AN:

Thanks again for all the favs, follows, and review! I've recently gone through the first four chapters over again and corrected any spelling or grammar mistakes which have been pointed out to me, or I noticed myself, so hopefully they should all be free of errors now.

Just as a side-note: since Harry was abused far worse in this story than was insinuated in canon, his magic has become quite adept at healing his body of injuries. Due to this, Harry does not need glasses in this fic, as his magic inadvertently healed his eyesight too.

Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter; all rights and characters belong to JK Rowling.

Chapter 5 – Diagon Alley

Harry smiled widely as he fried some bacon for his and Sirius' breakfast. Sirius didn't know Harry was making him breakfast but Harry wanted to surprise his godfather by cooking instead of him today. Sirius had been very insistent that either he or Kreacher be the one to do all the cooking because 'nine year olds shouldn't have to worry about stuff like that' but Harry wanted to find a way to thank Sirius for what had truly been the best two weeks of the young boy's life.

Living with Sirius had been the furthest possible thing from living with the Dursleys for Harry. The Dursleys made Harry do every chore, ignored him when they weren't belittling him, and beat him whenever anything went wrong. Sirius on the other hand insisted on the fact that Harry shouldn't do any chores and should just go and 'have fun' instead, spent lots of time with Harry even though he was quite busy a lot of the time building his physical and magical strength back up to what it was before Azkaban and helping Kreacher with their 'project' he refused to tell Harry about, and when things went wrong, instead of blaming Harry, Sirius just instantly forgave him and shrugged it off. For example, when Harry had first seen Kreacher, the appearance of the old house elf had startled Harry so much he had dropped his glass of water and it had shattered all over the floor. Terrified, Harry had scrambled around trying to find something to clean it up before Sirius noticed and presumably punished him, but instead Sirius had come running at the noise, seemed relieved that Harry was not hurt, and just told Harry it was no big deal and Kreacher could clean it up in a second.

Then there was all the magic on show! Every time Sirius had done a spell, Harry had enthusiastically asked about it and Sirius had explained what it was, how it was done, and sometimes other interesting information pertaining to it. Harry found it all so fascinating and amazing – he couldn't wait to get his own wand and start doing magic himself!

Another thing which intrigued Harry was Kreacher. At first, the idea of house elves hadn't sat well with Harry. Having an unpaid, looked down upon and sometimes abused creature doing all the chores and unwanted tasks for rich wizards reminded Harry a little too closely of his situation with the Dursleys. However, Sirius had explained further about how house elves' lives and magic were tied to those of their owners, and that they genuinely enjoyed household chores such as cleaning, he did start to feel a little better about it. Despite this, he still thought any owners who abused their house elves were despicable people and deserved to have all the abuse reflected back on themselves – fortunately Sirius agreed with him on this point and promised he'd never once mistreated a house elf, even if Kreacher made it pretty tempting sometimes when Sirius was younger (he said that last part with a grin).

After learning about house elves, Harry had asked Sirius about other types of magical creatures which muggles didn't know about and he hadn't been disappointed. Sirius had told tales of giants, vampires, dragons, unicorns and many more creatures which existed but were somehow undiscovered by muggles (in recent times at least). Personally, Harry assumed that any muggle who did ever happen to wander across a dragon either wasn't lucky enough to survive the encounter, or was simply not believed when he told people the story. After Harry had quizzed Sirius for over an hour about various types of magical creatures, Sirius had stopped him by promising to buy him a book sometime soon on all of the different types.

Something Sirius never got tired of answering questions on was Harry's parents. Almost every night before bed, Sirius would tell Harry a story from his days at Hogwarts and Harry loved hearing them all. The stories would range from his dad's amusing attempts to get a date with his mum, to amazing pranks Sirius, James and their friends pulled on people, and to thrilling adventures where they explored the Forbidden Forest on the Hogwarts grounds. The only bad thing about these stories was that Sirius would get a dark look across his face every time he had to mention Peter Pettigrew, and that he sometimes finished with a sad look on his face as he thought of the friends he had lost.

Alongside all of this, Sirius also spent time preparing Harry for the challenges he will have to face once he gets to Hogwarts. This meant giving him a full run-down of how he will be expected to act by the public plus who to trust and who not to trust at Hogwarts (out of the Professors Sirius knew were there). This also meant he was giving Harry beginners' lessons in a thing called occlumency. According to Sirius, this was a skill taught by a fair amount of wizarding families to their children, and it was to ensure nobody can go poking around your mind to look for information. He had also warned that people like Dumbledore might be more inclined to peek into Harry's head than anyone else's, which meant Harry had even more reason to be prepared. Learning occlumency was very time consuming and difficult, but Harry was determined to get as good as he could at it so nobody could ever read his mind.

Overall, for the first time in Harry's life since he was dropped at the Dursleys, he felt happy.

