Clothes

Clothes

Chapter: 4

Richard was standing in the kitchen, thinking about what he could do now. 'I need to try if I can do some magic, to move a little scrap of paper or something like a baby Lumos to light only a fraction of what the spell is supposed to do. Also, I need some money. I cannot do with no as everything needs money to be bought and I don´t want to live like in my last life.

That was just going from day today. I never had enough money to do something spontaneous like having a vacation in another country having no trouble spending the money.

Not that I had had no money, no, I could live with no problems. But I needed forever to get some money together and I never could bring myself to do some lavish spending as I had seen other people do all the time.

Who can save money for 2 years just to spend it all on one vacation that lasted for 1 to 2 weeks? I could never understand such people. This hard-earned money is way more worth than just to be spent in one or two weeks. You could just use a fraction of this money and drive somewhere in your car and be there in a cheap apartment for 2-3 weeks and even like that, you can eat out every day without thinking of spending so much.

But if I have enough money, I could be a bit more leisure with it.

Hm, to think about it. I have future knowledge and can invest in some businesses that will skyrocket in the next 10-15 years. Therefore, it's better to just invest the money, but for that, I would need some money and a bank account. Without ID, it will not be easy, though.

Maybe the goblins will invest if I ask them. I hope they will let me create a bank account with a letter, money and as my proxy, I will send Sniffy there. I just have to see if that works. Money grabbers like they should be able to do anything by bribing them a little. Greedy little Goblins.'

Richard was lost in his thoughts and something else was going on in the next library.

Merl was just having another boring day in the local library and sat at her desk reading some old book, like she did all day, every day.

She certainly liked her job. It was her most favorite thing to do. She loved reading books she had not read for 10 or more years. She loved the feeling of reading something new or old.

Dompf….

From the bookshelf that stood in front of her sounded some dull sound, like a book had fallen, but Merl was pretty sure that she was the only person in the library at this moment. School had ended already, and the day was gradually ending.

Thus, curious about who could have made such a sound, she was putting her book aside after putting in a bookmark to not forget where she was and then walked towards the back of the library where the sound came from.

After a few meters, she fell down with a face full of disbelief. Her mouth was gaping open so far that some little birds could get into it with little trouble.

There she sat on the floor and saw at least 50 books flying around the shelves. Merl just looked on in whole and utter disbelief and could not think if she was dreaming or not. This whole thing lasted about 10 seconds and all books were back where they belonged.

"This looks much better, and I have found the book master wanted me to read." Was heard in the library's silence and then there was a little puff of sound and silence reigned again.

Merl just sat there and rubbed her eyes. She got her left hand up and pinched her cheek.

"owwwww…."

"It was not a dream, I guess. Could it be that I am this sleepy? Did I drink or eat something wrong? I have slept for 10 hours this night so I should be ok or am I getting ill? To just hallucinate in the bright daylight. I must get old."

Was heard from Merl when she put her hand on top of her head and felt as if she had a higher temperature, but no problem there. She stood up and mumbled some words and was walking back to her desk.

This day was soon to be forgotten, as Merl could not believe something like this had happened at all. Such things as magic or abnormal things did not exist at all. She never had the chance to live a life where abnormal things were commonplace.

Letting Merl have her boring life again, Richard was now sitting at the table and was trying to figure out some magic.

The little boy was attentively staring at a paper in front of him. It was from the daily prophet newspaper, which he had ripped apart and torn into little pieces. On it could be seen some pictures where owls were flying around.

He was wholeheartedly focused on it and tried to move it. He knew from some novels in his last life that this should work if he could force out some magic from himself.

Richard was sitting there for half an hour and then let out a sigh and looked away from the paper clip.

'How to get my magic to do something if I cannot even feel it?

I read in some novels that this should be some of the easiest ways to learn how to control magic. My body will surely not have enough magic to perform more complex spells.

But I cannot even feel my magic, so even after I switched from trying to cast a Lumos spell to this paper exercise, there is no difference at all.'

A while ago tried Richard to cast Lumos with his fingers but he could not bring out any results in half an hour, therefore he switched to this. Although it was also not helping much.

Richard was feeling down as he slumped back onto the chair and looked on the floor, but that only lasted for a few moments and then there was a change in attitude on his face and with a determined look he laughed and said:

" Hahaha, what did I think was going to happen, that this is some kind of light novel and I am the main character here and learn every spell in record time and become overpowered in just a few months? Nope, I have to let go to think like this. This is now my new reality and I cannot compare it with fiction. Magic is something completely new and I have not even come into even feeling it inside my body and I only think that I felt it outside my body when I meditated earlier.

