Chapter 40 - Overseas Holiday Trip

This holiday I finally decided to go on a much needed vacation with Sherry. My destination was France. It was close by and had many beautiful sites and beaches. I decided the best way to travel for me without any complicated process was flying using my animagus which would be a fun flight too. So next week a falcon took off from my house and flew towards south. Its destination France.

I reached Paris in only one hour. The flight over the sea and many farm lands was fun and the sights were magnificent. The feeling I got while perching on the top of the Eiffel tower and looking down at the beautiful city of Paris was amazing. My first stop was Gringotts to take control of my mother's vault. The process was quick. All it needed was a drop of blood to verify the relation. There was no account manager. The vault did not contain any items just money. The total was 15,460G. Even with all these years of usage the vault still had this much money left in it. I decided to keep the vault open as it may come handy in the future. I exchanged some Francs from Gringotts for my expenses during the trip and left to find a place to stay.

I booked a room in a good hotel in Paris for my stay. I was now tall enough to be mistaken for an ȧduŀt and all I needed to do was apply some glamour charms on my face to fool the Hotel receptionist into believing that I was an ȧduŀt. I decided to keep the ȧduŀt appearance for the whole trip as it would avoid a lot of trouble for me during the trip. I visited the various museums and art galleries in France during my stay there. In my past life I always dreamed about going on a overseas trip to other countries, seeing the different beautiful sights and trying out their cuisine. So I was fulfilling my dreams during this trip and this made the trip a whole lot fun for me. I also bought a new wardrobe while going around the city as I found the clothes here much more fashionable.

The magical part of France was beautiful but essentially not much different from Britain. The equivalent of Diagon Alley in France looked much posher and welcoming than the run down shops of Diagon Alley. The sad thing was that the things sold were the same just in a different language. There were same restrictive laws here as in Britain. I spent a week in Paris enjoying the cities sites and cuisine with a disguised Sherry. The Eiffel tower and the various palaces were fascinating to visit.

I also used my time here in Paris to collect mastery books on Alchemy since France was famous for its Alchemy knowledge due to the Flamels living here.

I did not even consider visiting the Flamels and asking them to teach me Alchemy because I did not know what kind of people they were. The Flamels made the Philosopher's stone which produced Elixir of life. They were the only ones to have succeeded making one and I did not even know how to even go about trying to make one. But from what I know, Alchemy followed the law of equivalent exchange. It was followed in all the metal transmutations I have done till now. So for the creation of philosopher's stone, the Flamel's must have sacrificed either lives of human beings, plants or animals. Since I did not know the method, I could not know for sure. So staying away from them was better. They had helped out during the Grindelwald war so they could be good people but I did not know for sure.

After Paris, I travelled around various beaches in France. The Falken family had a summer resort here but since I have not reached majority, I cannot find its location. I just relaxed and enjoyed myself in all the famous tourist beaches. There was no chance of me being sun burned due to magic so I spent most of my time outside. I spent another two week visiting all the different beautiful beaches, trying out all the water sports and relaxing. It was a much needed rest for me as I had not spent much time relaxing and having fun ever since I reincarnated into this world.

Before leaving for London, I decided to check out the Knockturn Alley equivalent of France too which to my surprise was not a gloomy and dark place. It was same as the other Alley just filled with dark wizards. I had not yet started my research on Dark Magic due to the hectic schedule I had for the past year but since my NEWT studies was over, I decided that I was not in much rush anymore and spend some of my time this year on Dark Arts research.

Since I did not own any books on Dark Arts, I decided to buy some from France first and then check out the ones in England after returning. I only spent a single day going through a lot of books and buying whichever I found interesting. By the end of the day, I was owner of books on Blood Magic, Ritual Magic, Soul Magic, Dark Potions and Dark Curses. I even avoided touching these books directly because they felt dangerous and some may have deadly curses on them. I used Dragon hide gloves just to go through them and see if the book was real. I also found a couple of books on battle magic which I readily bought. The books were costly and all together I spent 3000G on books that day.

After a long and relaxing stay in France, I was back in London. The overseas trip was still only for 3 weeks. I made it short because I wanted to check up on the Boy-Who-Lived before he joined Hogwarts. I wanted it to be longer trip next year, so I was going to choose a much bigger country as destination.

After reaching England, I went shopping at Diagon Alley. My Hogwarts letter for 4th year had already arrived so I had some shopping to do. I also used the visit to buy an OWL, as my friends were bothering me to buy one so that we could send letters to each other during the holidays. It was a strong and powerful male Eagle Owl. I named it Casper. I told Sherry to take all my stuff including Casper to the house while I went to Knockturn Alley and bought some more books on Dark Arts. I was disappointed on not finding anything unique books and in the end I only bought a couple of new books.