The door of the Leaky Cauldron opened to reveal a 15-year-old girl. She
walked in and looked around at the people there. People watched her as she
walked through wondering what a girl her age was doing there by herself.
Nervously she walked up to the barkeep and asked, "Excuse me, but how do I
get to Diagon Alley from here?" He looked at her for a moment.
"Ah come to do your school shopping have you Miss Carter? Come let me show you," said the barkeep as he headed from behind the bar to a back room. The girl followed and as she stepped out of the dim tavern in to the brightly light room her dark hair changed to an auburn color.
"Now you look more like your parents. Those dim lights in there change everyone's hair color. Your father had all those red highlights, too," commented the barkeep.
"You knew my parents?" she asked with a voice full of hope.
"Oh Yes, your father came in all the time when he was younger and your mother would come in every once in a while after they were married. You came in with them once or twice with them when you were tiny, Rebecca."
Rebecca smiled at him wanting to ask more about her parents, but just couldn't get herself to build up the courage to do so. The barkeep continued, "Now here is how you enter Diagon Alley from here. Take out your wand and hit these bricks."
Rebecca took her wand out and tapped the bricks he showed her. The bricks started a chain react and revealed a street full of shops.
"Thank you very much" said Rebecca with a smile to the barkeep.
"Anytime. Have fun," he said and waved good-bye to her.
Rebecca walks into Diagon Alley and looked around to see all the people. She walked toward Gringotts to get money for her supplies. After finding the proper note in her pocket, she walked in and went to a teller. Rebecca stood nervously as the goblin read it.
"You have no guardian?" he finally said. Rebecca responded, "No not anymore." She could feel the tear swell up inside her, but she repressed them. She hated when people asked her questions like that.
"Very well follow me," continued the teller as he walked off to get to her vault. Rebecca followed and took a seat in a car. The car took her and the teller straight to her vault. After the teller opened the vault, Rebecca went in to get enough money to buy what she needed and a little extra for during the school year. She got back into the car and the teller took her back to the main floor.
Rebecca was done there so she headed out to start her shopping. She had just walked out the door when she heard a familiar voice say,
"Hey, there you are. I was beginning to think that misread you letter." Rebecca looked around and saw her childhood neighbor and friend Ryan. He ran up and gave her a quick hug. They took a step back from each other and just looked at each other. They hadn't seen each other in about a year and each looked different to the other.
Ryan started with his assessment of how Rebecca changed since he last saw her. "Wow, you are taller than I remembered. Are you about 5'6" now? I about didn't recognize you I was looking for you with short hair about to you chin and here you have it two inches below your shoulders."
Rebecca just smiled and started with what changed about Ryan "You got taller too. When did you start slicking your hair back like that?"
Ryan didn't answer her question. He looked into her eyes and said, "When did your eyes change color? I thought they were brown before."
Rebecca was shocked at he even noticed.
"Oh my eyes are turning green, I guess. I noticed last fall that I had green tints in my eyes and they kept getting more prominent. Wadsworth said that my mother's father had green eyes and they got greener as he got older. I guess I got the gene that does that."
"So you're going to have green eyes when you're older?"
"No I think I will have hazel even if they keep changing and Wadsworth seemed to think so too."
"Um, I was sorry to hear about Wadsworth," Ryan said softly.
Rebecca looked down at the ground and softly said, "Thank you."
"I'm sorry I didn't make it to the funeral."
"Let's not talk about it," Rebecca said to stop him from going any farther.
"Okay," Ryan said timidly. He didn't want to get Rebecca upset at him. They had been really good friend when they were younger, but then they went off to different school. Interaction between them was limited to during the summer and even that was limited due to vacations and other activities. He didn't know whether they were still the same friends that they use to be.
To change the topic Ryan quickly said, "Come on let's go meet up with some of my friends, so that you know a few more people at Hogwarts. After we do that, then we all can do some shopping."
Rebecca smiled and nodded. They headed down the street in search for Ryan's friends. Rebecca really wanted to meet them. She was transferring from Beauxbatons to Hogwarts. This meant that she was leaving all her friends to go somewhere where she only new Ryan and she really didn't know how well she even knew him anymore.
