BBS - Chapter 11 : No pesky GDP numbers here.... (Patreon)

The Bat, The Billionaire & The Shenanigans [11]

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

Hogwarts

–Bruce Wayne–

As he waited in the boat, with three other kids, headed towards the castle in the distance, the only thing that came to his mind was…fascinating. For a culture that had ready access to multiple forms of teleportation, outright flight, and more, the fact that they chose to use steam engine trains, and then small boats to take the students across a Great Lake was interesting, to say the least.

The more interesting part of this experience was honestly Hagrid, the giant of a man who could tower over even the tallest of humans he had ever seen in his life. He would have expected the man to be some kind of mutated wizard, if not for the whispers of some of the kids behind him who were talking about the half-giant mutt who was making them uncomfortable.

Judging by the uncomfortable shuffling of the giant, he probably heard that too, which just made him sigh more. Wizards were, in the end, still human, and humans had perfected the art of treating the other with utmost contempt.  It was probably also why no one ever bothered with finding out more about the House Elves.

They provided the free labour that was somewhat necessary to run the current rendition of magical society, so why look a gift horse in the mouth for no reason whatsoever?

It was such a deep seated issue that he had no idea how it could even be resolved without some pretty major damage done to the current fabric of society.

Eventually, the boats came to a halt, as they waited for the others to arrive. Some of the kids were clearly cold, some were very comfortable, not even a hint of discomfort, and after extending his sensory net for just a few feet, he realised why.

Their robes. They had magic in them. He’d read about them in the many books he’d purchased from the bookstore in Diagon Alley. Enchanted robes with temperature regulation, hydrophobic properties, resistance to stabbing wounds, limited self-healing, expanded spatial storage, homing beacons, and more. 

All these things could be added to a robe, at a very extravagant cost, as the material required to hold more and more such enchantments was rare and got more expensive as you went up on the enchantment ladder. They also did not need frequent maintenance, and were regularly used for their entire Hogwarts term without any maintenance issues.

Still, most of them were sold with an Annual Maintenance Package, even though the stores really looked like they wanted everything to last for a long time. It must be a natural consequence of simply not having enough hands to work for the version of capitalism he was aware of, to blossom here.

The value of labour was such that the shops would much rather you pay the price once and not come back for years, as they simply did not need all that work immediately. No hungry mouths to feed, no idle hands to busy even if the end product was worth it or not, no need to chase the stock market highs, no need to show ever-increasing growth and profits, no need to answer to greedy shareholders who simply could not see past the next quarter, no GDP numbers to track and no worries about the bond market going up in flames due to some war on the other side of the world.

It was…..fine. 

He supposed that the magical world was not as interconnected as the non magical world was about to be in the next few decades. It must have its cons and pros, but from where he stood, the magical world in particular would not necessarily benefit from the increased cooperation or shrinking world that was necessary for most of the scientific rigour of the non magical world to be developed.

In fact, he would make a case for the current life of wizards to continue, for them to continue enjoying the secrecy they have right now, probably enforced with mind magic and agreements with the non magical governments; they would probably want to make sure that the likes of the internet, split second global connectivity, and mass surveillance in the form of cameras in the hands of billions of people would never come to pass.

Dismissing the thoughts of the future, since there was no guarantee this world would take the same path his world did, he moved to take note of the students that came through the door, and noted how everyone had subtly formed groups of three or more. The biggest one was a group of kids, most of whom had the magically enchanted robes, talking to each other with smiles on their faces, completely at ease.

On the other hand, the other kids were not as calm as the others, nervousness and a little fear plastered over their faces. It was clear that the calm kids were aware of what came next and were likely kids from the pureblood houses, the nobility of the magical Britain. From what he could tell, all of these Nobles houses proudly proclaimed nobility from ancient times, when different magical and non magical kingdoms were not a thing, and when wizards and non magical humans lived together, likely not on the same level or social hierarchy. 

“Alright! That’s everyone, Professor!” Hagrid’s voice was especially booming in such a small space, making most of the kids jump in surprise. Hagrid then left through the door, ducking to make sure his massive frame did not break the door.

The kids watched him go, some of them with curiosity and wonder, some of them with open contempt and disdain, which promptly vanished when the Professor cleared her throat and looked down on that group specifically.

“Alright, kids! Listen up, you will be going to the Great Hall to get sorted into one of the Four Houses of Hogwarts. Now, I have only one piece of advice for you kids: don’t forget to look up. Now, off you go, in a line.”

He looked at her, confused about the advice part, but followed the other students as they walked into the Great Hall using the door that was definitely locked before, but was now open, revealing a Big Hall with rows upon rows of older students, along with…

Hmm. Now that was certainly a good piece of advice. 

