NOVEL NEXT Chapter 29: Chapter 29
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.
Chapter 15– Making Strides.
Edited: 08/04/2023
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"Okay, Ms Lumley. Thank you for your time. I will be in touch shortly if the position is indeed yours. Expect an owl." I say to the gorgeous blond woman dressed in entirely pink robes that has made it very clear that she would be willing to do anything to have this position I am offering, anything. However, despite her looks, the meticulous makeup, the puckering pink lips and the seductive body that promises to fulfil my every fantasy, I will not be offering her the position.
I made the decision to go after women with actual substance and personality, women that wouldn't just give in to me because of my name and fame or even my wealth. This woman is very eager to spread her legs for me, meaning she should not be so easily trusted, especially for the position I am offering. If she is doing that merely for this position, then she could easily compromise me, plus she is hardly qualified for the job either.
Don't get me wrong, I still take advantage of the opportunities presented to me and spend the nights with some of these women that are throwing themselves at me, offering sex to me freely, but I don't spend many thoughts on them. I will probably follow up with Ms Lumley sometime in the future if I am ever feeling bored, but that is it at most. I will just set up a time, show up, do my business, wipe her mind afterwards and leave without thinking about it again.
It is much more of a hassle to have all these women, material women and fanatics, running around preaching that they slept with me, coming up with pregnancy schemes and ways to get my wealth or marry me. It is just simpler to just rid them of those memories and then leave without being troubled by the thought of these women running around out there. I will probably even meet them again in the future and spend the night again with them. They won't remember the first time, and to be honest, I probably won't as well.
Of course, that doesn't mean I forgot about my new goal and aspiration, and these are just little bits of fun and slight distractions. I didn't just want to coast by on Gilderoys wealth and fame, which is why I have been regularly going out to muggle London and trying to meet women at bars. I rely on nothing but my social skills, which leave much to be desired since I was just an antisocial nerd and Gilderoy skirted by using fame and wealth.
Without the fame, the wealth and even the magic, I was just continually striking out, being constantly rejected. The amalgamation of my nerdy self and Gilderoy's vain self apparently didn't make for a likeable personality, which I came to realise as woman after woman refused even to give me a second of their time. And just like any problem I have come across in this new world, I decided to solve my problems using magic. If you have the tools to make your life easier, then why wouldn't you use them?
I started to make liberal use of my mind magic to lightly touch upon the minds of the women I talked to and get a read on their thoughts and emotions, I didn't affect them in any way, but I did read them and try to use them to help me woo them. But even if I knew how they were feeling, it didn't help if I didn't understand how to overturn that emotion and have a positive effect. So then I went around, and coincidentally I found a playboy that was hooking up with tons of women. I had seen him all over the place when I was on my nights out, and he always went home with a girl.
One evening I followed him into the men's room and used my wand to lock the door behind me, isolating this suave guy in the bathroom. After that, I used my Legilimency and dived into his mind, copying all his social skills and abilities and putting them into my own mind. But, of course, this didn't just make me George Clooney straight away, and I wasn't just suddenly attracting women left or right.
The information and knowledge were now in my mind, they just had to be assimilated, and that would happen by going into a situation where that knowledge would be applicable, and it would reveal itself to me slowly. But it had definitely worked. I had gotten into a long conversation with a girl at the bar, but I obviously ended up doing something wrong as she suddenly got up and left, but I am definitely making progress. Through the combined knowledge of the cool dude and my emotion and thought reading, I am making strides.
"Oh, well, thank you for your time, Mr Lockhart. If you need anything at all, anything, please do not hesitate to owl me." Ms Lemley says, placing her arm suggestively on my arm as I start to shuffle her towards the exit of the room. I easily ignore her actions, having felt one too many fans make passes at me that I can easily ignore the touches.
"I assure you, Ms Lumley, if I have any need of your expertise, I know exactly where to find you. Now, have a lovely day." I finish, ending the conversation as I open the door and gently push her out by placing my palm on the flat of her back. Then, knowing she has done all she can do to get this position, she waves toward me as she moves to the exit of the building. I wave back at her with a polite smile which immediately fades after she leaves, and I look around the waiting room at the rest of the applicants.
This morning, this room was packed with a bunch of women that were eagerly awaiting an interview with me in the hopes of getting the job I was offering, and so far, all of the women that have shown up have been muggle-borns. Which is no surprise, really, since although I placed an ad in the Daily Prophet, which cost a surprising amount, the place where I started the interviews would take place was muggle London.
Well, not stated as such, as that would get me a lot of criticism from the more pure-minded wizards and witches in our community. No, I simply gave the address where the interviews would take place. I did not say that it would be in London or even in any magical community, I merely gave the street name, the building number, the time, and what floor was mine, and that was it.
I had rented a small space in an office building in the middle of London, not that far away from Charing Cross road either on which The Leaky Cauldron is located. Of course, there were many streets with the same name as this all over England, but that was part of the test. I was looking for someone clever, resourceful, with common sense, an understanding of both the magical and muggle worlds and some standing in our community, though I wasn't holding out hope for the last one.
By giving the location as I had, I confirmed that the people that found this location, at the very least, had an adequate understanding of the muggle world and that they were magical. However, by not giving the exact location and just some vague information, I ensured that the people that came were either very intelligent or just lucky to know the place since I could be on any similarly named street in England. But they had magic at their disposal, and they could easily, within an hour, travel to all such roads in England and scout them out before the time I specified. Furthermore, they had magic, so they didn't have excuses.
So far, I had interviewed quite a few clever muggle-born witches that were very intelligent, natural Hermione types that just didn't have good prospects in the wizarding world, what with it being the pureblood club that it was. And then I got the types that were also muggle-borns, but they were kind of dimwitted and a bit slow. They were just lucky to have been born in London, and this was the only street they knew of by this name. They didn't even stop to contemplate if it was wrong; they just showed up.
Though what all these witches had in common was that they were all smoking hot, since they all much up there, they concentrated on their outward appearance, and they offered me the results of all their hard work, but that is not what I am looking for right now. How did I know exactly what these women are like, what they are thinking, and how they found this place and everything else about them? Of course, with magic, I used my Legilimency to discover everything about them as soon as they took a seat. I would be trusting them with a very important task after all.
The ad I put in the Dailly Prophet was an opportunity for someone to become my secretary slash financial advisor to help me with my work as well as my wealth. No doubt that the last one drew a lot of eyes. It makes sense that I would need to hire such a person, though, since the last one mysteriously disappeared out of the blue. Of course, that did not fully explain what I would be requesting of them, but I would explain that to the person I actually hired.
My ideal person for this position would be a pure-blood witch or at least a half-blood witch, and they would have to have no problem with the muggle world and be very intelligent to fulfil precisely what I need from them. However, I think that is just a pipe dream, and I will never find the ideal candidate, so I will just have to put up with one of the intelligent muggle-borns that showed up. Hopefully, I can mould them into exactly what I require over time.
Oh well, I have just one candidate left, and then I can finish this and go home to review all of the candidates in my mind and pick the best one for my purposes. So I move my eyes away from the door which I just watched Ms Lumley walk through, and I look towards the final applicant so that we can- Oh... Oh wow. I just- It is hard to find the words to describe the vision of beauty that sits before me... just, wow.