Our modest but homely, hearty, and tasty family dinner was not yet over, and the Pirate flew in through the window, holding an envelope in his paw. As always, disheveled with a cocky look, he landed in front of me, peered through one eye, leaning forward as if trying to scan my retinas.
"Oh-ho-ho..." the bird, in his inimitable style, hooted, abruptly extended his paw with the letter in my direction and unclenched it. The letter fell on the table. The Pirate held his paw like that for a second or two. Then he turned around and moved purposefully in the direction of the bowl with small pieces of meat, which Sara had already organized. He walked over, took a closer look at the food, and looked us all over.
"O-o-o-ho-ho-ho," it was with this cry that the Pirate began to carefully and inevitably destroy the offered delicacy.
Looking at the letter I had received with the wax seal and the Greengrass coat of arms, I stretched my hand over it and formed the outline of a diagnostic spell from the Grimoire - clear. Zero magic at all. I just let the magic out of my palm, and it started to flow through the letter without much obstruction, which means no magic, charms, or runes in the letter.
Breaking the seal and opening the envelope, I pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. The usual "Greetings, fair weather," and later the gist of the letter was written in beautifully penciled handwriting.
"Well?" asked John, not hiding his curiosity. Sarah was just as curious, having already learned about some of my body movements at Hogwarts.
"She agreed to talk and look at me. The day after tomorrow, at Avalon. This is a restaurant in a magical quarter. Expensive, I should mention."
Putting the letter aside, I leaned back in the comfortable chair. I need to prepare.
*****
The rays of the morning sun danced playfully across the room, seeping through the curtain that fluttered in the light breeze through the ajar window of the room. I did not want to get up and greet the new day, but my body, accustomed to a strict schedule, refused to lie down. No matter how great was my desire to do nothing for a day or two, but I was enough only for a couple of minutes of such idleness. Having jumped out of bed, I did not forget to weaken myself with hemomancy and started warming up and exercising. In fifteen minutes, I ran out of the house in a tracksuit and went for a run in the still sleeping but slowly waking up suburbs.
I returned home for breakfast, exhausted and a little sweaty. After the shower and the breakfast with the Knights, I went to the Diagon Alley - there were several issues to be solved. The idea of raising a pet with certain soul parameters for Rowena hadn't seized my brain, but there were some thoughts. There would certainly be a lot to calculate for her, but the result would be interesting even by a rough estimate, though the end of the experiment would not come soon enough. When did I have time to think about it? Well, before I went to sleep, instead of excitement about the upcoming meeting, I decided to think about a simple thing: the soul is not a balloon. It cannot be inflated in five minutes. So the process of growing it will be long. But the main thing is to start.
With these thoughts in mind, I took public transport to the center of London and walked to the Leaky Cauldron. The pub has not changed, as before, it is not the most pleasant place. Basically, this atmosphere is set precisely by visitors who do not have the tidiest appearance, and they do not smell French perfume.
I nodded to the bartender Tom, who was standing behind his counter as always, and without much enthusiasm, was wiping his glass with a rag that was already riddled with holes. I quietly walked to the backyard, took my robe from the bag, and put it on, tapping on the right bricks with my wand, opening the passage to the main shopping street of magical London.
The vacations had just begun, and there wasn't much enthusiasm for visiting Diagon Alley among the wizards, but even so, this is a shopping street. Even if you don't have kids to get ready for school, you can and should always buy something for yourself or your business. Therefore, I walked not along an empty, crooked stone-paved street but along a quite lively one. From all sides, I could hear the contented or angry voices of the inhabitants, who had decided to sort out the necessary purchases as soon as possible. But now I need to do a little scouting of the situation in the neighboring streets adjacent to Diagon Alley. I'm not interested in Knockturn Alley - there's nothing to do there yet.