When they stepped into the dim shop Minerva sat down on one of the chairs against the wall, while the boys stood in front of the counter.

"Ah, new students for Hogwarts," A man said calmly coming out from behind a shelf, "And young Minerva McGonagall, 12 inches oak and pheonix feather, very pliable. A rather inspired creation of mine."

"Yes sir, but I'm just escorting these new first years in," Minerva said with a smile as she touched the right pocket in her skirt.

"Yes, we need our wands," Severus told the man almost bouncing in anticipation.

"Right, well which are your wand arms?" The man asked pulling out three tape measures.

"Right," Harry told him, Severus was right handed as well but Tom was left handed. Ollivander watched for a moment while the tapes took measures of the three boys before steeping back behind the shelves and started pulling boxes down.

"Let's start then," Ollivander told them handing them each a wand. Ollivander snatched the one Harry was holding away quickly, and the one Tom was holding as well. But told Severus that the one he was holding was the right one. Thus Severus got a ten and a half inch Hawthorn and Dragon heartstring wand.

Tom tried three more times before he got a thirteen and a half inch yew wand with a phoenix feather which Ollivander said was right for him. It took an entire hour before Ollivander pulled down an eleven inch holly and phoenix feather wand for Harry and told him I was right.

"Interesting," Ollivander commented as he rang up their wands.

"What's interesting?" Harry asked pulling the pouch of money from his pocket.

"Your wand and Mr. Riddle's are brothers. The feather in their cores came from the very same phoenix, which is very strange. It's truthfully a good thing you two are friends, because your wands could never be forced to fight each other." Ollivander told them sounding quite calm.

"Oh, that's really strange. How often does that happen?" Minerva asked from her seat against the wall where she had been forgotten.

"I think there are three instances in which there have been brother wands used by two different wizards in the same generation. In two of them the two users were connected by magic of some kind, and a very strange effect was caused called priori incantantum." Ollivander explained, "That will be six galleons each, a total of 18 galleons or all three."

"What's priori incantantum?" Harry asked counting out 18 galleons from his pouch.

"A phenomenon in which two wands are forced to spit back the last spells they cast, in reverse order. That's it then boys, I hope I won't be seeing you any time soon," Ollivander told them as he took the coins from Harry.

"Good-bye, sir," Harry told the man as they left burdened by their new wands.

"You all have your wands, is there anything else you need?" Minerva asked as they left the shop.

"Just our school books," Harry told her pulling his wand out of its box and examining it. It was the same as the one on the table had been, except the one on the table had scratches, nicks, and fingerprints coating the polished wood. This one was band new, with only Harry's fingerprints from holding it a moment ago marring the surface.

"Oh, well the transfiguration book they assign is useless, you should get the Standard Books of Spells Grade 1 as well. It's much more useful," Minerva told them starting off towards Flourish and Blotts.

"Oh what's the text book?" Severus asked sounding confused.

"It's Transfiguration for Beginners," Minerva said sounding disgusted.

"Oh, I've never heard of it," Severus murmured looking confused. Obviously that wasn't the textbook where he came from.

"Consider yourself lucky then, it's horrible. Wait don't you live in a muggle orphanage?" Minerva asked suddenly clicking with the fact that he wasn't a muggleborn like she assumed.

"Yeah, but my mom was a pureblood witch. I'm not even sure how I ended up in the orphanage," Severus told the older girl calmly.

"Oh, well that makes both more and less sense," Minerva said briskly leading on towards the book store once more.

"Harry, do we have some extra money for books? I saw a very interesting book on the theory behind some potions that I would love to read," Severus asked with an innocent look on his face. Harry sighed and checked his pouch for money, and found they still had a good bit.

"Did something catch your eye as well Tom?" Harry asked glancing over at the taller boy.

"Well yes, there was a book on the rise of the dark arts during the tenth century which looked very interesting," Tom admitted sheepishly.

"We should have enough money for both of those, and that book I saw on dueling practices and rules," Harry informed them as they reached the shop.

"That's all beyond first year stuff," Minerva said sounding slightly in awe of the younger boys, "If you all always do that sort of stuff you could all be cut out for Ravenclaw."

"I'm not that smart," Harry said with a laugh, "In fact I failed every class all through elementary school."

"You did that on purpose though," Severus commented reasonably before he split off to find his potions book. Tom was already winding through shelves and piles of books in search for the illusive history of the dark arts section.

"You failed elementary school on purpose?" Minerva asked with an incredulous look on her face.

