9 9. New Office and Getting Famous
He went to the Daily Prophet's office. As soon as he entered the office, a woman ran towards him. She had glasses on and a mole near her lips. It was Rita Skeeter.
"Mr. Universe, hello, I am Rita Skeeter, do you have a minute." she started to annoy him.
He silently walked by but still saw the magic quill moving. He quickly looked at her Sin percentage.
||Rita Skeeter- Category 2
Indirect Murders - 2
theft - 300
Pathological liar - 1,897,430 times.
Sin percentage - 35%||
~I guess I'll give her a lesson later~ he made a mental note.
He entered the editor in chief, Barnabas Cuffe's office. Barnabas Cuffe was shocked by the sudden intrusion. But he recognized him at first glance.
"Oh, mister Universe. what can I do for you?"
"It's boss from now on," Alexander said and showed the ownership papers.
"I've bought the daily prophet. From now on you all will be working for me. Gather the whole staff in the hall" he ordered and returned to the hall.
Barnabas was shocked for a while but then got to work immediately. When everyone gathered he cleared his throat and announced.
"Hello, I am Alexander Maxim Universe, the new owner of Daily Prophet. You all will call me boss from now on. This building will also be made bigger because I am going to turn this into an international newspaper. Rita Skeeter, I need to talk to you so come to editor in chief's office in 30 minutes." he finished speaking and returned.
In the office, he gave Barnabas Cuffe a transparent glass orb, attached to a stand. he placed it on the table.
"Mr. Cuffe, this is an artifact that can detect if someone is lying. Only you can see it from this angle. I want you to conduct interviews and hire 500 news correspondents. They should be knowledgeable about various fields of magic and muggles. Hire people with origins from different magical communities. Then send them to their home countries to give you different news articles every day. From now on, the newspaper will have 32 pages and will have news from most countries. The first 10 pages of the newspaper will have news pertaining to the local magical community. So each magical community will have its own version of the paper. For now, we will start with European countries and the USA." he told him about the new plans.
He also gave him a paper with questions that needed to be asked to interviewed candidates. The most important questions were, Do you have affiliation with dark magic or any dark wizard in any way?, do you have affiliation with any ministry of magic in any way? Are you a spy?.
He was also going to make the 1 month free for all readers to create a user base.
[Knock Knock]
"It must be Rita, Mr. Cuffe, can you please give me a moment to talk to her alone. You can go and announce my plans to the staff. But, please keep the orb a secret." he politely asked Cuffe.
"Yes, Boss." Cuffe nodded and left the office.
Rita haughtily entered the room. She looked at Alexander with a proud face and asked.
"What can I do for you, boss?"
Alexander shook his head in disappointment.
"Miss Skeeter. I know about your illegal beetle animagus."
Rita's proud smile turned into a frown in an instant.
"You really love writing fake gossip don't you, you have indirectly forced 2 people to commit suicide by writing fake news... sit down now," he said and walked towards her.
Her punishment was a time torture and now that he knew magic on a deeper level, he could create mind illusions. He made her see herself gruesomely swatted in her beetle form every time she lied and when she stopped lying, people would start gossiping about her. For Alexander, it was just 10 minutes but for her, it was 5 years of torture. Human nature is very hard to change so he had to make it long.
By the end, she had started crying, snot was coming out. Her eyes had turned red. The moment she came out of the illusion she fell down on her knees and held Alexander's legs and started pleading for forgiveness. Alexander was sure that she had learned her lesson.
"Get up, I can not forgive you, you must atone for your sins by hard work. Report and fight for truth from now on. If you find any trouble you can come to me. Your other task is to glorify my image in the magic community. Wizards and Witches should hold me even higher than Dumbledore. I will do many big things and you will be the one reporting on it. Make the articles look interesting while not distorting the truth. Also, improve your image" he ordered her, no matter how she was, she was damn good at writing interesting articles.
She cleaned her face and looked at Alexander with reverence.
"I will not disappoint you, boss," she respectfully said.
He nodded and left the building. He went to a small shop in Diagon Alley. It was actually an office of the biggest magical construction company, Lee & Sons Construction. He entered the building and was greeted by the receptionist. She then took him to see a company representative. The name of the guy was Harold Johnson.
