Very long cut here, just so you know. I couldn't think of a logical place to break it which would have made it shorter. [Substantial edits made as of September 3, 2015.]
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Although it was evening, Baldwin said that all the shops we were going to hit would still be open. He said that we lived very close to one of the "Main Streets, so to speak" of the wizarding community in the city. I still found it hard to swallow the fact that there was a wizard population in Minneapolis. But Baldwin, who was fairly bouncing with excitement, seemed ready to go, so Mom and I just put on our shoes and headed out with him.
He seemed to know the ins and outs of the district quite as well as we did, and led us down a series of side roads and back streets until we reached a solid red brick wall. He then pulled out what I was now sure was his wand and tapped on one of the bricks.
A line appeared down the middle of the wall in front of us, and in a couple of minutes two enormous (previously invisible) doors swung inward, revealing a place that twelve hours ago I would not have believed existed.
Baldwin hurried us through the doors on to a busy cobbled (not paved!) street. It was lined with shops on either side as far as the eye could see, none of them were shops that I was familiar with. There was a real old-fashioned Apothecary, if I wasn't mistaken, and two women were coming out of it, complaining about the price of some herb or other. In one window there was an assortment of brooms round which a group of kids about my age were gathered pointing out this one and that one. Outside of another window, a row of different pots - or cauldrons, probably - were sitting on the ground. In another window was a row of books that I couldn't see very well from where I was, but would have liked to.
The street was full of people hurrying to and fro and stopping to greet each other in loud voices. Some of them were dressed like normal people you see every day, but some of them were garbed in long cloaks and robes and gowns that looked as if they belonged in a Charles Dickens novel. Except for the occasional tall, pointed black hat, of course.
"Where in the world are we?" I asked in amazement.
"Fluorescent Avenue," said Baldwin grinning. "Now I think our first stop had better be a place to get some money exchanged - Gringotts bank, of course." And he set off down the street, Mom and I both struggling to keep up with him.
Gringotts bank was a big marble white building. It was taller than all the surrounding shops, and looked very grand and intimidating, like a bank should look. Baldwin stopped us before we went inside.
"When you go into Gringotts," He said to us. "You are going to see a goblin for the very first time. You might be tempted to laugh, but whatever you do, do not laugh at a goblin."
He looked so serious as he said this that whatever thought I had of asking more about goblins died away. Mom frowned. "Is it safe to go in, then?" she asked.
"Certainly it's safe to go in," said Baldwin. "Gringotts is the safest place in the world to keep anything. But goblins are not people who allow themselves to be mocked or humiliated. Be respectful." Then he took us inside, through two sets of doors, I might add.
Inside the bank there were a number of teller's booths, like in any bank I was used to, except that behind the counters there sat the strangest people I had ever seen in my entire life. They did not look human; they were all very short (none of them came above my elbow) and had extremely long and sharp noses and ears, which gave their faces a clever and calculating look. I did not feel in any way inclined to laugh at any of them; laughing at one of these people seemed to likely to be the last thing you'd ever do.
Baldwin went up to one of the booths and said, "I'd like to make a withdrawal from the Weston's Scholarship fund."
The goblin behind the counter (for he could be nothing other than a goblin) looked at Baldwin over his glasses. "The key, please," he said tartly.
Baldwin fumbled in his briefcase and brought out a small golden key. The goblin examined it long and hard, turning this way and that. At last he said, "That appears to be in order. I will have someone take you down to your vault."
A vault, huh?
The teller struck a small bell on his desk, and momentarily another goblin walked up to us. "If you would all follow me," he said, and we plodded after him. He led us off to the side where there was a door, and we walked through it into a dark, rather narrow corridor lit with honest-to-goodness torches. Our goblin guide gave a shrill whistle, and a small railway cart like something out of a movie came shooting up to us.
"Cool!" I couldn't resist saying.
"Are we traveling in that thing?" Mom asked suspiciously.
"There's not really other way to get down to the vaults," said Baldwin. "They're miles and miles underground."
We climbed up onto the cart, with the goblin sitting in front. As soon as we were seated, the cart began to move - slowly at first, but quickly going faster and faster until I thought I was going to hurl, and even faster after that. The thing was moving along by magic, I guessed, as it sure wasn't being steered in any way. We whizzed through doorways that opened out of the darkness ahead and were behind us almost before my brain registered them. Left and right and down and up - hadn't Baldwin said we were going underground?
Then, without warning, the cart came to a grinding, screeching halt in front of a small door. Mom and I scrambled onto solid ground as fast as we could, and even Angus looked a little pale as he stumbled off the cart. The goblin seemed completely unaffected. He walked up to the little door, took out the little key that Baldwin had given the teller, and unlocked the door. A cloud of greenish smoke (at least it looked like smoke, though it didn't actually have much of a smell) came billowing out, and when after a few seconds it cleared, I gasped - I couldn't help it - and I heard Mom gasp too.
