Albus Potter knew that today was a big day. After the hours of lectures that had been given to him, James, and Lily about how they were going to act and what was expected of them, it was impossible for it to be anything but. Today was the day he was going to get all of his things for Hogwarts. Today was the day he was going to finally get his wand. Today was the day he was finally going to start learning magic. Today was the day he was meeting his cousins.

The reveal of the Dursleys having a magical daughter had come as a shock. Uncle Ron had characterized the Dursleys as comically evil people who kept boys shut in cupboards under the stairs, fed boys through a catflap, and hammered bars onto that boy's windows. Albus knew that some of the stories had to be exaggerated, like all things Uncle Ron told, but knew that there had to be some kernel of truth in there.

So why were these bad people now being thrust into their lives?

Because one girl was magical, they had to forgive them for everything they did to his father?

His father had told him off for thinking these things. That if you never forgave anyone and gave them a second chance, all you would end up with is a bunch of enemies, but Albus didn't listen to him.

He didn't owe the Dursleys anything. In his mind they were only a few steps away from being Death Eaters.

Yet, here he found himself, dressed up in decent robes welcoming the Dursleys into 12 Grimmauld Place. There were three of them. There was Dudley, who was as large as the stories but not in the way that that word was intended. He was extremely muscular and his arms made Albus look like a stick figure. If he was sized to Hagrid's height, he very might well be more muscular than he was. Next was the woman who had to be Daphne. And what a shock that was.

Albus didn't really believe his dad when he came home and told them that Dudley Dursley had married a witch. Much less Daphne Greengrass who was presumed dead and from a Death Eater family.

Astoria Greengrass had married Draco Malfoy and Xerxes Greengrass had become a notorious Death Eater over the years.

In other words, the entire family was scum.

Which made sense because one of them had decided to marry a Dursley, who is also scum.

So Albus put up with the pointless pleasantries in order to please his parents while openly scorning the entire situation in his mind.

Then he looked at the girl that had come with the Dursleys. That had to be Clover Dursley.

It was too bad that she was already ruined by the horrible family or else she could have been someone to befriend. Clover was standing behind her parents and trying to hide. Her eyes were downcast and she hadn't even looked any of them in the eyes.

Harry then decided to break the ice then. "Well, Dudley, here's my wife Ginny, and my kids James, Albus, and Lily."

"And this here is Dudley, Daphne, and Clover." He said while gesturing to the Dursleys.

"It's nice to meet you again, Daphne." Ginny said with a smile.

Daphne looked up at her and sighed. "It's nice to see you again, Weaslette."

"Don't call her that!" James yelled out but he was cut off by the sound of Ginny laughing.

"It's been too long without anybody calling me that." she said while laughing. "Let's go Ice Princess, we've got more Weasels to find."

Daphne's face paled considerably. "You're making me interact with more Weasley's?" She turned her face to Harry. "I hate you so much Potter."

Harry laughed at that too and then he led them all into the house.

"Hi Clover," Lily said. "I'm Lily. Isn't it so exciting that you're going to be getting a wand today?"

"I guess so," Clover shrugged. "I don't really care much for magic so far."

"You don't care for magic," Albus asked, shocked. "How can you not care about magic?"

The idea astounded Albus and he couldn't quite understand what had led her to feel that way. Probably just Dursley entitlement about hating magic. If her grandparents hated magic then she must have that same hatred as well.

"The way I found out I was magical was from being tortured inside of my own head," she said with a flat intonation. "Something like that leaves a bad impression."
Albus felt uncomfortable and moved away to go stand near James.

"So Albus," James said with a smirk. "Are you ready to find out that you are a squib today?"

Albus felt anger flood through him. "I am not a squib!"

"I don't know Albus," James said with fake worry. "It has been a while since you last used magic, maybe you don't have enough. It would be super embarrassing if a Dursley was magical and you weren't. Maybe she stole it from you!"

Albus had enough of James then too so he just decided to wait by the floo until it was time for them to leave.

About 20 minutes later that time came and he was the first to floo into The Leaky Cauldron. When he got there he spotted Hermione, Ron, Rose, and Hugo sitting around a table waiting for them. He walked up and sat quietly at the table.
"Hey Albus," Ron said jovially. "How were the Dursleys? Did they scream at you until your ears bled?" Albus just gave a noncommittal shrug.

The rest of the Potters and Dursleys took turns going through the floo, with Clover and Dudley having wild exits out of the floo. Ron let out a whistle.

