Chapter 15: Last Lesson, Gringotts, and Diggorys (1/2)
Quinn and Alan walked in the gardens of the West manor. It was their last lesson, and both decided that a casual stroll would be the best way to end their correspondence.
Alan had his hands behind his back as he walked with his student of almost three years. ”Sometimes I forget you still a little brat. I had completely forgotten that you too would need to attend a school.”
Quinn scoffed and retorted, ”I will take that as a compliment. So young, yet so talented. Live with it, old man. The younger generation would always surpass the older one.”
Alan chuckled but chose not to reply. He knew that if they started, both of them could go back and forth for hours, and even then, none of the two would concede defeat. Instead, he decided to enquire Quinn's future plans regarding mind-arts.
”Do you plan to improve your mind-arts in the future? What are your plans for the future?”
Quinn looked up at his teacher while replying, ”The mind, body, and soul. The three most important things for a magical. Magic is connected to all three facets of a being. So it would be without saying that I would continue to develop my mind. There is no harm in developing my mind. It would help me improve my magic and life in general.”
Alan nodded and probed, ”And, how are you going to improve them?”
”Well, I would be in a place full of people, so training Legilimency wouldn't be a problem. Even though most of them won't have any defenses, I can still train other aspects of legilimency,” answered Quinn, explaining his plans to exploit his fellow schoolmates.
Alan didn't comment on the blatant admission of the intended invasion of privacy of dozens of people, ”You can train your legilimency with the method I taught you.”
Alan had suggested to Quinn a method using which he would be able to train his legilimency alone without requiring a person as a target.
”Ah, yes. Using occlumency to train legilimency. I need to build a small shield system inside my mindscape and then remove the memory of anything related to the new shield and lock those memories underneath the shield system. This way, I won't know how to penetrate that shield and would be able to practice breaking occlumency defenses using legilimency.” Quinn recited the method suggested by Alan. He also snapped his fingers and added, ”I just need to find new ideas for occlumency defenses so that I could create new scenarios for me to go against. This way, not only my legilimency improve, but even my occlumency skill would also improve. A perpetual cycle of improvement.”
Alan nodded in agreement but also asked, ”And, what are the warnings that I gave you?”
This method did have a drawback that could harm the mind if used carelessly. ”Never isolate a memory for a long period. Willful repressing of memory would always cause problems.”
Alan patted Quinn on his back, ”Correct, all you need to do is free the memory from its repression for a small period before you could once again suppress it. So, don't be lazy and follow proper procedure.”
”Aye,” saluted Quinn. He kicked a small pebble in his path and asked, ”What about you? What are you going to do next? What is in the future for Mr. Alan D. Baddeley?”
Alan shrugged in response to the question, ”I have no idea. There are some jobs lined up that I could take, or I could take another vacation and relax, or I maybe I would write a few research papers for publication. Ah well, I would follow where life takes me.”
Both student and teacher fell into a comfortable silence as they continued to walk around the garden before Quinn spoke his thoughts, ”You know, I wanted to learn more from you. Your lessons are so fun, and now they are going to end.”
Without looking at Quinn, Alan offered, ”You can come apprentice under me when you pass out of school.”
Quinn turned up to look at Alan with surprised etched on his face, his eye wide, brows pulled up, ”I didn't know you offered apprenticeships.”
”Indeed, I don't offer apprenticeships. I stopped offering them when I turned hundred years old, but you are interesting enough for me to offer one. Plus, I am interested in how much you could improve. It would be fun to compare the progress from now, to let's say when you turn into an adult.” Alan's time with Quinn had shown him Quinn's potential, and it would be worthwhile of Alans' time to teach Quinn at a higher level.
Quinn, without even thinking about the offer, accepted, ”I would be honored to apprentice under someone of your caliber. I would come to find you when I think the time is right, so don't die before I do that, old man.”
Alan chuckled and retorted, ”You better keep on improving because if I find that you have slacked off, I will definitely kick you out before we even start.”
”I will keep that in mind,” laughed Quinn even though he knew Alan wasn't joking.
Alan fished out a pocket watch from his clothes and spoke after checking the time. ”It looks like it is the time for me to leave.”
Both of them walked to the floo-connected fireplace, and before leaving, they said goodbye. Quinn raised his hand for a handshake. ”It was fun learning from you, Mr. Alan,” said Quinn and used Alan's first name for the very first time.
