He brought up the basilisk in Dumbledore's office once they got back.
They had been heading out — Dobby having departed with the direction to present himself to the Hogwarts kitchens and establish whatever working arrangements were appropriate — when he paused at the door and turned back.
"Professor," he said, "can I ask you something practical?"
Dumbledore looked up from his desk with the expression of someone who had been expecting this conversation at some point and was mildly interested to see when it would arrive. " Of course, Mr. Weasley."
"The basilisk," he said. "It's still in the Chamber. It's a thousand-year-old specimen. Basilisk materials have significant magical value — venom, hide, bone, fangs. It seems wasteful to just — leave it down there."
Dumbledore was quiet for a moment.
"I've been thinking about how to handle the sale," he continued, because it was better to present a complete proposal than to make Dumbledore ask questions. "Three portions. One to a school trust — contributions to Hogwarts, maybe for resources or bursaries. One to be divided among the victims of this years and last times attacks. And the remainder split between Harry and me, since we're technically the ones who dealt with the basilisk and Tom."
Harry was looking at him with an expression that was hard to read — somewhere between surprised and thoughtful and something else that he'd have to examine later.
Dumbledore, on the other hand, was looking at him with the focused attention of someone who had just adjusted their mental model of something.
"That is," Dumbledore said slowly, "an unusually thorough proposal for someone who has been out of the hospital wing for less than two days."
"I had time to think in the tunnel," he said. "Rocks don't move very fast manually."
Something moved through Dumbledore's expression — the ghost of something that was almost amusement and also something more searching. "The compensation for the victims is a particularly thoughtful element."
"They deserve something," he said. "It doesn't fix what happened to them, but it's something. They could use it for tutors during summer."
Dumbledore was quiet again. Outside the windows, Hogwarts went about its afternoon in the ordinary way of a place that didn't know it had been saved very recently.
"I think," Dumbledore said finally, "that we should call the Goblins."
The representative from Gringotts arrived with the professional alacrity of an institution that took the acquisition of valuable magical materials extremely seriously and had opinions about being kept waiting that it expressed through the quality of its silence rather than any direct statement.
The Goblin was short, sharply dressed, and carried with him the particular energy of someone who had assessed the financial dimensions of situations for long enough that he did it automatically, continuously, even at rest.
They went to the Chamber.
This involved a process that was, in logistical terms, considerably more complex than going to the Chamber to kill a basilisk, because killing a basilisk required primarily speed and survival instinct whereas assessing a thousand-year-old basilisk for commercial valuation required light sources, measuring equipment, and a Goblin with a very thorough checklist.
He stayed close and watched and let the professional work.
The Goblin walked the length of the basilisk with the measuring instruments of someone who had done this before — rarely, he suspected, but not never — and made notes in a ledger that appeared to produce its own light. He was thorough about the eyes, about the fangs, about the condition of the hide and the flexibility of the remaining venom sacs. He was particularly interested in the size.
"Sixty-three feet," the Goblin said, at the end of the measurement process. He looked at the basilisk for a long moment with an expression that was not awed but was, perhaps, respectful.
"Is that good?" Harry asked.
"It is exceptional," the Goblin said. "The oldest recorded specimen sold in the last century was forty-seven feet. This is — significantly beyond that." He looked at his ledger. "The hide alone, at the quality preserved here, would fund a small business for several years. The venom is extraordinary — do you understand the value of basilisk venom to potions research?"
"Yes," he said.
"Good." The Goblin looked at him with sharp, assessing eyes. "Then you understand that you are holding a significant asset and I would counsel strongly against accepting any offer made in haste."
"What's your assessment?" he asked.
"My assessment," the Goblin said, with the precision of someone stating a floor rather than a ceiling, "is one million Galleons. For the complete specimen and its materials. This is the opening figure. The final figure may be higher, depending on interest from the relevant parties."
The silence in the Chamber was absolute.
He heard Harry exhale slowly beside him.
