Diagon Alley

At this point I think I should address some matters as to my life.

Context: I was born three years before the Battle of Hogwarts. By the time I was eleven—eight years after the battle—the school had been repaired, classes had resumed, and normalcy returned.

Another matter is my parents.

My Mum is a muggle—we'll leave it at that for now. She is a school teacher, and both Alice and I studied under her during stage one. She took good care of us before we shipped off to Hogwarts. She made us food and gave us gifts—she also made us clean every day, and study for two hours before dinner, and three after.

My father, Charles Husher, is a wizard—a very talented one. He attended Hogwarts a few decades before I was born. He was in Slytherin, got twelve OWLs and ten NEWTs, and moved straight into a Ministry of Magic career, working as an aid for the werewolf registry. He moved up rapidly and at age twenty-six he became an unspeakable at the Department of Mysteries, which is where he was stationed during the Potter years, and when Voldemort came to power for the second time. He was among the Wizards and Witches who arrived with Minister Fudge after the duel between Dumbledor and Voldemort.

Soon after Voldemort's death my father transferred to the Department of Magical Creatures—this time as one of their head researchers. It was a big deal, he apparently had run several research programs for the Department of Mysteries and left them for a "quieter life." There was a whole article about it in the Daily Prophet. For the last eight years he's been traveling the globe researching half-human magical creatures—half-giants, werewolves, vampires, centaurs, anything that is remotely human. When I started attending Hogwarts he'd already published somewhere around five score articles and had books on both vampires and half-giants.

Oh, and my father is in a constant blood feud with the reporter Rita Skeeter.1

Onto Diagon Alley.

Seeing as my father's work required him to be in the field, and that his work took him all over the world, we didn't see much of him. My first trip to Diagon Alley, he was absent—just as he was on my fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh birthdays. I guess technically he missed Alice's birthday as well. He's missed a lot of events in our family, including Alice accidently setting her bed on fire when Mum yelled at her one morning, and my award ceremony for saving a box of kittens from being crushed by a dustcart.

That's actually an interesting story, so I'll quickly go on another tangent.

It was the only other time I ever apparated after Headmistress McGonagall told me never to again. It was a few weeks before my first trip to Diagon Alley. Muggle school had just ended, and I was walking through an uncommonly late winter storm. We get horrible winters in Crail, but I think we set record lows for the month of June—and the first snow during that month for two-hundred and forty years.

So, there was this dustcart, and it had just picked up a skip, but it got caught on some ice. It had to back up to get unstuck, and it went over the curb, and crashed into the building—a little pub that hadn't opened yet. Outside the pub door was the box of kittens, which was being manned by some bloke who smoked a huge cigar and ran for it the minute he saw the dustcart coming towards him. I saw the box, and the kittens, and I apparated, grabbed it, and apparated to safety just a few feet away. I was in the local Crail paper, and they threw the ceremony. Mum even let us keep one of the cats, a brown tabby my sister named Mochi, after her favorite Japanese dessert.2

I thought for sure McGonagall would turn up at my doorstep and ban me from school—or at least take away a thousand points from whatever my future house was. Instead, after the ceremony, a letter was on my desk with green ink on the envelope. The contents of the letter were written by Deputy Headmaster Filius Flitwick congratulating me on my acceptance to 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.' There was a small note inside that said Well done.-MM.

Back to Diagon Alley—in actuality this time.

It's much the same as it was during the Potter years. The only difference is that the destroyed wand maker shop, Ollivanders, had been rebuilt. It's the same stone building, sandwiched between the new shop—Rowan's Robes, a posh store with fancy work and dress robes—and Potage's Cauldron Shop. The trim is still painted black, and the gold letters still spell 'Ollivanders Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC'. The only change is that by the door there is a small plaque that reads, In much gratitude to the Weasley Twins, who provided the means to rebuild this ancient mainstay of the wizarding community.

The other change that Diagon Alley has seen is that Weasley's Wizard Wheezes bought out the two stores next to it and have become something like an American mall superstore. It's just, so massive. Wickedly massive. This is in addition to their second location in Hogsmeade.

