Rigel and Calypso left Gringotts two hours later. Calypso's excitement had been briefly dampened by the sheer amount of paperwork. Rigel made her read it all, he read it himself. One can never trust the integrity of a race that loves wealth.
Even so, it seemed there was no obvious problem, he secured the vault in the lowest area for Calypso, and they also acquired an extremely high amount of wealth. The boss not only accepted the deal but also bought other precious stones for Gringotts. Calypso's money arrived directly at half a million galleons with a wave of hand.
The rest of the stones would be auctioned off around the world in the future, and the Goblins would send letters frequently.
After that, they had to spend even more time looking at houses, and in the end they bought a large three-story house in Hogsmeade. It also had a basement, the lower level could be turned into a shop, and the two upper floors would serve as living quarters.
The house cost 43,000 galleons directly, an incredibly high amount for a salaried wizard. Unfortunately, wizards rarely move or sell property, so the price of houses, especially in purely wizarding villages, is extremely high.
There's even a limit to the amount of land that can be used for construction, if they want to build a house in Hogsmeade, they need direct authorization from the Ministry. Rigel believes this was essentially a policy to prevent Muggle-borns from moving to magical villages.
Sure, you can't say for sure, he was too lazy to try and find out, in the end he just bought a house outright, luckily there was a vacancy.
It seems the owner was a wizard who died without leaving descendants, the property fell into the possession of the Ministry, which allowed Gringotts to help sell it.
In the end, Rigel bought it, or rather, Calypso bought it.
Rigel also wanted to see a castle in a secluded area, but Calypso was already extremely annoyed, she hated everything about bureaucracy. She practically dragged Rigel away, spending two hours there was the limit for her.
The only fun part for her was the ride down in the Gringotts cart, Calypso was proving herself to be more and more of a speed junkie.
Rigel sighed, he would leave that for later.
Their journey was far from over, there were many things to do here. Their next stop was none other than Ollivanders, they'd better get a wand for Calypso.
Calypso thought the Blacks' house was dry and dusty, but it wasn't until she entered Ollivanders' shop that she understood what "dry and dusty" truly meant.
Compared to Gringotts, which gave her an impression of grandeur, Olivanders was the complete opposite.
However, Calypso was not at all pedantic, after setting aside her impression of Gringotts, she found the store quite interesting, the thousands of boxes amidst the winding corridors giving the place an air of objectivity.
There was no marketing or any gimmick to attract customers, the name Ollivanders was always enough.
Ollivanders appeared out of nowhere, as always.
Looking at Rigel with obvious confusion, he said. "Mr. Black, I believe I've already sold you a wand."
"Yes, it's doing very well. This time we came to buy a wand for the young lady next to me." Rigel inclined his head toward Calypso.
This confused Ollivander even more, but the answer came quickly. "Did you break your wand?"
His voice held a hint of genuine pity, for him, a wand was much more than a stick, it was a companion, and the loss of one is sad.
Calypso nodded calmly.
"All right, but do you have authorization from the Ministry?" Ollivander asked. He couldn't sell a wand to just anyone, every year he received a list of Hogwarts students, and he also focused on remembering each one of them, increasing the air of mystery when they came to his shop.
Basically, he already knew who was coming before they even arrived.
After they left, Ollivander had to write down the description of each wand and send the list to the Ministry of Magic for registration.
It was like registering a gun ownership, which wasn't far from the truth.
For wizards who broke their wands, they needed to request authorization from the Ministry of Magic to purchase a new one.
Even the act of using wands from ancient relatives requires registration, meaning Rigel's use of the yew wand was completely illegal, not that he cared.
For purebloods, this was merely a formality, except in extreme cases, nobody cared which wand they used, they could even register more than one if they wished. In the end, wizards had various laws that were more like instructions than anything else.
If you don't get caught, that's it. Even if you do get caught, just bribe the right people and that's it. The whole thing will be nothing more than a cover-up, sealed up, and even the wand will be returned.
Due to the small number of wizards, they had long since formed a community of interests, in fact, Rigel even wondered how Sirius Black ended up in prison.
Although he theorizes that, since the news about Voldemort's downfall had just broken, the Ministry only arrested as many Death Eaters as they could as a marketing ploy, of the kind that says, "Voldemort fell, and we helped too."
Although Sirius wasn't exactly like the other imprisoned Death Eaters at the time, each of them were staunch supporters who had long lived in the light with the title, unlike the others who went into hiding.
Sirius had never been considered a Death Eater up to that point, if Rigel were a corrupt minister, he would have readily accepted a fraction of the Blacks' wealth to ignore Sirius.
However, it's also possible that the minister wanted to find a scapegoat for the Potters' downfall, Voldemort left no visible body, but Sirius was simply the perfect target.
Even if Sirius had been in his right mind, which he probably wasn't, he might not have even had a chance to explain anything.
If Rigel were in his situation, he would wait for the dust to settle, ask one of the guards to inform the ministry that he wanted to speak with the minister, and make him a generous offer to reopen his case, in the end, he would spend at most a few months in Azkaban.
Even Igor Karkaroff did the same, he had been imprisoned in Azkaban before choosing to turn informant, so he was brought to trial again, where he exposed Barty Crouch Jr. In the end, Igor was released and Barto was arrested.
In any case, amidst the 'wizarding politics', if you're Muggle-born or don't have galleons... well, good luck, Rigel heard Azkaban is great at this time of year.
Calypso took a document from her bag, handed it to Ollivander, who read it twice quickly, nodded, smiled, and said. "Lady Valliere, it's a pleasure to assist you."
"Olivander's wands..." Rigel rolled his eyes at Ollivander's usual spiel, instead simply stepping aside and sitting down in his chair, clearly ready to wait.
Calypso still didn't know what awaited her.