As the break began in earnest for me and Victoria, it took her some time to get used to things
The eating schedule was mostly fine as she adjusted to it. She liked spending time in the library when I was busy, but was flustered by Susan when she wanted to do things together, it was funny to watch. What weirded her out was Tilly actually. The thing with living within a death wanker family is that they tend to treat magical creatures even worse than they would muggle-borns. So her seeing our really energetic and happy Tilly really threw her off. She was helpful, concerned, determined and proud of her work. It couldn't be further from the house-elves she'd seen in other noble families homes. She actually came in the office one day to ask me some questions about our family home.
Knock knock.
"Come in." I say without looking up from the paper.
"Are you too busy to talk?" Asked a slightly nervous Victoria.
"Nah it's fine. This is a project I'm overseeing and I'm just making sure everything is on track." I said to relax her.
"That's good, just wanted to ask some questions." She said with a sigh.
"Shoot." I say simply.
"How come your house-elf is so..." she started asking but couldn't figure out the right way to say her question.
"Enthusiastic?" I try to help her finish it.
"Yeah! She's always trying to make sure everyone's ok, looking for work, preparing food, drinks or whatever. She keeps asking if I have everything I need or if anyone needs anything done." She then says.
"Ah. I get it. You're not used to seeing a happy house-elf right? You're used to seeing them afraid, meek, basically broken, slightly insane, or self-harming right?" I ask to confirm to which she nods.
"Well it's pretty simple. We treat Tilly like family, or a friends, or assistant, or like a maid, or pretty much a combination of all of them. We gently correct her on how we like things and praise her when she does the right ones, with some rewards she likes when she goes above and beyond. So instead of a slave we take for granted, we try to provide an environment which lets her thrive, which in turn makes the best environment for us. Do you kinda get the idea?" I explained.
"I think so. It's basically keeping her happy and healthy in exchange for the best result." She replied.
"It's a cold way of summarizing it, both essentially yes. We just care for her and want her to be happy. It just so happens that she's happy taking care of those who care for her." I slightly correct her, but she's not wrong.
"Makes sense i guess. My other question has to do with those notes you talked about, the ones in the books downstairs. How old were you when you wrote those?" She then asked curiously.
"I think it was around five or six, right before I had started formal tutoring. I got into reading everything in the library and tried to make improvements based of what I had read alone. If I go back to them now I'll probably correct my corrections, but there are still some nice pieces of information in those. The notes in my room are real good though." I say to her whilst reminiscing a bit.
"You wrote those at the age of 5!?" Exclaimed a very surprised Victoria. "I've never thought about the stuff you wrote even now!"
"I think that's a reason not many people have actually noticed a lot of the things I've corrected. The mindset was already set from their families viewpoints and commonsense. I read those with the ability to memorize pretty much all of it and had an outsiders viewpoint, hence an objective correction. It's actually what convinced my aunt to get me some proper tutors." I explain to the girl.
"I want to see those notes!" She then demanded with fire in her eyes.
"Sure, come on. I'll put this on hold for a bit and introduce you to them. There's a lot, but I modified my room to let me organize everything without filling it up with shelves." I say while getting up and walking to my door.
"Welcome. You're the first girl in here. Really didn't expect it to be you." I say with a little chuckle to myself.
"Oh, who'd you expect then?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Dunno. First girlfriend would have been my guess." I stated with a shrug to which Victoria gets stunned at my answer.
"Alright come here." I say to snap her out of it.
"Right the shelves are set to Ancient Runes due to that being the latest project I've finished working with. It's currently shelf four on the subject. I have two dials; one for subject, the other for the shelf number. The lower the number, the older the research and notes. Pretty easy to understand right?" I turn around asking to see her following along.
"Wait. If what you said is true. Then don't you have at minimum 12 shelves in there!? How'd you fit them all?!" Exclaimed Victoria as she thinks about how many subject are taught in Hogwarts.
"I get where you have your minimum, but after understanding divination to a point i let it go since I don't have any gifts in the art and spending so much time to see possibles futures isn't my thing. I also don't have anything on muggle studies since I decided to simply experience it first hand and study their own knowledge. This was after I had noticed any books on the subject was either over a hundred years behind the actual thing or completely idiotic." I explained to the the girl.
"So you started with ten shelves then?" She asked to be clear.
"No." I answered to her surprise. "Because instead of those two I studied Dueling, warding and Healing. With Curse-breaking on the side to understand both sides of warding perfectly."
"So it's actually 13 minimum!" She finally understood.
"Well yes, but I think it's closer to 40 now. It's not just filled with my notes, but also with good books on subjects, with solid information or theories, practical advice or to serve as good reference points to understand my own theories. Everything is categorized chronologically for my notes and alphabetically for the actual books. Some of my theories or ideas were disproven so they've been crossed out, I've also crossed out completely false or misleading information in the books." I explained my system to my guest who's mouth hung open.
"How does it work?" She managed to get out.
"Basically a very large space expansion on the wooden surroundings of the shelf, assigning specific codes to all the shelves so that they respond to the dial, modified summon charm to make them come and leave to their designated spot in the expanded space. Pretty nifty. Got the idea from a muggle movie about the future." I explained in a very simplified manner.
"And you're giving me permission to read all of these?" She then asked doubtfully. I mean who would let others just read their life's work?
"Of course! Knowledge is meant to be shared. If you can think about improvement for my ideas and results feel free to take one the the empty notebooks and write. I love seeing new ideas!" I answered with a bright smile, stunning the girl.
"You can either read here or anywhere else, but I'm gonna go back to work now." I said, leaving the girl alone.
I got back to my office and started to read my reports for the heir of house Bones and Micheal Folster.
