CHAPTER FOUR

As it turned out, I had to shill out quite a bit more than the 21 Galleons I had expected to pay. Sure, for an eleven-year-old buying the most crucial tool they would ever need in order to start their magical education, the whole thing costs only 7 Galleons. But this price was kept so low (half of what some second-hand cauldrons went for, I belatedly realized) because the Ministry ended up footing about 70% of the bill for every registered witch or wizard enrolled at Hogwarts who went to buy their first wand at Olivander's. The Ministry was less generous with their purse if the fresh Firstie bought from, say, Wands by Gregorovich, which was probably part of what made the foreign branch less successful than their British counterpart.

If, for whatever reason, later in life you bought a second wand (regardless of which branch you shopped at), then the bill was all yours. Which meant that I did end up paying 21 Galleons… a piece.

Well, 21 Galleons, 7 Sickles and 19 Knuts to be precise but for some reason Ollivander ended up giving me a bulk-discount, rounding it down to merely the magical equivalent of roughly 420 pounds sterling. A substantial amount, if still relatively on the cheap side, considering the near-limitless possibilities having such a length of wood gave you.

Ollivander probably kept the prices low intentionally. Phoenixes were extremely rare, so I imagined it was rather difficult to get your hands on their feathers. However, being immortal beings with a rather spectacular shedding habit, you could get quite a few of them out of a single flaming chicken provided you had the connections (which were almost as rare as said flaming chickens). Unicorn hair was gathered up in bulk by Hagrid on his wanderings throughout the Forbidden Forest as the silky manes and tails caught on the underbrush and branches, and the strands themselves were usually rather long, meaning that Ollivander probably could get two to three wands out of a single hair. And dragons are big buggers. Therefore, their hearts (and thus their heartstrings) were plenty big as well. The death of a single dragon in a preserve could mean as many as five new wands on Ollivander's shelves eventually. The different woods were magical, but in the end the stuff literally grew on trees and was fairly low risk and effort to obtain if you knew where to look.

Really, the most intensive part about making a wand wasn't so much about getting your hands on its respective components, but marrying them all together in such a way that they became the focus through which a wizard could bend magic to his will. That probably took a lot of spell and potion work, perhaps even some ancient and powerful rituals, closely guarded by the few families who knew them and passed them down the family tree. It was why people didn't just fashion their own wands, but went to highly prized wandmakers instead.

Ollivander probably lived for that whole part of the profession and might just be comfortable selling his amazing tools (or weapons, depending on the demeanour of the wizard who bought it) at cost, living off the fortune his forefathers had undoubtedly amassed over the centuries.

A wonderful initiative of his of course… though as I stood outside his shop, hearing the old door creak back on its hinges to fall shut behind me, I was rather downtrodden that my latest purchase still had taken nearly all of the money that Gilderoy had been saving up over the past year.

All told, I had less than 10 whole Galleons left, a pitiable amount compared to the truly odd pricing I had spotted through various shop windows as I began to leave Ollivander's behind.

For some reason, wizards seemed to have a certain dislike of whole numbers. It might actually be a good thing they don't have television yet: their habit of not leaving the volume on 0s or 5s would undoubtedly drive me insane in short order.

Mad, the whole lot of them.

My pockets felt decidedly lighter, now that I had been released of so many gold coins, but there was an undeniable weight in them nonetheless. The weight of promise. Of power. Ollivander had argued against it after he had overcome his surprise, but as it wasn't actually illegal to own multiple wands (it was just one of those things you didn't really do, so it was never codified) he couldn't refuse me, though he had shot me a troubled look as he counted out his money upon the counter.

His main complaint had been centred around the fact that he felt I wouldn't be able to truly bond with any one of the wands if I kept using the others intermittently. A wand had a dubious level of sentience, but it undeniably held a connection to the wizard it had picked, changing and growing in tandem with them. If I kept using another wand after each spell, such a connection could never truly develop and grow.

In the end I pushed on though, determined to get my way and I had a decent justification for wanting to do so (other than the fact that I was putting down a hell of a lot of money for them of course). In addition to the safety that owning multiple wands would give me as most other wizards wouldn't bother to check for four of them (after all, most wizards didn't even have two), there was also the fact that each wand had their own personality and specialty and I fully intended to use them as such. It's rather fitting, I suppose: the man with multiple lives in his head ought to work with tools with multiple personalities of their own. Speaking of said head, it was time to begin filling it up with knowledge since I had closed in on my second stop.

My pace was brisk as I made my way over towards Flourish and Blotts, my encounter with Ollivander having taken up much more time than I had originally planned for, and I cast a quick glance above to gauge the position of the midday sun in the sky. For rather obvious reasons, I didn't want to linger around Diagon Alley long enough for nightfall to arrive.

For as many memories now sat in my mind, the first ones of my new life still left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Shaking the dark thoughts from my mind, I stalked past grubby storefronts and enthusiastic shop windows with long, purposeful strides. Sure, F&B weren't the only bookstore in the area, but they were widely considered among the very best, boasting a far larger collection than any other outlet. Which was good news for me, since I was hoping to find rather obscure material in there.

As it was located near the Leaky Cauldron, it only took me a little while to set foot inside the magical bookshop. Gilderoy's memories coupled with the scenes from the movies I could remember allowed me to walk inside without standing around in the entranceway looking like a dumb-struck muggle, but the whole thing impressed me nonetheless.

It wasn't just the dizzying height of the ceiling, disappearing far above me in a mixture of dim lighting and dark wood, it was also the sheer activity that went on inside the shop itself. In most bookstores, it was usually just the people that moved about (and quietly at that), but it seemed the wizarding world had never quite gotten that particular memo.

Books, letters, mailing lists and catalogues flew past overhead and between legs in a mad scramble, turning what should have been an austere bookshop into a madhouse of activity. It created an odd clash with the stately, antique wooden panelling and bronze decorations and that signature smell that all old (and expensive) books carried with them.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed and not wanting to draw any attention to myself, I soldiered on, calling on both Gilderoy's acting skills and the hooligans' bravado in order to overcome that initial moment of shock and thus save myself from looking like an idiot blocking the doorway.

