Chapter 3) Crowded Streets
Selected Listening: A Letter to Elise- The Cure
Anastasia and Hermione woke at 7 AM to get ready and go to Diagon Alley. Hermione's parents were coming with them, and being muggles, they could not remember where the entrance to Diagon Alley was, so it was up to the girls to find out where they should be going. Ron and Harry would meet them there.
They gathered their letters and a map of London and hopped into the back seat of the minivan. While Anastasia scoured the map for the correct intersection, Hermione read off the list of required reading.
"Gadding with Ghouls, Voyages with Vampires, all of these defense books are written by Gilderoy Lockhart! That can only mean—" Hermione's eyes skimmed down the page to the notes section, "Gilderoy Lockhart is our new defense teacher!"
Anastasia 's expression gave away her shock and slight horror. After her conversation with her father, she had hoped he wouldn't hire the man.
"You don't look pleased," Hermione stated, "Anastasia, do you know what Gilderoy Lockhart does? He's seen everything in the dark arts! He'll make a brilliant professor!"
Anastasia fiddled with her pendant.
"Sure, if he really has done all those things. I'm sure he'll be great," she said. Hermione frowned slightly but seemed to ignore Anastasia's lack of enthusiasm.
"Ooh! Oh, look! In partnership with Flourish and Blotts, Lockhart will be present to sign textbooks on August 30th, which is the biggest school shopping day of the year for Hogwarts students! That's today!" Hermione said, waving her hand so fast she looked like she would fly off her seat.
"Woo hoo," Anastasia said flatly.
"Girls, girls, I know you're excited, but what exit are we looking for?"
"Sorry dad!" Hermione said and returned to helping Anastasia with the map.
Once they had parked and made it to the correct entrance, the group headed for Gringotts to exchange currency. Albus had given Anastasia three-hundred-fifty muggle pounds so that she would not bother the Grangers for extra food or souvenirs. She still had two hundred for school supplies. The streets were already crowded with shoppers, and they started to see familiar faces. Dean, Romilda, and Susan were some of those they spotted and waved to on their way to the bank. They walked up the marble front steps and entered the grand hall. The first desk on the right read "currency exchange," and so they lined up there behind a couple of other muggle-born students and their confused parents.
Anastasia pulled out her money and waited patiently. They waited as Penelope Clearwater's mother presented the bills to the goblin, the goblin did some sort of calculation with his scale, and then handed them back a series of galleons, sickles, and nuts. Once they had cleared, Hermione's parents stepped up.
"How much do you need for supplies, darling?" Mrs. Granger asked Hermione, she shrugged.
"About the same as last year, I guess. I thought it would be less, but we need so many books."
The Grangers put three hundred pounds on the desk. Anastasia hoped hers would be enough.
"Anastasia!" A familiar, sneebly voice called from behind her. She turned to find Draco Malfoy.
"Oh, hello," she said, bewildered at the direct, first-name greeting. A tall man with long blonde hair and an austere black robe approached behind him. She could only assume it was his father, Lucius.
"You haven't answered any of my owls!" Draco complained. "If you're angry with me, you can say so."
"I'm not angry with you! I haven't gotten any," she said, face flushing.
"You live in Manchester, right? That's where I sent them," he said haughtily.
"Oh, um, I dunno, I guess they got lost. Besides! I was on holiday with Hermione for the past two weeks—" she tried to excuse.
"Draco, what are you doing?" Mr. Malfoy asked as he examined Anastasia, and then Hermione, her parents, and the sign. His countenance darkened with each new realization.
"I was saying hello to—" Draco looked over at everyone and read the sign above the desk, "oh, um…this is Anastasia Green." He tried to recover, but his father's hatred filled glare decided the conversation would not be a pleasant one. Lucius turned his gaze on Anastasia.
"Yes, I've heard of you. The muggleborn student who thinks she can do alchemy. Let me make clear that I do not allow my son to befriend muggleborn students, and I certainly don't allow him to address people like you by first name."
Anastasia stared at the man, dumbfounded. She'd never felt so insulted in her life. She looked to Draco for some sort of hint on what to do, but he looked as decidedly lost as she was. Lucius's eyes flickered to Anastasia's necklace, and she tucked it in quickly. Then he pulled Draco away by the shoulder, with a
"Stay away from my son, bloodfilth."
"But father!" he protested.
"Enough, Draco. We're going to our vault and finding your mother before she buys the entire shopping arcade."
At that point, Mr. and Mrs. Granger turned around.
"Is that one of your school friends, sweetie?" Hermione's mum asked, not hearing the extent of the conversation.
"Not at all." Hermione said and put a gentle hand on Anastasia's shoulder to pull her up to the desk, "your turn."
