Chapter Eight – Vanity Fair
or I get new clothes!
Before we moved anywhere, Snape took a look around the alley and offered me his hand again. I took it with a grateful smile and off we went towards Madam Malkin's. I was pretty excited about it actually. Not because of the infamous shopping sprees women went on, but because I would finally get to wear new clothes for the first time in nine or so years since I was reborn into this world. I might even ask Snape if we could buy extra clothes for everyday use and not just the uniform sets.
When the bell above us rang as we stepped inside the shop, it was Madam Malkin herself who greeted us with a cheerful smile.
"Hogwarts, dear?" She asked me and I nodded shyly.
"Right, up you go," she continued and showed me to a small stool in the fitting room. I obeyed her and stepped up. We were lucky insofar as there was no one else in the shop at the moment.
"Fit her for everything else as well," Snape suddenly said, leaning against the wall opposite of the fitting room. "She is in need of a full wardrobe, including formal robes with a place to put her family crest. Make sure to add charms for growth so that the clothes will grow with her."
Madam Malkin nodded, happy to get such a big order and flitted around me while measuring me.
"What about colours? Do you have specific colours in mind?" She asked, all business like.
There was silence in the room until I realized she was asking me and I stammered for a bit.
"Er, um. Greens and greys?" I asked more than said. I knew that with my complexion, hair and eye colour that there weren't that many colours that would look good on me. "Perhaps a few dark blues?"
"Ah, a future Slytherin then?" Madam Malkin asked jokingly. I was happy to hear she didn't sound prejudiced against that house.
I sent a quick, questioning look towards Snape and he rose to the occasion.
"At Hogwarts you are sorted into one of four Houses. There's Gryffindor which colours are red and gold, Ravenclaw has blue and bronze, Hufflepuff has yellow and black and then there's Slytherin which has green and silver. I'll tell you more about them later."
I nodded and let Madam Malkin fill the silence with her chatter, nodding here and there and agreeing with her just to let her know that I was indeed listening to what she was saying.
Half an hour later, I was measured, had my three sets of uniform neatly packaged, while the other things would be sent to me by owl post when they were done, and was wearing a neat emerald green summer dress. And by that, I mean that me and Madam Malkin had quickly designed it in the half hour we were there and I loved it. It had bell-like sleeves with silver ribbons sewn into them so that I could regulate the wideness of the sleeves, and a wide silver ribbon for the belt on the dress. The dress itself went down to my knees. I loved it. It was girlish, but not too girlish because I said no to the frills Madam Malkin wanted to sew on it. And Snape obviously approved as well, because he was quiet when I shyly asked Madam Malkin to make me a dress that I could wear immediately.
I love magic. It made the sewing so much faster. Madam Malkin just flicked her wand and the dress practically sewed itself.
Plus, I doubt Snape had anything against me wearing Slytherin colours.
The next shop we went into was the Apothecary where Snape took the reigns and got me a nice set of potion ingredients. We spent a bit of time there, because I was asking him about the other ingredients and what they were used for. He (happily?) talked about Potions for fifteen minutes while the guy that worked in the shop looked at us with a bored expression. He finally cleared his throat just when Snape was explaining about the difference between fresh and dried ingredients. That got the professor to stop talking, glare at the poor guy, pay for the ingredients and leave the shop with a huff.
Well, he didn't huff out loud, but I imagined he did so in his mind.
Following that we went to buy the pewter cauldron, where he went into details about why pewter cauldrons were best for beginners, and why the gold cauldrons could only be bought by people that had been verified by the Potioneering Community, which was apparently where you went if you wanted to study Potions after finishing Hogwarts. You were apprenticed to a Potions Master that taught you everything you needed to know for two years, before you could sit for the Mastery for the first time. Most people failed the first test because it was so tough and I was proud of my professor when he admitted that he was one of the rare ones who passed it the first time. He was also the youngest ever Potions Master in Great Britain.
I must have looked at him in such awe that he grew uncomfortable and quickly added that there were people far younger than he was in other countries around the world. That didn't matter to me, I was still completely amazed at how smart he was.
By that time, it was already almost noon and Snape led me back towards Leaky Cauldron. I was weary about it, because I knew there were a lot of people and while it wasn't my birthday, I was still cautious about Quirrellmort being there.
Author's Note: Sorry for the wait guys, I'm somewhere that has no electricity, except solar powered and I can't charge my laptop nonstop. For the past two days there was no sun, so we had to save the energy left. Anyway, hope you enjoy the shortish chapter - I have a few chapters written already, so there's no fear that I'm not updating because I haven't written the next chapter yet. I just can't turn my laptop on for now. Anyway, I'll try to update tomorrow as well, but I'll probably move to weekly updates after I get home, because it's much harder to write at home than here. Here, words just somehow fly from my fingers, and I just can't get that motivated at home... Sorry about that. Also, if you find any mistakes in any of the chapters I've written and will write, please feel free to correct me and I'll edit them. Also, if anyone wants to beta this, I'd be very happy. Have a nice day!
I created a discussion topic for this story - I might change it later to make it a discussion for all my stories, but for now, just this one. Here's the link: forum/Dawn-of-a-New-Century-Discussion/195330/ - please help me pick the best ideas!