The alley itself consists of a long row of shops, and stalls, and advertisements. Most buildings are stone or brick, or wooden buildings all smushed together—with many of the stores having house-like entrances. There are multiple apartments above the stores, and three legitimate houses in all. One of them is owned by disgraced former Minister Cornelius Fudge, whose life consists of writing editorials for the Daily Prophet and people yelling "Wanker" at his bedroom window as they pass by on the street. He must like it; else he probably would've moved by now.

We'd left the day before on the train down to London and stayed the night at the Leaky Cauldron, though we didn't see much of the pub as Mum put us straight to sleep. I did get to see some magic as we'd arrived late enough to witness Tom, the barkeep, wave his wand. All the tables and chairs cleaned themselves and put themselves away. We got up the morning after, ate breakfast in the pub and then went behind to the brick wall where Mum tapped one of the bricks.

My favorite thing about the look of Diagon Alley is the multi-colored buildings on the ground floor. Lavender, puce, lemon, scarlet— painted on the storefronts, doors, signs. It's lovely, and with surge in spending since Voldemort's fall the shops put a lot of effort to keep up in style and splendor.

This coloration was the first thing to hit me when we first arrived in mid-July, a month and a half before attending Hogwarts. I'd never been before because my Mum had no reason to go to London and buy wizarding equipment, and my father never took us.

As we stepped through the moving bricks, my Mum consulted the list. I watched Alice's mouth drop as she took in the sight of the alley. I then looked myself. Gold sparks were shooting out of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, some twelve shops away from us. The sign for Montague's Moranic Cat Company was a wooden orange cat magicked to chase after a wooden rat—complete with squeals and growls and all. Atop Englishman's Eatery, a humungous cutout of a giant belched, green smoke pouring out from his mouth. I wondered how my father would feel about that.

A witch waved her wand at two small children on toy broomsticks and they instantly stopped moving. One started crying as the witch, presumably their mother, started to reprimand them. There was a great deal of hooting coming from Eyelops Owl Emporium—I wondered if that was normal, or if something extra troubling had occurred. In the middle of the alley, splitting the path into a fork, was the tall and poorly structured edaphic of Gringots Bank. It was made of white marble, with small black windows, and it towered above everything in the area except the top of the Weasley's constantly moving statue of the two twins. In front of the bank a wizard blew flame dragons, thestrals, and hippogriff's around a circle of wizards and witches—mostly parents with small children.

It was beautiful.

Mum only glanced at it before pulling out the shopping list from a coat pocket. She wore her favorite tweed burgundy coat, a white buttoned blouse beneath, with blue jeans and tall leather boots. Atop her head she wore a brown trilby hat that matched the brown and burgundy scarf around her neck. She looked vastly different from the witches and wizards surrounding us. She got a few glances from those nearest us. "Lets, see, first is…"

"Robes," I answered. I had memorized the list

First years will require:

Uniform

Three sets of plain work robes (black)

One plain Pointed hat (black)

One Pair of Protective Gloves (dragon hide or similar)

One Winter Cloak (Black, silver fastenings)

Please note that all student's clothes should carry name-tags at all times.

Books

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 by Miranda Goshawk

A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling

An Introduction to the Dark Arts by Hermione Granger

A beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phylida Spore

The Unpublished Notes on Beginner Potions by Severus Snape

Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander

Understanding our Muggle Brethren by Justin Finch-Fletchley

Necessary Equipment

1 Wand

1 Cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set of glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set of brass scales

Students may also bring an Owl, IN ADDITION TO, a cat, a toad, or a pigmy puff (must be purchased from Eyelops or Weasley's Wizard Wheezes). Other pets may be negotiated. Parents be vigilant!

My mother likes to do things in order of what the list says. So it didn't matter that Madam Malkin's was next to Flourish and Blotts, we had to go from Madam Mulkins for robes first, then to Potage's for dragon hide gloves, then we'd be allowed to go to Flourish and Blotts.

It would be my first pair of robes. Alice and I only had muggle clothing, though by the looks of it most wizarding children wore muggle clothing. That morning we'd been forced to wear matching blue button-down denim shirts—Alice's was too long for her—but thankfully we hadn't been asked to wear the exact same thing. Alice had some black leggings on and similar boots to Mum, while I wore khakis and blue shoes.

