The day after Diagon Alley, Mat did his usual business in the morning and started early studying his few books that he bought from Flourish and Blotts. On the train back from London he had read A History of Magic, Hogwarts: A History and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He discovered while reading that they appeared to be large books, but the writing was large and so what would be a 200-page book in the muggle world, was a 400-page one in the Wizarding World. For some reason, that annoyed Mat. The information within them was rather interesting and he processed it all before he went to bed. As Mat started on the rest of the compulsory books, he realised one thing, they were all old books. Rarely anything new. They were not teaching the children anything new, just repeated techniques. Adding to the political and general look of the Wizarding World, did they ever create anything new? Was there no innovation? Mat decided to make sure to not follow down this path and resolutely promised himself to push the boundaries.
He read them all in 3 hours. He memorized the spells from the Standard Book of Spells, which was written in 1937. Magical Theory, written in 1969. A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, written in 1972. None of them were written after the war with Voldemort. He did read The Victory of the Boy-Who-Lived, this was the newest of the books he read. It summed up what he was thinking about the Harry Potter universe. Turns out, the events of Harry Potter hadn't happened yet. The Meeting with Cho Chang in Madame Malkin's cemented this. So now what? What could he do to plan for the future? After reading The Victory of the Boy-Who-Lived he decided to go into the garden and meditate on this.
Mat got comfortable and entered into his Mind Palace. He immediately went straight to The University to the Harry Potter room and started to plan. Firstly, he created a timeline of events he was sure was going to happen. Secondly; create a plan for the future and thirdly; execute the plan.
He knew from experience that plans rarely go to plan and so he needed people that are adaptable in any situation for when the plan does go wrong. He needed trustworthy and dependable allies to delegate tasks, one person could not command an army and win, no matter how small the war was. Information did win wars though, and this is what Mat had in spades. He had to be sneaky about it though, and not give away that he knew the outcome or that he could influence events. Voldemort was a nutter, but he had enough charisma, power and intelligence to nearly win the last time and it was his misfortune when attacking Harry that was his downfall.
The Victory of the Boy-Who-Lived provided little information and most of it was pure conjecture and he knew most of the facts from the movies and books. Therefore, he could plan accordingly and strategize to achieve a less bloody outcome. He created a list of the biggest events to occur and they all have Harry in the middle. The Chamber of Secrets; Goblet of Fire; the Wizarding War; Dumbledore's Army all have Harry as a central character and he barely survives. Mat felt he needed to help him.
He had a few options on how to do this. The main two that come to mind were to stay out of the events to come and work from the shadows or directly influence events. With working from the shadows, he could create influence in both the Wizarding World and muggle world and make it appear that there was a third faction with a mysterious and enigmatic leader. Or, he could help Harry become a better wizard and fight the war himself. A third option popped into Mat's head then. Why not combine the two? He had the resources. Lawson Enterprises would be a billion pond company soon. And that number would only increase. He knew that the Muggle world was way wealthier compared to the Wizards, and companies like Google would earn more GDP than entire countries.
Mat felt a bit depressed as realisation hit him with the short amount of time he had to execute his plans. Voldemort will be reincarnated fully during the Goblet of Fire. That's five years away. Would that be enough time to build an army powerful enough to wage a war? It had to be. He felt he had to tell his parents about the events to come and get them on board. They were the ones in control of the finances. Could the goblins help in some way? Not directly of course, but enough to get them into contact with freelancers and businesses in the Wizarding World? In comparison, getting military equipment and manpower from the Muggle world was easy. Especially with his dad, Mick, having a mate in the forces, serving in the RAF. They would need time though. He decided he would delegate that aspect to his parents and provide assistance when needed. Also, when he knew some spells, enough combat spells that is, he could help train the people his parents would hire. He needed them to be loyal though, so he would demand a screening process to filter the untrustworthy from the trustworthy.
Mat would be starting at Hogwarts in about 8 months. He needed to be prepared. With that in mind, once all the books were delivered, he would devour the information inside them and practice attempting to cast them wandlessly. Starting with the simple school spells and working his way up. He also had to master occlumency, runes and arithmancy. He had a lot to do. He grinned at the challenge ahead. And pulled himself out of his Mind Palace.
Walking into the house and shrugging the small number of snowflakes off his coat, he went in search of his parents. He found them watching TV in the living room. He stood in front of them both, he was a bit worried, knowing that their good times were not going to last as long as he hoped. They immediately sensed that something was wrong, turned the TV off and looked at him.
"Mum, Dad, I have something I need to tell you" Mat looked at them both in the eyes, his hands were shaking a little bit. He took a deep breath and steeled himself.
