Chapter 19

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***

The executive sedan drove off the asphalt pavement onto a dirt track rolled by trucks and construction equipment. Despite the excellent suspension, the car shook mercilessly on the bumps. God knows how it reached its destination.

The passengers saw a picturesque meadow, a water tower, a tall wind turbine with large blades, and two stone buildings. A small lake could be seen in the distance.

The passengers left the interior of the car.

- And what is this? - Stephen, usually silent, asked Richard, nodding towards a semi-circular building.

- An aircraft hangar.

- A hangar?! - the driver made big eyes. - Made of stone and with stained glass windows?

- That's what the designer saw, and I liked it.

Richard didn't want to admit that such a structure was much cheaper than ordering an ordinary metal hangar.

- It's not a bad castle," Mr Potter's gaze was directed at the Gothic-style stone house decorated with gargoyle statues. - If I didn't know who you ordered the buildings from, I'd still understand - wizards....

- It's an office building," Richard corrected. - And you know it very well, sir.

- Hm!" the detective gave a meaningful chuckle. - If it weren't for the windmill and the water tower... Only wizards can build with such an expensive material as stone these days.

- Mr Potter, you were with me at the 'architect's'," Richard smirked. - Don't pretend you've forgotten, as if wizards have it as a very cheap material. Given their capabilities, it's easy enough to move to the mountains, fill a container of expanded space with stones using levitation, and then bind it all together with any form of enchantment. And in general, scientists say that stone is the material of the future.

- How so? - Detective Potter asked incredulously.

- Let's say an expedition has arrived on a distant planet. They have with them only the essentials that fit on a spaceship. What would they build from? Of course, the easiest thing to build with is what's underfoot - stone. They got anti-gravity platforms and drones with laser cutters. They cut stone blocks, loaded them on the platforms, took them to the site of the future settlement and put the blocks into buildings. The first settlements of the colonists were also made of stone.

- Why not wood? - Harry asked, ears warming with curiosity.

- It was not certain that trees would grow on another planet. And if they do, they can be dangerous to humans: viruses, allergens, alien insect larvae, and so on. And stone is stone on Alpha Centauri.

- And yet the stained glass in the aircraft hangar..." Scott said.

- It's original and rich," Richard finished for the man. - Come inside.

Inside the building, everything was modern: electric lighting, plain walls painted in light colours, hard-wearing flooring, lots of glass and steel in the decoration. You couldn't tell you were inside what looked like a castle from the outside. It was just a boring, dull to the teeth office, the sort of thing you'd find all over the place. Even the big air duct in the ceiling reminds you of it. No embellishments, just plain silver metal.

The spacious garage for four cars looks more like a state-of-the-art workshop for these years, equipped with the latest technology.

Only when you get to the potion room and alchemical laboratory, you realise that you are in a magical place. And if the lair of alchemists somehow resembled a clandestine laboratory of drug dealers, then the purpose of the hall with a lot of cauldrons of different sizes to an ordinary person will be difficult to identify.

- Donkey, do you like this house? - Richie turned to the houseboy when he was alone with him.

- Yes, Lord. There's plenty of room.

- That's nice. Donkey, there are several bedrooms on the third floor. The biggest one is yours.

- Sir, Donkey doesn't understand.

The house elf looked at his master with bewilderment with his big eyes.

- 'Donkey, there will be wizards working here soon. They will be enchanting different items for me. I want you to keep the place in order.

- Will Donkey have a lot of work to do, sir? - The elf said phlegmatically. - Donkey is happy.

- But it won't be your main task.

The houseboy braced himself and prepared to listen intently. His big ears fluttered.

- What is Donkey to do, sir?

- You are to keep an eye on the wizards. Discreetly! It's very important. I allocate a lot of money to them, so the first thing you have to do is to make sure they spend the money purposefully and don't steal a lot.

- Sir, Donkey won't let the wizards steal from the master.

- No, no, Donkey. Your other job is to watch and report back to me. You're a scout. A lot of people steal, so the main thing is that the mages steal little and don't go over the limit. As long as they produce decent results, I'll turn a blind eye to it and accumulate dirt.

- Donkey understood, sir. Donkey will discreetly monitor the wizards and report back to the master.

- Written reports once a month. Personal report only in emergencies. Donkey, I don't have time to listen to reports every day. I hope you can write and read?

