Everybody's Fool
Chapter Eight
Authoress Note: Do you want longer chapters less often, or shorter chapters more often? Let me know because I can go either way with it. It just depends on how much you guys are willing to sit in read in one sitting. The longest chapter so far was 10,000 words the average chapter is 2,500 so take your pick.
Hermione soon found that she enjoyed brewing more than she initially thought she would, but a lot of that could be because her mother had intentionally over-stocked her potions lab for her first term at Ireland Academy of Magic.
Turning to a few of the more commonly used beauty potions Hermione set up her lab to allow her to brew four to six potions at once, depending on what she was working on before she started the ingredient preparation.
Once all potions were to where they could be left alone for either a determined, or undetermined, amount of time, Hermione made her way into her office, intent to start on her homework. She still had to finish her Charms essay from the previous day but it was halfway done already and just needed a few finishing touches added to it which she was able to finish within forty minutes before she turned her attention to sorting out her properties, titles, and inventories for her various holdings within the wizarding world.
Apparently it was no flaw that the Granger's where rather rich. Hecator Dagworth-Granger was a very smart businessman from what Hermione could see. He was the founder of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers through which the Granger family still received dues at a whopping 49 Galleons, 11 Sickles, and 2 Knuts a person bi-annually. Since there where currently one hundred and twelve members in the group just one of her accounts received 556 Galleons 11 Sickles and 2 Knuts, with the other half of the bi-annual dues going back into the society itself. From there Hermione had four properties just on the Granger family tree: Granger Manor, Granger Cottage, Granger Villa which was located in France, and finally Granger Chateau.
Granger Manor was fully self-supportive which fascinated Hermione, and it was located on its very own island which meant it was by the sea. There where thirteen house elves at Granger Manor that took care of planting crops, harvesting crops, taking care of animals and any other of the one hundred or so odd tasks that was required to keep the manor running at no cost to the Granger Vaults.
Granger Cottage and Granger Villa didn't require too much money to run, and seemed to be like they had been used as winter getaways and the main family residence in the winter depending on what family member had been alive at what time. Granger Chateau had been acquired when Hermione's mother married into the Granger family as a part of her dowry, which meant it, was relatively new.
The Granger side of her family had three major businesses and then had stock in several smaller ones. The first business the Granger's ran was Wizarding Publishing which was the main wizard publishing house in all of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The second was shockingly enough the FIrebolt Company which produced the best racing brooms in the world while the third was Granger Potions all three of which her mother and father had been running when they had told her they were out of town for "Conferences."
From there they held stock in a wizarding clothing line that was showing as 14 Galleons, 15 Sickles, and 6 Knuts, or one hundred and fifty American dollars per share. After that, they held stock in a few smaller companies, as well as the Dailey Prophet which ran at a shocking 45 Galleons per share, which equaled out to 453.13 per share in American Dollars, and according to her inventory list she had 3,990 shares.
It looked like her parents, or grandparents she wasn't sure which, had purchased fifty shares the year she was born and then increased the number by fifty every year up until now. With that being said if she currently sold all her shares, she would get 175,492 Galleons 4 Sickles, and 9 Knuts or $1,767,207 and would still have the stock in the wizarding clothing store as well as a few other companies she had been given stock in, and whoever had purchased it had followed the same principle. Fifty shares the first year and adding another fifty every year after that. It was more than enough to buy a small cottage or fourteen if she chose to. Assuming the cottage was at or below 4,966 Galleons or 50,000 US dollars of course.
Taking a deep breath Hermione then moved onto her bank account statements, of which there where several. The trust vault Hermione's parents had set up for her when she entered the wizarding world as a muggle born student currently held 398 Galleons on its own, or 1,990 British Pounds which translated into $4,008 US Dollars.
Her second trust vault which had been set up by her grandparents when she was young held $200,000 dollars in it that she couldn't access until she turned seventeen, or unless she received a perfect score on her OWL's. That equaled out to 19,860 Galleons, 16 Sickles, and 15 Knuts.
Upon her grandparents death, she received another trust vault that converted to her upon her marriage, weather before she finished her schooling or not, in the amount of $200,000 US Dollars or 19,860 Galleons, 16 Sickles, and 15 Knuts. If Hermione chose not to marry, the trust would revert to her upon her thirty fifth birthday.
From there came her household vaults of which there were four, one for each property she had, and looking of last month's statement, whoever was running the houses knew a new Lady had been appointed because the money that was coming out of each vault increased slightly, not by much, however Granger Manor actually had money going back into the vault; she had been told Granger Manor was self-sufficient but she would have to see just how self-sufficient it truly was when she visited it this weekend.
Each household vault held over 20,000 Galleons, roughly $ 251,570 in Us Dollars in it and Granger Manor held almost four times that at 89,000 Galleons or roughly $896,230 US Dollars.
The Peverell vaults held more than the Granger Vaults, as they had been untouched for longer than the Granger Accounts and therefore had been collecting interest at a shocking 2.5% per quarter, which was almost four times higher than any muggle bank could offer, the highest Hermione could think of off the top of her head was .74% and that was usually only offered at high end credit unions.