"Sure hun, what's wrong?" Mat's mum said, leaning forward on the settee. She placed the cup of tea on a coaster on the floor. And that's when Mat spilt the beans. He told them of his past life, of when he was transported back in time, how he knew everything he did. The colour had gone from their faces and they were staring at him. "Is this some sort of joke? You told us that you knew all that you did because you had visions, now you tell me you're form the future?" Her voice started to rise toward the end. Mat nodded.
"I know, I'm sorry mum, it's just… its only recently that I found out about magic, I thought I could help you with money so you could have comfortable lives. I thought that if you lived in ignorance you would be happy and have no worries. I didn't want this. I had 2 kids, a wife, my own company and now I'm here, having to start all over again, with something that I don't really understand." He started shaking and getting angry, so he paced in front of them, after years of not telling anyone, he finally opened up and couldn't stop himself. "You don't know what's to come with the financial crash in a few years. Its going to be horrible and going to hit the whole family hard. I can't be friends with my old friends anymore because they are younger than me by like 30 years! How am I supposed to deal with that? By reading and doing sports it mollifies me and I thought I had everything under control. But with going to Diagon Alley yesterday and realising some things, we are going to be in the middle of a massive war!" He looked at them both of their faces went white and they looked extremely worried now. He dad was clenching his fist as he was known to do when anxious and his mum was twiddling her fingers.
It took a few seconds for the next person to speak. Mat was trying to calm himself down, he hasn't gone on a tangent like that in years. He thought he had it under control. Turns out he was wrong. He needed a confidante, a friend. This could never happen again.
It was his dad that spoke first, in a quiet voice he said, "what war?"
And so Mat told them of what he knew of Harry Potter and the Wizarding World. Of how where he came from it was a fictional book, but now it's real. Everything made sense and so he knew that Voldemort would come back and kick everything off. After the explanation he told them, his expression brooking no argument, "and I am going to fight."
His dad had two emotions on his face, but no doubt was feeling a whole plethora of them. He was a mixture of worry and pride. His mum was different, she was looking at him in pity. He hated that. His dad stood up and walked to him, placed his hand on Mat's shoulder and looked into his eye "I'm here for you son, whatever you need, we're here for you. Aren't we Sandra?"
At the mention of her name she looked at her husband. Then appeared to snap back from wherever she had gone "oh Oh! Yes, we are, sorry" she wiped a tear from her eye and came to Mat, pulling him into a hug. It was a loving, bone crushing hug and he hugged her back. His dad joined in. After about 20 seconds of this. He pulled off and looked up at them both.
"So… What now?" His dad asked. So, Mat told them his plans for the future, and what he decided he needed to do. They stayed up into the early morning planning everything they could think of. Turns out, his uncle had a mate in the Navy as a marine. And his uncle from his mums' side had served in the army. His dad decided to expand the business on the building side and use it as a recruiting tool for people to join them in their own private military. Some warehouses and other large properties could be refurbished for training and so this was decided that that was Mikes job.
They decided that Sandra would be more aggressive on the financial front to fund these endeavours. She was going to invest more in the companies that Mat had told them and was looking out for others on a list he made for the future. They also decided that they would try and work closely with the goblins and attempt a financial war in the Wizarding world against known Death Eaters, such as Lucius Malfoy. They would invest in muggle owned businesses as well to try and get a foothold there. They would also scout potential wizards from Hogwarts and other foreign institutions who are struggling for work. Mat knew that the purebloods were a very bias social class in that backwards place, so they endeavoured to help as many of the muggleborn and halfbloods as possible.
Mat's role was to study and gain as much power as possible. His parents could see that he was up for this fight and so they all decided that he would befriend Harry and train him as much as he could. Preparing him for the future. The only problem they found was the prophesy. But with prophesies, the interpretation was usually flawed. They could deal with that when the time came. Before Mat was to go to Hogwarts, he would study as much as possible, train and prepare for the future. Hopefully they would get in contact with someone who was in need of work to come to them and work for the family as soon as possible. That was sure to expedite Mat's advancement.
Plans were in place and they all agreed to what they needed to do, and three very tired individuals went to bed.
VVVVV
Two days after they had come up with their plans, the delivery of books from Flourish and Blotts arrived. Overall, there were 5623 books delivered. The owner of the store, a Mr Blotts, was immediately brought to the library. Mr Blotts appeared to be a middle-aged man and wore a dark green pointy hat and dark green robes, was clean shaven, wore some half-moon glasses, had rosy cheeks and looked altogether unremarkable. All three of the family was there when he pulled out his wand and plonked a trunk which looked much like Mat's basilisk one, but a faded red colour. He enlarged it and opened the trunk up and asked where they would like them placing. Mat pointed to an empty area, which was about 1/3 of the room. Mr Blotts just nodded and went to work. The books flew out of the trunk, one after the other and arranged themselves on the shelves. Luckily, he had sorted them into categories from encyclopaedias of magical creatures to arithmancy theory and they arranged themselves in order. It took him about 10 minutes to finish, and afterwards he was sweating and breathing heavily. Sandra gave him a Gringotts note and told him to take it to the bank where he could receive his payment in full. She explained that they didn't keep 42,000 gold coins in the house. He nodded in understanding and left. He didn't say much at all. They preferred that.
