Buy, Buy, Buy

After some haggling, Kyle finally bought the clump of Gillyweed for fifteen Galleon.

Mrs. Prier originally insisted on receiving seventeen Galleon.

But after Kyle easily cast the Bubble-Head Charm, she immediately cast two more Galleon and offered to give him a bag of Dittany and Rue seeds.

Kyle realized this was her final limit, so he accepted the offer and quickly completed the deal.

Mrs. Prier placed the Gillyweed into a transparent box and sighed, "I only gave you this discount because you like magical plants. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't have gotten such a big discount."

"... Including those seeds, I've lost ten Galleon."

Kyle smiled but didn't say anything.

The shopkeepers in Diagon Alley are all very shrewd, and Mrs. Prier wouldn't let herself lose too much... at least the price she paid for Gillyweed certainly wasn't twenty Galleon.

Of course, this kind of thing is tacitly understood; it's enough that you know it in your heart. And he did indeed make a small profit this time.

Elsewhere, you can't buy Gillyweed for fifteen Galleon.

After leaving Mrs. Prier's Magical Herb Garden, Kyle carefully placed the small box into his Mokeskin Pouch.

His trunk is still with Dumbledore, so he'll have to make do with this for now.

"Hi, Kyle!"

Hearing someone call his name, Kyle looked up and saw Harry, Hermione, and Ron standing at the entrance of the Scribbulus Writing Implements shop next door.

Each of them was also holding a large scoop of strawberry peanut ice cream.

"The Magical Plant Garden?" Harry said, somewhat surprised. "I thought you'd be reading somewhere, like Percy."

"I've been reading for over a month now, I need to do something else," Kyle said.

"I heard from Ron that you spent a month in Mr. Nicolas Flamel's private library," Hermione said enviously. "Six hundred years of books...it must have been wonderful."

"Although I don't mean to brag..." Kyle chuckled, "The experience over the past month has certainly been incredibly beneficial."

"That's wonderful..." Hermione exclaimed, even more envious. "I want to go see it too, even just for a glimpse..."

"There will be an opportunity," Kyle said.

"Hermione, isn't the school library big enough for you to read?" Ron muttered, "There are hundreds of bookshelves there. I bet even Headmaster Dumbledore couldn't read them all."

Hermione glared at him, annoyed.

While he's not wrong, a private library and a physical library are two different things... Besides, the more books you can read, the better.

Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Harry quickly changed the subject, saying, "Kyle, we're just about to go buy parchment and ink, do you want to come along?"

"Sure, I was just about to buy those too."

The four of them then went into the Scribbulus Writing Implements store together.

As soon as he entered, Kyle went straight to the counter displaying parchment and ink, pointed to the two bottom shelves, and asked, "This should be enough for you, right?"

"That's enough, that's enough." Harry nodded repeatedly. "Hermione needs it the most; Ron and I only need to buy a little bit."

"Alright then..."

Kyle looked at the shop assistant, then waved his hand dismissively, "Except for these two... wrap up everything else!"

"Plop..." Harry's ice cream fell to the ground.

He stared at Kyle in disbelief, momentarily wondering if he had misheard.

"Kyle, you just said... you wanted to buy all the parchment and ink here?"

"Yes, is there a problem?" Kyle asked. "Oh, if you don't have enough, I can buy less."

"Snap!"

Ron's ice cream also fell.

"There must be at least three thousand sheets of parchment here... Did you buy them all?"

In his opinion, even if you ate parchment and drank ink, you wouldn't use that much in a school year.

But Kyle just shrugged.

Three thousand sheets of parchment, even if used sparingly, could only be used to copy a hundred books... and he still felt it wasn't enough.

Compared to Harry and Ron, the shop assistants were much more composed. After a brief moment of surprise, they quickly helped Kyle unload all the parchments.

"Oh, right," Kyle suddenly said, "Give me twenty sheets of your gilded parchment as well."

"No, no problem!"

The shop assistant quickly ran to the exquisitely designed shelf behind the counter and carefully opened a transparent cabinet door...

While the clerk was getting something, Hermione walked over and whispered:

"Kyle, you bought so much parchment, are you going to make a map?"

She hesitated for a moment, then continued, "If that's the case, I don't think you need to buy so many... In fact, I discovered before the holiday that someone was making those kinds of maps; you probably won't sell many this year."

"Thanks for the reminder, but you don't need to worry about that." Kyle waved his hand. "Our products aren't static. This year's map is a completely new version that you've never seen before."

Besides, I didn't buy all of these just to make maps; they have other uses too.

Hermione was very curious, but in the end she didn't say anything more.

She thought for a moment, then took out a few more Galleon from her purse and bought all the remaining parchment.

Harry stared at the empty shelves. "Hermione, what do we do?!"

Hermione, without looking up, said, "There should be other parchments here."

"Some."

The shop assistant wrapped the parchment in gold-edged paper and then tapped the counter with his wand.

New parchment and ink immediately appeared on the shelves, though in much smaller quantities than before.

Because of Kyle's presence as a major client, Harry, Hermione, and Ron also received a good discount.

After leaving the store, Hermione glanced at Kyle and asked, "That box you just took out, did it have Undetectable Extension Charm?"

"That's obvious, isn't it?" Kyle nodded. "A normal box can't hold more than three thousand parchments."

"So, on Halloween that day..." Hermione started to say, but then suddenly realized something and quickly shut her mouth.

"What's wrong with Halloween?" Harry turned around.

"Nothing," Hermione mumbled. "I just remembered that Kyle decorated a pumpkin with magic on Halloween, and I wanted to ask him what spell he used."

"Oh..." Harry replied casually, not paying any more attention.

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, and while Harry and Ron discussed where to go next, she lowered her voice and asked, "The box you used to put the Troll in on Halloween, was it also protected by the Undetectable Extension Charm?"

"You guessed right..."

Kyle didn't deny it, "It's just that it's a different one."

Thank you so much to reader An Yi Xiantai for the 500-coin reward (very loudly)