The ceiling was enchanted with magic that showed everyone the starry sky, shifting in real time, along with the twinkling. It was…mesmerising, absurdly so.

His brows furrowed as he realised something. He instantly tried to find out if some kind of mental magic was being used on him, only to find nothing. The sheer concentration of magic around him made it very hard to get coherent data on magical data a small distance away from him, but he was confident that he would be able to sense if magic was being used directly on him.

So, when he didn’t find any, he looked back at the starry ceiling, and now, it just looked like a regular view of the night sky, especially now that there was very little in terms of light pollution in the non magical world. To the campsite they went just a few hours outside London, it had similar views of the night sky, sans the clouds, of course.

Sitting down along with the other kids, his gaze roamed all around the tables. As expected, there were four houses, with their signature themes, colors, and symbols. There was scarcely any mention of just how one was sorted into the houses, with most of them keeping it a secret on purpose, as if it was part of a societal inside joke that was about to be played on the first year kids.

One of them did mention something about a Hat, but he wasn't sure if the author was being serious or not.

“Welcome to Hogwarts, kids!” He looked to the side as Headmaster Dumbledore stood up and spoke, still clad in that confusing and bright color scheme of his. Likely one of his odd quirks, then. That was another matter that was spoken of at length in one of the books from a wizard who fought and survived the magical part of World War II.

He had a hunch that with wizards involved, the major parts of history were going to be a little different, and he was proven right when the war veteran wizard wrote in his memoir that, had it not been for the magical world doing everything within its power to hold off their own version of nazi sympathisers, then the world would never have wrestled back control from the Germans.

He was of the opinion that the world would have found its way, but the damage would have been far more catastrophic. The fact that Dumbledore was the one who finally defeated and imprisoned the leader of the magical Nazis in one of the most secure magical prisons, guarded all the time by a rotation of countries, all of whom had every reason to kill Grindelwald and be done with it.

It was only due to Dumbledore’s words that Grindelwald was even alive. That also made him incredibly suspicious of Dumbledore. After all, they were both once friends, having met in their teenage years, and even exchanging notes to help each other grow magically, only for one of them to go off and become a Magical Nazi, and for the other to wait over a decade to finally confront his friend, resulting in a magical duel that eventually resulted in Grindelwald’s imprisonment in the same prison the mad wizard built for his enemies.

He had been there for decades now, away from society, living in isolation with not even a single living being around him, except the guards who were kept hidden from him. He was in solitary confinement, something that was bound to break even wizards, if it was true that the conditions were the same for decades.

Then, after Dumbledore finally managed to defeat someone he should have defeated long before, allowing them to reach the peak of their influence and power, he turned around and managed to become the single most influential figure in all of the Magical world. Not just Magical Britain, but the entire Magical World practically worshipped the ground that Dumbledore walked on.

Leveraging that single incident, Dumbledore managed to become the head of the international magical body, the ICW, Headmaster of Hogwarts, arguably the most influential position in all of Magical Britain if one had a long term vision in mind, and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the one who, for all intents and purposes, presided over the legal functioning of the courts and parliament here. 

It was disturbing just how much power was in the hands of a single wizard here, and he wondered just what the truth was about Albus Dumbledore and his meteoric rise to power, to the point that he was sure Dumbledore right now could bring about change on a national level with just words, without ever raising his wand.

“Alex, Alice.” He was snapped out of his thoughts by the first name being called, and apparently, the person who told him about the hat was right. It was a magical hat, and the fact that the kids had to put it on before it could sort them meant that it could probably use mind magic.

He hated telepathy with a passion. More than the body, the human mind was supposed to be inviolable, and yet, the Wizarding World seemed to think nothing of mind magic being used for a multitude of reasons, without much oversight, as far as he could tell. He'd read about accidents happening with many non magical people ending up with brain damage, with the only punishment given to Aurors being either a demotion or, in some cases, not even that.

It was this cavalier attitude toward something as important as the human mind that just increased the urgency he had in his mind to learn more and grow as strong as he could, as fast as possible. Without that—

“Wayne, Bruce.” He was snapped out of his thoughts by his name being called. He looked up and, under the stares of many kids, walked up and sat down on the stool, looking at the Mind Magic Hat with a neutral look, his hand itching towards the wand.

The hat was put on his head, and for a moment, there was only darkness before he felt it. A subtle and very weak tendril of foreign magic touched his mind, and with incredible control, he rebuffed that tendril away from his mind, only for the Hat to try again, this time with just a bit more strength behind it.