We popped into what was hopefully London while it looked like it was about to start raining. While London not yet raining wasn’t completely surprising, Dinah’s condition was.
Dinah slumped as we woke her up after letting her sleep in the world for an hour or so. We watched concerned as she stretched, sighed, and rubbed her temples. “Uhhh, wow, that feels weird.”
I frowned before picking Dinah up and putting her head on Ahri’s lap so she could stroke her hair while I rubbed Dinah’s feet. “Is your ability completely off or…”
Dinah hummed. “It is weird. I feel like it wants me to give generic answers or something.”
I sighed. “I suppose that isn’t too surprising. It seems like one of the constants in Harry Potter universes is that this reality gives some of the least helpful prophecies. Will you be able to give us answers if we ask you yes or no questions?”
Dinah hummed to herself for a moment before she slowly nodded. “Yes, I think I can give you a probably yes, probably no, and unknown answers.”
“Are we in a version of the Harry Potter universe?”
Dinah squinted and then nodded. “Yes, we are.”
Nodding to myself, I decided to ask only one more question, since it was a big one. “Is this world going to follow the general outline of the cannon universe?”
Dinah frowned even harder and spent nearly ten full minutes staring into the distance. I had just wanted to ask it as a general question, but Dinah seemed to have decided to ask for specific details.
Finally, she sighed and then nodded. “As far as I can tell, Yes… at least generally, horcruxes in the same locations, potter child orphaned, Quirrell first year, basilisk second, Sirius Black third, Tom resurrected at the end of fourth year after being kidnapped during the triwizard tournament. Even their eventual victory over Tom even if a lot of the details are wrong. The biggest difference I can find so far is that Hogwarts does start at 14 here and we should enter this year.”
As she finished speaking, Dinah seemed to slump in exhaustion. Frowning at her condition, I sighed and picked her up before carrying her to her bedroom.
Turning towards Amy and Taylor as I returned, I sighed. “Well, it is unfortunate we couldn’t arrive earlier, but it is something we can work around. At least we know that we are mostly dealing with cannon events, even if the details are a little different. The question is what day is it currently?”
As everyone shrugged, I opened up a scrying portal and noticed that it had started raining. While the rain reduced visibility I just needed to find a newspaper. That turned out to be harder than expected, probably because it was already perhaps noon. Eventually I found a subway station with a newspaper dispenser with a newspaper still inside. A quick portal let it drop directly onto our coffee table.
Looking at the top of the paper, I sighed in relief. March 20th, 1990. “Well, it looks like we have a couple of months to get ourselves magic before school starts this September at least.”
Most of the girls smiled a little at that, but I decided to keep moving the conversation along and gestured towards Amy. “I am not really sure how the magical invitations are created, but the first step is probably adjusting our bodies back down to either 13 or 14 years old again. However, before we make the switch, I also think we might want to think about exact relationships.” I chuckled sardonically, “If we are going to pretend to be related, then it would be weird if we didn’t look anything alike. Otherwise we need to figure out where we are going to live since I am not sure 1990 London still has orphanages. It might be really complex to get ourselves into the foster care system.”
Sabah hummed a little confused, but I shook my head as I continued. “Plus, it would be kinda unbelievable that there are that many magic users growing up together. I am not sure but with Hogwarts only having 50 or so students per year and they live to be around 100, then there are only a few thousand wizards total in Britain. 5 magical children showing up in the same orphanage or foster home would be incredibly strange and we might even have to split up.”
Everyone winced and nodded their heads at my point and so I continued. “My rough plan was for us to pretend we are immigrants from the US or Australia or something. Then, we could all be extended family, maybe being raised by Ahri here as long as we can disguise her tails and ears.”
Ahri frowned and I turned to her. “We can still help you learn magic, but it might actually be better for you to stay on the outside as an adult in case we need to do something outside of school. The rest of the time you can watch our lessons via one of my portals.” Ahri frowned, but slowly nodded.
Taylor looked around at the others before wincing. “Uh, we don’t exactly look like we are a family. Especially Sabah. No offense Sabah.”
Chuckling before I sighed, I then nodded as I replied. “Good Point. Unless Sabah would be willing to get a little more Caucasian looking she is going to have to be a step-sister I think. We also need to think about how we are going to space our ages out in this hypothetical family.”
