A/N: I've had a highly positive response to the first part of Harry the Curious. Thank you to the nine people who set it as a favorite or put it on story alert. Because I have the next part already written, I'm putting it up now... and here it is! Merely a day after finding out that he's a wizard, Harry visits Diagon Alley to collect his school supplies. Of course, he retains his curiosity. This starts partway through chapter five. Once again, point of divergence is in bold.

"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

"Brooms fly, right?" Harry asked, wondering if that bit of folklore was correct.

"Of course they do," the blonde boy drawled. "You're a muggleborn, aren't you?"

"Not really," Harry said. "My parents were killed by Vold – er, You-Know-Who, so I was raised by my muggle relatives. But my real parents were a witch and wizard."

"I see," said the boy, raising an eyebrow. "What's your name, anyway?"

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said casually. "How about you?"

But the other boy had fallen silent. "Are you really?" he asked, seeming to be somewhat short of breath."

Harry rolled his eyes. "No, I'm the Minister of Magic. Yes, of course I'm Harry Potter! Trust me to know my own name."

The other boy struggled to hold in a chuckle. "Well, it's good to meet you, Potter. I'm Malfoy – Draco Malfoy. Since you were raised by muggles, you probably need a quick run-down on the world, don't you?"

Harry was somewhat surprised by Draco's abrupt change of subject, but then again, it was always good to learn more, especially about the world he would be spending the rest of his life in. "sure, that would be great!" he said.

Draco smiled, though it bore more than a passing resemblance to a sneer. Harry got the impression that the blonde didn't smile often. "Well, first of all, you need to understand the difference between purebloods, halfbloods, and muggleborns," he began. "Purebloods are wizards with no muggle blood, or at least not for a long ways back. Technically you're pureblood if your ancestors are wizards for two generations back; parents and grandparents; but most purebloods have much finer ancestry that that. The Malfoy family, for example, goes back almost 700 years, wizards all."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "If your family is that old, you must be pretty rich, right?"

Draco grinned, a genuine smile. "Oh yes. Almost as rich as yours, Potter."

Harry wondered idly how much money was actually in his vault. "I think I can guess about muggleborns; they'd be wizards born to muggle parents."

"Of course," Draco agreed. "And then halfbloods are in between; you're a halfblood, because your mother's parents were muggles. If you marry a pureblood witch, though, your children would be purebloods again. Though most of us would still look down on them, because they do have muggle blood."

Harry thought about this for a moment. "Let me guess," he said dryly. "If you know how closely related to a muggle you are, you're too closely related?"

Draco actually laughed at this. Like the first smile, it seemed as though he rarely did it, but as though he really needed to. "An apt description! Yes, that's about it."

But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the Draco.

"See you," Harry waved, and went to go find Hagrid.

They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.

A/N: Again, back to the text.