Ep. 12

And so, another Summer to do whatever I wish. Mother expressed her desire to stay at home if I installed an indoor pool, so I did. Hm… What should I do? Experiments? I can be done with them in a few hours, so it's not like I can spend more than a day on that. Traveling? It's boring, but I might find some interesting things. Otherwise I could… Set up a business empire? Maybe… I could potentially start a company that sells modified Muggle tech to wizards. Yes, let's do that.

I wore some more formal clothing, appropriate for some business talks, took my cane, and apparated in Diagon Alley. I didn't bother applying a Genjutsu on myself since I dare anyone to mess with me. They can become my lab rats to test out my claws and poisoned blood. I strolled around casually towards Gringotts. There was a pesky fly that was following me, so I decided to be true to my thoughts.

I entered a side alley and took a few turns until I was in an isolated area. I made myself invisible and waited. After a few seconds, I saw my 'tail'. Guess who it was? Rita 'I have a grand imagination' Skeeter. Well, it makes sense that my danger sense didn't go off.

"Where did that kid go?! Damn, I paid so many Galleons for that lead!"

I stepped behind her and whispered: "What lead?"

She jumped and squealed like a little girl.

"For Merlin's beard! It's you! Uhm, I'm Rita Skeeter, new reporter. I wanted to ask you a few questions."

"Hm… Nope. How about you offer me some ice-cream first? You know, I'm just a kid and quite easy to convince." I said, subtly hinting at wanting to get something in exchange for an interview.

"Oh, sure dear. Come with me, let's go to Florean's." she said and extended her hand. I had the urge to mess around.

"Mother said not to talk with strangers. Nor should I follow them."

"Tch." Did she seriously click her tongue at a kid? "But I am not a stranger, dear. I am Rita, you should know me from the Daily Prophet." she said with a gentle voice.

"Hm… Fine, even though you are awfully suspicious and definitely look like a pedophile." I could see her about to vomit blood. Come on, I want to see something technically impossible happen! "But, I will follow you. I doubt such an old woman could even run behind me!" There it is! Rita actually had a small trail of blood on the side of her mouth. 'I need to mess around more.'

I licked my lips and gave her a fanged smile: "Ms. Rita, you should be careful not to waste your delicious blood. It would be a problem if you didn't have enough."

"Vampire! You're actually a Vampire! Don't bite me, I beg you! Anything but that!"

"Watch your words, lass, they'll come and bite you in the ass." I used hypnosis on her to make the news reporter my loyal slave. "From now on, I will contact you when I need some articles made on me. No matter what, you will portray me as the third coming of Merlin and the next Light Lord after the old goat-fucker. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Master! It will be my honor to write articles about you!" she said excitedly with an intoxicated expression. A side effect of my hypnosis, due to my Charm.

"Why did you want to interview me anyway?"

"Master, I was told that five students were assaulted and traumatized by another student. You match with the description of the assailant, so I followed you!"

"Good. I was indeed the assailant. However, you will write an article that portrays me as the victim. I acted in self-defense and the students attacked me due to my particular heritage. Discredit their families and make me appear in a good light. Contact me with an owl if you need some info or statement." I patted her back and sent her on her way. I will so kill those five guys. Their parents probably wanted me to get expelled from Hogwarts through public outcry. A 'dangerous Vampire' in a prestigious school would be quite easy to get rid of after it gets public.

I went back to the main street and walked to Gringotts. No one followed me this time. Upon entering Gringotts, I saw that most of the Goblins were working or serving other customers, while the Goblin with whom I talked last year regarding any inheritance was free. I walked up to the guy and cleared my voice. "*Ahem*- Hello there, Viard. Remember me?"

He looked at me while squinting his eyes. "Who wouldn't, you annoying brat… What is it this time? Want to take yet another inheritance test and waste my time?"

"No, my friend. This time, I want to talk about patents and starting a business. Tell me how it works and how I can start selling my products."

"Heh, now you're talking my language, brat. You think you've got something worthwhile? Anyway, the process is quite easy: you either keep your production methods a secret and place some security enchantments on your products, or you register them here at Gringotts. If you choose to register, we will take 5% of the total earnings, while the rest is yours to take. After that, it's just a matter of buying a store, advertisements, and hoping that your products are actually good. Ah, the patent is officiated by a magic contract, so we will always know how much you earned and calculate Gringotts' compensation."