Sabah startled for a moment before slowly shaking her head. “No, I think I would prefer to keep my skin tone.”
I simply shrugged. “I really like your skin as it is as well, I was just giving options here.” Sabah looked a little more pleased at that, so I continued. “Well then. I would say that Amy and I could be cousins with Amy’s younger sister Dinah as a family. Ahri can pretend to be either our older sister or parent. The other family can be Sabah and her younger step sister Taylor.”
Everyone nodded again before Taylor tilted her head. “Then how are we all staying together?”
I shrug. “That is the story we need to come up with. We can say something like Ahri is our older sister who already graduated. She is taking care of us because your parents are working as traveling curse breakers and mine died or something. Our parents decided to send us to Hogwarts because they wanted us to have a permanent resistance while going to school.”
Amy hummed and then nodded. “I can give us some small facial similarities, but I would prefer not to go with anything more since it would be weird to me if we got intimate.”
Quickly nodding, I kissed her hand before she could say anything else. “Good thinking, honey. I really don’t have any intention of imitating the Targaryens. That was pretty messed up.” At everyone’s raised eyebrows, I sighed and waved my hand. “It is a book series and set of movies called Game of Thrones. Overall it was pretty good even if it was a little graphic with some convoluted plot points sometimes, remind me to introduce you all later.” then I winced, “Well, maybe not Dinah, not yet at least.” Dinah frowned before she huffed good-natured and rolled her eyes.
Focusing on the girls again, I asked. “The next question is if anyone is going to be a year or two behind us.”
Everyone winced and looked at each of them as the clock ticked on. Finally, I shook my head. “I take that as a no, which I totally understand, waiting around for another year just to attend school would suck.” Looking towards Dinah’s bedroom I sighed. “I also doubt Dinah wants to be left behind.” Rubbing my chin I stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “Well, If we make Amy as old as we can before the cut off and then make Dinah as young as we can before the cut off, it could work. Then, since Taylor and Sabah are step sisters we will just say that Taylor came in from a previous marriage.”
Nodding, I glanced at my girls. “Dinah had earned a rest. Maybe we should all take a break as well.” Then I smirked and licked my lips while running my eyes down each of my girls. Each of them noticed and I could see Taylor perk up and Amy smirk back. Ahri’s face seemed a bit uncertain, but I noticed her tails waving her hesitant approval. Sabah winced before looking around and slowly turning red, but I was pretty sure she had a smile while glancing at Amy and a very small one at me out of the corner of my eye.
Standing up, I walked forward and grabbed Amy and Taylor as they stood up. “Come to bed, loves, we need to celebrate both figuring out how to aim and finally arriving in Harry Potter, I think. Plus, if we are going to be 13 or 14 again, we might not get the chance for a while.”
Ahri and Sabah hesitated again as I led Amy and Taylor up the stairs, but as I glanced behind, both of them followed.
This was going to be fun, I just needed to make sure everyone except Amy was comfortable. Amy was probably going to love it regardless, based on how often she invited others to join her when she visited me. She would also be happy to take care of Sabah. Still, I really wanted to make sure we all enjoyed this, as I had explained before, I wanted this to end up being a semi-regular end to our weekly Friday date nights when we were old enough again. Man, add age regressions to the list of things like time travel that made verb tenses weird.
It was over an hour before we returned down the stairs with all four of my women a little disheveled. Even Sabah walked with a slightly goofy smile on her face after some attention from both Amy and I. However, the smiles lowered and turned a little sheepishly as we turned the corner into the living room and found Dinah waiting while reading a book. Her cheeks were a bit flushed, and I was certain she knew what we were doing. Rubbing my head, I winced internally but didn’t apologize. That would send the wrong message to the rest of the girls since I didn’t regret anything we did and wanted them to be happy with it as well. I also didn’t want Dinah to think that her waiting was somehow a problem either so, in the end, I just moved the discussion along.
I sighed and smiled a little thinly. “Well, I would say that we are going to need to get started getting into our new bodies.”
