The letter to Daniel Granger went out in the last week of September.
He had drafted it three times before arriving at the correct version — not because the content was unclear but because the register mattered. Daniel Granger was a dentist with a precise mind and a father's investment in his daughter's world, and he had shown at the World Cup and at dinner in August the specific quality of someone who asked good questions and listened to the answers. The letter needed to match that quality.
He wrote it plainly.
Dear Mr. Granger — I want to establish a Muggle-side investment structure that can operate separately from the wizarding financial system. The reasons are partly diversification and partly a longer-term concern about the stability of certain wizarding institutions that I'd rather discuss in person than put in a letter. What I need is guidance on the mechanics: how to move money across systems, what vehicles make sense at the relevant scale, how to build something that is structurally sound rather than reactive. Hermione has told me you understand enough about Muggle finance to navigate these questions. I would value your thoughts. The amounts involved are significant — I don't want to specify in writing — but I would rather begin correctly than begin quickly. If you're willing, I'd like to visit during the Christmas break, or correspond in the meantime if that's easier. — Ron Weasley
He sealed it and sent it with Mira, who went without complaint and came back in four days with a reply that was exactly as Daniel Granger's replies always were: direct, specific, and containing two questions he had not thought to ask himself.
He wrote back the same evening.
Hermione, who was at the library table across from him when the reply arrived, looked at the envelope and then at him.
'He's useful,' Ron said.
'I know,' Hermione said, in the tone of someone who had been saying this for some time. 'That's why I told you to write to him.'
He held her gaze for a moment. She held it back. Then she returned to her text with the slight adjustment in her expression that happened when she had noted something and was choosing to be satisfied with having noted it.
The Wizarding Investments
The broader question of the wizarding portfolio had been occupying him since August, and he had spent several evenings in September mapping it properly.
The structure as it stood: three hundred thousand Galleons in Gringotts savings instruments, returning a modest but reliable percentage annually. The World Cup winnings had changed the scale significantly — five million, three hundred thousand Galleons was a different order of problem than two hundred thousand, and managing it as though it were the same thing was the kind of mistake that compounded badly over time.
He had been thinking about the Daily Prophet since third year.
The Prophet was the primary information infrastructure for wizarding Britain, which meant it was also the primary vector for misinformation when the Ministry chose to use it that way. He had been watching it closely since his arrival in this world and had noted the specific quality of its coverage — selective, deferential, the editorial choices of a publication that understood who it depended on for access. This was not going to improve when Voldemort returned. It was going to get significantly worse.
The business case was straightforward: the Prophet was a private company, family-held but with minority shares that had changed hands over the decades. He had confirmed this through a careful review of wizarding business registry documents in the library — the kind of research that required knowing what you were looking for and the patience to find it in records that had not been organized for easy retrieval.
He had written to Gringotts in the second week of September.
The letter was addressed to the investment desk rather than the general banking desk — a distinction that mattered, because the investment desk handled portfolio strategy rather than simple deposits, and the Goblin who responded would be someone with both the authority and the interest to act on what he was proposing. He had framed it carefully: not a request to buy shares, which would have raised questions about motive and access, but a request for a market assessment of wizarding media holdings, framed as part of a broader portfolio review.
The Goblin who responded — a name he didn't recognize from his previous dealings — arranged a meeting for the first Hogsmeade weekend of October.
The meeting was at Gringotts' Hogsmeade branch, a smaller office than the Diagon Alley main building but with the same atmosphere of things being taken very seriously. The Goblin across the desk was named Ricknap, and he had the quality of someone who had been managing significant portfolios for long enough that he assessed new clients in the first two minutes and spent the rest of the meeting confirming the assessment.
Ron laid out the objective directly: acquire a meaningful minority position in the Daily Prophet, sufficient to have a seat at the board table if required, without triggering the reporting thresholds that would make the acquisition visible to the Ministry.
Ricknap looked at him for a long moment.
'The threshold for Ministry notification,' Ron said, 'is twenty-five percent of a registered wizarding publication. I want to stay below that.'
'Twenty percent,' Ricknap said.
'Twenty percent,' Ron confirmed. 'Acquired gradually, over the next month, through market purchases rather than a direct approach to the owning family. Small enough tranches that the pattern isn't obvious until it's done.'
'The owning family will notice eventually,' Ricknap said.
'Yes,' Ron said. 'By which point I'll have the position and the leverage to have a conversation rather than ask permission.' He paused. 'I'm not trying to control the Prophet. I'm trying to ensure that when it matters, there is someone at the table who is not simply deferring to whoever is in the Ministry's favor at the time.'
Ricknap made a note. He had the quality of someone who found this reasoning both comprehensible and satisfying — the long-game logic of someone who understood that information infrastructure was a form of strategic asset. 'The current minority share structure includes four separate holders, none above eight percent. Acquisition to nineteen percent is achievable within two months without triggering attention, at current market prices.' He named a figure.
Ron did the arithmetic. 'Begin immediately,' he said. 'Small tranches. Weekly if possible.'
'Monthly,' Ricknap said. 'Weekly purchases produce a pattern. Monthly purchases look like routine portfolio management.'
'Monthly,' Ron agreed.
He had also, in the same meeting, confirmed the broader portfolio structure: Muggle equities through a holding company to be established with Daniel Granger's assistance, wizarding bonds through Gringotts' standard instruments, and a reserve in liquid assets sufficient to move quickly if something required it. The total was large enough that Ricknap, who had not visibly reacted to anything else in the meeting, paused for a moment at the final number.
'You are fourteen,' Ricknap said.
'Yes,' Ron said. 'I've been told.'
