Diagon Alley

A small girl trailed after a tall brown haired man and a dark haired, olive skinned woman through London's busy streets. The girl kept her eyes fixed on the pavement and seemed rather tense. The woman stopped, turning around and held out her hand.

"Come on, we're almost there" she murmured comfortingly. The girl slowly took the woman's hand and they continued down the street. They passed book shops and music stores, pubs and restaurants, electronic stores, hamburger bars and cinemas.

Finally they stepped into a side street and stopped in front of a record shop. The adults looked at each other, nodded and the man opened a small back door wedged in between the record shop and the houses next to it. He slipped inside, the girl following with the woman bringing up the rear, closing the door behind her.

Sphotanna's head snapped up, golden eyes taking in everything around her. The Leaky cauldron was, as ever, packed. Witches and wizards from all over the country talking, laughing, drinking or smoking sat at the numerous tables. The noise was, for Sphotana's sensitive ears, deafening.

"Hey Pete, old buddy over here,"

A tall blond man stood up waving at the people by the door. They squeezed past tables and chairs to reach a group of adults crowded around a small table, littered with butterbeer bottles. Pete, Sphotana's father, was immediately hailed with another bottle, while some of his friends, having never seen her before, eyed Sphotanna, who was standing shyly behind her mother, both a little way apart from the rowdy group. Pete, noticing the strange glances, beckoned them over.

"Let me introduce my wife, Sara-lin."

He was interrupted by his blond friend who said: "No offence Sara-lin, but seriously Pete you've been married for over 11 years, now who's the pretty young lady?" he smiled at Sphotana, a twinkling in his eyes.

"This is Sphotanna, my adopted daughter." Pete explained.

"This is the tiny kid?"

"My, she has grown!"

exclamations came from all directions.

Most of Sphotanna's parents friends had seen her years before, but when they had moved almost all ties had pretty much fallen dead, she had been a constant danger to anyone she didn't know so most people had stayed away, only rarely meeting with Pete and Sara-lin at Diagon Alley when they came to get something.

"Yeah, this is the little kid who stared at you all like she wanted to murder you," Pete laughed.

Sphotanna's eyes, still cast downwards, widened at that titbit of information.

"And now she's all grown up and starting school!" Pete finished proudly.

"So your here to get her things?"

Sara-lin nodded, then turned to her husband, "Pete, if you want, stay here for a while, Sphotanna and I will be fine on our own"

Pete looked up at his wife, then to his daughter "Alright, but we meet back here in 2 hours, I want to see my little Sphotanna get her wand," He ruffled the girls hair, "Oh and love; have you got the key?"

"Of course."

As they turned to leave Pete's tall friend, who had called them over in the first place stood up.

"I'll accompany you, I have to find my son anyway,"

He smiled down at Sphotanna,

" I'm Rick, Rick Burns, my son, Timothy is starting his third year at Hogwarts, Ravenclaw" he explained.

The girl, probably not even half his height, smiled, still not meeting his eyes, murmuring: "Hello Mr Burns, nice to meet you..." she trailed off.

Mr Burns laughed "Ricks fine, and hey, I'm no monster, you can look at me you know. And if it's about your eyes, I've seen them before and to be frank, demon eyes don't scare me, ok Firehead?"

Sphotana looked up, hurt at the term demon eyes flashing across her face, but seeing the sparkle in Ricks eyes the feeling turned to surprise; hardly anyone she had known in her short life had treated her like a normal person, let alone given her a nickname. She smiled up at Rick, 'demon eyes' glowing.

Sara-lin, having seen Sphotanna look so happily at Rick, smiled secretly.

"Ok Sphotanna come along, we've got a lot to do today."

She led the way, Rick ambling after them, to the small courtyard at the back, took out her wand and tapped it against some of the bricks above the dustbins. Sphotanna watched wide eyed as the bricks resorted themselves to form a wide archway.

Rick, seeing Sphotanna's face, chuckled "Never been to Diagon Alley before, huh?"

Sphotanna shook her head, still staring.

"Well this is only the beginning."

They stepped through the archway, which closed behind them, to a cobbled street where witches and wizards flocked around the numerous shops. Sphotana hissed quietly shrinking back slightly. But when Rick started walking through the crowd, smiling back at her, she hurried after him and her mother.

Sphotanna wished she was a spider. Spiders have 8 eyes and could look in many different directions at once if they wanted to. Sphotanna, having only 2 eyes could only turn her head as fast as possible to try to see everything around her.