Alan showed a similar smile and shook his student's hands, ”It was nice teaching you, Mr. Quinn.”
With that, Alan left the West Manor in a flash of green fire from the floo.
- (Scene Break) -
On the first of August, Quinn and George went out to Diagon Alley to get all the stuff needed for the upcoming school year. It was going to be Quinn's first time coming to Diagon Alley. It surprised that Quinn had never gone to Diagon Alley. He never needed to go shopping as he just needed to tell Elliot, and he would get stuff for him.
When Quinn thought of that, his first reaction was, ”Holy Crap! I am a sheltered child! Maybe even a little spoiled.” But Quinn managed to convince himself that he wasn't a sheltered child, as he frequently visited the non-magical world with Lia.
Diagon alley was just as it had been described in the books. Quinn saw a Potion ingredient shop and saw a bright stack of cauldrons outside the shop.
Cauldrons — All Sizes — Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver — Self-Stirring — Collapsible, read a sign hanging over them. The shop was named Potage's Cauldron Shop.
He saw a dark-colored building with a sign reading Eeylops Owl
Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy.
And, many more shops like,
Slug & Jiggers Apothecary,
Broomstix; a store that sold brooms,
Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour,
The bookstore; Flourish and Blotts,
Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions,
Magical Menagerie; the pet store,
Ollivander's; the wand shop,
And, many more shops of many kinds, but George pulled Quinn, not stopping even at a single one. They walked straight to a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Carved into the white stone was the name of the building,
「Gringotts Wizarding Bank」
Then his eyes found the two figures clad in scarlet and gold, standing in front of the burnished bronze door.
”Goblins.”
The identity of the figures escaped Quinn's mouth. They were about a head shorter than Quinn. Had swarthy, clever faces, pointed beards, and very long fingers and feet. Quinn had seen goblin before in his travels.
Quinn and George stopped a distance from Gringotts, and George looked at Quinn before speaking, ”Gringotts Wizarding Bank is the only wizarding bank in Magical Britain. This means that goblins have a monopoly over the banking business. In the treaty signed by the Goblin Nation and Ministry Of Magic, it is stated that Gringotts would be the only bank in Magical Britain, and no other bank would be allowed to open and operate in Magical Britain. Failure to comply would, without fail, would lead to a war between the two parties. Plus, in the centuries they have been active, they have cemented their place in the lives of British people. They are too big to fail.”
George looked at the building with displeasure in his eyes and spoke with contempt in his tone, ”The Ministry Of Magic was foolish enough to sign that treaty and made it binding with no chance for renegotiation. Do you know why this is bad?”
Quinn nodded and stated the obvious, ”This kind of monopoly allows them to charge any amount of money for their services. Because of the treaty you mentioned, they have free reign and have no competitor, much less than an alternative.” Even though Quinn spent most of his time studying magic, he still was a child of a business owner.
George rubbed Quinn's head and praised him, ”Excellent, you are completely right.” He looked at the goblins at the door and continued, ”Britain's Ministry Of Magic taxes its people a low tax amount, and it is praised all over the world for that, but what they don't know is the reason for such low tax prices. Goblins' charge a lot to maintain the banking system and economy of this country, and that makes the ministry impose lower taxes, to even out the expenditure by the people.”
Then George smirked. An unusual expression from the usually stoic man, ”That is why I slowly moved all of our family money to Switzerland. It took me ten years to move all our family money out of this damned bank. It was glorious when they realized what I had done, and they couldn't do a single thing about it.”
Then George sighed, ”Now, we don't use Gringotts for any financial services. It does cause us to spend an amount of money to transfer money to Switzerland regularly, for our business operated in Britain. Even then, it is much less than the amount that it would take to maintain our accounts at Gringotts.”
Quinn nodded with an 'is that so' expression, ”So, why are we here?”
George revealed the reason with a sigh, ”Now that you are going to Hogwarts, you would be needing money for things. Knowing you, you would start ordering extra books and other things like potion ingredients via mail order. It isn't safe for you to have your entire allowance in person without security, and as Gringotts have regular contact with muggle banks because of the muggleborns, they have adopted a cheque service that would allow mail-ordering businesses to retrieve money directly from Gringotts. You could send us the list of things, and we could buy them for you, but it would waste unnecessary time. So, I have opened a student trust vault for you. Now, let's go in and retrieve your key.”
The pair entered the bank, and the goblin guards bowed, and as they walked inside, they faced another door of silver, with words engraved upon them:
[
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,