THE END
The day was far from peaceful. In fact, one could say it was anything but. Oxford Street, London, was bustling with muggles, all waiting for Selfridges to open its doors, each man and woman eager to be the first customer in the shop for the new year. It was twenty-nine minutes past eleven on January the first, and the clock nearby was ready to emit a loud dong any second now.
Harry Potter knew that as soon as the chimes started to signal the half hour, the people crowding the streets would become frantic, which is when all hell would break loose. He had gone to buy a late-Christmas gift for Albus, his best friend, but something told him that it could and should wait another day. Surely he should have listened to Phillip. A throng of fully-grown impatient muggle shoppers was no place for a sixteen year old wizard.
Dear Phillip, he scrawled messily onto a bit of spare parchment as he weaved his way through the mass, I decided you are right. The group of people outside the shop is massive, and I don't think I'd be able to get Albus' present here anyway. I can't go back to York just yet, so I'll try and make it to your place. Either I will see you just before you get this, the first of the tolls started, or you will see me shortly after, the pushing started, and Harry searched overhead for an owl he could attach the letter to, from, Harry.
There were no messenger birds, only pigeons. The owls must have been scared off by the screaming muggle women. The dark haired boy sighed and stuffed the letter into his pocket as more and more people thrust themselves towards the now open doors.
He was short for his age, a result (he presumed) of being kept in a cupboard under the stairs by his aunt and uncle for the first ten years of his life. His lack of height meant he struggled to see over the sea of man surrounding him. Harry was starting to have trouble breathing. It was difficult. It was getting difficult to keep his head above the mob.
Potter managed to get his foot on someone's hip. He grabbed their hair and yanked himself up to above everyone's heads. It was only for a brief moment, perhaps a second at most, but he could see enough to know that the roadway was clear. The boy let go of the hair he had held in his tight fist, and barged his way against the tide towards the ever-growing exit hole.
And then, finally, he made his break. His feet hit the road and he was free. He bent over, breathing in the smell of the tarmac beneath his palms, and grinned. He had been lucky. Phillip would definitely hear this story when Harry made it to his house. Phil's mother would too, and the rest of his family, when she undoubtedly invited him to stay over for a week and placed a steaming bowl of stew under his nose.
But the sounds were too loud all of a sudden. Oh, the muggles were furious, it was already eleven thirty-two, and the doors were still shut. Harry couldn't hear anything besides the banging on the glass of the shop, and the animalistic squawking of the enraged shoppers. He couldn't hear the honks of the double-decker making its way at speed towards him, and there was no chance of him making out the shouts of the bus driver who was at this point hanging half out of the side window. The red-faced man was stomping on the brakes, but the vehicle wasn't stopping.
The last thing Harry James Potter heard before he was flung into the air, and his head hit the road ten meters ahead with a sickening smash, was the cry of another young man, trampled beneath the racing feet of the customers, each of them running towards the opening doors of the shop.