Chapter 241: Store Planning and Design

Under joint persuasion, Sirius finally agreed to replace his wand.

He sighed and followed Mr. Ollivander into the wand store, rubbing his messy hair, like a young wizard.

"I used to be like that, very stubborn! But as long as it's reasonable advice, he'll most likely give in to any reasonable advice...," Looking at Sirius' back, Lupin told Ivan, Harry and Hermione some anecdotes about Sirius' school days and made them all laugh.

Laughing, they arrived at 36 Diagon Alley, the Black family store.

It was a three story store, located on the corner across the street, right across the street from Ollivanders, next to the apothecary, and across a dark alley north of it was the Eeylops Owl Emporium.

Harry's pet, Hedwig, was bought there and given to him by Hagrid.

In addition to the pet store, the apothecary was also a famous potion ingredient store in Diagon Alley, and Ivan had bought many potion materials from them by mail order because of their cheap prices.

The outer wall of the magic store was dark brown brick with a very narrow window.

Inside, there were barrels of slimy stuff on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and glittering powders on the walls; bundles of feathers, fang strings, and claws hung from the ceiling.

The products inside were fascinating, but because of their nature, the store smelled horrible, like a mixture of bad eggs and rotten cabbage.

Worse than that, 36 Diagon Alley was right next door.

The old bricks were incomplete, and looked extremely forlorn and worn. The two semicircular windows were covered with dust thick enough to make the interior invisible from the outside of the store. Between the windows was a black, bruised wooden door, covered with worm holes and traces of people scratching at it with sharp objects, which gave off a rotten smell.

Ivan dusted the window and stood on tiptoe to peer inside.

Through a curtain filled with thick dust, he saw scattered furniture and garbage everywhere. In a crack in the upper corner of the window, there was a brown spider the size of a tea saucer.

The whole place looked like a haunted house.

"It looks like this store has been dormant for over ten years and has never been used." Lupin explained, "A lot of people wondered if there was something wrong with it, so it's been dormant, but I didn't expect it to be owned by the Blacks."

He pulled out his wand and knocked on the wooden door of the store.

With a knock, the door swung open.

The moment he opened the door, a lot of dust splashed out.

Everyone hurriedly held their noses and backed up several steps.

Seeing the unexpected intruders, inside the store, a frightened mouse ran past, squeaking.

They entered and left clear footprints on the creaking floor.

The store was decorated in the usual Black luxury, and its shabby furniture was made entirely of precious mahogany and teak.

Perhaps for this reason, it was also the object of the thieves' attention.

Everything of little value in the store was missing or destroyed, and the remains of several magnificent ornaments and furnishings were strewn about the floor.

The back windows were also smashed, and a cold wind blew. No doubt the thieves crawled from there.

From the outside, this store was bad enough; the inside was terrible to the extreme.

If they wanted to use it and open it for business, almost everything needed to be renovated.

"It really takes a lot of effort to clean this up." Hermione wrinkled her nose, pulled out her wand and said to a carpet, "Scourgify!"

Pink soap bubbles immediately appeared on the carpet, but they didn't work. There was so much dust that the shiny soap bubbles turned black and cloudy instantly.

Hermione wasn't about to give up. She waved her wand and said the spell several times.

"Don't waste your efforts, Hermione, pull the rug." Ivan said covering his forehead, "You can buy furniture and office supplies. You're right, and as you just said, this place really needs a cleaning, this is no small workload!"

"This place has been empty for many years, long enough for many things to breed. You should be careful when you clean it." Lupin squatted in front of a cupboard and peered through the keyhole. "Looks like there's a Boggart in here. You'd better let him out before you clean it."

"It's crazy to clean a place that's been abandoned for over a decade. I don't want to spend the rest of my Christmas vacation here." Harry went upstairs and gasped. "This tent is a lot roomier than it looks from the outside. The space upstairs is very large, and there's more junk than downstairs."

"Don't worry, Harry! I think three days should be enough. We can get Dobby and Kreacher to help us. House elves are very good at doing this sort of thing." Ivan went upstairs as well and looked around, nodding with satisfaction. "We'll be visiting Ron in a moment, so we may as well ask the Weasley family to help us with the cleaning. Here's what I think, the second floor and second floor are sufficient for the newspaper's headquarters. The wooden floor can be used for other purposes, for example, to sell Fred and George's joke products..."

"The two of them will be happy. Since last semester, they have started providing mail order services at the school." Harry said, "The products they developed are very interesting and very popular."

"They are also very dangerous and disgusting." Hermione disagreed. "Look at what they did last semester. They made big stink bombs that smelled all over the hallway. The whole hallway was full of stink - it was hard to clean up!"

"That's what Filch has to worry about. Besides using it in the Slytherin basement, they haven't used that kind of stuff anywhere else in the school." Ivan said with a guilty conscience.

He didn't dare tell Hermione that the birth of the stink bombs was actually his suggestion. The theory used, however, was inspired by Hermione's contribution to a newspaper article on metamorphosis, to find a way to activate the stink bombs in a way that would make them obey the user's instructions.

"There's plenty of room here; you can fit a lot of items. In addition to Fred and George's joke products, they can also sell whatever other young wizards need for their studies." Seeing that Hermione still wanted to continue the discussion of joke products, Ivan was quick to say, "For example, with the potions made by our Potions class; besides taking some out for Snape to score, everything else gets thrown away, it's a waste. We can put them here and sell them at a much lower price than the competition."

"That's a good idea, as long as Snape agrees with us." Harry interrupted.

"He'll agree. The potions are originally made by the students themselves. He has no reason to refuse." Ivan went downstairs to the first floor of the store, contemplating future plans and projects. "Besides potions, everything young wizards make can be sold - the Hogwarts name should be the ideal promotional tool!"