"Okay," Chris came into view after setting up the se, "Julie, you and the kids will e from the dire I came." He then poiowards the pilr where we were shooting, "Troy, you'd be standing here, fag towards that pilr, and will rush to them with your trolley. After your dialogue, you'll run towards the pilr and will stop at that point where you see the little green cross, okay?"

  I nodded in uanding. As per the se, I had to gh the pilr, but that was ly possible, so some CGI would be employed. My running would be recorded from different ao make it possible.

  Don't ask me the details. VFX sometimes just goes over my head.

  "And, A!"

  "Packed with muggles as usual! e, Ginny, Ron! Ptform 9? is right this way," Mrs. Weasley said while leading her brood toward the designated wall.

  "Muggles?" I whispered as realization dawned upon me.

  I watched with wide eyes from the side as Percy, Fred, and Gee did their thing before running away from the camera view.

  "Excuse me!" I yelled a little before ing into the Weasleys' sight, “ you tell me how…"

  I trailed off with uainty looking at the ptform.

  "How to get to the ptform? Oh, worry not dear, it's my Ron's first time as well…"

  "Cut!" Chris' voice cut off the se, "Troy, Julie, Imogen, excellent work. Jamie, you're not showing enough rea to being called out. Be a little smug but at the same time embarrassed at being called out by your Mum. Let's do it again from your liroy."

  Jamie Bell looked a little crestfallen. I put a hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry mate, it happens. Just be calm and it will be alright."

  He nodded as repared ourselves for the reshoot.

  (Break)

  Shooting [Harry Potter] was a unique experien itself. Never had I shot so many ses (or any ses) in front of a green s or blue s, as the case may be. Other than the broom flight ses, there were ses like the Troll attack or the ses involving Fluffy that required heavy usage of CGI and thus green ss.

  Because of my suggestion, all CGI-heavy stuff was being filmed beforehand and the normal stuff would be doer on. This was s. Especially the one I'm in at the moment.

  "Do something!" I shouted while hanging upside down with copious amounts of wires.

  "But what?" Jamie looked around in fusion.

  "Anything!" I replied desperately as Jamie took out his wand and waved it.

  "Wingardium Leviosa!"

  The moment I was lowered down on a green mattress and immediately I crawled back towards Jamie with a scared expression as a giant green doll fell at its designated spot.

  "Cut!" Chris shouted, "Terrific work, Troy, Jamie. Emma, is your se. Say all your lines oer another."

  I heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn't easy doing that stunt take after take. This was already the sixth take; any more and I'd have gone dizzy. To make sure I'm dangling as little as possible, they shot only my and Jamie's se now. Emma's se was to be added in post-produ to make it look like she is talkiween us.

  "And cut! Excellent work, kids!" Chris grinned down at us, "That's it for today, we'd be tinuing the shoot after the holidays in the new year."

  Ah yes. I had fotten to mention that it had been quite some time ever since we started shooting the film series and the year was ing to an end. It wasn’t just the end of a year or a decade or even a tury, but the end of a millennium. The Y2K phenomenon was real, and there were a lot of spiracy theories floating around oer and in the news about the ing year. Among all this chaos, the produ team of [Harry Potter] had decided to take the holidays off.

  Brimming with the holiday spirit, I decided to have some fun of my own. "Hey Chris," I gave Chris the most i smile I could muster, "Is it true that you'd be giving us all presents?"

  "Oh really?" Emma squealed, "I want a op puter."

  Jamie, immediately uanding the pn, grinned, "And I want a Nintendo."

  "Hmm," I hummed audibly, "If we get to choose, I want a new guitar. No, that's too simple. How about a grand piano?"

  "Hey, hey, hold up," Chris raised his hands, "when did I promise that?"

  "But it's Christmas!" I excimed while Emma and Jamie nodded emphatically, "Normally we'd be enjoying our childhood with our school friends but here we are forced into bor by some greedy corporation. I'm so sad that even my Dad is a part of this process."

  Chris stared at me in disbelief at the nonsense I ewing. Even Emma and Jamie were taken aback by my words.

  Cough "Are you doh your prank, Troy?" Unfortunately, Dad interrupted more drama from unfolding.

  "You ruin all my fun!" I raised my hands in the air in mock frustration befhing out loud. "I'm sorry Chris." I apologized, "Hope you didn't take it too seriously."

  Chris chuckled nervously, "Yeah it's fine. I knew you were joking."

  "I’m sure you did!" I grinned, "Still, to make up for it, Dad and I have brought presents for everyone!"

  As I annouhis, Dad signaled an assistant t in a huge bag filled with multiple boxes.

  Emma and Jamie and the other kid actors, including Tom Felton, Matthew Lewis, and everyone else, were immediately called ba the set as Dad and I started handing over all the gifts that urchased for them. Today wasn’t a scheduled day for everyone, but they were called in with the pretense of filming a few ses that were ter celed.

  "Whoa! Is that a Nintendo!?" Jamie excimed, "How did you know I wahat?"

  "I don't know, you only said a million times how much you wanted o your Mum didn't get you." I answered with a smile, "Don't worry though, we asked her beforehand so she won't take it away."

  The whole gifting thing was my idea. I just suggested it to Dad casually and he was so pumped with the idea that he went along with it. Over the past few weeks, I had very covertly asked most of the kids what they wanted for Christmas. Them being kids, they didn’t even realize it.