"Damn Dudley you've put on a lot of muscle since the last time I saw you." he said before walking out of his earshot.

Albus turned his attention to Rose who was staring off into the distance.

"How long do you think that we have to put up with them?" he asked Rose. She didn't give him a response and continued to stare off into nowhere. He snapped his fingers in front of her face in order to get her attention. She blinked wildly before focusing on him.

"What?"

"You were staring into nowhere so hard that you didn't hear me."
"Sorry," she said. "Hey didn't a Greengrass marry a Malfoy?"

"I don't know," he said. "I don't care about Death Eater families."

"Albus…" Aunt Hermione said chidingly. "Don't talk about people that way. Those times are far behind us."

"Yes Aunt Hermione," Albus said noncommittally. Albus walked over to stand with his family when the others moved over to introduce themselves to the Dursleys.

"And here is my family," Ron said. "My wife Hermione, and my kids Hugo and Rose."

"Of course you married Granger," Daphne said incredulously. "If anything I'm more surprised the three of you together didn't become a thing."

"Well what about you and Davis?" Hermione asked. "You two were practically attached at the hip for seven years."

Daphne's eyes honed in on Hermione and a cold rage exploded in her eyes. Hermione flinched. "Sorry, sensitive topic I see."

"Yeah."

Dudley saw the argument starting and asked Harry a question to change the topic. "So where is the entrance to the shops? I never got to ask when we were younger."

Harry smiled at the change of topic and he and Dudley went off with Ron to talk.

Albus walked with Rose as she went to introduce herself to Clover.

"Hi. You must be Clover." Rose said. "My name is Rose, we'll be going to Hogwarts together and we're close enough to cousins."

Clover looked at her skeptically. "You're not really my closest relation, but I guess if you want to show me around that's fair enough. I kind of just want to get this all over with so I can get back home."

"You just want to go home?" Rose asked. "But you're getting your wand today! That's supposed to be a big deal."

Clover shrugged. "I didn't grow up thinking that it was a big deal so I guess it's not that big of a deal for me."

"Well you must be excited to see a bunch of other wizards and witches, right?"

"Well, my mom has been talking about a lot of the bad things about wizards and witches," Clover said. "Apparently her family was on the bad side of the last war and people like me are discriminated against for not having true magical parentage."

"Well, it's not like that anymore!" Rose insisted. "I'm a half-blood too and I'm not treated any differently because of it. My mom worked really hard after the war in order to change that. And for Death Eaters, well… they don't have much of a say any more to put it nicely."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Rose said awkwardly. "A Death Eater family was killed recently and there hasn't been much of an investigation into it. My dad was complaining about it because he knew the victim. He thinks that they should at least try to find who did it before closing the case, but that's kind of just how former Death Eater families are treated now."

"Well isn't that great," Clover bemoaned. "I've got a target on my back one way or another. Can't wait to be outed for having bad people in my family and be blamed for their actions."

"Stop complaining so much," Albus said under his breath. "You should just be grateful that you are here at all."

Clover seemed to have heard him from her reaction. She went as still as a rock and stood straight up. "Yeah, you're right. I should be grateful I'm still here. It's not like anything else can be worse than what happened before."

After that Clover walked away and Rose slapped him on the side of the head.

"Hey! What was that for!" He said.

"I was talking to her!" Rose said. "Stop saying mean things to people I'm trying to befriend." Rose then stormed off angrily to try to catch up with Clover.

Albus stood there awkwardly and went over to stand with his mother. She was talking to Hermione and Daphne.

"This hole hasn't changed in the time that I've been gone," Daphne bemoaned.

"Well the ownership has changed since then but they decided to keep the aesthetic," Ginny said with a smirk. "You remember Hannah Abbott? Well she owns the place now and she married Neville Longbottom."

"Longbottom got a wife?" Daphne's face said in abject horror. "That poor woman. How did he do it? Did he use a love potion? Did he use amortentia on her?"

"No, nonono," Hermione said with a chuckle. "Neville has changed a lot since his Hogwarts days. He's a much different person."

Albus didn't understand why they were being so tolerant of Daphne saying those deplorable things about people he knew. She shouldn't have the right to insult Neville or any of the Longbottoms.

"Well I doubt there will have been a bigger change than Longbottom's sex appeal in the time of my absence."

"Well…"

"I don't like the way you said that."

"Oh come on I'm just having you on."

"I don't like how much the two of you are being buddy-buddy with me. Are you trying to get something from me. Especially you Granger. I don't trust that innocent smile for a second."