That left Hermione as a millionaire by Wizarding, UK, and US standards at the tender age of only eleven, and that would grow as time progressed.
All Hermione knew was she needed to find a few books on Muggle and Wizarding Banking, they were so far apart in terms of interest rates that it made her wonder just what else was different. It also made her wonder just how much Michael Prewitt had in his accounts as the last of the Prewitt line and therefore head.
Decanting the last of her potions for the evening, Hermione turned her attention to unpacking her recent purchases, as she remembered the unpacking spell it didn't take her too long before she began looking through her library, pulling down what books she thought could help her with her homework as there was a sudden knock on her outer door.
Kira, Katherine, Crystal, and Amelia entered, carrying school bags that looked like they were going to burst.
"Study group time. We need to get as far ahead as we can in as many classes as we can. By the time Yule comes around I want to test into Battle Magic II, Magical Theory Year Four, and at least Muggle Astronomy Three which is the last Muggle Astronomy course we take, then we move onto Wizarding Astronomy." Katherine said as she started pulling books from her bag before passing them around. A quick look at the titles told them all that they were the books for the courses they would be skipping over in order to test into the subjects they wanted to.
Hermione accepted the books with a grin before she suddenly got up and left the room, coming back with four nicely wrapped packages, with a fifth still up in her room.
"These are for all of you. For how nice you've been to me." She said, blushing slightly as they tore into their packages to find several potions that usually cost an arm and a leg that they all usually used.
"Oh Hermione, you're the greatest!" Kira said, pulling the young girl into a hug before her friends followed suite as a few minutes passed in excitement before they got back to work.
"Ok, to test into the courses we want to by Yule for when we come back in January we'll have to skip a two years in Astronomy, and the rest of the courses we'll just have to master the current curriculum to test into the next level. Oh! We still have to add a second language course." Katherine said, looking around at the group and then back at their schedules wondering just where on Earth they could even attempt to fit a second language course.
"I want to start Ancient Runes, I find the subject fascinating and it's only a six year track, if we tested out of one year per term we'd be done with Ancient Runes by our second year and could pick up another actual language course then." Hermione said, surprised to see all of the girls follow her lead.
"Actually, Blaise Zabini knows Italian, Crystal Avery here knows Welsh and French, she's been speaking both since she was a child. I know Spanish well enough, my father has a house in Spain and there's an upper year that knows Japanese and another that knows Chinese. Jennifer Li, a third year, is Chinese by birth and Ami Kinomoto comes here from Japan when leaves for the summer, she's a fourth year. We could use the time-turners and do private lessons until we finish Ancient Runes on any language we wanted practically. "Katherine said, as Hermione's eyebrows went up into her hair line.
"Well I already know French, my parents and I go on holiday to France every year. Could we test out of the languages we already know and then take a spare after Ancient Runes?" Hermione asked, looking around at the girls.
"That sounds wonderful actually. Let's go find Madam Prince, she's the head of the Modern and Ancient Languages department." Crystal said, as they started wandering throughout the castle , locating Madam Prince within her office five minutes after they started looking for her.
Madam Prince was a small woman, who had dainty bones, and a head of flaming red hair that stood out against any crowd and she practically beamed at the children in front of her.
"Madam Prince, we were wondering if we could test out of a few languages? The Headmistress said we had to have two languages while we are here. I wanted to test out of Welsh and French while Hermione wanted to test out of French and then we all wanted to see if we could add Ancient Runes to our schedule?" Crystal said, pushing her raven black locks back behind her ear as the language professor started digging for the appropriate tests.
"You can certainly all add Ancient Runes. Miss Avery here are both your tests and Lady Granger here is your French test. You have an hour and half to complete each test Miss Avery." She said, before setting the two girls on opposite ends of her office as they began their tests.
Hermione, managed to finish in forty minutes with a perfect score on the French IV Language test and the French IV Literature test which she hadn't known she was taking until she had flipped the page.
Crystal Avery managed the same score on both her Welsh and French exams as the professor looked at them with something akin to reverence.
"You both speak like natives. That is unique in and of itself. Are you sure you want to take Ancient Runes? You could always add another language course." She said, handing them a few small books that covered the rest of the languages offered at the Ireland Academy of Magic.
"No ma'am. Between the first years we have someone that speaks Italian Welsh, Spanish, French, and we were going to see if we could convince the upper years to teach us Japanese and Chinese but if not, we'll probably be taking those courses. For the ones the first years know, we'll be testing out." Hermione said, remaining diplomatic as she rejected the Professor's request.
"Would you be willing to tutor the upper years then? It pays 5 Galleons an hour." She said, glad to see she had gotten their attention.
"It would have to be around our own school schedule." Hermione said, knowing that she didn't need the money, but it would be nice to make some money of her own aside from her potions she was planning on selling throughout the school.
"That's fine. I'll send an owl out to all my students to owl me if they are interested and then relay the message to you to figure out what times." She said, watching as the group of girls left in search of their friends to let them know what had transpired during the meeting.