Chapter 2
Diagon Alley
"You sure this is the place?"
Orihime pulled out a piece of parchment and studied it for a moment before turning to her orange-headed companion and giving him a confident nod. "Uh huh! It says 'the Leaky Cauldron' right here!" She held the letter Dumbledore had sent the week following his invitation for them to attend his wizard school up so her friend could see for himself. Enclosed had been what looked like standard acceptance letters, book and supply lists, two plane tickets scheduled for the 22nd of August, reservations for a week and a half at the Leaky Cauldron plus a map with directions from the airport, and two train tickets for the 1st of September.
Ichigo glanced at the paper, then over to the sign on the slightly run-down building in front of them. The words read the same. He drew in a breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Then I guess we should go in," he said with little enthusiasm. He started forward and held the wooden door open for the girl, who thanked him with a bright smile as she stepped inside.
They were immediately greeted by the smell of ale and the noisy chatter of the many people crowding around the bar, tables, and corners of the pub. Nearly everyone was wearing robes similar to those Dumbledore had worn. Now certain they had the right place, the two made their way over to the first employee they could find.
"Uh… excuse me." Ichigo began in English. He had studied relentlessly over the past few weeks with Orihime's help. She had always been better at the language than him, but seeing as she was one of the highest ranked students in their year, that was true of most subjects.
The old man at the counter turned to the teenagers, took one look at their hair and attire, and his mouth split into a toothless grin. "Ah, Dumbledore told me you two were coming. Your rooms are all ready, so follow me." He led them up a wooden staircase and down a hall to a door with a brass number fourteen on it. "This'll be the young lady's room." He opened the door and let Orihime in to place her luggage next to the bed before handing her the key. "And this'll be the young man's," he said, crossing the hall and indicating the room opposite Orihime's.
One of Ichigo's eyebrows twitched slightly at the sight of the brass fifteen adorning his door, but he chose to ignore the coincidence and took the key from the employee as he unceremoniously dropped his own bag on the middle of his bed.
With that, the old man said, "Just call me if you need anything. Name's Tom." And he started back down the hall to the pub.
Orihime called her thanks after Tom and turned to Ichigo. "We should probably get some rest before we find our school supplies tomorrow," she said. "It's almost nine o'clock in the evening here, and we've had a very long day."
The shinigami substitute nodded, looking at his watch, which he had yet to set to the correct time zone. It was only about six A.M. in Japan. The nine hour difference was going to be brutal. "Right, and I've got a feeling we're gonna need as much energy as we can get trying to find our way around this place." He waved goodnight and disappeared into his room, leaving Orihime to do the same.
The auburn-haired girl yawned widely as she opened her suitcase and pulled out her nighttime necessities. She smiled tiredly but somehow as warmheartedly as ever as she carefully retrieved her brother's picture from the protective cloth she'd wrapped it in to prevent it from getting damaged during the flight and set it on the nightstand next to the bed.
"Well, we're here, Onii-chan!" Orihime told the image. "Kurosaki-kun and I are going to find our school supplies tomorrow. The papers Dumbledore-san sent us say that we can find everything in Diagon Alley, which is supposed to be close to where we're staying. It doesn't look it, though. The street we entered the Leaky Cauldron from looked like it was full of Muggle shops." She giggled to herself as she said the word she'd been taught meant 'non-magical people'. Over the break, she'd had fun not only brushing up on her English skills, but also scanning the letter from Dumbledore and picking up as much wizard lingo as she could. Her mouth turned up in a goofy smile as she remembered her best friend's reaction to her new vocabulary.
It had taking a lot of coaxing for Tatsuki to become accepting of Orihime's decision to leave Karakura Town for a school located somewhere in the United Kingdom. Not only did Orihime have to assure her that Ichigo was going to be there the entire time, but she also had to promise to write home once a week. The raven-haired martial arts champ had also dragged Ichigo off for a private conversation the first chance she'd gotten.
Orihime had tried asking what it had been about, but received little more than a pointed look from Tatsuki and a shrug from Ichigo before he'd changed the subject.
Now that she thought about it, Uryuu had also had a discussion with the shinigami substitute that had taken place out of the healer's earshot. She knew better than to ask about that particular exchange, as doing so would undoubtedly start an insult competition between her friends.
The girl sighed and was about to comment on the unconventional way the boys expressed their friendship, when a startled yell rang out from across the hall. Darting to Ichigo's door, Orihime knocked tentatively and pushed it open. She stuck her head in to see the orange-headed teen sitting on his bed as if he had fallen backwards in surprise. His eyes wide as saucers, he snapped his head around at the sound of the door's squeaking hinges.