I went up three floors and then (for some weird architectural reason) across to the other side as I made my way further towards the back of the store. It was the first time that I had crossed a proper bridge while inside a bookshop and as I gratefully stepped off of it and onto solid flooring again (the entire thing seemingly had a habit of swaying and creaking in a way specifically designed to make the whole experience as unpleasant as wizardingly possible) I once again shook my head at wizarding customs and architecture.

As I said: mad, the lot of them.

Further removed from the dizzying activity at the front of the store on the lower levels, I took a deep, steadying breath as I glanced around me, trying to get my bearings. It was too much to hope for a clear and sensible catalogue listing or ordering system, but there had to be one nonetheless. For all of their many (many, many) quirks, wizards still prized knowledge and books in particular and even they had to have a way of finding what they were after.

Perusing the shelves, letting the tips of my fingers trail across the grains twisting through the dark wood of the massive cabinets as I went, I kept a close eye on the bound backs of the thousands of books I passed. It seemed that there had been an attempt at grouping the books based on subject matter some time in the past, though judging by some of the titles that were placed next to each other it seemed as if someone else had taken offense to which groups said earlier attempt had created and then passionately and stubbornly introduced their own categories.

It was why the Three-hundred-and-seventy-two-or-so recipes involved haggis that aren't at all that bad had been placed next to the Common utensils of the kitchen suitable to be sharpened into a makeshift stake to poke a pale bugger with as it had been decided they shared that all-important common denominator: the wooden spoon.

As I went past inane title after insane descriptor, it became quickly apparent just why Flourish and Blotts was so impossibly large: evidently, wizards were willing to write anything about everything. It didn't matter to them what someone else had written about the subject, leading to many of them discussing the same thing with barely different views or perspectives, sometimes even intentionally it seemed, as was proven by the Garden Gnome disposal series.

It started with the Disposal of ye olde common Garden Gnome Vol. I. by Mrs. Bolgrub (though that was placed at the very end of the shelf, upside down and back to front for some reason), which was then replied to with An ACTUALLY good book on the Disposal of ye olde common Garden Gnome Vol. I. by Mrs. Galder. This, of course, was then answered with My book on the Disposal of ye olde common Garden Gnome is perfectly fine, you old crone Vol. II. which was responded to in the form of You wouldn't know an olde common Garden Gnome from your husband Vol. II. after which the titles mostly devolved into petty name calling with the odd 'ye olde common Garden Gnome' thrown in in various creative (and physically improbable) ways.

These two alone filled an entire cabinet…

They certainly weren't the only ones that seemed hellbent on getting their own book on their favourite subject out on the shelves, though these two definitely were the most… passionate of the lot. Most of the subject matter here seemed to have been taken from their daily lives, cooking books, tips for the common household tasks, gardening (those at least I gave a passing glance due to the importance of Herbology in potionmaking) though of course there were more than plenty of books about magic itself.

Most of those seemed to be various rehashings of the common subject matter taught at Hogwarts though. Thankfully, there were those few inquiring minds that had taken a subject and further researched it on their own, trying to delve deeper in their chosen field (though sometimes that field was rather narrow and the depth rather cavernous: honestly, who needs a series of thirteen books on the various implementations of the Caterwauling Charm?), but most of the spellbooks here were simply variations on the stuff already known to the common wizard.

No doubt there were actually useful spellbooks detailing arts both hidden and mysterious in existence, quite a few of them at that if the apparent wizarding proclivity for writing is any indication, but those probably wouldn't be found in wizarding Britain's most popular bookshop. For that, you'd have to have access to a private collection, such as families like the Blacks were rumoured to have, or a sufficiently powerful individual, like Dumbledore himself who was suspected of having some of the rarest and most powerful grimoires in all of England currently in his possession (though none of course had actually dared to question the smiling wizard about them).

Of course, books that are part of a collection don't always remain part of said selection. Some are… liberated and offered to the public if the discerning customer knows where said offer is taking place. For wizarding Britain, that was a rather open secret: Knockturn Alley.

The corners of my lips turned downwards as I contemplated trying my luck in that dark street after my previous bad experience there and without a significant powerup under my belt no less. Sure, the criminal knowledge of three low-level thugs had given me a more intimate look into the going-ons of a shady underbelly, but the mean streets of Edinburgh, no matter how dilapidated, were a far cry from Knockturn Alley on its best days.

For all of their hard-earned experiences, none of the three Hibs Boys I had consumed had any clue as to how to defend themselves from a famished vampire or particularly ambitious hag.

As I perused the immense breath of (occasionally useful) knowledge offered in the bookshop, occasionally stopping to leaf through a particularly promising looking title (usually on the theory of spellcraft which seemed to be a hotly contested topic in wizarding intellectual circles) I slowed down to a halt when I came to one particular shelf, further to the front of the store.

I stared for a long minute in utter silence at the title looking back at me with gilded lettering, feeling… odd. In truth, I really wasn't sure what I was supposed to feel as I tentatively took the little booklet from a sagging plank of aged wood, my eyes roaming across the brightly illustrated cover.

The picture wasn't animated, but the paints used had an odd shimmer to them that seemingly had a mind of their own as they swirled within their tightly drawn outlines. It was particularly noticeable on the largest part of the whole thing, blanketing almost three-quarters of the entire cover: a swirling, shapeless mass of pure inky darkness seemingly billowing into the scene, arcing up high to reach the ceiling of a room as it appeared to press against the edges of the book itself.

Deep within the darkest part of the shadow and smoke were two ruby red pinpricks, the splotches of colour standing out all the more in the shifting black surrounding them, making them seem as if they were burning at the viewer.

