On the street on the south side of Diagon Alley, an inconspicuous magazine company appeared at some point. The office of "Defense Guide" is located here.
Remus Lupin, the editor-in-chief of the Defense Guide, was checking recent development plans. He took a sip of his tea and his eyes fell on the shop diagonally opposite, which was the office of the Daily Prophet, and next to it was Whits Hard Book Company.
Compared with these two famous companies, their newly opened store seems much more shabby, and many things are still in the initial stage.
Opposite Lupin, Sirius was sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, reading the latest edition of the Daily Prophet, completely ignoring the dire situation they were currently facing.
It has been almost a month since the launch of "Defense Guide". Although the situation is much better than Lupin expected, it is still in a loss-making state.
Just then, an owl flew in from the reserved window, threw the envelope into the mailbox, and flapped its wings and flew away.
"Albert's letter?" Sirius asked without looking up.
"No, it's a letter from Mr. Jordan. He probably wants to discuss with you how to ask Bagman for money." Lupin opened the mailbox, took out the letter and put it on the desk in front of Sirius. He took out the parchment from his desk and said to himself, "This month, a total of 145 copies of the Defense Guide were sold, of which 50 were given away for free, so in fact only 95 copies were sold. By the end of this month, I'm afraid that less than 200 copies will be sold."
No wonder Lupin had a helpless smile. A copy of the "Defense Guide" cost as much as 10 Sickles. After deducting the printing fee, discount fee, owl mailing fee and other miscellaneous expenses, this month was completely losing money. Moreover, Sirius actually planned to give him a good salary. Although Lupin rejected it in the end, the situation was still not optimistic, because they still needed to pay rent for the house they were using now. According to the current loss experience, Lupin doubted whether the "Defense Guide" could survive until next year.
"Don't worry, didn't Albert prepare several sales plans? I think his idea is very good, and operating at a loss is only temporary." Sirius put down his crossed legs and comforted him, "As long as the sales of the magazine go up, we can make money from the magazine's advertisements. And I suspect that guy never expected the sales of the Defense Guide to make money for him from the beginning. He is very smart and will definitely not do business at a loss. He must have other purposes."
"He has another purpose. Does Albert intend to sell the magazine to Hogwarts students?" Lupin didn't think that Hogwarts students had the money to buy it.
All he saw now was losing money and wasting a lot of energy. If the "Defense Guide" did not improve, Sirius would probably lose a large sum of Galleons.
"You don't have to worry about these things." Sirius threw the parchment he had just read on the table and said to Lupin, "I have to go out for a while. Mr. Jordan is planning to block Bagman and collect the debt. He is trying to get the principal back from Bagman."
"Doesn't Bagman have no money?" Lupin had heard about Bagman's story. It was said that this unlucky guy borrowed a lot of gold from the goblins. As he didn't pay back the money in Galleons, all the gold coins were snatched away by the goblins after the World Cup. He is currently under close surveillance.
"Ludo Bagman is indeed penniless now, but that doesn't mean he will be penniless in the future, and everyone just wants to get their capital back." Sirius curled his lips. He suspected that this was caused by Albert.
Of course, this is just a guess.
When Sirius arrived at the meeting place, he found that there were quite a few wizards who had been tricked by Ludo Bagman, a total of eleven people.
Sirius also noticed that Arthur's son was standing in the crowd with a gloomy face.
"Okay, everyone. Let me first tell you about our situation and goals." Mr. Jordan, as the initiator of the debt collection group, was the first to stand up and say, "As everyone knows, Bagman's Galleons were taken away by the goblins. He doesn't even have any Galleons on him, so we can't expect him to pay back the money now. But his lack of money now does not mean that he will have no money in the future. We can wait for five years, or even ten years. Anyway, we can't let that guy just default on the money."
"That guy is the Director of the Department of Magical Sports and Games, and his monthly salary is quite high. We can use his salary to pay off our debts." Everyone thought this was a good idea.
"We don't expect him to pay it back all at once, but it would be nice to use the few Galleons from his salary to pay it back." Mr. Jordan is very satisfied with the current development.
"Isn't this too lenient towards him?" someone said angrily.
"Besides, we don't have that much time to keep an eye on him." Percy reminded with a frown, "Five years? Time? We can't waste time on Bagman just because of this."
"Perhaps, we should report Bagman's actions to the Ministry of Magic." A bald wizard reminded
"This is private gambling and is not protected by the Ministry of Magic." Percy shook his head. If possible, he would have done so long ago and would have discussed countermeasures here.
"Also, there is another question. How do you plan to ensure that he will pay back the money?" Sirius, who had been silent all along, suddenly asked.
No matter how nice their words were now, it would be meaningless if they couldn't ensure that Bagman would pay back the money.
"That's something I've naturally thought of. We can use this!" Mr. Jordan pulled out a parchment covered with writing from his robe pocket.
"The magic contract." He introduced it to everyone excitedly, "Within ten years, as long as Bagman pays back the money as agreed, the magic contract will be automatically cancelled and we will let him go."
