It was early in the morning on the 23rd of July. Dean was making waffles for his brother, Sam, and himself. Their dad was on a two week-long hunt and was due back in a couple of days, but the brothers didn't bother to count when exactly. Mrs. Picket, their neighbour, was supposed to be there any second to take Dean to Diagon Alley for some school shopping, and Sam was supposed to go with them for the first time, as soon as his letter arrived, but it hadn't yet, which made him worried. This was his first year at Hogwarts, Dean was in year five now, and the only thing that worried Sam was which house he would be assigned to. He wanted to be in Gryffindor with his brother, but Ravenclaw seemed like a better fit for his personality and intelligence, just like every one of Dean's friends always said- " He's too weird to be in Gryffindor with us, and anyway, he's not as brave."- which would always made Sam feel bad about himself, but he was, in fact, brave and very intelligent, but no one seemed to realise that... yet.
"Dean, i thought that the owl was supposed to bring it today."- he said, looking out the window with both anticipation and worry.
"It's coming, Sammy, don't worry. By the time old Mrs. Picket comes, it'll be in the mail-box, trust me."- Dean tried to comfort him while pouring some cold milk over his cereal.
"I hope so..."- Sam said, still worried.-"What If I'm not meant to be a wizard, Dean, like dad wasn't?"
"Eat your breakfast, Sam. We need to get going."- he said, trying to sound positive.
The truth is, Dean was as afraid just as much as his little brother was. What if Sam isn't meant to be a wizard? What if he's destined to be normal, a Muggle, always in his older brother's shadow? No, that couldn't be true. Sam was going to get his letter for sure, just like Dean did four years ago.
"I'm done."- Sam said after a couple of minutes, jumping up instantly. His plate was empty and already in the sink by the time Dean turned around.- "I'll go check if the mail's here!"- and with that he ran out of the kitchen, leaving his brother to wash the dishes.
"It's here!"- Dean heard his younger brother cheer from their yard.- "It's really here!"
Sam ran in, waving a large, beige envelope in front of Dean's face. He opened it quickly, tearing the red wax stamp and started reading the letter inside. In neat, emerald green handwriting, it said:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF
WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc. Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Winchester,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Please find enclosed list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July, 31st.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
deputy headmistress
Requirement List
UNIFORM
First year students will require:
1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or something similar)
4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags.
COURSE BOOKS
All students should have a copy of each of the following:
The Slandered Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk
A history of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
A Beginners Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Fungi
One thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scalamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection by Quentin Trimble
OTHER EQUIPMENT
1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set of crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set of brass scales
Student may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS!
"I told you it would come, Sammy."- Dean smiled and finished washing the dishes. He walked up to his little brother, who had the biggest smile on his face and was holding the Hogwarts letter like it was made of gold, -"Now you can come to Diagon Alley with me and Mrs. Picket."
"Lets go then, come on!"- Sam said cheerfully and started walking towards the door, but was pulled back by Dean,- We need to wait for her, Sam!"- he said strictly and made Sam sit down and wait, which only made him more anxious and unable to sit still for longer than thirty seconds.
The doorbell rang after about ten minutes, making the brothers jump up in surprise. It took Dean a couple on moments to realise that his brother was already in front of the door and talking to someone.
"Sammy, darling! You've grown since last summer!"- he heard a familiar, high-pitched voice yell out from the hallway. Mrs. Picket.
Miranda Picket was an old woman who attended Hogwarts, a wizarding school, back in the 1950's. She had grey hair that had pink strands, making her look even older, which was the opposite of what she intended them to do. But the old woman exterior was just a shell hiding her true form- a powerful witch capable of doing the most complex spells in a heartbeat. She always used to come over to their house and babysit the brothers when John, their father, was gone for a long time, and when she did so, she showed them small tricks and spells so they wouldn't cry before bed time; sometimes she would make their vegetables, or medicine, when they were sick, float around the room before flying into their mouths, which made them want more every time.
She closed the door with a loud bang and hurried into the kitchen to say hi to Dean. As always, she hugged him and gave him three kisses on the cheek, making him feel uncomfortable.
"How you two have grown!"- she said loudly, looking at Dean and Sam a couple of times.-"Well, shall we?"
In the blink of an eye they were transported to a pub, the 'Leaky Cauldron' and the speed of them doing so made Sam nauseous, but he took a deep breath and tried to think about how wonderful the place they were heading to was.
The 'Leaky Cauldron' was an old pub that was located somewhere in London. It was worn-down and unattractive to everyone who would walk past it, but wizards and other magical creatures, who could clearly see the pub, were sure that Muggles couldn't even see it because of the magic around it and themselves; or maybe it was because the fancy bookstore and record shop next to the 'Leaky Cauldron' made it seem less interesting compared to them.