But in the lower left, in the foreground of the scene, painted in golds and whites bright enough it was somewhat taxing on the eyes, was a source of pure light, like a miniature sun had been placed into the picture. Its strong rays cut into the swirling mist, effortlessly brushing it aside and pushing it back. This supernova of white-golden light burst forth from a crib and held aloft just over the edge was a pudgy little fist grasping a wand that was far too big for it.

In shimmering golden lettering done up in a hauntingly familiar style resembling jagged lightning bolts, the title of the book was boldly proclaimed: Harry Potter and the Vanquishing of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!

McGonnagal's exclamation in the first book/movie suddenly made a lot more sense to me: "He'll be famous, a legend. There will be books written about Harry: every child in our world will know his name!"

A legend indeed. Right now, Harry was a baby still shitting his diapers and without a clue as to what was going on around him (and completely unaware of the hardships that awaited him), yet here, books were already being written about him and a hero cult had begun to form.

But what had really halted me in my steps was the sudden realization that this was his world. His universe. This was the Potter verse. Not the Dumbledore verse, or the Voldemort verse and it sure as hell wasn't the Gilderoy Lockhart verse. It now truly dawned on me that I wasn't merely a fictional character in a fictional universe, a realization which had already required a near-mental breakdown to come to grips with.

But the truth, the real truth, was so much worse than that. I was a side character.

A stepping stone for someone else's journey, nought but a chapter in their tale.

It only reinforced my earlier resolve: I had to become stronger. To become more than Gilderoy had ever even dared dream of. Because if I didn't, the cosmic tides of destiny themselves would sweep me off the board like a tantrum-having toddler angry at losing a chess match.

Carefully, I placed the booklet, that physical reminder of my new place in the current cosmology, back onto its shelf, before stalking away, in search of useful tomes to expand my knowledge. It was now that I was really beginning to feel the hurt of not being able to trust my new brain-eating technique. Discovering and learning new information the old-fashioned way felt agonizingly slow and inefficient compared to simply knowing new things from a lifetime's worth of memories.

Ideally, I'd just grab one of the shop assistants and eat their brains, knowing within ten minutes exactly which books stood where in this monumental mess of paper and knowledge. Grab another person, have them read through a bunch of books while I was off concluding other business and when they'd finished, simply eat their brain as well, gaining the entire contents of all that they had read in just a mere ten minutes.

I needed to perfect my spell, but it was proving near-impossible to track down any relevant information on accessing and altering another's memories beyond books concerning the Obliviate charm and the Obliviator squads (the latter usually were just memoirs of some of their highs and lows as they "combated" Muggle Baiting, though most of the time they just seemed to do things primarily for shits and giggles).

Needless to say, Gilderoy's past life already gave me all the information I required on that front, as I found out after leafing through several books and realizing none of them really dealt with memory and knowledge beyond the level he had already explored in his youth and would master in his early adulthood. Since what I really wanted, no, needed in order to lift my brain-eating spell (itself a highly modified Obliviate) to the next level would be considering Dark Magic and thus unavailable here, I required information on adjacent branches of knowledge that dealt with the mind.

Legilimency and Occlumency, both rather obscure and unknown branches of magic that hadn't officially been taught in wizarding schools and institutions for several centuries now. But obscure didn't mean illegal and information on those mysterious arts should still be commercially available if you knew where to look.

Which, as slowly became apparent, was likely somewhere other than Flourish & Blotts as I discovered to my mounting frustration.

Many of the books in F&B didn't even so much as mention Legilimency or Occlumency beyond some vague indicators of the existence of so-called Mind Arts, and some books even dismissed them as dead magical disciplines ever since the rise of wands (and thus the easy to cast but difficult to refine Obliviate) and the infallible Veritaserum.

I found only a literal handful of books in the entirety of the massive, bigger-on-the-inside shop that actually called the disciplines by name, though two of these that did so were (far, far too detailed and explicit) treaties on the grooming requirements of the Wampus Cat, which are naturally capable of Legillimency. The third one mentioned the disciplines as something usually found in exceptionally powerful wizards, with Dumbledore often speculated as being a skilled Legilimens (even though the aged wizard had never either confirmed or denied possessing such an ability to the public, I of course knew better) and Grindelwald as a known and powerful Occlumens. It firmly established the Mind Arts as practices that were reserved for the truly wise and powerful and that it was virtually impossible to pick up unless you already knew where (or to whom) to look.

As such, none of these were actually useful in figuring out just how the spells were performed.

In the end, it turned out that there was only one object within that entire bookshop that was relevant to my needs and it wasn't even a book. It was a magazine, one I pulled from a whole stack of dusty, yellowed leaflets and papers that had been precariously stacked at the end of one of the twisting corridors on the sixth floor which had resembled a library more so than an actual bookstore.

It seems wizards aren't overly fond of throwing away unsold stock, even after a couple decades.

Published in 1923 (and therefore nearly falling apart in my hands before a quick Reparo somewhat stabilized the brittle pages), the magazine turned out to be a publication of the American Society of Legilimens that detailed their latest conference in New York and it featured short excerpts of some of the speakers that had shown up.

It didn't seem like the Society had been all that big (for all that it was being advertised as one of their grandest gatherings, it had only featured a grand total of four speakers) but it did give me an invaluable list of names. A list of people whose brains I could pick.

Literally.

One name in particular seemed promising: a Fransiscus Fieldwake, an author who had already published a few books on Legilimenses he personally knew such as Protection Charm Your Mind: A Practical Guide to Counter Legilimensy. He personally wasn't capable of mind reading but apparently had diligently trained in Occlumency and had interviewed Legilimenses extensively on how they penetrated and navigated another's mind.

His insights were exactly what I needed in order to fine-tune my spell so that it was more efficient and safer to use on magical beings and the fact that he wasn't a Legilimens himself made things a lot easier for myself. Sure, the fact that he seemed well-versed in Occlumency might pose a problem, but he hadn't exactly been in the springtime of his youth when this magazine had been published well over 60 years ago. It was unlikely his mind was quite as well defended these days as it was back then.

