March 1070

The next day, I was expecting the shopping split to be me-Rowena-Eva, and Cuthbert-and-the-guards, or just Cuthbert and the guards getting time off. So did Cuthbert, by the looks of it. Except what it really ended up being was me-Rowena-Eva-Cuthbert and the guards getting time off, because Eva practically bullied her brother into coming along on the magical shopping trip.

Oh, I'm sorry, let me correct that to, "leaned on her beloved younger sister status."

So there the four of us were, Cuthbert seemingly relegated to porter, and after he arranged things with his guards to give them a day off in London, we all went off to the City of London.

Not London itself, no, though you can be forgiven for thinking that. See, apparently there's the City of London, the old, original Roman fort and settlement ringed by the London Wall, and then just London, which was everything beyond that. Not that there was much beyond the London Walls and the City of London, but it's important to make that distinction.

We were traveling in a one-two-one line, Rowena followed by the siblings followed by me. The streets weren't very busy and were rather wide besides, so we weren't cramped.

"What's this district we're going to called, anyway?" I asked.

"Diagon Alley," Rowena replied.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Nice. What, is there a Knockturn Alley and a Horizon Alley too?"

Rowena glanced back at me with furrowed brow. "Why would… oh. I see. No, there isn't. I'm not sure who originated the new name, but I know it's not the original one given by the Romans: it doesn't make sense in Latin. Initially, a group of… mystically inclined individuals came along with the Romans to found Londinium, and established the district. Then, when Londinium was abandoned, that district was abandoned as well. When it was reoccupied by the Saxons, the district was put back into use. I assume it was named Diagon Alley then, because it runs the length of a paved diagonal street."

"And everyone just decided to go with the pun, huh," I said.

"So it seems. Oh, uhm… Cuthbert, yes?"

"Are you asking for my name?" the teenager asked.

"Yes, sorry," Rowena said.

"That is my name, yes."

"Minor suggestion wards were placed at the various entrances of the Alley. As we approach, you might feel the desire to move away or take a different path. Just ignore it and keep walking with us."

"Is that something we'll have to worry about?" I asked.

"No, the wards are weak enough that even a minor amount of magic will let you resist them. Which… does Cuthbert have any?" she asked.

"I didn't sense any six months ago when I checked him," I said. "Though maybe something changed." I pulled off my right glove briefly, my hand and arm having almost healed at this point, and held it out to Cuthbert. "Give me your hand for a moment."

Cuthbert, somewhat grudgingly, turned to the side as he walked and awkwardly took my hand.

"No, nothing," I said, pulling my hand back and putting the glove back on.

"That is bizarre," Rowena said. "I could understand if the ages were reversed, but he– I'm sorry, you should have at least some potential."

"Why?" Cuthbert asked warily.

"Magic is typically inherited along bloodlines," Rowena explained. "It can skip generations and fade and vary in strength, but it's… well, essentially unheard of for someone with Eva's potential to just appear from an otherwise non-magical family."

"Are you suggesting my mother was unfaithful?" he asked. He didn't say it in a hostile tone, but there was definitely an edge of warning there.

Rowena blinked. "Oh, well– " She cut herself off as I shot her a very serious look. "No. It's just curious."

I was curious too, but I hadn't asked flat out like that precisely because of Cuthbert's reaction. Eva's talent was definitely weird, but it did happen, sometimes. I mean, between Thomas and me, I inherited Mom's magic and he didn't. I don't know whether that's because he was a vampire and the Hunger just ate it all when it woke up, or whether he just didn't get any in the first place, but it could happen.

But Cuthbert was a hundred percent human, from what I could tell. He should've had at least some potential, even just a minor spark, something. But he didn't.

It was weird.

The first sign I had that we were getting close was when Cuthbert started looking around and getting restless. A tight grip from Eva kept him with us though, and a few moments later we moved past the boundaries of whatever wards had been set up and he immediately refocused.

Diagon Alley looked, well, rustic. A disorganized mix of wood and stone buildings that framed both sides of a cobbled road maybe three hundred feet long at most, with every establishment brandishing a sign that was written in both Ye Olde English and Ye Older Latin. Two of the signs even had newer-looking addendums at the bottom in Ye Norman French. No one was out in the Alley right now besides us, which I took as a sign that this wasn't much of a recreational district.