Afterwards, Sandra got in contact with the Gringotts for someone to enchant their house to place protection wards around the house, now they had an abundance of magical objects there. They made sure to stay on the right side of the law. She also requested their accounts manager to come to enquire about some further business proposals that were in line with the plan. She immediately started buying more shares and the relative passiveness of the company changed overnight.
The goblins noticed the change immediately. The Lawsons made the decision to be upfront about their aspirations when Roglud came with his assistant Urgott, and they found it acceptable. They took note of their surroundings and sat down with the family to discuss further arrangements. The Lawsons and goblins were seated in the living room, the only room that was large enough for five people to sit comfortably. The protection wards were handled first. They got wards that were in the mid-range, no point in making the wizards think they were hiding something, after all, why would a muggle house need top of the line wards? Afterwards they got into the nitty gritty of expansion.
They laid out their plans on what they wanted to do in the Wizarding World. They said that the muggle side of the company was not their business, unless Roglud had invested in it. The goblin agreed, he was still cautious however. "Why do you want to help muggleborns? You have only had access to the Wizarding World for about 2 weeks and are already making aggressive plans to influence it and helping the unfortunate. This is highly irregular," he grinned "not that I don't think it's a good idea to teach those stuck up purebloods a lesson." His grin widened into a feral one.
Mat answered "I have been into Diagon Alley twice" he lied "the second time I had met with a muggleborn in a café who was complaining about being fired from her job so a pureblood could have it. She had worked there for five years. I asked her about her situation, she wasn't being shy about it and was upset. I discovered some things about that world which upset me. We have the money, and now we want the power to help people like me to integrate into the Wizarding World. I don't like discrimination. I told mum and dad about it and we agreed to expand, get more money and influence so we can do philanthropic work, starting in Britain, then expand as much as possible. The Wizarding World is backwards compared to our society so that place needs direct intervention at first. We are wanting to help other people that are affected by bigotry, classism and racism." Mat paused "I also heard about… Him." He gave the goblin a serious look when he said that and Roglud flinched.
Nodding, Roglud said "very admirable, I agree with the state of the world I live in. It will be a tough fight, but I would be a poor goblin if I backed away from such a battle. What would you have me do? You can't have the goblin nation as an ally. That wouldn't go down very well with the wizards."
Sandra spoke next "I propose a mutual sharing of information and an introduction to some contacts in the Wizarding World. I would need to know the laws of the land and how it all works, so I would preferably need to hire a wizard lawyer who knows how to work the system. We are willing to pay a fee for the initial contacts and any future contacts we feel are needed. For the fee of information, we could do, at first, pay each other depending on the severity and importance of the information, after that, once trust is earned, we drop that and have a Lawson/goblin division working together for our aligned goals."
Roglud grinned and nodded at that "that sounds reasonable, I will have the information you require sent as soon as possible, it will take no more than 2 days. Now, lets get to the specifics." Roglud's eyes shined when he was bartering with Sandra. Mat and his dad left the room 5 minutes into the conversation completely unnoticed. 2 hours later they had agreed terms and conditions and the goblin left happy.
Things were rolling into place quite nicely. Mat's mum did as she said she would. She went on a more aggressive spending spree buying in investments and made plans for four new branches of the company which dealt in technology, telecommunications, media and the scientific fields. She got in contact with some of the most prestigious universities in Britain such as Oxford and Durham, St Andrews and Kings College. She invested into research and created a new financial division of the company, attempting to get some of the freshest minds from all over the country straight out of university to work for them. In about four months, she had spent nearly half a billion on expanding the Lawson Enterprises and it had grown exponentially.
Mike expanded the building side as well. He hired over 40 more staff and started investing in multiple properties at the same time, having teams of lads going out and renovating old builds to sell on for profit. He also had hired out of the construction industry to create new builds. This started off small because he had to make a name for himself before he could land large contracts. In the meantime, he placed the three people the family had spoken about during the planning stage. Mat's uncle Bob, and Mikes mate Steve were hired together to screen the right people. They were unsure about this at first, but with a high wage and promises that they would get told the whole story once they had sorted out a team.
Overall these expansions cost the company over £650 million. That was a lot of money. Mat chose to trust his parents to know what they were doing, so he studied in the meantime. It took about 2 months to complete the collection of the books. It doesn't sound long but considering the length of the books and the size of the writing, it wasn't as daunting as he first thought. It took him about a week of meditation to fully organise his thoughts and the sheer amount of information in his brain.
