Ep. 14

Slowly, the last month of Summer break passed. I successfully stole one of Lockhart's 'Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award's, which is extremely satisfying. I could picture that guy gnashing his teeth while thinking about how he can get back at me. He can try, it might be interesting after all. Oh, I was also nominated for the 'Order of Merlin, Third Class' because of the laptops. Poor idiots from the Ministry don't know I just pirated a Muggle thing. Well, works for me, so it's fine.

My private riches have increased way too much, particularly thanks to the rich pure-blood witches that continuously buy my beauty potions. I think that I will branch out into different countries during the Winter break. I will make the world addicted to my products!

Anyway, it was time to go back to Hogwarts, so I had Mother enter my suitcase, got my cane and hat, and apparated at King's Cross Station. I decided to enter from the Muggle side this year, just to change it up. I received many, many stares from the normal people in the station, but it was much more controlled than what happened in Diagon Alley. I still got most women hot and bothered, but at least I didn't get assaulted.

I saw a mass of redheads moving towards the Hogwarts Express, so I followed them. Molly 'I hate Bellatrix' Weasley seemed to notice that I was tailing them, so she tried to zig-zag to the platform. I wanted to mess with her, so I followed them, five meters behind them. I was using Hassan-i Sabbah's techniques to not make noise while walking, so only the woman noticed me, probably because I didn't bother restraining my magic, so some of it was leaking. Well, she was a member of the Order of the Flaming Chicken or whatever, so it checks out that she can do this much. Oh, I failed to mention that the group of redheads was also accompanied by two little kids: Ginny and Ron, obviously.

She tried going faster and slower to see if I was just going the same way as her family, but I still followed exactly five meters behind them. I had a smirk on my face because I was having fun spooking the woman. Plus, I learned something: apparently my charm doesn't work or is extremely weakened if the other party has a negative view of me. Look at Mrs. Weasley: she considers me a threat, given how she's secretly ready to take her wand out, and she isn't getting bothered by my presence.

I checked the time on my watch and I was almost late, so I picked up my pace. Oh, yes, I have a wristwatch which I made with Subjective Reality. Extremely thin but classy.

While passing near the Weasley group, I tilted my hat like a gentleman and said: "Mrs. Weasley, good day. Hello there, Fred and George. See you on the train or at school."

I could hear the twins wondering who I was, but it's not important. Surely, growing almost 20 cm in height and basically changing to an adult physique isn't normal, in particular if it occurred in the span of two months. Well, to me, it occurred in a single night, so it's even more unusual.

Anyway, I stepped into the right column and found myself on Platform 9¾. I used magic to find my friends, and they were already on the train. I climbed onto the Hogwarts Express and found the right compartment. I directly opened the door, just to be greeted by the curious and confused gazes of my friends.

"Az?" said Silvia

"Bingo! Let's get this place a little more comfortable, shall we?" I said and enlarged the compartment.

"Puberty?" asked Christian

"Not exactly. My Vampire side acted up, so I'm now considered a Mature Young Vampire. Basically accelerated puberty."

"And the hat? Decided to be classy?" asked Katrina. She was reading a sports magazine. What a tomboy. I didn't fail to notice a faint blush on her face. Fuck my charm.

"Nah, I got more sensitive to light, so I wear it to get some shade. Anyway, how was your Summer?"

"Not as good as yours. Look at this." said Camille while showing me an old edition of the Witch Weekly. That was the one where I won the Most Charming Smile Award.

"Well, Mother wanted to show off and one thing leads to another…" Might also have something to do with the fact that I brainwashed Skeeter.

We chatted a bit about what we did this Summer and all of my friends expressed their desire to get a phone for Christmas. I decided to gift each one of them a personalized phone since, you know, I make them. Saying that they were enthusiastic would be a severe understatement, but it'll do. I noticed something else after staying in close contact with humans for a long time: my thirst for blood is much worse than before. My sense of smell obviously got better with all the blood I drank, even if I didn't get a trait specifically for it, so I can smell their sweet, delicious blood. I had to almost constantly sip on my blood-shake to keep my instincts at bay.

My friends got curious about why I was also wearing gloves, so I had to show them my sharp fingers and how well they cut through stuff. That led to a series of tests to see what I could and couldn't cut. Our compartment was the liveliest one, so much so that a Prefect had to come and check what was happening. She arrived just as I cut through an apple.

"What's going on here?" asked the female Hufflepuff.

"Nothing at all, just some tests and demonstrations." I answered calmly, sneakily putting my gloves on. Luckily, my charm worked on the girl since she blushed deeply and averted her eyes. Why luckily? Well, I wouldn't want my friends to get in trouble before even arriving at Hogwarts.

