"So what would you think of me now
So lucky, So strong, So proud?"
— Hear You Me - Jimmy Eat World
30 Song Challenge

March 17th, 1888 — Quality Quaffle & Snitch

He couldn't believe his luck! He'd been minding his own business, enjoying the street fair, admiring women, taking part in the festivities, collecting ideas for his paintings and admiring women. But mostly admiring women of the brunette variety. Also blonde. Redheads weren't bad, either. Though he hadn't had any luck with a woman of any hair color, he had stumbled upon a palm-sized coin bag that had been stuffed haphazardly within some shrubbery. Curiosity had immediately gotten the best of him. Though it wasn't his, he'd slipped it easily into his pocket, retreated to a quiet corner of the park, and took a peek to see what treasures lay within. He'd expected maybe a few galleons, some sickles and mostly knuts. Instead, he'd found the bag to have been given an extension charm and it held more galleons — just galleons! — than he'd ever seen in his lifetime. There had to have been hundreds of them stuffed in there!

The right thing to do would have been to report it to the authorities and let it be returned to it's proper owner. The smart thing to do would have been to immediately give the find to his mother so that they could responsibly handle it with the family. Instead, he decided that the very first thing he was going to do was visit Quality Quaffle & Snitch to finally get those quidditch robes and dragonhide gloves he'd been coveting for years. He'd have more than enough to do anything he wanted. He wouldn't spend it all here, of course, he'd give the majority of it to his mother.

With a shit-eating grin, he marched right up to the counter and said a bit too loudly, "I'll take a pair of your nicest dragonhide gloves and a set of those weather-proof quidditch robes!"

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   Bella Scrimgeour

Although he was the owner of the business and might therefore reasonably exclude himself from such things, Thom tended to handle new sales contracts himself, for the simple reason that there weren't a good deal of them. Most of the relationships his company had were long standing and simply needed to be renewed or renegotiated, and he left such things primarily to his underlings. New contracts, either for wholesale purchases by Quidditch teams or with new vendors interested in carrying his products, were few and far between, but they were crucial sources of income for the manufacturing business he'd grown. They also did not tend to happen by chance — these were business arrangements which took planning and finesse and usually several letters before the initial meeting — which explained Thom's surprise when one of the secretaries burst into his office that afternoon, looking understandably flustered, and informed him that a young man had just approached the counter trying to buy things.

It seemed that he had gotten the main office of their building confused with a storefront, from the sound of it, but Thom was more than happy to set the man straight. With his hands placed nonchalantly in his pockets, Thom strode out into the main lobby of the office and glanced over Mr. Wood. He made it his business to know the key players in the professional world, and so recognized the man at once — and recognized that he was not typically the sort to be able to begin business arrangements.

"Mr. Wood," Thom greeted, not at all unpleasantly — on the off chance that Mr. Wood was here trying to negotiate for his new team, or something of the sort, he certainly didn't want to lose a sale (though he had serious doubts that was the case). "I believe you may be laboring under a misconception. We do not, as a general rule, handle individual sales here," he explained. "If you're looking to avoid the typical markup on the products you'd find in a store, you would need to purchase in bulk."

Hopefully the emphasis on the last word would make the situation quite clear to the most probably penniless man, and that would be the end of it.

  

When he'd been told to wait right there so that someone could help him, he'd thought it a bit odd. Perhaps the girl at the front was new and hadn't been trained just yet. It was a few moments of waiting, which made him begin to think that perhaps she thought ill of his intentions. Had he approached the counter too confidently? Did she think he was here to rob the place? It wouldn't be the first time this month that someone thought him to be a criminal. (What was it about him that made people think that?)

Instead of the girl returning to the counter, he saw Mr. Thom Pettigrew himself strolling up to assist him. Likely this was when they would ask him to leave or they'd fetch the constables. Instead, he was given an explanation. Well this was embarrassing. He'd spent all of his time keening after the nicest quidditch supplies that he hadn't even paid attention to what exactly it was that Quality Quaffle and Snitch even did. Declan's face warmed. He'd made his mistake in front of Thom bloody Pettigrew of all people!

He swallowed the lump in his throat and with as much confidence as he could muster declared, "Oh of course! I knew that, I think the lady must've misunderstood me, Mr. Pettigrew. I'm lookin' to get my whole team outfitted. We all need some of those weather-proof robes and dragon-hide gloves." He had no idea how much that would cost but didn't want to go through the faux pas of asking. Merlin help him to have enough in that purse of his to cover it all!

