Standard disclaimers apply. They're not mine, I've never been to Diagon Alley, and I can't shuffle cards, much less do magic. Although, assuming they were mine to do with as I pleased, I'd pick Will Stanton over Harry Potter any day.
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The whole thing was like a dream; only, when he pinched his arm, it hurt. Not as much as when Dudley did it, but there was still a sting, and his nails left pale half-moons in his skin. He kept expecting a shadowy someone to walk up to him and demand to know what he was doing here, who did he think he was, anyway, and then yank him back to reality and the Dursleys.
Nervously, he shadowed Hagrid through Diagon Alley, buffeting in his wake like a small skiff, almost swamped by the waves of wizarding people, sights, and smells. A small hard lump of fear in his stomach fought with the pleasure of leaving Privet Drive and Little Whinging far behind. Hagrid seemed nice, but he was huge, and really rather scary looking. Dudley was large, and always took advantage of that fact when torturing Harry. Of course, Aunt Petunia was a stick, and still as mean as Dudley. The thought sent a shiver across his shoulders like the lash of a belt
The lump grew larger, knotting in his gut with a will of its own. Harry tried to ignore it, and when that didn't work he tried to destroy it, bunching both hands into fists, and pressing them into his belly when he thought Hagrid wasn't looking; hard enough to leave a mark. Hagrid marched on, however, blithely pointing out shops and the sights throughout the town. Harry was relieved Hagrid obviously didn't expect him to carry any of the conversation.
When the giant stopped abruptly, Harry almost collided with his tree-trunk leg. Tilting his head up to look questioningly at Hagrid, his glasses slipped precariously sideways. Hagrid's beetleblack eyes twinkled down at him from a bristling thatch of wiry hair.
"I 'afta fetch somethin fer Perfessor Snape 'ere, 'Arry. Whydoncha pop into this jeweler's 'ere and get 'em to fix those glasses up proper fer ya? 'Pothecaries stink anyways." He smiled and winked conspiratorially at Harry, who just nodded vaguely, and watched forlornly as Hagrid squeezed through a narrow doorway to a dim shop across the street.
Fixing his glasses did sound like a good idea-one of the earpieces was secured to the frame with dental floss. Harry scanned the street searchingly, and belatedly realized the door behind him was emblazoned with the word Jeweler, in ornate gold letters. He took a deep breath, willing his expanding lungs to destroy his traitorous stomach.
Pushing open the door, he hesitantly entered the orderly little storefront. Mellow brass bells chimed at the movement, sounding as if they were still attached to placidly grazing sheep. Harry paused irresolutely in the midst of the floor, gazing at the solid oak and glass cases scattered throughout the store.
One case was entirely full of round-faced pocket watches, another of glass animals; a tiny hedgehog peeked at him from behind a plump Shetland pony. A huge dragon hung from a wire, soaring above castles, unicorns, and sea monsters. Each one was marvelously lifelike. The mind-boggling array of stones and metals glittering in the dust-laden sunlight entranced him: necklaces, bracelets, brooches, earrings, and much more. A crystal sun-catcher sent rainbow prisms coruscating across the smooth wood-paneled walls like skittering bugs on the surface of a pond. Mesmerized, he momentarily forgot his errand.
"Hullo." A pleasantly timbered voice brought his attention to the counter at the back of the shop. A young man stood behind it, gazing at Harry expectantly. A swath of hair the same rich color of the wood in the store flopped over his forehead, and he pushed it back casually with a hand. "Can I help you?"
Slowly, Harry approached the counter. He could just see over the top of it, on tiptoe. "My glasses keep falling off. Hagrid said you could fix them?" Was that the right way to ask someone to fix your glasses? Another knot tightened in his stomach.
"Shopping with Hagrid, are you? You must be a Hogwarts student."
As he spoke, the man walked around the counter, joining Harry in the midst of the shop. Surprisingly, he wore jeans, a long sleeved shirt with a rampant red dragon, and trainers- no wizardly robes. Kneeling, he gestured for Harry's glasses.
Reluctantly, Harry removed them. It had been a favorite trick of Dudley's to steal his glasses, knowing Harry could barely see without them. The blurriness of everything intimidated him. Once he had mistaken Uncle Vernon for the highboy, and been sent to his room for two days straight.
The blur that was the jeweler shifted around a bit, and rose to grab something from the counter top. "How do you enjoy your classes?" He continued, casually picking up the thread of conversation. Did the jeweler really want him to answer, or was he just talking? Harry couldn't tell if the jeweler was looking at him or not, and fidgeted uneasily. He could hear a metallic squeak as the jeweler tweaked his glasses about.
The man remained silent, as if he didn't mind waiting for Harry to reply. A few tense heartbeats passed, and Harry began to relax. The calmness of the shop seemed to flow from the young man: a quiet sort of contentment and satisfaction. Harry felt he was floating peacefully in between the blurry display cases.
"I." He faltered, unsure of how to proceed, now that he had decided he could. "I haven't started yet, actually. I just found out about. All this. On my birthday."
The jeweler's blur moved, kneeling again to present Harry with his glasses.
Gratefully, he slipped them on, blinking as the world was redrawn sharply, fuzzy blobs smartly reforming into their proper shapes. The face of the jeweler appeared, so close that Harry could see his darker lashes and brows over light grey eyes. "How's that?"
Harry tilted his head backwards, sideways, downwards, and the glasses successfully remained in place. A thrill of pride coursed through him- he had done something here for himself, in this strange world. "Very good, thank you."