"Oh, uhm… Fine, but keep it down."

"Certainly." I had the urge to mess with the girl. "Are you okay? You look a little… Red." I asked while leaning in until my eyes were level with hers. Incubus Charm for the win! I can have so much fun messing with the students like this!

"Eh?! Ah! Y-yeah, I'm fine! T-thank you, for asking… Uhm, I should go now!" she said and darted out of the compartment. As she was far enough, I snickered a little.

"Mission complete!" I could see that Silvia, Camille, Natalie, and Katrina were pouting a little.

The rest of the trip to Hogwarts was relatively uneventful. Fred and George came to say hi and realized that it was me who they met in the station. Those two kids are so cute when they are embarrassed, makes me want to tease them more.

If I remember correctly, no one of importance should be joining this year and I also have quite a lot of free time compared to most other students since I only took two electives. Poor scrubs that have to study, hohoho! I guess that I will finally get to master my François Prelati's Grimoire and Hassan-i Sabbah's Arts. I should also try to come up with some more magic spells, like my magic sonar and 3D rendering of the planet. I want something big or maybe necromancy. Ooh, puppeteering sounds interesting as well, now that I think of it. Those have a lot of applications! Merlin was more focused on enchanting, wards, and holy magic, Hecate was more of a researcher and theoretical knowledge woman, Prelati was focused on illusions, and Scathach had runes. Now, if I add puppeteering to the mix, I'm set.

As I expected, no one of importance appeared. The classes got boring quickly, except for Runes where I basically became the teacher. Professor Babbling was more interested in what I had to teach than actually teaching the other students, so I had some fun in that class. I ended up repairing that old Time-Turner I got the first year, so I started using it to train as much as possible in the various areas I wanted to.

I once again changed my blood mix to a combination of Divine Spirit essence, Heroic Spirit essence, 1-UP mushroom extract, Fairy blood, Yeti blood, and I even added some Pokémon blood. More specifically, I got Palkia's, Dialga's, Giratina's, and Mew's blood. I wanted to see what I could get out of that. The first three are basically Dragons, so I doubt I'll get much, but Mew is completely uncharted territory.

In the end, my daily routine was: wake up, training, breakfast, classes, using the Time-Turner to go back to the morning, train in the ROR, lunch, classes, again use the Time-Turner, train in the ROR, studying with friends, dinner, sleep, repeat. I might actually be a training maniac now that I think of it, but I do like to become stronger, so it's fine. At a certain point, about two months since the start of the school year, Mother got worried about my health, so I had to take a break from training for a couple of days. I ended up reducing the amount of time I use the Time-Turner.

Like so, Christmas arrived once again. I sent an owl to my friends with a letter and a protective accessory since next year some crazy things will start occurring. I also sent Katrina a customized broom for her career as a Beater. From her response letter, I guess that she appreciated the gift, very much so.

I decided that me and Mother would spend the break in Paris again. I had to set up a few meetings with Gringotts here to expand my business empire. While I was in school, me and Viard kept in touch regularly with our phones. He ended up buying one. In hindsight, I should have given one to him 'on the house'. We decided to reduce the cost of the beauty potion and its effects to create a cheaper alternative to the 'Veela potion'. Like so, I started making even more profits than during the Summer.

Gringotts in France agreed to rent me a warehouse where I could setup a production line. We basically copied the contract I had with Viard. My consultant in France was called Kriat. Apparently he knew Viard, so he basically vouched for me. You see? These are the important benefits, not a reduction on their cut! Well, that would be nice, but not fundamental.

Since that went well, I took a trip to the Gringotts branch in Germany, Italy, Russia, India, Japan, and a few minor branches. I had to relent 25% of the earnings to the Russian and minor branches, but I had a little discount from the German and Italian branch, so it evened out, more or less. I wanted to expand into America, but I really couldn't get my papers processed in time. In order to increase my wealth, I might release a few medicines for St Mungo's and become the only supplier of them. That would surely net me a pretty penny. Oh, and I could help wizard-kind, but I don't really care about that.

Me and Mother celebrated New Year's at home while the French Muggles fired off fireworks.

"Merry 1991, Mother. One of the last peaceful years for the next seven."

"Why do you say that? Isn't everything fine?"

"Well, yes and no. Don't worry for now. I will make sure that you're safe, so there's nothing to worry about. If everything goes to shit, we can just stay on our island and let history take its course." Mother nodded and beamed a smile. What a nice way to start the new year.