HP: A Sociopath Gamer In Magic World [ Chapter 47: Familiar! ] (Patreon)
Content
My first stop was of course Flourish and Blotts.
Stepping inside of the bookstore, I was awed. Never in my life have I witnessed a scene that looked like it came straight out of the nightmare fueled mind of a person suffering from an extreme case of OCD. As someone who liked to keep things tidy, the entire place filled me with discomfort.
Books of varying size and shape were stacked on top of each other, tall enough to touch the ceiling. Quills and inkwells were all over the place, either floating in the air or just lying on the ground. The scattered books would flap their covers like birds and fly around the room making me wonder how anyone was supposed to ever find anything.
Perhaps they used the summoning charm?
Then again, that would be giving wizards too much credit as it would require them to have memorized every single book in the store.
Looking through the stacks of books I had to hold back a snarl of disgust as I spotted a potions book, a romance novel, and a book about owl care all in the same pile. Did they seriously never hear of the Dewey Decimal System?
Walking down one of the rows I used [Observe] on the books to get a brief overview of what they were about.
Book of Extinct Plants Vol. 1
Nightingale: The Story of the Raven Prince
1001 Household charms
How to make your own ink.
Most of them were utter nonsense, but there were some gems mixed into the batch like one book depicting old dueling techniques, or another that showed you how to build a house from scratch, and there was even one that taught you how to make basic armor.
After about half an hour of searching I had a stack of 30 books, many of which were theory based with a few skill books mixed in. Including the books I had bought from Daphne and the ones I had stolen from Hogwarts, my personal library had already exceeded 200 with over a quarter of them being skill books that I had yet to absorb.
"The total comes to 109 Galleons, 1 Sickle, and 18 Knuts," the cashier said, "Would you like them shrunken down and wrapped? It only cost an extra 5 Sickles."
"Sure," I responded with a shrug as I reached into my 'wallet' and began to stack columns of coins on the counter.
It still amazed me just how open knowledge was in the wizarding world. These books literally had the knowledge to change the very laws of nature and here they were, being sold to an underage child for less than a used car.
Walking out of the store, I placed the books inside of my top hat and take a look at some of the other street stalls.
My next stop was the pet shop, Magical Menagerie.
The first thing to hit me was the horrible smell of compost. Luckily, I was well used to smell of rotting flesh, so I was able to ignore it for the most part.
Inside, the store resembled more of a petting zoo than a place of business, with stacks of cages covering almost the entire area. The cries and odors coming from the agitated animals also told me they weren't happy with their current situation.
Huh, my mind couldn't help but draw a parallel to the orphanage.
Anyways, I was here for a reason, it was finally time for me to get familiar. After all, in most RPG's there was usually a pet system, right?
With that in mind I began to inspect the various creatures.
Frog?
No, too undignified.
Cat?
No, there was only room for one sociopath after all.
Owl?
Good heaven's no.
Rat?
What am I, poor?
Snake?
Interesting, but better to stay clear of those for now.
Nothing really called my attention.
Going to the counter I began to ask the clerk, "Hey, are these all the pets you have?"
Placing down the newspaper the saleswoman gave me an irritated look, "Well we do have one more, though he is a feisty one."
"Can I still see him?"
Getting out of chair with a sigh, the saleswoman went into the back room for a second and came back with a cage.
Immediately I recognized the ginger cat. Crookshanks huh?
I smiled as I reached out a hand to pet him.
As soon as I was in range, I received a claw swipe for my efforts. I pulled back my hand to see four lines of blood drawn on the back even if the wound had already healed. Looks like his ability to sense bad people was true after all.
We locked eyes for several seconds before I finally conceded defeat.
Smiling pleasantly at the witch, who looked like she had been expecting this result, I spoke again, "Hmm, I'm actually more of a dog person. You wouldn't happen to have any here, would you?"
The woman chuckled as she shook her head, "Sorry boy, nothing like that here."
"Oh well. In that case can you sell me a couple of those raven eggs and a cage?"
"Sure, you're in luck too, that batch is close to hatching. Do you want a book on raising birds too?"
"Why not, it's better to be prepared, right?"
After a brief exchange of money, I left the pigsty of a shop with a dozen raven eggs and a cage charmed to function as an incubation chamber.
Seeing as it was getting late, I decided it was time to finally retrieve Ms. Taylor from the café across the street from the Leaky Cauldron where I had last left her.
However, as I was beginning to walk to the pub, I caught a curious store from the corner of my eye.