  

Thom's eyebrows raised in surprise at the lad's explanation, but he tried to compose his features as quickly as possible. If the boy actually did have the funds to pay for it, Thom was hardly going to turn away an order such as this. Dragon hide gloves were hardly cheap. The materials themselves were quite difficult to come by, as one usually had to wait around for a dragon to die of natural causes (dragonslaying having gone largely out of fashion after the medieval era), and they lived exceptionally long lives. Additionally, Thom's were the top of the line, and had been since he'd found a way to improve the comfort of the design a year or so ago. And that was to say nothing at all of the weather proof robes, for an entire Quidditch team!

With a glance behind him at the secretary, he gestured towards one of the ledgers they used to record large orders, then turned his attention back to Mr. Wood. "Naturally, Mr. Wood. We would be only too glad to help with that. Will that be fourteen robes, total, then, or twenty-eight? So that they can be used daily?" He had added in without asking the second string players; it would be absolutely ridiculous to have a second-string player substitute in for a game and be wearing a different robe than the rest of the team, after all (and it rounded out the numbers quite nicely for him; he was, after all, playing the role of salesman).

  

Declan knew how many players were on the average quidditch team, but he hadn't done the math until now — seven, no — fourteen sets of robes and gloves? Wait - twenty-eight?! Merlin's testicles! There was absolutely no way that he had enough in his purse for that. He couldn't very well back down now and look foolish... and if he really could afford to outfit the team, he should outfit the entire team... He could already imagine the wide-eyed looks his new teammates would give him when the equipment arrived at the next team practice. He'd easily become the star, possibly even the captain. Screw Pettigrew! Er... the Arthur one.

"Fourteen for now," He glanced nervously at the woman writing the order down, "We'll uh... we'll see how we like them before we order more sets." Not that he doubted the quality of them, but it sounded like a believable enough excuse to get him out of having to buy double for teammates he didn't even like.

  

Thom could sense a bit of hesitation, but he didn't know conclusively whether it was because the boy was bluffing about his funds or whether this was the normal hemming and hawing done by first time buyers. On the off chance that it was the latter, he wasn't willing to risk losing the sale by treating the young man incredulously. If they got to the bottom line total and it was discovered that he couldn't pay (as Thom still suspected would be the case), it would only have been ten minutes out of his and the secretary's day to take the order down. They could wad it up and throw it in the bin before they actually invested any capital into completing the order.

"I assure you, you won't find the quality lacking in any respect," he said soothingly. "Did you bring a list of measurements, or would you like to add personal tailoring appointments on to your bill?"

  

Merlin's bloody beard, this Mr. Pettigrew was a born salesman. Declan hid a grimace at the suggestion for additional costs. Did people actually pay for such things? He couldn't imagine. Maybe Puddlemere in all their winning glory could afford such nonsense, but the Howlers certainly couldn't, suddenly found riches or no.

"I'll have th' measurements sent over by the end of th' week - we've a few stragglers yet to get theirs done," The lie had come surprisingly easily, "D'you need anythin' else?" Payment, likely, but he didn't want to be the first to broach the subject. He steeled himself in hopes that he wouldn't flinch when he was presented with the total.

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   Thom Pettigrew

Mr. Wood was certainly an odd choice of ambassador for a team that he had yet to play for professionally, but Thom could do little more than raise an eyebrow at the excuse. It was hardly as though he knew the Howler's schedule intimately enough to call him out on the lie (and in fact, if there was one team in the league he was least likely to know anything about, it was the Howlers — he tried to avoid having anything to do with Arthur Pettigrew if he could help it and wouldn't have watched one of their matches even had the Queen of England herself invited him).

"It's more of a matter of what you need, Mr. Wood," he reminded him. The young boy was, after all, the customer — or at least he would be for a few more minutes, until he was shown the total for the order and balked. Thom was assuming the interaction would end there, or else he might have pressed for another upsale. As it was, he nodded to the secretary who had been keeping a tally as they spoke and said to the Quidditch player, "If you're satisfied with your order, Miss Reese can see you through the rest of the transaction."

  

Declan cleared his throat and nodded, "O'course. That'll be all I need, Miss Reese. Thank you for your time Mr. Pettigrew." It took several moments for the woman to total up his order. When she did, he paled and felt that he might be sick. His hands shook as he loosened the purse strings. It took him a while to count out the coins - math had never been his strong suit.

Miss Reese had helped him by the end of it. By some miracle, he had had the exact amount of money needed to purchase everything. So much for saving some for his mother. At least what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. They weren't any worse off than they had been that morning. After the transaction was complete, Declan scurried off to find something strong to drink.