The biggest obstacle now of course was… how the hell do I get myself over to the United States? There were the magical equivalents of customs agencies of course, but given the near-limitless ways a wizard could cross a border (and that's without counting all the various Muggle means as well which they usually didn't even bother to monitor) there hardly was a dedicated border patrol. Though of course, should you be caught without proper documentation, officers of the law likely wouldn't take kindly to your unsolicited presence within their borders.

MACUSA was notoriously… prickly when it came to outsiders.

Hmm… well, I was officially still a (freelance) writer for the Daily Prophet and Gilderoy did always want to climb up the ranks of Britain's premier wizarding newspaper. Being a foreign correspondent certainly seemed like a step-up, didn't it? I should be capable of fudging the work papers that I had well enough to at least cause some doubts with the American Magical Law Enforcement should they get their hands on me for whatever reason.

Which just left the trip across the pond itself to worry about.

I glance at the massive stacks of books surrounding me for several long, wistful moments, before turning on my heel and stalking towards the exit, the few coins still in my possession shifting sadly in my coat pocket. While I would have loved to get my hands on some of the more interesting tomes I had spotted, I required the meagre funds I still had left for the next stage of my plan.

Despite not having bought anything, exiting the shop doesn't give me the common (and needless) anxious feeling of being a crook that usually accompanies such an action thanks to the actual criminals in my head and I'm off towards the area that I had spotted on my way to Ollivander's.

I needed a way to contact Fieldwake before I approached him out of the blue. Given the glaring weakness in my Mind-eating spell, I needed to perform it somewhere private and secure, preferably within his own house where I would be unbothered for at least ten minutes. But just showing up on his doorstep unannounced was unlikely to get me invited inside. No, I needed a cover story, a simple way to earn his trust enough so that he'd bring me into his home of his own volition.

… I really do have more in common with vampires than I thought, huh?

Now, the obvious way of contacting Fieldwake would be to send an owl and then figure out the travel details after, Muggle or Magical. The problem with that was that intercontinental mail was undoubtedly monitored, especially since Lockhart didn't have an owl of his own which meant that I would have to use commercial mail services. Naturally, the less people that could link me to Fieldwake (or even place me in North America to begin with) the better. Therefore, I required a different means of communication and the particular means that I had my eye on would immediately take care of my transportation as well.

Or at least, I hoped so.

Stalking past Eeylops Owl Emporium and the Owl Post Office I instead wandered closer to one of the more important cross streets of Diagon Alley, at the end of which a Victorian wrought iron arcade could be seen. Bright, pastel colours coloured the little shops that lined the sides of the open market surrounding the centrally placed Eternelle's Elixir of Refreshment which had been done up in a Gothic style, giving the whole thing a warm, lively feel.

Walking down Horizont Alley with its tall, crooked buildings leaning high on either side of me brought back some uncomfortable memories of my first day in the Harry Potter-verse to the fore of my mind, which wasn't exactly helped by the knowledge that at the other end of this street laid the waiting maw of Knockturn Alley. Thankfully, between the sun, the shops and the crowds (not to mention the blissful absence of a horrible stench) I wasn't affected too badly and I pushed on, emerging onto Carkitt Market with a small sigh of relief.

Carkitt Market was noticeably different from Diagon Alley, simultaneously appearing both grander and more run down than the main street of London's Magical shopping district. Unlike Diagon Alley, with its ancient, low-slung and Magically enlarged and expanded buildings situated alongside well-worn cobblestones, Carkitt Market definitely showcased a more modern architecture and planning.

Well, modern by Magical standards at least. A Muggle wandering into this part of town would probably wonder why the Great Exposition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851 was still going strong.

A closer look at the shops that lined Carkitt Market showcased a different story however. The brightly coloured storefronts couldn't quite conceal that many of the buildings here had begun to look somewhat rundown. There were no great glass storefronts like those that lined Diagon Alley and those few that did have a selection displayed showcased items that were rather obviously from a somewhat lesser make than the premiere products displayed on the main street.

All in all, Carkitt Market had the appearance of faded glory. A locale that had soared to great heights upon its opening only to find that, once at the top, there was only a steady decline left from that point onwards. For all of their impressive showing of initiative and modern sensibilities, it appeared that the founders of Carkitt Market and the local shop owners simply hadn't been able to compete against the money-making machine that was Diagon Alley.

A sad tale… and ultimately, not my concern as I stalked slowly across the well-lit and relatively crowded Market.

'Cogg and Bell Clockmakers… The Hopping Pot… Museum of Muggle Curiosities… interesting, but something for later. Perhaps if I need funds in a pinch, I can pawn off some of the stuff I… liberated from those Hibs Boys. Jellied Eel Shop… Sugarplum's Sweet Shop… no, no, no! Where is it! I know it's here, it should be here-! Aha!'

A grin formed on my face as I closed in on a small, somewhat rundown looking building that had the appearance of being tucked away despite being of equal size to the buildings on either side of it. The entire thing was tilted ever so slightly forwards and a bit to the left, as if not just the architect and the builders, but the structure itself as well had all been completely drunk off their asses when it had been first made. The façade, of which only the main floor had been plastered leaving bare (if painted) brickwork above, had a worn and unassuming look to it, so much so in fact that I noticed many wizards and witches walking past it without sparing the little building so much as a passing glance.

Placing a hand upon the door handle, I briefly look up at the faded lettering on the thick façade proclaiming this to be the House-Elf Placement Agency: Domestic Help. Looking towards the somewhat grimed up windows sat in worn wooden frames, I glance in amusement at the lettering on either side of it: Steadfast Staff! Endorsed Elves!

