BBS - Chapter 9 : Successfully reached Hogwarts without draining limited Social Battery.... (Patreon)

The Bat, The Billionaire & The Shenanigans [9]

Disclaimer - I don’t own anything. Disney does, Warner Bro does, and Rowling does.

King’s Cross Railway Station, London

–Bruce Wayne–

He just looked at the unassuming-looking pillar that somehow held the entrance to an entirely different and hidden railway platform that was exclusive to the magical community. To think that such a crucial piece of infrastructure that almost exclusively catered to the students at Hogwarts, probably the most important resource of the Magical World, was just left out in the open, unguarded.

As one might expect, he had bought a ton of books as part of his visit with Dumbledore, with the surplus of money that his parents gave him. From their point of view, it was probably their way of being of help. They had been feeling useless ever since the revelation was dropped on them that he was a wizard and could never have a normal life ever again. 

With that money, he bought a ton of books. Basically, anything that could educate him on the state of the magical world, he bought it, even when Professor Dumbledore advised him multiple times not to. The fact that there were books of even higher tier in the Hogwarts library was irrelevant to him. After all, with his eidetic memory, he had to make use of all the time he had at hand and get a head start over everything.

Hence, his newly gained understanding of the magical world and how it worked. He had even picked up a book that detailed the laws that governed the Magical world. Yes, detailed. Not mentioned verbatim. It was apparently the norm in the Magical World that the laws that governed the entire country were not really public information.

One had to buy the laws with a hefty fee, and even then, there was quite a big fine as well as jail time if one was found guilty of disseminating more information about said laws. It was entirely backwards, and that was the same for the rest of Magical Society.

The muggleborns, which he was a part of, were ostracized and treated as second class citizens by the government machinery itself. There were no equal rights for all, and in comparison, some monarchies seemed better off when it came to treating people under their rule. 

Case in point: the platform. If kids of magical parents could come to the platform with their parents and siblings, then it stood to reason that even muggleborn kids should be able to bring their parents to the platform. In fact, it was probably even more important to do so considering that wizards born to wizards already had an idea of what to expect, and what to do.

For muggleborn wizards, it was as if they were entering an entirely different world, and as the books told him- not explicitly, but he could read between the lines, maybe even a somewhat backward world.

He looked up as his father patted him on the head, gently nudging him forward. “Come on, you’ll be late for the train. It’s fine, we understand. We might get lost, and the atmosphere inside is not conducive for non wizards. Professor Dumbledore explained it to us.”

He felt another hand land on his shoulder as he looked at his mother. “Also, Professor Dumbledore told us how to send letters to you. We expect a weekly letter from you as well, okay? Promise me.”

“Promise.” He replied, feeling oddly down, despite knowing that soon enough, he would graduate from that place, and even if he did not graduate, then he would be learning the teleportation spell to come back home whenever he wanted to. After all, this was necessary, not just for himself and his growth, but also to make sure that his parents were safe and sound.

After all, as much as it made it sound like they were old and defenceless, the truth was that they were non-magical, and if even half of the things he had read in the past few weeks was true, then to most wizards, non magical humans were basically just a bit better than livestock.

It was such a disturbing realisation to know that there wasn't an entire civilization out there that thought of humans who couldn't perform magic as lesser than them, and treated them differently. He could definitely see it becoming a problem for him later on. It seemed obvious that the existing power structure would get threatened by his very existence, even if he did try to hide most of what he could do, and that would lead to retaliation that might one day reach his parents, and that was not something he could tolerate.

One lifetime of living without his parents was enough. He would not let another happen once again, not with all the advantages he had this time around.

“Alright, my Brucie bear is all grown up now,” She ruffled his hair and kissed him on the cheek before standing up and pushing him towards the pillar. He nodded at both of them, not trusting his mouth right now before he walked straight into the pillar, and as expected, he felt something akin to a scanner scan his entire being as he passed into the platform.

He had no idea if the scanner was supposed to be for just information gathering or if there was a locking mechanism that pushed out non magical people, stopping them from accessing the actual platform. Either way, he dismissed that in favour of looking at the outright chaos in front of him.

Kids walking around in groups. Their parents clustered around each other, forming a big group of adult wizards. Parents talking to their kids. Magical animals of all varieties, some caged some out in the open. 

All of it surrounded a massive prehistoric train with a steam engine. The platform was massive enough to tell him that spatial magic had been used in its construction, or maybe that pillar was a portal that took them to some other place. The second option was the more likely one.

Knowing full well what would happen if he tried to scan all these people the same way he tried to scan non magical people, he took hold of his sensory net and slowly expanded it to cover maybe six feet all around him. Wizards filtered in and out of his range as he walked into the train and sat down in an empty compartment, at the edge of the coach.