Ryan and Rebecca hadn't walked that far when a black haired boy came running up to them. The boy was a slight bit shorter than Ryan and had broad shoulders. His looks reminded Rebecca of a thug. She couldn't help but to truly think this of him, because the first thing he said was "Hey, Ryan what are we doing today?"
'Sounds like someone takes orders from somebody else,' Rebecca thought to herself trying to be slightly amused by it.
"Hey Sam, I would like you to meet Rebecca," Ryan said as he gestured towards Rebecca. "Rebecca this is my friend Sam."
"It's nice to meet you," Rebecca said giving Sam a shy smile.
Sam nodded at her and turned back to Ryan to see what they were going to do. Ryan then said, "Okay let's go and find the others."
As they walked around in search for the others, Rebecca took in the sights. She had never been to Diagon Alley before so everything was new to her. Rebecca was looking into Flourish and Blotts' window when she heard voices call, "Hey Ryan! Hey Sam!"
Rebecca took her gaze off of the books and turned to see who said it. It was two guys who were every similar to Sam in the fact that they looked like thugs too. One of the boys had blonde hair and was about two inches shorter than Sam. The other boy had jet black hair and was about an inch taller than Ryan.
"Hey guys, where is Russel?" Ryan asked.
"Oh he couldn't come today," said the taller boy.
"Neither could Cassie," added the blonde boy said.
"Well that's a relief," muttered Ryan.
Everyone looked at him curiously. Before anyone on could say anything, Ryan spoke up and said, "Hans and Dan, this is Rebecca. Rebecca this is Hans," pointing to the blonde and then pointing to the other "and this is Dan."
"Hi," Rebecca said giving them a timid smile. The guys nodded at her as Sam did. Then Hans, Sam, and Dan looked at Ryan to see what they were going to do.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. 'What is Ryan doing with all these lackeys,' she thought to herself.
"Okay guys let's get our books, then we will get the other supplies, and after that we can goof off. They turned around and headed into the store.
Since they all were fifth year students, they had to get all the same books, but Rebecca wanted to get another book beside the assigned ones. She gathered up all her books and went off in search of it.
Defense against the Dark Arts was one of Rebecca's favorite subjects at Beauxbatons. The teacher there had suggested a book to her, but due to the events of the summer Rebecca had not picked it up yet.
When she found the section it would be in, Rebecca put her other books down to seek out the book. She found the book eventually, but it was unfortunately placed on a shelf out of Rebecca's reach. Rebecca gave out a sigh and looked at the book wondering how she was going to get. Just then someone walked into the section and looked at her for a second.
"Do you need help?" the person said. Rebecca turned her head to see a red- headed boy about 17 looking at her. He was fairly tall so he could reach the book Rebecca wanted.
"Yeah, I wanted that book there," Rebecca responded looking and pointing at the book. The boy reached up and took the book off the shelf with ease.
"Is this the right one?" he asked as he handed her the book.
"Yes, thank you so much," Rebecca said and she headed out of the section
After she picked up her other books, she headed to get all of them paid for. As she got was walking towards the register, she passed Ryan and his group. They were in deep conversation and didn't notice Rebecca go by.
"Guys, I'll explain Rebecca to her again. She will be fine with it," Ryan said.
"Well you better hope Rebecca talks to more people so you don't have too many problems with her," Hans said.
Ryan calmly said, "I have this under control. Don't worry. Everything will be great this year."
Rebecca continued towards the register. She did not have a good feeling about what the guys were talking about and she didn't want anything to do with it.
Rebecca paid for her books and went to join the guys.
As she approached the guys, Rebecca said, "I'm done. Are we ready to go?"
She had said this so that the guys would stop talking before she got close enough to hear what they were talking about.
Ryan turned around and smiled at her. "Okay, let's go," he said and started towards the door.
They walked out the door and headed to another store to get potion's ingredients. After that stop, they made their way to get ink and paper.
Finally, after a couple other stores, they had completed their school shopping and a little window-shopping on the side.
