ch 79 Prelude

5:58 pm, March 8, 1992, Sunday Gringotts Banks, Diagon Alley

At the owlery of the goblins…

Gringott, the goblin, has a stern looked watching his subordinates gives a golden letter to each of their owls, making sure that all the wizard leaders, medias and those that are inducted to the O.M. were notified.

It was not only his banks who were sending such letters. Every establishment in the world that was built with the help of that man is doing the same.

Looking at his pocket watch, Gringott said, "It's time."

Immediately, hundreds of owls carrying a golden letter flew out and into the sky.

Some recipients were actually in or not far from Diagon Alley.

An old wand maker read the letter and smiled as he mumbled, "Great things indeed…"

In the office of the editor-in-chief of The Daily Prophet, Barnabas Cuffe ran out of his office and yelled, "STOP THE PRESS!"

Cornelius Fudge, The Minister of Magic, was sleeping in his office and didn't react to the owl and letter.

A toad face lady wearing the fluffy pink cardigan walked in the room and shooed the owl away before reading the letter. The content made her screamed, "Cornelius, WAKE UP!!!"

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6:33 pm, Hogwarts Great Hall

- Marshall's POV-

"Huff...huff...huff... I'm so hungry!" I sigh as I briskly make my way from the Headmaster's office to the Great Hall for Dinner.

Other teachers, Hagrid, Filch and older students came to see the new greenhouse.

When I candidly asked for suggestions on what to put and plant in it, .... EVERYONE has his/her opinion and ideas.

I have to spend the whole afternoon with the teachers in Dumbledore's office planning how to landscape the inside of the greenhouse.

Now I'm concerned that the greenhouse will be more of a leisure place than the intended vegetable garden.

Hagrid and Prof. Kettleburn asked me if I'm interested in updating the Beast classroom/ barn that houses the magical creatures used in Care of Magical Creatures.

Their proposal piques my interest. Since I'm planning to create my own shadow realm for extinct magical creatures, practicing recreating livable habitats for existing ones is a good experience and reference.

The only difference is that I'm planning to make a realm at least a size of a continent or a small planet, while Hagrid and Kettleburn's plan is more of a zoo.

After some talk, we got the Headmaster's permission to create the 'zoo' next school year.

As for the vegetable greenhouse, I left the planning and landscaping to Professor Sprout. The actual work will still fall on me, but I can't, for the love of god, listen to everyone's ideas.

I just reminded my Herbology professor to ensure that the new place is for planting large vegetables and fruits. The original goal was to reduce the weight consumption of Jadis' food producing artifact and allocate it to other ingredients.

Now, I missed having my afternoon snack and is very famished after I left the office.

As I entered the Great Hall and walked to where Susan and the others were, all attention was on me, accompanied by murmurs of the news about the newly built greenhouse.

"Where have you---" Wayne greeted me as I sit down, but I quickly raised my palm for him to stop.

"Wait mate, I need food first. I'm starving. A little more and I'll be HANGRY. You don't want to see me HANGRY." Taking my seat, I quickly grabbed the menu and perused it and ordered, "I'll have the creamy scallion-mushroom soup and Cobb salad, then later … uhm… Roast Lamb with Caponata . For dessert, Mango-Basil Vacherin. Thank you."

My ordered soup and salad appeared after I ordered and started to eat.

After a few bites, I replied to Wayne, "Sorry about that. I've been in the Headmaster's office to plan what to put in the new greenhouse. No one asked me if I'm hungry. It's so awkward for me to bring out food while everyoneis talking."

Ernie asked, "How did it go?"

"Messy… a lot of ideas. I just left the planning to Professor Sprout, and I'll edit it to align to the original purpose of creating the vegetable greenhouse." I said.

After a few more bites, I told them, "Another thing we discussed is that I'll have another project for next school year. Me, Hagrid and Kettleburn will update the Beast classroom into a zoo."

Everyone was shocked. But after remembering how large the space inside the greenhouse earlier, imagining a zoo inside is not farfetch.

The entire hall quieted down when the faculty entered for dinner at the same time, something that never happened before. Some students thought that there's an emergency again.

Some of them looked my way and nodded when they passed by.

Only after they were seated and began eating, did the hall returned to being a noisy place.

Naomi got curious about the planned 'zoo' and asked me, "Will there be unicorns in that zoo?"

"Unicorns? ... Oh?! ... I forgot, some of you guys haven't seen magical creatures yet, especially the ones in XXX and above categories." I said after the realization.

"Yeah..." pouting, Naomi said, "When I was selecting my wand back in Ollivanders, I got excited to learn dragons, unicorns, phoenixes, and other fairy tale creatures are real. But until now, I haven't seen any. If I didn't meet Marshall's fairy, and saw the Giant Squid in the lake, and the occasional creatures by the barn outside the castle, I would have thought that magical creatures were just figments of people's imagination."

Ernie said, "I only saw some rare creatures when those circus passed by, but they were obviously neglected and in a sorry state. "

"I heard from my aunt that only a few of those kinds of circus exist now, as most of their displayed creatures were illegally obtained from the black market..." Susan chimed in, "... And they sometimes cause accidents when they escape."

I'm listening to their conversation and mumbled, "Hmmm… That zoo might be a bit more troublesome than I thought…"

Hearing me, Adeline asked, "Troublesome? How?"

"Yeah, I forgot about the whole legal aspect of owning magical creatures." Thinking about it is giving me a headache.

"I thought that a license was easy to get? You were able to get one, and an international one in fact." Kevin said.

With a weak smile, I replied, "Well, you see Kev, my situation is kinda special."

"What do you mean?" Kev inquired further.

While I'm contemplating on how to answer his question, a large owl entered the hall holding a golden letter. It flew directly towards the faculty table and dropped the letter into Dumbledore's hand.

For some reason, everyone paid attention to the Headmaster as he opened the letter and read its content.

With a shocked expression, Dumbledore stood up and looked straight to my direction.

Every student were startled by the Headmaster's reaction and followed his line of sight, which led to me.

Those that were in the way between me and Dumbledore shrieked back and docked out of the way.

Concerned, Wayne softly asked, "For Merlin's stinking beard!! Marshall, what's happening?"

"Pfft! Hahaha..." I laughed hearing him.

Susan couldn't stand the pressure from all the stares and so she kicked my shin, "You're still able to laugh."

"Sorry...sorry... ehem.." I tried to compose myself and explained, "Remember, I told you I will be receiving an inheritance from a family friend? The uncle who has the silver wing falcon? Well, I'm guessing that letter is about that."

They all nodded and realized what I meant, but then they were bothered by the Headmaster's reaction.

Can't contain his curiosity, Ernie asked, "Who is that 'uncle'?"

Pointing at Wayne, I chuckled, "Wayne already said his name."

"Huh?" Wayne was surprised, "I said his name? But I didn't mention anybody?"

"Yes, you did. Just now." I insisted.

Adjusting his glasses, Wayne had a frown on his face trying to remember, 'Who? I only yelled.. Then asked him…wait.. Yelled..eh? For Merlin's stinking beard,... !!!!'

Before Wayne could say the name, Susan figured it out, "Merlin?!"

They all had a shocked expression and Kevin mumbled, "Kinda special indeed…"

~end chapter ~

Nxt chapter is on April 15th.