More than anything though, he felt grateful to Sirius for how he had turned Harry's life around and rescued him from the hell that was Privet Drive. Not only that, but Sirius' birthday had been and passed and Harry had only found out afterwards, meaning he felt guilty for not getting the only man to ever be nice to him a gift. These were the main reasons why he had got up extra early today to make Sirius his favourite breakfast.

As he mulled all of this over in his head, Harry failed to notice Sirius had quietly entered the room, meaning he jumped when he turned around to find his godfather standing behind him. He quickly recovered though.

"Good morning and happy late birthday Sirius!" exclaimed Harry, as he handed Sirius a plate with a bacon sandwich on it. Sirius looked exasperated for a second but then broke out in a smile.

"Thanks pup," he said, ruffling Harry's already messy hair, "You really didn't have to do this though, you know me or Kreacher could have whipped something up."

"Yeah I know but I wanted to, I've never given anyone a birthday present before. Besides, Kreacher's probably busy with your two's secret project and it's not like we want to suffer through your cooking again," Harry teased. Although Sirius gave it his best shot, it was very clear that cooking was not an area he was particularly talented in.

"Oi! You think my cooking's bad, you're just lucky you never had to taste James' cooking! Moony and I were sick for weeks after trying some lasagna he made!"

The two continued to talk whilst they both tucked into their bacon sandwiches, then Sirius smirked at Harry and asked out of the blue, "How would you like to go to Diagon Alley today?"

"Really?" asked Harry in excitement. Sirius had told him about Diagon Alley and it sounded amazing! Harry couldn't wait to see what all the wizarding shops were like and was especially excited to check out the magical pet shop and the bookstore.

"Yep, we'll have to go in disguises though," Sirius stated with an apologetic look to Harry.

Harry just grinned in response. "If what you said about me being famous is true, I'd rather go in a disguise anyway, so people don't stare at me."

Just ten minutes later, Harry and Sirius had in their pockets some money which Kreacher had apparently made selling some old items from Grimmauld Place, and they had walked away from the house to a point where Sirius stated they could apparate from. They had their glamours on and Sirius had explained that if anybody asked, Harry was now Daniel Oldman and Sirius was his father Gary, a half-blood (son of an English muggle and a French witch) who had been educated at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic in France. Fortunately, Sirius had a basic grasp of French so the story could be somewhat backed up if need be. They both now had sandy blonde hair, both of their faces now appeared rounder than they were, and Harry's scar was obviously covered up.

"Ready?" asked Sirius. At the boy's nod, they disapparated and appeared in a deserted alleyway. From there it was just a short walk before Sirius pointed out a grubby looking pub, which Harry was sure he wouldn't have noticed at all without Sirius singling it out. Inside, it was nothing special, just a dingy looking pub with weirdly dressed people inside. Sirius led Harry straight through the pub quickly and into an area out the back with nothing other than a brick wall ahead. Harry was about to question Sirius, but then the man pulled out his wand and started tapping some of the bricks on the wall.

Harry stood back astonished as the wall opened up before them and the amazing sight of Diagon Alley was revealed to him for the first time.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley," grinned Sirius, seeing the look of wonder on Harry's face.

As Sirius led Harry into the Alley, Harry's eyes darted back and forth between various shop fronts, items being sold, and the witches and wizards going about their daily lives. "It's amazing," said Harry, just loud enough for Sirius to hear.

"Just wait 'til you see Hogwarts," replied Sirius, "Even the kids raised in the magical world get their breath taken way by that place. So where to first?"

Harry's eyes were immediately drawn to the rather large bookstore, Flourish and Blotts. He signalled towards it and Sirius barked out a short laugh. "Your mother would be so proud."

When inside, Harry didn't wait a moment before rushing over to the nearest bookshelf and browsing through the books on various magical subjects.

That was how the next few hours went, with Harry devouring as much information as he could from the books there, whilst Sirius did some browsing of his own in the section of the store that kept old editions of the Daily Prophet. The man behind the counter seemed entertained by Harry's enthusiasm, happily assisting him to find books on certain subjects which Harry enquired about. They left the store around lunchtime, with a bag full of books that Sirius had bought for Harry, much to the boy's delight and gratefulness.

Next, the two of them went for lunch in the Leaky Cauldron. Despite how grubby and unimpressive the pub seemed, Harry had to admit they sure made good food. Tom the barman struck up a conversation with Sirius for a few minutes, with Sirius convincingly playing the part of Gary Oldman, and Harry pretending to be his son.

After lunch, they made their way back out into the alley, Harry eager to explore a few more shops before the day was up. Whilst they were deciding where to go next, Harry noticed a very gloomy and shady looking street branching off from Diagon Alley to the right. He nudged Sirius and pointed over at the entrance to it, asking "Where does that go?"

"That's Knockturn Alley," Sirius stated. "It's kind of the darker version of Diagon Alley. Sometimes there's some useful stuff you can only find down there, but it's a lot less safe than it is up here. Make sure you never go down there alone, until you're at least old enough to protect yourself." Harry nodded, wondering what kind of magical items were sold down there.