The door may have been a little small, but the actual vault was the size of a small cave, and it was filled with money. Piles and heaps of coins lay around everywhere, in some kind of order which made no sense to me. They seemed to be of three kinds: gold, silver, and bronze. The gold coins were the biggest, a little larger than a U.S. half-dollar coin; the silver coins were about the size of quarters, and the bronze coins were about the size of dimes, though they were a little thicker.
"This is wizard money," said Baldwin, stepping into the vault. "You're going to be using mainly this from now on, Charlie. The bronze coins are called Knuts, the silver coins are Sickles, and the gold are Galleons. There are twenty-nine Knuts in a Sickle and seventeen Sickles in a Galleon - tricky, compared to Muggle money, I know." He had produced from his briefcase a small sack and walked over to a carefully arranged pile of coins close to us. He started pushing all the coins in that one pile into the sack, which I began to suspect suspect also had an Undetectable Extension Charm on it too, as it was a lot of coins.
Mom and I, meanwhile, tried hard not to stare around at the massive amount of money around us. I didn't have to know the conversion rate from Galleons to dollars to know that I had never seen so much money at once before. The goblin who had escorted us down stood watching the three of us in silence. At length Baldwin straightened up again and, to my surprise and immense embarrassment, handed the sack full of money to me.
"Um, is this - er - mine?" I stuttered, automatically gripping the bag.
"Of course it is!" said Baldwin smirking. "It's your scholarship money. Now let's get moving, we don't exactly have all night."
After we walked out of Gringotts, me holding an inconspicuous-looking bag with more money than I had ever had in my life, things just got better and better - not to mention more and more like a dream.
Because the sun was low in the sky, the streetlamps (which I would have thought were electric if I hadn't know better) were already on and the surrounding shops had begun to light their own lamps. It was still fairly crowded outside.
"This way!" said Baldwin, and we hurried after him as he made his way through the crowd. He banged into a small shop right next to Gringotts that seemed to be the equivalent of an office supply store, as it had things like rolls of parchment and writing quills and bottles of ink. I thought I heard Mom say under her breath, "I know they can't use electricity, but honestly, what's wrong with pencils and paper?" I was inclined to agree, but I began to change my mind when I saw quills that spell-checked themselves and ink bottles that changed color.
But Baldwin advised me to stick to the basics, which amounted to a large bundle of regular quills, a "ream" of parchment (two hundred rolls), and a set of twelve plain black ink bottles. When I went to pay for my stuff, I plunged my hand into the bag of money and came up with a handful of various coins, most of them Knuts, and it took me a bit of fishing to bring up seven Galleons to pay with. The woman at the counter gave me a cloth tote to put my supplies in.
After leaving that shop, we went to the shop right next door, which was called Adamson's. It was a bookstore, which ordinarily I wasn't too crazy about, but I could have stayed in that one forever. There wasn't a single book in the place which wasn't in some way concerned with some aspect of the wizarding world.
"Sorry to rush you, Charlie," said Baldwin regretfully. "But perhaps you can explore at your leisure later, we're on a bit of a schedule right now."
With a sigh I wrenched myself away from a fascinating volume about a wizarding sport called Quodpot, which seemed to be a sport played in the air with all the players flying on brooms. Baldwin recommended that I get a few notebooks. I picked up ten of them, as they were on a ten-for-a-Galleon special. Baldwin let me pick up the book about Quodpot too, as well as three other books I'd found interesting (My Life as a Squib, a book about a non-magical man born to Muggle parents; Curses and Counter-Curses, a manual of all kinds of fascinating jinxes and hexes; and A Salem Witch on Trial, a fictional novel about a real witch during the Salem witch-hunt frenzy who was well and truly caught in the act and eventually sentenced to death).
Then he went up to the counter with me trailing after him. "Excuse me, can I get the Weston's Program Bundle?" he asked the clerk.
"Student identification, please," said the man smartly.
I was a bit taken aback, for I had not brought my student ID and I hadn't thought I would need it here. But Baldwin pulled me right up to the counter and the man raised a device that looked a little like one of those new clamshell portable phones and pointed it at my right eye. There was a bit of a flash, and the clerk was satisfied. "Here you are," he said, reaching under the countertop and pulling up a smallish brown box. He handed it carefully across to me. "Now these particular books have been prepaid, so there's no charge on them," he said.
I paid a total of nine Galleons for all the notebooks and books aside from the textbooks, after which we left Adamson's. Things were really getting awkward to carry at this point.
