Chapter 4

Arriving at King's Cross, I used the public fireplace and moved into Diagon Alley. I went to the apothecaries and ingredient stores, sold what I had grown, found a junk dealer and haggled with him for every item. Then I went to another, haggled again, and quietly sold the remainder to the third, who offered a fair price. A little less than two hundred gallions, not bad, not bad for a freshman... .... I thought, until I tried to find a room and board. Ha-ha, three times, only the famous bar " The Leaky Cauldron ", which served as one of the links between the Muggle and wizarding worlds, was happy to take a sketchy kid for a stay. They charged me one hundred and eighty gold pieces for a summer with food and a modest room. And a dozen more to buy a new wand.

What was I to do? I looked for a job. I found it, in a bookstore, sweeping dust from the folios, not all of it can be removed with magic, so I used my hands, boy, to display new books, to clean old ones, to send parcels by owl mail. The pay is one galleon per day. I'd kill myself with a broom. But the owner even allowed me to take home books from the sale, on the condition, of course, that if you spoil them, you pay for them. That's why I agreed to become a house-elf.

Is it possible to do a lot in three incomplete months? Very incompletely, I must say. A hell of a lot more! At first, I was lucky, and a kind tailor uncle sold me a piece of dragon skin. An apprentice had cut the pattern crooked, and the result was a meter-long, almost inch-wide ribbon that was scrapped. They wouldn't have thrown it away, even in this form it was worth money, but the man shouted loudly and cursed the crooked apprentice. Don't think the English are bad at swearing. A seafaring nation cannot be without curses. In general, I persuaded him to sell me the substandard, the last money I gave him. But it was worth it! The memory artifact turned out beautifully.

I drew the runes with a bloody quill that Tom the bartender lent me. It was used by those who wanted a drink but couldn't afford it to write him a receipt. Second, I read two dozen textbooks from the fifties. Five volumes on arithmetic, from the third to the seventh year inclusive, the same number on runes. I paid attention to herbology, having read six books since the second year. I didn't forget Charms, even though I only had time to study four textbooks. I read everything under an artifact, spending three or four days per book, but I remembered what I read verbatim. Third, I had saved seventy galleons for school. And fourth, I practiced my spells well. So I had a very productive summer.

A huge bonus was my increased knowledge of life in the wizarding world in general and the realities of Diagon Alley commerce in particular. So when the owl brought a letter from school and a thin coin purse, I didn't rush out and buy everything at once. I bought only textbooks, not new, but in very, very good condition. After procrastinating until the last days of August, I went to the stores and bought a lot of things at a nice discount. A decent stock of clothes, not limited to the school minimum, and new and with protective embroidery.

Of course, neither under the ornament, nor under other decorations they were not stylized, only threads in the tone of the fabric were applied, but it did not affect the performance. So all sorts of evil eye and curses, unconsciously often sent to each other magicians, I am not threatened. Also, I do a minimum of purification rituals every day. It only takes a quarter of an hour, a simple figure with a simple necklace of runes and a minimal offering. You want to drop blood, you want to give a little magic, almost anything you can use, down to your own saliva, hair and fingernails.

I was given a shiny new potion cauldron with a set of enchanted vials. Quite a useful addition, by the way. Only a portion of the potion is submitted for testing, leaving the rest for the student, many of whom simply pour it out. Now I can save the results of my work. After all, the second course is already not a joke, nonsense does not brew. Let not complex, but in fact very much in demand in everyday life compositions, such as pepper from colds, strengthening, tonic and the like.

At last I had my own telescope, because early astronomy was a torture. Not only did I have to go to the tower at night, open to all those damn Scottish winds, but I had to wait for my friend to finish his calculations and let my poor friend use this wonderful device. But our teacher was very understanding. In general, I bought a lot of necessary and useful things for school, including a set of quick-writing pens and simple, even primitive, but quite working amulets. In short, I was reclassified from a tidy but poor as a church mouse Muggle-born unlearned student to an average pureblood student from a poor young wizarding family who honored and knew the laws of magic and the traditions of the wizarding world. At least, that is the first impression my current image evokes.