Obscurus Books, 18 South Side, Diagon Alley.
Its unassuming storefront blended into the tightly packed magical shops. Only the copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the window, its pages constantly turning, gave away its identity.
Newt Scamander, a great Hufflepuff.
This was Douglas's destination, but his feet carried him in another direction.
He needed to visit Gringotts first.
The wizarding bank run by goblins stood like a proud giant, its snow-white building overlooking all of Diagon Alley.
Fragments of memory told him that the goblins' promise of "absolute security" was more like an elaborately packaged joke.
But he could hardly stuff his Galleons under his bed. That would attract another, more troublesome sort of creature.
Slane always transferred his royalties directly from the company account into his personal vault at Gringotts.
Unfortunately, the road to the bank was destined to be full of obstacles today.
The back-to-school rush had turned Diagon Alley's already narrow cobbled street into a pot of thick, boiling soup.
Everyone was a bean tumbling in that soup, jostling and sweeping Douglas along.
For a moment, the uncontrolled torrent took him back many years.
That day, Professor McGonagall had led him just like this and pushed open the door to a new world.
"Douglas!"
A familiar shout pierced the bubble of his memories like a needle.
He came back to himself and realized the crowd had actually pushed him to the entrance of Obscurus Books.
Slane, his old schoolmate, was struggling to part the wall of people, his familiar face wearing an expression of anger that was three parts genuine and seven parts exaggerated.
"Oh, Merlin's beard! Douglas, I thought a Norwegian Ridgeback had carried you off to line its nest!"
Slane clamped an arm around Douglas's neck so tightly that Douglas almost thought he intended to give an illegal demonstration of his Animagus form.
"You came to Diagon Alley without coming to see me first! Out with it. Where were you sneaking off to?"
Douglas could feel the concern in his old schoolmate's words, though his way of expressing it was a little... enthusiastic.
The editor, a fellow Hufflepuff, was one of his few friends in the Wizarding World. They had worked together for ten years.
Yet apart from behaving himself during his years at Hogwarts, this younger schoolmate had completely let himself loose after graduation.
He dignified it with the name "gathering material."
The owls Slane sent either flew all the way to Egypt and exhausted themselves until they foamed at the beak, or lost their way in the distant East. In the most outrageous case, one had almost been detained in North America as an unidentified flying object by some Muggle outfit called the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Finding him was harder than catching a Demiguise.
"Cough! Cough!"
Choked until his eyes rolled back, Douglas hurriedly patted Slane's arm and forced a brilliant smile onto his face.
"Slane! Long time no see. Look at you, positively glowing! Something wonderful must have happened lately!"
He smoothly changed the subject, his voice full of sincere flattery.
"I was just going to Gringotts to withdraw some Galleons. Perfect timing to treat you to a feast so we can celebrate properly!"
Slane looked him up and down as though inspecting an Augurey that had been missing for ages, then finally gave a disdainful snort.
"A feast? At the Leaky Cauldron or the Three Broomsticks?"
He loosened his grip but kept an arm over Douglas's shoulders to stop him slipping away.
"What restaurant's feast could compare with the cooking of a fellow who had his own private stove in the Hogwarts Kitchens?"
A hint of nostalgia entered Slane's voice.
"The last time I ate your cooking was when you graduated, wasn't it? Ten years, Douglas. Ten whole years!"
His tone shifted, and worry crept over his face.
"Besides, what have I got to celebrate? One of your crazed fans just sent me their regards in a Howler! It was so loud it nearly blasted through my eardrums!"
Douglas took the opportunity to wriggle free, then produced two things from his shoulder bag as though performing a magic trick.
One was a thick manuscript carefully wrapped in a brown paper bag; the other was a little pastry giving off a buttery aroma.
"I told you ages ago, just find an empty room and pile the fan mail in there."
Douglas handed over the pastry, his tone easy.
"Open it at your leisure. If there's some rare magical material inside, like fangs or hair, it'll give my experiments something extra to chew on."
Slane took the pastry and bit into it crossly, though some of the worry between his brows eased.
"Speaking of Hogwarts, I've got some good news for you. I managed to-"
"Your good news can wait!"
Without letting him finish, Slane snatched the manuscript from his hand, not even taking the time to look at the cover.
He tucked the manuscript and pastry under his arm, freeing a hand to pat Douglas solemnly on the shoulder.
"I have bad news right now. Bad news that concerns both you and our company."
Douglas frowned slightly.
He spent most of his time outside the British Wizarding World. What bad news could possibly involve him?
"Gilderoy Lockhart. Remember that name?" Slane lowered his voice. "The fellow who wrote Travels with Trolls and Magical Me. I've mentioned him to you."
The name burrowed into his ears, leaving an echo like fingernails scraping a blackboard.
Of course Douglas remembered.
He had taken the man's professorship, though they had never met, and Dumbledore had explained that Lockhart had turned it down first.
Still, things like this were always a little delicate.
"What about him?" Douglas asked, stepping aside to avoid a young wizard charging recklessly along with a wheelbarrow.
"What about him?" Slane looked as though he had swallowed a fly. "Oh, Merlin's beard! My dear Mr. Holmes, you really ought to read the Daily Prophet more often!"
