Edited 4/8/15
Scotty and Gus had walked a short distance from Privet Drive, near the alley way that Gus had earlier seen the homeless man in. Though there was no sign of him around now. Scotty was now putting various things away into compartments of her cloak, Gus looked around for any sign of transportation, magical or muggle.
"So will we be walking to London or taking a cab or…"
Straightening her skirt and blazer out Scotty distractedly explained, "We'll be apparating." Looking up Scotty gave Gus what looked like a forced smile. "Now first time apparition can be very difficult on the body and you may feel a bit sick afterwards but it's nothing to worry about."
Gus blinked at Scotty for a moment, "What's apparition?"
"It's going from one place to another." She answered simply. Gus was getting annoyed with the woman, saying things she didn't know about and then explaining them as if they were commonsense.
"So teleporting."
Mulling over on the semi foreign word for a moment Scotty nodded in agreement, "In a muggle sense yes."
"Wicked." Gus said quietly. She had to admit that was a bit cool. Sometimes, only sometimes, she appreciated magic.
Scotty stuck her arm out in Gus's direction and readjusted her hold on her carpet bag, "Now hold onto my arm very tightly. Don't want to lose you along the way."
"Will I fall-"On the muggle street Gus's voice was cut off, but when appearing outside of the Leaky Cauldron in London with a crack it carried out into a shriek of surprise, "OFF!"
"Are you alright?" Besides a trembling Gus, Scotty stood as comfortably as she just had outside of Privet Drive.
Holding on to the damp brick wall Gus looked up at Scotty with a dangerous look, "Bloody hell, of course I'm not alright I was just-" though she couldn't continue her rampage as she began to gag, it took her a moment to recover, now more calmly she stated, "That's not what I expected."
"What did you expect?" Scotty asked.
"I don't know like 'Beam me up Scotty', not being pulled through a black hole," Was Gus's answer from her bent over position.
Scotty gave Gus a confused look, "What do you mean by a black hole?"
Standing up, Gus felt a bit of confidence spring through her, finally something that had the witch puzzled, "You know, what happens after a sun dies, it collapses in on itself and gravity begins to pull everything through it and rips everything apart."
Scotty considered the explanation given to her, "Never heard of it." She rose her eyebrows in a dismissive 'who would of thought' manner and pulled out a pocket mirror from her bag.
Gus stood shocked for a second, "I thought they made you all take astronomy at Hogwarts."
"Astrology not astronomy dear." Called Scotty from behind a small compact mirror that was floating in front of her, she was fixing her hair before she grabbed the item out of the air and snapped it closed.
Gus gave a scoff, "They teach you all that stuff about your star signs but not about what really happens in space?"
Scotty said in a no nonsense voice, "That is what happens in space, the stars help us to determine certain events." She then began a determined strut towards the front door of the Leaky Cauldron. Gus following behind Scotty as she lead the way, mumbled under their breaths:
"What barmy things are they teaching Harry?"
Currently Hagrid, Harry and Gus were sitting on a "muggle" train, Hagrid explained earlier that morning over breakfast of sausages that muggles were non-magical folk. They had no clue about the secret community of magical people living amongst them or they were not supposed to know about them. Occasionally though a few would be exposed to some magic.
Most of the "muggles" on the train kept looking over at the giant man and the two small children that occupied one end of the car, Gus had to admit that Hagrid was a sight that took some getting used to. Hagrid that morning had taken Harry and her away from the shack that their Uncle Vernon had rented in an attempt to hide from a barrage of owl delivered letters that were addressed to Harry. Though the letters continued to follow them as they road tripped across Southern England in an attempt to keep a grasp of normalcy. The shack on a remote island had been Uncle Vernon's last attempt to hide from the letters and who ever had been sending them. It turns out that Hagrid had been Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's last attempt to get into contact with Harry. And on 12:01 am on the day of Harry's eleventh birthday Hagrid had knocked down the door of the shack and changed the Potter's lives forever.
The whole concept that Hagrid had introduced into her and Harry's life was going to be something to get used to; they, or rather Harry was magic. Gus was in fact a member of the magical community known as a squib, or a person born into a wizarding family but hadn't been born with much or any magic in them. It explained why Gus had not received a letter from Hogwarts when she had turned 11 the previous year.