Our next stop was O'Flaherty's, which sold cauldrons. Once again, Baldwin had to restrain me. There were gold cauldrons and silver cauldrons and even iron cauldrons; some were collapsible and others self-stirring. But Baldwin said, "You tend to ruin your first cauldron or two when you're just starting out - anything but a regular pewter cauldron is impractical at this stage." So I bought the cauldron he recommended; it cost me fifteen Galleons. I dumped my bag of quills and ink and parchment inside the cauldron, Baldwin took the box of books, and we went on.
Next we dropped by a place that was a little like a general store. There we bought a set of silver scales (supposedly more accurate than brass), a brass folding telescope, a crystal set of phials (Baldwin said they were a lot sturdier than glass), two charts (one for the stars and one for the moon) and an inwardly expandable lightweight suitcase. The charts and the trunk were not on my list of required supplies, but Baldwin told me I definitely needed them. After I asked if he was sure about this (the suitcase cost 20 Galleons!), I paid a total of fifty Galleons for everything and we left the shop.
The suitcase made the ordeal much easier, as there was space inside for everything else we'd bought so far and also made itself light enough for anyone to drag without difficulty.
Then we went to Ferraro's Robe Shop, though as we very quickly discovered, they sold a hell of a lot more than just robes (the term "robes" itself turned out to mean a lot more than I had thought). There were hats in every style from the 1800s and back, shoes and boots, socks and stockings, cloaks, muffs, mittens, and gloves. Mom asked Baldwin if I needed to get a robe or hat, to seem more in style with some of the other people we'd seen around. I gagged silently behind her back, and Baldwin came to my rescue by saying that in America at least there was no need to worry about it, and that regular clothes would more than suffice. We merely bought three pairs of dragon hide protective gloves (three Galleons per pair) and went out.
After that came the Apothecary, which stank like you wouldn't believe. Mom wouldn't even come in with us - she waited by the door. There were bunches of dried herbs and roots, jars of powders, barrels of slimy, weird-looking stuff, and things hanging from the ceiling. Baldwin went up to the counter and asked the man behind it for some jars of basic potion ingredients while I stuck close behind him and tried to breathe through my mouth. I handed him fifteen Galleons when it was time to pay, and then lost no time getting out of there.
By this time I was really glad for that suitcase.
"Just have to get your wand now," said Baldwin. "And a pet, if you want one."
"I'm actually not big on animals," I remarked.
"Well, you might want something to carry your mail. You see, we wizards don't use regular postal services - we have birds."
"So I'm basically getting a carrier pigeon," I joked.
Baldwin chuckled. "Most people use owls, actually."
The pet store, which was where we ended up going next, had mostly birds, but also a few kittens and puppies and old toads. Why anyone would want to buy a toad as a pet was beyond me, though I didn't say so out loud. Not that anyone would have heard me; that shop had to be the noisiest in the whole street. Every human in that place had to shout to be heard over all the birds. I asked Baldwin (in a shout) what he recommended, and he said (shouting back) that I should probably get a medium sized owl - owls tended to be quieter, better tempered, more reliable, and easier to train than most other birds. So I chose a fairly large but very quiet barn owl which was already trained, paid ten Galleons for it, and went out.
It was while we were walking out that I caught a glimpse of someone I recognized, one of the last people in the world I expected to see in a place like this. "Guy!" I shouted. "Guy Germaine!"
He turned around and saw me. Like me, he was dragging a suitcase. His face lit up. "Charlie!" he cried, making his way over to greet me. "What are you doing here?"
I lifted my arms, which were almost completely full of purchases. "Shopping!" I said brightly.
He eyed me. "So you're a wizard?"
I just laughed. "I guess I am! Not like I knew until today."
"Then you're not going to Eden Hall, huh?"
I suddenly realized, belatedly, what Guy's presence here meant. "Looks like that makes two of us, Guy."
"Three of us," said Guy. "Connie got her scholarship letter yesterday."
This was more of a relief than I had realized it could be. Now I wouldn't be the only one trying to explain to Coach Bombay why I was suddenly turning down Eden Hall. And to go with two of the Ducks! There are some things you can't go through without being good friends, and playing together on a hockey team in the Junior Goodwill Games is one of them. In all honesty, that had been the main reason I was so excited about Eden Hall in the first - because I'd be going with the rest of the Ducks. Now I realized how much I was going to miss the ones that wouldn't be there.
"You look like you're about finished there," I remarked.
"Just about." Guy adjusted his hold on the birdcage he was holding. A smallish, pure white owl was sitting demurely inside it. "I still need to get my wand, though."
"So do I," I said. "You wanna come with me?"
"Sure!" said Guy. "I mean, if that's okay?" The last words were addressed to his father. Beside Mr. Germaine stood a young man with dark hair and a briefcase similar to Baldwin's.
