"The O.W.L.s are next week, Audrey, how are you still sleeping in!"
Isaline Windsor shook Audrey awake. "These are the O.W.L.s! You shouldn't practice singing during this time!"
Although Isaline had never actually seen Audrey get up at four in the morning to practice singing, she firmly believed that Audrey did exactly that!
This was a professional singer, yes, professional!
Audrey sat up groggily.
"Oh, it's Isaline,"
Audrey rubbed her eyes. Edmond had spent a fortune quietly buying the Gringotts headquarters at the Gringotts real estate auction. Last night, she had patrolled the underground vaults several times, which had exhausted her!
Audrey's bank was still in the preparatory stage, so those owner-occupied vaults that had not yet been emptied (like Harry's family vault) were temporarily managed by the Ministry of Magic. There were quite a few troublesome matters involved.
Of course, those troublesome matters were handled by Edmond. Audrey was only responsible for patrolling the territory and bonding with that blind Ukrainian Ironbelly.
"Just the O.W.L.s, I've been ready for ages!"
Audrey rolled out of bed. With a tap of her finger on herself, face washing, teeth brushing, and using the toilet were all completed with one button.
When she first came to Hogwarts, she had enjoyed Momo's personal care for a few days, but later she found it too troublesome. How could it compare to the convenience now?
Isaline rolled her eyes. "You'd better be careful. After all, your situation is special. If you accidentally become the first student in Hogwarts history to be held back a year, that would be terrible!"
"Alright, alright, let's go eat. Stop nagging!"
The Great Hall in the morning was as lively as ever, just like a noisy vegetable market: the clinking of knives and forks against plates, the loud chatter of young wizards, the sound of owls flying in, and the cursing caused by owls falling into soup bowls.
"Oh, our family owl is just too old," Ron fished Errol out of the soup bowl. "This is terrible; the letters are soaked."
"Merlin!" Ron exclaimed. "Errol actually delivered the wrong letter! This letter is for Audrey!"
"What, what?" Fred leaned in. "Mom wrote to Audrey? That's rare!"
George gloated a little. "This is trouble. Audrey hasn't come to the Great Hall to eat for almost two months!"
"Poor Ron, having to take this soggy letter to the Slytherin common room!"
Ron shook the letter angrily, then suddenly his eyes lit up. "Audrey!"
Audrey and Isaline entered the Great Hall chatting and laughing, only to see the youngest Weasley son running toward her holding an unidentifiable piece of food.
What on earth was that?
A sallow, long, thin strip, soggy, with vegetable leaves, mushrooms, and some... cheese stuck to it?
Audrey bet this must be some kind of pasta, a fried food similar to a dough stick. The house-elves were quite capable, developing new dishes from her way of eating dough sticks dipped in soy milk!
Just dipping it in thick mushroom soup... although a bit strange, Audrey simulated the taste in her mind... perhaps this combination was surprisingly delicious?
"Audrey, this is a letter for you from my family!"
Audrey: ...
"Thank you, Ron,"
Audrey's mouth twitched as she made the "letter" levitate.
"Scourgify!"
Even though the cleaning charm had cleaned the letter, Audrey still disdainfully avoided touching the letter paper with her hands, unfolding it in mid-air instead.
"Audrey:
The tank has been received, thank you very much! It is the best gift I have ever seen; Muggle craftsmanship is truly shocking!
Originally, Molly disliked the tank very much, but hearing that this thing is worth hundreds of thousands of Galleons, she immediately changed her attitude!
I just have to say, your gift is simply too valuable. If I didn't have some friends in the Muggle world, I would have almost been fooled by you—this is no 'transport tool backlog Soviet people left in Ukraine'!
Molly is full of praise for the Huaxia cookbook you sent. She never thought cooking could be done like that!
So she asked me to extend an invitation to you. Please do come to our house as a guest this summer vacation. Molly is already looking forward to showing you the new dishes she has learned!
The application you submitted to establish a new wizarding bank on the original site of Gringotts has won the approval of the vast majority of officials. Mr. Barty Crouch is doing his best to promote this matter—if he is your fan, please do tell me, because I really can't think of why he is so keen on this matter.
However, the Minister seems uninterested in opening a new wizarding bank. He seems to think that as long as the ownerless vaults in Gringotts are opened and the Galleons inside taken out, the Ministry of Magic won't have to worry about salaries at all during his term.
Therefore, the motion to establish a brand-new wizarding bank might be terminated by Cornelius Fudge. Although these are all rumors, I feel it necessary to tell you this so you can prepare early.
Finally, I still want to thank you for being able to take over all the Gringotts curse-breakers. Bill and our family really need that generous remuneration!
May Merlin bless you!
Your loyal friend, Arthur Weasley."
Cornelius Fudge!
Audrey narrowed her eyes. Now the entire Gringotts vault was hers. Wanting to take gold that didn't belong to the Ministry of Magic from her territory?
Fudge, you're dreaming!
...
"Malfoy!"
Audrey walked up to Draco.
"Take a message to your dad. From now on, not a single bronze Knut is allowed to be sponsored to the Ministry of Magic!"
Draco nodded blankly. Anyway, this wasn't something he could participate in. He just honestly acted as a messenger.
Sitting down next to Isaline, delicious food carefully prepared by Momo immediately appeared in front of Audrey.
However, Audrey's expression really couldn't be called good, which worried Isaline greatly.
Damn it, damned Fudge.
Audrey cursed in her heart.
Her mind was full of vault matters.
Even the hot dry noodles didn't taste good anymore!
So Audrey hurriedly finished her breakfast, said goodbye to Isaline, and went straight back to the dormitory.
Her movements were so fast that Dorca Yaxley didn't even have time to stand up before losing sight of her—this also caused his twelfth confession to die in the womb.
"Edmond!"
Audrey lay on the bed, the two-way mirror floating in mid-air. She was furious.
"Young Miss, who made you angry again?"
Pouting, Audrey waved her fist.
"Cornelius Fudge wants to embezzle those ownerless Galleons in our vaults."
'Ownerless' referred to vaults that had gone unclaimed over long years due to the extinction of wizarding families. There was often some wealth inside. The goblins believed that was all theirs, so they couldn't be bothered to gather this portion of Galleons together, just letting them lie quietly in the vaults for decades or even centuries.
"When we auctioned the entire original site of Gringotts headquarters, did it include this portion of ownerless vaults?"
Edmond nodded. "That's right. Because the wealth in these ownerless vaults couldn't be counted clearly for a while, and the Ministry of Magic was eager to appease the pure-blood families, the wealth in these vaults was discounted to about one million Galleons."
"We have counted them in the past half month. Those ownerless vaults actually aren't worth that much. We lost about two hundred thousand here."
Audrey said indifferently, "A loss is a loss. What I care about now is that Fudge is coveting this money!"
Edmond laughed. "Don't worry. It's written clearly in black and white in the purchase contract."
Audrey shook her head repeatedly. "Don't overestimate Fudge's integrity." She thought for a moment and instructed, "Hurry up and transfer all the Galleons in the vaults to our base."
She suddenly thought of something happy and giggled.
"If Fudge really plots to seize this batch of gold but finds nothing in the vaults, you tell him that the goblins had already emptied the vaults before leaving—"
"After all, Galleons were hand-forged by goblins. According to the goblins, these all belong to them!"
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]