They walked past bookshops, apothecaries, cafes and plenty of other shops selling things Sphotanna had no name for, eventually reaching a snow white building , that towered over the rest of the words 'Gringotts Wizarding Bank' were engraved and painted gold.

They passed through the bronze doors to find a new pair of doors, silver this time, flanked by a pair of goblins, whose eyes, although Sphotana didn't notice , widened when they saw her. They shot each other a covert glance then stared at the timid girl, who had stopped to read the words on the silver doors:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn,

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

Rick stood behind her and whispered in her ear: "Very welcoming, eh?"

She nodded then moved forward towards the doors, following her mother while the goblins bowed low. Suddenly she stopped, turned around and bowed back, then hurried after her mother and Rick, who were standing at one of the desks that lined the huge marble hall.

"Of course, sir. I will have you taken down to both vaults, in just a moment." A goblin was saying as Sphotanna joined them.

On the desk between them lay two small golden keys, one with a large letter 'B' in front of a candle flame on it, the other with a nightingale flying over a large 'N'.

The goblin snatched the keys up and passed them to a second goblin standing behind him, who beckoned for Sphotanna, Rick and Sara-lin to follow him. He led the way to one of the many doors around the edges of the hall, opened it and stepped back to allow them entry.

They stepped onto a small stone platform with railways leading away into the darkness. The goblin whistled and a small cart came speeding out of the gloom, stopping abruptly in front of them. Sphotanna eyed the cart warily. That little thing would never hold so many people!

"Come on, Firehead. These carts can hold a lot more than 2 ½ people and a goblin."

'How did he know what to say to make her feel better?' Sphotanna thought as she climbed into the rickety cart which took off immediately, almost making Sphotanna fall off the back, but Sara-lin grabbed her hand and pulled her back up. Once seated properly Sphotanna stared around, they were currently hurling along a stone passage lined with archways with heavy metal doors set about two meters into the wall.

Suddenly the tracks went spinning into the air above a black lake that glittered seemingly miles below them, promising death to anyone who fell into its freezing depths.

Back into a tunnel, more doors, more tunnels, finally stopping in front of a door that had the number 485 in the stone above it. The goblin got out and unlocked the door with the key with the 'N' on it.

Sara-lin swept past the goblin into the vault motioning Sphotanna to follow. Inside there was a small pile of gold Galleons, the silver Sickles and bronze Knuts were stacked neatly next to it.

As Sara-lin scooped some of the money into her purse Sphotanna asked:

"Mum, why does your key have a nightingale on it? I thought our name was Nightlark, thats a different bird."

Sara-lin smiled, "It was the key of your father's great, great grandmother. Her maiden name was Nightingale and when she married, her Gringotts key was changed, but she wanted to keep the Nightingale. And now your farther gave it to me so I can get into the vault too."

Sphotanna nodded in understanding and followed her mother out of the vault, the door falling shut behind her. Rick was still waiting in the cart and once everyone had piled back in the cart set off to another vault which Rich went into and came back a moment later tucking a small bag into his robes.

They set off for a third time. A quarter of an hour later they were back in the marble hall, the two adults blinking in the bright light, Sphotanna looking around, drinking in every detail of the things around her, slit eyes already adjusted to the light.

Outside Gringotts they headed towards Madam Malkins Robes for all Occasions, the nearest shop, to get Sphotanna's new robes. Madam Malkin, a squat witch, came out from behind the counter as Rick vanished into the racks of multicoloured robes.

"Hogwarts, dear?" Sphotanna nodded shyly.

"Come with me, dear" she walked to the back of the shop and told Sphotanna to stand on a stool, reappearing with a long black robe in her hand. She slipped the robe over Sphotana's head and started taking measurements with comments such as "My you are small, aren't you" and "If I take a bit more off there..."

A short while later Madam Malkin came back around the counter with a large package under her arm. Sara-lin went to her while Sphotana examined the wonderful robes on display. There were robes in every size and shape to be found in the roomy shop. Stripped and dotted robes in every colour combination imaginable, tiny robes no bigger than Sphotannas hand, robes weighed down by tassels and beads, robes imprinted with spidery shapes and letters that held no meaning to Sphotanna, robes that seemed to be made of spider webs or appeared to be made up of pockets layered on top of each other. Sphotanna now found her black school robes rather boring.

Next they went to Flourish and Blotts where Book all shapes, sizes and colour about every imaginable and unimaginable topic covered the shelves and floor. Sphotanna and Rick browsed the many shelves as Sara-lin went to the counter and asked for the set books on the list that had come with Sphotanna's letter.

Rick also found his son Timothy reading a very large book whose title Sphotanna couldn't read. After talking with his son for a moment Rick joined them again just as they were leaving the shop.

