International politics — whether among Muggles or wizards — was a wretched business. The essence, however, remained the same: all politicians were for sale; it was merely that some commanded a rather higher price than others. Richard, for his part, chose to regard it as training — for one day, he would take his seat in the House of Lords.
Richie had no intention of leaving his seat in the House of Lords to elected peers. The working schedule there was remarkably lenient: an hour and a half a day, three times a week. Each hour of work was handsomely paid, and travel expenses were reimbursed—even if one chose to arrive by helicopter.
And that was hardly the most attractive part. An aristocrat with a hereditary seat in the House of Lords could expect exceptional career prospects from the outset — a ministerial post, or a position of comparable influence. TThat meant considerable wealth, along with numerous perfectly legal means of easing one's tax burden, so widely accepted as to be quietly encouraged.
After all, the government was full of Windsors and other well-connected families of immense fortune. Who would raise a fuss against their own kin? One hand washes the other.
Incidentally, a trust fund was not merely a means of protecting wealth from falling into other hands, but also an excellent method of avoiding taxation. For instance, beneficiaries of a share in such an arrangement would not pay a single penny, whereas ordinary inheritance would require them to part with forty per cent of the property's market value.
Thus, Richie intended, in time, to place "Grosvenor Junior" under the wing of a trust fund. After all, his company was technically a subsidiary of "Grosvenor Group," yet on paper it remained an independent firm. In short, as was customary in high finance, everything was structured just obscurely enough that outsiders would struggle to make sense of it — while those in the know would have no trouble understanding exactly how things worked.
The young Count Grosvenor spent a great deal of time and nerves on all these matters—October flew by in the blink of an eye.
His studies continued apace. Transfiguration and Potions came to Richard with some difficulty; he had to devote an enormous amount of time to practising spells for McGonagall's class, leaving little time for brewing. He could, no doubt, have mastered a wide array of new charms—of which the library held a great many—but his lessons with Madam Marchbanks made themselves felt. The young wizard pursued perfection in every spell with near fanaticism, whether it was turning a match into a needle or a snail into a teapot.
In general, the formulae for Transfiguration spells were universal. If one could turn a match into a needle, then one could just as well transform a log into a sword, a shovel, an axe, and so forth. Thus, Richie progressed from matches to a small stick, which he transformed into a knife, spoon, fork, ladle, spanners, screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutters, scissors, and even a multitool. He then moved on to transforming a wooden block, creating heavier and more complex steel objects. The next stage was eliminating the verbal component.
Despite her dislike for the young lord, Professor McGonagall was forced to award him top marks.
As for Potions… that simply was not his thing. It was hardly fitting for an aristocrat to brew murky concoctions in a cauldron, and so Snape's cutting remarks came his way with unfailing regularity. Still, they were always to the point. Richie knew how to listen—and how to pick out what mattered. Where an ordinary child might hear only criticism, ignore the remark, and take offence besides, Richie calmly grasped the essence, took it on board, and avoided repeating the same mistake twice. As a result, his "magical soups" were not much worse than those of the Ravenclaw students, and he was the best among his fellow Hufflepuffs.
Waking on the morning of Hallowe'en, Richard caught the scent of baked pumpkin—the quintessential hallmark of the holiday. It seemed as though the aroma had permeated the entirety of Hogwarts, though in truth it was simply due to the proximity of the Hufflepuff dormitories to the kitchens.
That day, Professor Flitwick announced that, in his opinion, the students were finally ready to begin studying proper charms—something many had long been anticipating.
Only Richie was disappointed.
The spell assigned was Levitation—a charm young Grosvenor could cast in the middle of the night with his eyes closed, non-verbally, and even without a wand.
Throughout the lesson, Richard was bored. He completed the task without displaying his full abilities, merely causing a feather to float—much to the professor's delight.
As the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws left the Charms classroom, Justin said:
"Richie, that's not fair! You learnt that charm before school!"
"It's entirely fair," Richard replied calmly. "Anyone could have hired a tutor and practised magic. You, for instance, Justin, had an entire month before Hogwarts. The fact that you chose to spend it resting is entirely your own problem."
Padma Patil, walking beside them, remarked:
"Richie, I heard that students aren't allowed to use magic during the summer."
"Padma, my dear, that applies to students," Richard said, a sly smile playing across his face. "We were not yet Hogwarts students at the time. Besides, I asked my Charms tutor how the monitoring of young wizards works."
"Did you?" Padma turned to him with curiosity. "And how does it work?"
"For a first-year wizard living among ordinary people, Ministry officials from the Department of Magical Education visit during the school year. They place monitoring charms over the area where the student resides. These charms detect the use of magic performed with a wand and relay the information to a designated artefact.
"In other words, if there is only one young wizard living in a small town, the charms would be cast over the entire settlement. If there are many wizards in a city, then they would cover only the house and a small surrounding area.
"In my case, the enchantment would have to be placed over the entire estate — assuming, of course, that the security do not kill the Ministry officials first, which is not entirely out of the question."
(End of Chapter)
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