Amy sighed back before walking down the stairs to the basement to create our new bodies with the rest of us following her. I was pretty sure she was still a little uncomfortable being watched as she worked, but as she got started I was happy to see she had a small smile. It was good to know that she did actually enjoy tinkering with biology, instead of feeling like we were forcing her to do everything.
Additionally, I had to admit that, while slow, the process was fascinating to watch. She had one hand on the body of one of the generic body templates she had been preserving, while the other hand was over another cot next to it. The new bodies started as small pools of odorless red goo pooling at the bottom of a new camping cot. I wasn’t sure, but I assumed Amy made sure we couldn't smell anything, which was appreciated. Then that goo grew outward and upward as she used up the other bodies we had. A part of me was a little amused that she was basically splitting an adult into two halves to create children. It was weird, but at this point in our lives, what wasn’t? Regardless, about an hour later, Sabah, Taylor, Amy, and I had new bodies.
Deciding there was no use procrastinating, the four of us, laid down in cots on the other side from our new bodies. Taking a deep breath, I located where I wanted to connect to and I released my soul from my current body. A few moments later I opened my eyes in my new 14-year-old body.
Once everything felt connected, I sat up and stretched. As I felt the loss of muscle mass and arm hair, I sighed, slightly annoyed. At least I didn’t need to feel the difference in any lower body hair as that was one of the first things Amy had removed in her upgrades. The other girls had all appreciated that decision. Part of me was still amused at that. Using superpowers for personal grooming… what was the world coming too?
Regardless, I turned and slowly and carefully pulled Amy’s and Taylor's souls into their bodies as well. Then while I was working on Sabah Amy turned and boosted Dinah by the approximate 7 months needed to turn 14 in July and start school in our year.
However, before I could declare us done, Amy turned around and started on another body. I was confused for a moment before I noticed it was one that looked a lot like Ahri but without the fox features. Amy finally seemed to notice me looking since she had been focusing on her work. Smiling a little tiredly she explained “I assumed Ahri will be able to use her illusions to hide herself, but if we ever need to go into the vaults in Gringotts or the ministry or something where she might be closely examined, Ahri should probably use this body since I don’t know how her illusions would react to their magical defenses.”
Ahri winced, but still nodded with the rest of us. I summed up the opinion. “Good thinking.”
Looking over each of my girls in their younger bodies, I smiled. Looking at each of them, I tried to express how thankful I was that they were with me. “Wow, you are all still cuties, I probably don’t deserve you all.”
Amy rolled her eyes while Taylor and Dinah blushed. Sabah fidgeted. Finally, Amy punched my arm which actually hurt a bit. It seems she didn’t put in as many physical improvements into these bodies which was probably smart if we were trying to blend in. Still after a moment Amy leaned forward and gave me a small hug. “Just don’t forget it, asshole.”
I smiled back and playfully rolled my eyes while rubbing my shoulder. “Wow, those reactions were cute too.” At the increased blushes followed by a hug from Taylor I continued. “I guess we can confirm that a younger body and brain really does affect us despite all the soul body separation.”
There were some tentative and thoughtful nods and I smiled, but still led us out of the basement. We really did need to get to work, so once we were once again back in the living room so I sighed and pushed us back on track. “Now the big one. We need to find a witch or wizard in this world we can capture and study to figure out how to give ourselves magic.”
Frowning, I looked around. “Any ideas on how to find one? I am not sure with Dinah having trouble with her power.”
Taylor winced but still spoke up. “We could probably scout out the leaky cauldron if we get the chance. Dinah can probably still give us a general location, right?”
After a moment, Dinah nodded.
As I turned back, I noticed Amy swaying slightly and cursed internally. Walking over I smiled and decided to pick her up bridal style. It was significantly harder in my younger and weaker body, but still possible. “Come on, this must have been exhausting, why don’t you rest in your bed while we search?”
The search actually took nearly four hours despite finding the Leaky cauldron within the first 20 minutes with Dinah’s help despite her current limitations. Well, we probably found it, at least, since we couldn’t actually see it. I wasn’t sure if it was a Muggle notice-me-not or if it was somehow actually invisible to Muggles, but either way we couldn’t see it, so all we could do was try to spot a wizard walking into London.
