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After leaving Prof. Dumbledore, I left the bank and started to think about my next steps in the street. Frankly, I was a little relieved. Dumbledore, at least in some fan fiction, was not the cunning man who was the head of all evil. He was just an academic who wanted to teach and research magic in peace. Still, I couldn't understand why he wanted to meet with me. It seemed a bit ridiculous that he wanted to meet privately with the child of a man he had only met a few times. Well, since I had no chance to escape from that meeting, I will soon find out.
Afterwards, I headed towards Madame Alice's robes suitable for every occasion. Apparently, I was in a time before Madame Malkin took over the shop mentioned in the Harry Potter books. Now that I think about it, many of the businesses mentioned in Harry Potter had not yet started operating. This reminded me that I had travelled 50 years before the time mentioned in the books. The fact that I would never meet many people I recognised from the Harry Potter books made me quite sad. Although I knew that Hagridi would live until then without dying of old age, some of them would either never be born or would have different personalities as a result of some changes I planned to make, and I definitely intended to change some things. I wanted to at least minimise the effects of the second wizarding war.
When I entered the shop, Madame Alice greeted me. 'Here's what you wanted.'
'I wanted to buy a full set of third year Hogwarts and some casual clothes.'
Hearing me, Madame Alice looked at me with big eyes. And saying something about big boys, she quickly started taking my measurements. After I got all my school clothes, I ordered some simple trousers and casual clothes. Apparently, they didn't have ready-made clothes and moulds for wizards of my size. That's why she said she would need two weeks to sew from scratch. At first I had intended to have some charms added to the clothes for warmth and cleanliness, but the price was so high that I had to give up. The only charm I had made was a charm that made the clothes change their size according to my body as I grew. Since I used ordinary fabric instead of magical materials, the charms would last for a year at most. Even so, my total expenditure was 90 galeons, which I think was robbery.
After leaving Madam Alice's robes for all occasions, I went to Slug & Jiggers Pharmacy, which sells potions and potion ingredients. All the equipment needed for the school cost another 90 galeons in total, so most of my money was spent. Thank goodness all the books at Flourish and Blotts cost about 25 galeons in total. I then bought a diary for 15 galeons, which only the owner was allowed to read the contents. I thought it would be useful in the future for recording my magical endeavours. Apparently ordinary items were quite cheap, but when the slightest talisman or spell was involved, things got extraordinarily expensive. So I had only 50 galeons left, and it was half past one in the afternoon when I finished. There was still an hour and a half before my agreed meeting with Dumbledore. I decided to spend this time wandering around the bookshops on Diagon Alley, maybe I would come across something good by chance like the occlumency book last time, who knows.
Firstly, I went to the bookshop where I bought the occlumency book, but I couldn't find anything that interested me, and the seller wouldn't let me look at the more valuable books he kept behind his desk. Besides, the cheapest of those books started at 30 galeons. I had only 50 galeons left from my budget this year. When I reached the part of Diagon Alley that connects to Knockturn Alley, I felt a strange pull and call. When I decided to follow this feeling, it led me to a rather suspicious and old shop at the intersection of the two streets. The windows of the shop were so covered with dust that it was almost impossible to see the back of the shop and the window and door mouldings were painted completely black, giving a bad feeling. When I got a little closer, I saw that the shop sold second-hand goods and books. The closer I got to the shop, the stronger the feeling of call became. After hesitating in front of the door for a while, I took a deep breath. Inside, a sight I did not expect to see was waiting for me.
There were random items and books on the left and right of the door. The shelves were full of things scattered left and right with no apparent order on the counters. What surprised me was none of this. It was the Hag standing in front of me, at least I thought it was. She looked like an old witch covered with ugly warts. But the reason why I thought it was a Hag was the feeling I got from the voice of nature, it felt as different as possible from a wizard or a muggle. When she started to speak, I quickly got rid of my astonishment.
