Despite George's apprehension in the end he was still a loyal servant of the Abraxus house and with a quick message to his trusted assistant Tom Walker everything was done before dawn, his efficiency and work ethic was one of the reasons George had entrusted him with the second highest position in the whole company after all.
But as the visit was scheduled for the afternoon Julius still had ample opportunity to use the rest of the day in other ways; he started out with training his regular magic, using a training room in the mansion with the intention of heightening his actual combat capabilities and after breakfast he again spent some time with his sisters and Habol as he had planned a 'lesson' in death magic later in the evening.
When the time came to get ready for today's main event Julius was sitting in the mansion's library with Habol and Daphne, Astoria was otherwise occupied so the three decided to use that time doing something they all enjoyed but Astoria absolutely didn't.
Seeing how Daphne was completely engrossed in her book and most likely wouldn't notice his disappearance for the foreseeable future Julius just whispered to Habol:
"I have to do something for George, I'll probably be back by dinner so if Daph gets her head out of her book or Tori comes around just tell them that I'm sorry for not telling all of you beforehand. See you later."
"Okay, I'll tell them, but maybe you should be overthinking how you want to spend your christmas break, you're working more than while at Hogwarts," Habol whispered back without looking up from a book about the history of curses in the duelling scene.
As Julius quietly left the library he could not help but think about what Habol had said; on one hand Habol was right, since Julius was back from Hogwarts he was always spending a huge amount of time on his training and his other projects and he knew this wouldn't get any better when he would have to start revisiting his training on ball etiquette before the Yule ball, but on the other hand he was still spending at least a decent amount of time with his family and even though he should probably be a better host to Habol it was not as if he could just ignore what he knew the future would bring and even worse, what he didn't know what the future would bring just to spend a bit more time playing around.
With a sigh Julius suppressed the thought and focused on what lay before him while changing from his more comfortable robes into his muggle attire, even though he had wanted to be there and meet the young talent, he already had problems fitting in with most other kids his age in this life and he felt a slight trepidation when he though about how that would be with a child that was not only even younger than him, but also quite peculiar in some ways.
But there was nothing he could do about these things now, so Julius focused on his immediate task: Making himself look presentable.
After making sure to fulfill the standards he had set himself, Julius gave himself one last look-over in the mirror before departing towards the car Walker had organised for the meeting (A/N: do you know any better word than "meeting"? I just spent 5 min searching for one and the only one I found was "talent aquisition meeting" using ChatGPT).
As Julius walked past a spot in the garden at which most onlookers might have only seen a slight ripple in what seemed to be only air or slight reflections of the sun originating from there, a small transparent snake jumped onto his shoulder before draping itself around his neck, all the while giving off annoyed hisses which Julius knew stemmed from a feeling of being left out.
While Rachel enjoyed the relative peace and quiet of the manor as well as the warming sun, she was still clearly feeling a bit lonely and though Julius had promised to keep her around more often he had decided to leave her alone today due to her general dislike for books, which of course made the library not the library a suboptimal place to be, not to mention the lack of sunlight or fresh air in there.
But Julius knew Rachel would get angry if he left the house without her just like that as she was already very protective of him normally but especially so while he was in unfamiliar surroundings like the muggle world and of course she also just enjoyed his company in general as well as discovering knew places.
Now with appropriate clothing and his dearest companion on his shoulder, Julius walked over to the car and sat down in the front next to George who quickly started the car and following the route he had prepared beforehand.
…
After a while of driving, George parked at the side of the road a few meters away from the house they wanted to visit.
It was a nice house. Not very big or fancy but a nice house in a nice part of London's suburbs.
The house had a small garden with a few very well taken care of flowerbeds and evenly trimmed grass.
Despite the sticking charms Julius had applied to his clothes to ensure they didn't slip he quickly made sure he looked presentable before following George to the door of the house, he would be playing the role of an ordinary child that was only there to be an example for the Hebe Foundation's usefulness.
After walking through over a stone paved path through the garden and arriving at the front door, George rung the bell, curious why his genius young master showed this kind of interest into the muggleborn living here.
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I decided to delay uploading this chapter to avoid making this another „filler" with a cliffhanger in the end, so hopefully after this is uploaded the next one won't be far away.
Thanks for reading :)
Edit: I also just noticed with this I have finally reached my 50th chapter after a mere one and a half years. I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed.