My longest chapter yet, and it took forever to write. Tell me what you guys think! I try to make each chapter at least two thousand words long. This one got away from me though.
Arriving at Charing Cross road, it took all of a few minutes to pick out the Leaky Cauldron. Grabbing his parents hands, Will pulled them to the door. Pushing the door open with his hip, he pulled them inside.
As soon as mum had her bearings again, she looked around the bar. Her facial expression told Will she was not impressed. "Are you sure we've got the right place? This looks more like some kind of magical pub, rather than a shop."
Will just pointed to Professor Mcgonagall as she approached them.
"Our destination is just through here," Mcgonagall said, pointing towards the back of the pub.
"Um, I'm not sure if-" Mum hesitated, obviously having second thoughts. Will grabbed her hand again.
"Come on, let's go!" Will said, pulling his mum towards the back. Dad and Mcgonagall followed, though Mcgonagall turned to nod at someone behind the bar as she passed (probably Tom).
Out the back door and into the alley, Will stopped, waiting for Mcgonagall. He didn't have a wand, after all. Mum was looking even less impressed. Dad joined them a moment later.
Mcgonagall strode right past Will, mum, and dad, turning to face them once she was standing next to one of the trash bins. "You see this bin right here? You need to tap this brick above it three times with a wand. That's one of the things we'll be picking up today, so if you need to you'll be able to get into Diagon Alley by yourselves next time."
"Diagon Alley?" Dad said, sounding out the words.
"Yes," Mcgonagall said, tapping the brick with her wand, and after the third tap, the wall folded in on itself to reveal Diagon Alley. Oh, the movies didn't do it justice. It was much more impressive than that. The sights and sounds were bright and bold, true, but a movie couldn't capture the real feel of the place. The buzz of magic, the somewhat discordant smells, it was a brilliant, colorful cornucopia for the senses. Will thought he might cry.
"You alright?" Mum asked, concerned. Will nodded.
"It just sort of hit me that this was actually real. I get to experience something like this, it's a world where I will fit in." Hearing that, mum was a little teary herself.
"This way please," Mcgonagall said, a few steps ahead now, "Our first stop is at Gringotts Bank for some currency conversion."
Inside the bank, Mcgonagall had explained the coin system that wizards used, and the value of each coin. She also explained the difference in value compared to muggle money. Will had never been good at math, so he let his parents take care of it. He'd figure it out later.
What had bothered him though was the stares he'd gotten from the goblins. They hadn't been obvious about it, but Will hand caught multiple different bank teller goblins looking at him. When he'd waved, all of them had turned away, as if they hadn't been staring at him at all. Was this normal for goblins?
Once his parents were done, they left the bank and went to get his uniform. While he was getting fitted, his dad went to the Apothecary they'd passed on the way, and his mum went to look at cauldrons with Mcgonagall.
Standing on the stool, and feeling a bit self-conscious while being measured, Will didn't notice someone else enter the shop.
"Hop up on the stool now, go on dear!" Madame Malkin said through a mouthful of pins, though why she needed to do that he had no idea, "I'll be with you in a minute."
Will turned his head to see a round faced boy with blonde hair standing awkwardly on the other stool.
"Hogwarts too?" He asked, before Madame Malkin moved him back into position with a "Don't move now, that's right. We're almost done."
"Oh! Uh, yes," The other boy (maybe Neville?) said, obviously nervous, for some reason.
"Nice! I hope we're in the same house! I'm hoping for Gryffindor, what about you?" He'd gotten the house explanation on the way to Madame Malkin's.
"I'm just glad I'm allowed to go," The boy (probably Neville.) said, "For the longest time, they weren't sure if I had enough magic to attend Hogwarts at all. I'll probably end up in Hufflepuff."
"Hufflepuff is a perfectly good house!" Will said, smiling, "But I wouldn't sell yourself short, you might surprise yourself."
"That's you done, dear." Madame Malkin said, straightening up, before turning to the other boy (definitely Neville.) "Sorry about the wait, my assistant has the day off today, some sort of potions accident. I just hope everyone's alright."
"I'll see you at Hogwarts then," Will said, smiling, "What's your name? I'm Will Nelson."
"Neville L-Longbottom." He stuttered, but managed to return the smile. Will waved and, after picking up his purchases, trotted off, exiting the store. He saw Professor Mcgonagall standing next to an intimidating looking woman with an entire vulture on her hat. His mum stood nearby, an awkward expression on her face.
"-All I'm saying is that there's a reason there's the saying,'The Wand chooses the Wizard.'" Mcgonagall was apparently in the middle of a 'disagreement' with whom Will assumed was Neville's Grandmother.
"His father's wand should work perfectly well for him, if he's anything like his father." She replied in a rather trite tone.
"But you just said that it didn't work very well for him!" Mcgonagall burst out, "Do you want his schoolwork to suffer because he can't get his wand to cooperate?"
"His father would have-"
"He's not Frank, Augusta, he's his own person!" Mcgonagall took a deep breath and changed tactics. "Augusta, you know that forcing Neville to be a clone of his father will only make him unhappy. You know that, right?"
