NoneEthan stood silently within Flourish and Blotts on that fine August day with a book in his hands, to anyone passing by he was merely just flipping through the pages as if to find a certain page, but in reality he was in fact reading the book two pages every couple of seconds or though. Life in Diagon alley was normal for this time of year, already the excited first years were jammed into Diagon Alley along with the rest of the Hogwarts student body who had not been smart enough to shop early. Ethan loved this time of the year, not just because he would be one of the first teachers to the new first years but also because he enjoyed the thought of new minds to teach, to wonder, to help take their first steps on the road of a witch or wizard. Much of his life had been spent in dark corridors with a wand out ready to block the killing curse, turning unprotected corners where an ambush could happen at any moment, and seeing the carnage evil wizards and witches could cause. So naturally seeing the smiling and wide eye faces of new students, especially the muggle born students just made his day. Although his carousel of the newest best sellers in the bookstore was also equally as exiting to him as well.
"No reading unless you intend to buy the book Professor Graves, how am I suppose to make profit if you merely read the book in its entirety and then place it back?"Ethan smiled as he flipped the book closed with his hand and turned to face the Manager of Flourish and Blotts a well in the years old man who had been taking care of the store sense he was a young man. The older gentleman who was simply know as The Manager was standing with his hands crossed on his chest and his foot tapping impatiently.
"Is there a new store policy where you are unable to look at the books that you may or may not purchase? If so how can I deduce is this piece of work is worth buying if I can not carouse its many pages?"Ethan smiled as the old manage pulled out his wand and swished it, the book floated into the air and opened itself in front of Ethans eyes at face level. The pages quickly swished from begging to end then made its way back to the shelf where it replaced itself and became still.
"A year ago that troll wash may have persuaded me but unfortunately for you Professor Graves your big secret in which you kept from me for so many years has been revealed.Ethan crossed his arms and feigned shock as she spoke in lightly accented but deep tones voice:
"Secret? An what secret may I be hiding from you that you don't know of me already?""Oh nothing big in terms of secrets... but the fact that you can read an entire book in mere minutes! All these years I thought you were merely carousing books and then not finding them interesting, when the whole time you were reading them from front to back then dipping my profits!"The old man swished his wand as a small hand broom came out from under the table and started swatting Ethan, Ethan laughed as he tried to kick the housing appliance away. Putting his foot up he caught the hand broom and pinned it to the floor, pulling out his own wand he swished it lifting his foot, the hand broom came to attention as it slowly started to sweep the floor in the opposite direction. Both Ethan and the old man laughed at each other before the older gentleman slowly walked back to his chair behind the desk, Ethan followed sitting down with him oblivious to the several onlookers in the store who had watched the spectacle with hidden smiles.
"How have you been doing Professor Graves it has been sometime since I last saw you. You can't do that to and old man we start to feel rather lonely and unappreciated. Lets face it when you first walked through my door all those years ago, that cheeky grin and that air of superiority around you, I never would have imagined that I would feel lonely without you visiting but here we are""That is true I never would have imagined as a teenager that I would continue to frequent a store with such a crotchety old grouchy man running it. But who knows perhaps I just liked to read all your books and watch you think I wasn't doing it."Ethan smiled again and chuckled slightly as the old man swished his wand and two tea cups hit the rickety desk, a pot lifted in the air and poured steaming tea into the cups. Picking his own up the old man made a sour face and made a toast:
"Heres to you burning your rotten tongue on this tea and thus losing your ability to talk for the next year."Ethan smiled again and gave a fake sneer as he raised his own cup and clinked the old mans making his own toast:
"An heres to all the free books I have taken from your store over the years without paying a cent, may you forever remember the money you could have had."Both men sipped the tea as the hot liquid burned the roofs of their mouths like it always seemed to do, setting the cups down Ethan spoke answering the question from before.
"I would have came sooner but I took a small trip out of country, I had some loose ends to tie up back home and it ended up taking longer then I figured it would. Honestly I would have rather passed on the whole thing, but Gregor kept contacting me from the Ministry telling me it had to be done this summer. The last thing I felt like doing was going back to that place but you know how the Ministry is with their business.""You don't gotta tell me twice, iv been alive a long long time and used to once upon a time work for the Ministry. They always were a bunch of tight lipped prudes, especially back in the day of he-who-must-not-be-named and after when the Ministry was cleaning up the mess that had been caused by it. Speaking of the Ministry we received the latest batch of your newest book, its been very popular I have not the chance to read it yet though."Ethan stretched his legs out and leaned back in the chair rubbing his upper thigh slowly soothing the small pain he had in it.
"Well I suppose people do love adventures even though that book is not a fictitious story but an actual account of various run ins with dark witches and wizards. I heard that even the muggle books stores got a non magical version, they seem to think it is a best seller, never realizing that the entire thing is a true story."The old man snorted loudly as he shook his head at the words about muggles not ever believing the story could be true.
"Muggles please, they wouldn't believe something even if you levitated a fish and slapped them with it. I have never once understood how Muggles could have such an aversion to magic being a real thing. I mean we could totally join our two worlds together and quit with this nonsense of two societies. Thats how The Dark Lord came to be in the first place, his hatred for muggle borns. But lets not poke that troll... are you finally going to make your books part of the curriculum at Hogwarts? I truly think those kids could learn a lot from your life and it could prepare them for whats out there."Ethan took another sip of the tea as he shook his head, honestly the time era in which was the Dark Lord was a sad era and one too boot that took many years for everyone to get over. Ethan had only been coming into his own when Hogwarts was attacked and the Dark Lord meant his end. But he had grown up hearing the stories and seeing the torment caused by what was going on around him.
"Well honestly no my books won't be part of the sellers list now or in the future for school learning. They were never intended for school students, too dark for that. I wrote them mostly for those who chose to become Aurors, I truly want all future Aurors to realize that being part of the wizard protection force is a dangerous and often times downright nightmarish job. At a school level I would never want the students to read those pages and have nightmares of what awaits them out there in the real wizarding world.. Besides I also never want to fall in love with myself like that fraud Gilderoy Lockheart, the perfect example of someone who used his position as a teacher to sell third grade toilet paper. Hell I hear that he is still levitating his pants off his body and not realizing how he is doing it."The old man snorted on his tea as it shot out of his nose, quickly reaching up he wiped his nose and mouth and gave Ethan a slap across the shoulder for making him snort his tea.
"Dang you Graves, all over my table!! I remember the summer I had to be there for the book signing, nothing but a bunch of swooning woman idolizing a self absorbed trolley wag. After keeping woman from trying to grab him all day that bridge troll had the gull to offer me a signed copy of his works. If I would have known he was gonna be at St.Mungos the rest of his life trying to figure out why his pants keep walking away without him I would have taken the copies if for nothing else but to throw at him."Ethan laughed out loud as the old man did as well, it truly was nice to be back in London and to also be back on the verge of a new school year. It almost erased the summer that Ethan had to endure and he was just fine with that.