"It's a long story, but it was actually better for me to fail than get good grades. I studied so I could fail. It was a little pathetic really," Harry told the girl gathering up three sets of the required school books, and three sets of Minerva's suggested text. Then he went searching for his book while the pile of books almost as tall as he was made his back bend uncomfortably.

"Do you want me to help you carry some of those?" Minerva asked concerned when harry ran into one of the teetering piles of books (which didn't fall over, proving the held-up-by-magic theory).

"Yeah, just grab one or two off the top, I'll be fine," Harry told her allowing Minerva to skim a few books off the top of the pile.

"Are you sure you don't want me to take a few more?" Minerva asked as Harry attempted to grab the book he wanted off the shelf without dropping his pile of books. He failed. Epically.

"I guess that wouldn't hurt," Harry said grabbing the book off the shelf and starting to stack the books back up. Minerva took another three books, leaving her stack half the size of Harry's, which was still as high as his head.

"We should probably find your two friends," Minerva said calmly and harry found himself wondering if Minerva had even bothered to remember their names. Somehow it didn't seem like it.

"Yeah, then they can take some of these books. We already have a ton of stuff, but some of the store keepers shrunk our stuff, and told us it would all go back to normal when we take it out of the bags. You know, since we can't do magic," Harry told Minerva as they made their way slowly through the store looking for the other two boys. They were going slowly because Harry didn't want to drop something again.

"There you are!" Severus said turning a corner and almost knocking into Harry, "I got a little lost looking for you."

"That's alright. Everyone gets a little lost in here," Minerva informed the boy before handing him her entire stack of books and taking a number of books off Harry's pile.

"Really? I would think they'd make the store easier to navigate," Harry said calmly as the three continued on through the store in search of the History of the Dark Arts section, where they assumed they would find Tom.

And they were right in their assumption. Tom was browsing through the books, already holding a rather large tome called The Rise of the Dark Arts Volume 1: 900 A.D.-1000 A.D. Looks like there was more than one book that Tom would want.

"You finished?" Harry asked as they came up.

"Yeah," Tom said quietly. Minerva promptly gave Tom her stack of books and took some from both Severus and Harry, so the four of them were carrying piles of books which were roughly congruent in height (And actually manageable).

They quickly followed Minerva to the desk and paid for their books (or rather Harry paid for the books while Severus and Tom sat there looking bored and Minerva perused the latest edition of Transfiguration Weekly.

"Hey, why didn't you get any of your school things?" Severus asked Minerva as they were waiting for the man behind the desk to shrink all their books and put them in a bag.

"Oh, I'll get them later today, I just have to get my new books. I'm a third year after all," Minerva said sounding as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Now. I think you three should get pets And at least one of them should be an owl."

"What? Why would we get pets? Are we even allowed to have pets in the orphanage," Harry asked turning to Tom at the third question.

"Yes, but no one keeps one, not after what happened to that rabbit," Tom said with a very scary looking smile. The other three fought the urge to shiver. No one asked what happened to the rabbit.

"Well that's settled we'll get you pets from the Magical Menagerie. Although we might want to stop by Eelops Owl Emporium for an owl. They tend to have more variety in owls," Minerva told them taking the bag of shrunken books (despite the fact that none of them were for her).

"I'll get an owl, but I won't have anyone to write to," Severus said calmly as they made their way down the street. Which promptly confused the other two boys. What did writing have to do with owls?

"Oh, you can always write to me. You know if you ever have questions about the wizarding world, or transfiguration. I'm all thumbs with potions, but I'm the best in my year at transfiguration," Minerva told them puffing her chest out proudly at her skill in transfiguration. Harry found himself smiling over Minerva's attitude. She was the most carefree person he had ever met, and he loved it. He found himself hoping to be in Gryffindor, because then he could hang about with Minerva, and maybe some of the other kids would be a lot like her. Because the houses were based on personalities, right?

~*~

The Magical Menagerie was full of sounds. Any sound an animal makes you could hear it. Harry was even sure he heard a horse whiny, but that couldn't be right. The store was too small or that. Wasn't it?

It was full of smells too, the smell of the animals themselves (not entirely unpleasant, but earthy), and the smell of all the food which was everything from jars of live flies to bags of food that looked like dog food. Most of it wasn't dog food though, there weren't all that many dogs in the magical world.

"So what do you all think you want?" Minerva asked as the boys stepped into the shop their arms laden down with bags. This was the last stop before they went home after all.

