Apprenticeship
A typical day in Esmeralda's shop...
Apprentices who sleep in the attic wake up at 6:45 am to wash their faces, get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast.
'Good morning students,' their teacher greeted, 'Today's your first day and we'll start with Letters and Spelling. It'll be your morning class, while after lunch, it's numbers next.' said Mistress Esmeralda.
Five days of study, and in his case, two days of learning how to cook!
'Ehhh?! Just me?!' Sirius squawked. 'What about the girls?'
'We're learning how to cook from our moms, silly!' said Sophie with a giggle. 'We have that to fall back on before we took our apprenticeships, so it's a free weekend for us!'
'Awww!'
'It's a necessity, especially for you, young man, as you're an orphan.' said Esmeralda, playfully flicking a finger on his forehead. 'Because in your next which is also final apprenticeship, you are expected to provide for yourself. Cooking your own food, doing your own laundry, mending your own clothes and doing chores for your Master. Final Apprenticeships are like that! And we'll start with how to bake! Come on, boy!' and they went to the kitchens.
"I never thought I'd learn how to cook," Sirius thought.
Food was always made and provided by the House Elves as Masters purchase ingredients for their use.
Now, he's the one gonna cook! Ye gads!
'Let's start with what we always eat for breakfast, pancakes. Typical breakfast bread.' said Esmeralda, getting ingredients out. 'It's ingredients are 4 cups of sifted flour, four tablespoons of baking powder, a bowl of fresh milk, three egg yolks, and 3/4 of a block of melted butter. But adjust accordingly the more mouths you'll feed. In this case, there's five of us here, sooo what will you do?' she questioned.
'Uhm based on the recipe, that's enough for all of us, right?' Sirius questioned back. 'That means in a family of let's say ten, we have to double what we have now.'
'Correct, if for a wholewheat flour recipe but for refined flour, a little less liquid. Wholewheat uses up a lot of liquids, but a lot healthier for us commoners.' Esmeralda explained. 'The wealthy can have their refined flour, refined sugar and well-milled rice for all we care, it's not healthy they go fat, too, so we poor folk are winners even if wholewheat is a little heavy to eat.' Esmeralda grinned in her explanation.
'Mix the flour and baking powder in one bowl, mix evenly using a whisk,' she said, giving a whisk to Sirius who took it and the bowl to begin mixing. 'You can tell you've mixed it well if you see the wholegrain flour mixing well with baking powder. It's a little hard if you have refined flour in your bowl you'll be relying on instinct with that...so as a precaution, we overmix to compensate.'
'Ohhh...'
After he mixed up the first bowl to approval levels, his second instruction came next.
'Next is mix the milk, eggs and butter in another bowl with another whisk. Mix evenly until it's entirely a nice yellow in color, and after that, wash the whisksand set asid the bowls!' he did just that. 'Then beat the egg whites into a meringue but I'll do it for now and you watch, so next time, you can do it by yourself.' Esmeralda beat the egg whites into stiff peaks. And Sirius learned how to do it. 'Then pour our first mixture into the flour, and mix well with a whisk until it's nicely-smooth.'
Sirius felt his arms will DIE...bread-making is a lotta arm work!
'Then with a wooden spatula, fold our egg white in...like this, until evenly mixed. Shown that when mixture is whiter than it should.' after demonstrating for Sirius, now he does it.
'Lastly, we heat up the ceramic pan we have here to high heat and after waiting a minute to let it heat enough, lower the fire, and then scoop up about one cup of the mixture into the pan, and shake up the pan a bit, so it covers the bottom nicely even, and then cover with a lid for at least, three minutes...and it's done. Repeat until all our batter is gone.'
Sirius now has five pancakes.
'Right, we've got our meal bread for the day, your next task is to beef up, so to speak young man.'
He got subjected to a workout.
All men in all walks of life, are expected to be beefy and hearty. No man can be skinny unless he's a mage! So by dinnertime, he was dead-pooped and his muscles and joints are SORE.
This went on for the rest of his apprenticeship, so to speak.
In the meantime, literacy and mathematics lasted 8 months, before the real deal began.
