6 Chapter 5

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Bound Barriers

Chapter 5

10:00 AM, 4 November 1981, 12 Willow Lane, Hampstead, London NW3 1AP

–Alexander Wells-

"I am done with the bathrooms as well as the Basement downstairs, Mr.Wells. The Laundry is done as well and I've taken the liberty to order all the cleaning supplies that I'm going to need in the future if you keep having more of those barfing episodes." The sickly sweet voice with barbed words could be heard in the morning as he tried to have his morning coffee in the Kitchen.

"I heard you loud and clear the first time, Berta."

The sound of her footsteps could be heard as she came into the kitchen to have her own coffee, "Also, on a completely unrelated note, I have chosen to give myself a raise,"

He smiled awkwardly and said, "Also completely fine, Berta. Just make sure the place is neat and tidy and we'll talk about the bonus you keep badgering me about,"

"Very well, you are the boss," Saying so, she shuffled out of the kitchen and eventually, out of the house as well.

The moment he heard the front door closing, he slumped on the kitchen island, whining inwardly.

How was he supposed to know about the housekeeper that "he" had hired for the property? Almost gave himself a heart attack thinking that Dumbledore had somehow caught up to him and sent in some Auror disguised as housekeeping to ambush him.

Fortunately, after going through his documents once again, he found out that he had a services agreement with a property management company that regularly sent out people for housekeeping services. He just had to make sure to tell them to keep doing that regularly since he was going to be living in his house for the foreseeable future.

He won't be able to move at least until he is sure of the efficacy of his powers against wizards that have reached the same level as Dumbledore.

However, testing that would be way too dangerous so he had decided to start low. Like the average untrained magical who had only learned about combat in school and never had any need to apply it throughout their life, like a certain bartender who owned a bar that also served as an entrance to Diagon Alley.

But how would he even perceive the bar if it was charmed for someone with no magic, like him, to ignore?

But first things first, he had yet to check on Harry for the day. So, seeing that he was all alone in the house and since Berta was done cleaning, there was nobody else that was supposed to arrive throughout the day, he decided to just fly to Privet Drive 4 instead of taking the conventional route that could take much longer than just flying straight towards the Dursleys.

Using a nifty little trick he learned in the previous day's training session, he cast a barrier in front of him and elongated it to a pipe that pivoted straight upwards which then turned into a rectangular shape at the end. 

He had discovered something truly marvelous about his barriers the other day. They could transmit the energy that was incident on the barrier within the barriers themselves.

So, using that and armed with rudimentary knowledge of how light worked, he exploited that property of his barrier and created what was basically a binocular, a viewing glass, if you will.

At one end of the barrier was a shape that had a light incident on it and the other end was a screen-sized barrier that was in front of him which showed him what was going on around his house. Sure, because of the fact that the barriers were absorbing all the light, it looked completely dark to any passerby but there was a huge tree in front of his house that did an admirable job at hiding the entire barrier construct in its shadow.

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he decided to just book it and leave for Surry when it hit him. Arabella Figgs must make regular trips to Diagon Alley if only to retrieve the monthly stipend that Dumbledore had set up for the Dursleys so they would have no say whatsoever if they did end up neglecting Harry. 

He would only have to follow Figgs on the days before she sends the Dursleys their money. Voila, he would have the location of Diagon Alley then even if he was not able to find it by himself, he could at least "tag" Figg with it and follow her, even if it seemed as if the road was leading to a wall instead of a bar/entry point to the most important alley of Magical Britain.

Yawning in exhaustion, he had been doing a lot of that lately, he checked the time, only to see that it had become noon without him noticing. At the same time, his stomach started growling loudly. 

Yeah, it would seem that he would need to get lunch before checking in on Harry. Going to the pantry, he found himself in a sea of processed foods, borderline poisonous food.

"Ew!" He made a face at the rows and rows of processed food that lined his kitchen's pantry. He threw one of the packs that he checked the ingredients list of and found himself just wanting to get out of that room once and for all.

Some might call his reaction a bit much but he was aware of the effects of regular and heavy use of processed food not just in the overall diet but also as a source of constant binging.

Having lost his appetite, he covered himself in an aerodynamically better layer of shields and went towards his destination(aerodynamic in this sense just meant a pointed end with a triangular shape at the end. He didn't know if it was aerodynamic or just a placebo but it seemed to be working anyway).

Soon, he found himself hovering right over the house of the Dursleys. As it was the afternoon, he saw that Vernon Dursley had gone to his day job, evidenced by the lack of his car in the driveway. Slowly landing on the ground, he watched through the windows of the second story that while Petunia herself was fussing over Dudley, a nanny was taking care of Harry.

From the looks of it, it seemed like a professional was working with Harry but what did he know about child rearing anyway. From time to time, he could see Petunia give Harry furtive fearful glances, as if afraid that little Harry would pounce on her anytime.