He calmly sat down in his compartment, subtly using his magic to keep the door to the compartment locked, and began analysing the data he got from the people moving in and out of his sensory range. More than once, he got adult wizards pausing once they entered his sensory range, and then looking around before shrugging and moving on, not realising that they were under his sensory range. Maybe they felt that something was happening, but they could not correctly identify what was happening.

Once, he saw someone looking straight at his compartment, forcing him to promptly withdraw the sensory net, getting a nod from the wizard before the wizard moved on. After that, he confined himself to the coach itself, not wanting to draw attention even before he had officially entered Hogwarts.

An hour later, which meant that the train was late, the train finally began moving, with hordes of parents standing on the platform, waving goodbye to their kids. Within minutes, the train had exited the station, and he knew the moment he saw lush greenery around him that the pillar that transported them to the 9 ¾ platform was a portal that led them to an entirely different location.

They were probably still within the UK, as the school itself was located somewhere in the British Isles, but they were in some remote corner of the country.

His tactic of using his magic to keep the door shut had worked so far, as not a single person had even come up to his compartment to try and open the door, which meant that the train had a massive overcapacity. Hell, in their entire coach, with the ability to sit atleast six per compartment, with 8 compartments per coach, there were only 25 kids with a capacity of 48.

Maybe they were going to Hogwarts using the Knight Bus, or maybe the rich wizards had the ability to bypass the supposedly ironclad rule of not teleporting on Hogwarts’ grounds, as the castle had a ward system that was as strong as, if not stronger than, the one that protected the Ministry of Magic’s seat of power.

The Ministry of Magic was another important thing that he wanted to research, but simply could not, because there was barely any information on it that was available in bookstores. He predicted that he would find something in the Hogwarts library. He had it noted down on a list that he kept on his person. According to some of the memoirs he read, his luggage was going to be magically transported to the castle, and once he was sorted into a House, it would be sent to his room automatically.

It was likely done by the House Elves employed by the Castle. Apparently, Hogwarts was the single biggest employer of House Elves worldwide, and they actually ran the entire school. That explained why the Faculty list of Hogwarts felt so small, especially when he saw just how big it was. Then, there was the overall Hogwarts grounds area, which also had a forest, named creatively as the Forbidden Forest. 

Some of the stuff he read in the books felt as if the author was intentionally making fun of the readers. It was only when he cross referenced that information with multiple authors across multiple years of publishing dates that he realised that it was the truth.

The issue of House Elves was one such issue that was glossed over in every single text he read about them. No one knew where they came from, how the first wizards formed such one sided, borderline slavery contracts with them, how the House Elves knew how to find the wizards, and how it was probable that the entire wizard community was using slave labour in the form of House Elves.

And the fact that this didn’t even register to most of the authors, let alone most people in power who oftentimes saw people with less wealth and power than them as subhuman, was telling in and of itself about the social and moral fabric of the Wizarding world. It was incredibly concerning, and just one more thing that made him vow to grow so strong that no one would even think of hurting his parents.

That was not to say that he was going to grow in strength and then go around flaunting all that power to deter his enemies from escalating. No, that would be stupid and idiotic. He was going to use his strength to safeguard and hide everything from the rest of the magical world. 

Because reforming the entire society to conform to modern humanitarian standards seemed like a task that would take multiple lifetimes.

He sighed as he felt the train come to a halt, which meant that he had successfully finished the journey without any extra or unnecessary social interaction.

He considered that a win in his book.

He felt wizards with a much higher concentration of magic than normal kids approach the coaches from outside. Likely prefects. So, he got out, only to pause as he felt his luggage, which was safely stored below the seats, disappear, accompanied by a burst of magic that was entirely new to him.

It did not feel like a wizard’s magic at all. It was incredibly precise and powerful, yet it left behind nearly zero traces of it. Excellent magical control.

Likely the House Elves.

Nodding at the discovery, he exited the train and looked at the train station, mapping out the exit points or any security that might be there to protect what were probably the most important people in all of Magical Britain. After all, with the way the Ministry of Magic worked, if someone wanted, they only had to control a few dozen people to control the vast majority of the power that the Ministry of Magic had.

The easiest way to control those few dozen people was to get custody of their kids. Magical people lived far longer than non magical humans, but in return, their reproductive rate was lowered as well, which meant that kids were far more precious in the Magical world.

…maybe it has something to do with the fact that the strongest person in all of Magical Britain was guarding the school as its Headmaster.

He wondered why the Headmaster was the one who was personally doing rounds to invite Muggle-born students to the Academy. It seemed like something beneath the role of the Headmaster.

Something to find out later.