The street that made up Diagon Alley bustled with activity. The four women moved slowly down the street, not only out of concern for Catalina and Ophelia's health, but also because the two women seemed mesmerized by all that caught their gazes. Women, men, and children hurried down the street and in and out of different stores. Just as the women were staring at the people, the same people were staring at them. Catalina smiled a bit realizing she and Ophelia were the only people there in jeans and sweaters. Everyone else seemed to be dressed in some form of robes much like Minerva and Poppy.
Minerva chuckled at the look of awe on the Barron's faces. "Come, our first stop is Gringott's. I must warn you, Gringott's is run by Goblins. They will not be anything you've ever come across before. Best to just let us do the talking unless they ask you a specific question."
"Are they a danger to us?" Catalina asked faintly.
"Goblins! As in real live Goblins?" Ophelia's mouth had dropped open.
"In our world dear many of the creatures you've only seen in fairy tales are real." Poppy comforted.
"They won't harm you as long as you don't try to take anything or break any rules." Minerva assured the blonde Muggle.
The instructions from Minerva to let the witches speak for them were easier than Catalina thought would be possible; easier because once she and her daughter got into the bank and got their first look at the Goblins they'd been beyond speechless. She'd wordlessly handed over all of their money when the Goblin had asked for it, and would later find that the exchange rate actually benefited them. But at that moment they weren't worried about any kind of exchange rates. The Goblin at the counter stared at them just as much as they stared at him, then proceeded to give them a key, and gesture to a smaller Goblin to take them to their vault. They rode the small cart down to their new bank vault and after putting what Minerva thought they wouldn't need into the vault, the Goblin helped them set up passwords and signatures so that only one of the three Barron women could enter.
&
Lyssy moved silently as the men flanked her. The blonde man, Professor Malfoy walked behind her. They'd done something with the strange clothing they wore, and now it appeared as if they were dressed in normal clothing just as she was. As much as she was trying to show bravery, fear still clouded her every thought. She'd seen herself in the reflection of a window, and certainly didn't look as she had, but what if her father, or one of her father's men somehow recognized her? She wondered what other people were thinking about the young girl moving along with three older men.
"As I understand it you'll be entering the school as a sixth year student?" Lucius finally directed to the girl as he continued to notice her hands clenching and unclenching with anxiety. "That would make you what, sixteen?"
"Yeah. I turned sixteen two months ago, April fifth." she murmured, slightly surprised it was that man who'd spoken. She'd figured it would be Professor Lupin since he was the only one who seemed any kind of friendly.
"I myself have a son entering into his seventh year." He informed her.
Snape lifted an eyebrow. Intriguing, as much as he'd assured Minerva Malfoy was fighting his prejudices Snape hadn't considered that Malfoy would actually begin a conversation with the Muggleborn. He supposed he shouldn't be too surprised, Lucius hadn't seemed too concerned when Draco had begun a friendship with Potter, Granger, and the Weasleys, and Granger herself was Muggleborn.
"You get a lot of kids coming in whose parents aren't witches are whatever?" she asked curiously.
"More now than once we did." Remus told her. Lyssy turned inquisitive eyes to him. "Our world, yours now, was at war until recently. Once upon a time Muggleborn were quite frowned upon by some of the older families…"
Lyssy snorted. "I'll bet they still are." She murmured and stunned them all. "Oh come on," she said derisively to their silence. "People who think they're better than someone else because of their blood, skin color, or religions…that doesn't just go away because a war is won. I mean, look at the Nazis. Hitler's dead, World War II is over, but you still have psycho butt-ream neo-Nazis out there trying to kill people for being different. Pathetic." She snorted again, and came to a stop in front of a dingy hotel. "This is it."
"This is where you were staying?" Lucius frowned as if he'd bitten into something disgusting.
"Yep." She nodded. "We changed hotels every two days. We can't stay at the nicer places because they'd report back to my Father. They didn't check ID here, and they took cash." Sighing she entered the building. The men followed.
Snape looked around. "I don't even think I've seen this much dirt in Sprout's gardens."
Lyssy turned fiery eyes on the man. "We did what we had to do. Mama, she did what she had to do to protect us." she hissed.
"We're just appalled that you ladies had to go through this." Remus told her quietly and calmly.
"This?" she laughed derisively. "This is nothing. This is Heaven compared to what we went through before getting here. Let's just get our stuff and go, okay?" Her shoulders slumped.
Sharing a brief glance, the three men followed the girl up the stairs to their room. The hotel rooms were not any better than the lobby of the dirty little hovel that was presenting itself as a hotel, Lucius thought as he tried not to touch anything. It was apparent though that someone had taken the time to clean the room. He could still smell the disinfectant. "Well, at least it was cleaned." he muttered.
Lyssy was busy throwing things into a large green duffle bag, "Oh, Mama did that. We clean all the rooms first. Otherwise it's way gross." She moved onto the next duffle, this one black. "'Kay. I'm done." she announced. Her mouth popped open in astonishment when the blonde man pulled out a small stick, muttered a few words, and the two large duffle bags shrunk into something that looked like she could have used it as a Barbie accessory. She picked them up and stuffed them in her pocket, wincing only slightly. "That was massively cool! Am I gonna learn how to do that?"
"Just one of the many things you'll learn." Remus told her with a chuckle. "Of course most children start when they're eleven…"
"Well, I'm pretty smart, so maybe I could take like some summer classes or something, and catch up a little bit?"
