Do you see that building, Mr. Black?" asked Professor McGonagall.
"The Leaky Cauldron," Harry read from the sign. It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Professor McGonagall hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all.
The Leaky Cauldron, the pub he was looking for, was exactly what Harry thought a wizard pub ought to look like. The whole thing looked as though it were several hundred years old, and not one of the passers-by seemed to realize it was there. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Professor McGonagall; they smiled at him or nodded respectfully.
Harry followed the professor to the back of the pub and through a brick wall that opened with a tap of McGonagall's wand, past several brightly coloured and loud shops, and into a little side alley. The transfiguration mistress clicked her wand and a shimmering veil of mist appeared in between them and the main street of Diagon Alley, cutting off all sounds.
"Now then," she said, turning back to Harry. "I understand that you don't know much about our world. But know this; there was a war, just a little under ten years ago…"
Harry listened carefully as the Professor described the horrible happenings in the war. Nearly half of the British wizarding world had been killed, nearly everyone who tried to fight back was killed or tortured into insanity, and the Ministry of Magic nearly crumbled. All on the word of a single wizard and his followers, the Death Eaters and their leader (and despite the mists Professor McGonagall still dropped her voice low to say the name), Voldemort.
"What happened to him?" Harry asked. "I mean, obviously the war is over…"
Professor McGonagall looked very uncomfortable. "It's a long story and no-one really knows what happened that night," she said quickly. "You-Know-Who went after Longbottom, a family who constantly fought against him, he killed Frank and Alice and he turned his wand on their son, Neville.
He then cast the deadliest spell ever devised, one which kills anything that lives with a single touch - it didn't work. And when he tried to kill him and failed, the curse… well, it rebounded on him, and struck him instead. Some say he died. Rubbish, I think. I doubt he was still human enough to die. Some say he's still out there, just going after a different part of the world, Australia or Japan, perhaps. Most of us believe that he's still out there somewhere, but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on.
She then told him of how it had taken over 2 dozen Death Eaters to take them down; a fact that made Harry sad and a little proud at the same time. Proud to know that his parents had taken those that came after them down while protecting him, essentially giving their lives so he would live. Sad because they were gone. The ones who would have probably loved him the most in his life were gone. Just because some sick bastard had dreams of becoming an Evil Overlord.
He then followed him to Diagon Alley. "Come on, let's start with Gringotts."
Gringotts was quite fun; the rollercoaster-like car was the best thing Harry had ever done. He had never been allowed to ride coasters with the Dursleys, having always been left behind with Mrs. Figg when they went to amusement parks.
As he whooped with joy, Professor McGonagall spoke to their goblin attendant, something about a 'you-know-what' in vault seven-hundred-something that was going to be picked up later that day. Harry found it rather boring in comparison to the feeling of air rushing along his face and the incredible speed, especially when the cart turned nearly right angles, sending Harry, laughing, into one side. Oddly enough, during these turns both the goblin and Professor McGonagall remained exactly in their seats, apparently not at all affected by the whiplash.
Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late; they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and the floor. "I never know," Harry called Professor McGonagall over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"
"Stalagmite has a 'g' in it, like 'ground,'" Professor McGonagall told him. "And stalactite has a 'c' like 'ceiling.'" She then returned to his conversation with the goblin.
Eventually, they reached a small door with an ornate red 'B' on it, and the goblin unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins, columns of silver, heaps of little bronze bits.
"All yours," smiled Professor McGonagall.
All Harry's - it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all this time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London. McGonagall helped Harry pile some of it into a bag. "The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine bronze Knuts to a Sickle; it's easy enough. Let's see, that's thirty galleons; should be more than enough."
"How much is in here?" Harry asked, still amazed.
McGonagall took a quick glance around the room. "I'd say about 6,500 Galleons," he estimated. "Maybe closer to 6,400. Of course, this is just your trust vault; the Black family vault probably would be significantly larger."
"What's that in pounds?"
"I think that 1 galleon is equivalent to 100 muggle pounds," McGonagall said as they stepped outside. "Is that right, Griphook?"
The goblin shrugged. "I pay little attention to the affairs of muggles," he said shortly.
Harry's jaw dropped. 640,000 pounds! That would, he guessed, easily carry him through all of school and well into adulthood in the muggle world.
