I don't own anything in this story, other than the prosthetic leg. That's patented and everything.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley!"

Fluttershy and Amanda stared around in unadulterated shock as the bricks slid away, revealing the main shopping centre for magical humans. The streets were packed with witches and wizards of all shapes and sizes, and some hags and vampires could be spotted intermingled in the crowds.

Towering above the street, and eerily reminiscent of the System's mindscape, stood gigantic buildings, with tens of signs littering the walls, some hanging dangerously above a few people. They could make out a bookshop, a place for potion ingredients, a pet shop, a broom shop, a place for robes, and a joke shop.

The System was flung into chaos. Everypony fought for the reins, hoping to go to that one shop they could relate to, until the prosthetic slipped on a stone in the road and they went tumbling towards the ground, landing splayed on their back.

Amanda helped them up, but not before berating them in a whisper. "Honestly, how many times have I told you to not fight? You could have hurt yourselves even more than you did!"

"Mum, we're fine," Rainbow Dash grumbled, having jumped in to take the force of the fall. "Just tripped over a rock, that's all."

Hagrid, completely oblivious to both the conflict and the fall, turned back towards the pair, pointing towards a great building that had just come into view. "Tha's Gringotts, run by Goblins and the mos' secure bank in England. Th' Potters have a vault in there, an' we need to get yeh some money."

"Pardon me, but did you say Goblins?"

Hagrid just waved a hand in response to Amanda's question as the others hurried to his side. "Goblins," he confirmed with a slight nod. "Yeh'd be mad to try an' rob it."

"Nex' up, Ollivander's," Hagrid told the System and Amanda, as the three turned off the path, and a decrepit-looking shop towered overhead. Still a little green in the face, the giant of a man shuddered. "Mind if I ge' me a li'l pick-me-up?" At the two shaking heads, he shuffled off for a brandy, leaving Amanda and her daughters to enter the shop.

The inside of the building was covered in dust, as though it was forbidden to clean in any way, shape or form. Twilight warily cast a detection spell, and stiffened when she noticed a presence directly behind her. Spinning on her glorified peg leg and willing up her magic, she came face to face with a misty-eyed, grey-haired old man, who seemed to harbour just a touch of senility on his person.

"Ah, I've been expecting you, Mr Potter. Impressive, to have noticed me at such a young age." The man nodded mysteriously, then continued, snagging a long, thin box from a shelf and twirling it round his fingers. "Your mother-"

"Yes?"

Ollivander whirled around at the feminine voice and blinked under the harsh glare from Amanda. "I beg your pardon, Ma'am, I admit that in my later years, I have regretfully become far less observant."

Amanda didn't relent her gaze, instead stepping menacingly towards the visibly sweating wandmaker. "I'm System's mother, and might I ask how you know his birth name?"

Ollivander tripped over his words, taking great care to use System's current name as the wands warned him of the hidden anger behind Amanda's voice. "I-I believe you understand System's past from Hagrid?"

Amanda nodded, and her eyes widened in understanding. "Of course, the scar! We'll need to get rid of that somehow if you want to have a proper education, otherwise you'll be swarmed by fans." She rolled her eyes at that, Dashie mirroring the action perfectly, and called over to her raven-haired daughter. "System, think you can make a glamour to cover it?"

Twilight slipped into control, and the milky-eyed wandmaker muttered something as the lightning bolt scar flickered, then returned in full force. Ollivander coughed lightly, then repeated himself for the others to hear. "That lightning bolt is a cursed scar. It cannot be covered by any but the strongest illusions. Although I am curious as to your power. A second ago your magic seemed to heavily favour agility, but now I am far less certain."

Dash shrugged, once again in front, and Ollivander's jaw fell ajar. He shook himself out of it, then plucked up another wand, muttering, "curious... Very curious..."

'Ooh, I know! Let's keep switching!'

Pinkie's prankster nature had surfaced once more, and even Fluttershy and Rarity embraced the idea with rather evil mental smiles.

Twenty minutes passed, the six switching around every time the wandmaker thought he had found the perfect wand. He began to grow more desperate as time went on, before he finally snapped at Dashie's fourth turn outside. "Oh, for Merlin's sake! You seem to be fine at wandless magic, I know when I'm not needed!" He wrenched up a blue box, then thrust it into the System's hands, Amanda giggling behind him. "That's a fake wand, pretend to use it so nobody will find out about your wandless magic as it will be very useful to you. Mahogany and unicorn hair, eleven inches if anyone asks, thanks for visiting and please never return!"