They went into so many other different shops that morning that Sphotanna was totally confused by the time they stopped for an ice-cream at Florean Fortescues Ice-cream Parlour.

Finally they headed back to the Leaky Cauldron to get Pete and go get Sphotanna's wand. As they neared Ollivanders a couple of muggles by the look of them came out with a girl following them. She had very bushy brown hair and her nose was stuck in a book called 'The Standard Book of Spells'. Sphotanna remembered it being on the list of school books they had got earlier.

The family walked back towards the Leaky Cauldron whispering and pointing at things. Sphotanna watched them until they were out of sight and then followed her father in to the little shop, noticing that Rick wandered off towards Scribbulus Writing Equipment.

Inside Sphotanna looked around. All along the walls boxes were stacked up in disarray all labelled with strange signs. Mr. Ollivander stepped out from behind the counter.

"Ahh, good day."

He came and shook hands, first with Sphotanna's father saying: "Pete Nightlark, Spruce and unicorn hair, 12 inches, was it not?"

Pete nodded as Mr. Ollivander shook Sara-lins hand "Now I don't remember you...?"

"No, my wand came from my home country," she explained gently.

Mr. Ollivander nodded, then turned to Sphotanna and held out his hand. When she didn't react Sara-lin told her sternly

"Sphotanna don't be rude!"

Only then did Sphotanna shake Mr. Ollivanders hand and timidly look up into his silver eyes with her own gold ones.

"You are here to get a wand." It wasn't a question.

"You must know that no wands are exactly the same, we use three magical items as the core, dragon heartstrings, unicorn hairs and phoenix tail feathers. The wand chooses the wizard or in this case the witch, this has been evident to wand makers for a very long time. Now which is your wand arm?"

Sphotanna held out both arms silently, so her father hurried to explain.

"She is ambidextrous, does everything with both hands, whichever is more useful I think." Sphotanna lowered her head to the floor again.

"Well then hold out your arm, the right one first." Mr. Ollivander started measuring Sphotanna's arm switching from left to right a few times until finally the tape rolled itself up and slipped back into Ollivanders pocket.

He then took one of the boxes from the shelf and placed it on his desk.

"Willow and dragon heartstring, 11 ½ inches, very flexible, try it."

He said handing Sphotanna the wand. But just as her fingers closed around the wood Mr. Ollivander pulled it back, putting it carefully back into its box and laid it aside, taking a new box. This happened time and time again: Mr. Ollivander getting out new wands, then taking them back almost immediately.

As the shelves emptied, Sphotanna noticed that Mr. Ollivander didn't seem to get impatient. He still seemed as happy as when they had first entered the shop, he only seemed a little thoughtful as he flitted around his shop.

"I wonder..." he muttered as he paused behind the counter, still littered with boxes. He glanced at Sphotanna to find her staring at him, golden eyes slightly worried, wondering if she would get a wand at all.

Mr. Ollivander continued muttering about silly experiments as he pulled a box from one of the draws of his desk. This box was different from the rest, all the others had been black or some other dark colour, but this one was white.

Mr. Ollivander took the wand out and stared at it for a long moment then sidled around the desk and handed it to Sphotanna without a word. Something pricked at Sphotanna's fingers causing her to almost drop it in surprise.

She gritted her teeth and gripped the wand fiercely trying to ignore the pain making her whole arm sting. Still gripping the wand tightly she flicked it just a fraction.

The reaction was immediate; grey and black sparks erupted out of the tip clustering together to form the shape of a minute grey wolf and black dog both with burning gold eyes staring at Sphotanna until they fizzled out of existence.

Sphotanna looked at the others who were all smiling. Had they seen it? Mr. Ollivander took the wand and placed it tenderly back into the box saying as he did so: "Apple and phoenix feather, 10 ¼ inches, a fine wand" he gave the box to Sphotanna's mother, while her father paid 7 gold Galleons.

They left the shop and headed for the Leaky Cauldron. They were just outside the pub when Rick called them back. He clasped hands with Pete, shook hands with Sara-lin and finally turned to Sphotanna.

He pulled a small brown package out of his robes and handed it to her with a wink,

"So you'll remember me when you're at Hogwarts, ok Firehead"

He waved once more and went back to his family who were waiting by the fireplace.

Back at home Sphotanna lay on her bed staring at the ceiling, the wolf and the dog still hovering before her mind's eye.

For Sphotana the nights that followed would be full of dogs and wolves with burning eyes.

Comments, critiques, suggestions? I'd love to hear from you guys reading this

Till next time, Icefire