Knowing all 31 herbs, and mastering all various combinations and their magical properties for use in Alchemy. Be it medical, poison, or cosmetic. That's something they'll learn in their final year. But Magical Potions will be tackled in Alchemy Lessons.
...Hogwarts Potions never gave him such headaches.
His first apprenticeship was a load of work because he's a boy, that he hasn't had much time to socialize with the girls, however nice they were, and blossomed into teenage beauties due to access to herbal potions. He hasn't much attachment to the girls who became close friends he hoped he'll have a better social life here. But...can he bring himself to fall in love with girls who are at least, 33 years younger than him? His body may be young, but he's old enough to be their father!
"Being 14 again sure is weird." Sirius thought as he graduated, diploma in his travel backpack, heading for Dalaran for his next apprenticeship while equipped with many items money can buy. He never had a muscular body before either nor was he this tall at 14. Dressed in a white shirt, a waistcoat, breeches and travel boots with his long hair tied into a low ponytail, he set off for his journey for Dalaran to become an Enchanter.
That way he won't have wand problems incase his current one broke.
Why bother with magic school, when he has his Hogwarts Education?
His last step, was putting on his travel cloak to protect himself from too much sunlight at peak times of the day, and a hat.
"Hopefully I'll have it better in Dalaran..."
However, all Masters and Grandmasters are already spoken for by nobility, that commoners are forced to wait years till they're done, much to Sirius' chagrin.
"Self-Study is always an option!" he thought with a huff, as he settled down in Ledgerdemain Lounge, an inn/tavern located in the northern quarter of Runeweaver Square in Dalaran, with entrances facing both the Magus Commerce Exchange and Sunreaver's Sanctuary. Normally one can only stay a week in there, but he bribed the innkeeper with 1 silver for his private room.
He also went to sneak around, that he obtained a book for Wandcrafting, and arcane magic which was taught here. It was too easy, these people are so careless!
By reading the books, he now knows what to do.
He worried for his wand first and foremost and how to create some incase his broke.
He also stole some books about arcane magic and...
...what the hell people?
Hogwarts and the imagination of muggles was way ahead of them. The only thing they never had, was Elemental, Necromancy and other really freaky stuff that requires you got no moral compass to speak of to do it. But he was fascinated with Druidism and Shamanism, but only information of it, not HOW to do it as those stuff are exclusive to other tribes, so forget it. Alchemy here is a joke. Shouldn't they call it Potions Class instead? They even made Transmutation a sub-class of Alchemy when in fact it's TRUE ALCHEMY everyone in Earth knows!
At least it's something he can use for sale as a livelihood...magic stuff here costs in gold coins. He'll be rich! But he made sure some stuff are affordable for commoners too.
But he learned this world's protective and healing magics as a precaution. Enchanting? Fascinating! It's a lot more open-minded than Hogwarts in that regard...
Apprenticeship, what apprenticeship?
No need.
If you want something, be smart about it to get what you want!
He was really glad Harry gave him a lot of material to work with to help him and himself with boredom in his days in Grimmauld Place.
Granted, he wasn't interested in books, but reading was all he could do to pass the dreary days in Grimmauld Place. How people made stuff by hand, what muggles think of magic, sweet merlin, dare he say it, how inspiring! It enabled him to tinker with everything, and break all rules he's known and learned to create new stuff within moral boundaries.
He thanked all deities he knew, that Wizards are born with incredible memory. Harry just snarked snidely what he honestly thinks about their kind when it's just two of them.
It was just too bad he forgot to use the new stuff he learned...and he ended up here.
'Well, who knows what happened to Harry and Moony now...so I'll live a life happy enough for all three of us.'
That was his decision as he trained hard in Dalaran. But he can never be beyond an herbalist in regards to licenses, so as an 18 years old man, he was able to catch a drunk master unawares on the way home. He was enable to Imperius the man into forging him a Diploma and License for Enchanting, and put that on official and civil records in Dalaran, and made the drunk master remember false memories. This enables him to operate legally and open his own shop.
With two licenses, he can freely operate as he wants.
