Chapter 85: Chapter 85 Isn't There a Printing Shop There?
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Today, most of the shops in Diagon Alley closed their doors for inspection. The Ministry of Magic was really cracking down this time, confiscating a fair number of prohibited items. However, these items were mostly quirky, bearing a hint of mischief rather than dark magic. Examples included keys that could shrink and teapots that could bite. If one were to be strict, Mr. Weasley's Ford Anglia would also fall into this category.
Tom waited outside the shop for a while, eventually welcoming Hermione.
"Let's go! No work today," Tom explained to Hermione what had happened.
"That's good," Hermione supported the Ministry's actions, "they indeed need to clean up various prohibited items. What are your plans for today?" Shifting the conversation, she brought it back to their plans for the day.
Tom also had some ideas: How about going to London with Hermione?
Suddenly, two owls landed beside them, delivering a yellow parchment envelope into their hands.
"Oh, it's the school owls!" Hermione opened the letter, revealing the second-year book list sent by the school. She had known the contents of the list for several days, but now it was official.
Hermione smiled, "It seems the new professor is a fan of Lockhart—he wants all of Lockhart's works. If only Lockhart could be our professor, he must be amazing, having experienced so many thrilling adventures, right?"
Hermione admired knowledge, thinking that someone who had written so many books must be remarkable.
Tom rolled his eyes.
"Alright, it seems I've been busy for nothing these past few days," Hermione calculated her wages and realized that all the money she earned from the part-time job in the last few weeks went into buying books. If she included the books she had her eye on in the bookstore, she might need some support from home.
Tom wasn't worried; he already had his set of books. However, he deeply despised Lockhart's behavior: a couple of books would have sufficed for the semester, but no, he had to make students buy seven! It was outrageous.
Due to Lockhart's arrival this year, the Weasley family depleted their savings. It was hard to imagine how Mr. and Mrs. Weasley managed to prepare five sets of Lockhart's books while also buying robes and wands for their youngest daughter Ginny.
As far as Harry could tell, Mrs. Weasley emptied all the coins stored in Gringotts...
Ha, Lockhart!
Tom took Hermione out of Diagon Alley and arrived on the streets of London.
"Where to?" Hermione asked a bit hesitantly, lowering her head, her brown shoes with bows lightly tapping the ground.
Tom looked around and bought two ice creams from a nearby ice cream shop—vanilla, yogurt, and original flavor.
The best-tasting ice cream flavors were undoubtedly vanilla, yogurt, and original, followed by chocolate, and the rest fell into another category. These three flavors best reflected the quality of the ingredients. Strawberry, mango, and the like contained too much syrup, even if made with high-quality ingredients, they were overshadowed by other fruity flavors, affecting the taste of the milk.
Tom only chose these three flavors when eating ice cream.
Tom returned with the ice creams—he was quite well-off now, as his good friend and business partner Yuri had given him a considerable amount of money. Recently, Yuri even wanted to discuss business with him, but Tom found more interesting things to do, so he politely declined.
Tom handed an ice cream to Hermione and took another for himself.
"You'll get fat," Hermione looked at the ice cream, smiling, but politely declined after thinking for a moment.
"You see, ice cream is cold, right?" Tom licked the top of the vanilla ball, "So, when you eat ice cream, the liquid inside warms up to body temperature, requiring heat absorption, which means it absorbs the heat brought by the ice cream itself!"
Hermione: Σ(⊙▽⊙)!
She listened in a fog, feeling Tom's explanation was a bit confusing, but it seemed to make sense?
But she quickly reacted, "Even if I don't know how to refute you... I've still eaten something, can't possibly lose weight after eating, right? Where in the world does that happen?"
Tom was exposed but didn't mind. He looked at Hermione with a playful smile, "A little extra weight is good for girls."
Then he naturally received a couple of punches.
The two walked like this on the streets of London. It was a rare sunny day in Western Europe; both London and Paris, the capitals of England and France, were often overcast and rainy. Some people, every time they passed through Paris, saw nothing but gloomy weather. Seeing the sun was truly a stroke of luck.
Tom had sharp eyes; he saw a printing shop on the side of the street and immediately walked toward it.
It happened that the two were discussing the textbooks they needed for the new semester.
"You don't need to buy Lockhart's books; I have a complete set. Just take them," Tom was generous—Lockhart's books were no different from the novels sold in Muggle bookstores. Even if it was an original copy, it was given away as it was. Oh, there was a difference: other best-selling authors wouldn't turn their book covers into animated images. Tom found it irritating to see Lockhart's big face smiling at him every day.
"What about you? What will you do? You won't have any books," Hermione said, imagining the scene of the two of them sitting together in class reading the same book. It was unexpectedly a bit exciting; reading books with a good friend must be great.
"No, there's a printing shop over there, right?" Tom didn't pay attention to the little girl's thoughts, excitedly pointing to the seemingly deserted print shop.
Hermione looked over, "Oh my, Tom, you're not..." She immediately understood Tom's meaning: Lockhart's books mainly consisted of stories, interspersed with many photos. There was nothing special about them, so even if they were Muggle copies, they wouldn't affect their use.
"This is piracy!" Hermione said angrily.
"Hermione, do you really think it's reasonable for someone to use seven textbooks for one subject in one school year?" Tom looked at Hermione, "Professor McGonagall used 'The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1' for two years. The 'Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi' in Herbology is still in use until the sixth year, and 'A History of Magic' can be used until graduation. So why does a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, who probably will only teach for a year, need seven books? By the way, most of the mentioned works only cost 1 to 2 Galleons, while Lockhart's masterpiece costs 5 Galleons each!"
Hermione was speechless, her mind was in chaos, and she couldn't evaluate Tom's behavior for a while.
"Hermione, not everyone lives as comfortably as you. I'm just helping others in my own way."
After saying this, Tom left behind a sentence and walked into the printing shop.
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(End of this chapter)
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