With a twist of the handle, I step inside the dimly lit shop, which appears to be one of the first Magical buildings I've entered that hasn't been enlarged on the inside. Immediately to my left is a waiting area, sporting several couches and large armchairs surrounding a heavy, low-slung table, all of them clearly aged but very well-maintained. The floor is likewise made of planks that have certainly seen better days, yet there isn't so much as a speck of dust in the entire thing.

'Ollivander, take some notes man. I get it adds to the atmosphere, but one good sneeze and your entire stock comes tumbling down in a cloud of dust and cobwebs.'

At the end of the narrow entranceway is a booth blocking the way towards a series of rooms leading further near the back of the building. Behind the counter sits a supremely bored-looking youth, barely into his twenties (which… means that he's actually a bit older than me now, I belatedly realize) who hasn't even looked up at my approach, instead leaning on his elbows upon the faded wood while slowly leafing through what I notice upon moving closer is another Harry Potter fictionalization.

"It's still the same answer as yesterday Mrs. Soots: no more than one Elf per household, for no more than a half-week at a time. You can't take our entire stock to "mow the entirety of the Hebrides into proper flatland". It's in our statutes, you see. Word for word even." The bored youth says in a near-perfect monotone, only pausing on occasion to leisurely lick the pad of his finger before slowly turning another page of his trashy novel, having never so much as looked up since my entrance.

In his defence, by Gilderoy Lockhart's standards it had certainly been one of the tamer ones.

"That's quite alright. I only need the one after all." I respond with a sly smile, which widens into a somewhat vindictive grin when the kid lets out a scream in a high enough pitch Banshees would probably be taking avid notes, while the booklet he had been leafing through gets thrown down the corridor like a frisbee as he nearly jumps against the ceiling.

"Merlin's sagging ballsack man! Don't sneak up on me like that!" the boy pants, desperately and dramatically clutching at his chest as he picks up his chair from the floor.

As he reinstalls himself behind the counter, he's grumbling underneath his breath (something about people being 'too Merlin-damned quiet for their own good, what kind of kick do they get out of scaring the living daylights outta honest hard-working folk anyways') but I'm hardly paying attention, instead looking past the youth to the corridor behind him.

Several of the doors leading to adjacent rooms have opened a crack and out of several of them (sometimes even stacked above each other Scooby-Doo style) bulbous eyes stare curiously towards all the commotion from underneath flappy ears and wide foreheads.

One of them, barely visible beyond a carrot-like nose sticking low to the ground, extends a spindly arm and snaps its fingers producing an odd, somewhat dull tone. My eyebrows draw down into a frown as I try to figure out what the House-Elf just did before I notice that the youth has gone back to leafing through his booklet again, it having appeared right on the countertop without any sign of movement or displacement.

Even the pages have all been returned to a pristine condition, better even than before the youth sent them sailing down the hallway on an impromptu airborne voyage.

Huh.

Handy.

The youth (one M.B. Murklebough if his little name card was to be believed, which, this being the Wizarding World, wasn't necessarily always the case) glanced up from underneath his eyebrows, clearly no longer paying attention to his "literature". He briefly squinted at me, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he searched my face, before his brows shot up as recognition filled his expression.

"Hang on! Don't I know you?"

I merely raised an inquisitive eyebrow, searching Gilderoy's memories but coming up blank. The youth on the other hand certainly was having better luck, even standing up from his chair as he let a fist fall into his open palm in victory.

"Yeah! Now I remember! You're that LockeHeart guy, right!" he exclaimed before his expression immediately soured.

You know, considering that Gilderoy had literally burnt his name in the Quidditch pitch in letters ten meters tall during his fourth year, it was surprisingly irksome that this moron managed to mispronounce my name. Actually, him suddenly remembering me ruining the Quidditch pitch might be why he now looked as if a lemon had skydived down his throat without a parachute or flying carpet, but honestly, who the hell cared? The dumb sport was played in the air anyways.

"That Valentine's Day was one of the most horrible things I've ever experienced. Eight hundred letters… The Elves couldn't get the stains and smells of owl shit out of the tables and benches for a week. We had eat out on the lawn!"

Ah. He, uhh… he may have a bit of a point there then, if that was his lasting impression of me. Still though, considering a literal war occurred not long after, he must have had a rather sheltered upbringing if young Gilderoy's… extravagances were the most horrible things he experienced.

Not that I said that aloud, of course, instead plastering on a winning smile on my handsome face, showing off my perfect pearly whites.

"Ah, well, that wasn't too bad, surely! It must've been like a picnic! Underneath a sunny mid-February sky-"

"It. Was. Raining." Murklebough groused.

"Ah. Well, that's Scotland for you. Nothing I can do about the weather I'm afraid." I answered with a genial shrug, firmly and doggedly keeping my smile fixed in place, causing the clerk to grumble once more under his breath as he sunk back down in his chair again.

"Should've known you would become trouble the moment you were the only one of the firsties that nearly became a Hatstall. Never had one so close after a previous one and Peter Pettigrew-… well, ahem, we all know what happened to him. Right. Well."

He coughed into his fist as the mood immediately plummeted off a steep cliff, his cheeks somewhat reddening with the social faux-pas as my own smile disappeared, my expression closing off. He probably thought that I didn't appreciate being compared to a famously (and gruesomely) dead man, and while it was indeed rather uncouth, the main reason why I'm now sporting a frowning expression is because I was suddenly and starkly reminded of the greatest traitor in modern Wizarding Britain.

With my own safety and power an immediate and pressing priority, I hadn't even really considered other more minor players in the universe. Even when I had held a Harry Potter book in my hands, my thoughts had mostly centred around the whirlwind of destiny made manifest that was The Boy Who Lived himself, and what his struggle with Voldemort would mean for my own safety. But just like I was a side character constantly at threat of being wiped off a cosmic playing board if I mis stepped, there were others on the same rung of the ladder of fate as me.