- Yes, sir. Donkey was trained in the sciences so he could teach reading and writing skills to the master's children.

- How marvellous! One less problem to worry about. Also, Donkey, your main job is to make sure the wizards don't harm me. Crooked charms, carelessly applied to artefacts or, conversely, a specially embedded curse. You know what I mean? Can you keep track of that?

- Sir, Donkey can sense magic. Donkey can warn his master of danger.

- Excellent. Donkey, you will officially be a free house elf, working as a housekeeper. This will be highly original to British mages, but it will explain your clothing and remove any suspicion of spying for me.

- Donkey understood, sir. Donkey will pretend to be a free house elf as the Lord wishes.

- To keep your legend from crumbling like a house of cards, you will receive a salary of two hundred galleons a month. The money can be spent as you see fit.

- Donkey will get a salary..." the elf said phlegmatically. - If the kin found out about it, they would think Donkey had gone mad. But neither they nor anyone else will know that Donkey is actually a scout. Donkey is happy to serve the Lord and be useful.

- You please me with your perfect behaviour and stamina, Donkey. Settle in - this is all yours now. Perhaps in the future I'll have a house nearby.

Harry and Richie had fun. They fished in the lake, then cooked their catch on the coals.

They slept in the house, with enough bedrooms to accommodate several people.

In the morning Richard and Harry reached the hangar and found three aeroplanes there. While young Potter climbed on the planes with boyish curiosity and examined them inside and out, Richie looked at the flying machines thoughtfully. He got the hint - Alex Blade had heard and passed on the proposal to his superiors at MI6, and they had agreed and provided the generator, the planes and the military vehicle, which was a portable radar unit with a control panel in a booth.

Speaking of aeroplanes. The first was a Shadow P1, a reconnaissance aircraft based on a twin-engine turboprop Beechcraft King Air. The second was the Britten-Norman Islander twin-engine transport aircraft in the Defender military modification. It could seat up to nine passengers, carry almost one and a half tonnes of cargo and be used for parachuting. The third aircraft was a civilian four-seat Lancer 4 monoplane.

And no, Richard didn't get into ancient flying machinery in a flash, it was just that each of the aircraft had accompanying documentation. And the paperwork for the last, smallest aircraft had a signature on it:

Lost

It was impossible not to understand such a bold hint. MI6 almost openly said that they were giving a civilian aircraft to Richard, as evidenced by the documents on which the aircraft was registered to the young Grosvenor. At the same time, the secret services wish to get the enchanted military aircraft back.

The picnic and the holiday as a whole went well. The hardest part was getting back.

***

Ritchie was in the middle of a hot streak. He had to supervise the sale of shares, agree with Arthur Weasley on the beginning of work on enchanting, give Gringotts an instruction about monthly payment of money from the safe to Mr Weasley, call Alex Blade and agree on the arrival of specialists to the wizards. In general, Richard was spinning like a squirrel in a wheel until the end of June.

Richie earned four million seven hundred thousand dollars on the sale of Pepsi shares. Securities Altria Group brought the young businessman another nine million seventy thousand quid. As a result, the boy's fortune, taking into account the funds that will need to be deposited in the account by adulthood, passed the mark of a hundred million dollars. To be exact, one hundred and three million seven hundred and seventy thousand. The whole tail went to the bank account for current expenses, and the round sum remained to wait for the next investment.

As early as mid-June, Arthur Weasley and a group of ten talented young wizards began work on creating the advanced technology of the future, replacing backward technology with magic. Richard hoped that the wizards would gain experience, and then he would expand his staff and start creating space technology. The boy tried not to mention even mentally what he needed it all for, so as not to scare away his luck.

At the end of June the first report came from the spy-housekeeper: a thick folder with all the sins and faults of the employees of the magical enterprise. Richard mentally felt his fist clenching on the bells of all the mages working for him. A few more such reports - and the young Lord would have all the employees firmly on his jingle bells with reliable compromise, so he didn't worry much about the mages fleeing to competitors - Richard would have something to hold them back or pin them down if necessary. And there would always be competitors. There are none now, but that's temporary.

The whole month of July flew by in an instant for Richard.

In early July, Richie visited the United States in the company of Harry Potter, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Prince William, Prince Harry and numerous escorts, including Gerald Grosvenor, Scott Potter, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Justin's parents and a large security detail of VIPs. A royal jet was used for the flight to America.

