'This year has turned out quite well.' I thought as I alighted the train along with everyone.
I dragged Harry aside to once again remind him to remind him to once again practice well the things I'd taught him. I'd taught some things, like occlumency to Hermione as well, but she didn't need to be reminded of matters like these. The only advice you can give her is to not study too hard.
The students were clamoring to find their parents while I also went to find my in-laws—oops! I mean Tonks Ted and Andromeda.
I'd have directly gone to France through Vanishing Cabinet right from Hogwarts, but then I wouldn't have been able to meet these two and I also have some work to do here in Britain.
Soon, amidst the dense crowd, I found the couple in question looking around the around Platform, most like for yours truly.
I sneaked up to them, I stood in the middle of the two and also started looking around.
"Did you find him?" I asked while still looking around.
"No."
"Not yet."
"!!!??"
Both answered subconsciously, but then turned towards me at lightning speed!
"Chris!" Andromeda chided while putting a hand on her chest as if she just got scared. While Ted started laughing.
"You didn't have to come so far to pick me up," I said I hugged each of them.
"Oh come on!" Said Andromeda, "It's not like we've got anything better to do. Even Ted is planning his retirement now."
The Tonks family was rich now, all that's to yours truly's future knowledge of investing. So Ted no longer needed to work like a horse as he used to back in the days.
Ted nodded to Andromeda's words, "And you, my friend, would be the priority even if I had urgent business." He said as he thumped my shoulders.
Andromeda looked around the station a bit melancholically. "Besides, we've been coming here on this day for the last seven years," she said as she kept her composure. But her eyes were a little wet.
Ted also got sad when Andromeda mentioned this, and I could understand their feelings. After all, I'm also missing Dora.
But, for some reason, I feel that I'm forgetting something. It's like, there's a good thing that's about to happen and I forgot just what it was.
*Flashback to a month ago*
Dora: [When you went to France for the first time, how did you find your house?]
Me: [Well, there are several ways. But I just sent a letter to my parents and followed it.]
Dora: [Oh! It's that simple! I was worried for nothing.]
Me: [Why did you ask?]
Dora: [Oh I need to find someone's home here in the US, and I was a bit confused.]
It seemed a bit sus to me. In fact, this is not even the first time she's behaving suspiciously. And the only thing that comes to my mind after combining all the clues is that she might be coming to France. But she hasn't said anything yet which would confirm the fact.
Me: [You're really not coming to France?]
Dora: [Really. How would I come? I already told you my next destination. Seriously, why do you keep asking this? Are you that eager to meet me?]
Me: [(- _ -;) You're learning to tease.]
Dora: [And who's fault is it?]
Me: [Me]
Every time I ask about the matter, Dora's answers are always such that I'm unable to confirm anything. In the end, to not have my hopes up and getting all excited, only to be disappointed once she doesn't come, I'd rather 'remove' the thought from my mind and live with the assumption that there's still a long time before we get to meet each other again.
....
*Back to present*
"Sigh..."
I really can't remember what it was that I was excited about. Well, forget it.
We apparated to Tonks residence and I enjoyed Andromeda's cooking.
While eating this heavenly meal, I remembered something, "Hmm, you know Andromeda, back in France, there's another person who likes cooking too. She's not as good as you, but she was ecstatic when I casually shared a few tips I picked up from your recipes."
Andromeda's eyes lip up, "Oh really? Who are you talking about?" She asked as if she couldn't believe it.
I nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah, her name's Appoline Delacour. She also has a passion for cooking. Though she's busy with her business most of the time. Thus, she was very grateful when I just told her about a few of your techniques. She said she'd very much like to meet you."
It's true. I just wanted to show off my newfound knowledge of cooking, so I casually gave out a few tips when Appoline was cooking the same dish that I learned from Andromeda. But Appoline became so reverent to me that I had to clarify that I learned it Andromeda and couldn't teach her much without Andromeda's permission.
Andromeda was quite happy, "Oh, I'd be happy to meet her as well." she smiled.
"Did you say Delacour? Asked Ted, "Is this the same House Delacour one which has a powerful business Empire in France?"
I raised my wine glass which was filled with orange juice, "You got it right. They're family friends. Our families meet each other like- every other day." I explained. "They're nice people. When you guys come to France, I'll introduce you."
...
After a hearty meal and talking till late at night, after both of them had gone to sleep, I snuck out of the house and apparated to my villa. I like to call it my secret hideout. Only me and Jilly know about this place.
Entering the place, I could see that it was still in pristine condition. There was no dust, no cobwebs, and most importantly, no bugs. Looks like Jilly comes and cleans this place from time to time.
I decided to reward her with extra-delicious Pure magic later. The one with some amount of dragon magic as well.
I've come to this place to renovate it. In two years, after getting access to so many libraries and with perfect memory, I've gained a lot more knowledge than what I could gain from just the Potter Library.