"I don't know. I've never been allowed a pet before. My cousin had a parakeet, I don't think I want a bird, it was really annoying," harry told Minerva surveying the shop. There was a wall of cats, and another of Owls. There was an entire aisle full of rats, and somewhere further in they could hear some kind of birds twittering, and dogs were barking somewhere in the back.

"Then we should just look around for while. I'm sure you'll find something," Minerva said with a smile. With that the boys split off, with Minerva following Harry once more. Tom went off down the aisle with the rats and Severus went straight to the owls.

Harry looked around for a moment, then started towards the cats, they couldn't be all that bad. Maybe he'd even like one.

But then again, maybe not. As soon as Harry got close to the cats they all started yowling and hissing. Harry quickly backed away and headed deeper into the store. Minerva was laughing hysterically. Harry gave her a stern look, which was rather amusing due to the fact that Harry was about half her size, but for some reason it did manage to shut her up. Harry stopped in confusion.

"That was a really good stern look. Can you teach me?" Minerva asked eagerly, "no one takes me seriously."

"I don't know," Harry said completely dumbfounded. But he got over it and started back into the store. They passed the rats, but Harry knew he didn't want one of those. Aunt Petunia had been quite strict about rats and mice, she had detested the creatures. It was somehow in his mind that they were dirty, and thieves. Hence, he skipped the rats; the mice and gerbils as well, although the hot pink gerbil did catch Harry's eye for a moment.

After passing the rodents (including some rather interesting white rabbits which were pulling themselves from hats) they came across the snakes. Harry paused, was someone talking? No, there wasn't anybody else nearby, but he could have sworn he heard someone mumbling. No, there it was again, mumbling.

"Stupid people, wouldn't know impressive I it bit them. Bet they'll pass right by, everyone does. I've been here, what three months? How long have I been here?" The last bit was louder than the mumbling had been.

"Almost four months!" Another more feminine voice answered.

"Four? Already? No one has stopped this long before. People think we're dark, don't they?" The mumbler said, no longer mumbling, but holding a conversation with the feminine voice.

"They think we're dark, but what's dark? We're no more dark than they are. Just 'cause one snake's dark don't mean we all are," Another voice answered.

"Shut up all of you! I think the boy understands us," An imperial voice commanded. The voices shut off completely.

"Hey, Minerva did you hear that?" Harry asked uneasily.

"Hear what?" Minerva asked looking uncomfortably at the snakes, they were Slytherin's symbol after all.

"The voices. There was a guy who was mumbling, and a girl, and a rather uneducated one, and one that sounded like a queen," Harry told her uneasily. If she hadn't heard them, who were they?

"No. You know what? I don't like snakes. I'm going to go find the other two, see what they found," Minerva said running away as fast as she could. Harry watched her for a moment until another he heard another voice. It sounded a lot like him.

"Hey, are you going to notice us?" The voice asked sounding very amused, "I've been here almost a year, of course I'll live to be around forty, so it's not that long, but I would rather like to get out of here if you know what I mean."

"Where are you, can I help you leave?" Harry asked looking around feeling a little foolish

"I'm right in front of, well now I'm not, turn to the left, no my left. There, now I'm right in front of you. Top row, it's a little tall for you, but I'm sure you'll be fine," The voice said sounding amused and a little exasperated at Harry. When Harry looked up at the top row (it was only a few inches above his eye level, it wasn't all that bad) he saw a red snake whose scales were edged with gold. It was interesting to say the least.

"You're a snake?" Harry asked looking at it more carefully.

"Of course he's a snake. What did you think you were going to find in the snake section?" A voice asked exasperated from somewhere below the red snake. It was the imperious voice from before. It was a very big snake.

"I don't know. But how come I can understand you?" Harry asked the huge snake on the lower shelf. She raised her head and flicked her tongue at the mesh above her.

"Why can we understand you? Because we're all speaking the same language. Parceltongue of course," The snake told Harry calmly, "I think the youngster above me is the one you want however. He's enough like you that –"

"Hey, the snakes are talking," Tom said barging down the row toting a very reluctant Minerva behind him.

~*~

Mwhahaha

Okay it's out of my system now. I was originally going to continue on this chapter until after they got their pets, but then Tom had to come barging into the conversation, so then I figured there was going to be lots of explaining and confusing and such, so it would wait for another chapter (on pain of death).

Thank you everyone who has been reading, especially those who send me reviews. I like reviews, even when they just say 'good chapter' or 'cute story' or something like that. I like the one that tell me why it's good or what's cute about it better, but just two words will make me so much happier. So in case anybody didn't get the hint...Review!!!

Yeah, that was all I really wanted to say...

~*~Elizabeth~*~