That got some chuckles out of my audience, and they went back to work. I placed Duncan's cage back with the others. The workshop was full of toads for testing, though they'd quickly become something of mascots and pets for the workers. The fact that the potions didn't permanently harm them helped, and I didn't mind if they played around with some of the toads in between tasks.
I then left the workshop and entered the factory proper, letting the sound wash over me. There were other workers milling about, checking the temperature settings for the vats, as well ensuring the auto-stirrers were working properly. Like the people in the workshop, they wore protective gear suited for a chemical factory or laboratory, which was what this place technically was, at least on paper.
Moving around, I greeted the people as I walked past, complimenting their efforts and asking how their day was going. Morale was high, and it made me happy to see everyone working without any troubles.
Eventually, I made my way to the back area and up a flight of stairs, where a couple offices had been set up that overlooked the factory floor. This was where I and the other pencil pushers and bean counters did the paperwork that kept the place running.
"I've got excellent news! Batch 12 appears to be a success!" I said as I entered my office. The man waiting for me nodded.
"Good to hear," Remus Lupin, head of Crucible Security Solutions (a subsidiary of Cauldron Remedies), said in response.
"Indeed it is. Though I'm going to have to step up with the production, which means more ingredients," I sighed. "Thankfully, I have a meeting with a potential supplier in the magical world for some of it."
"You'll do fine. You've gotten this far, after all. And I have to admit, I was taken aback when I first heard about what you were doing. And then again when I saw this set-up," Lupin admitted, and I grinned.
"Yes, I do recall your jaw hitting the floor with a nice, audible thump," I teased.
"You can't blame me for that," the werewolf huffed. "This whole operation is ridiculous, and not at all what I expected from you when you said you wanted to hire me."
I shrugged at that, but could see his point. When I'd first showed him the factory, I was still setting most of it up. The warehouse at the time had been filled with giant stainless-steel vats for brewing the potions, using rune-inscribed stirrers to mix it all together.
Now? It was the same, but there were more vats, more blenders, more storage lockers full of ingredients, and plenty of machines with hissing nozzles whose sole purpose was to put the creams into tubes and tubs.
The workers here were all Squibs or the mundane families of magical folk, such as Dean Thomas's mother who was now the cashier for the store in London. Aside from that, I had exactly three magicals hired at the moment, and only one was an actual wizard. The other two were Inky and Dobby.
Between my shop in downtown London and this warehouse on the outskirts, I had thirty-eight employees. This number would only grow as I made more Oath Binding Ink contracts and could start hiring unaware mundane people to do jobs like deliveries, stocking the shelves, accounting, and so on, as well as Muggleborn who were fed up with the magical world. And according to Lupin, he knew a few who would be interested.
Speaking of the man with a lunar allergy, after Lupin had picked his jaw off the ground, he'd helped me by casting several wards and detection charms around the place to protect it. I'd need to get proper wards set up, but for now what I had was enough.
For future expansions, I'd already purchased two more warehouses that would become additional potion factories, and I wanted to find a way to enchant the vats and stirrers with the self-stirring spell, like they had for cauldrons. That'd have to wait until I could find somebody I could trust to do this. And afford it. Enchanters were worth their weight in gold, and rare to boot. Any witch or wizard could cast a stirring charm, but that would fade in time and need to be recast daily, unless made permanent by an enchanter. And while I could hire a couple Muggleborn to do just that, it wasn't economical to have somebody spend all day every day casting a single spell over and over on a single vat.
"Anyways, you wanted to speak with me about something?" I asked, recalling that Lupin had had a reason to meet with me.
"I finished the security project you asked me for," he said, holding up a rolled-up sheet of parchment.