New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
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“How did you know about that… whatever that beer was?”
The archway behind them had narrowed and become a wall again.
Snape and Callan now stood on the other side.
Callan was staring blankly at a sign outside a cauldron shop.
Copper.
Brass.
Pewter.
Silver.
All sizes.
Collapsible.
There were no self-stirring models yet.
The inventor of those, if he remembered correctly…
“What?”
Callan had not been paying attention and asked in return, “What did you say?”
“The beer,” Snape repeated.
“How did you know about it?”
Eileen had never told him about such things, so naturally Snape had not known.
Yet somehow, Callan always seemed to know strange bits of information from nowhere.
“Oh, that. It is called Gamp’s Old Gregarious.” He repeated the name, but still did not explain how he knew it.
Instead, he glanced at Snape with a smile.
“Why? Do you want to try?”
“It only costs one Galleon. If you succeed, you get one hundred.”
“What do you think?”
“For a rare challenge like that, I doubt Tom would be strict about age.”
Snape lowered his head and said nothing.
From the look of him, he was genuinely tempted and carefully weighing gain against loss.
Callan smiled.
“Let’s go. We still have a few things to prepare before Lily and the others arrive.”
Snape frowned.
“Aren’t we waiting for them inside The Leaky Cauldron?”
“No hurry. There will be plenty of time for you and Lily to spend together.”
He waved a hand and teased him, completely ignoring Snape’s ugly, reddening face as he walked ahead.
Snape was reluctant, but he still followed silently.
Callan looked around with interest.
A plump woman stood outside an apothecary.
As they passed, she shook her head and said, “Dragon liver, ten Sickles an ounce. They’re mad.”
Callan looked at the smiling shop assistant inside and guessed that even if the price rose to sixteen Sickles an ounce, they would not be mad at all.
They would be delighted.
From inside a dim shop came a low, soft hooting.
The sign over the door read: Eeylops Owl Emporium.
Tawny, screech, barn, brown, and snowy owls.
A few boys around Callan’s age had their noses pressed against a shop window, staring at the broomsticks displayed inside.
“Look,” Callan heard one of them say.
“That’s the newest Nimbus 1001. Top speed!”
Some shops sold robes.
Others sold telescopes and strange silver instruments Callan had never seen before.
Windows were packed with baskets of bat spleens and eels’ eyes, stacks of spellbooks, quills, rolls of parchment, potion bottles, lunar globes…
The place felt both familiar and strange, an odd sensation that lingered in Callan’s chest.
Fortunately, before long, the two of them reached his destination.
Gringotts.
They stopped before a snowy-white building towering over the surrounding shops, its bronze doors gleaming.
At the sight of it, Snape’s expression grew even worse.
A heavy sense of inferiority rose in him, only to be swallowed almost at once by deeper self-reproach.
“Why are you standing there?”
Callan tugged Snape by the arm and dragged him inside.
The goblins at the entrance bowed even to two children.
Beyond them stood a second set of doors, silver this time, with warnings carved into them about danger, greed, punishment, and thieves.
Seeing them, Callan sneered inwardly.
Goblins who believed they held the wizarding world’s economy in their hands.
Goblins who believed they had secured a place for themselves.
Goblins who were the greediest of all and did not even know it.
If Galleons were truly that useful, Callan had not seen any goblin bravely resist when Voldemort seized Gringotts by force.
At most, they had fled in panic.
When someone became powerful enough, warnings and veiled threats stopped mattering.
And this, conveniently, was the magical world.
Two goblins bowed and led them into a tall marble hall.
Around a hundred goblins sat on high stools behind a long counter.
Some weighed coins on brass scales.
Some examined gems through eyeglasses while making quick entries in large ledgers.
Countless doors lined the hall, leading to different places, while goblins guided the visitors coming and going through them.
“Hello,” Callan said to an idle goblin.
“Good day, young wizards.”
The counter was so high that the goblin had to rise on his stool to peer down at them.
He glanced around as well.
“I do not seem to see an adult.”
“It is just us.”
Callan had no intention of chatting with him.
He took a stack of pound notes from his pocket and placed it on the counter.
“I heard that young wizards who live in the Muggle world can exchange Muggle currency for Galleons.”
He did have Hogwarts’ student aid fund, but Callan had no intention of living miserably just because of that.
He was not without savings of his own.
Compared with Mr.
Anthony’s inheritance, the amount was insignificant, but it was enough to let him live comfortably for a while.
“Yes, that is correct.”
The goblin seemed surprised by Callan’s maturity and calm, but he still opened the roll of notes.
After checking them, he asked, “And your name?”
“Callan Ashworth.”
“Ashworth…”
The goblin opened a book and searched carefully.
“Hogwarts first-year. Born to a Muggle family. Orphan…”
His voice gradually lowered.
He glanced at Callan, then at the notes in his hand.
Taking one out, he asked, “If I am not mistaken, is this blood, Mr. Ashworth?”
Snape’s eyes slowly widened.
