Waving her wand to float Gabon from the sofa to her side, Lys returned to her forest home.
The moment she stepped into the living room:
"Ah!"
Something furry!
"Ah!"
Who's there? You scared me!
"Ah!"
My potion ingredients!
A training post hung by the living room door with a rather large Puffskein perched on top, its thick fur startling Lys.
Her scream startled Furry, who was concentrating on collecting Puffskein hair from the floor.
Furry's fright caused magical fluctuations that knocked Senna's ingredients into her cauldron, making Senna cry out.
Noah threw aside his dictionary and crumpled newspaper, raised his wand, and quickly twisted on the sofa to point it over.
After the initial wariness came delighted surprise: "Little Star, you're back!"
When the British events occurred, Senna and Noah had been unaware. Due to Lys's extreme protective enchantments on this house, magical mail delivery couldn't reach here, and owls couldn't find it either. They regularly sent Celebold to fetch newspapers.
Moreover, they were still in the literacy stage, only reading parts of newspapers that interested them, basically skipping over political sections entirely.
Only when they went to the market and heard gossip from that chatty food shop owner did they learn that Britain's Dark Lord had died, the entire country was in chaos, and Aurors were hunting Death Eaters everywhere.
Only then did Noah and Senna hurry home with Furry and never come out again. They tried writing to Lys but feared that if Lys needed to hide, their letters might expose her whereabouts. They wanted to return to Britain to find Lys, but international channels weren't open.
A witch under Lys had slipped a note into the newspaper indicating Lys was fine and telling them absolutely not to go out during this period, because with British wizarding Death Eaters fleeing everywhere, various countries' wizarding communities had tightened searches on all exit and entry channels considerably.
She hadn't been too polite in her words either, fearing they wouldn't recognize the severity of the situation. She bluntly told Noah and Senna that problems they could solve at their level, Lys could solve too, and if Lys couldn't solve them, the two of them going would only add to the chaos.
A mediocre wizard and a werewolf—the two looked at each other, then at the squawking little creature on the ground, sighed, and abandoned the smuggling option.
Only when the Malfoy family owl delivered a letter full of complaints did Noah finally relax a bit.
At the time, Senna had only raised an eyebrow, looking at the already-opened letter in her hands, truly not knowing how to judge whether the little lunatic's brain had problems... Perhaps she could brew some more Brain Elixir?
What did she mean by "only a few people in the Ministry of Magic have brains"?
Was she deliberately showing this to Ministry people?
Furry? He still knew nothing, remaining obsessed with pulling hair, and had even acquired a Puffskein before anything happened.
Occasionally he would mimic his floating posture by paddling his limbs, then search everywhere for that sister who would only hug her snake but not him.
But now Lys was back, and their hearts could finally settle.
Noah controlled his legs, hopping and limping to Lys's side, rubbing his hands together before carefully patting her shoulder.
Lys was looking helplessly at Noah with reddened eyes before her, unsure how to comfort him, when she felt something pressing against her wizard robe hem and feet.
Looking down, she saw her little brother had crawled over and hugged her boot.
Senna? Senna was busy preventing cauldron explosions...
Patting Noah as comfort, leaving one boot for the little one on the ground to continue hugging, Lys went upstairs to organize the messy documents, categorizing and stacking them on her and Noah's desks.
After returning to her room for a bath and changing into comfortable clothes, Lys sat at the dining table, placed Gabon on the floor to crawl by itself.
Then she speared a chicken leg with her fork—this was specially made with lots of ginger root to suit Lys's taste. Coco couldn't understand it, so Noah had cooked.
Lys talked while eating, and only finished her account after consuming all the food on the table.
"Moreover, among those fanatics I know, some haven't had their identities exposed yet. They've disappeared from the wizarding world, destination unknown, so recently try not to go out. I'll hide the house's address with the Fidelius Charm to prevent us escaped Death Eaters from being targeted for revenge."
Seeing Noah's worried expression, Lys comforted him: "Don't worry too much—after all, my status isn't high, and our home isn't so easily found..."
"BOOM!!"
Their conversation was interrupted by Furry's enormous fart.
The child had fallen asleep lying on Gabon's back, his stomach chilled by the cold-blooded creature's body temperature, producing a fart both stinky and loud...
"Someday I'm throwing Furry into the yard!" Senna covered her nose and complained helplessly. Noah quickly picked up his son who'd been called a fly, then begged Lys to change the air in the house.
Also covering her nose, Lys waved her wand to cast weather magic, exchanging the indoor air while wondering what on earth Mom had been feeding this kid.
The following days weren't exactly busy for Lys, but certainly not leisurely either.
"Did that idiot dig out his eyes to play with? Or has he never attended school, his family so poor they've never seen a moonstone? What the hell! Who would confuse labradorite with moonstone?!"
The sample in the magical contract made Lys slam the table hard. Those shimmering stones were so beautiful and unique—how could that moron mix them up?
Busy cleaning up the mess, Lys repeated Lucius's advice not to take it too seriously countless times in her mind.
But she still lost her temper at that Cooperation Department official who was supposedly there to "assist with learning" but actually monitoring and interfering.
She threw a stack of documents at the man and walked away. She couldn't tolerate such extremely basic errors—she'd rather spend this time developing her underground business!
Developing her own business to fill the British Ministry of Magic's hole!
But developing the underground business here wasn't entirely satisfactory either. Competing for more of the pie in an already-divided interest field wasn't easy.
She was being subtly squeezed out.
Lys wore her lily mask, pointing her blackthorn wand at the man rapidly speaking German before her. She said only one sentence: "Sell, or don't sell."
But what reached the man's ears was: "Live, or don't live."
The last wizard who came here had tried to directly kill that witch with a child for robbery, but went mad not long after returning.
He couldn't say another unnecessary word: "Sell! Sell!"
Lys didn't push too hard either, taking two-thirds of the goods at market price before leaving.
The wizard holding the money pouch swallowed, looked around, then opened the pouch to count—no loss, even a slight profit.
Who wouldn't like generous, reasonable customers? His eyes shifted, and he picked up the address Lys had dropped on the ground before Disapparating.
Returning to Mama Lulu's residence with the goods, Lys nodded at the wizard who greeted her, indicating he should go about his business, then registered all those materials.
Finding Mama Lulu's title too long, Lys simply called her Lucy.
"Lucy! Has that Chinese shipment arrived?"
Lys mentally added in frustration: I need it to fill the hole.
"Ma'am, the smuggling ship carrying the goods capsized. Several families we jointly purchased with tried salvaging, the broker ran off, and the seller says they'll only accept one-third compensation." Lucy explained earnestly to Lys, who had removed her mask.
"Capsized?" Lys frowned. That meant her potentially high-priced goods had once again lost possible profits—waterlogged materials were very difficult to sell.
She was seriously short of money lately. Senior Lucius was indeed trying his best to subsidize, but he still had to deal with his subordinate nobles and Ministry people—Lys couldn't press too frequently either.
Glancing at the pitiful numbers in the ledger spread on the table, Lys said:
"Let's go together."
Then...
"Ugh!"
Hey readers! 👋
Great news! HP: The Stellar Witch [OFC] main storyline is now complete on Patreon!
And that's not all - we've got 4 exclusive bonus chapters in the works that you won't find anywhere else!
Enjoy the read, and thanks for being awesome! 💫
👉 Join on -
patreon.com/DarkGolds