The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 694 Christmas Promotion
"It looks like prosperity has been restored here," Hermione said. People were coming and going on both sides of the street, and it did look a lot better than the depression a while ago.

"It's just Christmas." Ryan shook his head slightly and said, "This is just a way for everyone to vent their tensions. It doesn't fully explain the problem. If we want the situation to improve completely, I think this war can only be truly ended."

Even as they were talking, they had already arrived at the entrance of Weasley's Joke Shop. Surprisingly, there were not as many people here as they had imagined. Only one or two wizards in a hurry came out of the shop holding a paper bag.

"Didn't you say they bought some goods for Christmas? Why does it feel like there's no one there?" Looking at the deserted store at the door, Hermione asked in surprise. "I saw that the stores along the way were full of people!"

"This is indeed a bit strange." Ryan walked to the door of the store, opened it and made a gesture to invite people in: "But we can just go in and ask what happened here. Anyway, we are already here."

After entering the store, Ryan found that the store, which was crowded before, now looked even more crowded. Half of the store was piled with packages of all sizes wrapped in colorful wrapping paper, and the Weasley twins and several employees were waving their wands to wrap more boxes with the same wrapping paper.

"What are you doing?" Ryan asked the Weasley twins, looking at the flying wrapping paper and the various products being packaged under the magic, "Why aren't there many people coming to the store?"

"That's because we don't have enough staff this year and can't keep up with the business." Fred stopped what he was doing and looked up. "So we simply changed the method this year and adopted the method of completely owl ordering to sell Christmas products."

"Looking at the current situation, your new sales method is working well." Hermione said as she looked at the piles of merchandise. "You are really geniuses in store management."

"Of course." George said proudly while busy. "There are really a lot of orders from Hogwarts this year. This may be because Hogsmeade Day was cancelled for safety reasons. Everyone hopes to take advantage of Christmas to buy a lot. Of course, in addition to this, the new developing potion that Ryan developed before is also very useful."

"New developing potion, what is that?" Hermione asked curiously. "I know that the wizards' photos can be moved because they use special developing potions, but is there anything special about the new developing potion you just mentioned?"

"Of course." Fred said, "The potion newly developed by Ryan can use those color films to develop color photos, so our advertising posters this time are all color photos. Now it seems that the first color magic poster in the wizarding world is very effective. Judging from the order volume, at least 1/3 of the Hogwarts students have ordered products from us."

"That sounds great." Hermione looked at the pile of goods on the side and counted them. "But Hogwarts alone probably can't sell so many goods!"

"You're right. In addition to the goods from Hogwarts and some scattered orders, the bulk of the goods come from the newly opened bank." Fred said. As a member of the Weasley family, he certainly knew some inside information about the bank. "The bank ordered a large number of goods from us because of Ryan's relationship and planned to give them to its guests at Christmas. They said it was to give back to customers."

No wonder those pandas are considered the best businessmen in the Chinese magic world. They even learned the trick of giving small gifts to attract customers. But the effect seems to be quite good, especially after decades of hard-to-handle and ugly service from Gringotts. The wizards are very impressed by the enthusiastic service of these pandas. At least from the information sent by Xiong Duosu, the number of people depositing money in the bank has been rising recently, and many financial activities have gradually begun. The entire bank is running on the right track.

"It seems there are a lot of things in here!" Ryan said, pulling out his wand, "Let us help you, the day after tomorrow is Christmas, anyway we'd better finish this batch of goods quickly." After Ryan and Hermione joined, everyone packed the goods faster. Finally, all the goods were packed before lunch, and then several employees used the levitation spell to float the goods to the Owl Post Office.

"Finally, we can have a holiday." Fred said as he looked at the employees who were leaving. After mailing their things, they would go home to enjoy the annual Christmas holiday. "Our mother prepared a lot of food at home this time, and she was going to give us a sumptuous dinner to reward us for our hard work over the past six months. Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters can't come back this time."

"Ron and Ginny can't go home?" Hermione asked curiously, "If Ron doesn't go home, I can understand it. After all, he has to take the NEWT test this year and may need to review at school. But Ginny is fine, why doesn't she go back?"

"Ron can review at school? Don't be ridiculous." George said with disgust. "He will definitely take this opportunity to have fun. I even suspect that he will rush to finish his homework on the last day before the holiday."

"Then why don't he and Ginny go home?" Ryan asked curiously, because he felt that in the current situation, people should want to be with their parents and relatives instead of staying alone in Hogwarts Castle.

"Don't you know? That's right, you may not know. After all, you have been fighting in the wild all this time and may not have received any news." George began to feel a little confused, but soon remembered that Ryan had been wandering around fighting and rescuing innocent people. It was normal not to know some news.

"Well, this year Hogwarts requires everyone to stay in school during the Christmas holidays. This is a decision made for safety reasons." Fred explained, "Since the last time the Hogwarts Express was attacked, the school believes that students should stay in the safe castle as much as possible, rather than going outside and exposing themselves to the danger of Death Eaters' attacks, especially since the Death Eaters have now gone crazy and started to attack everyone indiscriminately, even the students."

"I can understand the professors' thoughts," Ryan said. At least after the last attack by the Death Eaters, they knew that the Death Eaters would not stop at anything. In this case, the young wizards who were scattered during the holidays were too easy to become targets of the attackers. In particular, many of the young wizards lived in enemy-occupied areas and could not be protected at all.

"By the way, has anything happened in the school recently?" Ryan asked, because he and Hermione were going to Hogwarts Castle soon and were a little worried that they would not be able to enter the school because of the new security arrangements.

"No big changes." Fred said, "Except that with your help, the wand and material problems of the young wizards have been completely solved, and the teaching activities are back on track. I haven't heard of any changes worth mentioning in the school."

"At times like this, no change is the best change." Ryan nodded. "Hermione and I will go downstairs to make lunch, and then we will eat together. After lunch, we still have to go to the castle to do some things."

"What a good idea. We're starving after a busy morning." George said, "I'm looking forward to your lunch. Although our mother is a great cook, we've never learned how to cook. It's really awful to eat the meal delivered by the Three Broomsticks all day."

(End of this chapter)