'A young wizard. It's been a long time since I've had a young wizard like you in my shop. Young wizards like you now prefer more pretentious establishments. But enough of this idle talk, what are you doing here, young wizard.'
I started to speak nervously.
'I was browsing the bookshops on Diagon Alley to see if I could find some interesting books, that's how I came across your shop, do you mind if I see your products?'
'Ah, a book-loving wizard, I honestly expected a person of your size to have different interests.'
She giggled like a young girl as she finished her sentence and winked in a way she probably thought was attractive. Thank Merlin it didn't affect me the way he wanted it to. It did nothing but send a cold shiver down my spine and terrify me, and if it wasn't for the call I got from the sense of nature I would have turned and run away screaming. He must have realised what I was thinking from my facial expression because he sighed in distress and began to speak.
'Oh what a touchy boy, I'm only joking, if you find something in the shop that interests you, of course you can buy it.'
Raising one eyebrow suspiciously, I started walking around the shop.
I didn't go directly to the thing that attracted me. I was worried that if he realised that it might be valuable to me, he might increase the price. I started walking randomly inside the shop from the outside. Every once in a while I would stop and look at items that looked interesting, and man, this place was like a treasure room, contrary to its appearance, there were a lot of magical items and substances that I didn't fully understand. I even found some things I never expected, the most important of which was a greenhouse tree sapling that seemed to have dried up in a small pot. From the outside, it looked completely dried up, but thanks to my voice of nature ability, I could feel a little bit of life in it. Now, as to why this was so important, greenhouse trees were extremely valuable. The main reason for this was that these trees were critical in creating artificial magical binomials such as Hogwarts greenhouses or Newt Scamander's bag. The tree somehow released magical energy into the environment, enabling plants and animals to live outside their natural habitat, such as in areas with undetectable stretching curses or hogwarts greenhouses. Of course, this made it quite valuable, even a small 1 metre sapling could be sold for as much as 10000 galeons if it was completely healthy.
The sapling in front of me was barely 50 centimetres tall and any passer-by could have sworn it was dry. But I could feel the life in it through the sound of nature. I eagerly picked it up from the pile it was in and continued to walk around the shop. Just then I noticed a pile of books on another stall. The feeling that attracted me was coming from that pile. After I came near the pile of books, I started to examine them, starting with the book closest to me. The fifth book I picked up was the one from which the feeling that attracted me was emanating.
The book was written by hand and in an old dialect of English that I had difficulty understanding at the moment. After trying to read it for a while, I realised that it was more of a diary than a book. As far as I understood, it was about the life of a druid named Radagian. After putting Radagian's diary aside, I continued to browse through the books for a while and even found a set of 3 books on chimaric alchemy. This branch of alchemy specialised in the use of magical beasts and parts of plants, or the creation of new magical creatures. I knew that the masters of this discipline were extremely few, as creating new magical creatures was a criminal offence after the introduction of the Statute of Secrecy. I put the books next to the same Diary and cast a Temtus spell. When I saw that it was already half past two in the afternoon, I remembered that I had to leave to meet Dumbledore. so I walked to the counter with the books under one arm and the sapling in its pot under the other. Hag was there waiting for me with an ugly grin on his face. All this time his eyes never left me for a moment. I put the books and the pot on the counter.
Hag squinted his eyes and examined the books I bought and the plants in the pot for a while.
After looking at the prices, he started talking.
'Thirty galeons.'
'Twenty is not a single cent more.'
'Twenty-eight is less and I will make a loss. Besides, even though this sapling has dried up, it still has some value.'
'Twenty-five more I cannot give.'
After squinting at me and thinking for a while, he nodded his head in agreement.
I put the 25 galeons on the counter. As I gathered my things and reached out to put the books in my pouch, he suddenly grabbed my forearm.
Licking his lips, he began to speak.
'If you want to pay in another way, I don't mind.'
When I realised what he meant, I embraced the items without putting them in my pouch and ran away from there as fast as I could. As I closed the door, his laughter echoed in the shop behind me.