"So, you've had a birthday recently, hm?" The man remained where he was, crouching to talk to Harry.
More confident now, Harry nodded. "Yes, my eleventh."
"Eleven, hm?" remarked the man, raising his eyebrows high in mock seriousness, as if turning eleven were like turning sixteen, or thirty. "A birthday of some significance, I have always thought."
The man smiled, taking the edge off of his teasing tone. Harry liked the way the man's grey eyes warmed with his smile. He smiled back, some of the tangle of anxieties in his stomach easing at the kindness in the man's voice.
"A gift for you, then, on your eleventh birthday," he declared. The imaginary fanfare rang loudly in Harry's ears. Glancing quickly around the shop, he saw it was still empty but for the two of them. For a second there, he would have sworn he heard something, though.
Harry's attention was drawn back to the jeweler. Delving into his jeans pockets, the man drew out a small stone, roundish like any pebble off of the road, except for its amazing hue. Blue like the pictures of the ocean on a postcard, or the sky on a hot day, it shimmered in the dusty sunlight. Keeping the stone sheltered in the palm of one hand, the man drew a finger across it, murmuring something in a language Harry didn't know. The stone flared with light, and then smoothly reshaped itself into a flatter, more regular shape.
Harry's eyes widened with disbelief. The man held up the changed stone between thumb and forefinger and eyed it critically. Apparently satisfied, he stood to rummage seemingly at random through a crowded display case to the right. Carefully, he threaded the stone with a golden chain he pulled from the depths of the case.
Humming his satisfaction, he held the pendant out to Harry. Harry cupped his hands together, and let the man curl it into his palms. The stone was now shaped into a circle, evenly quartered by two crossed bars. The gift nestled in his slightly dirty hands, warm, and thrumming very slightly against his skin. He gasped; it felt almost alive, like the time he had found the robin's egg that had fallen from a nest. He had held the egg the exact same way, marveling at the fact that there was a living bird in the delicate blue shell. Dudley had punched him in the shoulder when Harry wouldn't let him look at it. Luckily, Dudley was too fat to chase him when he ran, and he kept the egg safe.
"What is it?" Stunned at his luck, he almost couldn't get the words out.
The jeweler tilted his head to consider the answer, his gray eyes glowing with pleasure at Harry's reaction. "Hm, call it a badge; or, a symbol, rather." He paused, and said slowly, "Something to signify, to identify."
Petting the stone with one finger, Harry caught the way the man said 'hm' when he was thinking. The little symbol warmed further as Harry decided he liked this man very much, even if he did want him to listen to a rock. It was a good feeling, being able to like someone.
"What should I do with it?"
"For right now, wear it around your neck." Flushing at the obvious answer, Harry hastened to comply, letting the chain and stone settle around his neck and fall beneath his new robes. "And, when you learn how, make it invisible."
The jeweler shifted, leaning against the counter. "For later, hmm." He fell silent, and his grey eyes unfocused slightly - as if he were no longer look at a scruffy little boy in a jewelry store. He was looking elsewhere. "For later," he said in a dreamy voice, "I think you will find that out on your own. Consider it a quest, for your birthday."
The man blinked away his reverie, and smiled reassuringly at Harry's tight face. "It's nothing to worry about, Harry. You'll do fine." With gentle fingers he lightly brushed aside Harry's delinquent hair, exposing the small tell- tale mark on his forehead. "You'll see."
The symbol lay against his sternum, a pleasantly reassuring weight, still warm. "Thank you." He said softly, rubbing the small lump the stone made in his robes. "Thank you for my present."
Questions like dust motes drifted through his mind, but he couldn't quite get past the awe of his gift, or the jeweler. When he was older, he would be able to place the overwhelmed feeling as intense gratitude mixed with humility, brought about by an unexpected gift- one unhoped and unlooked for, and mostly undeserved. Relief from his fears seemed gift enough. It was a small kindness of the part of a generous man that meant more than Harry could ever verbalize to his satisfaction. He would cherish the pendant as much as his beloved Invisibility Cloak (his father's) and every single comment made about his eyes (his mother's).
"You are very welcome."
The man's attention was caught by something in the window. "There's Hagrid, then. He'll never fit in here. You had better go meet him, Harry."
Something was troubling Harry, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It was a different sort of trouble than the one he had had earlier, before he got his glasses fixed, it kept slipping away from him, like a bar of soap in a tub full of water. Hagrid's appearance caught him off guard, though, and he rushed off to do as the jeweler asked.
"Thank you!" he called again over his shoulder, as he pulled the door open with both hands.
The man raised his hand in acknowledgement, and Harry tripped out into the waning daylight, robes flapping. The giant stood a few feet away, and brightened when he saw his young charge. "There you are. Thought I might 'ave lost you."
The stone against his chest warmed as Hagrid spoke to Harry. Surprised, he clutched at the pendant through his robes, trapping the warmth and vibrancy of the stone under his hand.
"A' right, 'Arry?" Hagrid asked in concern, seeing the wild-eyed look on his face.
Harry took a deep breath, fighting the nauseous of nervous fear again. The man knew his name without being told. That was an odd feeling, one he wasn't sure he could get used to, regardless of how famous Hagrid said he was. Harry made himself let go of the stone. Gradually, the warmth lessened, and the stone quieted. "Yes, Hagrid, I'm fine, thanks."
The giant nodded affably. "Lots of nice stuff in that store, eh? Never know what you might find. And that Will Stanton bloke, e's a'right."
And with that, the giant was off down the street, leaving Harry to follow him once more and wonder what, exactly, he had fallen into.