Aaron took the suitcase from Anne's hand, ruffled her hair, and exclaimed, "Wow, Anne, you've grown quite a bit again! How was your term?"
Anne smiled. "It went well, Uncle Aaron. But speaking of which, I should be congratulating you! Hehe, how does it feel to be the new Deputy Director of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?"
Aaron blinked, then chuckled sheepishly. "Ahaha, Anne, so you already know." He glanced over at Diana on the other side of Anne, it must have been her who spilled the beans.
Diana shot him a sideways look that said, Yeah, and what of it?
Catching their silent exchange, Anne grinned to herself and asked again, "Uncle Aaron, you still haven't answered my question."
"Well, it's not all that different from before, really," Aaron said, rubbing the back of his head. "Just fewer business trips now. Plus, there are quite a few large-scale events being planned this year. The whole British Ministry of Magic is super busy these days!" He winked at Anne. "And your school is set to host one of the biggest events of all."
Diana glared at him. "It hasn't been officially confirmed yet…"
Aaron waved her off. "What's the harm? It's practically set in stone anyway. No harm in letting Anne in on it."
"Besides the Quidditch World Cup, what other big event could possibly compare this year?" Anne asked.
"Oh, there's something, alright," Aaron said with a chuckle. "But your aunt is right, we'll tell you more once it's fully confirmed. You'll probably be very busy anyway, right?" he added, turning to Diana.
Diana nodded tiredly and rubbed her temples. "I only just finished planning today's tasks last night. I had to catch an early flight this morning. I don't think I'll have much time to rest this summer."
If the International Magical Cooperation Department was this busy, then aside from the World Cup, the only event on this scale could be the Triwizard Tournament, which spanned the entire fourth year. Looks like next year's going to be exciting.
Aaron frowned. "So is Anne still going to France this year? You're so, "
"Don't even think about it, " "I want to go, "
Their voices overlapped, Diana trying to deny it, Anne eager to confirm.
Relaxing, Diana shot Aaron a smug look. "See? Anne loves my place."
Hmph. Aaron harrumphed silently, thinking, You're going to be swamped all summer and still expect to take care of Anne? Not exactly something to brag about.
Anne, misreading Aaron's silence as displeasure, tugged his hand a little, trying to appease him.
Aaron softened. "It's fine, Anne. If you like France, I'm happy too…"
One of the highlights of Anne's summer holidays was always her birthday. In the magical world, birthdays were celebrated in unique and memorable ways. This year, she will be turning fifteen.
To celebrate, Diana and Aaron postponed work to plan a spectacular birthday trip. They took Anne to the Nordic countries, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, for a full week. With Aaron's knowledge of the outdoors and Diana's understanding of international magical customs, their trip was both educational and fun. Anne came away with a richer understanding of magical cultures.
When she returned to France, she received a birthday gift from Fanny: an old, handwritten parchment book authored by Croton Sharpe, a brilliant magical botanist who died over 300 years ago under mysterious circumstances. Anne had first learned of him in the Restricted Section of the library from a tome on master herbologists.
Sharpe wasn't the usual sort of academic, he didn't just classify plants and study their properties. He conducted practical experiments, testing magical flora for usefulness and hidden traits. Anne felt a strong affinity with his approach. His books were incredibly rare due to his early death, so receiving this copy from Fanny's family collection delighted her.
That summer, Anne also explored two new ways to earn money.
The first was writing extracurricular study guides for Hogwarts students. Many Hogwarts students came from Muggle or mixed backgrounds and knew very little about the magical world before arriving. Not everyone had Hermione's talent or motivation, and pure-bloods weren't always the brightest either. The student-to-teacher ratio at Hogwarts made self-study necessary, but there were no targeted study guides.
Anne saw an opportunity. Though starting a tutoring business was another possible route, she didn't want to draw attention to herself or overextend. Writing books, she decided, was the better path.
