Normal Life

Chapter: 39

Normal Life

A year went by in a flash. A few things happened this year.

Kyle did not need much time to get used to his new life and was becoming part of Richard and Sniffy's family in no time.

The daily routine was back in a jiffy and all of them worked on different aspects.

All of them were getting up early and headed to the forest to run an hour straight. They all needed to stay fit, therefore the running in the morning.

After that, Sniffy split up from them and went to a nice place under a tree to figure out more about her magic and connection to nature. Richard and Kyle wore their training gear, Richard all the time and Kyle only for the training time. With the added weight to their bodies, they went on to work out together for about an hour and then did some sparring matches.

With the gear straining all of their muscles, both of them had not much of an advantage against each other and won about 50-50 of them. In the beginning, Richard was able to win more but after Kyle got used to his fighting style, they were about even.

Done with that, the trio went back into the house and started to prepare breakfast together. Breakfast was the one meal of the day that was made together and all of the other meals of the day were prepared individually. The kitchen was only so big and they soon found out that they would be in the way of each other most of the time.

The solution was, that they changed who was making what meal. Kyle needed much help in the beginning, but he was now able to make his favorites without any trouble.

After breakfast began the study session.

It was split into two parts. In the first half, they would practice spells with each other. Kyle found out that he was able to feel somewhat differently in the first week when they got back, and after some experimenting, they found out that he was able to do magic.

All of that was a shock to them because it was simply unheard of that a vampire was able to use magic. The only exception was wizards that got turned into vampires, but Kyle's situation was different and something like this had never happened before. At least they never heard of something like this.

After some trying, he found his magic, and after he explained what he felt. They felt that it was strange. His blood-red vampire core was in his heart and it was encased into a new strange kind of energy. This new type of energy was magic. It formed no core like it did in Richards or Sniffys case and was just there. Flying around in his heart like a fog-like substance.

Kyle only found out about this because he felt different after he outpowered himself completely with physical training and blacked out. He woke up but found himself next to his blood-red core and saw this new energy around it for the first time.

Nobody had any explanation for such an occurrence. Maybe, it might have something to do with the plant he had consumed to cure his illness/curse, but no one was sure of it.

All three of them were thrilled after a perplexed moment and since then, they studied magic in the morning. Kyle was a complete newcomer to this new feeling and needed some time to actually do magic.

Sniffy had the same troubles but in another way. She used her magic much more instinctive and had a hard time learning something she didn´t already know. Spells like household charms were cast by her without thinking even Richard needed a long time to cast them only half as good as she could.

But with spells like the jelly-leg curse, she needed much longer than even Kyle. One of the things that changed after her transformation was her affinity to nature and earth in general and she found a new hobby in the arts of herbology.

Every plant that she bought and planted in the garden was growing at an astonishing rate.

Anyway, the other half of the morning was spent in a more meditational state. All of them were focusing on learning Occlumency to their best ability.

Richard had quite the head start and was much further along than the other two, who just started learning it. At first, they were not that interested in it but after he told them that mind-reading was a thing, they sat down and tried much harder.

One of the better incentives was also that they would be strengthening their brain and think much faster and recall memories a lot easier.

Sirius was stunned when he came home and saw that they now had two new faces living there, but after telling him what they had been through. He was more than happy to welcome Kyle into the house.

Sniffys new appearance was completely throwing him off and he just stood there and stared at her, after he asked who she might be. Something like this he did not, in any kind of way, anticipate.

It took her some time to explain what had happened to her before he was able to believe them. In the beginning, he thought that they wanted to prank him.

It was a bit strange to explain what had happened, as they were not able to mention the Everlasting city to him at all. Sirius looked at them with a surprised look as they wanted to tell him something in midst of their story but couldn't get the words out.

After telling him that they wouldn´t be able to tell him of "The City" because of some spell, he got only more intrigued by it.

Having now 2 more students under his wing, he taught them two to three times a week in the arts of occlumency. The rest of it was self-study.

Anyway, after their study lesson came lunch and after that, it was time for doing what you want time. Sniffy was tending her new garden or sowing new clothes together.

Kyle was training alongside Richard in the forest. Both of them wanted to get stronger, after what had happened with Kyle's dad and they just felt tiny in the face of the being that they saw. They were now much more focused on that than ever before.

This training went on from physical training to magical training to sparring with each other by only using spells, and then to using both spells and their bodies.