Callan looked at the small dark-red stain on the note and raised a brow.
“Will that affect anything?”
The goblin watched him for a moment.
“No. Of course not. Money does not lose its value over such a small thing.”
“In that case…”
The goblin set aside the excess and said, “Gringotts has a limit on exchanging Muggle currency. At most, one may exchange one thousand pounds. The rate is five to one, which means two hundred Galleons.”
At that point, the goblin wrinkled his nose and very reluctantly added two words.
“Per year.”
Clearly, he was deeply dissatisfied with the policy.
In the eyes of goblins, Muggle currency was nowhere near as pleasing as bright, glittering gold.
Callan suspected that goblins had fiercely opposed the International Statute of Secrecy when it was introduced.
They must have had interests in the Muggle world too.
But if even the Malfoys had accepted that continued resistance would only distance them from the new center of power, goblins would have had even less room to object.
In the eyes of hard-line wizards, the Malfoys were still human.
Goblins were only goblins.
Now Gringotts had to bridge the currency gap the Statute had helped create, and not every goblin would accept that willingly.
Callan calmly took the small bag of gold and the returned pounds.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he handed the pounds to Snape, tilted his head toward the goblin, and said, “Go on.”
Snape and the goblin both froze.
The goblin’s nose wrinkled even harder.
Snape was not much better.
In a low voice, Snape said, “Do not order me around.”
But Callan’s indifference gave his anger nowhere to go.
In the end, he only cursed inwardly:
‘Damn Ashworth.’
Then he handed the stack of pounds across the counter.
“Snape,” he said quietly.
“Severus Snape.”
The goblin wrinkled his nose and opened the book again.
He checked it three times before asking, “There are only nine hundred and fifty pounds here. Are you certain you wish to exchange this, Mr. Snape?”
He emphasized the “Mr.” sharply.
This time, Snape hesitated.
The hand in his pocket clenched and unclenched again.
He stole a glance at Callan and found him studying the gems being weighed on the other side with great interest.
Then Snape quickly took out the money Eileen had given him and said in a low voice, “Add this.”
When the goblin saw that, understanding seemed to dawn.
The look he gave Snape was no longer as hostile as the one he had given Callan.
He nodded silently.
“Exactly one thousand pounds. Here are two hundred Galleons. Please keep them safe.”
After they left Gringotts, Callan wordlessly took ten Galleons from the bag and placed them in Snape’s hand.
Snape said nothing and accepted them silently.
Then Callan suddenly counted out another nineteen Galleons and handed those over too.
Snape frowned.
“What is this supposed to mean?”
“A ten percent handling fee. I am not letting you help for nothing.”
Callan smiled as if it did not matter.
“Did you take me for someone who doesn’t repay favors? Keep it.”
Before Snape could refuse, Callan put the money directly into his pocket.
Snape stood there for a while.
In the end, he lowered his head and said nothing.
Still, as they wandered around, Snape edged closer in spite of himself and asked in a low voice, “What was that earlier?”
“What?”
Callan was staring at an ice cream shop and had not heard clearly.
“Earlier. The blood on the money.”
Snape’s voice dropped even lower.
Only then did Callan turn to look at him.
With feigned surprise, he said, “Dark wizards care about little things like that?”
“Keep your voice down!”
When he noticed several people looking over curiously, Snape hurriedly stopped him.
“I am not joking with you, Callan. Where did you get that money?”
“Hogwarts did not refuse my admission,” Callan said abruptly.
“What?”
Snape froze.
Seeing Snape’s confusion, Callan explained, “I mean, no matter where the money came from, Hogwarts did not reject me because of it. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“No,” Snape insisted.
Beneath his greasy hair, his eyes were more resolute than Callan had ever seen them.
“Not if it could affect Lily.”
It was the first time Snape had plainly shown Callan what he truly cared about.
To his surprise, Callan looked at him with something like pity.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Snape asked darkly.
Callan stared at him for a moment, then shook his head without answering.
Instead, he explained again, “You know what Spinner’s End is like, don’t you?”
Snape nodded.
“I know.”
Callan continued quietly, “Then in a place that bad, if I occasionally had no choice but to clean things up, do you think that was wrong?”
Snape still did not fully understand, but he heard enough in Callan’s words.
His hostility faded a little, replaced by surprise.
“You mean magic? But that’s illegal.”
Snape knew Callan’s magical talent was much stronger than his own.
Even if there was some trick to it, Callan truly could use a little wandless magic.
It might be enough to frighten some Muggles.
“Magic. Magic.”
To Snape’s surprise, Callan shook his head, caught between anger and amusement.
At last, he said, “I honestly do not know whether you are overestimating that trash or underestimating me, Snape.”
Before Snape could understand what that meant, Callan forcibly led him back toward The Leaky Cauldron.
“Come on. Stop thinking about pointless things.”
“The Evans family should arrive soon.”
“Right. And there is still Gamp’s Old Gregarious.”
Callan suddenly added, “It is only one Galleon. Go try it.”
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Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.