Chapter 24: Progress

-Evans' house, Muggle London, 25 July 1976.

It had been three weeks since Draco and Hermione had met Lily at the potions shop.

Hermione had been nervous about how Severus would react once he heard everything once they got back, but he didn't return to Manor Prince.

He even notified them that he wouldn't be there for several days.

It wasn't until the 20 of July that Severus returned to the Manor Prince, but as usual, he didn't ask them anything about what they had been doing nor did he tell them much about what he had been doing during that time.

Although Hermione did manage to know a few things from talking to him, it was mostly superficial.

She thought about telling Severus about it repeatedly, but he didn't seem interested in knowing what they did in their private time.

Or as he said: "As long as you don't drag me into it I have no problem whatever you do, I know you have a lot of plans that I'm not interested in, just keep it to yourselves and everything will be fine"

Draco and Hermione had spent all those days with Lily studying because at the beginning of August they had to take their Hogwarts entrance exams.

Lily had kindly invited them to study at her house.

Hermione had been impressed with how diligent Lily was and how easily she could handle someone like Draco.

During these weeks, Draco was tortured mercilessly by Lily as he had to take notes on a lot of things that were different during this time,

Which for him was just taking boring notes every day.

The only interesting thing for him was making potions for the day-to-day and Lily was a great potions teacher.

But that didn't last long because in spells and potions both Draco and Hermione had a lot of knowledge.

The most important thing was all the theory that was given at this age but not in theirs and Hermione was very grateful to have Lily to tell them exactly what they needed to know.

"Very well, it's been three weeks since we started and I dare say you could be good enough to take TIMOs in several classes," commented Lily this morning at home.

Draco just snorted, he just wanted to stop studying all that boring old stuff, the knowledge he had was more advanced than what he was studying now.

'Bloody hell, I'm not Hermione, I don't like reading things that are useless just for the sake of reading them' he grumbled internally.

" Yes, now we know essentially everything we need until the fifth year of Hogwarts" nodded Hermione.

"Thank you, Lily, you were very helpful" she added in appreciation.

"I still don't understand why we basically studied EVERYTHING, just reviewing would have been good enough to be at OWL level," said Draco.

"Yeah, but we were shooting for the big picture Draco," Lily told him with a smile.

Draco almost fell for that smile if it wasn't for the fact that over the past three weeks he realized that she was very good to convince people just by smiling and sweet talking.

Although he had to admit that it was impressive, he thought that Gryffindors didn't use their brains like that, but it seems that Hermione and Lily are exceptions.

'Annoying exceptions' Draco concluded as he sighed and shook his head.

"Alright, so now that the study is over, how about we go to Diagon Alley and celebrate your future admission to Hogwarts?" asked Lily.

"Hmm, although I'd rather celebrate after I get in, I wouldn't mind going for a cocktail" smiled Hermione.

"Fine, but I don't want to hear you two review," Draco said seriously.

"Sure, that won't be a problem!" Lily said excitedly,

"Well, let's go then" Hermione added and so the three of them said goodbye to Mrs. Evans and set off for Diagon Alley.

As they arrived Draco's shoulders slumped.

"Really...really, this place?" he groaned looking at the tea shop called, Rosa Lee Teabag.

"What's the matter, too boring for you?" Hermione joked knowing Draco would disagree.

"Yes! Bloody hell, I've been stuck with you two studying for three weeks!" Draco roared as he began to walk away from the tea madwoman.

"You two do whatever you want! But hell, I need to have fun! I'm not a study freak like you two, in case you didn't know!" he added as he walked away.

Lily frowned.

"Well, I guess it's just the two of us," she said.

"So it seems, don't worry about Draco, I'm sure he'll go to some broom shop or something," Hermione said.

"Alright then, today will be our day!" Lily smiled excitedly along with Hermione.