"Th… the mirror talked!" was all he could manage.
"Of course I did," huffed the object in question. "Stroll around with hair like that and people are bound to comment."
Ichigo grit his teeth. Finally over the initial shock of finding an inanimate object that could speak, he was quickly becoming irritated with the subject it chose to speak of. "It's natural, so leave me alone," he ground back.
"Natural," the mirror scoffed. "How in the world could an orange that bright possibly be natural?"
"Look you-"
"Aw! Kurosaki-kun is so lucky!" Orihime said with a slight whine as she made her way to the basin that sat under the mirror. Holding the sides of the sink for support, she leaned forward until her nose was mere centimeters away from the glass and began looking the object up and down with intense curiosity. "I wish my mirror could talk!"
"It does, dear," the mirror said, its tone leading Ichigo to believe it was a bit taken-aback at the girl's reaction.
Orihime quickly straightened. "Really?!" Before the mirror could answer, she whipped around and sprinted past her friend, who narrowly avoided being run over, and back into room fourteen.
Hearing the door across the hall click shut, Ichigo sighed. His scowl lightened, and the corner of his mouth turned up a bit as he imagined the healer was already talking her own mirror's ear off (figuratively speaking). He vaguely wondered if he should go remind her that they needed to get some sleep tonight.
"Polar opposites, you two."
Scowl snapping back into place, Ichigo shot his mirror a glare.
"Oh don't give me that. At least her reaction was better than yours."
"Tch, whatever."
"Better hair, too."
"I'll break you…"
The next morning, Ichigo and Orihime ate a quick breakfast in the Leaky Cauldron before consulting Dumbledore's letter to learn where they should go from there. They found nothing on actually locating Diagon Alley, so Ichigo called Tom over for help.
"Shopping today? This way." The innkeeper took the two out into the backyard of the pub and straight up to a brick wall in front of a trash bin. "Just tap the third brick from the left with your wand three times." He did so with his own wand, and the wall sprang to life. The bricks receded to form a large archway to one of the most peculiar sights the Karakura teens had ever seen. Everywhere they looked, witches and wizards were bustling about doing their shopping, robes swishing around them as they ambled down the cobblestone street. Brightly colored signs adorned buildings with twisted roofs that in all likelihood were held up by magic alone.
Tom chuckled as his guests took in the sight. "You'll be wanting to stop at Gringotts first. Shops here only take wizard money. They'll exchange yours. Just head straight down the street. Big white building, you can't miss it."
"Thank you, Tom-san. We'll do that," Orihime said with a polite bow. Tom graced the teenagers with his toothless grin and returned the girl's bow. With that, he turned back to the Leaky Cauldron and the wall closed behind him.
Gringotts was just as easy to find as Tom had said it would be. It was a tall, snowy white building with burnished bronze doors. As Ichigo and Orihime approached the wizard bank, a tiny man with extremely long fingers and feet and wearing a scarlet and gold uniform bowed them inside, where they were faced with yet another set of doors, silver this time, with a warning (or threat) in the form of a poem engraved upon them.
Ichigo scowled. He was already certain this would be his least favorite stop of the day.
He strode past the pair of tiny men as they bowed and through the second set of doors with Orihime in tow. They found themselves standing in a large marble hall. There were about a hundred of the funny little men sitting behind a long counter scribbling in ledgers, examining coins and precious stones, and seeing to customers. The number of doors leading off the hall was too high to count. Thankfully, there were plenty of little men helping people find their ways through the monstrous building.
Stepping up to the nearest available employee, Ichigo pulled out a bundle of money and set it on the counter. "We were told we could exchange this for wizard money here."
The man glanced at the boy with disinterest, but picked up the bundle with his long fingers and counted it at an expert speed. He then opened his drawer and filled a small sack with coins, which he handed to Ichigo before placing the yen in the drawer and turning his attention to Orihime. After silently exchanging the girl's money, the little man raised a bushy eyebrow at Ichigo, as if to say, "Will that be all?"
Now thoroughly irritated by the man/dwarf/thing's lack of professional etiquette, Ichigo stiffly asked, "How do you count this stuff?"
The employee rolled his eyes in annoyance and stated robotically, "twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, seventeen Sickles to a Galleon." And, as if that settled the matter, he turned back to his ledger.
Welcoming the queue to leave, Ichigo led Orihime out of Gringotts and back into the busy street. His anger subsided slightly as he turned to his friend, who was examining her coins with the same level of curiosity as she had his mirror.
"Which do you think is which?" she inquired, holding out a hand with a gold, a silver, and a bronze coin sitting in her palm.