She already had a title in mind:
"The Scholar's Path: Herbology Edition (Year One)"
What Anne didn't know was that the "student ranking" concept she'd introduced earlier, combined with the candy marketing at Honeydukes, had already made her name known beyond Hogwarts, even outside the UK wizarding community.
During summer, she wrote "The Scholar's Path: Herbology Edition (Year One)" and "The Scholar's Path: History of Magic Edition (Year One)". She chose her strongest subjects to test the waters. She packaged the drafts and a marketing plan under a pseudonym and sent them to the largest publishing house in the British wizarding world.
To her delight, they responded enthusiastically, requesting a meeting. Anne declined the in-person meeting, preferring to handle everything by correspondence, which the publisher agreed to. They also expressed interest in turning her guides into a full series and requested more books.
Anne spent a month writing guides for four subjects, Herbology, History of Magic, Astronomy, and Potions, for Years One through Three, each including whimsical stick-figure illustrations to boost engagement.
Her second money-making venture?
The Muggle Stock market.
As a time-traveling economist with a background in finance, Anne had insider knowledge of iconic companies and industry trends from the 1990s and beyond. She wasn't omniscient, but she had a solid grasp of what would succeed.
The only problem? As a minor, she couldn't open a bank account in the Muggle world, so no Reeve trading. But Diana unexpectedly solved that issue.
One morning, Anne found some Standard Chartered Bank statements in the mailbox. Curious, she asked Diana, who casually replied that she was a wizard with a bank card, extremely rare.
"I use it when I need to buy things in the Muggle world," Diana said. "Like this house, for example."
Even more shocking, Diana had multiple bank accounts. When Anne asked why, she explained, "I went with some Muggle friends that day and ended up opening a few accounts just for fun."
Each card held about 300 Galleons. Doing quick mental math, Anne converted the amount, one Galleon was roughly £5 or $7.33, making each account worth about £1,500 ($2,200). Not bad for the 1990s.
"How did all that money get in there?" Anne asked.
"Oh, leftovers from buying this house," Diana replied breezily. "I keep a bit in each account. Mostly I just use them to buy tickets or clothes. If you want to use them, feel free. The account info should be in a pouch, ask Manda for it. And you already know where we keep the Muggle cash. If that runs out, I think you can deposit more, at least according to the banker who helped me. But you know me, I've been too busy to go back since."
With that, Diana disappeared into the fireplace to head to work.
Anne was ecstatic. At last, she could try her hand at real-world investing.
That afternoon, she changed into more professional clothing, applied some light makeup, and went to the bank. She consolidated all the accounts into two cards and opened trading accounts for both the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ under the Standard Chartered card.
She put £4,600 on one card for trading and returned the other to Diana.
The next three months in Paris felt like Anne had almost abandoned the magical world altogether. She dove into financial reports, rode her bike between brokerage firms and her piano teacher's house, and thrived in her new, busy routine.
She kept it all secret from Diana, always wrapping things up before Diana got home. During those months, she met several Reeve traders, fund managers, and futures investors.
But her fun came to a halt, with a letter from the Burrow, delivered by an owl.
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Anne,
We hope you're having a great summer, but… what we're about to tell you might ruin that.
Our big summer project, complete with a shopping list, was discovered. Mum's furious. She confiscated everything and doesn't believe we could've gotten that much money on our own.
We haven't told her about you yet, we said we were helping "a friend." If we'd claimed full credit, she would've trashed everything! And those were all brand-new inventions!
We're counting on you to come up with a plan. Please write back quickly!
Fred & George
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Fred and George's secret summer invention project had been discovered by Mrs. Weasley, and Anne had a headache just reading the letter.
She spent the whole afternoon thinking it over, considering all the angles. In the end, she decided… she'd better confess most of the truth to Aaron and Diana.
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If you're enjoying the journey so far and want to read ahead, you can check out 25+ advance chapters on Patreon: Patreon/Crimson_Lore