The two other women laughed again and Albus walked away from the conversation to stand with the fathers.

"Dad," Albus said. "Do you think we can head into the Alley now?"

"Sure, Albus," Harry said with a smile. "Let's head out the back then."

"I don't know what I expected," Dudley said as he stared at the brick wall in front of him. "But it definitely wasn't this.

"I promise this is the entrance," Harry said with a smile as he counted off bricks on the wall. When he got to a specific brick the wall stated to shake and the bricks rotated on themselves in order to get out of the way to reveal Diagon Alley.

Albus's eyes were drawn to the flashy advertising floating in the air, salespeople shouting out the sales on potion ingredients, and the occasional broom flown around. The Alley looked much like he remembered it and he felt himself become slightly more comfortable in his surroundings. Being surrounded by so much magic had always felt like a warm blanket.

He looked over to Clover and she looked the exact opposite. Her hands were clenched tightly around her shirt and she looked at every act of magic like it was a threat being made explicitly against her.

"Wow." Dudley said dumbly. He was staring out into the Alley and had a dumbstruck look on his face. He looked shakily over to Harry. "This is what they were so afraid of for so long."

Harry had a sad smile on his face. "Not exactly this but this definitely was a part of it."

"I'm so sorry."

"Hey none of that," Harry said with a smile. "That's ancient history. Today we are worried about the little ones. We'll catch up more over drinks later. Alright everyone. Let's go to Gringotts."

Gringotts was a tense trip like it almost always was. According to Ron's exaggerated storytelling they had stolen a dragon from one of the vaults and had almost been banned from the bank for life before they realized they would be losing the patronage of the Potters, one of their largest assets, and they had changed their tune. Nevertheless a few goblins growled at them on their way in and on their way out.

"Those people didn't seem to like us much," Clover said.

"Clover, if there was one thing that I was most happy to leave behind when I left, it was dealing with Goblins." Daphne said. "They complain about even the slightest 'offenses' that humans make against their race and riot over the smallest of things."

Dudley looked a little uncomfortable about Daphne talking about the magical world. Albus guessed it was from Daphne keeping that big a part of her past secret from him for so long.

After their quick trip to Gringotts, they went off to get their school supplies. Albus was dragged from the robe shop, to the bookstore, to the apothecary, and the astronomy shop in excruciating fashion. His father kept being approached by people for conversation and it was grating on his nerves.

Albus was beginning to think that the shopping was never going to end when he spotted Neville leading a large crowd of people out of the trunk store.

"Hey Neville!" Harry yelled out from right next to Albus to get Neville's attention.

Neville looked up and spotted him. He said a few words to the people around him before pointing to the astronomy shop that Albus and crew had been coming out of.

"Hey Harry," Neville said once he had walked up to them. "And hello Albus. I was just leading the new muggle born on their shopping trip."

"Yeah we're doing the same," Harry said. "And I picked up Clover for you."

Neville smiled. "Well she isn't exactly a muggleborn in many ways." Neville's smile then disappeared and he grew serious. "Although there is something that I need to talk to you about the muggleborn this year."

Harry grew serious as well. "What is it?"

"Well it's one of the students," Neville started. "Well two… well kind of a few actually. But there are two that are the most important here. One of the girls. She has power."

Harry looked at him like he was crazy. "Power?"

"She's crazy strong," Neville said. "She's got a crazy amount of control of magic. When I met her she was flying."

"Flying?!" Harry exclaimed. "Without a broom?"

"Yeah, and then a few minutes later she summoned a lightning bolt."

"A...lightning bolt?"

"She created a localized storm and created a lightning bolt from nothing."

"That's…crazy."

"That's not all," Neville said. "She was at an orphanage." Harry froze. "And there with her was another first year. But I didn't get her letter with the muggleborn list."

"Some wizard got frisky with a muggle?" Harry asked, all but forgetting Albus was a part of the conversation.

"I don't think so," Neville said. "It's who it is, Harry. Her letter said Bellatrix Black."

Albus felt his veins turn to ice.

Bellatrix Black. The second in command to Voldemort himself. She had a daughter. No, that didn't line up. A granddaughter?

"DUDLEY?!" a voice screamed out, cutting off Albus's train of thought. In the crowd of people entering the store, a very large bald man was staring in shock at Dudley.

"P-Piers?" Dudley asked, completely shocked. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were completely confused. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?!" Piers shouted. "Are you a wizard?!"

