While I did basically copy-paste the books from memory, that didn’t mean I had kept them in their original state. Although it would no doubt paint a target on my back and cause some attention of some Returners to shift toward hunting me down, I didn’t really care.
There were certain aspects of the original Henry Potter series that needed to be changed, well, expanded on, and I took the liberty to do just that.
Characters that didn’t get enough screen time got more, like a specific one in the fourth book, Codric Daggery, who was an integral part of the ending; contrary to his introduction originally, I instead introduced him much earlier in the series, in book one, as an older student who was a teaching assistant that befriended the main character.
In my opinion, that way, his death would hurt that much more when it happened later on in the fourth book. I also righted a wrong that had bugged me from the very beginning of my days reading the final book.
And that was the relationship between the Female lead and the Main Character.
In the original series, Harmony Grenger ends up with the goofy best friend instead of Henry, and he ends up with Rory’s sister. Now, I’m sure there would be PLENTY of people who would come for my head if this change happened in the Origin Timeline, but I doubted there would be that many returners who would care.
There may be a few, I don’t doubt that, but with how widely spaced the age gap was and the many other factors between returners, I wasn’t too worried.
Plus, in the worst-case scenario, I was virtually untraceable. By going about things as a ghostwriter and even using a false alias to sign the contracts and such, I needed to take the final step after wrapping up everything here in London, and that was opening a Swiss bank account under my false alias.
In the paperwork, I had left that information blank, as I would first need to open an untraceable bank account to receive my royalties from the franchise. It wasn’t like I could have it sent directly to my bank account, and while I could get checks cut to me and cashed at my normal bank, it was stealthier to do it this way.
It would be a bit time-consuming and annoying to handle, 100%, but it was a small price to pay to fly out to Switzerland once a year to cash all the checks I had accumulated so that I could stay hidden from the public and private sectors.
It took some time for the higher-ups to settle down so that we could finally continue the meeting, but once they did and we hammered out the finer details, all that was left was signing a couple more documents drafted by the legal department.
Looking at the giant Seiko wall clock behind Nathan’s head, I noticed we had been at it for six hours, and it was already past 8 pm.
"Well, gentlemen and ladies, I believe that’s a wrap. You have the drafts in hand, and they can be considered officially submitted for approval. I will square away my banking information and have it sent over to you by the end of the week." Hopping off my chair, since it was a little too large for me to slide off casually, I walked around the large table and extended my hand to the still-sitting Nathan.
"It will be a pleasure doing business with you all; when the time comes for me to make some autographed first editions, I will give you the address to send them to and will then follow through with my end before shipping them back over," I said in a jovial manner, careful not to betray how annoyed I was at having to shake the hand of a lesser being.
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"It has been a pleasure, Mr. Cal. We will continue business as usual, and once we receive the proper address, I will personally ensure that your ten first print first edition copies end up in your hands," Nathan said as he shook my hand.
Since the renegotiations, he was feeling a little better, but for some reason, he still had a strange inkling of a feeling at the back of his head.
Everything that had transpired today seemed out of place, but no matter how deeply Nathan thought about it, he couldn’t figure out why he felt that way…a direct result of my meddling with Coersion.
Several times during the meeting, I subtly used my talent to drive the conversation to a more favorable means for myself.
After shaking hands with Nathan, I followed suit with the other higher-ups and anyone else who had been part of the meeting before walking back over to Jennifer and giving her a strange look.
For some time now, the woman had been very quiet, hardly moving, and only gave short one-word answers when asked, and if I couldn’t read her mind in a literal sense, I probably would have thought she was up to something.
However, that wasn’t the case; basically, this meeting had done something to her mind that I hadn’t foreseen occurring, and that was the creation of a second personality.
Dissociative Identity Disorder, more commonly known as Split personality disorder to the common masses, was something I had experimented with numerous times but never had any conclusive evidence that I could make it happen, yet Jennifer was living proof.
The only problem was I wasn’t entirely sure how it happened or even what happened in her head. All I knew was that all of a sudden, it was like there was a second voice thinking at the same time as her original internal monologue.
As if that weren’t strange enough, this second voice seemed much older, almost elderly, meaning not only did she manifest a second personality but one that could be indicative of her much older self.
Honestly, I wouldn’t really have reacted much to this whole thing unless something truly crazy happened, like her suddenly having her memories from the Origin Timeline, which DIDN’T occur, so at best, all I felt was mild curiosity.