Magic should be much more complex, or why would many wizards not even know how to cast the protego spell, or the only known help against dementors, the Patronus charm.

Wizards live in this world for much longer than I do. If it was that easy, then everyone should be on the level of Dumbledore. It cannot be that all wizards are completely dumb. Maybe they do have not much common sense but to assume things like that are just dumb.

Yes, there will also be a few dumb people in this world but magic is known here for centuries and even if some knowledge was lost in the rivers of time, I don´t believe that magic is as simple as it was described in the novels that I read in my last life.

Hell, Rowling had not even described how magic works in her books. Maybe not even she could fathom it.

Therefore, I need to focus on trying to do it again and again. If there is no result today, then there should be the day after or the day after that. I just need to avoid getting lazy and bring in some routine. I surely will figure this out, given some time.

I can even ask Sniffy what magic is for her or what she feels when she is using it. Even if she does not know and does all that completely instinctively when I ask her, she should be able to describe something to me."

After he said this all to himself to regain his bearings, he looked down and saw himself proudly standing on the chair and there was a cute little blush on his face because he's got himself so worked up that he had not even realized that he stood up and proudly shouted his words out louder than he wanted them to be.

Getting himself back together, he tried again without end, first on the paper after an hour and then on Lumos again to not become too bored on the same thing.

Time was flowing by and the sun was setting right now. It was getting late, and the room was not lit by anything, so semi-darkness set in.

Suddenly there was some noise in the kitchen and the sounds of little feet running toward the dining room, which startled the concentrated Richard out of his training.

Sniffy just came through the door with a face that switched expressions. At one time she was smiling and at the next moment, she had a frown on her face.

Snipping with her fingers, a fire roared into life in the fireplace and a few new candles burned inside the room to light it up. The candles just floated up in the air.

"Sorry master, I was just so enraptured by the book you told me to read, to completely forget time." Sniffy was excited because of the book. She learned so much new stuff when she read through it, but was also mad at herself to forget the time.

Richard could not do any magic and was almost sitting in a completely dark room.

Looking at Sniffy and seeing her in new clothes which were styled in a maid outfit but more fitted towards her body. The color scheme was white with red stripes. She had on a nice white blouse with a red apron over it and a frilly black skirt. But no shoes which were worth a question.

"No troubles here, Sniffy. Even I was completely immersed inside my little world, I did not even notice that the light was getting worse. By the way, I like the new clothes they fit you, but why you are not wearing any shoes?"

Sniffy let out a sigh of relief that her master was not faulting her for being late and answered: "Thank you, master, these new clothes look so much better than the old ones and Sniffy loves them. Also, Sniffy does not enjoy having her feet enclosed into something. Sniffy likes the freedom of feeling everything with my feet."

"Ahhhhh" a little startled at remembering something Sniffy let out a nice muffled sound before saying:" Sorry again master, here are your clothes that you wanted to have. Sniffy hopes that they are to your liking."

Sniffy said in an apologetic voice as she snipped her fingers and a bundle of freshly washed clothes and shoes for all occasions appeared in front of Richard onto the table.

"Sniffy, you should also not feel the need to say sorry for every little thing. That makes the meaning of the word a little obsolete when you are saying it almost every time." Commented Richard as he was swiftly looking through the pile of clothes in his size.

'Sniffy did a good job. Here I have underwear, shorts, pants, socks, shirts, pullovers, and even jackets. Everything is in my favorite colors as they are all completely colorful with yellow, pink, green, white, and black. Yeah, that's me, I love it wearing colorful clothes all year round.

I understand why most people wear white or black, but wearing more colorful clothes makes me so much happier and stands out much more. I will never be one with only one color on my clothes.' Thought Richard as he was getting ready to go upstairs for a bath.

"Sniffy, can you get the bathtub ready for me? I want to relax inside it and let the weariness of the last day wash away. Can you also put the other clothes in my wardrobe and the shoes in the cupboard by the front door, thanks?"

Said Richard as he picked up the blue pajama with white stripes on it.

"Yes, Master right away" was all Richard could hear and after a snip of fingers and all on the table disappeared alongside Sniffy.

Richard just had to shake his head a few times at the convenience of magic and how much easier everything was when he heard Sniffy´s shout from upstairs.

"Master, your bath is ready."