"Angus!" he said. "I didn't think you'd be far! How's it going?"
"Couldn't be better, Derek," said Baldwin pompously. He was obviously over the moon about the whole thing, and wanted his colleague to know it. "I can only hope that you're enjoying yourself as much I am!"
"Oh, I'm enjoying this, all right," said Derek, grinning.
And then at last came perhaps the best and definitely the most dreamlike part of the whole trip - Hendrickson's, the wandmaker's.*
Guy and I went with Derek Bradford, leaving our owls and suitcases with our parents and Baldwin. It felt (and smelled) like an old bookstore, except with long narrow boxes on the shelves instead of books. It was the quietest place I had visited yet here, and Guy and I seemed to be the only customers inside at the moment. Behind the counter sat a bored-looking girl, who looked far too young for such an old establishment - it must belong to her grandfather or great-grandfather. She was wearing shorts, sandals, and a light blue t-shirt, which only exaggerated the effect.
"May I help you?" she asked when she saw us.
"I'd like two of the Weston's Program wands, please," he said.
The girl's eyes woke up. "Weston's Program wands, right," she said, and like the clerk in Adamson's she dived under the countertop and brought up two boxes that looked newer than most of the others. "Would you like to test them out?" she asked hesitantly.
"Please," said Bradford. "Stick out your dominant hand, Guy."
Guy did as he was told.
The girl opened one of the boxes and handed the wand inside to Guy. The wand itself was basically a rather polished-looking dowel of very dark wood about a foot long with a somewhat pointed end. It reminded me of a fancy chopstick. Guy grasped it at the end that was not pointed, and looked nervously at the girl. "What now?" he asked.
"Wave it," said the girl. I tried not to snicker. Guy glared at me as he accepted the wand, and then I saw his face change. "Whoa!" he said, staring at his hand. Then he raised up the wand and waved it dramatically, and a shower of golden sparks flew from the end like fireworks.
I gaped with my mouth open. Bradford applauded. The girl just smiled.
"Wow," said Guy. "Just - wow."
"Okay, I want my turn now," I said, extending my own right hand. The girl opened the other box and put the second wand in my hand.
I knew something had happened right as soon as I touched it. A warm, tingling sensation spread through my fingers and crept up my arm. When I waved it, a shower of red stars flew up and came gently loitering down around us. Guy grinned at me. "Bravo, Charl!" he said.
As in Adamson's with our textbooks, the girl wouldn't charge us anything for the wands. "They've all been prepaid," she said when Bradford tried to press it with her, and so we left the place without spending a single Knut. We tramped outside to where our parents and Angus Baldwin were waiting with our birds and suitcases. By that time it was quite dark outside. The street was beginning to empty out, and shops were starting to close.
"How'd it go?" asked Mom.
"It was amazing!" I said. "I've never seen anything like it before."
"Well, I think we'd best get going," said Baldwin's friend Derek. "It's getting late."
"Sure was good to see you, Spaz," said Guy.
I stuck my tongue out at the familiar nickname. "It was good to see you too until you said that," I teased, and then we parted ways. I guess they must have gotten into Fluorescent Boulevard a different way than we did.
The walk home was rather uncomfortable, even though the suitcase I was dragging wasn't heavy. I was wondering what we would say to anyone who chanced to walk by and see us with a cage with an owl in it. I think Mom was worrying about the same thing, for she kept hushing the owl every time he (I had been told that it was a he) stirred or flapped a little.
We were lucky, though, and didn't run into anyone hardly at all.
Baldwin said his goodbyes when we at last reached the apartment. He told me he hoped he'd see me at Weston's and that he would take care of the reply letter. We thanked him for all the trouble he'd gone to, and he beamed and said that the pleasure was all his. Then he vanished with a quiet popping sound, and the streetlights nearby flickered.
We went inside and put all my stuff down, and I discovered that I still had a bit of wizard money left over. It amounted to five Galleons' worth in Sickles and Knuts.
"Well, I don't really have any use for wizard money," said Mom when I told her about it. "I imagine you will, though. Just hold onto it."
I didn't sleep very well that night. How could I, when my room was cluttered with wizard supplies and my new owl was rustling quietly in his cage by my bed? What kind of adventures were waiting for me at Weston's Academy of Magic?
*This is obviously a very non-standard wand-buying procedure here, for reasons that I will soon make clear. Kindly remember also that this is NOT Ollivander's. This is among the best of American wandmaker's, but as much as it hurts my patriotic pride to say this, there is no one on a level with Ollivander, except maybe Gregorovitch.
Now about the money: Each student in this program at Weston's has been given a hundred and twenty Galleons to spend on supplies other than wands and textbooks. Both the wands and the textbooks are completely unique to the program, again for reasons that will become clear later.
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