Ichigo scanned the money, and then answered, "The gold ones are probably worth the most."
Apparently satisfied with his logic, the healer nodded. "Then these little bronze ones are probably Knuts." She paused. "Do you think we'll have enough?"
That he couldn't answer. He'd saved nearly all of the money he'd earned from Unagiya, the odd jobs shop that had been crazy enough to hire a punk like him, and he knew that Orihime had done her best to save her paychecks from the bakery. Ichigo didn't have to worry about paying rent or buying groceries like his friend did, though. He knew she had a distant aunt who sent financial support based on the girl's grades, but with Orihime leaving for a school with no required tuition as well as free room and board, that help was no longer needed. There was no reason to continue to pay for an empty apartment, so Orihime had broken her lease and stayed with Tatsuki for the remainder of their summer break. She had to have been able to save at least a little more than usual, but was it enough for a whole year's worth of school supplies?
"Only one way to find out," Ichigo said as he nodded toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
The girl smiled again, and this time she led the way into the shop. A squat, smiling witch greeted them, ushering both to the back of the room. "Hogwarts, dears?" she asked as she stood the teenagers on stools and began pulling out a couple of long black robes to be hemmed.
"Yes, mam!" Orihime replied cheerfully.
Slipping the robes over their heads, Madam Malkin called another witch over to pin Ichigo's as she worked on Orihime's. "You're the transfer students, am I right? Dumbledore told me you'd be coming."
"He did?" Ichigo asked incredulously from his stool. "Why'd the old man do that?"
"Wanted to make sure you didn't get too lost trying to find your way around this place on your own, I suspect," the woman hummed. "Also sent an advance payment for your robes."
The Karakura teens stared at each other in disbelief. "He paid for them?" Ichigo wondered aloud.
"Said you were special scholarship students from Japan. All your supplies and books have been paid for by the school." Madam Malkin paused then and eyed the two questioningly. "You mean he didn't tell you?"
Orihime crinkled her nose in thought. "Dumbledore-san told us the school was free, but I don't recall him saying anything about buying our required materials for us."
"Well then, I'd say you two lucked out." The witch finished hemming Orihime's robes and stepped back to admire her work. "That's you done, dear."
"Thank you very much!" the healer cheered as she hopped off her stool and pulled the robe off. She handed it to Madam Malkin, who placed the cloth carefully in a shopping bag and returned it to the girl. "Would you be able to tell us where we can buy a wand?" she asked as Ichigo stepped down from his stool.
"You'll need to go to Ollivanders, only shop for wands around here." Escorting the teenagers to the door, the woman pointed in the direction of Gringotts. "It's the last one down the street. Old, shabby-looking place, but don't let the appearance deceive you. He's the best wand maker there is."
Thanking the kind witch one more time, the duo set off in the direction of Ollivanders. Orihime was nearly skipping with excitement. "Wands, Kurosaki-kun! We get our very own magic wands! I wonder what goes into making them. Do you think there's a standard wand for beginners? Oh!" She turned suddenly and began walking backwards as she continued with her new theory. "What if wands are like Zanpakuto, and they have names, and you can have conversations with them like you do with Zangetsu-san?"
Amused and actually finding her thought process believable for once, Ichigo tilted his head slightly in consideration. "Maybe," he said as he grabbed the girl's shoulders just in time to stop her from backing into a wizard balancing a tall stack of boxes marked 'Quality Quidditch Supplies'. "But I think it's a bit crowded here to be walking like that. You should probably turn around."
Orihime squeaked and immediately spun back to face forward as she felt her cheeks heat up.
Madam Malkin was right. Ollivanders was definitely the last place they'd think to look for quality magic wands, but as Ichigo and Orihime entered the shop with to the tinkling of the doorbell, they could see that little else inhabited the building. Rows and rows of thin black boxes lined the shelves from floor to ceiling. The only place to sit was a spindly chair near the door.
"Well, well, well…" came a soft voice from one of the aisles of shelves. "Miss Inoue and Mr. Kurosaki, if I'm not mistaken?"
An old man appeared to stand behind a small desk littered with papers and more boxes that stood in front of the shelves. He had wide, pale eyes that shone like moons despite the dimness of the shop.
"Yeah, that's us," replied Ichigo with a touch of edginess in his voice. "Dumbledore tell you we were coming, too?"
The man's eyes glimmered with fascination as he responded, "That he did. He also took care of the cost of your wands for you, so if you'll both follow me..." He beckoned them around the desk and into one of the aisles as he reached into a pocket of his robes and pulled out a long tape measure with silver markings. "Ladies first." He focused his misty gaze on Orihime. "Which is your wand arm?"