  "A cricket kit? Thank you, Troy! Steve! I love it!" Matthew, who pys Neville, excimed enthusiastically.

  "My own ptop? Thank you, Troy," Emma hugged me, which I reciprocated.

  This tinued for several minutes as different kids would e up to us, thanking us for their gifts, which were usually toys or such stuff. We even gave out some generic gifts for the adults, like personalized coffee mugs and pens.

  Chris was the st to e up to me holding the cufflinks Dad had gifted him, "Now I feel much worse about ning you guys anything." He joked with a grin.

  "It's alright," I waved him off, "There's always year."

  "Hopefully," Chris smiled at me.

  (Break)

  The end of 1999 brought many things. Firstly, I ordered my broker to sell all of my Yahoo shares in the new year.

  It ed me more than half a million dolrs post taxes and ission out of an initial iment of 190k. No one was more shocked at this than my iment guy, Andrew. He had tacted Dad multiple times to vince me to sell. Dad had only ohing to say to him when I denied, "If he makes a loss, it will teach him a valuable life lesson."

  Andrew was adamant about selling early because his ission was based on the amount of transa, not the profit made. Still, the e satisfied both Andrew and me. Dad and Mum were also asto the profit I made based on my 'hunch'.

  Mum even joked that I was blessed and that whatever thing I touched turo gold. I just chuckled at that. That's just foreknowledge. If not for that, I'd have probably done [Magnolia] instead of [The Sixth Sense] and would be slowly fotten by everyone.

  You must be thinking, why is this guy telling us about making half a million in stocks when he just made a deal worth hundreds of millions of dolrs with Warner Bros for future iment in [Harry Potter]? You're right, this money is negligible when pared to that, but you ignored one fact. This just proved that any future stock market knowledge I may have is very viable. So I could i in any other pahat ring some bells about future prices and voi!

  Right now, I already know Amazon and Apple's future performahe only problem is that I also know that the tech stocks will e crashing down in a few months, so it's not practical to i in anything right now.

  Unless.

  Yes.

  Derivatives.

  Derivative markets be very dangerous for someone who does not know the stock market. However, that rule doesn't apply to me for several reasons. The first one is that I do have the knowledge of derivatives from my past life. Sed is, of course, my future knowledge.

  With my mind made up, I decided to partake iock that I know is bound to fall. Yahoo.

  With all that in mind, here I am, on a call with Andrew alongside Dad.

  "Let me get this straight," Andrew said, "You want to buy a 12-month Put option on Yahoo share with all of the 500k you have on hand."

  "Exactly," I said.

  "And you're okay with this, Steve? Didn't you tell me not to buy any derivatives for your son?" Andrew asked.

  "I ged my mind," Steve replied relutly, "Or rather Troy did. He has put forth some great points. After all, it's his money and he do whatever he wants with it."

  There was silence over the line for a moment before Andrew spoke, "You do realize that because of high price fluctuations, the Put value of Yahoo may go as high as 20?"

  "That's fine," I waved him off, even if he couldn't see me, "I go even higher, but obviously, it's better to keep it as loossible."

  I could see Dad staring at me incredulously but didn't say anything to ter my cim.

  "Alright," Andrew answered after a few seds, "I'll make the transa at the earliest."

  And that was that. It wasn't until the day that Andrew called to inform us that he had purchased 27,000 Put options at the rate of 18.34 with an exercise price of 420, betting almost all of my money gained from the stock market against Yahoo.

  For those of you who don't know what a Put option is, let me expin. Suppose the price of Yahoo falls to 401.3 (420-18.7) after 12 months, then I'll have no profit, no loss. If it is anything above that amount, I would be making a loss. But anything below the value of 401.3 will result in a profit for me. On the servative side, say the price is 400, I'd still be making 68,900.

  The thing is, I know that the price will be below 100 in a year, thus making me a shitload of money. I could've bought a 6 or 9-month option at a cheaper rate, but buying a year-long option will save me up to 30% on taxes. That's millions of my future money. With that done, I only have to wait for a year.

  That was my finance front. On the work front, the new year brought a new award season with it. Especially, for [The Sixth Sense].

  It began with the Golden Globes, where it received only two nominations. One for the Best Spy for M. Night Shyamam and the other for Best Supp Actor for me.

  Unfortunately, because of my busy shooting schedule for [Harry Potter], I decided to skip the ceremony. It's not like it's the Oscars. Dad had promised me that he would attend in my stead and also do the award campaign for the Oscars alongside Disney so I could solely focus on [Harry Potter].

  The Oscar was one ceremony I wouldn't miss for the world if I were to be nominated. Even if I don't win, the ce to see the ceremony that is watched throughout the world by tens of millions of people, live, is a dream that I won't miss for the world. Not to mention that I'd get a membership in the Academy where I vote for the best actors or actresses and the best film from year onwards.

  This year is tough petition. There's Michael e, Tom Cruise, Michael Crke Dun, and Jude Law. All of them gave amazing performances, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember who won the award in the inal timeline.

  Was it Tom Cruise? I think it was. He is a great actor, just more focused on physically challenging roles. Maybe this is the year he belled the cat known as the Academy Awards?

  ___________________________

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