The guys had a nice holiday in Disneyland and visited some of the sights in and around Los Angeles.

Disneyland is such a magical place that both child and adult would love to visit. No Cosy Lane can compare in magic with the amusement park, which is spread on two hundred hectares of land. Positivity, meeting with favourite cartoon heroes, adrenaline - all this is in abundance for the visitors of the amusement park.

Any adult dreams of turning into a child or returning to childhood at least for a moment. Richard remained a child only outwardly, although he tried to meet his father's expectations. But it was during his visit to Disneyland that he managed to become a child for real.

No one was left indifferent: both adults and children were immersed in a fairy tale for a few days. Harry Potter had recently thought that moving away from the Dursleys and starting to live with Uncle Scott was the best thing that could happen to him. But when he found himself at Disneyland, the boy realised what it was really like to be happy. The elation overwhelmed him for the rest of July. He never expected such a busy summer. A picnic in Scotland, meeting the heirs to the British crown, a trip to California and hiking in the woods and mountains with his uncle. The boy had a lot to remember.

Richard's birthday coincided with Harry Potter's birthday. When this point came to light, the boys had agreed to celebrate together at Eaton Hall. Everything was modest: five animators, a table bursting with delicacies and only a dozen guests - all the same faces who went to Disneyland, plus Queen Elizabeth II.

Harry Potter and his uncle had arrived at Eton Hall on the evening of the thirtieth of July, so as not to waste time on a long trip on his birthday. He and Scott had been assigned a decent guest house.

All evening Harry was worried and couldn't sleep for a long time. Because of this, on the thirty-first of July, the boy woke up at the beginning of the eleventh hour and missed breakfast. But he didn't have time to be upset about it - the food was waiting in the living room.

It was lunchtime, and Harry, dressed to the hilt, headed for the main house of his best friend's estate with anticipation.

Richard found himself not far from the entrance.

- Harry," he greeted his guest with a smile. - Happy birthday!

- Thank you, Richie. I wish you a happy birthday too. Here.

Harry handed Richard a present wrapped in a smart paper. Richie put the gift aside to a stack of birthday boxes and took one of them.

- 'Thank you, Harry. And this is for you.

- Thank you!

Harry Potter couldn't wait to unwrap the gift, but he knew it was rude to do so. He opened the present from Uncle Scott immediately and was delighted with the Swiss folding knife. He wondered what Richie could have given him.

- Let's go to the ballroom, the boys want to congratulate you too.

Richard and Harry strode into the spacious hall.

Harry Potter didn't immediately understand why Richard had taken him to an old lady in an elegant blue dress and a hat with blue flowers. The old lady seemed vaguely familiar to the boy.

- Lady, may I introduce my good friend and another birthday boy, Harry Potter," Richard began. - Harry, meet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.

Harry thought he had misheard. He looked at Richard carefully, expecting a laugh, but he didn't see an ounce of a smile on his mate's face. Remembering who else he'd been on roller coasters with recently, Harry realised that his friend wasn't joking.

- Pleased to meet you, young man," the Queen said in a polite and pleasant voice.Harry turned as pale as chalk and didn't know how to behave. The boy's palms were treacherously sweaty. He tried to remember what to do when meeting the Queen, but realised that he had never known this information. Uncle Dursle and Aunt Petunia had never explained any of this. They couldn't even imagine that their deranged nephew could ever meet the Queen in person, and the Dursleys wouldn't have believed it in their lifetimes that she would come to his birthday party and congratulate him! And Uncle Scott didn't give a damn about etiquette, so he didn't fill his nephew's head with something like that. There was something vaguely in the boy's mind about kissing a lady's hands, but he was wary of doing so.

While Harry Potter hovered, the world did not stand still. A courtier brought the Queen a gift, which she held out to Potter.

- Harry, happy birthday to you.

- А?!

Potter reset himself and embarrassedly accepted the gift from the hands of the Queen of Great Britain herself.

- Thank you, Your Majesty," Harry muttered.

His cheeks flushed. The boy wanted to fall through the ground for his ignorance of etiquette. A thing that seemed utterly useless to the average boy was suddenly not so useless.

- What a shy young man," the queen said with a smile on her lips.

- Grandmother Lizzie, don't embarrass Harry," Richard finished Potter with his own phrase. - He's not used to the high society yet.