"What? No!" Dudley said. "Piers, we went to high school together. How would I have gone to a magical school?"

"I dunno magic?" Piers said. "Well then what are you doing here?"

"My daughter is magical."

"Really, my son is magical!: Piers said. "Wait, why aren't you with us then. Shouldn't they have all the normal families coming together?"

"Well do you remember my cousin Harry?"

"Like Harry-hunting Harry?" Piers asked then gasped. "Are you saying that he was a wizard?"
"Hi Piers," Harry said. "I sure wasn't expecting to ever see you here."
Piers's eyes widened as he took in Harry's robes. "Holy shit! You're a wizard!"

"Have been for my whole life," he said amusedly.

"Oh my god," Piers said in dawning horror. "I bullied a wizard. I'm so sorry wizard, please don't kill me!"

Albus was shocked as he processed his words. Bully? And this was one of Dudley's old friends? This man had bullied his father when they were younger. Albus mentally put this man and his family in the category of unforgivables.

Harry had to calm the man down before they were able to continue on reuniting with another.

"Ah!" Piers exclaimed. "Meet my son. This is Paul. Paul Polkiss."

Piers pulled forward a dark skinned boy who was clutching onto a necklace around his neck. His eyes were scrunched and darting around the different people as if he was seeing something that the rest of them couldn't make out.

"Paul say hello."

Paul didn't say anything until a girl that looked like him tapped his shoulder and made a motion with her hands.

"Hello my name is Paul. It is very nice to meet you." he said with a very strange inflection in his voice. There was something off about the way he had spoken but Albus couldn't quite place it.

Neville came back into the conversation with an explanation. "Paul is deaf, so we prepared a device that will allow him to read the words that are being spoken." Sure enough, Paul's eyes were drawn to Neville as he was talking but he wasn't quite looking at his face.

After the bombastic introduction thanks to Piers the rest of the conversation seemed dull in comparison and Albus found himself drifting away. It wasn't like he had to care about them as Piers had bullied his father when they were younger.

Albus soon found Abby in the group of people gathered outside. She must have been accompanying her father as he did his duties of introducing the muggleborn families to Diagon Alley. She was talking to a pair of girls and for a second Albus thought about if they were the two that Neville had mentioned earlier but dismissed that. Neville wouldn't let his daughter interact with a girl who was descended from Death Eaters.

"Hey Abby," he said as he walked over to the three.

"Oh Albus!" Abby said happily. "Albus, this is Emily and Violet. Emily and Violet, this is Albus, one of my family friends." Albus looked at the two girls he was introduced to and was struck by one of their appearances. The girl whose name was Emily had shockingly white hair and vibrant purple eyes. It made him take half a step back before recovering from it.

"How long have you been shopping," he moaned. "It feels like it's never going to end."

"Oh right, you were introducing your cousin to Diagon Alley today right?" Abby asked.

"Yeah, and I'm tired of her too."

"You come from a magical family too?" Emily asked him curiously.

"Yeah my whole family is magical," he said. "My father is Harry Potter."

The lack of recognition on their faces surprised Albus even though it really shouldn't have. Abby explained it quickly to them. "His father was the person who defeated a terrorist about 20 years ago. You should learn more about him when you go to Hogwarts in History of Magic."

"Oh," Violet said cautiously. "There's terrorists in the magical world too? I guess that makes sense if you think about it. Just because they have magic doesn't mean that people are any different."

"Uh, yeah," Abby said awkwardly. "Well there's more to it than that. The terrorist had a lot of followers and kind of took over the government for a year or two. There was a big war that happened and Harry Potter was the one who brought it all to an end."

"Wow," Emily said. "How did they not tell the muggle government about it? How did nobody know what was going on? I get that they don't tell muggles about magic, but shouldn't they if something that big was going on?"
Albus shrugged. "Wizards mostly keep to themselves. Even most muggleborns that go to Hogwarts end up staying in the wizarding world."
The conversation continued on for a while before Harry walked over to them and led them over to Ollivander's in order to get their wands. The group that had been following Neville also followed along with them as Neville and Harry were still not done with their conversation.

"What's that alley over there?" Violet asked while pointing to her left. Albus looked to where she was pointing and saw that she was pointing towards Knockturn Alley.

"That's Knockturn Alley," Abby said. "It's where a lot of the shady shops are."

"Shady shops?" Violet asked.

"You know, Dark magic, potion shops, artifact shops, that kind of stuff."