Mum had brought gold from home, so we skipped what I'm sure would have been a riveting trip to Gringotts. Instead we arrived at Madam Malkins at nine in the morning, just in time for it to open. Yet we had to wait for two people to finish—siblings by the look of it. One was a young girl with her hair in a long blonde ponytail. She was as pale as she was thin, and she glanced over at the three of us before looking away and not making eye contact. I noticed long scars poking out of her collar, descending the right side of her neck. Her sibling was a scraggly boy, thin and taller than my Mum—though not that old looking. He had dark hair, and dark eyelashes to match them. While the girl was being fitted for black robes—the sign of a first year—the boy's robe had green trim at the collar and a green lining.

Obviously, the boy was in Slytherin—which unfortunately, in my opinion, has a bad rap. Though the founder of the House was evidently evil, as was the second most famous Slytherin, Voldemort,3 the house itself puts out a lot of normal and diligent witches and wizards. It's not as if Salazar Slytherin wanted his house to be the evil house. No, the house is for those who are ambitious, cunning and resourceful. Dumbledore was ambitious, Newt Scamander was resourceful, and like I said my Father was a Slytherin—doesn't mean they're bad people. But since Voldemort's second rise to power, and the amount of Death Eaters that ended up being Slytherin, there's something of a "Everyone hates Slytherins", which has translated into a "Slytherins vs. Everybody" mentality on the other side. I'll tell you this, I'd rather be a Slytherin than a bashful and brainless Gryffindor.

I flashed a quick smile to the boy, but he averted his eyes.

Madam Malkins walked in the room, and gave a small shriek of surprise, dropping the fabric in her hands. She apologized, citing she didn't know we were there, and went about measuring the girl and boy. I couldn't see their parents anywhere.

The shop was full of cloth, robes, measuring tape, elevated round platforms to stand on, and huge lamps. There are great big windows on the front and right side of the shop, and a lot of light gives the shop feel of being much bigger than it actually is—especially while the interior is usually so busy.

The room was incredibly dusty, and my sister sneezed and sneezed throughout the entire wait. Mum removed herself from the shop because of the dust. When the two siblings were done, Madam Malkins ushered them off the platforms and whispered, "Back upstairs my dears." She caught my eye as I watched the children take off the robes and leave without saying a word. "My nephew and niece. Little Shelby is starting Hogwarts this year."

"Us too!" Alice said trying to catch Shelby's eye.

"I know," Madam Malkins said, giving us a knowing smile. "Haven't seen you yet. Come up here." She gestured to two other platforms with a wave of her want. Instantly the dust vanished, Madam Malkins apologizing about the state of the shop. She hadn't realized how close it had been to opening.

She was quick about her work, though had to excuse herself when we heard a bang and some shouting above the shop. Mum came in then, asking if we were done and where Madam Malkins was. But soon enough we were out of the shop, having bought our robes at a discount.

Buying potions supplies at Potage's was not an enjoyable experience. Many families and their students had arrived, and we waited for an hour in line before we could request gloves. Mum tried to talk down the price on pewter cauldron's we had to get, but the shop owner—a very old welsh bloke with an enormous bald spot on his head—said he hadn't change the price in seventy-two years. His assistant gave my sister and I our dragon hide gloves, but I had to ask for a bigger pair. By the time he came back with them, Mum had given up trying to talk down the price of the cauldron and said we couldn't afford dragon hide, so we ended up getting the elastic horned-toad hide—a cheap knockoff from a little-known magical toad that can levitate for a bit when catching prey or escaping from a predator. Not exciting. The shop keep told Mum they wouldn't protect against heavier potions, but she wasn't having it. Alice and I left with our heads down.

Flourish and Blotts was also filled with families, but this store seemed prepared for the mass amounts of people. An assistant, a Frenchman with a pencil thin mustache and flamboyant black and pink dress robes came to Mum's aid at once. I believe he could sense the shoppers rage inside Mum and he acted instantly upon it. He waved his wand with such panache and all our books floated into a neat stack. Mum's annoyance ebbed and vanished completely when he conjured a small tote bag that fit all the books and was weightless.