And them at least, I could push off relatively safely. I was under no illusion that I was a particularly nice guy, but the thought of Pettigrew being out and about (sharing a bed with a teenaged boy no less!) and in a prime position to harm the lynchpin of fate that was Harry Potter, while Sirius was wallowing away in Azkaban for no other crime than stupidity put a bad taste in my mouth.

Besides, removing Pettigrew and freeing Sirius might prove to be very advantageous to me. Not only would it be a heroic deed that would boost my popularity with the masses, placing Harry under the wing of Sirius would make the Black heir undoubtedly indebted to me while the child would hopefully grow up to be more assertive and capable (meaning there'd be less of a need for me to put myself in the path of danger should the world be in peril). Ideally, I could then leverage Sirius' gratefulness into gaining access to that (in)famous Black library while using the Dogfather as a buffer between me and Dumbledore's scrutiny, which I was sure to call down upon myself should I begin moving in the same circles as his prized sacrificial lamb.

Dumbledore was the kind of wizard I'd rather not confront until I had significantly more brains under my belt. Uhm … metaphorically speaking of course…

Well, that came out wrong.

Meanwhile, young Murklebough must've mistaken my thoughtful expression for displeasure due to his earlier foot-in-mouth syndrome as he gave an awkward cough before straightening in his chair and adopting a more professional tone.

"I suppose you're looking for a House-Elf? We have fat ones, thin ones, slow ones and quick ones. Grey, green, happy or mean. What will it be?" he asked, very clearly just rattling off some rote memorisation.

"I heard you say something about statutes? I'd like to have a look at those please." I said, my smile turning just a bit challenging as I tilted my head in faux-innocence.

"Wouldn't want to cause any trouble after all."

The dig at his previous rather crass comment doesn't go unnoticed judging by the rapidly reddening of his ears as he ducked his head.

"Sure thing, just a moment." He mumbled, leaning over to a little cabinet tucked away inside his booth before he handed me a (rather thin) pamphlet.

"Waiting area is right over there." He continued, his tone polite but obviously forced considering we both knew it would've been impossible to miss, given that it was the sole other feature in the building on this side of his counter.

Taking my seat in one of the aged lounge chairs (which was impressively comfortable, as expected from a piece of furniture being cared for by a team of over-eager House-Elves), I begin reading through the little pamphlet, trying to figure out just how the House-Elf system works in Wizarding Britain.

Gilderoy had never bothered to learn (all he cared about was that he didn't have to do his own laundry which was good enough for him) and in my previous life a clear, concise answer had never been given, the fans mostly just puzzling things together based on various sources of varying levels of canon-ness.

Where did House-Elves come from? How powerful were they really? How did you get one? How did you get multiple generations to serve you and your offspring?

As the pamphlet told it, House-Elves tended to just sort of… show up one day at sufficiently powerful mansions and castles. Most wizards regarded them as coming with the territory and the House-Elves themselves hadn't seemed interested in explaining or exploring where they came from originally. Well, that, or they simply hadn't understood when a wizard had bothered to question them about it.

As much as they seemed tied to a property, House-Elves were undeniably servants of the wizards to whom said property belonged to, accepting near every order given to them. In some of the older families, third or fourth generation House-Elves were given to those young wizards or witches that left the nest to find a place of their own in the world and so the little creatures could be found throughout wizarding Britain, caring for anything from tiny flats to suburban bungalows.

The work they did there didn't differ too much from their counterparts in the countryside and mostly consisted of running whatever errand their master was too lazy to do himself through magic or an owl. This usually concerned various mundane errands. Some were used for communication, though mostly of the long-distance kind. For most cases, it was seen as more appropriate to send an owl, or just show up yourself.

Between Portkeys, Floo Systems and straight up teleportation, there weren't a lot of excuses for wizards to not visit a friend in person and sending a little creature wearing a pillow case in your stead was seen as boorish. Oftentimes though, the House-Elves were simply left running on auto-pilot, caring for the grounds and the wizarding family's daily needs without needing to be told, unseen and unheard, and from all accounts enjoying the work.

Some people back in my home universe had suggested that the House-Elves' slavish demeanour was based on somewhat of a symbiotic relationship: they supposedly fed off the magic of their owners and thus the more pristine the abode of their master, the better off they themselves were, but there was nothing here in the pamphlet that either supported or debunked that theory, so I disregarded it.

The most important part for me currently was the part on how House-Elves came to be here specifically, in the House-Elf Placement Agency. As it turned out, while subservient to a wizarding family, the link to the property they had arrived or been born at was strong as well. In some cases, the wizarding family of a certain plot of land might leave (voluntarily or otherwise) leaving the House-Elf to keep working for an empty manor as they tried to prevent it from falling into disrepair.

It was a rare thing, all things considered. The magical population in Britain wasn't very large to begin with, only a fraction of their mundane counterpart really and only a small part of the wizards here had manors or castles. And for those that did, should they choose to leave their home they'll usually take their House-Elf with them. If the family was… removed instead, then House-Elves usually died in the line of fire.

This meant that, all told, the House-Elf Placement Agency had only a little over a dozen Elves at any given time. These were Elves that found caring for an empty house to be unfulfilling, wanting some actual proper work, or Elves whose home had been reduced to rubble, leaving them with no work at all. Very rarely they would take in Elves that had been fired or freed, either due to a (perceived) misdemeanour or because their original household had no more room for them.

This occurred less than the other situations, considering that… well… most Elves fell into such despair upon being fired, most simply didn't live long enough for them to get to the Agency in the first place.

The Placement Agency was rather at capacity these days though, considering many bloodlines had been ended and buildings torn down by Voldemort and his followers, leaving quite a few House-Elves without masters or homes. Many of them had been taken in by Dumbledore and were now staffing the Hogwarts kitchens (which had probably saved their lives, if not their sanity).

The rest had found their way here.

"Apologies, but I was wondering if you could answer some questions?" I spoke up, once again startling the youth behind the counter, though this time at least he managed to keep his hands on his reading material instead of sending it down the hallway like an impression of an ambitious discus.