They had had a couple of laughs here and there, but Rebecca could feel a tension between her and Ryan's other friends that she didn't really care for.
She wasn't too sure that she would really like it at Hogwarts if she had to be around them too much.
As they walked out of the quidditch store, Ryan said, "Hey, let's stop at Flouren Fortescue's and get some ice cream before we leave."
Everyone agreed and they set off. Rebecca wanted to see if her interaction with them would be any different when they were sitting at the ice cream parlor. They sat down their stuff at a table outside of the store. Ryan, Dan, Sam, and Hans went in to get the ice cream and Rebecca stayed at the table.
As she sat there by herself, she looked at the people passing by. Rebecca suddenly noticed the red haired boy from the bookstore walking across the street.
He was with his family this time. There were his parents, five other boys and a girl all with red hair. One of the other boys looked about Rebecca's age, but she wasn't sure about the other' ages.
Rebecca was still staring at the family when Ryan returned with her ice cream and placed it in front of her. Ryan and the guys started a new conversation, but Rebecca didn't notice. Big families fascinate Rebecca, she had been an orphan since she was little and has no siblings so natural she was curious on what she was missing.
She is continued to stare at the family not paying any attention to Ryan or the conversation that is going on. Ryan snaps his fingers in front of her face and she jumped.
"What were you looking at?" he asked.
"Oh just this family," she responded slightly embarrassed.
Ryan scoffed a little and said, "You always were fascinated by large families."
"I know," Rebecca quietly said even more embarrassed. The other guys looked at Rebecca, which made her more uncomfortable.
Ryan turned to the guys, and explained, "Rebecca's parents died when she was younger and she has no siblings so she is always watching people and how they interact with their families."
Even though Ryan was calm about it and the other guys seemed to 'understand', Rebecca thought that what Ryan said made her sound pathetic. She picked up her spoon and started to eat ice cream in silence.
Ryan and Hans got into such a deep conversation that they were only talking to each other. Sam and Dan tried to start a conversation with Rebecca, but nothing flowed that well.
Rebecca tried to ask them who Cassie was but they changed the conversation on her and started talking with each other.
'Maybe I should have asked who Russel was instead of Cassie. I might have been able to get a better conversation out of them,' she thought to herself
Rebecca found herself back to looking at the people walking on the street wishing she was back with her old friends while the guys talked.
Finally Ryan looked at his watch and said, "Well I better get going. Come on Rebecca, I'll help you out."
"Okay," Rebecca said with slight smile. "It was nice to meet all of you."
"Yeah, it was nice to meet you too. Have a good day," Hans said as the others nodded to acknowledge she said something.
Rebecca and Ryan start to walk to where Rebecca had entered Diagon Alley. As they walked, Rebecca saw the red headed family again and just smiled to herself.
To make conversation as they headed towards the Leaky Cauldron, Rebecca tried to ask who Russel and Cassie were again. Ryan suspiciously answered
"Oh, don't worry about them, you'll meet them on the train." There was a pause in the conversation as the approached the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.
"How are you getting home?" Ryan asked with a puzzled look on his face. He hadn't thought about how Rebecca got there.
"I'll take a cab. The same way I got here."
"Well, I am going to meet my uncle and his kid do you want a lift home?"
"Lucius?"
"Yeah, do you remember him?"
"Um, yeah." Rebecca remembered him all right. There was something creepy about him. She never really like being around him when she was younger and she doubted that she would like being around him now.
"So do want to go with me and find them and them we'll take you home?"
"Oh, no, I like riding in cabs and I don't get to do it that often so I better take any chance I get."
"Have you always been this comfortable with muggle things?"
"I guess. Wadsworth always told me that 'if you know how to use muggle things then you can hide your magic easier', so I had to do things the way muggles do since I was little."
"Huh, I don't think I would care for that too much. Well I got to get going and find my uncle. I'll look for you on the platform and we'll get a seat together on the train, okay? Bye."
"Bye." Rebecca gave hime a smile as she and Ryan departed. She walked through the tavern and said good-bye to the barkeep.