"Oh, well what's beyond Knockturn Alley?"

"Uhh," Abby wondered. "You know I don't know. My parents always just told me not to go down there. I haven't put much thought into it."

Albus didn't know what was down there either and he made a mental note to ask his father about it later.

It was then that they arrived at Ollivanders and all of the children who were getting a wand went into the store at once carrying gold. There had to be at least a dozen with Neville's group added onto theirs.

The shop felt very old even though a new Ollivander had taken over the position a few years ago after the last one had passed away. The wand boxes were stacked on every visible surface and seemed to have next to no way of organizing themselves.

One of the muggleborns that he hadn't talked to went first. Ollivander took out a tape measure that got dozens of various measurements all around the boy's body. After a few minutes of that, Ollivander walked back into the back of his store and picked a box and brought it out. When the boy tried waving around the wand inside of it, a few sparks popped out of the top and he paid the man before leaving.

This process repeated for a few times before Albus saw that Paul was up next. He stood still as the tape measure roamed him over and it took Ollivander a few tries to get a correct wand but Paul walked away with an aspen wand with a dragon heartstring core.

Soon Abby got up to the desk and got a hazel wand with salamander scales after only a few measurements. She seemed unhappy with this somehow and walked out of the store quietly.

Rose went next and got a pear wand with a unicorn hair core without Ollivander even taking a single measurement. She just walked up to the desk and Ollivander told her to open the box and she left with the wand.

Emily went next and she took a long time to get a wand. Ollivander went through at least three dozen wands before he found one for her. He seemed shocked to be giving her the wand in the first place. The wand was made of elder wood with the core of a thunderbird's tailfeathers. Ollivander was looking at her with an air of reverence as she left the store.

Violet was next and her wand took just as long to get picked out. After all that wait, she finally got one and Ollivander had a large reaction to this one as well. It was made of yew and had a phoenix feather core. His eyes were large like saucers as she left the store.

Clover took her turn and quickly was given a wand of silver lime and a core of a unicorn tail hair.

Finally, it was time for Albus to get his wand. Ollivander used the tape measure to take a few measurements but the tape measure stopped moving fairly quickly. Next, Ollivander gave him a wand but that wand was replaced by another. That wand was taken too and he got a third wand. He didn't feel anything much different between the wands, but to Albus's surprise Ollivander said that that wand was his fit. It was made of pine and had a dragon heartstring core.

Albus didn't know what to feel. The sensation that he had heard others talk about was not present. He didn't feel an immersive feeling of magic sweep over him. He just felt normal, if not a little disappointed.

He left the store in a haze of disappointment. He didn't pay much attention as Neville's group left to do other things, and didn't pay much attention while his family went to get ice cream.

He sat morosely looking at his wand while eating ice cream when his father came to sit next to him.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Harry asked.

"I'm happy I got a wand," Albus said with a fake smile, trying to mask the emptiness he had felt. That seemed to be good enough for his father because he smiled warmly at him. A thought returned to Albus at that moment.

"Dad, what's beyond Knockturn Alley?"

Harry looked surprised for a minute but soon started to talk again.

"Well, beyond the shops of Knockturn Alley there's some restaurants and what not, and after that there's an expansive residential district."

"A residential district?"

"Yeah, Albus," Harry said with a serious face. "About ten to twenty percent of the population of magical Britain lives in the alleys beyond Knockturn Alley."
"But why?" Albus asked. "Don't they know about Knockturn Alley?"
"Well some people can't afford to live elsewhere." Harry said. "There's a lot of squibs down there, I know that. There's people that need to hide from the law, some magical creatures like vampires or hags. People who have failed out of schools like Hogwarts and can't find any good paying jobs. There's a lot of reasons people might find themselves down in the lower alleys."

Albus didn't know what to think about that. How could there be so many people living in such a horrible place as Knockturn Alley. He couldn't understand what would drive a person to want to live there.

Albus was so ingrained in his thoughts that he didn't realise that his family had started to leave. He trailed behind them as they left Diagon Alley and went to lie down in his room at the first possible opportunity.

Albus had dreamt of this day for as long as he could remember. Yet now that it had happened, he couldn't help but feel disappointed. He looked at his wand and tried to feel any kind of connection to it. There wasn't one. It was like he was just holding a dead stick.

Was there something wrong with him?

Why didn't he feel the excitement of going to Hogwarts?

Why did he feel like he was dreading having to wake up the next day?

Probably the Dursleys' fault.