy us a little more time. It wouldn't change the fact that it's illegal," Tver said, dismissing it without hesitation.
"Er..." Draco's wandering gaze landed on his father. "Bribe Ministry officials?"
Tver gave him several surprised looks before confirming that Lucius wasn't somehow controlling him.
"That is a good method..."
At those words, everyone in the room lit up with joy, only for the next sentence to crush it again.
"But our business stretches across the whole world. With so many Ministries of Magic in so many countries, there will always be upright officials somewhere who can't be bribed."
Seeing everyone's mood rise and fall in waves, Tver decided not to drag it out any longer.
"It's actually very simple, Draco," he said softly.
"As long as you change the law and make it legal, then naturally the business can continue out in the open..."
"The... law?!" young Avery blurted.
At this rate, he really needed to learn how to calm his nerves, or his heart was never going to survive this.
Bang.
Ingus suddenly slammed a fist on the table in excitement. "I knew your ambitions went far beyond business!"
He had long felt that Tver's role in all these dealings was odd. Tver played the most important part, yet seemed utterly indifferent to the profits themselves.
To a greedy goblin, that was simply impossible.
When something seems strange, there's always a reason. Ingus did not know that exact saying, but he still firmly believed Tver had some larger goal in mind.
And now, at last, he had heard from Tver's own mouth the answer he had most wanted to hear.
"Go on," Ingus said, unable to contain himself. "How are we going to overthrow the Statute of Secrecy?"
The moment he said it, the still-half-confused pure-bloods immediately understood what Tver had meant.
The Statute of Secrecy was what hindered their business, so the law that needed changing was, of course, the Statute itself.
They stared at Tver in astonishment.
The idea was not entirely unacceptable to them. After all, when the Dark Lord ruled over them, one of his goals had also been to overthrow the Statute of Secrecy.
Or rather, to rule the Muggles, and overturn the Statute in the process.
But hearing this idea from Tver, whom they had always thought to be on Dumbledore's side, was enough to leave them stunned.
"You... really mean to overthrow the Statute of Secrecy?" Lucius asked cautiously.
He was the only person present who knew that Tver commanded a fragment of the Dark Lord's soul, so he had never expected Tver to play by the rules.
Still, even he had not expected to hear thoughts from Tver that only the Dark Lord himself would normally dare entertain.
"Why not?" Tver asked in return.
"Lucius, do you want to go back to the days when you had to scrape by by selling off family property?"
Without waiting for Lucius to answer, he turned to the others.
"Don't you want to keep the comfortable life you have now?"
"But if we do that, then how are we any different from followers of the Dark Lord?" young Avery asked, voicing the question on everyone's mind.
Of course they wanted to keep making money, and make even more.
But the problem was, if the Statute of Secrecy were really that easy to overturn, then what would they ever have needed the Dark Lord for?
Tver tilted his chin up slightly and looked at them all with a detached gaze.
"If overturning the Statute of Secrecy requires a Dark Lord, then I don't mind becoming one."
"Is that answer... satisfactory to you?"