Lucius looked at the girl in a calculating way. It actually wasn't such a bad idea. "We shall see." he told her. "Now we should head for Diagon Alley. I'm sure there are several places you shall need to visit before we make our way to Hogwarts." Personally, he couldn't wait to be out of Muggle London. He was trying, but being surrounded by them annoyed him to no end.
She shrugged. "Yeah, fine, whatever." The four made their way downstairs and only stopped at the sound of Lyssy's hiss.
All three men looked to find the girl focusing all of her attention on two men standing just inside the entry. Then her eyes darted to the man talking to the front desk clerk. As she moved to take a step back Snape stopped her by grabbing her arm. "Do not give reason for them to pay you any attention." He murmured. She nodded, barely moving her head.
Remus continued walking, and as they drew closer they could see that the man speaking to the clerk was the same man who'd been rabidly looking for the women the night before. He was a large man, standing taller than Severus by an inch or two. He was a large man, with a thick musculature that showed he spent a lot of time in the gym. The man's hands were huge. He had dark brown hair, dark eyes, and anger was easily controlling him currently. Obviously the clerk was not telling the man what he wanted to hear because the man had the front of the clerk's shirt in his grip. "If you don't fucking tell me which room my wife's in I will make this a very bad day for you." He growled.
The clerk was paling considerably. "B-b-but sir. I don't know who you're speaking of?" he squeaked.
The men standing near the door looked amused. One of the men was as tall as Lyssy's father with short blonde hair, the other stood six inches shorter and kept his dark hair in a military style buzz cut. The taller of the men was wiry while the shorter man was built like a compact brick wall; wide and thick. The blonde man moved forward. "These ladies would have been hard to miss friend." He spoke in a calm voice, and placed his hand on the angry man's shoulder. "They're very pretty girls. Two blondes and a brunette?"
Lyssy and her new professors watched as her father let go of the clerk. "I just want my wife." he muttered darkly.
The blonde man reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out cash. He subtly slipped it across the desk and the clerk palmed it quickly. "Oh, oh, them girls, well sorry, didn't know they was who you was talking about." The man smoothed his thinning hair nervously. "They was up in room sixteen."
"Was?" the blonde man asked.
Both Remus and Snape had ahold of Lyssy's arms now and were pulling her with them to the door. She was almost frozen with fear.
The clerk shrugged. "They haven't checked out yet, but I ain't seen em today. If it's the gentleman's wife, I guess I could give you the key…"
"Thank you." the blonde man smiled swiftly and slid another bill over the counter to show his gratitude. "Abraham, why don't we go and wait for our ladies in their room?"
"Cat better get her ass here." Abraham Barron was still muttering.
"And Ophelia had better be with her." the blonde agreed. He snapped at the man still standing between the door and the four heading right for it. "Jesse, let's go wait upstairs that way they don't suspect anything. We want to give them a nice surprise, don't we?"
Buzz cut, or Jesse, grinned, and headed to join his friends walking right past Lyssy. As he went he grinned at her in a flirtatious manner. "How you doin' beautiful?"
He didn't recognize her, Lyssy realized. She was perfectly safe, because none of them, not even her own father, recognized her. She couldn't help but smile widely.
The foursome made it outside, and Lyssy gulped in air in relief. Then she turned her attention to the men. "You really didn't know who he was did you? None of them? You didn't recognize any of them?" The fact astonished her. Back home they couldn't go anywhere without the men being sought after for different reasons.
Lucius sneered, "Why should we recognize Muggles?"
"It just totally blows my mind." she murmured. "Dude, he was pissed off too. I thought he was gonna chuck that clerk through the wall or something. And then Dickhead Simon started yakking and bribing people. Actin' as if Lia would give him the time of day if she had a choice in the matter." the girl was rambling now as they walked down the street. "As if. Then Jesse 'Brickhouse' Marquez comin' onto me…I actually thought he was gonna give me a line or something. Can you imagine?…"
The four turned a corner into an alley, and the men nodded to each other before Snape finally tugged Lyssy close to him, cutting off her speech, and apparated.
&
Catalina was getting tired but she knew she didn't have the luxury of giving into that feeling. She knew it was because she felt overwhelmed. She was fairly certain she was either still sleeping, of suffering from severe delusions. She was also terrified that Abraham would meet up with Lyssy and the three men and something would happen to her little girl. Now she and Ophelia followed Minerva and Poppy as they headed back to the brick archway to meet up with the others. When they turned the corner it was to find the men waiting as Lyssy leaned against the wall with her hands on her knees and her head ducked down.
Catalina ran. "Baby! Are you okay? What happened? Did someone hurt you?"
Lyssy looked up. "I'm okay Mama. We just teleported and it was the coolest thing ever, well, except for it made my stomach a little sick, but it was still way cool."
"Teleported?" she looked at them blankly.
"Walking was becoming…aggravating." the blonde man spoke disdainfully.
"Your daughter seems to have no problems communicating." Snape added with a scowl.
Catalina smiled then, and it transformed her pinched, nervous face into a thing of beauty. She looked just barely older than her daughters. "Lyssy had never had any problems with communicating. Neither of my girls do. At least not with me." She finished and her smile turned a bit sad. "You didn't run into anyone?" Ophelia and the others had now joined them.
"Oh, Father was there, threatening the clerk, and then Simon bribed the guy."
"Simon's here?" Ophelia whispered and her skin paled.
"Jesse too." Lyssy turned to her sister and grasped her hands. "Don't you worry Lia, they didn't even recognize me, and we'll never have to see them again."
"I think it's time we got on with our shopping." Minerva broke in, trying to change the subject to something more pleasant.