"Lets go, lets go!"- Mrs. Picket said cheerfully, pulling the brothers into the pub quickly.- "Do you remember how to get in, Dean?"
"Yeah, why?"- he asked, looking around the pub with interest.
There were a couple of strangely-dressed women sitting at the tables on his right side, and some men who looked like gang members on his left. The bartender, a thin man with almost no hair, greeted Miranda and sent the boys an almost-toothless smile.
"New student, ay?'- he asked Sam, who was busy examining all of the drinks behind the bar.
"Yes, yes, our little Sammy. So cute and smart, i bet he'll get into Ravenclaw"- Miranda screeched proudly, smiling at the man flirtatiously.
"Good luck to ya, Sam."- he said and went off to tend to some customers that had just walked in.
Mrs. Picket shook her head and smiled at Dean,-"I have some things i need to take care of before i join you, so, will you be able to get through on your own?"-she asked, looking at Sam with the corners of her eyes.
Dean nodded and took his little brother's hand.- "We'll be fine, i think. But we need our keys for the bank."- he said, looking at the women's pockets.
"Ah yes!"- she smiled and started looking for the keys in her coat pockets,- "Here you go."- she handed Dean two identical keys, small and grey with a Gringots stamp on them.
Gringots is a wizarding bank that is located in Diagon Alley. Every year, students have to make a deposit in order to get money for school supplies and allowances for the school year, and Dean had the great pleasure of visiting one of the vaults that was further underground than the ones for children on one occasion.
"Meet me at Olivander's in two hours."- she smiled, and, with a puff of pink smoke, she was gone.
"Come on, Sammy."- Dean said, pulling Sam outside and into a small fenced garden.
He looked at the large brick wall in front of them, trying to remember which one of the bricks was the access to the Alley.
"From the trashcan..."- he whispered, looking for it.- "Three up and two across."- he tapped the brick and a large archway formed in front of him and Sam.
"Whoa..."- Sam said dreamily, passing through the arch.
"I know."- Dean smiled and took his brother's hand.-"Stay close, Sam, there's a lot of people here."
From where they were standing, Sam and Dean could see a variety of different people, salespeople, shops and lots of stalls with books and magical items. One in particular sparked Sam's attention- a small, colourful stall with candy and pumpkin juice, Sweets n' juices of all shapes and sizes!, a small wooden sign said, with letters painted in different colours.
They decided to go buy uniforms first, then books and potion supplies, after which they were to meet Mrs. Picket and go to get Sam's wand, but before all that they were to go get some money out of Gringots.
"When we get in there, don't stare at the goblins."- Dean warned his little brother, he knew, from experience, how hard it was not to stare at the tiny workers in the bank. On his first trip there, Dean's jaw dropped when he saw dozens of goblins sitting at their large desk and doing different tasks- some were counting galleons, sickles and knuts, wizarding money; some were weighing rocks, diamonds or gemstones, while a couple of them were writing down long lists of clients on parchments. He stared at one of the goblins who was putting money into a small sack marked with a G,which stood for Gringots, and, when he noticed that Dean was looking at him, he yelled and said something about goblin rights and how it's rude to stare at people because of how they look. Dean never looked at that goblin again, and every other time that he visited the bank, he would walk to the front desk where a worker was always free, and request to be taken to his vault quietly and as politely as possible.
They walked in through the large silver doors and were greeted by a large amount of sunlight in a large room. Just as he'd remembered, Dean could see about fifty goblins all sitting at identical wooden posts, doing different things and concentrating on them. None of them looked up when the brothers passed through the room, nor when they stopped in front of one that wasn't doing anything.
"Vaults 625 and 732, please."- he said and looked over at Sam, who was busy looking around the room with a wide smile going across his face.
"Come with me."- someone from behind the goblin said, and a moment later, another one emerged from behind the desk and pointed to the door in the back.
They followed him to a small rail cart and jumped in, ready to take a ride through rocks and caves in order to get to their vaults.
"Hold on tight, Sam."- Dean warned his younger brother and grabbed on to the side of the cart, gripping it tightly.
The ride took about five minutes each, and was filled with many twists, turns and tunnels that made the brothers feel dizzy and ill when they'd finally stop at one of the two vaults. They got some money and headed back up in the cart, preparing for a new gust of speed and nausea. When they finally emerged from the bank, Dean was feeling sickish and Sam was green in the face and shaking.
"Get used to it."- Dean said and tapped his brother's back, making this ones knees weaken and he almost fell to the ground.
They sat on a bench for a couple of minutes, trying to calm down and suppress the illness, after which they got up and started looking around the street full of people.
"We need to go to 'Madam Malkin's' first, okay?"- Dean said and pointed to a small shop with stained windows and a freshly-painted wooden sign, 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions'.