Their routine continued and after they had had dinner, Richard went on to read some new books that he had purchased and Kyle was searching for some clues of vampire wizards and how to utilize his newfound powers in the best possible way. He also read some books to understand the magical world better.

That would go on for about two hours and after that was leisure time, they would then take some time off and see a movie or go out into the muggle world to play something.

The year went by quickly and they had improved a lot.

Sirius was now more at his girlfriend's place than home and came only over to eat something, delicious food would never get old, or show up to their study sessions.

They asked him a lot about his mysterious girlfriend, but Sirius was adamant about not telling them anything about her.

The trio also visited the Dursleys a few times during the year and they played with the kids. Harry was now getting 8 years old and Richard and Co were getting him some basic magic books to start his journey in the magical world.

However, he was only allowed to practice magic when Sirius came over to teach him. Magic was quite unruly at this age and he needed supervision to learn it. After explaining the possible outcomes of magic going wrong, like exploding things or setting things aflame, he understood the trouble and behaved. Both of them were thrilled at learning the theory of magic, only Dudley was downcast that he was not able to actually do magic.

Sadly, Dudley was not able to do any magic till now, but maybe it will show itself at a later date, like Neville's.

Another thing they found out about Kyle was that he was able to somehow control his physical age. He explained that he was able to do that since forever. Apparently, it was a trait of all noble vampires.

Sniffy and Richard found out about that when they asked him if he wanted to come to Hogwarts with them. Richard told him about his worries that he looked so much older than the rest of his peers and if he had a way to change that.

Both of them were stumped at the next second when he was shrinking himself, he de-aged a couple of years and looked now as old as Sniffy and Richard. Their age was about the same, the only difference was that vampires grew up much faster than other beings and Kyle looked like a 16-year-old earlier.

With that concern off the table, all three of them focused on the biggest problem. Would Sniffy and Kyle be able to get into Hogwarts?

Richard had never thought of that issue before. Sniffy was a house-elf and he would have surely gotten her into Hogwarts to work there if she wanted to accompany him, but now everything was quite different.

A new, or an old species and a vampire. Were they able to enroll in the school automatically or needed they to do something about it? Richard remembered that an artifact in the school wrote the acceptance letters with magic, but he was unsure if his friends would be enrolled into the school by default or not.

Another problem was that they were not exactly a magical family, at least not in the eyes of the ministry. Therefore, a professor would definitely show up on their doorsteps and explain to them everything about the magical world. Something like that couldn´t happen as they had no parent or guardian per se.

They discussed this and concluded that it would not be wise to be a "muggle" family. Going to an orphanage was also out of the question as it would only bring more problems out in the open. The answer they came to was the goblins.

All three of them went into Diagon-alley and got directly into Gringotts. It was not too strange for 9–11-year-olds to go around unsupervised. They had also shaped their clothes into everyday cloaks to not get some unwanted attention.

Kyle had been more than a few times inside Diagon alley and was now used to all that was going on inside it.

Standing in front of a teller, Richard waited till he looked down on them and spoke.

"Greetings mister, we do have an appointment with mister Knaburg. Can you please inform him of our arrival?"

The goblin looked at them in contempt at first but after hearing Richard speak in a polite tone, he felt much better.

"Hello there younglings, I will inform sir Knaburg in a second, if you would please follow me into the waiting room."

He answered and went down from the podium and showed them the way inside. After walking through a few doors, they stopped in a room with chairs and couches all over the place. It was deserted and it didn´t look like many people frequented this room.

"Have a seat, I will now inform sir Knaburg and he will be with you shortly. No wandering around, it would do you all now good."

Said the goblin while he went on and got out of the room.

"Peculiar these beings. It is my first-time seeing goblins. They look as greedy as both of you told me." Kyle spoke with them while they were sitting down on one of the more comfortable-looking sitting places.

"Never underestimate these beings, the fact that they regulate all of the wizarding world's money says much about their strength."

Richard told his two friends. It was the first time all three of them were here together. It was mostly Sniffy who frequented here before, and Richard was only coming over one time to try out the cart ride to the dungeons. He was not disappointed by it.

When they looked around, the door was opening and a goblin was coming in alongside a floating platter full of refreshments.

"Sir Knaburg will be with you shortly. In the meantime, here are some refreshments for you, you can use them however you like." The refreshments placed themselves in front of them and they got themselves some tea and pastries while the goblin excused himself.