The System, their single parent and a gigantic man trotted down the street, Pinkie in the lead, humming a catchy tune as she skipped along. Hagrid jogged to catch up, shaking the ground slightly with each step, and he pointed towards what at first glance seemed to be a massive pair of scissors. "Tha's where we need to go nex', Madam Malkin's. Need yer robes, after all."

Rarity instantly took over, although only Amanda noticed the tiny differences in behaviour as she continued skipping, tripping ever so slightly on the fake leg.

"This place is simply marvellous!" Rarity exclaimed, weaving between sets of robes, taking great pains to avoid knocking the clothing racks strewn across the floor. Eventually a harried Madam Malkin managed to usher the hyperactive fashionista-at-heart towards the fitting area, where a pale blonde boy was already waiting to be fitted.

"Hogwarts too?" the boy questioned rather rudely, but Rarity remembered that he was just eleven years old, and gave him a little leeway.

"Why, of course," she replied, but the blonde stole back the conversation, raising an infuriating eyebrow in her direction.

"My father's next door buying my books, and my mother's down the street looking at wands," he told her, rather unnecessarily. "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 my father into getting me one, and I'll smuggle it into school somehow."

Nopony in the System liked this boy; he was rude, arrogant, a bully...

"Have you got your own broom?"

Rarity started as the boy actually let her speak. "Not yet, I'll have to wait until second year, obviously," she told him in a superior voice, and satisfaction came when the boy's face tinged with pink.

"Think you're better than me? Then what's your family name?"

Rarity raised an eyebrow, looking at him in the way that most would regard a chunk of dirt. "Baker, but I don't see how that could possibly matter."

The pointy-faced boy put on a smirk. "I'm a Malfoy, and we're powerful in the wizarding world. Watch yourself, mudblood, my father could get you kicked out of Hogwarts instantly."

Malkin bustled over, two sets of robes folded over an arm, and handed one to each person, before essentially shooing them away.

The next stop was the bookstore, and Twilight gleefully leapt into command, almost buying out the shop as she zoomed around, grabbing book after book in her magic. Hagrid, along with the store owners, seemed at a loss for words as she flipped through each book, before throwing each and every one onto the main pile, barring a select few, which she shoved back onto the shelves with far too much force, a look of disgust crossing her face.

Eventually Hagrid recovered enough to gibber, "I-is he... wandlessly an' silen'ly... How?"

The shopkeepers just shook their heads incredulously as Amanda tilted her head slightly. "Is this strange, then? This... strength of magic?"

The male shopkeeper, who had unconsciously picked his quill up and was now absently tapping the inky end on his face, silently shook his head, before clearing his throat. "Not so much the strength as the fact that he isn't using a wand or words. Only powerful witches and wizards can use weak magic without both, but to carry those books without either... It's almost unheard of! Those have to weigh more than six people!"

By this time, the tower of tomes scraped the ceiling, and Twilight blushed slightly, placing the pile on the counter and handing control to Fluttershy before she could empty the vault in a shopping frenzy. Thanking Merlin for his magic, the shopkeeper waved his wand and muttered something, before a blue mist shot out of his wand, reforming into a golden seventy-seven, a silver six, and a brown zero. "That comes to Seventy-seven Galleons and six Sickles. And might I suggest going just down the road to buy a trunk with a library inside?"

Nothing much happened for the rest of the day, and the System said goodbye to Hagrid, Pinkie doing the honours and actually speaking. It was kind of depressing, watching the last trace of magic vanish in front of them, but...

"We're going bowling for your birthday, girls, so get moving and I won't take no for an answer!"

They still had their mother.

Come to think of it, leaving their only family behind would be even more heart wrenching, come the school term.

For now, though, the System looked forward to the bowling trip soon to take place.

That's a wrap!

Sorry for my sporadic updates, but college is getting in the way of things, and my insomnia is apparently wearing off thanks to the workload.

I actually redid the Ollivander's scene completely after reading a review; same result with the fake wand, except with angry Ollivander instead of puzzled Ollivander.

Writing that scene reminded me of Discord's "For goodness' sake!" moment when he tried to brainwash Fluttershy. I thought it was fitting.

Next time, the System boards the Hogwarts Express!

Until then!