Thieving Steve

His friends were much more relaxed at dinner this time as he didn't have awful wounds all over his arms. "Did you already figure out how to use the shield charm Nick?" Ron asked in surprise. Nick nodded but a slight twitch of his eyebrow told Harry and Hermione not to ask how , Ron did not get that message though. "That's incredible! How'd you manage it without getting gnarled up like before?" he asked and Nick took a deep breath and repressed the urge to curse at the dense boy angrily and calmly said he'd rather not talk about it.-

Ron looked dissatisfied with this answer but before he could dig a deep hole to be buried in Harry changed the topic to the quidditch tactic Nick had suggested before. Apparently it had taken a bit but Harry had gotten the hang of performing the maneuver while at a full stop which represented initial mastery of it. Ron was full of praise for this as it was a very impressive thing for a nonprofessional player to do so maybe the scouters will start sending offers once they see it for themselves.-

Things moved on fairly normally after that with nothing of note until a week from then when Nick finally gained enough proficiency with the shield charm to shift the trajectory of spells so long as they weren't too powerful. With this level of knowledge he wanted to try and make backup disposable rings that held a single powerful shield that automatically protected it's wielder before breaking. These would be his bread and butter for the next step of his plan to popularize his name as a craftsman. With all the panic going around because of Grindelwald people would jump at the protective items since he planed to sell them at the cheap price of ten sickles.-

To put that into perspective this was about the price of a first years school books and with a minimum of five galleons a month for literally any wizarding job it was quite affordable in most cases. The only real problem came in the form of permission by the staff of Hogwarts and ministry of magic. The ministry was a piece of cake as Minister Fudge had been trying to curry favor with him for a while now , so a casual mention of it would get it approved in a hurry by the man.-

'The real problem is the Hogwarts staff. Dumbledore may agree as it is a good way to make people feel secure in their safety even if only a little. But the rest may take issue with me using the fear of others to make a profit , Mcgonagall especially.' Nick thought seriously as he played with the niffler that had somehow made it's way into his workshop. Nifflers were small creatures that had bodies similar to that of a hedgehog but bigger at the size of a cat. They had buck billed mouths and large dark eyes as well as a pouch on their bellies that had an expanded space in it.-

The most well known thing about them however was how they were notoriously greedy to the point of there being actual cases of them stealing from dragons. They were unrepentant thieves and extremely good at sniffing out and filching any treasure nearby regardless of whether it was a good idea or not. This particular niffler had been trapped in the workshop by Helena after trying to steal one of the gold ingots Nick had stacked up against the wall.-

It had a black fur color and light brown eyes and tried to act pathetic when Nick finally walked into the room. Nick took a liking to the little thief and offered lembas bread in exchange for not having his stuff stolen , an agreement the niffler accepted after trying some of the bread. Nick had brought the creature to Hagrid the first chance he got but the half giant wasn't familiar with this particular niffler as the one he took care of had brown fur and black eyes. After that the niffler who Nick named thieving Steve had pretty much followed Nick everywhere.-

Strangely enough Mcgonagall was in quite taken with the greedy thing and spoiled it rotten with cookies whenever Nick had class. 'Then again it's not just her either , literally almost all the girls who see the bastard fawn all over it. I admit he's kinda cute but this is nuts.' Nick thought looking at the pile of sweets stacked up neatly in Steve's personal corner of the workshop. That corner had a magical birdbath , dog bed and blankets alongside his horde of ill gotten loot. Most of it was comprised of coins but there was hair pins , brooches and even a silver spoon for some reason.

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