"This is impossible!" a woman screamed. "Bagman swindled little Agatha Timms out of half of her shares in Eel Farm. How could that guy be so broke? If not, we'll just use violence and take everything of value from him as compensation."
"It's illegal to do that," Mr. Jordan reminded.
"Isn't that thing in your hand illegal?" Sirius couldn't help but laugh.
"This is the settlement agreement," Mr. Jordan said without hesitation. I don't know how thick-skinned he is, but he can still say it with confidence, "Bagman owes us money. What we should do now is to stop the loss in time, rather than getting nothing at the end of the day."
"What if Bagman runs away without paying the debt?" someone continued to ask.
"If Bagman really refuses to pay, he will probably become the most unlucky wizard in the world." Mr. Jordan shrugged and said, "Besides, as long as he signs the settlement agreement, we can use this contract to find his specific location at any time. If Bagman dares to run away, we will sell his location to the goblins, and we will earn some Galleons from them to make up for the loss. As the price for Bagman's default, he will be entangled by the goblins forever. At least for the next ten years, he will never be able to get rid of those goblins."
"Very well, I have no problem with that. Just follow your plan. Bagman must pay for what he has done."
Then again, that guy really owes a lot of people Galleons.
There were seventeen people on the list, but some of them were owed a limited amount of Galleons by Bagman. The first one was the fat woman who screamed just now, the second was Blake, and the third was Jordan. The total amount of money owed to them was about 3,000 Galleons. Of course, if the Galleons won from the bets were included, it would probably be several times more.
"According to your magic contract, you can only get back 2,400 Galleons at most in ten years. What about the remaining part?" the sarcastic woman questioned Mr. Jordan.
"Those of us who are owed the most can get less," Mr. Jordan said without hesitation, "or we can deduct it according to the ratio."
"That's fine with me."
"No problem."
The fat woman was about to say something else, but was interrupted by Mr. Jordan, "First get the money from Bagman, the rest is nonsense."
Sirius couldn't help but curl his lips, looking down on the woman in front of him. Mr. Jordan undoubtedly intended to use the advantage in numbers to force Bagman to compromise.
In fact, many people who were owed money and cheated by Bagman gathered here not all to ask Bagman for money. They all knew what happened to that guy, and they also knew that they would not get the Galleons even if they found him. However, Bagman used fake Galleons and copied Galleons to deceive them, and especially Bagman treated them very badly in order not to pay back the money.
This undoubtedly made everyone very angry, and they all planned to make that bastard suffer.
"Okay, I'll take you to find Bagman. In order to avoid the harassment of the goblins, that guy didn't dare to go home at all and just hid himself. Come with me!"
Mr. Jordan apparated with everyone.
Somewhere in a remote area on the coast of England, Bagman was dragging his tired body towards this seaside house. It was a Muggle villa, uninhabited most of the time, very suitable for temporary hiding to avoid those annoying goblins.
Bagman regretted provoking those goblins. In order to get money from him, they followed him all day long, which made Bagman a little nervous.
However, when Bagman walked into the lobby of the villa, he was stunned because he found a group of people sitting there waiting for him.
"You, how come..."
"Well, Mr. Bagman, we've come to you just to discuss how you're going to pay us back the money you owe us." Jordan walked up and appeared from behind, taking Bagman's wand and putting his hand on his shoulder to prevent him from Apparating away.
"I really don't have any money." The smile on Bagman's face was uglier than crying.
"We know you don't have any money." Jordan nodded to show that he understood, "So, we just want to get our principal back. You know, we can give up the money we won from the bet, but you can't take away all our principal."
"But I..."
"Perhaps, we should teach him a lesson." The fat woman raised her wand and gritted her teeth, looking as if she was about to use the Cruciatus Curse.
"Okay, we know you don't have money now, but you will definitely have money in the future. After all, you are the Director of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and your monthly salary is not small. Just take out 20 Galleons to pay off the debt." Jordan smiled and put the parchment in front of Bagman and said, "We will give you ten years. It will be easy for you to pay off this debt. You will need to pay about 2,400 Galleons in ten years, and we will not ask you for the remaining Galleons. How do you do?"
"Okay, I'll sign it."
Bagman knew he had no choice, so he quickly scanned the contents of the parchment and found that all the guys he had cheated were here. No wonder they had not written to him to ask for money, it turned out that they had gathered together and were preparing to come to him to collect the debt.
After Bagman signed his name, Jordan took out the parchment with a smile, handed it to the fat woman and said, "You keep this, it's best to put it in the vault."
"I will."
By the way, Mr. Bagman, I forgot to remind you just now that there is a curse on this contract. If you cannot pay back 2,400 Galleons within ten years, I don’t think you want to know the consequences. "
"I see," Bagman said dryly.
"We won't bother you any more then. Goodbye Mr. Bagman."
After the group left the villa, they Apparated away.
"Damn, what a bunch of annoying guys. Looks like this place isn't safe either," Bagman muttered.