Chapter 64 - Searching for Information (1/2)

I decided to go to India by Flight. It was the best out of all my options. Flying to India in falcon form was too tiresome and I could not go there by portkey since India did not have designated coordinates for safe and hidden portkey travel. I could not put my own coordinates since it was quite possible that I will magically appear in front of a crowded market and risk breaking the Statue of Secrecy.

So after a long flight I reached New Delhi, the capital of mundane India. The first thing I noticed after getting off the flight was the weather. It was too hot and humid. I had to apply cooling charms on myself just so I could walk out in the sun. The higher population density and crowd was not as troublesome.

My purpose in coming here was to learn magic from the tribes but there was a big obstacle that was stopping me from doing that. That is, I did not know the location of any magical tribe. I could find the location by flying around in my animagus form but that would not help me since even if I knew the location I would not be welcome inside their tribe. They will see me as a threat and try to kill me since the location of tribes are supposed to be a secret. My ancestors warned that the only way to safely enter a tribe is to get an invitation from someone belonging to the tribe.

For now, my plan is to roam around the capital city and hope I meet someone magical accidently and that someone can help me solve this problem. I liked this plan very much since it allowed me to have fun and experience the various cultures and cuisines of India.

I had become quite fed up of eating the same food daily. First it was the orphanage meals and then Hogwarts meals. Even my house elves only knew to make the same food as the food served at Hogwarts. Only during the holidays did I have a chance to try something new. Like last year, most of my time was spent trying out the French delicacies. That reminds me after returning to London, I need to ask Liz to go to France and learn to cook from the French elves.

Now, since Delhi was the capital of India, it had restaurants selling delicacies from all over India. Due to this as soon as I started roaming around the city, my main objective changed from looking for a wizard to trying out as many types of dishes that I can. The spicy food was easy to eat with the help of the sweet desserts available. If there are elves in India, I will do anything to own an elf that can make these desserts.

One thing I was very happy about was there was no language problem. English was one of the official languages used in mundane India and almost everyone knew to speak and understand English. I don't think it will be the same in the magical world but I was already prepared for this due to spending the last few weeks learning Hindi which I was hoping is the language used by magical India. I was not fluent but it was enough for me to have a conversation in the language.

Coming to the search for a magical, it was not going well. It seemed like Delhi was not an important city in the magical world. I had my mage sight turned on all the time but I did not find any wizard or witch walking around the city. It was expected since this was the case in London too since magicals rarely visited the mundane side but what was not expected was the lack of any magical buildings which meant that Delhi did not have any relevance to the magical people.

After searching for three days, just as I was about to give up and travel to another major city to continue my search, I found a shop that was protected by wards in a remote place in Old Delhi, far away from the capital. The shop was named Patil's Garden Centre. By looking at the name, I knew that the shop was run by the Patil family. The Patil family was well known in Britain and their main business was selling potion ingredients all around the world.

The shop was a small and ordinary one and did not stand out in the street. The inside of the shop was also ordinary and was similar to a garden back home just that this one was more crowded and not neat.

I was welcomed by a middle aged man on entering the shop ”Good Evening. Welcome to Patil's Garden Centre. What are you looking for?”

I checked the middle aged man and found out that he was a wizard which was good thing for me. He will be able to answer some of my questions. I looked around and on finding no one else inside the shop

I said ”Good Evening. My name is Charles. Can you spare some of your time to answer some of my questions? This is my first time in this country and I find many things confusing.”

The shopkeeper thought for some time and answered ”I am free till the next customer walks through that door so I will be happy to answer some of your questions. What do you want to know? I am Sanjay Patil by the way.”