However, eventually our patience paid off as we found what appeared to be two normal people leaving the area while the father was carrying books and a small cauldron. They also had a young girl between them. I looked at Amy who had woken up after a quick nap who winced but finally nodded. Deciding to speak up I tried to soothe the group's worries. “Don’t worry. None of this should hurt them, Ahri, will just make an illusion so no one sees them disappear while Amy knocks them unconscious once they are inside their car. With all the studying we did in the Little Witch Academia world, I am pretty sure we can figure it out in a single hour or two. To them, it will just be a small nap before they head home.”
As we watched, the three moved towards a gray sedan and got in after the father put the girl’s school supplies in the trunk.
After a deep breath, Amy reached through the portals I created and put the mother and father to sleep near instantly before they could realize anything was wrong. Then, as the younger girl was buckling up, she reached through for her as well. However, as she pulled her hand back, Amy frowned. “Something was fighting me a bit there. I guess it is true that magic is somewhat sentient then because the girl herself definitely didn’t realize what was happening.”
Humming, I nodded. “Makes sense, I guess. We already know that Dinah’s abilities have been altered somewhat by this reality. Other realities like Star Wars have semi-sentient magical forces as well.”
Amy frowned as she nodded. Then, realizing again what we needed to do, sighed as we portaled the entire car onto our front lawn and she got to work by touching all three of them with her hands. I also started studying their souls at the same time.
After a few minutes, Amy sighed and sat up. “I didn’t notice it at first but, but it seems like the father also has something extra going on within him as well, just a lot less than the girl.
I tapped my chin. “I would guess that he is a squib then. It would make sense since I think I heard that all muggle born get their letters and supply lists in the summer when the professors can walk them through Diagon Alley. Without that, I doubt this family would know where to go and what to get otherwise.”
Amy hummed again as she put her hand back on the girl. Going back, I tried to study the small differences I could see in her soul. I kinda wished I could watch as she used magic, but that was a risky option since we didn’t have any good way of erasing memories, especially when magic seemed to resist Amy’s manipulations.
Sighing, I studied her soul even more carefully. I had noticed two changes made to her soul. One looked like a funnel to my soul sense. The second looked like a tree tap. Looking at the father he did have the funnel even if it was smaller, but the tap was smaller and crooked. I blinked. I suspected that I might be able to adjust his tap. I thought about that. If that was what made him a squib then I could fix his magic. That was kinda incredible, but it would also make us the target of literally every magical family on earth. I would have to remember this. Maybe I could figure out a ritual or potion that could fix since I could see what was wrong.
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Still as careful as I could study her soul, I couldn’t actually fully study what was happening internally because the souls were only a little transparent when I looked at them. So, as I tried to visualize how they would interact and considered what would make sense. The magic needed to be stored somewhere and then directed. The question was how the magic was used by people who didn’t have my direct soul control. Turning to Amy I cleared my throat to get her attention and then asked. “Amy, have you found anything?”
Amy hummed for a moment before she turned towards me. “Yes, and no. I can see a lobe in the brain and heart that don’t seem to do anything in both the man and girl which isn’t present in the mother.”
I nodded. “There are two sections in their souls that appear to allow them to access their magic. There is a bit of a funnel as well as a sort of tap. Purely guessing from the positioning, I would suspect that the heart node is supposed to collect the magic and the mental one is supposed to control its output. I should note that the tap of the father seems malformed. It does support our theory that he is a squib.”
Amy simply shrugged before going back to staring absently while touching the two of them.
Once again, clearing my throat to bring her attention back to me, I asked. “Do you see anything different between the two?”
Amy simply shook her head, still staring absently forward.
I was starting to get amused at how interested she was in the new biology of this random family. It was almost as bad as the first time she touched Ahri, so I asked. “Amy, do you think you could add that biology to me?”
That finally got her to blink before turning towards me, frowning. “Don’t you think this is too fast?”
I was about to wave her concerns away when I thought about it a bit more. That concern was fair and as much as I wanted magic right here and now, it could turn out badly. “I was pretty sure we would be fine, but you have a point. It is probably best if we do this testing somewhere outside our home, just in case something goes wrong. We don’t exactly have a back-up home.”
