I also met with my architect and he shocked me by telling me that he had already completed the design of my future mansion. They didn't start building it just because they didn't have a finished design, and this mistake found a Chinese blacksmith friend somewhere.
The two of them made exactly what I wanted to see: a fusion of oriental spirit with modern solutions. It turns out that they are old friends and have wanted to build something "like this" for a long time, but the British do not respect excessive innovation, so they prefer the usual architecture "like everyone else".
Here they have something completely new, but not quite, as if a new stage of evolution, only in architecture. I really liked what they did, so another team from a well-known construction company came to my country.
I am glad that the lion's share of the bureaucracy falls on the shoulders of the construction companies, and the architects are responsible for solving the issues of land designation, because I have not occupied all the space for housing, which is obvious. It is true that my land was used differently before, so the local economy was oriented differently. Let me explain.
The fact is that the soil is very stony, which means it is not suitable for grain. So whisky is not produced here. They used to raise sheep here, but something happened to the former owner of the land, and his farms were practically ruined. The locals tried to cut their losses, but it didn't work, so the land was put up for sale on the condition that some kind of profitable agriculture would be established.
My statement about experimental horticulture is not a lie, I just didn't tell the whole story. In an official letter to the local county, I fully outlined the plans (the official legend for muggles), which did not include employment of local people. My land will be used for experiments to develop new plants, and I don't need spies.
But he added that I have seedlings of new varieties of apples, frost-resistant and hardy, and I am ready to invest in the establishment of cider production if I will be allocated for rent adjacent to my land for open orchards and the production itself.
I also specified that it would be arranged only for local residents, i.e. job creation and benefit from taxes. I haven't received an answer yet, not even an appointment, but if there is an agreement, any seedlings of any age can be easily purchased from the French druids — it's their well-known business.
Lupin, on the other hand, was head over heels in construction problems, and his skills and attention were not enough for the workshop and the potion room. For better lore, real things had to be done.
With the purchase of solar panels, I gave a blow in the sense that we clearly explained the pointlessness of contributing such huge sums, since the sunlight here is rare and small. But it is quite possible to put wind turbines — the sea coast.
I need to create ponds not only for growing rare magic plants and algae. The plan is to build a dam to generate electricity, and when the excavation work is finished, the installation of the electrical equipment will be done by the same Finnish company from which we ordered the wind turbines. By the way, I had a talk with the werewolf.
I punished him for his talkativeness, scolded him for leaking information to the other side, and gave him a long lecture about what a rival, not even a rival, but just a man with power and connections, as I understood it, could do with such information. At the end of the speech, he warned me that if it happened again, we would say goodbye to him.
Malcolm Smith, an elderly, unpleasant pedant, took charge of the potions room and workshop. He's a thorough and efficient man, raising two orphaned grandchildren whose parents were killed by bandits and died in St.
Mungo's a few years ago. In general, all of my businesses in Britain are somehow sharp and booming, in addition, the staff is easily recruited, and even in the potion shop, I am told, weak wizards are approaching in search of work.
This got me thinking about the employment situation in the magical world of Britain. You have to know what's going on in the country, don't you? So another elderly but sturdy man was hired to do just that: a former Auror, a veteran, an invalid without a right arm but with a sharp mind. As a personal detective and information specialist, Anthony Hilliard was extremely effective.
There was one week left before the start of my studies, for which I prepared myself as if for a hike in an uninhabited snowy mountain jungle. That is to say, I prepared for everything that would come into my head without paying attention to logic. I bought textbooks for all courses at once in a dusty shop in Lyutny, because there were no old editions in "Flourish and Blotts" that had not been cut by the Ministry.
And yes, I went shopping by myself, to get into the atmosphere, as they say. I went to Ollivander's, but did not speak to him for a long time, for that one-note master, who can only make wands, sincerely believes in the mystical heresy that the wand itself chooses the wizard.
Although it is a matter of predisposed energy, which means that some wands in the hands of certain gifted people will not only not work, but will even be destroyed. I don't want to say that all his wands are "templates", because even he knows that not everyone is suited for a dragon's heart, a unicorn's hair or a phoenix feather.
Still, he is as close to my teacher as the moon. And so, just two days before the article I've been waiting for, I get a letter from the British Ministry of Magic informing me of the date and time of some sort of trial. How cool is that? My eyebrows went up somewhere in the back of my head as I read it.
What's the reason? No, it had nothing to do with the events of July, it was more prosaic: there would be a meeting of the Wizengamot to determine Sora Hoshino's legal guardian. For a few minutes, I stupidly digested this absurdity: a magical society officially ignoring the laws of magic.
Then I fought the urge to sneak into a military unit, steal some combat chemistry, and kill the hell out of the bastards who had decided to get their filthy paws on me. And then I got down to business. Mr. Anthony Hilliard was summoned, and I assembled a primitive "Terminator"-type prosthesis out of aluminum tubes enchanted for strength.
After working with puppets, it's a piece of cake to build a hand like this, especially if you don't make it equal to a human hand in sensitivity and without excessive frills. So Hilliard went to get the best lawyer, and I went into deep meditation.