He sighed and slowly floated upwards to sit down on the roof of the Dursleys. From what he could gather from his past knowledge, Dumbledore had sealed the will of the Potter couple and just told the magical world that Harry was well taken care of. It was also heavily implied that Harry was being trained as the savior of Magical Britain and Dumbledore further emboldened this by not stopping the publishing of books that depicted Harry dueling with Dragons or killing Vampires at the ripe old age of 9 in the coming years.

It would seem that if he wanted to make sure that he would have a peaceful life in this world, he would have to get uncomfortable and work incredibly hard to make sure that he was not just a one-hit pony.

All this stressful thinking had him sighing more and more like an old man in his sixties and not someone who has just now entered his late twenties.

If the magical world was not completely off the rails and still followed the same banking dates as the normal banking system of England, the next day there would be a withdrawal from a trust would be either around the month end or the first of the month. As a precaution, he would have to start stalking Arabella Figg around the 25th of the month, give or take. So, he had roughly twenty days to prepare for his first encounter with Magical Britain.

He…was not excited.

One thing was for sure though, he refused to rely just on his powers alone, awesome as they may be, for his defense. He would have to find something else to defend himself. 

Maybe, taking some self-defense classes wouldn't hurt, especially since he was pretty much loaded in this new life. He wouldn't make a dent in his fortune, especially with the passive income that was being added to it by virtue of rent and dividends, even if he spent lavishly for a couple of decades, he would still not have completely extinguished his fortune and realistically in that timeframe, he would know if the world was going to shite or not so it would become a no brainer by then if he wanted to just enjoy the money or die trying to fight the evil forces of this universe.

According to the documents he had read in the study room, he was now the proud owner of shares worth around 1.22 million Euros. For someone who had grown up in abject middle-class stature, that was a lot of money, especially for the time period he was in.

Counting for inflation, it must have been more than 5 million in his time. That kind of money was more than enough to live a semi-middle-class lifestyle without ever having to worry about a paycheck ever again.

But that was not all that he was the proud owner of. Though, in this case, he was not exactly proud of it but he also owned rental properties that generated around 5000 Pounds/month after utilities and the super were paid off. That was also an incredible amount of money that he was going to get just sitting in his house. It seemed kinda unfair and it probably was considering how much people in his era complained about how morally bankrupt it was to buy out single-family homes from the market and put them up on the rental market for bizarre markups. Sometimes the rent itself ended up more than the average mortgage.

He hoped that Wizarding Britain had nothing of the sort and with magic involved, at least the living conditions of the average witch and wizard were more than the average of the normal people, even the wealthier ones.

He also owned his current residence which was also a massive 4-bedroom house. He had no idea what he was going to do with this much space. He might just put it on rent and live in a small one-bedroom apartment, that seemed much more viable if only for one simple reason.

Privacy.

And not the kind of Privacy that young couples demanded, no, the kind of privacy that would lead to obliviators arriving at his doorstep if somebody saw him performing acts that defied all senses and logic.

In addition, living in the gigantic manor also gave him the freedom to leave and arrive whenever he wished to without anyone being the wiser since he could just leave while being invisible and not have to worry about anyone checking on the house since he was essentially a nobody in this reality.

…What a sad thought to have.

Arriving back at his house, he saw that the barrier he had cast over the piece of glass he had stuck on the rooftop was intact, making him heave a sigh of relief. He gently landed on the roof, still invisible, and changed the shape of the barrier that covered his body and connected it to the one on the roof. 

He had done this as an experiment of sorts. He was aware that he could make barriers and continue sustaining them over long distances, that much was made clear when he was out about experimenting when he had first discovered unaided flight.

But what he was unsure of was his barrier's function of absorbing energy according to its shape and size so he had left a small window pane-sized barrier on the roof, commanding it to continue absorbing sunlight until it could no longer absorb any more of it.

As it turned out, once given a command, aside from the drain on his stamina, there was no limit to the distance where he could place his barriers. He could have one on the freaking moon, maybe, he hadn't tried that yet but who knows.

Maybe, he will, soon enough.

Unfortunately, he could not exactly absorb that energy in any meaningful way. His powers didn't work like that. He could absorb energy, transfer energy but he could not store it in his body for later use. He would have to carry around the recharged piece of barrier around.

So, he floated the barrier over a small patch of grass he had in the backyard and gave the command to release energy. Instantly, the air was filled with the sound of burnt grass as the barrier discharged a small ray of light that instantly dug into the soil, the surrounding grass withering away due to the sheer heat.

Instinctively, he placed his hands in front of his eyes in an effort to shield them but found his effort to be meaningless due to the very nature of his shields. 

..Looking at the aftermath of his little experiment, he could see a thin hole in the ground along with the adverse effects of extreme heat on the surroundings.

Looking at the withered grass and the red hot soil in disbelief, he mumbled to himself, "Holy shit!"

He just had his first piece of long-range murder weapon.

May god bless the wizard that would be on the other range of that and may that god be the God of Sun otherwise that sucker is dooomed!

Take that Avada Kedavra, he had the instant death spell now.

Word Count - 2342

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