He looked at building blueprints, decided what he likes best, and built himself a nice home in Hearthglen.
He took up being a shopkeeper.
A boring job but hey, he was the one who wanted stability in his life.
xxx
A man called Sirius Blackrover came to Hearthglen one day, and moved in.
He was a mage who built his home by himself. A home out of clay, wood and straw with thatched roofing for great insulation. He made his home fireproof and magically sturdy despite how it looks. The inside can make walt disney proud!
'Welcome to The Marauder's!' Sirius greeted as the townsfolk came in out of curiosity.
His shelves are very categorized. Even priced with pictures of a coin and number. There's Elixirs, Potions, Oils and Flasks for every effects. There's even cosmetics, and a jewel display case, displaying rings, necklaces, bracelets, circlets and earrings. But jewelry is understandably expensive, priced in irons but expensive still.
'Ohhh! Some of them are priced in copper and irons?!' the townsfolk are very pleased to see the prices.
'Stuff easy to get should be cheap and stuff tough to get should be expensive.' Sirius shrugged. 'Not all magical items should be priced in gold. That's ridiculous and severely restricts who can have them.' he explained. 'Buuut if noble folk and other magic folk come by...they turn into gold priced, of course.' he grinned roguishly, snapping his fingers as the price labels turned into heinous prices before reverting back. 'Fair is fair.'
This got the townsfolk in glee.
They wanted magical items to make life easier but alas! It's beyond them!
Sirius thus had a great livelihood in Hearthglen, and they all operated in secret. It was a huge conspiracy the local military and landlord was none the wiser.
But it was big news that he was exiled for helping an Orc. The military that passed by in the incident purchased some of his stuff as well.
'...what's an Orc?' he blinked. Well, none of his business. He's a shopkeeper as far as he's concerned! And his social life improved too. He was popular for being a commoner-friendly mage, and many ladies trying to get his attention.
But he's not stupid.
He's rich and handsome, naturally ladies would want to marry up, not down. Hell, he didn't even build a mansion for himself however swimming in gold he was, that the only expensive things he owned, were clothes, tools and furniture! He even got great in cooking. Perfect Bachelor.
Legilimency showed him many types of minds, he politely turns them down while he hangs out with friends.
'Hey Sirius! So many women trying to catch your eye but you're not dating anybody!' Jerry said while they hung out at the bar. 'You can marry young unlike us.'
'Yeah, well...I have standards, man.' said Sirius. 'I started a poor orphan. Hard work got me to where I am now. The mere idea that women throwing themselves at me to have it super-easy they're so easy to read.' he snorted, before drinking gulpfuls of ale. 'It's OK to work for what you want in life, but there's no such thing as shortcuts by marrying rich, y'know. You'll forget your roots and forget the good you used to be if you're blinded by shiny gold.' he said. 'Money corrupts absolutely, not just power. If I meet a girl who wants me as a man not because I can buy her what she wants and have servants at her beck and call, I'd propose on the spot.' he snorted. 'Do you see me have a single servant in my house?'
'That's deep!' another friend, Marcus exclaimed. 'But get married soon before it's our time! If you're hitched, those girls will give up and pick us.'
He remained single, until one day, at age 23...
His troubles began in his nice bachelor life.
'...what the hell is this?' caravans from Andorrhal arrived. Sirius who lived outside detected something wrong going on. His wards sounded an alarm in his shop!
He has particular alarms for everything.
Suspicious goods. This one has a rather ominous sound.
Bandits. This one sounds like a blaring trumpet.
Monsters. This one sounds like an ambulance.
Gold-Carrying Customers. This one's alarm sounds like tinkling bells.
'H-hey, what's that?'
'Sirius what's going on?'
'Someone with suspicious magical stuff is coming near the town made of illegal magic. Alert the authorities! I'll stall them myself until they get here!' Sirius cried, brandishing out his wand as he ran out of the shop. His customers ran out too, some customers wanting to see what's going on and some people ran to report.
It was caravans from Andorhal, their bi-annual shipment of grain.
But if Sirius' alarms sounded, were these guys smuggling illegal goods among the grain?
This was big news!