- Potter..." the queen said thoughtfully. - A very familiar surname. Richie, can you remind me who your friend's parents are?

- Grandma Lisey, Harry's parents are wizards. They died at the hands of a terrorist wizard in eighty-one.

- Oh, Harry Potter! Oh, yes, I remember! It was in your house that the chief terrorist wizard of the Death Eaters died. Tom Riddle.

- Harry's going to Hogwarts with me," Richard remarked.

- Hogwarts? - the Queen asked in a cheerful tone, pretending it was the first time she had heard of it.

- Hogwarts!

- Hogwarts?!

- Yes... You know, Granny, platform nine and three quarters, a red steam train, people with bad taste in choice of clothes, owls and a crowd of unruly children with superpowers - Hogwarts!

- Ah, Hogwarts!

A hooligan smile walked across the Queen's face. She was clearly having a good time in the company of children.

In general, Richard noticed Queen Elizabeth had a great sense of humour. She liked to joke and prank among her people. Naturally, the general public saw a completely different person.

Harry stood like a statue, afraid to move. What was happening before his eyes was beyond comprehension. All the wizards he had met during his visits to Mole Lane treated ordinary people with contempt and called them Muggles. At the same time Potter tried to find out something about his parents from the wizards and several times he heard the mention of "You-Know-Who". The wizards were terribly afraid of the wizard who had killed the boy's parents. Harry was under the impression that because of the statute of secrecy, none of the common people knew about wizards. And it turns out to be nothing of the sort. The Queen is well aware of wizards. The intelligence services and the upper aristocracy know about wizards. Not only that, the ruler of Great Britain, unlike magicians with superpowers, is not afraid of the evil sorcerer at all and even calmly calls him by name.

"Terrorist! Devil grab Hitler by the thigh, as Uncle Scott likes to say! The Queen contemptuously calls the most dangerous sorcerer a common terrorist," thought Potter. - Not the biggest evil in the universe, the Dark Lord and other epithets, but the fucking leader of a terrorist organisation! You listen to him and you start to think he's a common thug."

- Richie, unfortunately, I have to go," the queen said sincerely. - I've only come to see you for a few minutes. Harry, I hope you'll be loyal to the Crown and not to silly postulates.

- Yes, ma'am," Potter replied enthusiastically. - I will do my best, Your Majesty!

Harry watched the queen walk majestically away with a rapturous gaze. He was distracted from contemplating the monarch by his friend's voice:

- Congratulations, Harry, you are now acquainted with many Windsors. With such acquaintances, and with my patronage, you have a great career ahead of you in the secret service, for example. If you try hard enough, you could even be a nobleman.

- Do wizards work as special agents? - Potter wondered.

- This information is not disclosed, but it is probably practised.

Harry really liked the James Bond film. He imagined himself in the shoes of Agent 007 and realised that he wanted to become just as cool.

- Richie, what do you have to do to work in the secret service?

- After Hogwarts, you have to pass your school exams. Ideally, you'd want to go to a military academy or at least a decent university.

- It must be difficult and expensive?

- What doubts? It's certainly difficult and expensive. But practice has shown that in two or three years it is possible to master all the knowledge of middle and high school. After that, studying at the academy will seem like nothing. And don't worry about money - the Crown will pay for the education of a promising young man.Richard winked at Potter.

Harry thought it was a good way out. Who knows what awaited him at the wizards'? He hadn't heard of a wizard's pension, which Uncle Scott often mentioned. And here is the patronage of an aristocratic friend, acquaintance with three princes, one princess, a whole queen and a future Lord (Finch-Fletchley). With such acquaintances, what could he do among the cowardly wizards who could see nothing further than their noses and left young Harry as if he were unnecessary rubbish on the doorstep of the Dursleys' house!

"It's decided," thought Harry, "I will definitely become a secret service agent and an aristocrat! If only so that I could rub the Dursleys' noses in it and one day turn up on their doorstep and say, ''Address me properly as Sir Harry Potter.'' To hell with wizards! They never needed me, and here... Here the Queen herself said I could serve the Crown."

***

Richard had been studying the stock prices all morning and was in a bad mood. He came down to breakfast in a bad mood.

- Richie, is something wrong? - Gerald asked anxiously.

A heavy groan escaped from the boy's chest.

- It was not appropriate to talk about such things at the table.

- Sex, money, politics?!