It was nearly two in the afternoon and Mum didn't make us eat the sandwiches she'd brought. We ate hamburgers at the leaky cauldron and Alice and I split some bottomless chips. We just kept reaching farther into their container and pulling more chips. Alice giggled a lot when it first happened.

Close to when we finished our food, Mum got very quiet. Alice didn't notice, she was elbow deep in the chips, but I did. The last time it had been when she'd had to tell me Father had left the night before our birthday. She gets this look where she looks into the corner of a room and her eyes glaze and the smallest crease forms between her eyes.

I asked her what the matter was. She bent her arm into the cup and took out a chip, nibbling on the end of it.

Alice's eyes were wide and she asked, "Is it Mochi? Do we have to give her up now?"

Mum smiled and pinched Alice's arm. "No silly. It's just" she sighed and then looked at me, "We can't afford wands this year."

It was my turn for a crease to grow between my eyes. "But we won't be able to do magic." I was much louder than I meant to be.

"Your father has his father's and grandfather's old wands for you," Mum said quickly. "And I set up a time with Mr. Ollivander so you could go in and pick them up proper." She nudged my arm, but I didn't look up. "Oh Rave, we'll get you your own wand soon."

My own wand. For weeks, it had been all I could think about. Length, wood, core—would it be dragon heartstring, unicorn hair, or maybe something rarer like Veela hair or a Manticore Stinger. Merlin's pants, I'd built my own wand years ago! Wasn't it obvious this was the thing I wanted most? Mum let me think for years, or at least months, that I'd be getting my own wand today. Why hadn't she told us sooner? Why'd she let this go on?

We left the pub, and I too became quiet in Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment. Quiet in line as we got our scales and telescope. Quiet as we approached Mr. Ollivanders around four in the afternoon. And still as we stood outside the door, my Mum holding it open for me.

"Rave?" she asked.

"I'm not going in." I stood there, resolute, still looking at the cobbled street.

"Don't be stupid, you need a wand," she said. Her feet pointed inside the shop. Her boots had some mud on them, probably from the train station in Crail.

"Just give me whichever one doesn't work as well for Alice," I said. I wheeled around and made a beeline for the benches in the middle of the alley. My Mum didn't call for me to come back. I heard the doors to the shop close.

Minutes later the door opened, and I could hear Alice talking rapidly about the way she'd blown wands right off the shelf with her new wand—our grandfathers—meaning I'd have our great-grandfathers, a chewed on Applewood wand with Dragon Heartstring, short and firm, "like the man" my father used to say.

"Young man." I knew promptly I was being addressed and it startled me. I jumped in my seat and looked up. The voice was gruff and crackly, and the owner of the voice seemed as such too. A very old man—even older than the cauldron shopkeep—stood in the open doorway of Ollivanders, holding the door open with one hand and checking a watch with the other. He had a full head of gray and white hair which stood up everywhere. His eyebrows were thick and stood up just the same. His eyes were gray, and his face lined, and he wore a three-piece muggle suit, black and white pinstriped. "Would you like to come in the shop to get your wand?"

I shook my head.

"Perhaps you'd like a tour of it then."

I shook my head.

Mr. Ollivander produced his own wand and twirled it. A long burgundy box I recognized flowed out of the tip—the one containing my great-grandfather's—no, my wand—along with another smaller black box. Taking the boxes from midair, Mr. Ollivander walked to me and—with a flexibility surprising for such an elder statesman—crouched in front of me.

"Your mother went out of her way to set up a private session for you and your sister," Mr. Ollivander said. His eyes didn't seem to end, much like the bottomless chips. "Seems rude to refuse her efforts to make this a little more special."

"I don't want to come in until I can get my own." I was back to looking at the ground.

A little "ah" escaped Mr. Ollivander's mouth. I saw his fingers reach across my vision and I followed them. He opened the burgundy box and I saw my great-grandfather's wand. There were the chew marks all along the wand. The handle was short, just like the shaft, and it barely fit in my hand as it were. Mr. Ollivander pulled the gold watch I saw earlier and showed it to me.