Because Alexander's pictures were recently published in the newspaper, everyone could identify him.
"Welcome to Lee & Sons Construction, Mr. Universe. How can I be of service?" Harold asked.
"Well, I want to hire your company to build a building for me. I have recently bought the Daily Prophet and I want to expand it. Can you make it according to my design, in one month?." Alexander asked as he put a paper with building design on the table.
The current office was just 2 stories high with 80 meter X 60-meter width. It had no underground floor. Truly a wastage of the area. The new building he had designed was a combination of magic and modern architecture with a crazy amount of expansion charms. It had 30 floors and was called Galaxy tower. 25 of the 30 floors would be above the ground. The building was supposed to be covered with reflective glass from outside to increase aesthetics. The first 5 floors would be turned into a huge mall. After that, we would have the Daily Prophet's office for 6-12 floors. Then there will be the Universe telecommunications office.
He was going to introduce magical mobile phones. This way, the people will have a better way of communicating and also gathering information. From floor 13-19 would be manufacturing plants. From 20-24 would be Broadcasting and Production Studio. He was going to introduce video media. The studio would be used to create news in all languages. Finally, the top floor was going to be his office.
The underground floors will have a security control office, Archives, Wards control room, and storage vaults. The building will be accessible from Universe shops. These shops would be opened all around the world. They will have nothing in them but a portkey to the entrance chamber of galaxy tower. There were two entrances. One for local British people and one for International visitors. International Visitors will not be able to leave the building without showing proper paper to people from the Department of Magical Transportation, who will have booths at the exit of the building.
The entry and exit of the building had an invisible waterfall that could locate any harmful artifact or magic on people entering and exiting. It had an anti-apparition ward. For local people there were many floo chimneys too. The daily prophet and video media would work together. The building was going to be the headquarter office because workers could just use the portkey from anywhere in the world. There were many more wards and charm to be added for security.
Harold looked at the marvelous building design. He thought for a little while and gave him the answer.
"Yes, we can make this but this will cost you a lot," he said.
"Haha... money is not the problem Mr. Johnson. I just want it finished within one month." he laughingly said.
"Okay sir, the estimated cost would be around 40-50 million galleons. We will make this job our top priority sir, so you can rest easy," Harold happily said. Of course, he would be happy. Nobody spends so much money on making a building these days in the magic world. All the pureblood families had their own old castles and half-bloods or muggle-borns were happy with small houses.
Alexander signed the contract and went back to Burrows. He was going to start working on a magic phone.
...
Next morning,
Everyone was eating breakfast when suddenly an owl crashed in with a newspaper.
Ron picked it up and returned while looking at it. Then he ran to Alexander with an excited gaze.
"Grandpa, look. You are in the paper again." Ron exclaimed.
Molly hurriedly took the newspaper and read it aloud.
"It had just been one day since the legendary Alexander Maxim Universe announced his return and yet he has shocked the magical world once again. Mr. Universe has now bought the Daily Prophet. One of the most read newspapers in the world. But who is this new owner? Let me share with you the life of Mr. Universe.
He was born in..." She kept on reading with an excited voice while Alexander silently heard while eating.
The article was written by Rita Skeeter and he had to agree with her writing talent. She had glorified him and god knows from where she even snuffed out 3 pureblood witnesses. The witnesses said that they or their parents were saved by him in the Global wizarding war.
"These were just 3 accounts from an uncountable number of amazing deeds done by Mr. Universe. We all know that Headmaster Dumbledore was the one who defeated Grindelwald, but we forgot about the savior in the dark. Who worked from the shadow and served the light. Mr. Universe, the world may have forgotten you but, I want to apologize for our ignorance and thank you for your selfless kindness. You are the best owner the daily prophet could ever have" Molly stopped reading and looked at Alexander with eyes full of worship.
"Thank you for your hard work," She said and hugged his neck. Ron and Ginny also got up and hugged him.
"Thank you, Grandpa," they said.
"Haha... easy now. These old bones cannot handle so much weight now," he joked.
To be honest he didn't remember much about his fake past but he liked warm moments like these. They remind him of his good days back on earth, the group hugs from kids in orphanages.