Outside she hailed a cab and started the drive home. As she was in the back seat of the cab, she thought about her impression of Ryan after the day with him and what she needed to pack before the next day's trip.
"Ah come to do your school shopping have you Miss Carter? Come let me show you," said the barkeep as he headed from behind the bar to a back room. The girl followed and as she stepped out of the dim tavern in to the brightly light room her dark hair changed to an auburn color.
"Now you look more like your parents. Those dim lights in there change everyone's hair color. Your father had all those red highlights, too," commented the barkeep.
"You knew my parents?" she asked with a voice full of hope.
"Oh Yes, your father came in all the time when he was younger and your mother would come in every once in a while after they were married. You came in with them once or twice with them when you were tiny, Rebecca."
Rebecca smiled at him wanting to ask more about her parents, but just couldn't get herself to build up the courage to do so. The barkeep continued, "Now here is how you enter Diagon Alley from here. Take out your wand and hit these bricks."
Rebecca took her wand out and tapped the bricks he showed her. The bricks started a chain react and revealed a street full of shops.
"Thank you very much" said Rebecca with a smile to the barkeep.
"Anytime. Have fun," he said and waved good-bye to her.
Rebecca walks into Diagon Alley and looked around to see all the people. She walked toward Gringotts to get money for her supplies. After finding the proper note in her pocket, she walked in and went to a teller. Rebecca stood nervously as the goblin read it.
"You have no guardian?" he finally said. Rebecca responded, "No not anymore." She could feel the tear swell up inside her, but she repressed them. She hated when people asked her questions like that.
"Very well follow me," continued the teller as he walked off to get to her vault. Rebecca followed and took a seat in a car. The car took her and the teller straight to her vault. After the teller opened the vault, Rebecca went in to get enough money to buy what she needed and a little extra for during the school year. She got back into the car and the teller took her back to the main floor.
Rebecca was done there so she headed out to start her shopping. She had just walked out the door when she heard a familiar voice say,
"Hey, there you are. I was beginning to think that misread you letter." Rebecca looked around and saw her childhood neighbor and friend Ryan. He ran up and gave her a quick hug. They took a step back from each other and just looked at each other. They hadn't seen each other in about a year and each looked different to the other.
Ryan started with his assessment of how Rebecca changed since he last saw her. "Wow, you are taller than I remembered. Are you about 5'6" now? I about didn't recognize you I was looking for you with short hair about to you chin and here you have it two inches below your shoulders."
Rebecca just smiled and started with what changed about Ryan "You got taller too. When did you start slicking your hair back like that?"
Ryan didn't answer her question. He looked into her eyes and said, "When did your eyes change color? I thought they were brown before."
Rebecca was shocked at he even noticed.
"Oh my eyes are turning green, I guess. I noticed last fall that I had green tints in my eyes and they kept getting more prominent. Wadsworth said that my mother's father had green eyes and they got greener as he got older. I guess I got the gene that does that."
"So you're going to have green eyes when you're older?"
"No I think I will have hazel even if they keep changing and Wadsworth seemed to think so too."
"Um, I was sorry to hear about Wadsworth," Ryan said softly.
Rebecca looked down at the ground and softly said, "Thank you."
"I'm sorry I didn't make it to the funeral."
"Let's not talk about it," Rebecca said to stop him from going any farther.
"Okay," Ryan said timidly. He didn't want to get Rebecca upset at him. They had been really good friend when they were younger, but then they went off to different school. Interaction between them was limited to during the summer and even that was limited due to vacations and other activities. He didn't know whether they were still the same friends that they use to be.
To change the topic Ryan quickly said, "Come on let's go meet up with some of my friends, so that you know a few more people at Hogwarts. After we do that, then we all can do some shopping."
Rebecca smiled and nodded. They headed down the street in search for Ryan's friends. Rebecca really wanted to meet them. She was transferring from Beauxbatons to Hogwarts. This meant that she was leaving all her friends to go somewhere where she only new Ryan and she really didn't know how well she even knew him anymore.