The biggest project for me was the creation of a lumber production area, made using the daisugi method of lumbering, with every piece originating from a single tree. I've talked to Geri, who is still in training, and got her advertise the job to trustworthy werewolves. Their pay would be about 40 galleons a month. The pay was calculated by taking into account the Wolfsbane potion, which is still expensive to produce even with some adjustments and the production of some of the ingredients, the living quarters offered, meals and properly prepared underground area to silently transform in. Even then it was leagues beyond what any werewolf would get paid for any work, most time they get paid in Wolfsbane potion. They have to sign confidentiality agreements added into their contracts and be taught the way to do the job from the experts we hired from Japan, but they will have stable jobs after this. The forest is growing well under the prepared conditions we set for the cedar trees, with no issues cultivating the trees with magically accelerated growth.
My reports from the Micheal side were also promising.
The first being the potions shop, Breaking Grounds apothecary. The appearance of so many modified or simply improved potions in the shop stunned those that bought from the store. The ministry had a field day to test everyone of them and when the news broke that everything worked as was indicated, well it sent waves across the potions making world, the market and the ministry itself as they doubled their efforts to find the elusive Micheal Folster. Due to our outstanding product at very reasonable prices, it had been approached to supply potions to St. Mungo's which was accepted, but it would take time to set up the proper production line, hire and screen new employees. People were trying to argue against so many new potions being introduced into the market, but they were simply drowned out. Some important families were trying to make trouble for the shop but everything was taken care of by greasing some hands. Two can play this game and even after all my investments on this side of things, my bank account is quickly growing to be the largest in magical Britain.
The Herald is slowly getting its name out there, with extremely accurate news, reliable coverage, credible sources and fact based reporting. It's not nearly as popular as the Prophet, but it is building its own influence. I've planned to make the bigger expansions of readership when the Harry Potter canon begins properly.
My ingredient farms, Natural Cultivation, is finally up and running. At the moment it is not selling anything of the market, since I am in need of a lot of ingredients, but I am paying for them myself. The employees have been trained in the growing of a single type of herb for each plantation, spreading the knowledge out, even without counting on the magical contracts they've signed stating that even if they leave, they can never use or spread that knowledge without mine, Scott's or Madam Chambers say so.
Fortress Protection added another ten recruits to their roster. After some proper training under Oliver, three were considered to be at hit-wizard level, and they were assigned in the vicinity of the FIRM center and the Breaking Grounds as protection against potential property damage or harassment. Oliver has been very happy with the facilities I've prepared.
Ms. Elaine Summers training has been doing very good as well. After I've basically outbid the prick trying to get her to quit, I got her back on active duty and she's been a role. I've been giving her some support by purchasing information from the goblins and helping her chose safe but impressive targets to boost her career.
Finally the FIRM center is becoming a stable welcoming ground for any Muggle-born trying to find a stable job in either my businesses or with a few others around Diagon Alley that had agreed to hire some more hands. These wizards and witches were quite happy to have a pension system we put in place like the muggle world, they had seen many old wizards and witches loosing everything and did not want to end up like them. The center has also been a good first contact point for muggles new to the wizarding world, helping them understand this side properly.
Mr. Scott said the safe houses I had wished to purchase are all ready to be warded properly, which will have to wait till summer. My investments on the muggle side were doing phenomenal. He had take the liberty to purchase some buildings in Diagon Alley and reserved one for the Bones family, since I need one to display my magical creations. He also informed me he was undergoing some training with Oliver after getting my consent, to sharpen himself. It had thrown him off when I revealed that the Dork Lord still lived. He'd also mentioned that he and Geri were starting to get along properly, but there was still some distance between them before it could be called trust.
Putting away my reports and preparing to turn in for the night, I turn off any lights in the room and head to my room. I had forgotten that I told Victoria she could read in my room, so when I came in I was surprised to see her so intensely focusing on a book as she sat on my reading chair. She did not even notice my arrival.
So with an evil grin I decided to startle her. I crept closer until I was next to her.
"What are you reading there?" I asked in her ear. You should have seen her jump and heard her yelp. It was priceless.
"Don't you knock you bloody git!" She yelled in anger and embarrassment.
"It's my room, didn't think you'd still be here." I replied trying to keep a straight face.
"Doesn't matter if it's your room or not. You knock next time someone might be in it!" She fired back angrily.
I could see this was going to be an impossible battle, no matter how right or logical I was, so I took the better part of valor and surrendered.
"Alright, I'll knock next time." I said as I rose my hands up in surrender.
"Good." She simply said letting me off the hook.
"Now tell me. How the bloody hell did you come up with all this stuff? I can't fathom it. You wrote and made things that wizards haven't thought up with centuries of living with magic, but a prepubescent child without a wand does all that and I've just scratched the surface. I can't understand." Said Victoria looking completely defeated.
"I get why you're feeling what you're feeling. The reason I believe I can do so much is simply because I don't think magic is anywhere near perfect or in its final form. No spells, recipes or methods have reached perfection in my mind and something can always be improved, you just have to find out what." I try to explain.
"Teach me." She replied.
"What?" I couldn't believe what I had heard.
"I want you to teach me how you do all this. I want to create my own spells like you do and be the best I can be." She answered with determination.
"You'll need to understand that you won't be able to do everything I can, even if I teach you. My magical reserves are frankly ridiculous for my age and give me an unfair advantage. Knowing that, do you still want to learn from me?" I asked, making sure she knew what she was getting into.
"Yes." Was the answer. But that one word held a fire that would not be swayed.
"Alright then. I'll try to hammer the basics into you by the time the breaks done." I said, accepting her resolve.