Author's Note – Yes, yes, we all know the drill. Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and many of the things in this fic are not mine. So far, only the Cornell family belong to me, especially Ivy. I don't own the canon, I promise to night break it to much.

-I-

Ivy Cornell is eleven years old, and her letter from Hogwarts arrived this summer. Her first trip to Diagon Alley will be with her father, uncle, and cousins.

It's an awkward meeting. Her father doesn't talk much with his family, and Ivy's only met them twice before. Her uncle attempts to be friendly. He tells her about Floo Powder and Diagon Alley, and he has her cousins go first to show her how it works. Rosemary and Basil are less friendly. They look at her, judging her, as their father talks. Neither of them talk to her before they use the Floo Powder, and Rosemary only talks once they're on their way to Gringott's. She doesn't even say anything interesting; it's just another talk about wizarding money, and Ivy's father's already talked to her about this a dozen times, it feels like.

The trip to the vaults is terrifying. Ivy's only been on a roller coaster once, and this is far worse. The cart doesn't even have a safety harness. Basil fails to hide his snickering as she clings to her father's hand. By the time both vaults have been visited and they get back outside, Ivy's gone pale, and Basil has a small smirk on his face.

They all head to Madame Malkin's first. Basil and Rosemary have grown several inches over the past year, and Ivy needs her first ever school robes. Her father and uncle wait outside, and Rosemary tells Ivy about Ravenclaw as Madame Malkin fits them for their robes. On the way out, Basil talks about his house, Gryffindor. Ivy's not sure which one she'd like to be in. She's already heard about Hufflepuff from her father, the black sheep of the family.

"There's nothing wrong with Hufflepuff," Ivy's father says when Basil's done. "There are lots of friends there, and they can be very loyal. Professor Sprout's a wonderful Head of House." Ivy's father looks at his nephew and niece like he's expecting them to say something. When he looks at his brother, Ivy's uncle just nods.

"Probably one of the nicest professors I ever met," he says. "I preferred Flitwick, of course, Sprout was a good one." Ivy's father gapes at his brother for a moment before nodding silently.

"All right, I think we'll buy books last..." Her father looks down at the list of things they need to buy. Ivy's gotten to look over it, and she's most interested in getting her wand and maybe a pet.

"Richard," her uncle says. "You want me to take her to Ollivader's while you go buy her potions equipment?" He looksover at his own children. "Rosemary and Basil will be fine on their own for a while." Ivy's father barely gets to say anything before she's being lead off towards Ollivander's.

"No matter what Basil or Rosemary or your grandparents say," her uncle tells her, "there is nothing wrong with being a Hufflepuff. Your father was there, and he did well." He takes Ivy's hand and leads her to the store with a sign that read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.

Ivy stares at the outside of the store. It doesn't look like much. The gold letters on the sign were peeling, and the only thing in the window was a single wand laying on an old purple cushion.

When she gets inside, though, everything is different. There are rows of shelves filled with boxes of wands. Ivy looks around in silence before she sees a man walking towards them from the shelves. He's old and his eyes are little strange to look at, so Ivy decides to look at the bridge of his nose instead.

"Ah, Mr. Ollivander!" Ivy's uncle holds out a hand. "This is my niece, Ivy. She got her Hogwarts letter this year, so we need to get her a wand." Ollivander politely shakes her uncle's hand, then turns his attention to her.

"Hmm. Now, Miss Cornell... Which is your wand arm?" he asks, pulling a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket.

"Er, I'm right handed?" Ivy says, holding out her right hand. Mr. Ollivader startes measuring her arm.

"No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns or dragons or phoenixes are the same. Olllivander wands are made with only the best cores, unicorn hair, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of a dragon's heart." He stops measuring and turns to the shelves of his shop. It take Ivy another few moments for her to realize that that the tape measure is still measuring her on its own. Ivy goes cross-eyed for a second when the tape goes to measure the distance between her eyes.

"That will do," Mr. Ollivader says, the the tape measure falls to the floor. "Miss Cornell, try this one." He hands her a wand and Ivy stares at it. "Cedar and dragon heartstring, ten inches, quite springy." Ivy looks at him and her uncle, and as she raises her hand to try waving the wand, Mr. Ollivander snatches it back.