Ryan and Rebecca hadn't walked that far when a black haired boy came running up to them. The boy was a slight bit shorter than Ryan and had broad shoulders. His looks reminded Rebecca of a thug. She couldn't help but to truly think this of him, because the first thing he said was "Hey, Ryan what are we doing today?"
'Sounds like someone takes orders from somebody else,' Rebecca thought to herself trying to be slightly amused by it.
"Hey Sam, I would like you to meet Rebecca," Ryan said as he gestured towards Rebecca. "Rebecca this is my friend Sam."
"It's nice to meet you," Rebecca said giving Sam a shy smile.
Sam nodded at her and turned back to Ryan to see what they were going to do. Ryan then said, "Okay let's go and find the others."
As they walked around in search for the others, Rebecca took in the sights. She had never been to Diagon Alley before so everything was new to her. Rebecca was looking into Flourish and Blotts' window when she heard voices call, "Hey Ryan! Hey Sam!"
Rebecca took her gaze off of the books and turned to see who said it. It was two guys who were every similar to Sam in the fact that they looked like thugs too. One of the boys had blonde hair and was about two inches shorter than Sam. The other boy had jet black hair and was about an inch taller than Ryan.
"Hey guys, where is Russel?" Ryan asked.
"Oh he couldn't come today," said the taller boy.
"Neither could Cassie," added the blonde boy said.
"Well that's a relief," muttered Ryan.
Everyone looked at him curiously. Before anyone on could say anything, Ryan spoke up and said, "Hans and Dan, this is Rebecca. Rebecca this is Hans," pointing to the blonde and then pointing to the other "and this is Dan."
"Hi," Rebecca said giving them a timid smile. The guys nodded at her as Sam did. Then Hans, Sam, and Dan looked at Ryan to see what they were going to do.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. 'What is Ryan doing with all these lackeys,' she thought to herself.
"Okay guys let's get our books, then we will get the other supplies, and after that we can goof off. They turned around and headed into the store.
Since they all were fifth year students, they had to get all the same books, but Rebecca wanted to get another book beside the assigned ones. She gathered up all her books and went off in search of it.
Defense against the Dark Arts was one of Rebecca's favorite subjects at Beauxbatons. The teacher there had suggested a book to her, but due to the events of the summer Rebecca had not picked it up yet.
When she found the section it would be in, Rebecca put her other books down to seek out the book. She found the book eventually, but it was unfortunately placed on a shelf out of Rebecca's reach. Rebecca gave out a sigh and looked at the book wondering how she was going to get. Just then someone walked into the section and looked at her for a second.
"Do you need help?" the person said. Rebecca turned her head to see a red- headed boy about 17 looking at her. He was fairly tall so he could reach the book Rebecca wanted.
"Yeah, I wanted that book there," Rebecca responded looking and pointing at the book. The boy reached up and took the book off the shelf with ease.
"Is this the right one?" he asked as he handed her the book.
"Yes, thank you so much," Rebecca said and she headed out of the section
After she picked up her other books, she headed to get all of them paid for. As she got was walking towards the register, she passed Ryan and his group. They were in deep conversation and didn't notice Rebecca go by.
"Guys, I'll explain Rebecca to her again. She will be fine with it," Ryan said.
"Well you better hope Rebecca talks to more people so you don't have too many problems with her," Hans said.
Ryan calmly said, "I have this under control. Don't worry. Everything will be great this year."
Rebecca continued towards the register. She did not have a good feeling about what the guys were talking about and she didn't want anything to do with it.
Rebecca paid for her books and went to join the guys.
As she approached the guys, Rebecca said, "I'm done. Are we ready to go?"
She had said this so that the guys would stop talking before she got close enough to hear what they were talking about.
Ryan turned around and smiled at her. "Okay, let's go," he said and started towards the door.
They walked out the door and headed to another store to get potion's ingredients. After that stop, they made their way to get ink and paper.
Finally, after a couple other stores, they had completed their school shopping and a little window-shopping on the side.
They had had a couple of laughs here and there, but Rebecca could feel a tension between her and Ryan's other friends that she didn't really care for.