"What's that?"- Sam asked curiously, looking to where his brother was pointing.
The store looked rather small and old, but the clothes in the windows looked brand new and very nice.
"That's where we buy our robes and uniforms."- he answered and they walked into the store together.
There weren't a lot of people in there except for three students getting their cloaks measured and packed, so the brothers' measurings and purchases only took about twenty minutes, after which they continued their walk to 'Flourish and Blotts' to get the needed books.
"Stay close, there's a lot of people inside."- Dean said and took his brother's hand again.
Sam loved reading Dean's old school books, but his brother insisted on buying him a new set for when he starts his first year at Hogwarts, not wanting to explain why. Sometimes, when his brother was asleep and their dad wasn't home, Sam would practice making potions with Dean's left over supplies and cauldron, often blowing the whole thing up and waking Dean, who would then yell at him for an hour and make Sam clean up the mess; he also knew a couple of spells from Dean's spell books, which he kept under his bed.
They stood in line for ten minutes, which was shorter than they thought it would take for the crowd to clear out and make room for new masses to come in through the door.
"One set of books for year five, and a set for year one."- he said to the salesman, a tall, dark-haired wizard with large reading glasses.
"Here you go, young man."- he said and two sets of large books appeared on the table in front of them.
"Thank you."- he smiled and picked the books up, putting them in a large bag that Mrs. Picket gave them before she popped out of the Leaky Cauldron.
"That's a lot of books, Dean."- Sam said after they got out of the bookstore, helping his brother carry the two large bags.
"Yeah, wait 'till you have to know everything inside them."- he said and set the bags down on the pavement, taking a deep breath and looking for their next stop, which was 'Potage's cauldron shop', where they bought two standard size 2 brass cauldrons.
They checked the purcased items off of their list and headed to 'Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment' to buy a telescope, some phials and some scales.
"Can i get a moon chart?"- Sam asked his brother after they went inside, and pointed to a large sheet of white parchment covered with sketches of moons and stars, planets and many galaxies that Dean didn't even know the names of.
"You don't need that yet."- he answered,- "But you can have this."- he picked up a large, glass globe and put it into Sam's ready hands.
"What is it?"- he asked, examining the strange object.
"It's a Rememberall, it makes red smoke when you've fogotten something."- Dean answered and put the ball in his right hand. The smoke turned red and Sam's eyes widened with excitement.
"What did you forget?"- he asked and looked at the ball closely, trying to find out where the smoke was coming from but failed.
"Hmm..."- Dean though, stroking his chin,- "A star chart!"- he smiled and grabbed a large piece of parchment, that looked similar to the Moon chart, and put it into their basket. The smoke immediately turned white and then faded away, leaving nothing but clear glass again.
"Cool!"- Sam cheered and went to the desk to pay for the supplies, all the while wondering what would happen if someone were to forget the Rememberall and have nothing to remind them about that.
After taking an ice-cream break at 'Florean Fortescue's Ice-cream Parlour', where Dean ordered a large chocolate sundae for himself, and a fruit flavoured one for Sam, they went to 'Slug and Jigger's Apothecary', a large, strange-smelling store filled with all sorts of brews, potions and ingredients to make them, where they got some things on their list. Sam wanted to buy a Unicorn's horn, but Dean convinced him that they were too expensive and that he wouldn't need them 'till year three at Hogwarts. They bought the needed ingredients and went outside.
"I think that's it, Sammy."- Dean smiled and checked the purchased items off their supply list, making a face when he read through it again.- "We still need quills and parchments."- he sighed and they went to 'Scribbulus Writing Instruments', where Sam bough a pile of all sorts of parchments and a couple bottles of ink, which were hard to choose from seing as there were many kinds- self-correcting ink, invisible ink, glow-in-the-dark ink, azul marino ink (which is a regulation ink for fifth year students when taking their O.W.L. exams, so Dean had to stock up on that kind), so he decided to buy one of all of them and three regular bottles for classes and homework. When the time came to choose quills, Sam really didn't know how to decide from them. There were large and small-feathered ones, some that would change colour depending on the ink a student uses, anti-cheating quills that would prevent you from copying off someone on a test (those weren't very popular amongst sudents, but were required for any written exam at Hogwarts), smart-answer quills and auto-answer quills that could help you with homework and school assignments; spell-checking quills were very popular amongst children going to school, but were often unreliable and made mistakes when they ran out of proper ink.
"Can i have this one?"- Sam asked, pointing to a black-and-gold, pheasant-feather quill with a fine tip.
"Sure, put it in the basket."- Dean answered and pointed to their basket that was packed with ink, parchments and quills of all shapes, colours and sizes.-"And take a couple of them, we don't wanna come back here during school."
