Chapter 84: Luohart's Signing Event

Luohart really is a decent bloke — treating people to a meal is one thing, but he even gave away 135 Galleons for free. It had been a long time since Silven had run into someone so easy to fool… so genuinely kind.

Wait, no — it should be 130 Galleons. Silven hadn't been exaggerating earlier; that so-called legendary golden wizard sticker really was made with gold dust… the cost of fifty of them was roughly five Galleons.

Still, Luohart's loaded, so he probably wouldn't mind his admirer skimming a little profit off the top.

Silven continued on toward the wand shop, inevitably passing the entrance to Knockturn Alley once again.

Same time, same place.

Knockturn Alley was very quiet, very deep, with not a single glimmer of light — the whole lane seemed like a crouching beast of prey, jaws gaping wide, waiting for some lost morsel.

But today Silven had no intention of wandering inside again, so he walked straight past.

He'd been keeping an eye on the place these past few days, but nothing had happened — no chaos, no Hit Wizards or Aurors coming to investigate.

Old Borgin had kept his word.

The six Death Eaters killed that night had sunk like stones into a deep abyss, stirring up no ripples at all, simply vanishing.

Speaking of Death Eaters, Silven suddenly remembered the transforming lizard that had become his spoils of war.

The thing had served as bait to lure him into a trap; later he'd dismantled the trap, and it would've been a shame not to take the bait along with it.

But Silven only took that one item. Although Old Borgin had said he could help himself to any of the spoils, after looking around, Silven found that aside from the transforming lizard, the rest weren't worth much, and their origins were unclear — so he simply honored his earlier promise and handed them all over to Old Borgin.

Old Borgin was quite pleased about it, and took it upon himself to handle all the follow-up cleanup.

True Knockturn Alley native — impeccable work ethic.

……

By the next day, Silven arrived at Flourish and Blotts before noon, delivering the stickers he'd stayed up all night making.

At the same time, he received the full set of signed works Luohart had promised, along with the very first signed copy of *Me, the Magical One*.

Flourish and Blotts wouldn't officially put the autobiography on sale for another two hours, alongside the signing event — but Luohart didn't mind, and handed it over together with the rest of the books.

The full set of works, naturally, couldn't be missing a single volume. Besides *Me, the Magical One*, it also included *Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Ridding Your Home of Pests* and *How to Dance Elegantly with Veela*.

Luohart must have known these two books really had nothing to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts, which is why he didn't have the nerve to count them as textbooks.

Before leaving, Silven had Luohart write an extra inscription in *Me, the Magical One*, certifying it as the first copy of the autobiography to be officially sold.

Thanks to the good impression he'd left the day before, Luohart agreed without a second thought.

Silven planned to find an opportunity to sell it at a high price — given Luohart's current popularity, surely someone would be willing to buy such a highly collectible commemorative edition.

When Silven returned to the wand shop afterward, a long, winding queue had already begun forming at the door. Garrick watched him walk behind the counter, an indescribably strange look in his eyes.

"Is something the matter?" Silven asked, puzzled.

"They're all here for you," Garrick said, his tone complicated.

The old wandmaker, who had spent decades in peace and quiet, had never imagined the shop's entrance could have a queue stretching down the street two days in a row.

And that big bag under the counter, stuffed full of silver Sickles, made it all feel rather unreal.

The money he'd earned selling wands over these two days probably hadn't even reached that amount — and even though Garrick didn't set much store by profit, there was no way he could remain completely unmoved at this point.

Those little trinkets like the stickers — do that many people really like them? Isn't it a bit over the top?

Hmm……

It really is a bit over the top.

If Garrick had paid a little more attention, he would have noticed that among the people in the queue there were actually quite a few familiar faces.

These were all professional queue-standers Silven had hired through Old Tom at the Leaky Cauldron — five Sickles a day.

Not a lot, but Old Tom had rustled up quite a few of them. The Leaky Cauldron was full of drunks whose pockets were drier than their faces; five silver Sickles could buy five big mugs of malt whiskey, and the work was easy, so naturally plenty of people were willing to take the job.

Tom himself was also happy to help, because the money those people earned would all show up in the Leaky Cauldron's cash box the next day.

The long queue would in turn attract more genuine customers — everyone was satisfied. The only downside was that this trick worked best on the first day alone.

There were only so many wizards in Diagon Alley, and even fewer who were interested in wand accessories, so by the afternoon, although the queue outside was still long, Silven could clearly sense that the number of real customers had dropped.

Most people just came in, had a quick look around, and left.

And that was only because they'd caught the tailwind of Luohart's signing event — otherwise, there probably wouldn't have been anyone left by late morning.

"Oh, finally got in." At that moment, a familiar voice rang out.

"Unbelievable — since when has the wand shop been this popular?"

"Or did we miss something — wand stickers?"

Fred and George crowded up to Silven, grinning at him.

"Long time no see, Silven."

"We came by once before, but the shop was locked up then."

"Had to take a trip out of town," Silven said. "So you two came all this way just to find me?"

"Of course… not," Fred said.

"We came to buy Jin Ni her new wand." George stepped aside slightly, revealing a little red-haired witch standing behind him.

"Jin Ni Weasley — our youngest sister."

"A first-year at Hogwarts this year."

"Mum was going to bring her herself."

"But we volunteered to take the job."

"And we just happened to want to see your new… wand stickers." Fred thought for a moment. "That's the name, right?"

"And the dyeing spray and the care kit," Silven said, for what felt like the hundredth time.

People can't just pretend those two products don't exist just because they're a bit pricier.

Even so, Silven had no plans to cut the price — after all, only with a comparison could the stickers' value-for-money really stand out, and people would part with their money more readily.

"Come on, Silven, bring the stuff out."

Urged on by the Weasley brothers, Silven brought out the full set of Fantastic Beasts series stickers, and just stood behind the counter chatting with them.

The Weasley brothers talked at length, placing special emphasis on how they had rescued Harry from his uncle and aunt's house.

"You simply can't imagine what Harry has been through."

George put on an exaggerated expression. "They wouldn't even feed him."

"Lucky for us we got the news in time."

"And brought him to the Burrow."

"We came to Diagon Alley together today."

"But Harry called out the wrong fireplace grate and ended up coming out from Knockturn Alley."

"What a great idea—why didn't we think of it?" George slapped his thigh in frustration. "If we'd called out the wrong grate too, we could go to Knockturn Alley out in the open."

"Fred!" Jin Ni, who was in the middle of testing a wand, turned her head at once and said, frowning, "Mum won't let us anywhere near that place. Don't even think about it."

"I'm George, Jin Ni," George said. "And I don't think Knockturn Alley is all that dangerous either—even Harry said he didn't run into any strange people, just that the things they sold in there weren't exactly friendly."

"Dad said that was only because he was lucky and ran into Hagrid," Jin Ni glared at him. "And Harry didn't do it on purpose—he didn't want to go to Knockturn Alley!"

"Ah, perhaps," Fred said, his tone noncommittal.

……

(End of chapter)