"No, no, here-" He hands her another wand. "Ash and unicorn hair, nine and a quarter inches, unyielding." Ivy takes this wand too, but almost immediately it's grabbed back. Ivy shuffles back a little, staring at Mr. Ollivander.

"Try this one, beech and unicorn hair, twelve and three quarter inches," he holds out another wand for her to try, and after a moment, she takes it from him. When he doesn't immediately grab the wand back, Ivy tries waving it around. Nothing terribly exciting happens, but the tip of the wand starts to glow like a miniature star. Ivy looks up at the two adults, who are both pleased by this development. "Very good, Miss Cornell, very good."

Ivy lets him take the wand and put it in its box and wrap it. Ivy's uncle hands over seven Galleons, and Ivy leaves the store with her brand new wand.

Ivy and her uncle meet up with her father near Flourish and Blotts. There's no sign of either Rosemary or Basil, but Ivy doesn't mind. She's much more interested in the crowd around bookshop. Most of the people in line are either students or witches, it looks like, and the reason becomes clearer once they spot a large banner stretched across the shop's upper windows.

"Perhaps we should wait to buy the books tomorrow," Ivy's father suggests. "This line will take forever to get through." Her uncles shakes his head and grabs Ivy's arm, helping her get through the crowd and into the shop itself. There's an already giant line there, heading for the back of the shop where Lockhart can be seen signing books. It's another few minutes before Ivy's father joins them. They try to stay out of the line for the book signing, but the line takes up so much space, it ends up being easier to just go through it and grab the books they need as they pass them.

The highlight of the trip for books is when Lockhart grabs some poor kid out of line, makes him pose for pictures, and then announces that the kid and every other Hogwarts students is going to be very lucky that year. Ivy's father and uncle look at each other when Lockhart tells everyone that he'll be the newest Defense Against the Dark Arts. The kid is given a set of all of Lockhart's books while the crowd cheers, and Ivy watches him stagger away under the weight of the books.

"...Dad?" Ivy asks. "Are there any spells to make my school bag weigh less?"

"I'll show it to you before we pack everything away," her father promises.

There's a brawl a minute or two later, and Ivy tries to ignore it. She just wants her books so she can go look at animals. The school supply list says she can have either an owl or a toad or a cat, and Ivy's torn between a cat and an owl.

Ivy's handed a few of her school books by her uncle, who's already stuck holding books for both of his kids. He's glaring in Lockhart's direction. Seven books for one class, and all of them are large and unwieldy and written by the new professor himself.

It takes half an hour for them to escape the shop, and Rosemary and Basil are just outside, watching the crowd. Their father immediately hands off their books, and the twins are stuck carrying them around for the rest of the trip to Diagon Alley. It's not as bad as it could be though. There's only one stop left, and that's to get Ivy a pet.

The Magical Menagerie is crowded with all sorts of animals, and Ivy spends a minute staring a bunch of Puffskeins before she finally looks over at the cats. There are cats of all sorts there, napping or looking out at the people in the store. One large fluffy orange cat wasn't letting anything get near it.

Ivy's father watches as she tries to make friends with all the cats in the shop. Most ignore her, and the orange one looks entirely unimpressed when she offers her hand to it. There's a small grey cat that lets her pet it though, and soon Ivy's named it Mercury and is carrying it outside in a basket.

The last stop is the Leaky Cauldron, where they use Floo powder to return to Ivy's uncle's house. Basil and Rosemary are off before Ivy can say good-bye, but her uncle promises her that they'll keep an eye out for her at Hogwarts.

"Even if you're a Hufflepuff like your father was," her uncle said. "Though if you make it there, you shouldn't need them. I swear, when Richard and I were there, that House was more of a family for him than we were."

"It was certainly more comfortable there than at home..." her father mumbles.

"Well, anywhere you end up, they'll be your family while you're there." Her uncle gives her a slightly awkward hug and lets her go. "We'll see you on September first, Ivy, Richard."

"Thank you, Uncle Connor."