"You're here to buy an owl?" Rowena asked.

"Among other things, yeah," I said.

"Then you want that building," Rowena said, pointing to one in the middle of the street.

I squinted, skipped past the Latin, and read off, "Maria's Majestic Magical Menagerie." Then I looked at the shop-front. "Looks more tiny than majestic."

"I believe there is somewhat of a running joke or conspiracy among the shop owners here to grandly exaggerate their shops," Rowena said. "And a few are also larger on the inside. Like the bookstore." She pointed again, this time to a shop titled, "Trevor's Tremendous Tomes."

"Is this where your alliteration obsession started?" I asked.

"It is not an obsession," Rowena huffed. "In any case, I'll be in there. Come find me when you're done."

I almost asked, "what if you finish shopping first?" Almost. Then I realized it was a stupid question.

"Alright. See you later."

Rowena nodded and entered the Tremendous Tomes, and then was never seen again.

Well, not really, but you get the idea.

"Harry?" Eva asked as Rowena disappeared.

I looked down at my apprentice, who had turned around to face me. "Yes?"

"Are you… being unfaithful?"

I gave her a long look. "No. First, Elfleda and I are not really involved."

"Uh-huh."

I eadriced in her direction. She was getting a bit too snarky lately. "Second, Rowena's a colleague and a friend. That's it."

"That you didn't tell her about," Eva said.

"Do you want an owl or not?" I asked in irritation.

Eva didn't bend. "You should have told her."

"I don't see why… whatever," I said, shaking my head. "Let's go buy an owl."

I ushered the kids ahead of me into the Menagerie. I felt a tiny surge of magic when Eva opened the door, one that felt kind of like an alarm ward. Considering the location, it was probably a magical door chime of sorts.

The inside of the shop was a lot smaller than the outside suggested, but I also couldn't see the back area. There was a small waiting area in front of a counter, and on the other side of the counter was a closed wooden door. The counter wasn't very long though, and judging by the way the back door was positioned it looked like customers were supposed to be allowed into the back by the proprietor.

About a minute later the back door opened, revealing a short old woman, a few inches taller than Helga, with silver-white, balding hair and an impressive number of wrinkles. She wore a brown kirtle over a browner chemise, and after taking one look at the three of us, lingering on my staff a little longer, she shuffled over behind the counter and sat down. "New faces. Always interesting to see around here. What can I interest you in?"

"I'm told you sell messenger owls," I said.

"Aye, I do. Are you looking for a fledgling or an adult?" she asked.

"What's the difference?" I asked.

"Fledglings are young and you have to do all the training yourself. That's a hassle, and you have to wait for them to grow. Cheap, though. Adults are grown, trained, and ready to fly around."

About what I thought then. "I'm looking for an adult then. Maybe two," I said.

"A pound each then."

I choked on air. "A pound each?! It's an owl!"

"If you were talking about a regular old owl, sure," she said. "But you're not. Messenger owls take three years to properly mature, and that's a lot of food they eat in the meanwhile. Then add in all the time spent looking after them, raising them, training them. And that's if I sell them within three to five years, elsewise they just keep eating coin. Pound each."

"I…" I looked down at Eva and found her looking at me pleadingly. "Just one then." Her face fell, and I continued on to ask, "What other kinds of animals do you sell though?"

"Cats and dogs mostly. The bulk are mundane breeds, pups and kittens. I've got a few with more magical lineages, but if you're balking at a pound you probably can't afford them."

"And who could?" I asked rhetorically. "The king?"

"Is this your first time in the Alley?" she asked in return.

"Yes."

"Ah. Well, when it comes to the more… exotic goods around here, we usually trade in services and favors. And you look like a wizard."

"I am," I confirmed.

"Then you could find work easily enough." She looked down at Eva and Cuthbert. "These your apprentices?"

"She's my apprentice, he's her brother," I explained.

"Ah. Either of you looking for a pet?" she asked.

Eva turned around and shot puppy-dog eyes at me.

"What would a puppy or kitten go for?" I asked.

"Thirty pence or so, depends on the breed. Newborns are younger, but I don't have any fresh litters right now."

"Go ahead then," I told Eva. Thirty pence I could easily afford, even sixty if Cuthbert wanted one too.

Eva beamed at me and turned around to look at the woman – Maria, I assumed. "Do you have any cute puppies? Something small and adorable that can follow my brother around?"

