***
The rays of the morning sun persistently broke through the cracks between the curtains, shining right into my eyes - this is how my day began. Getting out of bed, for the umpteenth time I looked at the boards with my notes, which I made in a vegetable state - nothing is clear. Having dressed and reached the bathroom on the second floor, I washed up and went down to breakfast - everything was ready there.
Of course, there were also the standard conversations about the weather, but the feast and tea party ended with a completely different question than I expected to hear.
"Hector, son," said his father, who was already getting ready for the trip to work. "Do you want to go to Hogwarts yourself? To study magic?"
After thinking about the answer for a split second, I decided to resort to a visual demonstration and picked up one of the buns left on the table.
"As I understand it, magic is not only beautiful miracles," I began, looking from my mother to my father, who were still sitting at the table and listening to me with interest. "It is subject to emotions, mood, and nervous system excitation."
"Even so?" the father was surprised once again, hearing a phrase that you wouldn't hear from every adult.
— I read it in biology books.
This answer seemed to both surprise and, at the same time, touch the parents.
- So. Imagine that I was not taught to control it. Emotions, resentment, stimulation of the nervous system, some person... - I demonstratively shook the bun in the air. - ... offended me greatly. Just for a brief moment, in a fit of resentment, bitterness and teenage hatred, I wished him to disappear.
The neutral magic of my new body responded easily, and the bun fell into ashes on the table.
- And he's gone. And I didn't want to, no. I gave in to my emotions.
Will magic is not what the elf from the memory fragments practiced. Not at all. And so my maneuver was not easy for me, although the concept itself was known to him, and now to me.
The parents, judging by their slightly pale faces, saw the other side of magic.
- This needs to be learned. Learn control. I have to.
Of course, this is not entirely true, because I have basic control over magic, or rather, I have an understanding of how to achieve it. Now my control is just echoes of the past. Like these fragments of memory...
The doorbell rang, distracting us from the topic that was so important to our parents. As if they had returned to this world with their consciousness, they died away, and my father went to open the door. I understand them. The elf's memory, and the memory of other wizards, from whom I received almost nothing except their strongest experiences, are full of moments where parents said goodbye to children who were about to start training. The reluctance to let go, grief, misunderstanding and fear bordered on joy, because sometimes children had to be completely removed from families that could not always feed themselves. Those people were afraid and happy at the same time. They were afraid of what they did not understand, but they were happy that the child would have a chance to get out of the bottom.
Shaking my head and driving away the thoughts that had rushed in at the wrong time, I met the gaze of Professor McGonagall, who had entered the house. As in a couple of vague memories from the time when I was in a vegetative state, this lady looked a little over fifty, wore a formal black floor-length dress, and over it - an emerald robe. Stern look, neat glasses.
"Mr. Granger. I am glad to see you in good health," she said dryly, smiling almost imperceptibly. "I am afraid we have not been introduced. Minerva McGonagall, Professor of Transfiguration and Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"Nice to meet you, ma'am," I stood up and, putting my hands behind my back, nodded solemnly.
Seeing a slight misunderstanding, but at the same time acceptance of the gesture, he pulled himself together. The stiffness of this madam pulled out the elven reflexes regarding etiquette, and the gesture itself demonstrated a lack of trust, but at the same time politeness and the inevitability of acquaintance and further cooperation.
— I assume you're ready to go shopping for school?
- Of course, professor.
I had clothes, so now, in simple jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt and a thick gray windbreaker, I was riding with the professor on a very strange magical bus, in which I was being thrown around the entire cabin. I was given more than enough money and, as I understood, I would need to exchange it at the goblin bank.
We reached the Leaky Cauldron in literally half a minute. Inside, as last time, there were not the most pleasant people. The professor led me to the backyard of the establishment, straight to a dead end in the form of a brick wall painted white. Taking out her magic wand, the professor knocked on certain bricks, opening a passage. Interesting. This is not a folded space - this is a transition to another plane. I wonder if there are many such islands in other dimensions, or is this a stable passage to the nearest material world? This is quite possible. Elves indulged in such things, although they preferred to unfold spatial anomalies and grow their Forests there. On the surface, a grove of a couple of dozen trees, and inside - half a continent.
- Welcome to Diagon Alley, Mr. Granger.
- Thank you, professor.
The street was indeed slanted. A winding cobbled road, crooked wooden and stone houses with multi-colored cladding. On the ground floors of the houses there were various shops or stalls next to the house. Here and there wizards scurried about in various baggy clothes, robes, cloaks, dressing gowns and dresses. It was difficult to find a common style of clothing, but one obvious feature was visible in all of them - often only the face and hands were open, and the skirts were always long, like the dresses. The men were also dressed in a variety of clothes and often there were people in business suits of different styles and colors.
The professor first led me to a large white building at the end of the street. It divided the street in two, like a ship in a wave. Outside stood typical goblins in cuirasses and with halberds - small, awkward, with long, pointed ears and hooked noses.
The bank's hall was spacious, high and monumental. It was rich and seemed substantial, but the dwarves did much better, and the richness of the decoration of the bearded underground blacksmiths was not pretentious, and looked very harmonious. Here, everything literally "stank" of superficial importance. Small goblins scurried back and forth with carts or folders with papers. On the sides of the hall there were tall wooden stands, behind which the goblins imitated extremely useful activities.
"Tell me, Professor," I said as we stood in the shortest line at the counters, "why is the financial system of the wizarding world run by goblins?"
Several wizards in long but light robes, despite the slight noise in the hall, paid attention to the emerging dialogue.
- Because, Mr. Granger, after numerous uprisings, finance is the little that goblins are allowed to do under the peace treaties.
— I studied Hermione's books for the first and second years. Now I am consumed by a question. What prompted the wizards not only to leave alive a race of intelligent and bloodthirsty predators, but also to hand over control of financial flows to them?
McGonagall looked at me with obvious scrutiny. It seemed she had not expected such thoughts and phrases from someone who had emerged from a vegetative state for the first time in his life not more than a month ago.
- You ask very serious questions, which not every wizard is capable of answering. Since you approached this question, albeit from a cruel, but pragmatic side, then allow me to answer in a similar vein. Since the last uprising, as far as I know, the terms of their surrender have been very harshly revised. Not in favor of the goblins, as you understand, Mr. Granger.