She wasn't too sure that she would really like it at Hogwarts if she had to be around them too much.
As they walked out of the quidditch store, Ryan said, "Hey, let's stop at Flouren Fortescue's and get some ice cream before we leave."
Everyone agreed and they set off. Rebecca wanted to see if her interaction with them would be any different when they were sitting at the ice cream parlor. They sat down their stuff at a table outside of the store. Ryan, Dan, Sam, and Hans went in to get the ice cream and Rebecca stayed at the table.
As she sat there by herself, she looked at the people passing by. Rebecca suddenly noticed the red haired boy from the bookstore walking across the street.
He was with his family this time. There were his parents, five other boys and a girl all with red hair. One of the other boys looked about Rebecca's age, but she wasn't sure about the other' ages.
Rebecca was still staring at the family when Ryan returned with her ice cream and placed it in front of her. Ryan and the guys started a new conversation, but Rebecca didn't notice. Big families fascinate Rebecca, she had been an orphan since she was little and has no siblings so natural she was curious on what she was missing.
She is continued to stare at the family not paying any attention to Ryan or the conversation that is going on. Ryan snaps his fingers in front of her face and she jumped.
"What were you looking at?" he asked.
"Oh just this family," she responded slightly embarrassed.
Ryan scoffed a little and said, "You always were fascinated by large families."
"I know," Rebecca quietly said even more embarrassed. The other guys looked at Rebecca, which made her more uncomfortable.
Ryan turned to the guys, and explained, "Rebecca's parents died when she was younger and she has no siblings so she is always watching people and how they interact with their families."
Even though Ryan was calm about it and the other guys seemed to 'understand', Rebecca thought that what Ryan said made her sound pathetic. She picked up her spoon and started to eat ice cream in silence.
Ryan and Hans got into such a deep conversation that they were only talking to each other. Sam and Dan tried to start a conversation with Rebecca, but nothing flowed that well.
Rebecca tried to ask them who Cassie was but they changed the conversation on her and started talking with each other.
'Maybe I should have asked who Russel was instead of Cassie. I might have been able to get a better conversation out of them,' she thought to herself
Rebecca found herself back to looking at the people walking on the street wishing she was back with her old friends while the guys talked.
Finally Ryan looked at his watch and said, "Well I better get going. Come on Rebecca, I'll help you out."
"Okay," Rebecca said with slight smile. "It was nice to meet all of you."
"Yeah, it was nice to meet you too. Have a good day," Hans said as the others nodded to acknowledge she said something.
Rebecca and Ryan start to walk to where Rebecca had entered Diagon Alley. As they walked, Rebecca saw the red headed family again and just smiled to herself.
To make conversation as they headed towards the Leaky Cauldron, Rebecca tried to ask who Russel and Cassie were again. Ryan suspiciously answered
"Oh, don't worry about them, you'll meet them on the train." There was a pause in the conversation as the approached the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.
"How are you getting home?" Ryan asked with a puzzled look on his face. He hadn't thought about how Rebecca got there.
"I'll take a cab. The same way I got here."
"Well, I am going to meet my uncle and his kid do you want a lift home?"
"Lucius?"
"Yeah, do you remember him?"
"Um, yeah." Rebecca remembered him all right. There was something creepy about him. She never really like being around him when she was younger and she doubted that she would like being around him now.
"So do want to go with me and find them and them we'll take you home?"
"Oh, no, I like riding in cabs and I don't get to do it that often so I better take any chance I get."
"Have you always been this comfortable with muggle things?"
"I guess. Wadsworth always told me that 'if you know how to use muggle things then you can hide your magic easier', so I had to do things the way muggles do since I was little."
"Huh, I don't think I would care for that too much. Well I got to get going and find my uncle. I'll look for you on the platform and we'll get a seat together on the train, okay? Bye."
"Bye." Rebecca gave hime a smile as she and Ryan departed. She walked through the tavern and said good-bye to the barkeep.
Outside she hailed a cab and started the drive home. As she was in the back seat of the cab, she thought about her impression of Ryan after the day with him and what she needed to pack before the next day's trip.