Diagon Alley was nowhere near as busy as it was in Summer that year. James might've had time to enjoy a butterbeer at The Leaky Cauldron with Padfoot and Moony, but he hadn't had time to invite his friends. He had a few days to buy what he needed, and he wanted to buy them straight away.

The bell above the door of Broomstix tingled as he entered. He stamped the thin splatterings of snow off his boots and marched straight over to the young lad at the counter.

"Hello, welcome to Broomstix, where we sell the finest broomsticks in Diagon Alley. How may I help you?" the pimply boy droned without looking up from his quidditch magazine.

"That broomstick in the window- how much is it?" asked James.

"Ninety galleons."

"I'll buy that one, please."

The boy looked up. James stood waiting patiently while the boy gawped, shocked. "Er... er, Okay. Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. The Nimbus 2000 for me, please!" James stepped aside, gesturing for the boy to get the broom. The boy obliged, stumbling a little along the way. With careful craftsman's hands, he lifted the broom from its stand in the window. Outside, a group of wizards ogled James as he took the broom into his own hands.

"It's excellent."

"And it's ninety galleons."

James raised an eyebrow at the boy. He placed the hessian bag of gold on the counter as they boy disappeared into the cellar, presumably for wrappings. As soon as James was left alone, the door flung open again. The bell announced a sharp blast of cold from outside.

"Sorry, sorry!" whispered a tall, skinny man in jeans and a fleece. James smiled awkwardly at him. From the corner of his eye, he watched the man gawp blankly at the left wall, on which a handful of broomstick manuals were displayed. The man turned back around. James pretended to examine the manuals on the wall too.

"Excuse me? Do you work here?" asked the man. James looked back at him.

"No, I don't, sorry," he replied.

"Oh. Never mind, then." The man turned back to the manuals. He was clueless.

"But I'm sure I'd be able to help anyway?" offered James, taking a step towards him. The man nodded, examining the titles of the books.

"Yes, erm... well, I'm not sure what I'm looking for really, erm... I'm looking for a book on, um, flying."

"...flying?" echoed James.

"Yes. Tips and advice, that sort of thing."

James stared at the books, completely baffled as to whether such a book existed. He'd never heard of a wizard ever needing such a thing! Surely this man was off his rocker...

"Flying is... pretty instinctual once you've mastered the basics. Are you sure it's not your broom that's faulty?"

"Oh, no, it's not for me! It's for my daughter, she... she's not very good at flying. I, erm... I don't fly."

James nearly exploded into rapid-fire questions about how a wizard could live without flying. However, it didn't take him long to put two and two together and realise that no wizard could.

"You're a muggle?" he guessed. The man nodded, looking at the floor. Suddenly, the boy burst out from the cellar door with two brooms in his hand. He handed the one wrapped in paper to James.

"Here you are, Sir. Pleasure doing business with you."

He placed the other Nimbus 2000 in the window, in the place of the one James had bought.

"Old broom run out of petrol, has it?" the muggle man joked feebly. James laughed uncomfortably.

"No, just needed an update. It's for my son. It's his first quidditch game next week!" James grinned proudly. "My boy's the youngest seeker of the century!"

The man furrowed his eyebrows. "Gryffindor, is it?" he guessed.

"Er... yeah. How did you-"

"Good grief! Harry Potter's your boy!"

James was about to speak of his resentment towards anything that connoted his son's fame, when the man extended his hand.

"Robert Granger. Your son's been very kind to-"

"Hermione! That's your daughter? ...she's having trouble flying?" James recalled a memory from a year ago. Harry was in this very shop, prodding and inspecting all the broomsticks, fantasizing out loud about playing quidditch with his Hogwarts friends over summer. Apparently that wasn't going to happen with Hermione...

"I do feel a little useless sometimes. You know, when she writes. I can't teach her to fly. I certainly can't help her with homework...not that she needs much help." Mr Granger smiled inwardly to himself. "You know, when she was little, she used to watch a lot of films on the television. Er, muggle image-procession player. Er, for entertainment purposes. Anyway, sometimes, the films would get stuck on Hermione's favourite parts. We'd often end up watching a scene ten times before it moved on. We thought it was ever such a funny coincidence... we didn't realise it was her doing it all along." Mr Granger's nostalgic smile faded into a hopeless frown, as though trying to think back to where he left a lost possession.

"Growing up in the wizarding world... for a girl, I mean... I can't help her with that either. Is it different?" he asked.

"A bit," James said weakly. Mr Granger nodded, looking quite hurt.

"My wife's muggle-born," James told the man, who looked up at him with wide eyes. "I could get her to talk to Hermione, if you like. You know, about... about stuff. In our world."

James didn't want to pry, but surely growing up as a muggle was not that different. What was Hermione's mother doing that meant she couldn't talk to her daughter about such things?

"Thank you, that... that's very kind of you."

The two men left the shop and shook hands as a parting gesture in the snowy alley. James pointed to a shop further down which sold books on most wizarding subjects. Perhaps Mr Granger would be able to find his flying manual there, although he wouldn't need it. James told his new friend that Hermione would be more than welcome to visit the Potter's house in the holidays, where he and Harry would help her learn to fly.