Harry barely noticed the return trip, still at the same incredible speed, and followed Professor McGonagall outside. They then bought him an entire wardrobe, quills and parchment (McGonagall told him to buy a dictating quill, saying something about Binns.). They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts, where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather, books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk, books full of peculiar symbols, and a few books with nothing in them at all. Harry also bought Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian, Duelling Through The Ages by Flitwick and Wizarding Government and How They Work.
McGonagall wouldn't let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron , ("It would react badly with many potions. There's a reason the standard cauldron is pewter."), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope, along with a little silver magnifying glass. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its weird smells. There were ingredients everywhere: barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; and bundles of feathers, stings of fangs and snarled claws hung from the ceiling.
Outside the Apothecary, McGonagall checked Harry's list again. "Just your wand left". A magic wand... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.
The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.
A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that McGonagall sat on to wait. Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a load of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. A warm pressure, seemingly opposite to the cold darkness of McGonagall's teleportation thing, closed in around him as he entered. It felt rather like a pair of tight comfortable pajamas, although Harry had never felt the sensation before. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.
"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry jumped. An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.
"Hello," said Harry awkwardly.
"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Black." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."
Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy. "Your father, Sirius Black on the other hand, favoured a ebony wand. 11 ¾ inches. Pliable. powerful and excellent for dark arts. Well, I say your father favoured it - it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course.
"Minerva, how nice to see you again... 9½ inches long, made of fir wood, and had a dragon heartstring core didn't t.
Yes sir said Minerva McGonagall
"Well, now… Mr. Black. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"
I'm right-handed," said Harry.
"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr Black. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no magical creatures are the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand." Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.
"That will do," he said, returning, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Black. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Ten and three quarters inches. Nice and flexible. just take it and give it a wave."
Harry took the wand and waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once. "Maple. Nine inches. Quite whippy. Try -"
Harry tried - but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.
"No, no -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."
Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.
Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere… I wonder… unusual combinations… holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple." This wand let off a small spray of silver and blue sparks and was quite warm to the touch, but Ollivander tore it from his grasp and practically pranced away.
"What if there's no wand for me here?" Harry asked.
"I don't think that will happen, Mr. Black, we're not nearly through yet," said Mr. Ollivander, handing him yet another rod of wood.
"Try this one, mahogany, fifteen inches with dragon heartstring. No? As I was saying, I would conduct an interview with you and craft you a wand to fit your personality. The method we're doing right now usually works…" Ollivander was now somewhere far above Harry's head, still rummaging around. "But sometimes a customer is simply too difficult to match with the ones a wandmaker has in stock at the time. Here, try this one.
Yew and Thunderbird tail feather. Thirteen inches exactly. Very powerful wand excellent for transfiguration and dark arts.
Harry took the wand, and felt a sudden heat in his fingers, along with an increase in the comfy pressure on his skin. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air, and a stream of gold and green sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. McGonagall whooped and clapped as Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good.
Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid ten gold Galleons for his wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.
#
A/N: From Pottermore
Yew wands are among the rarer kinds, and their ideal matches are likewise unusual, and occasionally notorious. The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, which might, of course, be said of all wands; and yet yew retains a particularly dark and fearsome reputation in the spheres of duelling and all curses. However, it is untrue to say (as those unlearned in wandlore often do) that those who use yew wands are more likely to be attracted to the Dark Arts than another. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others. Wands hewn from these most long-lived trees have been found in the possession of heroes quite as often as of villains. Where wizards have been buried with wands of yew, the wand generally sprouts into a tree guarding the dead owner's grave. What is certain, in my experience, is that the yew wand never chooses either a mediocre or a timid owner. Yew wands are among the rarer kinds, and their ideal matches are likewise unusual, and occasionally notorious. The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, which might, of course, be said of all wands; and yet yew retains a particularly dark and fearsome reputation in the spheres of duelling and all curses. However, it is untrue to say (as those unlearned in wandlore often do) that those who use yew wands are more likely to be attracted to the Dark Arts than another. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others. Wands hewn from these most long-lived trees have been found in the possession of heroes quite as often as of villains. Where wizards have been buried with wands of yew, the wand generally sprouts into a tree guarding the dead owner's grave. What is certain, in my experience, is that the yew wand never chooses either a mediocre or a timid owner.
Thunderbird tail feather wands are known to be powerful and highly prized for it's flair for transfiguration. In the presence of danger, they are known to fire curses. However, they are difficult to master. It is also likely that thunderbird tail feather wands are good at elemental magic, as the core comes from a bird that can control lightning.