After a moment of indecision on where best to go, I opened a portal in the nearest park. Reaching out, I grabbed Amy’s hand and after a moment I could feel some tingling as she reworked my biology. After a moment, once the tingling stopped. Then trying to be as careful as I could, I focused on adjusting my own soul to mimic the young girl. After a few moments I felt something seem to click within my soul and I stepped out into the slightly foggy London afternoon.
Looking around, I tried to focus on what my soul was feeling. I pushed. I pulled. I tried to scare myself. I tried getting angry. I tried getting frustrated. In a moment of frustration, I even tried getting horny from one of the strangest fan theories I had read of. Nothing worked.
I sighed and stared into the distance before I poked my soul. I winced. My soul felt heavy and sluggish and my poke actually hurt. My eyes widened before I widened my metaphorical soul tab and tried pushing again, this time with the desperation of a bit of fear. I did not know what blowing my soul up with magic would do, but it wouldn’t be good. It might even hurt my girls.
This time the reaction was instantaneous as a streetlight’s bulb in front of me and the glass surrounding it exploded before I flinched back from the flying debris. A moment later those shards turned into bubbles and I felt my jaw drop. I turned back, eyes wide, to look at the girls who had all been watching through the portal a few yards behind me. Then, as I saw their faces, I had to hide a chuckle as they all had their mouths hanging open as well. To break the tension, I smiled. “Well, I guess I have magic now, huh.”
As I got some sympathetic chuckles from the group, I turned around and walked back into the portal before I collapsed into a chair. The girls all looked incredibly concerned, but I waved them away, shuttering slightly. “I think it was just a mismatch between my soul, funnel, tap, and the body’s magical potential. Amy, how big did you make my nodes?”
Amy frowned before nodding towards the little girl. “I copied hers as exactly as I could in case there was something wrong with her father.”
I nodded. “I did as well.” Then I winced as I took a bigger look at my soul. “Ah, no, damn it!” Rubbing a hand across my face and tasting just a little bit of the coppery taste of blood, I sighed. “I think I might have subconsciously increased the size of the funnel a little since I really wanted to have it work.” A sardonic chuckle crossed my lips and I tried smiling at my girls who all looked extremely unimpressed. “At least the shock and a bit of fear of what was happening seemed to be the correct motivation to get the accidental magic to trigger. I also think I have a better understanding of how to properly connect it all, so it should be a lot easier for all of you”
Amy sighed before lightly slapping the back of my head. Then she nodded to herself before asking. “So what exactly did we miss before?”
I shrugged. “I suspect that I missed some sort of regulator so my soul was overfilled, then when I opened my tap a little wider to let out the excess it overwhelmed the biological magical organs.”
Everyone sat back at that while Amy poked me a bit longer before nodding. “The two nodes do look a bit strained, let me see if I can do anything about that.” After a moment, I felt the tension recede a little and I relaxed a bit even if my soul continued to ache.
As everyone noticed me starting to relax a bit they relaxed as well. Looking at the girls I sighed before explaining. “Well, I am going to try to figure out what I am missing by looking at the little girl’s quickly. Then we can return them. Well, we should also really try to study an adult magical at some point to know how this all changes with age, but we can always do that later.”
It took nearly another hour before I found the difference I really should have seen before. It turned out that magical people here didn’t really store magic, instead they fed it throughout their bodies. What I had been calling the tap had a smaller tap that seemed to always be open. After a moment of consideration, I hummed in realization. This might be the source of the wizard’s and witch’s durability. No one should be able to survive a death trap sport like Quidditch unless they had some sort of magical durability boost. Those bludgers were damn flying iron balls after all. Then again, maybe the Quidditch armor helped as well. I really shouldn’t make assumptions since I didn’t have any idea what enchantments those armor pads the players had in them after all.
Releasing the family we captured back into their car, we watched as the family of three woke up and looked around wearily before driving home quickly. I suspect I had just given the three of them nightmares with lost time. The squib in particular had lived through Tom Riddle’s first war and would be worried even if the others weren’t. Again, I would have liked to memory charm them if for nothing else than removing their trama, but we still didn’t know how to do that. The best we could do was have Amy adjust their brain chemistry to forget short term memories, but that was crude at best and I would have been worried if we had let them see any of our faces.