"Now come on, we still have a lot to do before Draco regrets it and comes back" commented Hermione amused.

~~~~~~~

-Manor Prince

In the meantime, Severus had been busy these days.

He took the time to diligently review all the investments he was making and how they were progressing.

After reading all about the current market, he came to understand the big picture of everything that was happening in the magical and Muggle world.

Severus wrote several letters to different companies and industries around the world, he was planning to invest and buy several companies that were going through very complicated economic situations at the moment.

The Muggle world was constantly growing and this also brought a crisis for industries as there was a great economic inflation, and all the prices of existing goods and services in the market started to increase constantly.

All materials such as metals began to rise in price rapidly, something that would complicate his future plans, but he would manage, as he bought the metal smelters.

The world also had a problem with the workers who started to demand a wage increase that the industries could not pay with the massive increase of things, so they ended up going on strikes which increased the social and political crisis.

This gave Severus even more reason to go ahead with his plans to create droids to do the work.

Many companies started to lag behind and ended up closing down.

Everything was constantly changing, but this crisis was something Severus wanted to take advantage of to gain wealth and a lot of power.

It was the perfect time to invest if you had the money and a viable project.

And Severus not only had wealth but also had a lot of useful knowledge to use.

After sending the letters with the different offers he was making to each company, Severus moved on to his other objective.

Currently, the only thing that identified the Prince in the magical world was the potion factory they owned along with a few shops where they distributed and sold their potions.

With 51% of the shares, the Prince family usually receives only 7000 gallons per month, from which they deduct all the expenses that the family has, leaving only a profit of 2000 gallons per month.

When added to the gallons earned from the shares of other magical companies, the Prince family earns a total of approximately 3000 gallons per month.

Compared to the salary of a senior official in the Ministry of Magic, who earns between 700 and 1000 gallons, this may sound like a lot, but it is not when you consider the investment made in the factory.

For this reason, Severus planned to use several of the potions he had created to increase the popularity and profitability of the Prince Potions factory.

On top of all this, he was going to add the profits he would be making in the Muggle world.

Severus wanted to move forward and place himself at the centre of the magical and Muggle economy.

Only then would he be able to accelerate his plans.

He had already begun the necessary steps to set up the branch of his industry in the Muggle world.

Gradually, everything was coming together as he wanted it to, it was only a matter of time...

After finishing the last things for his future plans, Severus went to train.

Severus began an intense training regimen for his body but quickly found himself making revisions as he adapted quite quickly.

His body was finally starting to get into an acceptable state.

In just these few weeks, Severus had already reached the level of a Jedi knight, but he was still far from being in peak form.

He also began to experiment with his wand and the Force.

Every time he tried to replicate a spell without a wand, he was amazed at how easy it was to cast spells with the wand.

It was incredibly tedious to use magic spells without a wand, but he had made great progress.

Though he wasn't going to deny that he was also a little frustrated by the exaggerated difference between using and not using a wand.

"It is rather unfair to think that a wand can make things that should take years of arduous training to learn so much easier," sighed Severus.

He had also discovered that the effect of dark magic on some wands was very weak, almost to the point that some wands refused to make use of such magic.

This had caught Severus' attention, but he concluded that it was due to the core and the tree from which the wand was made.

Depending on whether it was more aligned with the Light Side of the Force on the planet or the Dark Side.

This concluded his conjecture that each being had a symbiosis with a particular side of the Force on this planet and that they were not neutral.

Regardless of all that happened by using the dark side of the Force, Severus did not believe that it was bad or good.

He concluded that the potential of the Light and Dark Sides lay in the user, not in the Force itself.

There was no inherent evil in the Force.

The user of that power is responsible for whether it is evil or good.

However, it is important to clarify that the use of the Force of the Dark Side requires one to have an extraordinary mentality and willpower or one will be corrupted.

Both the Light and Dark sides could be used as long as the intent was not evil and a balance was maintained between the two.

Severus saw the dark side as something inside himself to be avoided, not something in the Force.

He reasoned that if the Force was the energy that flows through all life, the dark side simply came from the corruption of the various life forms in the Universe.

If one could maintain one's morality and ethics, one could be immune to the dark side by maintaining a balance and therefore could use any technique one wanted as long as one maintained this balance.