'What? It took her just 3-5 seconds, and the bath is already ready? I guess I will need to get accustomed to this soon.' Thought Richard while he made his way upstairs to the bathroom, and he took one step at a time because he was too short to get up there faster. He loved to take 2 stairs at once in his last life, but he needed to grow up before he could do something like this again.

'It will also take some time to get accustomed to this body. My balance is way out of my norm, but significantly better than to getting reincarnated inside a little boy than a body that was freshly born.' The thought of not being able to do anything made him shudder. He hated not being able to do things himself, and soiling himself was not the best thing in the world. He thanked the being in the void for it.

Getting up and into the bathroom, he was seeing the bathtub full of heated water. The water vapor smelled like roses and some other flowers, which he could not discern. Little flowers could be seen floating around inside the water. Sniffy was standing on the side of the bathtub with a towel in hand and ready to serve her master.

Seeing Richard coming into the bath, she put the towel down and walked towards Richard to help him free himself of his stitched clothes. Richard saw Sniffy getting ready to help him, but was not finding that to his liking, he could just say in a flustered tone: "Stop, stop, stop, what are you doing Sniffy."

Sniffy, not knowing what she could have done wrong, answered:" Sniffy, just helping master get rid of his clothes so he can get into the bathtub."

Richard was now sweating a little at the thought of a servant to help him get into his clothes or to help him get naked. He just was not comfortable with it. The times were long since over where people had maids that helped them with everything. At least it was in his old life.

'It may be weird to Sniffy and I get the purebloods of this world would have maids or something like them to help them at every step, but that is not for me.'

But the thought of Dobby helping Malfoy get ready for the day and putting clothes on him made Richard smile. That would mean that a creature that is looked down on by them is helping them get ready every day.

"Hahahaha, dumb purebloods, no common sense at all."

Just the pure imagination of it made Richard almost laugh out loud.

Sniffy just stood there, completely not understanding what was going on. At first, Richard stopped her, helping him to get ready for the bath, and then after a few seconds, he laughed hard and curse the purebloods.

But that lasted only a few seconds and Richard got himself under control and said:" Sniffy don´t get that wrong but I don´t like it and can get myself dressed or undressed. These are things I want to do alone."

'Or at least for the time being, if I have some nice-looking girlfriend that wants to help me get naked, I will not complain at all. But that is at least 12 to 14 years away'.

Thinking about nicer things, Richard got naked himself and put one foot, then the other one, into the bathtub, and stood there for a second, feeling content with the nice hot water. The water had the perfect temperature that it should have, not too hot and not too cold. Perfect.

After he got acclimated to the temperature, he let himself slide down and was now lying comfortably inside the water.

Sniffy looked at her master getting comfortable and conjured a brush and some soap out of nowhere and got in front of the bathtub to help her master get clean.

Richard not having any issue with that let Sniffy help him get clean. Other than in his private areas that he was adamant about cleaning himself. After washing his hair, he then laid down and just relaxed.

Sniffy had nothing better to do, therefore she magicked a chair on which she then sat on and started reading her today gotten book. She waited for her Master to finish his bath.

Richard was there for a long time. His skin was all full of water crinkles and the water was already getting cold. Therefore, he got out of the bath but needed the help of Sniffy because he was too short to get out of there himself.

Sniffy helped him get dry with the towel, after which Richard thought:' Ahmm… getting dry. I had thought it would be done with magic, but now I know thy Sniffy handed me the towel. Magic would be so much easier, but the towels feel fluffy. It's easy to see why she gave me the towel. It's just way too comfy.

Being content after having a good bath, Richard got into his pajama and walked with Sniffy in tow towards his bedroom. When he stepped inside, he then looked back at Sniffy and thought of something:

'Where does Sniffy sleep?' Frowning at this thought, he did not want her to sleep, not in a bed, and said to Sniffy while looking at her.

"Sniffy, where do you sleep in this house? Just use the Guestroom here or the one downstairs for yourself. And no, I don´t want to hear that you are not good enough for that. If I say so, then I say so. You need to have your room and we have enough free space, therefore, it is no trouble at all. Just claim one of them as your room." Said Richard in a stern voice to Sniffy, which was again shocked at the trust and benevolence of her master.

"Then Sniffy will do as Master said and use the room downstairs for herself. Thank you for that." Said Sniffy with a smile on her face which could not be bigger and tears streaming down her face.

"Then let's go to sleep and I wish you a goodnight Sniffy, see you in the morning." Came from Richard as he got inside his bed and was making himself comfortable under the blanket.

"Goodnight master." Said Sniffy as she popped away and the candles went out.