When he had finished organising his mind. He started going over the practical aspect of ancient runes. He discovered that they were indeed Norse runes from archaeology, so that was good. He also found out that the hieroglyphics used in ancient runes were cursive hieroglyphics, the same kind that was used in the Book of the Dead. He found out that runes used in the Wizarding World was a hieroglyph surrounded by Norse runes, and that the hieroglyph was the initial spell while the Norse strengthened and activated the rune cluster. They were relatively simple to understand for Mat. Luckily the 400 books that he had read on the topic of runes gave him a good understanding of cursive text, so he didn't really need to invest in muggle archaeological papers and books. He wanted too anyway though.
So, with a basic understanding of runes out of the way, he focussed on occlumency. He had devoured the contents of the 200 or so books on the subject. He made himself comfortable in the garden area and settled down for the long process of fortifying his mind. Firstly, he created an access point for everyone who entered this place, including himself. It was just outside the village area, looking directly at the castle. Secondly, he created layers and layers of protection in his mind and added more creatures into it for defence. These creatures were passive if the intruder had no hostile intentions, but if they tried to go into a restricted area, they would swarm and attack them. He added myrddraal from the Wheel of Time series and orcs from Lord of the Rings here. They were the guards of The Village, Temple and University. The swarms of other creatures were in the forests surrounding the place. Ready to pounce if needed. You can see them lumbering in the distance, huge titanic creatures, their heads poking out from the forest. Thirdly he made the castle into a labyrinthine fortress and made sure to only place knowledge that he knew from this world and nothing to do with his knowledge from his old life. All that was hidden in an unassuming mine in the forest. Lastly were the added defences in the mine. He created it into a horrorscape. If anyone made their way in here, they would think it would be where Mat hid all his deepest darkest fantasises and desires. Incorporeal creatures and horrors existed here, body parts and torture chambers were everywhere, he created it from a mix of some things he had seen in the Diablo games and the Druchii from Warhammer. At the end of this place was a pure white room, with a TV in the middle where he could access his old memories. This was linked to other parts of the Mind Palace such as the University where he had the information of the Wizarding World.
He found it easier to access information and the structures within his Mind Palace became more solid. The buildings appeared to be lived in and yet there was no one there. There were small things like food half eaten and washing on the washing lines. It was eerie to Mat. It felt that everyone had just got up and left. He was taking a stroll around the castle when he noticed that the tower now had a door on it. It was unimpressive, just a wooden door. Mat smiled and entered. It was a complete library of all the books he had read from Flourish and Blotts. There were rooms which had specialities, like transfiguration and potions coming from a central node. In this place there was a cosy fireplace and a red seat with a coffee table next to it. Mat explored for a while and sat down in the chair in comfort. He wand appeared next to him on his lap as he did.
After researching and going over the knowledge he acquired about arithmancy, it turned out that it was advanced mathematics, but used to make spells. He couldn't apply it to anything yet because he was still comprehending the theory behind magic. Yes, he could read up on the subject, but he couldn't feel what it was, he couldn't see the effects. He studied it regardless though. He noticed while reading up on the subject however that he could apply the subject to runes to either enhance their performance or tear the runes down.
Mat always had his wand on him. It was like it was a part of him now. He knew he couldn't use it to cast spells until Hogwarts. But he always had it with him when he did. He had a wand holster and the wood was always next to his skin. When Mat cast his shield or flashbangs the wood appeared to sing. Like it approved that Mat was using his magic.
The rest of the summer went by rather uneventfully and they decided to take the mercenary operation quite slowly and focus on making the business an empire. If they were found out too early, it could be disastrous. Uncle Bob and Steve were informed on a very loose basis what they were preparing for and agree to take it slow in what they were doing. They go into the military underworld and start to get information about weapons and technology. They hire a small team of people they can trust and travel the world making contacts. Mat's Uncles mate, Gary, was still in the marines and was not available to join them. Unfortunately for them, at the beginning of August, Mi6 were tipped off that they are enquiring about military grade weapons and technology. They choose to nothing for now but keep tabs on them just in case they make a move.
Toward the end of August, Mat was looked forward to starting his official training at Hogwarts. He made sure that he had all the information and the small number of spells he could perform wandlessly were available at all times. He decided until he got to Hogwarts to fully attempt new wandless magic due to not knowing the feeling behind each cast. He also had to visually see the spells coming out of a wand with the Sine Sight. He went to sleep eager for the 1st September.
VVVVVV
Sorry about the late post, things have been pretty mad here. Comments and stuff are appreciated, feel free to inbox me.
Also, the chapters will be coming randomly and in bursts. I have a really hectic schedule and can only do this when I have a full day free, which has been basically non-existent recently. Peace!