His face was full of disdain, as though he were looking at a caveman who had just emerged from his cave.
"Lockhart! Our old rival, Rumihart Books, has put him on a pedestal higher than the sun! Today, at Flourish and Blotts, he held a grand fan meet-and-greet!"
Slane spoke faster and faster, almost spraying spittle.
"And here's the most important part: he publicly produced a letter! A letter signed by Dumbledore himself! An invitation to become the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts!"
After hearing him out, Douglas had expected some earth-shattering affair.
He merely said calmly, "Don't worry, my dear Slane."
He pointed at the brown paper bag Slane was holding.
"What I gave you is the latest volume of Master of All Trades, and it's an exclusive first-release edition for the Wizarding World. I haven't even started writing the Muggle version yet..."
Slane's complaints stopped short.
His attention was entirely captured by the latter half of Douglas's words-or rather, by the heavy paper bag in his arms.
His eyes flew wide, and for an instant, he stopped breathing.
The next second, an expression bordering on ecstasy burst across his face, and he slapped Douglas hard on the shoulder.
"Wonderful! My boy! There couldn't possibly be better news!"
His voice trembled with excitement, but he quickly cast a wary glance at the surrounding crowd.
"Of course, if you'd agree to reveal your identity as the author, that would be even better..."
He clutched the manuscript closer, as though protecting a dragon egg.
Leaning close to Douglas's ear, he whispered rapidly:
"I need to get back at once! No, I mean, I need to get back and review the manuscript! Yes, review it! Then arrange the publicity and printing immediately! The last volume came out last year. This is perfect timing. We'll show that Lockhart fellow who the real king of bestsellers is!"
Slane's eyes shone with a light called "Galleons" and "revenge."
"This might even boost sales of all the previous books again... No time to talk. I'll find you later!"
Before he had even finished speaking, he turned and squeezed into the crowd, swimming determinedly toward Obscurus Books like a nimble loach.
Douglas watched his flustered retreat and shrugged helplessly.
The fellow pestered him for manuscripts every day, most likely so he could enjoy reading them first.
After all, printing in the Wizarding World could hardly be called efficient.
An author like him, who had written three series in ten years, each nearly twenty volumes long, could already be described as "outrageously prolific."
Without Slane muttering at his side, the world instantly became peaceful.
Douglas soon arrived at Gringotts.
Before the bronze doors of the towering snow-white building stood goblins in scarlet-and-gold uniforms.
Their eyes were sharp and the corners of their mouths turned down, as though every wizard entering the bank owed them a fortune.
Douglas was glad the goblin guiding him did not bellow, "Welcome! One gentleman! Right this way-"
That would have made him feel he had entered not a bank, but some bathhouse in the Muggle world.
The goblin led him into a lofty marble hall.
The air held the cold scent of metal and the inky fragrance of ancient contracts.
Despite the many customers, his observant guide took him straight to a counter where he did not have to queue.
The identity verification was simple and efficient.
A seal imbued with magic was pressed lightly onto parchment.
Soon, another goblin drove him deep underground in a squeaking cart.
They passed through labyrinthine tunnels before finally stopping at the door of a small vault.
Inside lay all of Douglas's wealth in the Wizarding World.
There were no heaps of magical objects, no rare alchemical materials, and certainly no legendary family inheritance.
Only money.
Gleaming Galleons lay lazily piled into a little hill, over four hundred thousand of them.
This was what he had accumulated through nearly ten years of tireless writing.
In the vaults of those ancient pure-blood families, this many Galleons might not amount to much.
But to Douglas, it was enough.
He was so poor that all he had left was money.
Of course, the sum was not fixed.
Every month, a royalty payment automatically transferred from the Obscurus Books vault, keeping the little hill at a steady height.
And in the Muggle world, his bank balance had long since exceeded two million pounds.
Had he not insisted on keeping his identity secret rather than marketing himself, and refused to license any merchandise, that figure could have had at least two more zeroes.
Money only needed to cover his expenses.
Food only needed to fill his stomach.
Before that damned system appeared, he had perfectly played the idle role befitting a useless transmigrator.
If the system had not imposed that deadly deadline, Douglas felt he could have kept coasting like this until the end of the world.
He withdrew ten thousand Galleons, casually grabbed a handful of Silver Sickles and Knuts, and stuffed them into a money pouch enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
The goblin led him back to the surface.
When he stepped out through Gringotts' bronze doors again, warm sunlight and the clamor of voices washed over him.
Watching the bustling crowds in the street, Douglas suddenly felt a little lost.
Wait, what did I come to Diagon Alley for again?
Oh, right.
Slane had arranged to meet him. The manuscript had been handed over, and that fellow who forgot friendship at the sight of a manuscript had run off.
So, what next?
A thought lit up his mind like a match struck in the dark.
A good place.
A junk shop.
No, to him now, it was more like a ghost market hidden in a corner of the city.
A hallowed place where one could enjoy the thrill of treasure hunting.
During his school years, he had found plenty of treasures there.
Textbooks discarded by earlier Hogwarts students, their pages covered in densely packed notes and improved spells.
It was these unremarkable castoffs that had helped him far beyond his textbooks when he first set out on the path of magic.
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