"Um… I'm right-handed, if that's what you mean," the girl said hesitantly.
"Hold out your arm."
She did so, and Ollivander began measuring her from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit, and round her head. "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance. We use unicorn hair, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. The wand chooses the wizard. You will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."
At this point, Orihime was so enthralled by the man's spiel that she was completely oblivious to the fact that the tape measure continued taking her measurements even after Ollivander had left her and was currently flitting through the shelves, pulling out various boxes as he went. Ichigo noticed, however, and was just about to point this out to the girl when he noticed the tape measure starting to take her bust size. He quickly looked away, clearing his throat and shooting a pointed glare at the wand maker.
"That will do," the man called to the tape measure, which flew to Ichigo and began measuring his right arm.
Ollivander opened one of the boxes he had retrieved and plucked the wand from the plush lining. "Right then, Miss Inoue. Try this one. Apple wood with phoenix tail feather, nine and a half inches, springy." He handed the wand to Orihime. "Go on and give it a wave."
The girl carefully took the wand and waved it in a wide arch over her head. Nothing happened, and Ollivander plucked it from her grip and placed it right back in the box. "No, no. I think not," he said, quickly handing her another. "Ivy and dragon heartstring, thirteen and a quarter inches, brittle. Try." But no sooner had Orihime's fingers touched the wand than it too was snatched and replaced by-
"Alder with unicorn tail hair, twelve inches, supple."
This time, the Orihime felt a warm sensation as she lifted the wand and waved it. Golden sparks shot from the end and rained down over her auburn head.
"Wonderful!" Ollivander exclaimed as he took the wand and examined it. "An excellent companion for protection charms and counter curses." He put the wand back in its box, wrapped it in brown paper, and handed it back to the girl who was now grinning from ear to ear in sheer delight. "Now then, Mr. Kurosaki, let's start you off with this. Reed with phoenix tail feather, eleven inches, wavy."
Ichigo raised the wand over his head as he'd watched his friend do, and found it immediately replaced by one of maple and dragon heartstring. He tried this, then another, and another. The pile of discarded boxes grew higher and higher as the seconds ticked by, with each attempt only appearing to make the old man happier than the last.
Finally, after a good ten minutes of trial and error, a streak of silvery blue exploded from the end of the wand in the boy's hand.
"Interesting choice," Ollivander said, more to the wand than to Ichigo. "Yew and phoenix tail feather, fifteen inches, pliable. A wand specializing in dark magic and necromancy."
The substitute shinigami traded a slightly awkward look with his friend before taking the newly wrapped package containing his wand from the man. "Right… so that's it then?"
"It is," the wand maker responded, his eyes shining as he bowed them from the shop.
Outside, Ichigo released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and sucked in a couple lung-fulls of fresh air. "Glad we only have to go through that once," he said. "Oi, Inoue. You hungry?"
"Uh-huh!" the girl sang happily. "I saw a yummy-looking ice cream shop back a little ways, before Madam Malkin's!"
The orange-headed boy sighed and scratched the back of his head. Usually, he'd try to push more suitable options for lunch, but he could really go for some chocolate ice cream right about then, so he simply smiled at the healer and said, "Lead the way."
Orihime laughed and guided her friend along the busy street to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. Setting their bags on one of the brightly colored tables in front of the shop, Ichigo agreed to wait while his friend ordered their icy treats.
"Kurosaki-kun like's chocolate, right?"
Surprised and wondering if he wasn't just a bit too predictable, the boy nodded and said, "Yeah, thanks." And he watched the girl disappear amongst the people milling around the entrance.
Ichigo took the moment to really get a feel for his surroundings for the first time that day. Across the street, a sign hanging above what looked like a bookstore read 'Flourish and Blotts'. That should probably be their next stop. To it's left, Quality Quidditch Supplies, harboring quite a large crowd, everyone pushing and shoving to see whatever it was that happened to be on display in the window. Scowling and averting his attention to his immediate left, Ichigo found the ice cream parlor to be adjacent to an Apothecary. He turned his head to see what kind of shop was on the other side of Florean Fortescue's, but found his view of the store's sign blocked by a mess of raven hair.
A young boy sat at a table just a few feet away from the shinigami substitute. He wore a pair of glasses, and his hair rivaled Ichigo's own orange locks in untidiness. Just visible through a gap in his bangs was a lightning-bolt shaped scar. The boy was scribbling away at a piece of parchment, pausing every now and then to nurse his sundae.