My perfect face was set in a perfect smile yet Murklebough's past experiences with a teenaged Gilderoy Lockhart meant that the kid was still giving me a suspicious look as he sat up straighter on his chair, futily trying to press down the wrinkled pages of his book.

"Yes, well, all the information is on the card-"

"Where do you get your House-Elves from? How do they know to get here?"

"Like it says on the pamphlet, they're from homes or properties that have fallen into disuse. They probably talk to each other about it, it's not like we're going around the country just lifting up rubble and junk in the hope of stumbling across an Elf hiding underneath a rock or something. They just… show up here looking for new work and wizards can pick them up for added help around the house or whatever they need. Dead useful they are, see-"

"So you don't know what properties they come from?"

"Well, it's not like they're wearing a collar or anything. Some do, sure, but that's mostly the older ones. You know how it is with old folk and tradition, we've told 'em no-body's been collaring their Elves no more for ages but they just don't listen-"

"So there's no way of knowing what castle or manor they used to work at?"

By now, young Mr. Murklebough was getting somewhat annoyed I kept interrupting him with questions that were seemingly inane (what self-respecting wizard even cared about where House-Elves even came from anyways?) letting out a frustrated huff.

"Ask them yourself if you wanna know so badly." He groused out, his annoyance turning to shock when my grin widened and I moved forwards.

"Thank you, you are most kind." I responded, lifting up the hinged part of his counter and brusquely moving past the young Murklebough, using my taller frame to brush him aside as he stood up in surprise.

"Oi, you aren't supposed to-… oh, forget it." He eventually conceded as I didn't even slow down my pace, already halfway down the small corridor as he let his outstretched hand fall back to his side.

"Honestly, Ravenclaws…" he muttered low enough that he thought I couldn't hear him (or he simply didn't care whether I did or not) before he demonstratively sat back down in his chair and took up his book with a huff.

By now, I stood in the middle of the hallway, two doors on either side of me leading to some of the backrooms. At first, they remained opened only a crack (one even had suddenly slammed close with a startled 'eep!' of surprise when I approached and even now, I could hear furious whispering from the other side of the wood) as big eyes stared at me in wonder and the slightest traces of suspicion.

Slowly, hesitantly, the doors began to open and the Elves themselves shuffled into view, heads tucked in-between raised spindly shoulders as they all stared at me in confusion and apprehension.

The one I had noted earlier, with the carrot-like nose that had returned Murklebough's trashy novella to him, once again showed a surprising level of initiative as he moved to the front of the little crowd, that collectively didn't even make it past my knees.

"Yes, Mister wizard, sir? May we be of assistance?"

It was a genuine question, but the hope in his tone was undeniable. These little beings wanted to help me, desperately so even, despite never having met me or knowing what I would demand of them.

That's… actually a little disturbing, especially with thirteen sets of bulbous eyes looking at me that way.

"I merely wanted to ask a question." I reply, and immediately I'm bombarded with over a dozen squeaky voices all proclaiming that they are the smartest, most wisest of the whole lot and that they'd be happen to answer my question if only I questioned them on something they knew the answer to.

Thankfully, simply raising my hand brings the whole, high-pitched cacophony of noise to a sudden stop, as I show a (somewhat strained) smile.

"Where do you come from? What manor or family did you serve?"

This causes me to immediately be bombarded with some of the most enthusiastically delivered resumes I have ever witnessed, many of the House-Elves showing a surprising memory as entire lists of families are mentioned down to the individual members and their friends as well as a litany of manors down to each and every room.

Even sheds and privies were proudly mentioned as having been in their excellent care and once more I have to calm down the small crowd of beings seemingly fuelled by a anxious energy just waiting to burst.

"Is there any House-Elf here who used to work at Craiglockhart's Castle? Or an Elf that worked for any of the Lockhart clans? Doesn't matter how distant." I say, firmly this time, though I take care to keep my tone friendly and polite.

Surprisingly, this time I'm met by silence and as I look around the various little beings, I note that many of them can't look me in the eye, most of them averting their gaze with uncomfortable expressions.

"I knew two Elves that worked for the Craiglockharts. They're dead now, master wizard sir. Sorry, master wizard sir." One of the Elves in the back responds sombrely and it's pretty easy to guess what had happened to them considering the current state of my relative's castle.

Like I said, when a family line got broken, Elves tended to die in the line of fire alongside their masters… and Voldemort and his followers had broken many a bloodline during their reign of terror.

"None of you have any relation to one of the Lockhart clans?" I ask with a sigh, already feeling my meagre amount of Galleons weigh heavily in my pocket as I contemplate just renting one out for the standard half-week.

I'm torn from my thoughts when that same Elf from before, carrot-nose, steps forwards, wringing his spindly hands in front of his blanket-clad (or something, it's hard to describe on account of it having seemingly been sown together from a dozen different items a dozen times over) skinny torso.

"Beggin' your pardon, master wizard, sir. But… I used to have an uncle that worked for one of the cousins of the Glenlockhart branch. It's not much-"

"Your bloodline used to work for mine?" I immediately interrupt him, my tone sudden and intense enough that the little creature stumbles back a half-step before straightening underneath my scrutiny, shakily bobbing his head so that the tip of his long nose shudders like the end of an arrow mid-flight.

"You can say it like that, I suppose…" carrot-nose says somewhat hesitantly, his big eyes staring at me in confusion as my grin turns predatory.

"Well then, it seems the two of us are in luck then!"

"Ah… we are, master wizard, sir?"

"Of course we are!"

"Good. Good. Uhm… why are the twos of us in luck then, master wizard, sir?"

"Because, my little friend, it means you found your rightful master!"

With that I straighten to my full length, fists planted confidently on my hips as little carrot-nose looks up at me in awe.