They paid for the supplies and headed to 'Magical Menagerie', where Sam needed to buy an animal, so they went in and the sound of dozens of animals flooded their ears. There were owls, cats and toads; the owls ranged from pitch-black to snowy-white, and came in any shape or size, depending on your own taste; the toads, however were all the same size and similar colour- large, green or sickish brown, but they looked like good pets; some of the cats were willing to appoach buyers, but others just curled up in corners at the back of their cages and refused to move or look up.
"This one..."- Sam said quietly and walked to the owl cage, looking at one in particular- a gold-coloured Tawny owl that had pitch black eyes. Its feathers were shining, which made her look even more beautiful than it did from a distance.
"Sure."- Dean smiled and told the saleswoman that they'll take her.
They bought a cage and some owl food, which Dean was almost certain were mashed rats and seeds, but he didn't want to gross Sam out with that information.
"What'll you name her?"- he asked after they got out of the shop.
Sam looked at the owl and a name popped into his mind.- "Her name's Aala."- he smiled and looked at Dean.
"That's a nice name..."- Dean agreed and they headed to Olivander's to meet Mrs. Picket.
"We need to get mine fixed while we're there."- Dean said and got his wand out of his pocket. It had a crack in the middle and he was afraid that it would break.
"I'm gonna take care of my wand when i go to Hogwarts."- Sam said cheerfully.
"It won't be so easy if you're in Slytherin!"- Dean yelled in a scary voice, knowing that Sam was terrified of the possibility of getting into that house because everyone always told him that Slytherin made wizards go bad, which was true in a way; some believed that Merlin, one of the most famous wizards of all time, was in that exact house, but others claimed that he went to Ravenclaw, which made Sam feel better about getting into that house.
"Don't say that!"- he said.-"I wanna be in Ravenclaw."
"Well, you are a nerd."- Dean smirked.-"You'll fit right in."
They got to the shop but Miranda wasn't there yet, so, after about ten minutes of impatient waiting, they decided to go in on their own.
"Yes?"- they heard an old man's voice say, somewhere behind one of the piles of boxes containing all sorts of wands. They were all narrow, some were white, some grey and some pitch black, but all of them had a specific wand inside. A wand that would determine what kind of wizard you'll become and how good of a wizard you're destined to be.
"Good morning..."- Dean said politely.- "We need to buy a wand... And get one fixed."
Suddenly, Garrick Olivander, an old man with long white hair, pale-grey eyes, and a warm smile on his face, walked out from behind one of the ceiling-high piles.
"The wand is for you, i presume?"- he asked and sent a smile towards Sam, who was looking around as if he was in a trans.
"Yeah, and we need to get this one fixed up."- Dean said and handed Mr. Olivander his cracked wand.
He started looking at it and putting it against his cheeks, muttering something quietly.
"Reparo."- he said, pointing his own wand at Dean's, but nothing happened.- "Hm... I think I can get you the same type of wand, boy... But this one, unfortunately, can't be fixed."
"That's okay. I'll take a new one then."- he agreed and put the broken wand back into his pocket.
Olivander came back after a few moments, carrying a new wand that looked just like Dean's old one; truthfully, no two wands could be the same unles they were forged from the same exact tree and had the core of the same creature who gave it, which was very rare and required the two wizards using the wands in question to have a great bond between them, making them almost the same person. This wand wasn't the twin of Dean's old one, but it was the same size, flexibility and had the same wood and core, which made it very similar and not difficult to get used to.
"12" Willow wood, dragon's heart string core."- he said and carefully handed the wand to Dean.-"Now..."- he said quietly, looking at Sam.-"What can we get for you?"
Sam looked at Dean, hoping that he would know the answer, but Mr. Olivander already started circling around him, looking into his eyes and hands. After a few minutes of examining Sam, he hurried back to the piles of wands and didn't come back for five minutes.
"12,5" Yew wood with a Phoenix feather core."- he said, handing the wand to Sam.- "Try it."
"Um..."- Sam said, confused. He didn't know how to do spells properly... All he knew came from books and Dean giving him lessons before sleep.
"Go on, Sam, you can do it."- Dean said reassuringly, hoping that the shop wouldn't explode if Sam did so.
Sam took a deep breath and closed his eyes, sharing the same hope as his brother. He gripped the wand tightly with his right hand and started waving the wand, making small sparks come out of it and light up the otherwise dark room.
Olivander started clapping happily and Dean tapped Sam on the back.- "Good job, boy."- he said and smiled.
"Thanks."- Sam smiled back and cheerfully handed the wand to get packed up.
They walked out of the store and headed back to the 'Leaky Cauldron', still confused as to why Mrs. Picket wasn't there to meet them on time.