Feeling Ichigo's eyes on him, the boy looked up and cocked an eyebrow. "Can I help you?"
Caught, the orange-headed teen gave a tiny shrug and said, "Naw. Sorry, just curious. You a Hogwarts student?"
"Yeah… I am."
To Ichigo's surprise, the boy looked a bit taken aback. What, like it wasn't obvious?
The boy spoke again. "You're Muggle-born, aren't you?"
'Muggle-born'. Orihime had mentioned that word before. It meant a witch or wizard with Muggle parents. Ichigo didn't know how to respond to this question. As far as he knew, neither of his parents had ever run around brandishing wands. Of course, there was really no telling whether or not Kurosaki Isshin couldn't have if he'd wanted to. He was a master of kido, after all.
But, for the sake of easy conversation, Ichigo decided to forgo that information.
"Yeah. My friend and I are both Muggle-born. We're transfer students from Japan."
The boy stood then and extended a hand in greeting. "I'm Harry. Harry Potter."
"Ichigo Kurosaki," Ichigo responded, taking Harry's hand and giving it a firm shake.
No sooner had they made this exchange then a cheerful voice rang out, "Kurosaki-kun!" The boys turn to watch Orihime skip over, a chocolate cone in one hand and mint and strawberry in the other.
"Oi, Inoue," the shinigami substitute greeted, taking his ice cream as she presented it to him. "This is Harry. He's a student at Hogwarts."
"Really?" the girl said, eyes wide with interest. "It's nice to meet you, Harry-kun! I'm Orihime Inoue."
After shaking Orihime's hand, Harry collected his papers and ice cream and took a seat at the Karakura teens' table. "What year are you two transferring into? You look like you should be sixth years at the very least."
Ichigo nodded. "We should be, but the old man wants us to start at a more beginning level since we have a lot of catching up to do." He reached over to hand Orihime a napkin as she paused the assault on her icy treat and began hitting herself in the forehead, grumbling something about brain-freeze. "Slow down, Inoue. Anyway, I think we're being put with the third years."
"Seriously?" Harry blinked. "I'm a third year."
"And you're how old?"
"Thirteen. You?"
"Seventeen." Ichigo sighed. "And Inoue'll be seventeen next week."
Harry shrugged sympathetically. "I'm sure you won't have quite as many restrictions as the rest of us. You're of legal age now, too, so you'll be able to do magic out of school. They might even let you try to Apparate by the end of term."
Not knowing what the boy meant by 'Apparate' nor particularly interested in using magic once he got back to Karakura Town, Ichigo let the subject die. The three made small talk until they finished their ice creams. The friends discovered that Harry was also staying at the Leaky Cauldron, in room eleven, and agreed to meet for breakfast the next morning.
Waving goodbye to their new friend/classmate, Ichigo and Orihime made their way across the street to Flourish and Blotts to find the books and writing supplies they would need for their classes at Hogwarts.
The days that followed found the Karakura teens exploring every inch of Diagon Alley. In the mornings, they would chat with Harry over breakfast in the Leaky Cauldron, then the tree would head to the backyard, tap the third brick from the left above the trash bin, and wait for the archway to form. Harry often accompanied them to a few of his favorite shops, particularly Quality Quidditch Supplies. (Quidditch, they learned, was the favorite wizard sport, played on broomsticks hundreds of feet in the air.) Sooner or later, Orihime would spot something through the window of some hole-in-the-wall establishment and drag Ichigo in after her. This was usually when their raven-haired friend decided it was time to go work on his homework in front of Florean Fortescue's.
Friday night soon rolled around, only three more days of vacation, and Ichigo found himself answering a knock on his door to find a very bashful Orihime.
"What's up, Inoue?" he asked, concerned over her uncharacteristic shyness.
"Kurosaki-kun…" the girl began. "I was just wondering if you'd like to go somewhere… else tomorrow. I mean, we're here in London, but the only sightseeing we've done has been in Diagon Alley."
Ichigo listened intently, wondering where else his auburn-haired friend could be interested in visiting before they left for school.
"And, I was thinking… it'd be nice to see the Globe."
The shinigami substitute stared at the girl in his doorway.
"The Globe… Theater?"
"Yeah," Orihime answered, avoiding looking him in the eye. "You admire Shakespeare a lot, don't you?"
Ichigo gulped and nodded.
"So… tomorrow then?"
"Yeah."
The girl turned to leave then, but the boy caught her arm and held her in place.
"Thanks, Inoue."
And she smiled.
And Ichigo was left staring long after she had disappeared into her room and turned off the light that peeked out from under her door.
She never ceased to amaze him.