"Your great-grandfather was a friend of mine. Your father's maternal grandfather if I'm not mistaken." I nodded. "Name of Ernest Babshot. Used to own the shop next to me. Finest watchmaker in the wizarding world. Gave me this on my thirty-second birthday. A well-liked man. I used to watch him, wand in mouth, as he used his hands to fine tune some of the watches. It drove me mad seeing that improper use." He handed me the wand and asked me to give it a wave. I did so and several cobblestones cracked from the bench I sat on to the doorway of his shop.

Mr. Ollivander made a long "mmm" noise and took the wand from my hand. He took the small black box beside him and said, "You know I read a peculiar story in the Prophet several years ago." He opened the box and poked his wand at the protective wrappings which shimmered. "A small story about a little boy who collected niffler hair and encase it in some pieces of oak he'd glued together. Imagine my surprise when I read that the wand had produced sparks, fire, and exploded a very old planter in the yard of the house. Not to mention make a broom fly."

I knew that story well. Mr. Ollivander was describing the wand I'd created, and he had my complete attention.

"The wand was confiscated of course, but I wrote to the Department of the Misuse of Wizarding Artifacts and asked to study the wand." He produced the small wand, which lay in several pieces, evidently dissected by the wandmaker. "This was impressive work—though the glue wouldn't have stood any more magical work, and niffler hair is extremely weak. How did you manage to encase it in the wood?"

"Very carefully," I answered. Mr. Ollivander laughed.

"Wit beyond your age young Master Husher."

He waved his wand three times and the pieces of my wand were wrapped, the box closed, and an assortment of boxes floated from Mr. Ollivander's shop. The boxes stopped next to Mr. Ollivander and piled themselves beside him. Atop the pile was a very old box, black and gold with a little O on the top.

"I have a small collection of wands I lend out, Mr. Husher," Mr. Ollivander explained. "On the off chance that a Wizard, such as yourself, cannot afford his first wand, and his family cannot produce one worth using." He bent low and studied the boxes for a moment before choosing the black and gold one on top. "There are a few people I've met in my life who have donated wands to me for this very use. He pointed to a red box second from the bottom. A Mr. Gregorian Scamander gave me that—yes" he said at my look of surprise "a relative of Mr. Newt Scamander, though distant I would say. And this one" he pointed to a purple box with green lining on the edge "Came from Nymphadora Tonks, one of the members of the Order of the Phoenix. She herself had to borrow one of my wands for her first five years at Hogwarts. Died, tragically in the Battle of Hogwarts. She put it in her will that her wand become one of my borrowing wands. But I think," he opened the black and gold box. "This one will do."

I couldn't see inside the box and I craned my neck to no avail. Mr. Ollivander pulled it away for a moment.

"I wasn't able to have my own wand until I was twelve—did you know that?"

I shook my head, wondering how a wandmaker from a wand-making family didn't have his own wand.

"It was a lesson my father wanted to teach me: how it feels to use a chosen wand for you, rather than a wand that chose you. So, I used the wand of my great-great grandfather—an exceptional wizard who before he settled into wandmaking, was an Auror during a time of great trouble." He produced the wand, which was reddish in color, with a braided handle and long gouges in the shaft. "Cherry, Dragon Heartstring, twelve-and-a-half inches, and I think a better wand for you Mr. Husher."

"You can call me Raven," I said. Mr. Husher sounded too much for me.

He smiled and said, "Raven." He slightly rolled the R. It sounded nice.

I took the wand and waved it. The door to the wand shop closed, a little abruptly, but nothing broke. Mr. Ollivander gave me another smile and touched my hand. "I'm going to let you borrow this wand Raven. But I expect to get it back from you the day you set foot in my store and purchase your own wand. Do you hear me?"

I nodded.

He gave a nod back and stood. "I think we're all set here," he said to my Mum. "See you sooner than you think Raven. Mrs. Husher, Ms. Husher," and he walked back into his shop, closely followed by a family with eight small children. He held the door for them and gave me a wide-eyed look before closing the door.

1 Stick with me. We'll get to that eventually.

2 I still don't know how she ended up being allowed to name it. I rescued the damn thing.

3 The most famous Slytherin is Merlin, if you didn't know.