7. Alastair takes a year off. Part 1

It had been six months since I had turned ten, and I was done with the 6 months family portion of the vacation.

Now I was ready for some "me-time" The first place I would be going to is America.

I was going to start by visiting some place I had been in my previous life to see what they were like in this time period, also more importantly I was going to set up some of my plans, in advance.

Why?

The reason is I grew up in America and knew alot more things that were going to happen here in the future, that I could take advantage of.

Thanks to my occulemency I could recall things happening in other parts of the world in the future, but not a lot, and only things I had googled because they had peaked my interest.

Such as the first printing press was actually made in the ancient asian continent, and the release of some companies that made millions of dollars such as Nintendo, Sony, Samsung, and Tencent. This would all be companies that if I played things right would make me a very rich man, if not the richest in the world.

Also I could just invest in most companies, knowing they would do well, and make me millions or billions, which I could collect with them doing most of the work, making it passive income, for the most part.

So after giving my parents my farewell, and I assured them I would be fine, and would be in constant contact, I was finally done reassuring them, I left.

Then I was off the America, the first place I had seen and heard alot about it, and even had a friend grow up near there who visited it every so often, yet I had never been.

When I arrived in New York City I had my house elf cast a glamour on me, so I looked like an adult. Also anything I interacted with, would look like it was interacting with my glamour adult body. The glamour would last for 24 hours and then my house elf would need to recast it. I also had my house elf follow me disillusioned so he would appear invisible to everyone, while he was guarding me, or carrying out any of my orders. Then I scoped out the part of the city I had arrived in.

When I was looking around New York City, I was surprised as it looked nothing like I thought it would. It was run down, dirt roads, carriages, and filled with riff-raff, but some places had its charm. Most importantly I knew to heavily invest in the infrastructure and development of a city which would become one of the few places where people all over earth would gather.

I as an Heir to an Ancient and Most Noble House had plenty of spending money, and it was easy for me to use my future knowledge or magic to make more money so I had my own private stores of riches to use on my projects I didn't want anyone but me to know about.

I was also not afraid to admit that if for whatever reason I was lacking something I would easily resort to petty theft with my magic, but I had not needed to...yet.

I also recall reading a book and watching a tv show where the main characters were immortal and lived in New York and so as it developed from nothing, into one of the biggest cities in the world, they were able to watch it personally as it was built into being.

I am a bit of a history buff, so I had walked around the much smaller New York city and planted surveillance charms which were linked to a small storage device made with runes to hold video and sound. I invented them for security purposes, as I didn't need to sell them for money but it's always nice to have more, but I don't want to market and sell them as it could change the future. Plus with my limited knowledge of runes they only worked for so long before breaking, so I would collect what they recorded periodically, or have a house elf do it, and watch them before they break, and then the footage would safely be stored in my mind. Then later once I had enough time and knowledge I would make a memory or collection of memories so as to live through the construction and development of the curremt New York city to the New York city of the future and beyond, all in one short memory movie.

That just gave me another idea for making more money, memory movies sold in the Wizarding World, I would need to make my own pensive's and to make them resemble flat screen televisions. I could make money and screw with wizards of the future when they see muggle flat screen televisions.

I would need to make the pensive's cheaper and able to mass produce them, but I had plenty of time until I had competition, and this was doubly so when it came to wizards, as I'm sure very few, half-blood or pureblood, wizards owned a television in the 21st century.

After making more plans for the future I decided to find a place to eat, I looked for a place befitting someone of my station.

So after some looking around I found a place, at 56 beaver street Delmonico's advertised as a fine dining restaurant, which claimed to be the first fine dining restaurant in the entire country, and I was able to learn it was opened by the Delmonico brothers in the year 1837 where it gained a reputation as an elite establishment offering private dining rooms and the largest some cellar in the city to those who could afford it.

The food was good, and so was the establishment, but to really get to know the city, and it's inhabitants, I needed to visit a tavern, in which I could get a real presence of the city, and maybe pick up some rumors or gossip, that may or may not be true.

First I would find a place to rest, soon I found a place at 54 pearl street called Fraunce's Tavern, which was a pub, and had rooms for board. It had boarding rooms on the upper floors and a bar on the first floor.

So I went inside and asked the tavern keeper William Stubner for a room to rent, he then showed me to the person responsible for getting a room, then after I was shown to my room, I went to bed.

The next morning I went down to the bar and was able to order some breakfast. I got some weird looks for not being a regular customer of the tavern, plus my glamour adult body was wearing robes of a person befitting my station as an Heir.

Wizarding robes aren't the same as muggle robes, but at least I was in a time where it was not too out of place wearing robes, and even if it were the people of this time are nothing like the people of the 21st century. So a foreigner in New York City wasn't too out of place, but too be careful when I didn't need to be seen or interact with somebody, I would have my house elf disillusion me to male me invisible any time I went out into the city later.

I still made a note to myself that I should look into some illusion spells that I could cast, instead of my house elf, because it was important to know how to do things yourself.

