Finally, it was James who broke the silence.
"Well? What do you think?"
Sirius shrugged, though his tone was honest, "Weird. But… interesting. He's not as stuck-up as he looks."
"And he's not stupid," added Remus calmly. "He understands how to deal with people. He could've tried charging more, at least you two," he said, glancing at James and Sirius, "but he did the opposite."
Peter nodded several times, a bit too quickly, "And he even offered Remus to pay in installments! Who does that?"
"Someone who wants to sell… and knows a well-placed favor is worth more than a quick customer," James mused. Then he gave a faint smile.
"I like him more than I expected."
Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"You saying that? I thought you'd say he gave you bad vibes."
"He did. Past tense. Not anymore," James admitted honestly. "He's got style. And he seems like a decent guy if he gives out interest-free installments…"
"Yes, although clearly money isn't an issue for him," Remus cut in, folding his arms. "Unlike us, with allowances that barely reach twenty galleons…" he said, glancing at James.
"I've already seen more than thirty students with Ryan Ollivander's quills, and surely plenty I haven't seen yet," he added.
"And at eight or ten galleons each…" Peter murmured, doing the math in his head.
"That's two hundred and forty galleons. At least eight each… And he definitely sold more. Some kids already had quills on the train."
"If that's true… it's hard to know how much money he's pulling in. But clearly, giving away one or two quills wouldn't hurt him," James said with a serious look. Should I try to make something to sell?
"And they weren't just any quills," Lupin pointed out. "A griffin quill without enchantments costs twenty galleons. He gave away two… and they're enchanted with something no one else can do."
The four of them fell silent for a moment, as if finally grasping the scale of the eccentric boy in dark glasses.
…
Ryan walked calmly across the grass, hands in his pockets, the sun on the back of his neck. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look serious either. He was satisfied.
The Marauders had left a better impression on him than he'd expected.
James Potter was clearly the center of that little universe: confident, charismatic, with a hefty ego, yes… but not stupid, and not cruel. James had listened to him with respect, accepted the discount without fuss, and even thought of his friend who couldn't pay. Not everyone did that.
Sirius Black… well, Ryan had expected to meet a sharp-tongued rebel, a little arrogant. And he was, yes. But not to the point of scorning a stranger. When he said he didn't need the quill, it wasn't with disdain but with honesty. And he changed his mind the moment Ryan showed him another use. Smart. Flexible. Even grateful, though it was hard for him to show.
Remus Lupin… the most even-tempered of the group. Measured, observant. Of the four, probably the one most likely to mistrust if Ryan ever tried to manipulate them. But he accepted the deal. In his own way, carefully, without asking for extras. Ryan liked that.
Peter… Ryan let out a faint sigh. He had nothing against him. Yet. But something in his nervousness, that desperate need to fit in, to make choices based on the others… gave Ryan a vague unease. A shapeless irritation.
And yet, he hadn't treated him badly.
It was different to meet them like this, rather than reading them on paper or watching them in movies. Besides, little was truly known about their teenage years.
The one who struck him as most different was James. Everyone had the image of James as a bully who tormented Snape—in that memory Harry saw in the Pensieve, his father and Sirius ganging up on "poor" Severus Snape.
But there were things to put in context about that rivalry.
Snape wasn't a passive victim. He was brilliant and arrogant in his own dark, brooding way. He had a sharp tongue and an obvious disdain for Gryffindor from the very beginning, even before putting on the Sorting Hat.
Ryan remembered well from the books: on the very first train ride, when Snape and Lily met James and Sirius, it didn't take him long to sneer that "only fools end up in Gryffindor," right after James had proudly said he wanted to be in the lions' house, like his parents.
Did that justify hanging him upside down and humiliating him years later? No.
But did it help explain the root of the conflict? Absolutely.
Ryan wouldn't defend James and Sirius if he saw them ganging up on him two against one. But now that he knew them, at least a little, he understood they weren't just bullies. They didn't act out of hatred or malice. They weren't cruel for sport.
And compared to other things, there were worse.
Because this wasn't the "magical, colorful" Hogwarts that fans liked to idealize.
It was 1971.
And Hogwarts, in this era, had darker corners.
House rivalries were real. And the hatred many pure-blood Slytherins felt toward half-bloods and Muggle-borns was palpable. He carried memories from the other Ryan. Rumors. Testimonies. Things he hadn't yet lived here, but knew existed.
Cases where a group of Slytherins "played" with curses on younger students.
Mulciber, for example.
Using painful hexes just for fun or practice. Spreading fear. Leaving first- and second-years crying in the bathrooms, while getting away with it because the security of this massive castle was flimsy at best. Barely a dozen staff members for more than six hundred students.
That wasn't pranking.
That was abuse.
And that was the true poison in the halls, if you knew where to look.
Compared to that, James and Sirius's skirmishes with Snape felt like… playground rivalries. Clumsy. Unfair at times. But not comparable to the systematic violence others carried out in the shadows.
Some Slytherins moved through the school as if it belonged to them, as if every Muggle-born child was a mistake to be pointed out.
Ryan pressed his lips together.
'Better I don't stumble into that,' he thought lazily. Because if he ever saw it with his own eyes, some of those little blood-purist brats would meet true terror… a melodramatic terror that would expose and humiliate them. He already had contingency plans ready for when the time came.
His mind then jumped, without transition, to something more mundane: the installments he had agreed on with Lupin.
He knew there were students with small allowances. Four, five galleons a month. Some even less. Hogwarts was an uneven reflection of the wizarding world. Not everyone was like James Potter or his classmate Emmeline Vance, who had tossed thirty galleons without blinking for a pair of glasses.
It was 1971, in the wizarding world. The magical catalog wasn't exactly extensive, nothing like the Muggle one of the future, full of phones, consoles, and absurd things bought in bulk with a single click. There were no online stores, no monthly subscriptions, no microtransactions for skins in video games. Here, the newest and most useful thing in the castle… was what he was selling.
Maybe the Quidditch teams sold brooms or special gear, but those were luxury items few could afford.
So yes. Many students had modest allowances, but they didn't have much to spend them on either. The student economy of Hogwarts was a strange mix of scarcity and involuntary saving.
And more and more, they were becoming interested.
Because when there aren't a thousand things to spend on, spending on something unique becomes inevitable.
Ryan smiled. A calm smile.
Almost philosophical.
'My quills are inevitable, Slytherins,' he thought, like Thanos in dark sunglasses with impeccable taste in calligraphy.
He had already noticed some resistance.
Yes, there were Slytherins with his quills. But every single one of them had bought them in the shops of Diagon Alley. None had come directly to him.
As if admitting that the genius behind those quills was a Gryffindor would be an act of betrayal against the purity of their house.
Ryan mentally shrugged.
Sooner or later, they would come.
And he would know how to receive them.
Perhaps the first would be Lucius Malfoy. Blond, arrogant, with that carefully cultivated air of superiority. He would come alone, or with silent bodyguards, carrying a mix of disdain and barely concealed curiosity.
And there he would have him.
Maybe he'd ask for fifteen galleons.
Maybe sixteen or seventeen.
Just enough to wound his pride… but not so much that he'd turn down the offer.
An inflated price, but reasonable for some excuse he could come up with, one Lucius would have no choice but to accept if he wanted the quill.
And if he refused? Perfect. Losing fifteen galleons meant nothing compared to the capital he already had.