The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 71 Flourish and Blotts Bookstore
When they arrived at Flourish and Blotts, Ryan and his friends found that the store was crowded with people. The banner on the door said that today was Lockhart's new book signing event.

"This is much more fanatical than my dad's fans." Ryan muttered to himself as he looked at the large number of crowded middle-aged witches.

"We can meet him in person!" Hermione said to Ryan, "After all, almost all the books on the list were written by him!"

"He may be really good, but this behavior of using novels as textbooks is a bit too..."

"You have a point. Mr. Lambert's novels are well written, but they can never be used as textbooks." Hermione seemed to wake up.

Ryan saw Harry and Ron standing in the front of the line holding books waiting for signatures, while Mrs. Weasley was standing at the end of the line, fixing her hair a little nervously, with Ginny following beside her.

Of course, when Ryan and Hermione walked up to Mrs. Weasley, they heard Mrs. Weasley whisper to Ginny, "Oh, sorry dear, most of the things you can only buy are second-hand, because Lockhart's novels are not cheap."

"It's okay, Mom, textbooks are still important. I don't mind these." Ginny also replied in a low voice.

At this time, a group of people squeezed over and pushed Ryan to the door. The twins just walked in from the door. Ryan said to the twins: "How about the things I brought this time? Did I bring the right things?"

"The goods are very good." Fred said. "But can I pay you later? Money is a bit tight recently." George continued.

"It's okay, you can give me money anytime you have money. But I think your family is a bit biased towards boys. Last year, Ron at least had new robes when he went to school, but this year, why did Ginny buy him an old robe?"

"Hey, it's all because of Lockhart's new book. We want to buy five sets at once, so we can only buy old robes for Ginny. That's why we'll pay you a little later. We want to send Ginny some new quills and ink."

"Wait, why do you want five sets of books?" Ryan asked.

"There are five of us in our family going to school, so of course we have five sets of books," said Fred.

"No, what I mean is that since the books needed this year are the same, and you are not in the same grade, and you will not take the Defense Against the Dark Arts class at the same time, why don't you brothers take turns using them? If you want to take notes, just take a notebook. This way, only one or two sets of books will be enough." Ryan said, looking at the twins.

"Yeah, why didn't we think of that?" The twins looked at each other and tried their best to squeeze into the store, apparently looking for their mother.

Ryan stood at the door of the store and saw Lockhart hugging Harry and taking pictures to attract attention. This was exactly the same as what Ryan's father, Mr. Lambert, did when he met the members of the U2 band at a book signing event and took pictures to attract attention.

No wonder Lockhart has so many fans. His level of character management is comparable to that of the online hype teams decades later. It can be said that he is decades ahead of his time. Not to mention that Lockhart is really handsome. If you don't know that he is a idiot, it is really easy to be fascinated by him.

Ryan finally squeezed into the store and saw Harry's famous scene of flirting with girls: he put a complete set of Lockhart's new novels in Ginny's cauldron.

Then there was a fight between Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley due to personal grudges. Ryan dragged Mr. and Mrs. Granger to a safe corner of the bookstore to avoid the chaos. Standing at the corner, Mr. Granger asked a little worriedly: "Is the wizarding world always so chaotic? Is discrimination also common?"

Ryan knew that they were worried about their daughter's life here, so he comforted them: "There are not too many people like this who are racist, and in the wizarding world, knowledge equals power. Hermione studies very well, so generally no one messes with her."

After listening to Ryan's explanation, Mr. Granger seemed relieved. At this time, the fight between Weasley and Malfoy was stopped by Hagrid who came. Ryan and the Granger couple also followed the crowd out of the bookstore. Mrs. Granger still looked a little scared, and Mr. Granger was always beside her to comfort her.

At the door, Ryan met the Weasley family and Hermione. Hermione quickly ran up to ask about her parents and thanked Ryan: "Thank you for helping me comfort my parents. I was really afraid that they would worry too much about me because of what they saw."

"You're welcome. We're friends." Ryan replied. After that, a group of people walked towards the Leaky Cauldron. Ryan deliberately fell behind and walked with Ginny. Then he pretended to have just discovered the old book in Ginny's cauldron and said to her: "Do you also know how to appreciate the knowledge contained in old books?"

Ginny started and turned to look at Ryan, who she recognized as a friend of his brothers.

"Hello, my name is Ryan Liang, you can call me Ryan. Every time I come to Diagon Alley, I will look for various interesting old books or old books with useful notes in the second-hand shops. I have gained a lot of useful knowledge from them. However, this behavior is generally not understood by others. So today, I saw that you bought only old books, so I came here to find people who share the same interests. I am sorry if I disturbed you."

"I know you." Ginny looked up and said, "Ron said you were second in the grade last year and one of his best friends. He also told me that he couldn't understand why you went to second-hand bookstores to look through books when you had money to buy new ones."

After that, Ryan and Ginny chatted for a while. When they were about to reach the Leaky Cauldron, Ryan slapped his forehead and said, "You are going to Hogwarts this year. As your brother's friend, I should give you a gift." After that, he took out an old notebook full of notes from last year that he had prepared in advance and handed it to Ginny.

"This is the notes I compiled. I hope it can help you." Ginny happily accepted the gift and put it into the crucible.

At this time, Ryan saw the black notebook sandwiched between the worn-out Transfiguration textbook in Ginny's cauldron. He pointed at the notebook and said in surprise, "Oh my God, you've started taking notes before school starts. That's amazing."

Ginny took out the notebook and looked at it, then shook her head and said, "This doesn't look like my notebook." Then she opened it and saw that there was not a single word inside.

Ryan looked at the faded date on the cover of the book, which showed that it was fifty years old. On the first page, he could only make out a name written in blurred ink: Tom Riddle. The back cover was printed with the name of a newsagent in Vauxhall Road, London. It looked like an antique notebook.

"Who is Tom Riddle?" Ginny asked curiously. "Maybe the people at the junk shop didn't look carefully enough and added it to the book."

Seeing Ryan staring at the notebook intently, Ginny handed it to Ryan and said, "Since you like it, I'll give it to you. It's my return gift for your gift."

Ryan expressed his gratitude and put the book in his schoolbag. He told Ginny that it was rare to find an ordinary notebook from fifty years ago that was preserved so well. He could give it to his father who liked antiques.

(End of this chapter)