It also made me sure we weren’t ready to take down Tom quite yet. While I was fairly quite sure we couldn’t be killed since our phylactery should work more or less the same as Tom’s Horcruxes, being unkillable was very different from being unbeatable.
I turned to my girls as Amy and I made the changes to the rest of the girls. “OK, this afternoon we are going to sell just a little bit of the gold we were able to collect in Runeterra. That should allow us to buy books. However, we need to determine how exactly we get into a magical school, and we need to determine if there is anything different about this world than we escape. Dinah has confirmed the broad strokes are the same, but that doesn’t mean the details will be.”
At the chorus of yes, I turned back to where we suspected the leaky cauldron was, and I jumped slightly. Taylor even gave a little gasp, and Dinah eeped. We could actually see it now. I supposed that conclusively proved we actually had magic.
Admittedly, it wasn’t much to look at. The books and movies hadn’t lied or exaggerated, it really did look like a run-down pub, but I guess it proved we were now magicals. I quickly opened another portal in front of the bar and we quickly walked inside. I had to admit that a dirty pub wasn’t really a very good introduction to the magical world, but I supposed that a world that was this hostile to muggleborns wouldn’t care much about the appearance of the Muggleborn entrance. The magicals all probably arrived somewhere else after all. In fact, as we walked in further I could see the area around the fireplace in the corner of the room was much cleaner. That was probably the public floo fireplace. From what I could remember, floo was the method of traveling through fireplaces used almost exclusively by those who couldn’t apparate, aka teleport or when one of the ends of the journey was under wards that stopped people from just teleporting directly… like Hogwarts.
Looking around a little more I spotted our target and led our little presentation towards Tom the barkeep and owner of the pub before asking about getting into the alley. “Uh, Sir, we are new to England, could you show us how to get into the Alley. We were told the entrance was around here somewhere.”
Tom smiled, putting down the glass he was cleaning. “Ah, from the colonies are ya. Well, welcome to England, then. Let me show you how to get into the alley.” Walking over, he pointed towards the brick wall. “Three up and five across.”
I had to ask. “Three up from what? Which brick do we start with?”
Tom smirked. “Good eye on ya. It don’t rightly matter. Any two taps on any two bricks will work, just as long as you do it with a wand or magical focus. I just enjoy messing with people since no one bothers to ask, laddie. You would be surprised how often people freak out at the wall trying to remember which two bricks to tap.”
All of us turned to look at him, deadpanned, before after a moment longer of surprise gave way to the humor of the situation and Ahri chuckled. I should have expected her to enjoy a good spot of fun trickery. A moment later the rest of my girls started giggling as well… well, everyone except Dinah who was pouting cutely.
Tom waved as he turned around to leave, “Enjoy yourselves.”
I nodded before stepping into the magical world. It really was fantastic. The books and movies really didn’t do it justice. The alley had the sights, sounds, smells unlike anything I had ever seen. However, what was hard to explain was the very real FEEL of the magic we were now surrounded with. It was only when an older wizard pushed past us, muttering something under his breath about muggles, that we shook ourselves out of it.
Shaking my head, I turned and looked around for Gringotts home of the Goblin bank. With the chaotic nature of the street I had to look several times before I noticed the white marble building at the end of the street. That matched the description from the books, even if it didn’t quite look like the movies which was buit into a fork in the road. This one had a lot more pillars. Enough that I wondered if the Goblins were just showing off. Still, we headed directly towards it.
Walking forward we must have really looked out of place because I noticed quite a few sneers and internally I sighed. Ahri, who had even better hearing than we did, looked especially annoyed.
Regardless, we made it to Gringotts and, after a few minutes and a few sneers from a Goblin money exchanger, we had 61 galleons and some assorted change. I vaguely remembered a discussion from a fan fiction work that explained a conservative price of gold at the time was something like 10 thousand dollars to the kilo which weighed a little more than twice that of a pound. Meanwhile the conversion from dollars to the british pound was something like 1.8 dollars per pound. So doing some mental math, our half kilo of gold should have been worth something in the ballpark of about three and a half thousand pounds. In the Harry Potter books, Rolling said a Galleon was worth about 5 British pounds which made absolutely no sense if they were supposed to be solid gold. If that was true then that half kilo of gold would have gotten us over 650 Galleons. It also meant that each galleon would have needed to be either tiny or waifer thin which is not what Rolling described.