"Cool. For now, I want to register these two and this guy here." I said while taking out aka creating on the spot a modified phone, a modified laptop, and a vial.

"I see. Muggle stuff. Those are communication devices? And the vial is a potion, I guess?"

"Correct, Viard. This is a phone. You can send messages or call people. You can also use it to take photographs or videos. This one's a laptop. You can use it to send messages, make video-calls, or even read a book, if digitized. This one is a beauty potion. It can make anyone as beautiful as a Veela, with enough applications. The effect is permanent and will make people look younger and more attractive. What do you say? Profitable enough for your grubby hands?"

The phone and laptop worked through magic and each had an individual ID, which can be used to communicate, just like an email address or a phone number.

"Definitely sounds interesting, brat. Come with me, we'll write everything down, then you can even start selling right now. Actually, why don't you use Gringotts as a reseller? We will just charge you with 20% the total earnings!"

"Nah, you guys are too costly. I'll stick to the good old patenting and buying a shop somewhere."

He shrugged and led me to a private study. We hashed down the details of the contract, making sure that neither me or the Goblins had any exploitable loopholes, and I got my patents.

Now, I need a shop. I can enlarge the space to place an automatic assembly chain directly there, so I don't really need a lot of space… I will check on Diagon Alley, but I doubt that there are any places up for sale or rent there. I might have to relocate to the side alleys. That, or I place a Genjutsu on some shitty person and get them to sell me their store. There isn't a wizard estate agency because this society is too retrograde. I can only wander around Diagon Alley and check what I can find.

I checked on the main street and couldn't find anything. However, I did identify a shop that's kinda sus, so I might just brainwash the owner. It was an animal shop, admittedly, but it didn't have actual pets inside. The man at the counter also looked sketchy as fuck, but I have no proof of any illegal dealings, so he's innocent for now.

I moved onto the side alleys, but found nothing close enough to the main street, so back to scouting the sketchy animal shop I go. Well, I first apparated home and told Mother that I would stay out late today: I might need to stake out the place until late at night.

Now, since I have to wait, I might as well practice my stealth arts. I started hiding my presence and keeping my magic within myself, effectively hiding my very existence from the crowd. I stealthily climbed the opposite store and started observing the animal shop.

I made some binoculars and looked inside the place. There were some packets of pet food, but they weren't enough to keep a store running on the main street when there are two other established pet shops. I think there were some strange wooden planks, but I don't know if it was due to the lighting. I activated my eyes and checked if there were any enchantments or stuff. Now, every store in Diagon Alley has some sort of enchantment, but this pet store has a little too many for being almost empty. It's fishy as fuck.

I casted a disillusionment charm on myself and entered the shop. As I saw from the rooftop, the store is basically empty except for some sacks of pet food and the man at the counter. I stepped onto the fishy wooden planks and sent a small magic sonar through the floor. There are stairs hidden under here, with a tunnel at the end. My small sonar couldn't go too deep, so I don't know if there's something else down there. I could try apparating there, but there must be some wards…

I secretly placed some micro-cameras in the shop and left. I will check them in the future. I need to see who exactly frequents this shop to get an idea of what I might find and make a plan. Actually, I was just too lazy to do anything about it today.

I returned to Gringotts and talked with Viard. I will use Gringotts as a temporary reseller until I get a shop for myself. I gave them a starting amount of 1000 of each product, just to test the waters. The contract I signed makes it so the Goblins can't scam me, but I can't scam them, so I am not worried at all. I also got Skeeter to write an advertisement article about these new products and their genius 'inventor'. In the future, if I am in the mood, I will start digitizing books, newspapers, and music to make the phone and laptop more interesting to the general consumer. For now, I believe that the laptop is too redundant with the phone, but those stupid wizards will surely buy it for the novelty. Actually, I can just wait until the Muggles invent the web and pirate it. Or use Subjective Reality.

With that done, I returned home and had dinner with Mother. I ended up skipping lunch and just drinking my blood-shake, so I had a ravenous hunger. Now that I think of it, my interface did say that my first maturity was approaching… I guess that it's a Vampire thing and might require more sustenance than usual. My guess is that Vampires have something similar to Saiyans in Dragon Ball where they suddenly grow to a certain physical appearance and stay like that for some years… I might be about to get my teenager appearance, though I guess that I will stay pretty much like this.