The first thing I did was to apparate to the basement. It's under the Fidelius, or I think it is. I just cast whatever I could after reading Lily Evan's notes. The spell is so complex that it'd have taken some time for me to learn, and I wasn't willing to spend my time in it at the time.
That is the reason why I haven't even permitted Jilly to enter, since it could be dangerous.
I popped into this Fidelius covered basement and found out that yes, it was indeed a mess. The basement was huge, and it had a smell of Potions, reminding me of the days when I had tried dabbling in the art. But as it turned out, I wasn't too talented in the subject.
Reason: Potion needs patience. Need I elaborate further?
Besides, I can't even use my unique advantages in these subjects without having a great deal of knowledge and research. Thus, the best I've been able to do is to make the delicious M.P. potions.
Aside from the obvious mess of Potion ingredients, there was an area full of craters and burnt marks of various sizes, in which objects with barely recognizable runes were lying in. That was the area where I used to practice/experiment with my ancient runes.
The runic sequence to store my pure magic didn't just come out of my ass when I needed it. I had to go through several mad scientist experiments before I succeeded. I had to incorporate my unique magic casting methods into the standard rune engraving methods to succeed. And I'm telling you, I've barely scratched the surface of the subject called runes. It's going to be involved in a lot of my future projects.
I walked past the pile of wands and precious stones to go further in. There, in the center was the Wardstone. A Wardstone is a stone which can maintain the wards. You just have to cast the ward and link it to the wardstone.
The wardstone would power the wards then. The wardstone takes the magic from the atmosphere itself and thus, the density of magic in the area inside the wards is high.
The quality of Wardstone defines the density of magic in the wards. Of course, other people can't feel the density, but I can feel the density of magic of my immediate surroundings (it needs direct contact).
According to my observations, Hogwarts has had the densest magic up to now, followed by Beauxbatons. I haven't been to other big places yet.
The wardstone I have is not too special. I got it from the Potter Manor. There were a few spare lying about at the time. I took inspiration of storing Pure magic from the runes drawn on this very stone.
Taking out my Pure magic storing golden wand for the delicate work, I carefully erased the Fake Fidelius on this place from the wardstone, and casted as many as 69 different wards which I learned from all the different libraries.
"This should do for now." I muttered as ai wiped the sweat from my forehead. Fidelius would still take some time. In actuality, I could have easily learned the spell in the time I took to learn these 69 very useful wards, but I can't bear to learn only one spell in the time in which I could've learned so many different and much more useful and versatile wards.
I spent the remaining amount of time cleaning, repairing, and organizing the place.
Technically, I could have called Jilly now, since the risky Fidelius was off, but I didn't want to call Jilly from all the way from France to clean up this mess that I've created.
While doing various repairs, from time to time, I'd sigh when I'd remember how I used to be back in those days. It seems that years of loneliness down here had made me age backward. In those days, explosions from experiments were a common occurrence for me.
After I was done with everything, I talked with Dora for some time and then fell asleep.
The next day, after some breakfast with the Tonks, I downed an aging Potion and went to my company with Ted. After the Tonkses knew about my secret, Ted had been making rounds at my company from time to time in order to keep everyone in line and to make them follow the orders that I'd given. I had tried to decline his help, but the man wouldn't budge.
'It's the least I can do,' he'd say, so I just accepted it with gratitude. They feel indebted to me for the investment advice I'd given them, though I really don't mind helping people I care about.
After handling everything, and especially giving them instructions for Cadaver, Inc a.k.a. Amazon.com, Inc. which was supposed to open in 1994, I was ready to go France.
(5th richest company in future with a net worth of over 1.5 trillion dollars in 2021)
I apparated back to the basement of my Villa and took out the Vanishing Cabinet and went home.
***
Dora had asked Chris to inform her when he reaches his home in France. She had been in France for about two days now and had been impatiently waiting for Chris to come here from Hogwarts.
The term was supposed to end yesterday and she sat all day in front of the diary to await his message. But his message didn't come at all.
Dora was wondering just why was it taking him so long to travel from Britain to France as she couldn't wait at all.
At night, his message did come, but he informed her that he'd be able to come the next day.
"What's taking you so long?!" She wrote furiously.
"I thought I'd visit your parents before I went to visit mine. After all they're also like my parents and they miss you a lot."
*Ba-dum*
Dora's heart skipped a beat when she saw the words written in the diary. She had always been feeling extremely guilty towards her parents for not being able to visit. Chris visiting them would definitely make them very happy. It did last time when he visited them before Christmas.
"Thank you," was could write before teardrops started dripping on the paper. Chris would always do things like this which would touch her heart. This is how she fell in love with him in the first place.
Thus, when his message did finally come the next day, despite wanting to rush there right then, she gave him some time to properly reunite with his family before she went there to surprise Chris.
****
A.N.: You know what I'm gonna ask for. Give this lowly author some powerstones. I was going to take a break today, but the overwhelming number of powerstones yesterday made me post the chapter anyway.
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