Neville's grandmother sighed and looked away, "I know, it's just been difficult recently. For the longest time I had hope that Frank and Alice-"
"I know." Mcgonagall nodded, "How about this, you take Neville home, have a dram, relax, and I'll firecall you this afternoon. We can talk about what you should do then."
Augusta Longbottom wiped her eyes and nodded, "That sounds like a good idea. Maybe a dram of Firewhiskey will help me calm down a bit." She said, and headed into Madame Malkin's.
"I'll talk to you this afternoon, Augusta!" Professor Mcgonagall called after her.
Mum cleared her throat, and Mcgonagall seemingly remembered where she was.
"Oh! I'm sorry about that. That was an old friend going through a bit of a hard time." She said.
"What exactly happened, if you don't mind my asking," Mum asked.
"It's an old story, and not exactly mine to tell. I'm sorry for taking up so much of our time today. Where were we headed next?" Mcgonagall asked.
"I've picked up Will's potion supplies besides the ingredients, and all of the books he'll need for school." Mum recounted, "My husband went to the Apothecary for the-"
"What!" Will erupted, "But I wanted to go to the bookstore!"
"I knew you'd waste all of our time in there, so I made a quick trip while you were getting fitted. We don't want to waste all of the Professor's time, do we?" Mum asked, slipping into her sweet voice. A clear warning note.
"No, Ma'am." Will replied, giving a somewhat sarcastic salute.
Mum snorted, "Very funny. I think I see your dad coming now."
Apparently his dad had gotten the Potion ingredients needed, and also found the telescope needed for Astronomy class. Only one thing remained. The wand.
Ollivander's was dustier than expected. It sort of fit the mood of the shop, and seeing how long Ollivander's had been around, some of that dust might be from the B.C. era. Will was more interested in the odd tingle he felt. As if there were thousands of voices whispering in the back of the shop. But he didn't hear it so much as feel it. He also felt a little tug, like there was something back there, something for him.
While he was standing there distracted, Ollivander's tape measure was measuring different parts of his body, currently the width of his fingernails.
Ollivander emerged from the back of the store, carrying an array of different boxes. After trying twelve different wands, Ollivander paused and looked at Will. It was similar to the look his mother would give, an 'I see through you' type of look. It made him uncomfortable, and he opened his mouth, but before he could speak Ollivander was in the back of the store again, rustling around. Will looked at his mum, and his mum looked at Professor Mcgonagall, who shrugged.
Suddenly, Ollivander was back, scaring Will. He hadn't heard him come up.
Ollivander gestured to the counter again, but this time there were only three boxes. "Try these ones," He said, "I have a good feeling about them."
Will did too, an especially good feeling. That tugging he'd felt before was in front of him now, coming from the box on his left. "This one," he muttered, approaching it. As soon as he grasped the wand, a soft breeze kicked up, and a familiar white fog escaped from the wand. It swirled around Will, then vanished. As it did, a feeling snapped into place, like this was what was supposed to happen all along. Looking down at the wand, he could see it was a pale grey, and covered in white swirls and curves from the point to the base of the handle, giving it a rather ethereal quality.
"Correct!" Ollivander cried, "Oh that was splendid. That wand is Yew and Phoenix Feather, thirteen inches, incredibly flexible. But a Yew wand, haven't sold one of those in a while. And for it to be one of these three, well… You see, these three wands are brother core wands. I haven't found a wielder for the other two yet, but I wasn't expecting to find a wielder for any of these wands for a very long time."
Mum took a closer look at the wand in question. "Where did you find Yew wood so pale? I wasn't aware Yew came in shades this light."
"Oh, I didn't make these three wands, it was one of my ancestors. He based them off of a children's story I believe. The Tale of the Three Brothers, have you heard of it? It's a wizarding story, so maybe not. And all wand wood comes from specific wand trees. I believe the story with this one is that it came from the center of a dead branch. A dead outer, with a core of life. This will be a very powerful wand, but dangerous in the wrong hands. We can expect great things from you, Mr. Nelson."
Will wasn't sure how to feel about that.
Weeks went by, Dudley's birthday came and went, and Will had frozen with the realization that this was the year the Dursleys went to the zoo! And Harry hadn't been there, because it fell on a Sunday this year. He missed the zoo trip!
After freaking out about it, Will considered things, and realized that this didn't change too much. Harry just wouldn't know he could talk to snakes, that's all. It was possible for Will to fix that, but why bother? It might make the whole dueling club more of a fiasco, but Will had plenty of time to figure out a plan for that. If he found an opportunity he might fix it, but for now it was fine the way it was.
Nothing especially interesting happened until the twenty-fourth of July. That was the day Will knew the letters for Harry would start to arrive, but it was a Wednesday so Harry was with the Nelsons.
Harry had actually noticed Will's anxiety, and had asked him what was wrong. It had been agony trying to keep magic from Harry, even if it was only for a few months. Will had had to get creative in order not to lie to him. After sending Harry off to the Dursleys on Thursday, Will was antsy the next two days, waiting for Saturday to roll around. He just hoped the Dursleys weren't too upset with Harry, what with all the letters arriving.
