Unfortunately for Britain, this act of following the Deutsche Mark failed. There were several reasons, but the big one was Germany was struggling with its own inflation and debts as it attempted to assimilate the former Soviet East Germany back into itself. Given how poor East Germany was, this meant the Federal Republic had to spend massive amounts out of its own pockets to get basic infrastructure and utilities up to standard. East Germany was a time and money sink and would take many years to recover. And some places never did.
Seeing where things were going, Sir John Major and his cabinet then panicked and tried to recoup their loses by increasing the interest rates charged by the Bank of England. That meant loans, mortgages, and currency exchange rates rose drastically. Too much for the econom y to stand up to, as it turned out, leading to a burst of inflation that made the pound drop in value, and a collapse of the housing market on September 16th and onwards.
The government tried to stop the abrupt change by suspending the Pound Sterling's participation in the EMS, but it was too little too late, and the government lost three billion pounds in a single day. Black Wednesday's ripples led to the creation of the euro in an effort to avoid such a collapse on the mainland in the short term, and Brexit in the long term.
If I wanted to avoid this collapse, or at least not be crushed by it, I would need to carefully work out a plan and avoid keeping too much British money on hand, turning it into galleons or US dollars instead to get the most out of the situation.
'And I need people who know how to do that, as well as some assistants who understand the economy far better than I do,' I mused to myself.
After thinking it over, I decided to place a call.
"Edward? It's quite early… shouldn't you be at school?" Archibald inquired curiously over the phone. He was the one contact I actually had that could possibly help, and I hoped he knew some ways to do so.
"That doesn't matter right now! Archibald! Do you know any financial experts or investment people?" I demanded urgently over the phone.
"What? I, yes, I know a few," he replied, surprised by the tone of my voice.
"I need you to get into contact with them."
"Why?"
"I've been playing around with some divination, and I've got a really bad feeling," I told him, lying a bit to avoid explaining my knowledge of the future. "I want to talk to them. As soon as possible!"
"Divination? Wait, have you been using magic to play the stock market?" he asked incredulously.
"So what if I have?" I retorted.
"Huh, that's actually brilliant, wish I'd thought of that," I heard him mutter over the phone. He then cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'll see what I can do. I know a few people like us who are in the financial world."
"Wonderful, calm me as soon as you can," I sighed with relief. I hung up, then called the school and told them I was sick. Claimed I'd caught a cold from yesterday's rain. Another lie, but again, a necessary one. I wouldn't be able to focus at all at school with my mind churning with numbers. And this gave me today and Friday off as well.
Still buzzing with energy, I decided to actually do a bit of Divination practice as I claimed I had done with Archibald on the phone.
I got out my velvet bag full of bone-dice and a turtle shell that had been cleaned and then delicately engraved with more Divination runes. The turtle shell bowl method of divination was an old one from Asia. Different parts of the engraved hexagram ward schema represented different outcomes, and dice or coins were tossed into it to determine the future.
To advance my Divination skills, I had created my own method by taking the unique hexagrams of the turtle shell method and combining it with the runic method my knucklebone dice relied on. Depending on where my dice landed inside the hexagram, the result could be either neutral, and mean exactly what the rune represented, positive, and thus mean the rune was connected in a positive connotation, or negative, and mean the rune was warning of danger. And the way my runes landed could also influence the outcome. A rune that was upside down in relation to me was considered inverted, and thus the opposite of what the rune actually meant.
Take for instance if I rolled a single die six-sided die that had the four classical elements, plus light and dark, on its sides. If the die landed with the 'Fire' rune upright and in the neutral section of the hexagram, that meant literal fire was in my future. It could be anything from needing a new lighter to accidentally burning dinner to suffering a house fire. If the Fire rune was inverted in the negative section, it meant water was in my future, and that it was dangerous. How dangerous? Maybe I'd choke while drinking some water, or perhaps I'd slip and fall in the shower. Maybe it would rain soon, or my apartment's water bill would go up.
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