A million Galleons. He ran the conversion in his head — Ron's memories had a practical understanding of Galleon value, calibrated to the specific economics of a large family managing carefully — and the figure was staggering. Not just large. Generational. The kind of wealth that changed trajectories.
"We'll have a contract drawn up before we agree to anything," he said.
The Goblin looked at him with something that, on a Goblin face, came close to approval. "Naturally," it said.
The contract was detailed and specific and written in Goblin legal language that had several layers of meaning if you knew how to read it, which he did, because Ron's education had included precisely no contract law, but his own previous life had needed to go over contracts at his engineering firm.
He read every line. He asked questions about the ones that had more than one interpretation. The Goblin representative, initially brisk, became progressively more engaged as the meeting continued, with the quality of someone who was used to people signing things without reading them and found the alternative unexpectedly interesting.
Harry sat beside him and watched and said almost nothing, which he suspected meant Harry was absorbing more than he was showing.
The final figure was one million Galleons. Paid in full, on completion of the transfer of materials. Certain items excluded from the transfer at the sellers' request — and here he listed them: two fangs, retained by Harry and himself respectively as personal items. A length of basilisk hide each, enough for a couple personal protective equipment each. One small sealed vial of venom, retained by himself for research purposes. The contract specified clearly that these retentions were pre-agreed and non-negotiable.
The Goblin noted the vial of venom with a thoughtful pause.
"Personal research," he said, which wasn't a question.
"Future use," he confirmed, which wasn't an answer.
The Goblin made a note and moved on.
The distribution was the next conversation. He'd had it partially planned already and had been thinking about the shape of it since the hospital wing, running numbers and principles simultaneously.
"Thirty percent to a trust for Hogwarts," he said. "Harry has a specific use for his portion of that."
Harry, who had been briefed on this part, nodded. "A fund for magical orphans who need supplies for Hogwarts. Equipment, robes, books. Things that keep people from not being able to come."
Dumbledore, who had come to the Chamber for the Goblin meeting and was currently standing slightly to the side with the expression of a man being repeatedly surprised by the same meeting, was very quiet for a moment.
"The Potter Trust," Harry said, with the slight self-consciousness of someone naming something after themselves for the first time and finding it odd.
"Mine," he said, "is going to a fund for maintaining the school brooms. Flying lessons. The brooms Hogwarts has for first-years have been terrible for as long as anyone can remember." Ron's memories confirmed this comprehensively. "That can be fixed."
The Goblin wrote this down.
"Ten thousand Galleons for each victim," he continued. "This year and previous years. If any aren't able to receive it themselves —"
"Their families receive it," Dumbledore said quietly.
"Yes."
He looked at the numbers. The victims, the trust portions, the retained items. The remaining sixty percent.
"Harry takes thirty percent of the overall total," he said. "I take thirty percent."
"That's three hundred thousand each," Harry said, with the slightly detached quality of someone processing a number too large for their frame of reference.
"Yes."
Harry was quiet for a moment. Then: "Hermione should —"
"I was thinking the same thing," he said.
Harry looked at him. "How much?"
"Yes." He paused. "I'm giving ten percent of the total sale from my share. Fifty thousand to Hermione — she found the answer before she was petrified, her research is the reason we knew what we were facing. She deserves something for that. And fifty thousand to my family."
Harry was quiet for a moment. Then, carefully: "I want to do the same. Ten percent of the total from mine." He paused. "Fifty thousand to Hermione as well. And —" another pause, shorter but heavier "— fifty thousand to Ginny."
He looked at Harry.
Harry was looking at the contract, not at him, with the expression of someone who had thought about this and wasn't going to explain all the reasons. He didn't need to. Ginny had spent a year being slowly hollowed out by something wearing a friendly face, and she was twelve years old, and whatever the money couldn't fix it could at least mean she had something that was entirely hers.
"That's a hundred thousand to Hermione between us," he said.
"She'll probably invest most of it in books," Harry said.
"Worst case scenario," he agreed.
The Goblin wrote it down without comment, which was its own kind of professionalism.