I could only see the back of Cuthbert's head, but I assume he blinked right before turning to look at his sister.

"Are you looking for a working dog or an eye-catching one?" Maria asked.

"Eye-catching," Eva replied.

"I don't need a dog," Cuthbert said.

"Shush, it'll make you seem more approachable at court, compliment your scowl."

"Ah," Maria said with a chuckle. "I see. Yes, I have some like that. Come along, take a look."

Maria went back into the back, followed a few seconds later by Eva dragging her brother along. I followed after them, shaking my head the whole way.

The back of the store was a lot larger, and separated into two levels. There was the ground level, littered with kennels and low-walled enclosures in which cats and dogs ambled around, and the upper level, a set of low-hanging rafters, where a number of owls roosted. The cats looked to be uniformly small house cats, none the size of Mister, while the dogs were a bit larger, but none of them looked to be on the scale of hunting dogs.

"These are all my trained owls," Maria said, gesturing at the rafters. "Price doesn't vary that much by breed. The snowy one's only forty pence more expensive than the barn owls, and the tawny owls are in between."

I nodded and started to look around, careful not to bump my head against the ceiling or any of the rafters. The moment I'd walked in the owls had all fixated on me, turning their heads and tracking my movements. It was kind of creepy.

There was one almost completely white owl which I assumed to be the snowy owl, and the rest were varying degrees of white, brown, and gray. The barn owls were easy to identify with their all-white, heart-shaped faces, and at a glance it looked like there was a three-three-one split among the owls; barn, tawny, and snowy respectively.

"How do you make money off the messenger owls? You can't sell that many of them if they're so expensive?" I asked.

"I run a message delivery service as well," Maria replied.

Looking around at the owls, none of them really clicked for me. I spent a few minutes just wandering around, checking them out, and ultimately decided that I didn't really care which one I got.

"Eva, which owl do you like the look of?" I asked, an idea brewing in my head.

Eva turned away from scrutinizing the various puppies to see which was the cutest and straightened up, looking over the seven roosting owls. She stopped on the snowy owl and stepped forward, tentatively holding a hand out.

I held out a hand for Eva to stop and glanced at Maria. "Can they be pet?"

"Long as you're careful."

I looked at Eva, noted the way she was admiring the owl, and nodded. "Okay. Eva, do you want that one?"

Eva furrowed her brow and looked at me.

"To own and look after," I clarified.

She looked even more confused. "Don't you need one?" she asked.

"Not frequently," I replied. "And I know you were excited to get one. So if you want that one you can have… him, her?"

Maria glanced over at the owl. "Him."

"You can have him, and I can borrow him when I need to."

Eva turned back to the owl, all excited, but she slowly paused and furrowed her brow before looking back at me. "Are you… going to make me do all the work of looking after it?"

"Aren't you doing that with your brother and the puppy? Getting him to do all the work while you reap all the benefits?" I asked rhetorically, and Eva looked away. "It'll teach you responsibility. " I glanced at the proprietor. "Assuming he doesn't have any special needs."

"Feed him if there's nowhere to hunt, let him fly free if there is, groom him, clean up after him. If he were a regular owl it wouldn't be that easy, but messenger owls were made to be hardy and self-sufficient," Maria said.

Yes, my secret master plan for keeping an owl was to get my apprentice to do all the hard work. Fortunately, Eva's excitement and enamorment won out over her apprehension.

We spent a little while longer in the shop sorting out what kind of puppy to buy Cuthbert, after which I paid Maria for the owl, the puppy, and all the miscellaneous bits and bobs necessary to look after the animals and transport them back to Berkhamsted. It was a hefty sum. After counting it all out, Maria told me to come back in an hour and she'd have everything ready for me.

The pet store took a much larger chunk out of my budget than expected, so I was hesitant to really buy much else. On the other hand, I figured that while I was here I may as well look around, figure out what I can come back for.

There were a variety of stores in the Alley – book store, clothing store, apothecary, metalworker, bar and so on. But the one that caught my eye on second glance was the one that stood out the most:

It looked old, almost ancient in comparison to the other storefronts around, like it was there in the original Roman days. It looked narrow, like it had been squeezed into a tight space. And it had a simple, non-alliterative sign: "Ollivander's Wands."

Well, why not, I thought.