Another concept that was going to take some getting used to was the fact that their parents had not in fact been the drunks that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always made them about to be. Hagrid hadn't said much on the topic of their parents but with the way he spoke about them, and the offense he took when Harry had told them the story that he and Gus had been told their entire lives they apparently seemed to be good people.
Gus looked over at the giant, he was currently glaring at the other muggles on the train as they openly starred up at his enormous form. At first both Harry and her had been wary of the large man who had not only taken the shack's front door of its hinges, as well as given their cousin Dudley a pig's tail, but he had been genuinely happy to see both of them. After the Dursley's had retreated in terror to the upper story of the shack he had become very enjoyable company, letting a sunny disposition come through.
In a few hours she had become very comfortable with the pink umbrella wielding wizard. Hagrid always had a smile on his face, even with it hidden by his beard you could see the edges of his beard move and while he was rather loud in the small area it seemed that he was soft spoken, never truly raising his voice to the degree that Gus guessed he could. He had also been a great help for explaining the basics of magic for Harry and her, at first he had been angry at their Aunt and Uncle as they had hid the fact that they were a part of the magical community and "'ad the right to know about who they are".
Harry was bent over his school list at the moment; he had been reading it almost obsessively ever since they had sat themselves on the train, "Hagrid you really think we can find all of this in London?"
Hagrid's beard began to move and from what Gus could tell he had curled his mouth into a mischievous smile, "If you know where to look."
The looks that the pub goers had been giving Harry had been strange. The fact that to get to the place that Hagrid "knew where to look" he had to knock a password onto bricks had been strange. The people in cloaks and witches hats, the owls flying around, the randomly levitating items, the brooms for sale, the goblins running a bank, the fact that Harry and she had money (a lot of money in fact, even if it was wizard money) had all been strange. Though this took the cake for strange. A book was in a cage. A book with teeth, fur, eyes and a ferocious growl was locked in a cage, and was for sale, but not in a pet store.
It was underneath a sign that read 'used school books' where there were damaged copies of different levels of alchemy and transfiguration books as wells as copies from other disciplines. Leaning forward Gus locked eyes with the battered and furry book, so far all she heard was growls, it was probably just a joke. It had to be, no one in their right mind would make children study from a book that was going to attempt to maim you. She raised a finger and touched the edge of the cage. The vibrations from her light touch set the book off, it began to glide forward, opening and closing its mouth at such a ferocious rate that bits of torn up paper began to fly out of it.
Jumping back Gus, decided that it was probably best that she buy her books and leave, before she lost a limb in the book store. As she made her way further into the book shop, where the queue was she saw a man perusing a section of the store called 'pyromancy'. He had just opened a book and a fireball flew out and scorched his face, leaving him with black ash and smoking eyebrows. Not paying attention she kept on walking, bumping into a tall boy that was at the end of the queue.
"Sorry." Gus mumbled up at the boy, looking away to not see his expression. Gus assumed it would be one of annoyance.
"It's alright." The boy himself was carrying a pile of books, most had the word OWL on the spine of them.
As he turned back to shuffle forward a few feet in the queue as another customer moved up to the counter, Gus chanced her luck and asked "Do you like owls?" Gus's own purchase was a book about how to take care of owls. Hagrid had let her in on the surprise that he had for a Harry, a beautiful snow white owl. Maybe the boy would know about some more books she could get.
He looked back down at her, his brow furrowed "Wha'?"
Shuffling forward like the other shop patrons Gus swallowed nervously before she clarified, "Do you like owls? You have an awful lot of books on owls."
He laughed. "No, it's for my OWLS, they're a test you take in your fifth year." She gave him a look before taking a closer look at the book's spines, "Are you a first year?"
Gus readjusted her grip on the book in her arms, "No, but my brother is going to be."
Nodding the boy took another step forward in line, "What house is he hoping to be in?"
"House?" Gus remembered that Hagrid had told them that Hogwarts was supposed to be a giant castle, why would Harry have to be in a house?
