Diagon Alley
The door shut behind Hagrid and young Harry Potter and the patrons of the Leaky Caldron were perfectly sill and silent, as if the closing door had sucked all the air from the room. All of them, Tom the bartender too, lost in their own amazement. And then, just as suddenly as if a switch were flipped, there was a gasp and everyone cheered.
Professor Quirinus Quirrell, a pale, painfully shy young man, must have been startled by the sudden volume of noise because he joined in the cheer just one beat late. His smile faltered a bit at the corners.
"I got to shake his hand!" Doris Crockford repeated over and over.
"I did too!" said Dedalus Diggle, "And he remembered me! It's been a few years, but he remembered!"
"Oh! Good on you!" Doris grabbed his hand and shook it as merrily and enthusiastically as she had shaken Harry's hand those many times.
"Not likely to forget you in a hurry Deed," added Tom the bartender, speaking loudly over the noise of the crowd. "It's that hat of yers." Tom nodded at the purple top hat sitting atop Dedalus's head.
"Oh, yes," Dedalus giggled and pulled the hat off his head, his white hair sprang straight up with static electricity. He rotated the brim of the hat through his hands. "I suppose, maybe."
In the corner, Professor Quirrell finished the rest of his dink in one swift swallow and grimaced terribly before stealthily making his way out the back, using the same door Hagrid and the boy had just left through. Too busy still celebrating Harry's return, no one noticed.
Doris Crockford had a few more drinks, one for each time she'd shaken Harry's hand, then announced loudly, "I'm off. Must spread the good news!"
After waving goodbye to Tom, she exited out the back door and a few brick taps later, walked into Diagon Alley.
Back inside, Dedalus Diggle drained the last of his cherry syrup and rum with cinnamon, waved goodbye to Tom the bartender and he too made his way to the back door. He did not tap the brick wall however; he turned on the spot, and disappeared.
Not a second later, he reappeared on his own front door step and opened the door. The smell of fresh baked bread greeted him. He breathed in deeply, taking in the wonderful odor and let out an audible "Ahh" as he exhaled.
"Is that you Deedily?" Asked a voice as warm as the hearth on which the bread baked, from the kitchen.
"Yes my darling, it is I, your loving husband. Returned from the wars to the comfort of your loving arms and your wonderful soup and bread." Dedalus smiled with the familiarity of the ritual.
"The wars indeed," Carolina Diggle came out from the kitchen wiping her hands on a dish towel. She kissed her husband on the cheek, and snatched the purple top hat from atop his head. This action was another of their rituals. One she would have not minded giving up if only her husband would remember to remove the hat himself. "Home from the Leaky Caldron more like," she said inhaling a lightly lingering sent of rum.
"Well, yes, my dear, I was," Dedalus giggled "and you'll never guess who else was there! Harry Potter!" He giggled again at the startled expression on her face. "Yes! Hagrid brought him to Diagon Alley to pick up his school things; he'll be starting at Hogwarts this year!"
"Harry Potter?" Carolina repeated bemused. "The boy who-"
"The boy who lived, yes! That's the one! I heard him speaking to one of the professors of the school, queer man, really, but Dumbledore only hires the best!"
As the bricks closed up behind her, Doris glanced over a pale young man on the steps of Gringotts Wizarding Bank. He stood staring up at the doors to the bank as if transfixed.
She paid him no mind and grabbed the arm of the very next person to walk by her. "Did you hear? Harry Potters back! Just met him! I got to shake his hand!" Continuing on down Diagon Alley she repeated much the same thing to everyone she locked eyes with. "Harry Potter's back!"
A tall man with long white blonde hair and a silver tipped walking stick made the unfortunate mistake of glancing at her. "I got to shake his hand I did!" Doris told him with no preamble and looked toward the woman who had stopped next to the man. She was beautiful, but her eyes held an arrogance Doris didn't notice in her excitement. "Everything's for the better now, isn't it?" The man lifted the end of his walking stick as if to shoo Doris away, but she was off already, jauntily drifting down Diagon Alley, passing Ollivanders wand shop without a second glance.
Had she glanced, she would have seen Mr. Ollivander himself standing at the shop window, the door just closing. Doris was part of the crowded street, and had he noticed her at all, Mr. Ollivander would have remembered her wand, purchased oh so many, many years ago, just a half second before he recalled Doris' name. But he didn't notice her, his attention directed toward the other end of the Alley, at the backs of the giant man and the young boy who'd left his shop not a moment ago. He watched until they were swallowed up by the crowd, and all that was left was Hagrid's head and shoulders towering above everyone else.
"Curious," Mr. Ollivander repeated, very softly, and to himself this time. The wand chooses the wizard, and the implications of that particular wand choosing that particular wizard were extraordinary indeed. Turning from the window, Mr. Ollivander took up the single candle and made his way past the hundreds of shelves all full to the breaking point of boxes and boxes of wands, toward the back of the shop to his small office.
With a swipe of his own wand, he cleared his desk of the piles of wands in for repair, the stacks of books and the scatters of parchments and set the candle down. After searching for a clean piece of parchment, he took up his quill and sat for a moment, contemplating. A dusty brown owl swooped down from his perch in the corner and landed on Mr. Ollivanders shoulder. With a glance to the bird, Mr. Ollivander put quill to parchment and began to write.
Much later that evening the pale young professor Harry had met that afternoon was on his knees in the middle of the Forbidden Forest.
"Master, please, I beg you. Master, I tried, it's not my fault. Mercy Master, please have mercy."
"Fool," said a high pitched voice.
"Master, it was Hagrid. He and the boy had already been to Gringotts and made the withdrawal before I got there. There was nothing I could do."
"What boy?" The voice screamed.
Quirrell swallowed hard, the lump of tears burning his throat became a rock churning in his stomach. "Harry Potter, Master." Quirrell stopped and waited. "He has returned," his voice was barely a whisper. After a moment, when the voice did not respond, he began to plead his case again. "There was nothing I could do, I was alone and frightened…"
"You will no longer be alone, Quirrell," said the voice, high pitched and cruel. "Lord Voldemort no longer trusts you to be alone. I will need to keep an eye on…" He selected his word carefully, "things. Prepare yourself Quirrell."
Moments later, all the creatures of the forest heard a soul tearing scream plough its way through the tress.
A/N: Thank you for reading. Please check back for the next story in my project, The Journey from Platform Nine and Three Quarters