"Your forebears served in the household of my kin. Evil wizards destroyed their home and drove them out, undoubtedly resulting in you ending up here. But their bloodline is not broken! I, Gilderoy Lockhart! Have taken up their claim! Craiglockhart Castle shall be returned to its previously lost splendour, and made grander still! But! Even one so great, so magnificent, such as I, can accomplish such a grand feat on my own. After all, no mansion is complete without its rightful caretaker. And no Master is truly a lord of his castle without a servant at his side. But not anyone will do! No, their claim must mirror mine! They too, must take up the cause their kin, blood of their blood, cast down before their time! The only one here, who possesses such a claim… is you!" I dramatically exclaim, my arm coming down in a chopping motion at the final word, index finger extended to point towards the little Elf at the front, almost touching the tip of his nose so that he's looking cross-eyed and full of awe.

My little bit of theatre (which is surprisingly fun to perform, yet another sign of Lockhart bleeding into me) has even caught the attention of Murklebough, who can't help himself from being sucked in by my passionate tirade, his Harry Potter book hanging listless and forgotten in his hand.

"You… you have the right to claim a position at my side. To restore the house of my forebears, the house your ancestors worked for, to its rightful glory. What say you?" I exclaim in a low tone, my voice and stance mirroring that iconic recruitment scene between Shrek and Donkey near-perfectly thanks to Lockhart's (admittedly not half-bad) acting chops and my own superb memory.

Carrot-nose's bulbous eyes are swimming with unshed tears as he nods so vigorously, I almost worry he's going to end up burying said nose into the floorboards.

"Yes! I will be your House-Elf, master Gilderoy Lockhart, sir! I will!" the small being crows out to the cheers of the other Elves, even mimicking the dramatic pronunciation I had just used with every bit of proper gravitas that it demanded.

I'm beginning to like this little dude.

"Excellent! Onwards then! Our futures await!"

And with that, still in my dramatic character, I turn on my heels, my coat nicely flaring out behind me (it's not on Snape's level, the man is a master but I'll get there eventually) before stalking down the hallway and past the still awed-looking Murklebough.

I've almost managed to leave the building too before the youth comes back to his senses, shouting at my back in an indignant tone.

"H-hey! Hey you! You can't just take an Elf with you! You gotta pay for that!"

Slowly, I turn to look over my shoulder at the young clerk. I spot carrot-nose still standing at my side, though he looks nervously back up at me, so I give him a confident shake of my head as I address Murklebough.

"Pay you? Of course I don't have to pay you. Have you gone mad, man?"

Murklebough splutters at the accusation, before comically leaning over his own counter so he can furiously tap the sign above his little booth, House-Elf Placement Agency displayed on it in faded letters.

"Mad?! That's our merchandise you got there!"

"No it isn't."

"What?!"

"Haven't you heard? This House-Elf belonged to the Lockhart bloodline through the ownership of his relatives. With the destruction of my erstwhile family's grounds, our property became scattered and you have the thanks of the Lockhart name for taking it in in the meantime. Now, I've simply come to take back what's mine. I therefore can't pay you for it, you see? In doing so, you'd force me into freeing my House-Elf against my will, something you, by your own statutes, aren't allowed to do. Read them again, if you don't believe me."

With that, my grin becomes smug and mocking as I indicate the same pamphlet he had given me, still lying on the low-slung table in the waiting area.

"The rulebook is right over there."

And with that parting shot, I leave the sputtering Murklebough behind me as I step back onto Carkitt Market with my very own House-Elf at my side. My House-Elf, who can instantly teleport over to Fieldwake's residence to give the Occlumens my correspondence and who can then instantly teleport me over to the States as well. My House-Elf, who I can use my future perfected Mind-Eating spell on without harming him due to him being a literal willing subject.

Imagine the things I could have him do, only to then pluck the skills and knowledge clean from his mind without him ever resisting!

My House-Elf who… is nearly vibrating on the spot as he stares up at me with the biggest grin I've ever seen on such a small creature. Whoa… that's a lotta teeth.

"Well then, let's get to work… uhmm…"

Oh. My House-Elf… whose name I don't actually know, I suddenly realize.

"What should I call you?" I say, only somewhat embarrassed, though carrot-nose doesn't particularly seem to mind, squaring his shoulders and puffing out his chest as he gives me what I'm guessing he thinks is a salute.

Instead, all he really does is nearly poke out his own eye.

"Fughly, master Gilderoy Lockhart, sir!"

…

"You're shitting me."

"Fughly would never! It's unhygienic!" carrot-nose exclaims in shock, big eyes tracking my form up and down in shock, as if he's staring at a huge pervert that has suddenly wandered too close.

Well, given that House-Elves generally follow every order given to them and wizards can be surprisingly fucked up freaks even in the bedroom-

Yeah, no. Cutting off that thought right then and there and shoving it in the deepest, darkest recess of my mind where it shall await proper excision once I gain some proficiency in Occlumency.

"All right then… Fughly… Onwards!"

"Yes, master Gilderoy Lockhart, sir! … Uhm, onwards to where?" the little being asks meekly as he hurries his short legs to keep up with my longer strides and I can't help the grin that grows on my face as I move towards the Leaky Cauldron, intent on writing a very politely worded letter to one Mr. Fieldwake.

"To the land of opportunity of course! We're going to America."

Fun Fact: J.K. Rowling jotted down the Hogwarts house names on an airplane vomit bag.

AN: I wanted to get to Bakkuhart eating the mind of Fieldwake in this chapter, but exploring Diagon Alley and its side-streets took longer than expected. Earlier, I asked what you though Gilderoy had spotted on his way towards Ollivander's and most people said something along the lines of either a pet store or a potions/ingredients-store. Fun suggestions, but none of you guessed the House-Elf Placement Agency. Therefore, I'm sad to say that none of you will receive an internet cookie. Better luck next time!

All the names used here are from the wiki pages, with the exception of the quite heated Disposal of ye olde Common Garden Gnome series. You can actually walk around Carkitt Market and view the House-Elf Placement Agency for yourself IRL if you want.