After deciding to head to Quality Quidditch Supplies next, Harry looked in interest at the brooms on show, remembering the stories Sirius had told him of how James had won quidditch matches for Gryffindor at Hogwarts, and how they and their friends had used their brooms to get up to all sorts of mischief. Harry decided he wanted a broomstick, but he kept quiet about it, not wanting to seem as though he was being greedy – Sirius had bought him quite enough already today.

Next, they ventured into the Magical Menagerie, which was the magical creature shop in Diagon Alley. This was the shop Harry had been looking forward to going to most, since he was so excited to see all the magical creatures that Sirius had told him about. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any dragons, trolls, or unicorns on show, however Harry supposed he should have expected that. Despite this, the creatures that were on show were still pretty cool – there were many variations of rats, cats, and toads, with most of them seeming to be different in some way to the ones known in the muggle world. For example, the sleek black rats Harry spent a while watching seemed significantly more intelligent than their counterparts in the muggle world were. There were also a couple of creatures which Harry had never seen before, such as fire crabs and puffskeins. Harry and Sirius spent around an hour in the hot, noisy and smelly environment of the Magical Menagerie, therefore when they left, Sirius immediately led Harry to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour just across the street, and they both just sat down, relaxed and enjoyed their ice cream.

As they talked and ate their ice creams, Harry kept an eye on the entrance to Knockturn Alley, which wasn't too far away. Even though Sirius had warned him against actually travelling down there, Harry couldn't help the natural curiosity that bubbled within him as he thought about what kind of shops could be found down there. Harry paid extra attention to the people going in and out of Knockturn Alley, noting how most of them seemed to be shady looking men, often wearing hoods to conceal their faces. Judging from that, what Sirius said about not venturing down there alone definitely seemed like a piece of advice he would listen to. However, as he gleefully talked to Sirius about all the subjects he'd read about at Flourish and Blotts, one of the people leaving Knockturn Alley caught his eye. Whilst most of the people he'd seen entering and leaving looked like fully grown men, this hooded figure looked small, around Harry's size. As Harry tried to get a closer look at the mystery person, they pulled their hood down, revealing their face – it was a girl! A slim, blonde-haired girl who looked no older than nine or ten had just walked out of the alley which Sirius had described as dangerous! Harry's look of shock must have shown on his face, as well as the fact he stopped talking about the magical creatures book he had been reading, because Sirius turned around, searching for what Harry was staring at. Unfortunately for Harry, Sirius turned back around with the widest grin on his face Harry had ever seen someone have.

"Well, well, well Daniel. I thought you'd be a little young to be interested in girls," he said whilst wiggling his eyebrows.

"I was looking at Knockturn Alley," Harry replied rather lamely, his face rapidly turning red.

"Sure you were," Sirius smirked, "That explains why your face is the same colour as your mother's hair right about now."

That only made Harry blush further, but he quickly tried to explain himself. "She came out of Knockturn Alley on her own," he stammered.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at that. "You sure?" At Harry's nod he continued, "Well don't get any ideas, it was probably just for a dare. Seriously, it's dangerous down there, especially for children."

Harry nodded again, although he doubted that this girl was down there for a dare. He continued to watch her out of the corner of his eye, as she walked past where they were sitting, then into Flourish and Blotts a few doors down, a guarded expression on her face the entire time, and no laughing friends in sight. Yeah, it definitely wasn't a dare.

A couple minutes later, Sirius and Harry had finished their ice cream, thanked and paid Florean Fortescue, and made their way out of the alley and home after a long and exciting day.

Harry couldn't remember ever having a better day, seeing the wizarding world, and how other wizards and witches lived their lives was amazing, and he had especially enjoyed his time in Flourish and Blotts reading about various magical subjects including quidditch, Hogwarts (the wizarding school he would be attending when he turned eleven), and magical creatures.

Harry was immensely grateful to Sirius for the awesome day he'd had, he was used to not even being allowed to go on days out, and when he was, all he had been able to do was watch as Dudley ate ice cream and had things bought for him, whilst Harry was ignored and blamed for anything that went wrong during the day. This was the complete opposite of that, he had chosen where to go and what to do, and Sirius had even bought him ice cream and a stack of books for him to read. Harry couldn't wait to get reading the books – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Hogwarts: A History were the ones he wanted to read first.

Despite all of these thoughts, Harry found the mystery of Knockturn Alley drifting through his mind again. Sirius had said it was dangerous, too dangerous for anyone unable to defend themselves, especially children, yet a girl who didn't look much older than Harry had walked out of there without even looking slightly uncomfortable. Did she know how to defend herself? Why would she even want to go down there if not for a dare? If she could go down there and come out unscathed, why couldn't Harry? He was really interested to see the types of shops and types of items sold down there.

Harry mentally scolded himself – Sirius had been amazing to him, and clearly had his best interests at heart, so he should listen to his godfather. Even if his reckless and adventurous side wanted to go explore.

It was the smart thing to do.