Chapter 184: Chapter 184- Wonder Alley (part 2)
MELISSA'S POV
Walking into the store gave Melissa quite the shock.
It looked nothing like what it seemed to look like from outside, it wasn't a small sized shop with cards, Duel disks and brooms on display. Instead it felt like she came out to the outside world.
The blue skies, the streets, the stores, and of course the enormous size of the place.
The weirdest thing was that instead of reminding her of Diagon Alley, it reminded her streets in the muggle world.
Each shop had giant lighted signs either on top of it or the window that if she didn't know about technology not working with magic, she would have sworn them to be muggle.
The shops themselves, Mellisa noted as she walked through one of the streets, weren't all working and the signs of most were only saying 'grand opening soon', in fact, only four seem to work right now.
Duel cards store, Turbo brooms store, a snacks store, and what appeared to be pranking products store, every one of them had a few children and adults inside.
As she finished looking around, she went inside the cards store to ask where can she find one of the Weasley twins, now much more interested in working in this place, where she saw one.
You can't really say you were a student in Howard's for the last six years in Hogwarts and not know who the Weasley twins are.
You were either pranked by them or they made you smile, most likely both.
That, including with their red hair made them memorable even before the invention of the card dueling game.
Swallowing her spit and nervousness, Melissa walked toward the boy, no man who might be her future boss.
"Mr. Weasley" she called and he turned toward her having an annoyed look on his face.
"I already said it! Mr. Weasley is my grandfather, everyone should call me Forge."
She felt her heart drop stomach as she apparently made a bad first impression without barely saying anything
""YES, MR. WEASLEY!"" Everyone else in the store answered and he laughed at that.
"I'm sorry," he said after stopping his laugh and seeing her confused look "it's a joke we have in the store." His eyes seem to brighten with those words. "Can you believe it? Only three days have passed and the store already has its own jokes!"
"It certainly is great." She said smiling politely as she sighed in relief in her heart.
"Anyway, what can I get you today Mellisa? A duel disk? New cards? Actually, I don't remember you being a card dueling enthusiastic?" He said questionably.
"You remember my name?" She said surprised. No one really remembered her in Hogwarts, even with her being a perfect and head girl.
"Of course I do, you helped me and my brother once in our first week in Hogwarts to find where is the charm classroom."
She didn't remember doing so, not surprising as it was almost six years ago, but it warmed her heart that other people did remember her help.
"Well, I didn't really have time to play card dueling as it was my seventh year and I had 12 NEWTs to study to." She said, answering his question about not being a card dueling enthusiastic.
"12? Ouch! Well then, what can I help you with?"
"Actually, I wanted to talk about the job in here." She said, playing with her hair nervously.
"Oh," he said raising his eyebrows before smiling an even bigger smile.
"Well that's great! How about we go inside this store's office?"
"But don't you need to be here? I don't see you having another person working here."
"Na." He said, waving his hand. His smile being replaced by a smirk that said 'we are awesome'. "Everything in this store is enchanted to work without any human working inside, I think muggles would call it automatic."
With him saying that, it was the first time she looked around the shop for more then just a glance.
While before she only searched for a worker, and only took superficial look at the store, now she seemed to notice the incredulity of the store itself.
On the right side of the store where many cards on display, and it was also where most of the children were, there appeared to be a few magical mirrors that when a child asked about a card brought up its relevant information.
She also noticed that there were a few coin holes to put money inside and when one of the kids put some inside and said the name of the card he wanted, said card seemed to move toward the glass and make the glass disappear at its location before returning after the card was extracted.
On the left side of the shop, there were a few different kinds of duel disks.
There appeared to be the ones like the twins distribute in school last year, but there also appeared to be a few that looked like different creatures like dragon heads, snakes, and, weirdly enough, one that looked like a Flobberworm.
There were also ones that seemed to be put on different places in the body like shoulder belt duel disks.
In the middle of the store, where most of the adults seem to be there were a few mirrors that explained about the store, the payment method and the game itself.
All of it seemed incredible, less like the magical world that while amazing seemed to be stuck in the last century at least, and more like a futuristic world from muggle tv shows like Doctor Who.
As Forge (she seriously thought the names were Fred and George, could she be mistaken? Or was it another part of the joke?) took her to his office, she kept thinking about the store, and more importantly, the runes needed for each enchantment, making her more and more determined to work at this place.
"Please have a sit." He said as he sat down at a sit in front of him.
Sitting down she waited for him to talk.
"Well, as you know, we have just opened the store, but as you can see, we don't need store workers, instead, we need people who can be store managers, who can deal with situations on their own, who is willing to put the extra work, and who inspire to become more then just have a stable job, what make you think you are the right person for this?"
This was different then any other interview she got until now.
The other shops and companies seemed to only care about her blood status, her grades and her willingness to compromise, instead, this man's words, without even telling her what this job will be, told her he didn't care for blood, didn't want her to compromise, and didn't want her to be at the bottom, unable to even advance.
She quickly took out her grades as references to her ability before starting to talk.
"Well, as you can see here, I have Os on every OWL and NEWTs, showing not only that I am smart enough, but that I'm willing to work hard for them. I was also a perfect and head girl, so I know how to work as both underlying and supervisor. As for inspiring to be more then just a regular worker, I'm unemployed right now because I refused to become a worker in shops for the next 12 years before starting to study to become a rune master, and then after becoming one to work for them with minimum wage for another 28 years, not considering the period of time I will spend as apprentice there." The words came so fast from her mouth that she barely managed to breath in between.
"OK," he said sounding amused "breath."
Taking a few deep breaths she calmed herself.
"Now, while Os in all tests are impressive, it doesn't really tell me much about your ability in runes beyond your ability in memorization." She was about to open her mouth but before she could he already continued "But it does say you have a good head, and the ability to be much more then a lowly worker so here's the deal." He took out a paper from a drawer that seemed to be a contract.
"We will hire you as a store manager for our card store till you become a rune master, your main job will be to every morning and evening pour most of your magic inside the core of the store to make sure it is functional, and to calm down any problem that raises between customers, in return, we will pay you the minimum wage and make sure you have every needed book to become a rune master, plus help once a month with every question you have.
Once you become a rune master you will open a shop in Wonder Alley and pay 25% of your profits to us for 10 years as long as you keep it above a certain number, if you can't do that or not wanting to work in a shop anymore, then you will either continue to work here or go to work at one of our research places.
10 years after you become a rune master You can go wherever you want."
This was the best offer she got.
Sure, she won't get apprenticeship, but she could still become a rune master, she wouldn't have to wait, and even her job would make it possible for her to study most of the time, there was only one thing that stopped her from signing the contract, magical contracts are binding magically, and she still doesn't know what is the penalty for breaking it.
"What is the penalty for breaking the contract?"
"You will have to pay us the amount of money the books you read and the help you received cost, which will be calculated by a Gringots' goblin plus an additional 200 Galleons for the time you wasted us, if you can't pay that, you will have to move to the location where we make our products where you will contribute to the effort the best you can for double the amount of time you wasted us so if you spent two years in here you will spend four years there. Of course, contract breaking include revealing our store secrets to anyone who isn't employed by us."
All in all, it sounded entirely reasonable, and five minutes later she signed the contract, becoming the third employee of Wonder Alley.
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