In the tavern the people who were staring at me quickly noticed my clothes and stature, that told everyone I was nobility, or of high class upbringing, but as time passed with me eating my breakfast the room started to ignore my presence and I was able to use some listening charms to learn of a few interesting things.

One interesting piece of news was that this pub was opened as the "Queen Charlotte" but later changed its name to the "Quenn's Head" in 1762, but now it was simply known to everyone in the city as Fraunce's Tavern. I learned this piece of news by listening to two gentlemen across the room, who spoke with British accents.

I learned from eavesdropping on some older gentlemen that in the year 1800 the population was a little more than 60,000 people and yet five years later in the year 1805 a sickness known as the yellow fever epidemic which is said to drove around 50,000 people away from the city. Then they had the Cholera pandemic in 1832 followed by riots in 1834 and then a year later in 1835 the "Great Fire" destroyed hundreds of building's including the New York stock exchange which made 23 insurance companies close do to the resulting insurance claims. Then I heard about more fires, riots epidemics, and even a tale or two of murder, I quickly grew uninterested in hearing about the horrible happenings going on in this city, and decided to leave once my business was done.

Also this made me think of how most wizards and witches were using cleaning spells regularly and didn't even know they were helping our magical population avoid sicknesses and plagues.

One of the things I heard about in the bar was the opening of New York Daily Times which has been in operation since 1851 for around fifteen years. I knew this would become a world famous newspaper, so I decided to invest in it early.

Then I bought some properties around central park, and the area around the future new york times square, and even had my house elves make them unplottable and put up some muggle repelling wards, which also caused me to claim some free land inside of central park, and around times square, for myself.

I chose a few plots in and around central park, and the future new york times square, and the most important plot of land I chose was in the center of central park, where I had plans to build the first ever magical skyscraper, hidden from all except me, and would give me the most glorious view of new York city, while allowing me to keep a safe distance, as all the epidemic's, fire's, riot's, crimes, and murders had put me off of living there for any long stretch of time, so it would make a nice vacation spot. I felt bad for the muggles living there, but quickly put it out of my mind. Thankfully I had my magic to make myself invisible and unnoticeable, but if I was assaulted I had faith in myself and my magic that I could handle the situation.

Then I bought some more land around the city before leaving as I had heard of another cholera epidemic, I had also heard that deaths have been limited by the new Metropolitan Board of Health, and enforcement of new sanitation laws, it looks like the muggles were finally learning about the upsides of having good hygiene for themselves and their cities.

I then left the city, but I would be back, as there would be many companies starting in New York that could make me plenty of money, and I was also going to definitely return to see the new York public library which opens in 1895, but I'll go after its been opened for some time, and at night time so I will have all the time I need to copy the books, plus I can have a house elf periodically update and copy any new books, for this library and any other noticeable library in the world, it's too bad Alexander's great library burned down and most if not all was lost, but maybe some magic families back then have some records or were able to save something, I'll have to investigate that later.

I'll also visit chicago, in the future, to see the first 10-story skyscraper in 1885, and return to new york city in 1889, to see it's first skyscraper. I will also have my house elves make a copy of all the architectural plans for both buildings, and any other noticeable works of architecture that I might like.

I remember Roman and Greek architecture to have been pleasing to the eye, I also recall watching a television show where a man who had magic designed his 21st century home to resemble a Roman Domus, which meant home. Also I was thinking of building a Roman villa in the future, which is much grander in scale and would make for some nice vacation home's. I would also need to see if any wizard or witch before me had any architectural spells, because I found myself wanting a house that shifted it's design every so often. I should only have it shift the inside though as to keep the building stable.

For now though I would leave the city of New York and I would find myself a nice secluded location as to work on some of my magical projects that I had been planning and working on throughout all this time.

I had heard of some mountains that were near New York city, they were called the Catskill Mountains. I had my house elf help me get there.

This reminded me to look for more magical transportation spells, as I had heard of only three forms of magical transportation I could recall were; flying broomsticks, flying carpets, and apparition.

This list didn't have portkeys as they were an object enchanted to apparate the holder or holder's, although there are seperate wards to stop apparition and portkeys, and didn't include floo powder because it needed a fireplace connected to the floo network, and you needed to buy floo powder periodically to use it.

No my list was only for methods of magical transportation that could be used to travel almost anywhere.

So I needed to find or create a flying spell, and some other forms of transportation, like gliding on the ground or the air, running faster than normal, magic portals, even walking or running on tree's and water and even the clouds and air were possible with magic. Creating a flying nimbus cloud would be a interesting and fun. I made a mental note to myself to look into this, in the future.

For now though I was stuck with house elf apparition, which wasn't too bad, my house elf would go ahead and see the vast distances ahead and by seeing to the edge of his vision apparate over and over until he got to the Catskill Mountains.

Once he finished doing that he came back for me, then side-along apparated me to the Catskill Mountains. I then had to hike for a bit till I came to a beautiful waterfall.

I decided to make my temporary hidden base or laboratory here.