Volume 1

For several days after Halloween, all the conversations, one way or another, boiled down to Mrs. Norris and her tragic fate. Some gloated and openly rejoiced at what had happened, some sincerely worried about the kitty. But one thing was clear to everyone – Flitch finally went crazy, looking for the culprit of what happened. Surprisingly, even in Slytherin, the incident with the cat was discussed quite often and intensively.

Naturally, most snakes didn't care about the cat itself, but the mention of our faculty in that ill-fated inscription on the wall somewhat excited the Slytherins. Fortunately, I myself almost did not figure in this story, which is why I did not attract too much attention to myself. That would not be desirable for me now.

I've had more important things to do. And no, after all, the engagement with Daphne has changed almost nothing for me. My whole company was already ready for such a development. Even Pansy managed to control herself, and I even received dry congratulations from her. Well done girl, she has already shown me some progress in controlling her emotions. And her humility pleases me. I would not like to create tension in the team just because of her alone. Moreover, a very small group gathered around me –the squires, the Greengrass sisters and Pansy herself. I don't let anyone else near me.

In general, yes, such an early engagement, although it turned out to be a surprise for me, but it did not spoil the overall mood. I still continued to do my training and business. Another thing is that the blackening of Potter's reputation has also been added to my affairs. I am becoming too much of a "dark" figure against the background of the struggle with the national hero of magical Britain. Well, as it is, we will find ourselves in almost equal conditions.

Yes, Potter in any case will not be allowed to become an unambiguously negative figure. Someone put too much effort into creating his image for me to ruin the boy's reputation so easily. Another thing is that the students will still have the osadchik. Yes, and I will be perceived by others no longer as the heir of the Malfoys, who brazenly gnobits a national hero, but a simple student who quarreled with another student.

But for this I will have to try a little. Still, one small incident will not be enough for a normal scandal. I'm going to have to make a big deal out of a molehill here. Fortunately, I know how to do it, and Pansy gave me the contacts of the right people who can spread the rumors I need. Actually, it was getting to the right people that I was doing.

And it wasn't a quick thing. Despite everything, I had almost no contact with Ravenclaw. The last Draco wasn't interested in crows, and I wasn't up to it either. The maximum I had enough for was looking after baby Lovegood. And even then, the supervision was rather sluggish and distant. I didn't want to draw too much attention to the girl. She already stood out even among the ravens. But Ravenclaw had the most unusual and strange personalities.

At least I didn't have any problems with money. I could pay for the service more than adequately. Still, the wealth of my family was by no means a fiction, and Lucius demonstrated it with all his might. And I was one of the ways of such demonstration. Still, I was given five times more money than any other pureblood from my faculty. Not that I really needed that much, but sometimes they helped a lot.

Well, like now, for example. I need to order some rumors from the smartest gossips, and their prices bite. And you have to pay a lot for going out to these same gossips, if you think about it that way. I didn't have to worry about it for a long time. Seeing my attention to Pansy, the girl has long been taken under the wing of the older "spies of all Hogwarts". Well, I shamelessly used it.

In general, as I managed to notice over the past months at school, the situation in the hogue of the forties and the current situation were radically different. And it's not even that many of the clans that used to dominate the political and economic arena of the country disappeared during the war with Grindelwald. No, the absence of really strong competitors was indeed one of the distinguishing factors of the new era, but the main difference was still not this.

The people studying at the school themselves have changed. The mentality of English magicians has changed. Where previously it was impossible to get to for any money, now almost every rich son of his parents had access. A lot of unofficial organizations among schoolchildren have disappeared, which previously had real power among schoolchildren, and which only generally recognized leaders of their learning streams could get into.

It's all gone. The vertical of power has become much simpler and more banal. And the power itself has become much less. If earlier deans paid attention to the opinion of the leaders of their faculty, now schoolchildren cannot even influence the choice of elders in any way. I don't even want to mention the fact that a wizard's personal abilities are now evaluated from a much smaller number of sides.

A sad situation, reflecting not only changes in school life, but also changes in the country as a whole. I even wondered how things are now in other countries. Is there a similar degradation of wizards and their culture everywhere? If so, I don't even know what to think. Well, if not… then I should think about continuing my studies somewhere abroad.

I didn't really want to finish my studies after Hogg. It was Tom who had neither money nor acquaintances to enroll in some higher educational institution. There is nothing to say about personal apprenticeship. Here even Horace Slughorn could not help his beloved pupil in any way. Or rather, he could, but it would have cost Tom too much. So expensive that Tom didn't even mention a possible help.

It was much easier for me with this case. My family can at least hire some magic master for me for additional classes next vacation. Another thing is that the father would never agree to something like that. In his opinion, until graduation, all I have to do is to learn how to run a family business, and to sell a face when it is required of me.

My mother would have been happy to hire anyone to teach me. I bet if the gift of a necromancer had awakened in me, she would have found a person from the necromancer lodge for my speedy training. It is with metamorphism that I am so lucky that this direction of magic has been considered completely lost for two hundred years. Now it is almost impossible to find information on this discipline. There is nothing to say about the current masters.

Metamorphism was too difficult to master for it to become a fairly common art. Well, narrow areas of magic have always been at risk. They were too easily forgotten, and knowledge about them was lost.

So yes, it is very problematic to find knowledge on metamorphism now. Excluding the library from the room-if desired, I can think of only one place where I can find the knowledge I need – the Black family library. Nevertheless, my mother's family received its gloomy glory precisely after the destruction and ruin of several DOZEN other rads. It is quite natural that their library should be one of the richest on the islands. And the gift of the metamorph came to me from the Black side.

By the way, I am one of the few contenders for the legacy of this noble family. If Sirius Black, now resting on the bunks of Azkaban, abruptly kicks his hooves, then all the property of this glorious family will pass to me. The closest relative, after all. Although no, I'm lying, not the nearest one.

There is also the mother's older sister and her daughter, who graduated from Hogwarts last year. But only Andromeda Black, and now Tonks, was kicked out of the family quite officially and according to all the rules. They have no inheritance rights. And only Sirius himself can change the situation by making a will…

- It will be necessary to attend to this issue. - I made a note to myself. Still, there is not a zero probability that Narcissa's cousin may do something stupid by bequeathing all his property to some Dombledore. And let such a will cause a lot of questions to the great light, but I can stay out of business…

Hmm, I need to write a letter to a lady. Moreover, it is necessary to write not to the mater, but to the father. Even though I trust my mother, she was once close to Sirius, and may resist my request. But Lucius... oh! This greedy brute will have enough of a timid hint, so that he almost personally rushed towards Azkaban, forcing Sirius to write a will on me.

I doubt, of course, that he will do such a thing… But my father knows how to persuade and bribe. And an Azkaban inmate can lay his soul for a couple of bars of chocolate and a warm bed. What can we say about some kind of inheritance that you yourself will never receive... a good idea, perhaps that's what I'll do.

Nevertheless, caution in this matter will not hurt, and I do not want to lose one of the richest libraries in all of Europe just because of my own stupidity. Yes, and Sirius himself can be used up in a couple of years, so as not to delay much with receiving the inheritance. Anyway, there's nothing in life for Tom anymore, and at least he won't die from a dementor's kiss.

Lately, I've been feeling too greedy... somehow suddenly I didn't have enough of the library from the rescue room and the family library of the Malfoys. But I haven't even studied the library of the rescue room for a quarter. There is nothing to say about the ancestral library… Yeah, I'm really too greedy. But I'm not going to change. Still, it's better to have something, but not use it, than not to have something when you really need it. This is about the logic that guided Tom, and this is the logic that I myself will adhere to.