The Prophet acquisition was now underway. The Muggle investment structure was in correspondence. The reserve was in place.
He had one remaining item on the wizarding media list.
The Daily Prophet
The Daily Prophet contact had required a different approach.
He had identified the relevant editor — Barnabas Cuffe ran the news floor, but the person he needed was below Cuffe: a witch named Astoria Pemberton who handled event assignments, which is to say she decided which reporter went where.
The specific reporter he was concerned about was Rita Skeeter.
He had been watching Skeeter's work since the Tournament announcement. Her byline had appeared three times in the Prophet in September — a profile of Dumbledore that was warm enough to be safe, a piece on the participating schools that was accurate on Beauxbatons and condescending about Durmstrang, and a short item about the age restriction that had managed to be both accurate and faintly insulting simultaneously. The tone of all three was the tone of someone warming up. She was going to be at Hogwarts for the Tournament. She was going to write about Harry. And she was going to do what Rita Skeeter always did, which was find the version of a story that was most damaging to the people in it and present it with the specific confidence of someone who considered truth a starting point rather than a destination.
He needed to address this before the Tournament proper began.
He wrote to Pemberton in the second week of October — before the schools arrived, before the Goblet was presented, before anything was officially underway. He wrote as himself, which was a calculation: a letter from Ronald Weasley meant nothing to a features editor. A letter from Ronald Weasley on stationery with a Gringotts investment account header, referencing a forthcoming concern about Tournament coverage and making it clear that he was in a position to make the discussion worth the Prophet's time — that meant something different.
He was not subtle about it.
Dear Mr. Pemberton — I am writing in connection with the forthcoming Tournament coverage, which I understand will be a significant assignment for the Prophet. I have a particular concern about the assignment of one specific reporter to this coverage and would be grateful for an opportunity to discuss an alternative arrangement before the Tournament season formally begins. I am in a position to make this request worth the Prophet's consideration in several ways. I would prefer to do this in person rather than in writing. I am available on Hogsmeade weekends. — R.B. Weasley
He did not name Skeeter. Naming her would have turned a business negotiation into a personal dispute and given Pemberton an easy reason to dismiss the letter. Not naming her left Pemberton with a puzzle that was more interesting than an accusation, and required a meeting to resolve.
The reply arrived in six days. Pemberton was willing to meet on the last Hogsmeade weekend of October — before the Halloween feast, before the Goblet made its selection.
He went to the meeting in Hogsmeade on the Saturday morning, arriving twenty minutes early with the expanded pouch at his waist and the specific quality of someone who had prepared for a negotiation and was not nervous about it.
Pemberton was a witch of perhaps forty-five, with the brisk efficiency of someone who managed large assignments under deadline and found most people's concerns either valid or manageable. She received him with the professional warmth of someone who had agreed to a meeting and intended to extract value from it regardless of how it went.
He laid it out plainly.
Rita Skeeter's assignment to Tournament coverage would produce coverage that was damaging to Harry Potter specifically and to the Tournament's participants generally. He had evidence of her working methods — nothing he wished to detail in this conversation, but sufficient to be confident of the outcome. He was proposing an alternative: a different reporter, one with the ability to cover the Tournament accurately and engagingly, assigned to the primary slot. In exchange, he was offering two things: exclusive access to certain aspects of the Tournament preparation that other publications would not have, and a longer-term relationship between the Prophet and his investment interests that would be mutually beneficial.
He did not mention the twenty percent.
Pemberton looked at him across the table in the Three Broomsticks with the assessment of someone revising their expectations upward.
'You're fourteen,' she said.
'I'm aware,' he said.
'And you're telling me how to assign my reporters.'
'I'm proposing a business arrangement that benefits both parties,' he said. 'The assignment is yours. I'm giving you information that's relevant to making it.'
She was quiet for a moment. 'What evidence do you have of Skeeter's working methods?'
'Enough to know that her Tournament coverage will not reflect well on the Prophet when it's examined afterward,' he said. 'I'd rather not be specific in a public setting.'
Pemberton looked at her tea. She had the quality of someone who knew things about her own reporters that she had decided were manageable until someone else raised them. 'Who would you propose instead?'
He named two reporters from the Prophet's staff whose bylines he had been tracking since September — one who covered international magical cooperation with the specific accuracy of someone who understood the subject, one whose sports coverage was technically sound and free of the agenda-driven framing that characterised Skeeter's work.
Pemberton looked at him for a long moment. Then she said: 'The exclusive access you mentioned.'
'First interviews with the Hogwarts champion,' he said. 'Arranged properly, with the champion's agreement, at points in the Tournament that I'll designate in advance. Not press conferences. Actual conversations.'
'And the longer-term relationship.'
'The Prophet will have a friendly shareholder shortly,' he said. 'It's useful for both parties to have established goodwill before that becomes official.'
The silence lasted perhaps eight seconds.
'Skeeter covers the opening ceremony,' Pemberton said. 'After that, Clearwater handles the primary Tournament slot.' She named the sports reporter he had proposed. 'The interviews are arranged through my office, not through you directly.'
'Agreed,' he said.
'And whatever you know about Skeeter's working methods,' she said, 'stays out of the Prophet until I say otherwise.'
'I have no interest in making it a story,' he said. 'I have an interest in it not being used.'
Pemberton looked at him once more with the full weight of her assessment. Then she extended her hand. He shook it.
He walked back to the Three Broomsticks for the afternoon with the quality of someone who had done something that needed doing and was satisfied with the doing.
Skeeter would cover the opening ceremony. After that, she would find the Tournament inconveniently closed to her. He had not solved this perfectly — he had solved it sufficiently, which was the available standard.
He went back to the castle in time for the Goblet's presentation.