"The school houses, you get sorted into them first year. They're like teams, there's Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, which is where I am, or Slytherin." He bit out the last house bitterly.
Gus was stumped; did Harry know any of this? "Oh, well I don't think he knows really."
He gave her another nod and then began in an understanding voice, "Ah, are your parent's muggles?"
"Like the people who aren't witches and wizards?"
"Yea'." He gave another nod.
"No, Hagrid said that our mum and dad went to Hogwarts." A look of confusion ran across his face.
"Ah, maybe my parents know them." He gave her a look that said 'well who are they?'.
"Lily and James Potter."
The stack of eight books fell from his arms the second she finished their last name.
"What!" He just stared at her, not even caring about his books.
Gus set her own pile of books down and bent to help grab a few of the boy's books that tumbled near her, "What's the matter with them?" From what Hagrid described of them her parent's seemed like nice people, but what had they done to deserve this sort of shock at being mentioned?
The boy had seemed to regain some of his wits as he took the books Gus had handed him, "Nothing, nothing, I just… I didn't know that they had a daughter is all. I thought it was just Harry."
Gus froze. It was just like those people in the pub, "How'd you know my brother's name?"
"Everyone does." She looked up at him sharply.
"Is that why all those people shook our hands at the pub?"
"You mean the leaky cauldron? Of course they'd shake your hands, your brother stopped you-know-who."
Gus looked at him skeptically, "You-know-who?" No she did not know who you-know-who was.
"You're holding up the line son!"
"Sorry, sorry." He muttered before moving forward a few feet.
"You-know-who?" Gus repeated.
"Ask anyone and they can tell you. Do you really not know?"
"Oi! Stop chatting and move the queue!" Another man called behind them angrily. The boy had moved forward a bit, awkwardly trying to keep from tripping over the piles of books that littered the floor and still keep looking at her.
"Son, are you gonna pay for those?" asked the man behind the till, finally distracting the boy from his disbelieving gaze at Gus. Which Gus was extremely happy for, she'd as Hagrid about this whole you-know-who business and how it related to Harry and her parents.
The boy walked out of the shop towards an older woman, who was now taking the lighter books from the stack that the boy had been holding earlier, "Yeah it was weird Mum! She said that she was his sister or something, that it'd be his first year at school."
His mother was looking down at a piece of parchment similar to the one Hagrid had given Harry the day before, "Well it was 10 years ago, he's probably at school age now." Her aloof tone seemed to say that her concentration was on the remaining items of the list rather than her son's strange experience.
She motioned for the boy to move in front of her, and she balanced the parchment on his back as she fumbled with the pocket of her robes, he turned his head so that he could glance at her from over his shoulder, "But did you know that they had a daughter?"
She had pulled a quill out her robes and began checking off random spaces of the parchment, "No clue."
"But shouldn't we have heard about her?" She stuffed the parchment and quill back into her robes before she took one of the stacks out of the boy's hands.
She began to walk off down the street, "Oliver dear, it was probably a girl fibbing to get a laugh. Let it drop, come on lets meet your father at QQS before he buys another Puddlemere jersey."
She hadn't even taken a step out of the book shop before Hagrid's booming voice called her attention over to the stack of used books she had been standing at earlier, he was standing next to the horrible animal-book thing, "Ah there you are Gus. You got Harry his present?"
She was momentarily distracted from the strange encounter with the boy and the whole you-know-who conversation; she smiled up at the giant, "Yeah I did, I got him a book on owls!"
He returned her smile with a grin of his own, his beard moving up, "That'll be great help with this little lovie!"
Gus hadn't even noticed the cage that he had been holding at first, she was more distracted by the animal-book's animated growling and jumps as it tried to reach a piece of Hagrid's jacked that had managed to get itself caught in its cage, "She's beautiful Hagrid!"
"Only the best for you two." Her smile grew at that. No one ever got Harry and her the best.
"Now let's go see how he's doing at Ollivander's."
As they walked along the busy street, Gus clutching onto the edge Hagrid's jacket to not get lost in the crowd, they hadn't noticed the book animal's cage that had been knocked down by Hagrid's departure. Screams erupted from the area as a flurry of scrap paper flew from where the book was scuttling around.