Instead, we had gotten 61 Galleon which mean that the conversion was probably something around 50 Pounds to the Galleon. That did make a little more sense since, while they weren’t hubcap sized in this world, they were still relatively thick and nearly two inches across. It also explained why everyone would go crazy for a 1000 Galleon price pool, as it would be something like 50 thousand British pounds or almost 100 thousand dollars. Still, while it was crazy to expect children to compete in a death tournament, it now made more sense as to why the students actually signed up.
As I hefted the 61 Galleons, wondering what the conversion fees were, I realized the coins were still heavier than the gold we had given them. The bag of Galleons probably weighed three or four times the raw gold we had given them.
I paused and considered that. Some fan fiction writers had theorized that the coins were either alloys or only gold leaf coated for the conversion to make sense. However, the surrounding wizards seemed to believe they were pure gold from what we could hear of the conversations going on around us. So either something strange like an enlargement spell was going on here, or the goblins had some sort of magic that hid the purity of the coins when checked. I paused, the other option was that maybe no Wizard actually bothered to check. Wizards did seem kinda lazy like that. Regardless, we now had the equivalent of about 3000 British pounds in 1990 prices. That should hopefully go a long way.
It turned out it didn’t.
61 Galleons did not go nearly as far as I would have liked. After buying a trunk with a lightweight charm we were down a full 5 galleons. New wizarding clothes for each of us took another 6 Galleons. Some basic potion ingredients for Amy to study took another 2 Galleons. Finally, the two dozen large text books bought on the wizarding world, magical theory, and household charms cost on average a Galleon each. That was another 25 Galleons down. In near moments we were down to only 23 Galleons left, and we hadn’t even bought Ahri’s wand.
That was another thing that made a little more sense. Having a wand priced at 7 Galleons had been a little weird in the books since that would only be 35 British Pounds. Why would Ron have needed to borrow his brother’s wand if it was probably much less than the grocery bill for a single week at the Weasley household.
Since, with this world’s conversion, the seven pounds seemed to be around 350 British Pounds, it made the prospect of sharing wands much, much more necessary.
Still, since I wanted to make sure my girls had the best equipment they could, we were going to get wands from Olivander’s in order to get ensure a good match… even if I wanted to figure out how to cast wandlessly eventually.
As we walked in the door we didn’t see anyone but a dusty room filled to the brim with the long thin gray wand boxes famous in the descriptions of Olivander’s wand shop.
Before any of us could say anything else or even move away from the door a surprising voice popped up from our left where I was quite sure no one had been in before. “Ah, what an interesting set of customers.”
Trying to recover from the scare, I tried not to whirl towards the sound, but I still probably failed. Actually considering our training, even if Amy had only modified these bodies to be slightly better than normal, it was a good thing that none of the girls had tried attacking the man. We did not need to be arrested within days of arriving.
Still, how the hell did he even show up there? The man was both tall and had wispy white hair with gray eyes that didn’t seem to focus any of us, yet I couldn’t help but feel like he was staring into our very souls.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Ahri stepped forward to explain. “I am afraid that my wand no longer seems to work for me and so I would like to be measured for a new one.”
Olivander turned and stared into her eyes for several long seconds before he chuckled. “Yes, yes, your… previous wand, was it… yes that will certainly not work here.”
All of us were once again on edge, but he simply waved her forward to start trying different wands.
Internally, I couldn’t help but wince when I considered what this probably meant. It seemed that this universe had an unnaturally perceptive Olivander. A part of me wondered if he was even human since that was something I had also sometimes read.
Surprisingly, as Ahri walked forward, Olivander didn’t even bother with the measuring tape. I wondered if he didn’t need it this time, or if he never needed it in the first place as Ahri reached forward to start picking out her wand.