Saturday had been the day Will was waiting for. Harry came back disgruntled. When asked about it, he told Will about his uncle taking his letters.
"But you held it, right?" Will asked, excited, "You held one of the letters?"
"Yes, but I didn't get to open it." Harry confessed, miserable.
"Wait right here," Will just about yelled, and ran to his room to grab his letter. It was hidden in the back of his closet, with all of the rest of his magical stuff. Running back downstairs, he flopped back down on the couch next to Harry. "Did it look like this?" Will showed Harry the envelope his letter had come in.
Harry took it, turning it over, "Almost exactly, but with my name and room instead of-"
"Yeah, yeah, Details, details." Will said, waving his hands, "The point is you got your letter Harry! That means I can tell you what's been going on!"
"Going... on?" Harry asked, confused.
"Anyway, read this." Will handed over the introduction letter.
Taking it carefully, Harry swallowed, before reading it thoroughly. When he was done, Will nearly jumped on him. "This is why we can do the things we do! We have magic! Ugh, you have no idea what keeping that from you was like!" Will collapsed dramatically on the floor.
"You lied to me?" It was a soft question, Will barely heard it. He popped his head up to look at Harry.
"What? No, I just...withheld information."
"Withholding information and lying are the same thing in a court of law." Harry said dryly. Wow, he'd been spending too much time with mum.
"I didn't want to, okay? It was literally illegal for me to tell you. I couldn't until you got your letter." Will, said, frowning. He didn't want to have a fight with Harry. Was that where this was headed? "I told you the literal second I could. I… I'm sorry. I didn't want to upset you. Are we good?" He said hesitantly, reaching out to put a hand on Harry's shoulder but stopping before he touched him.
Harry looked away for a minute, then looked back. "Well, I'm not happy you 'withheld information' from me, but I guess I understand why you did it. After all, how bad would it look if the son of a lawyer went around breaking the law just because it was inconvenient?" Harry chuckled, and Will joined in. After a minute Harry added, "But you owe me one."
"I know how to start to pay you back!" Will said, excited, "did you read the list attached?"
"You mean about the robes and book list?" Harry questioned.
"There's one thing not on that list that's necessary." Will said mysteriously, then ran upstairs.
"Not on the list? Hey! Will, what is it!?" Harry yelled, and took off after him.
After showing Harry his wand, (his wand, how cool was that!) the boys played around with it, getting it to shower sparks in different colors. After that there was some roughhousing ('For revenge!' Harry had said) and it ended with them laying on the floor, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Will had explained everything he'd 'learned' about the wizarding world.
"Do you think the Dursleys know?" Harry asked suddenly.
Will paused, "It would explain a lot if they did. Why they're so hyper-focused on being normal, and why they dislike you so much." He said, after a moment.
"I think I might hate them," Harry blurted out.
"The Dursleys?" Will asked, craning his neck in time to see Harry nod.
"They've lied to me my whole life. And none of it was to protect me. I just wish…"
"I know." Will reached his hand out and grabbed Harry's. They lay there holding hands for a minute before Will shot up to a sitting position. "Hey, want to play a prank on them?"
Harry seemed to consider it for a moment, "What kind of prank?" He asked.
"Hogwarts seems pretty determined to get you to read one of your letters." Will said, hand on his chin, thinking, "Eventually they're going to send a real person to find out what's going on."
Harry nodded, motioning for Will to continue.
"You could pretend not to know what's going on until then. See just how paranoid your relatives can get."
Will reconsidered what he'd said, and backtracked a little, "Your relatives are still too afraid of getting the pants sued off them to do any real harm, and they'll probably send Mcgonagall again. She seems like she can definitely get control of a situation." Well, a terrifying Half-Giant could probably control the Dursleys just as well, but Will didn't say that part out loud. "You could also use the situation to find out how much your relatives really know about magic." He looked at Harry's face and saw him turned the other way.
"Never mind, it was stupid."
"Okay. I'll do it."
"I'm sorry for bringing it- What, you will?" Will jumped up, excited.
"I really want to know what my relatives have been hiding from me," Harry said, "And who knows, it might be fun."
"I'll check on you every night with astral projection," Will promised, "Let me know if things are too much, and I'll have mum and dad pick you up."
"Wait, wait," Harry laughed, "We still have tonight and all of tomorrow to hang out before then." He sat up, stretching. "It's about time to go to bed, right? I'm going to start getting ready. We can practice locating each other in astral form again tonight."
Harry grabbed his pajamas and exited the room, heading towards the bathroom. He still didn't like changing in front of other people, (Will's best guess was low self-confidence paired with embarrassing scars.) He grabbed his pajamas and quickly started changing.
Thinking back to their earlier conversation, Will frowned. Harry really didn't like people withholding information from him. What if he found out about the secrets Will was keeping, would their friendship be over? What about mum and dad? What if they found out about what happened to the real Will? Shaking his head, Will tried his best to discard those thoughts and headed out into the hall to brush his teeth.
I'm not sure what will be in the next chapter, Harry will meet Hagrid for sure. We might make it all the way to Platform nine and three quarters.