- Two out of three, Dad... - catching his father's amazed look, Richard added: - And sex has nothing to do with it!

- All right, we'll talk after the meal.

After breakfast, father and son traditionally gathered in the living room near the fireplace. They sat in armchairs. Gerald asked:

- So what's the problem, son?

- The stock market has gone crazy! All stocks are plummeting. Gold, platinum and silver are getting cheaper. Oil is going up, but oil company stocks are going down. They go up a few points, then they go down. In this situation, I don't even know where to invest. It will probably be a very difficult year from the financial point of view. It looks like a crisis, but I don't remember.....

The paraplegic almost got himself killed. He didn't remember from the history of finance that there was a crisis in the ninetieth year of the twentieth century. He remembered the dates of the nearest crises: the ninety-eighth, two thousand eighth and two thousand twenty-first, caused by the market war between the United States and China and Europe.

- It's a shaky political climate in the world right now, Richie. The military conflict between Iran and Iraq is making the fuel market feverish. There's a highly unstable political situation in the USSR. Our intelligence analysts are predicting a revolution in the USSR, which will inevitably affect the world market. Many investors are urgently selling securities and hoarding cash in anticipation of falling stock prices to buy up at the bottom of the market. Many fear leaving money in bank accounts and invest in precious metals. But huge stocks of precious metals are smuggled from the USSR to Europe. Because of this, instead of growth, the prices of gold, platinum and silver are falling.

- I understand all this perfectly well, but it is not clear what to invest in now? Whichever stock you buy, you're at serious risk of losing a lot of money.

- Richie, I could suggest you invest in the Grosvenor Group.

- No! Property's falling in value at the moment, too.

- Well, let's think about it. If property's falling in value, it's only logical to invest in it now. Buy up cheap land and old houses to demolish and build modern buildings.

- This is logical from the point of view of a large corporation that can afford long-term investments for large sums. I'm only operating on a hundred million dollars.

Gerald wrinkled his nose.

- Richie, you're counting in Yankee currency again! What's wrong with pounds?

- At least the fact that they're getting cheaper. Actually, Dad, you've given me a good idea. It's the perfect time to buy some cheap shares in some corporations.

Richard levitated the radiotelephone to himself.

- Richie, what did I tell you about magic in the house?! - Gerald asked in a disgruntled, threatening tone.

- No one saw it anyway," he said, pulling a small notebook out of his jacket pocket and flipping through it. - Aha! Here they are!

- What is it?

Gerald rose from his chair, stretched his neck and peered curiously into the little notebook. It was all scribbled in squiggly text: mini financial summaries and company names.

Richard dialled a phone number and said:

- Dan, call the broker. Have him monitor the following companies: Intel, Microsoft, Advance Micro Devices, Micron Technology.

- Sir, what do you need? Buy stock in these companies?

- The usual, Mr Silver. Catch the lowest price and buy as much stock as you can. August to the end of September. The price tag is $100 million. Basically, my company's entire account is at your disposal.

- Understood, sir. Intel, AMD, Micron and Microsoft. Anything else?

- There's no money for anything else, so that's enough.

After Richard had finished on the phone, Gerald asked:

- Richie, why these particular companies? There are other promising firms in the I.T. industry. Apple, for example.- Apple is going to suck... ahem... This firm will lose out in competition with Microsoft until the 2000s. It won't be until the beginning of the next century that you can invest in it, if it stays afloat.

- Ritchie! - Father's stern look didn't promise anything good. - How long since you've had a belt? What kind of plebeian, vulgar language do you use?

- I'm sorry, Father, but it's true. Microsoft are about to launch a graphical operating system. Sure, it'll be terrible, like almost any raw product, but already it'll drive up their stock price. Whatever operating system comes out, the company's programmers will gain experience. They will release the next product with better quality, which will lead to an explosive rise in the company's securities. By the way, what's the word on graphene research?

- That incident at the university, Richie, made quite a stir. You and the discovery of a new substance were all over the world's media. Now there's a lot of money being spent on graphene research by governments and some companies. Scientists are predicting a great future for this substance.

- Yeah, I see. There is no sense to invest money in graphene in the nearest ten years, unless scientists miraculously create industrial laser installation for streaming creation of graphene wafers. Hmmm... What if...?

- What?

- Oh, just an idea. I won't share it yet, so as not to spook my luck.