A few days had passed since the decisive court session that had become the calm before the storm. The faces of the magical population clearly showed the anticipation of something, well, not necessarily bad, but an event that would turn their lives upside down. And I wasn't wrong, it was just that the locals were too used to living like this. Articles in newspapers and magazines, "word of mouth", rumors and gossip — all of it bloomed and smelled, generously spreading around a huge amount of "pollen" that was hard to breathe — so delirious sounded some expressions and "real" versions of what was happening.
And yes, none of the printed editions of Britain or Europe in general, at least the ones I managed to get my hands on, told the whole truth, at most sixty percent, plus or minus five percent, the rest were not afraid to distort the facts in the most unthinkable ways. I can't say I liked it, I don't like lies at all, but it didn't bother me much either.
That day, Wednesday, I had left Hogwarts to visit an 'important' official in London, some lord, but I didn't even bother to remember his name, for his surname was 'Johnson'. I never liked officials in general, but unfortunately nothing can be done about them, in the sense that even if you kill one, a new one will take its place, and as if not worse than the previous one. In order to eradicate all this contagion, it is necessary to destroy the whole system, but this is not a solution because the common people will suffer innocently.
On the other hand, this does not mean that one cannot use the weak Confundus and direct the thoughts of this "important" person correctly. Although I started quite differently and without any magic, but the man turned out to be so stubborn and impenetrable that I just gave up my nerves and applied to him non-verbal "depulso" (push), from which the man was blown away with an expensive chair into the wall and he lost consciousness. I wanted to apply "expulso" (explosion and push), but I made it with mistakes (not enough training), and I would have killed this insolent creature.
While this Johnson was unconscious, I had the pleasure of slamming my boot into his kidneys a few times. You know, I felt so light-hearted, like a lifelong dream come true, and instantly, and breathing became easier, and the world became brighter, I wanted to smile and laugh. I think that many and many of my former compatriots would like to repeat my "feat" on some familiar bureaucrat from the nearest housing and utilities department, or other office, to blow up the brain and destroy the nerves in a particularly painful way. Well, enough of the text.
When this "important" person came to his senses, he was immediately under the influence of Confundus, and we had a very thorough conversation with him. In general, people like him hate it when a stranger comes to their country and starts doing "good" things, not necessarily charity, but even things that society will perceive as extremely positive, things that could have been done by the locals, but they just didn't want to spend their time on it. Such people don't like it, not because they're jealous or anything, but because it puts them in a bad, unfavorable light.
The excuse is simple: you can't expect good things from newcomers, and if he's doing this now, it means he's planning something extremely bad, and he's just disguising himself. Or something like that. In principle, I do not care who and what will think, for me the progress of my idea is important, and to waste time just because some small-hearted ugly man with a moldy face decided something there or thought, or rather, thought, I do not intend, and I will stop any interference with the most decisive methods. So now Johnson doesn't wag his tail when I enter his office.
Unfortunately, not everything can be solved by one important and respected man. The system is like that Hydra — many-headed, so even if you take control of one head, the rest remain intact and quite capable of exhaling flames at the most unexpected moment. Therefore, you need to follow some rules of the game and also act according to the instructions, albeit for "internal use".
It is almost impossible to understand all this monstrous and infernal clericalism, as in some military code, although there is an opinion that it is a code, so that an outsider could not get into the well-oiled mechanism and arrange "democracy" in the long-divided field of a few "chosen ones". It's good to see that Johnson is helping, and doing so very actively.
As I told Olivia and Harry and Arlet, I'm planning to start an orphanage for orphans. If I hadn't been a wizard, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere, but things were moving, albeit slowly. There were many demands, even claims, but Johnson's authority allowed me to smooth things over. They asked a lot of me if I was going to build a shelter, and it all started with a road, a good, solid road. Well, it wasn't the highway, but it was good.
When I asked, "Why?" I got a vague answer: "So that the children can be reached easily and quickly...", I couldn't resist and asked if they could build a railroad at all, what's the big deal? The official then really thought about it and even began to estimate whether I had enough money for it. To tell the truth, at that moment I wanted to use "Expulso," but Johnson laid siege to the impertinent fellow, explaining that the region already had all the main branches of railroad communication, and if a new one were to be started, the company would not approve of it, because it would be an unnecessary expenditure that could be spent in another direction.
But this did not prevent me from repairing and renewing the existing road, and building it especially for me. And again Johnson hustled and brought me together with a commercial company that works exclusively on government contracts for the repair and construction of roads, and in this company the Lord has a large share of shares, so that he was able to influence the formation of the price considerably. And meeting another shareholder and another Confundus (Imperius makes Muggles go crazy, they turn into dumb puppets) made the contract much more pleasant in terms of price.
In addition to the road, I was also required to bring in a gas line, which had never existed in the small town near where my land was located. In this way, the cunning officials wanted to make a double profit: to pocket the money allocated for this case and also to increase their authority.
But it didn't work. I have windmills on the hills, and in one of the hills there is an underground bunker — a battery substation, and electricity at the moment with a surplus, according to experts' calculations, the current capacity is enough for the cider factory under construction and for heating with electricity. Yes, we had some problems with accumulators, as they are not yet available in nature, in the sense that such systems are still being developed.
In order to solve this problem, I had to slow down the production of musical artifacts and load the sphere with a new task for a whole month, and I had to twist my brain a lot, but as a result: I have a dozen powerful windmills, and for each of them, a set of crystal storage, thirty-six pieces in all. The officials obviously did not like my "innovation", they even sent a commission to investigate this miracle, if I had not lied.