In the end, regardless of our reservations about the man, Ahri had a surprisingly easy time finding her wand. 10.5 inches, Ash with a dragon heartstring core. I didn’t know much about wand lore other than dragons were powerful but also temperamental which made sense about our literal soul eating fox companion. Still, as we left I turned around to see Olivander eyeing me in particular. “I look forward to seeing you soon, I am sure I will hear great things about you.”
I actually shivered this time before I followed the girls out of the leaky cauldron. We walked with our supplies around a few corners just in case anyone was watching followed by Ahri producing a few more illusions before we portaled directly back into our home.
Looking at my girls I sighed. “Ok, well it is time to get to work. We need to research this world. We need to trigger our accidental magic to try to ensure we get a school letter. We need to start learning everything we can if we are going to be ready to help defeat one of the most powerful Dark Lords in only a few years time.”
Then turning to Ahri I sighed. “Plus we need to make more money. We are down to only 16 Galleons. That isn’t even enough to pay for all of our wands and I don’t want to use up all our gold. I suppose in the worst case scenario we could probably just portal in and take it from a bank. Insurance would replace it anyway.”
I paused as everyone looked at me a little surprised. Was I really considering robbing a bank while in a group of teenagers that included Taylor? I shook my head and smiled like it was a joke which pretty much everyone chuckled at before leaving.
Sitting down while the girls started to go organize their stuff and prepare for dinner I had to stop and think for a bit. What exactly was I trying to achieve here? What exactly did I want to achieve, period? Joking about robbing a bank was in bad taste since it would remind Amy, Taylor, and Dinah about what would have happened to them. I hadn’t robbed any innocents until now, why had I even considering it now?
Interlude Dinah
Dinah sighed. She wanted a friend her age. It was kinda hard being the youngest and the only one who didn’t have a physical relationship with Max.
She understood why, of course. Sabah was 23 now, Amy had just turned 19 and Taylor was nearing 17 while she herself was still only mentally 12. Then again they were all children including Max’s estimated 21 when compared with Ahri. Ahri had repeatedly told them she didn’t know how old she was, but between Amy’s physicals and vague memories the family was pretty sure she was somewhere around 200 even if the vast majority of those years were spent with a pack of demi-human foxes who lived in the arctic. That made her both extremely old and experienced in some things and amusingly naive in others, even if the majority of her naivety was about technology.
Sighing, she looked out the window towards the London streets in consideration. It was nice Max made an effort to let them see out of their pocket dimension, but They would be in Hogwarts soon, so hopefully she would be able to find a friend her age. Yeah, she would prefer they join the family so they would be together even in other worlds, but at this point she would settle for just about anyone even if it was temporary.
She almost asked her power again before she stopped. Her power was strange in this world and refused to give her straight answers. Reconsidering how to ask she finally settled on. “Will I find a friend if I try to find one.”
Her power seemed to return a vague feeling. If she had to translate it she would have described it as ‘You will meet many people here who will all arrive when they are meant to.’
She sighed. That wasn’t a no, at least, even if it really didn’t make her feel better.
The other problem was her family. She knew the family had issues. She knew that she had issues too. The problem was she didn’t know exactly how to address them. She didn’t even know who to ask for help. It wasn’t like they had met a psychiatrist on their travels, let alone one that the family would trust to hear their problems and secrets.
Yet again she wished her powers could work on other realities so she could help guide Max’s jumps, but that was definitely not something her power could do, she had tried. Heck, she couldn’t even see what was going on back on Earth Bet from here.
Sighing, she drank her hot chocolate after dinner and waited to see what the others picked as the movie they wanted to watch for family night. The group seemed to be settling on having a movie marathon for the Harry Potter Series. It was only Max and Sabah that had been leaning towards a comedy of some sort. Probably not wanting to think about what they needed to do in this world until they really had to.
Swallowing another sip, she got up and walked over. Max noticed her and smiled, even as she voted for the Harry Potter movies as well. She hadn’t seen past the first three movies personally since her parents decided the later ones were too scary. That was a little silly since pretty much everything including the news was traumatizing on Earth Bet.
Still, as she snuggled into the sofa and then leaned against Max’s arm she relaxed. She was still a little lonely, but at least she had her possible future boyfriend and sisters to spend time with. She wanted a friend, but it was still probably better than when her parents left her behind with friends or relatives to go on business trips.