"I do hope he can do anything about our situation." Said Sniffy while being visibly nervous. Richard wanted to assure her but at the same moment, he opened his mouth, the door to the right was opening.

Out of it came their goblin handler Knaburg.

"Greetings sirs, I do hope that I did not let you all wait too long. How can I be of service?"

He asked in a polite tone and looked curiously at the trio. It was his first time seeing such a combination. A wizard, a vampire, and something else. He could not quite place her. Knaburg got quite intrigued about his guests when he heard who had come from his colleague. He had gotten a letter earlier from Richard but didn´t expect this.

"A wonderful day to you too, we do have a bit of a delicate matter to discuss with you, and we do hope that this will not get out. This also does need a little bit of more privacy."

Richard said in a serious tone.

"If it is that important then we should surely change places, follow me." Knaburg thought not much about this request and led them to his office. However, he didn´t go to his desk but went to the two couches facing each other with a table between them.

Pointing to the couch on the left he said. "Please have a seat and all we discuss here will stay in this building. Feel free to talk without any concerns."

Sitting down on the couch, Richard then waited for Knaburg to seat himself and started talking.

"We need some legal paperwork that will be acknowledged by the ministry of magic. It seems that we have somewhere misplaced our magical IDs and are not able to find them anymore. We do need some "replacements". Money should be not too much trouble in this endeavor, I hope that you can help us out with this."

Knaburg was hearing this and knew exactly what they wanted and answered with a glint of greed in his eyes when he heard his last words.

"This should not be too hard. I would just need the details from you three and it will take about a week to go through all the important distances. After that, your magical IDs will get to you through an owl."

After saying this, they talked about the details and in only about 30 minutes they were done discussing everything.

Richard and Sniffy (Sophia) were now named Snow, like on their muggle IDs, and were now brother and sister officially. They came to London about a year ago to stay with their "Uncle", because they lost their parents in America.

Kyle's name was also his old one, Kyle Night and he lived alongside his "Uncle" in London. This uncle was reclusive but of magical heritage, therefore, it would be easily explained where they came from.

This would let them get free of a teacher explaining to them about the magical world and they should only get an owl with the admission letter.

Next came the hard part.

"Thank you, sir Knaburg, this helps us a lot, but we also have another question to ask."

Knaburg was quite happy with the deal that he had made just now and was happy about the money he earned. Deals like this were not unheard of but were somewhat tricky to deal with.

But Knaburg had the right connections and with a push here and there, this would be done without any trouble.

"Ask away sir Snow, I am doing my best to help you with your request."

"As you can see, we are not your normal troupe of people. By having a vampire and Sniffy in the mix. I wanted to know if you know anything about the artifact inside Hogwarts, which writes down the names of people who can get enrolled into the school and can tell us something about it."

Richard asked the goblin handler with a concerned tone in his voice.

The goblin handler heard this and connected the dots immediately. Knowing that Richard was not stingy with his money, he sat back and thought for a bit, before answering.

"Ah, you mean the magical quill. It truly is special. Finest craftsmanship of goblins I dare to say. Everything I know is, it writes down all the names of children who are getting 11 years old and can are in the possession of magic."

The trio heard this and got elated at this information. That would mean that all of them could get to Hogwarts together. Richard calmed down in a second and asked something different, just to be sure.

"Is there another method to get into Hogwarts if you do not get a letter?"

Knaburg heard this and was amusingly looking at the three of them and spoke.

"Surely there is, just write a letter to the headmaster and ask to get in. It shouldn´t be that hard."

Richard almost facepalmed when he heard this for forgetting something so simple. Their worries were now gone and they chatted for a bit. Richard also ordered a signet for their family name. He forever wanted to have something like this and after discussing the design, Knaburg was happy to sell it to him.

The signet to seal letters looked like a wolf howling at the moon. It was a majestic sight and he fell in love with it immediately.

After paying Knaburg a whopping 500 galleons per ID, 12 for the signet, and another 200 for his discretion, they said goodbye and got back into the alley. With that, they were 1712 galleons poorer.

For now, they had enough money left to get through Hogwarts without any trouble. Finishing their trip with nice ice cream at Florean Fortescue's, they window-shopped for a few more hours and then got back home.

Now the only thing left for Hogwarts was the birthdays of Sniffy and Kyle and their acceptance letters.