Anastasia put her money up on the counter, and the goblin gave her back forty galleons for it. She put them in her coin purse and left with Hermione's family. Hermione's parents left to do their own shopping in London while the girls looked around.
"Why was Mafloy owling you over the summer?" Hermione asked. "And why's he calling you by your first name all of the sudden."
"I don't know." Anastasia said, she didn't think she left that big of an impression on him, or rather she hoped that she didn't. "I didn't ask him to."
"The thing is those letters had to go somewhere. Who has them now? What do they say?" Hermione asked.
"Probably nothing important." Anastasia shrugged it off and went to look at the new potions supplies.
Hermione and Anastasia finished getting most of their things by ten o'clock, and headed towards Flourish and Blots, when they spotted a soot-covered child with messy black hair and broken glasses coming up the other way.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted and broke into a run to hug him. Anastasia took her turn after Hermione, "Your glasses." Hermione took her wand out and fixed his glasses promptly.
"Hello, Hermione! Anastasia! Nice to see you girls." Hagrid lumbered up behind Harry.
"Harry what happened to you?" Anastasia asked.
"Eugh, took a wrong turn in the floo." Harry said and rubbed his hair back. "I'm supposed to meet the Weasley's here."
"Well, come on," Anastasia said, but when they turned to the door, they found it overflowing with witches all crowding into the space with their kids by the scruff.
"This Lockhart business is mad!" Hagrid said. "Come on now, follow me, hold onto my coat."
The three of them attached to the back of Hagrid's belt, and he waded through the sea of people, giving them a clear path behind them.
"Ah, I see em, they're just over there." Hagrid led them to the left side of the room where a line as forming.
"Eyyyy!" The twins said together and grabbed Anastasia and Hermione to hug them and rub their hair. Mrs. Weasley fretted over Harry and how she'd nearly lost him. And Ron and Ginny waited patiently to say hello to the girls.
Once everyone had greeted each other, Anastasia told Hermione she was going to try and find some new books in the alchemy section.
Anastasia fought to hold her space next to the bookshelves, but the crowd of magic folk packed in beside her made it increasingly difficult to browse. She squeezed her way through the crowd to reach the back shelves on alchemy. She thought she almost made it when she ran sideways into someone in a forest green-colored cloak. She felt her necklace drop out of her collar.
"Sorry!" she said, but when she looked up, she found herself staring into the shrewd gaze of Narcissa Malfoy. The woman's eyes flickered down to the necklace and then back up to meet Anastasia's. She seemed frozen in time: a reaction Anastasia could only interpret to be extreme anger after interacting with Mr. Malfoy previously. "Merlin, I'm sorry, I um…"
Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to make the woman angrier, she hauled herself back into the crowd to find her group and didn't stop until she reached Hermione's side.
"Where were you?" Hermione demanded, and shoved Anastasia's share of books back into her arms. "Lockhart's called Harry to the front."
And indeed, Lockhart had pulled Harry up to the front, under the flashbulbs of cameras. Poor Harry was covered in soot from his exploration, a great way to appear in the Daily Prophet. A moment later, the new professor presented Harry with a stack of signed editions free of charge. Mrs. Weasley ushered him back while she went to have his editions signed, and Hermione and Anastasia stuck out the line together.
"Hello," Anastasia said pleasantly to the man when they reached the front of the line.
"Ah, hello girls!" The man said delightedly, "Some of my new students I presume?"
"I've read all your books!" Hermione began. "I was wondering what method you used to cure the Wagga Wagga Werewolf of lycanthropy. Especially because no wizard has ever succeeded at that before."
Lockhart stared nervously at her through a gritted smile.
"Um, well, I don't have the time to answer that question right at this second. See you in class?" He gave a charming wink and sent them on their way.
"Not very personable," Anastasia said.
"You can't blame him for being busy, look at this line!" Hermione said. They followed with their eyes and found it wrapped around the store in a swirl like formation three times. The shortest witch at the very end of the line looked like she may drown in people.
As Anastasia and Hermione fought their way back to the entrance, they found Harry and Ginny arguing with Draco.
"Leave him alone!" Ginny asserted and stood in front of Harry. Hermione and Anastasia eyed the scene nervously.
"Look here, Potter! Got yourself a girlfriend," Draco smirked. Harry turned red and Mr. Weasley swept in to help them with Ron and the twins at his side.
"Alright there, boys? My crew, we should get going. We have more to shop for today."
"I'm surprised your family could afford any more, Weasley," Lucius appeared and placed his snake-handled cane over Draco's shoulder. He stepped forward and took something from Ginny's cauldron.
"Ratty, secondhand book," he examined and clunked it back in, "And you're toting the little muggleborns around as well, how charitable."
Draco started to grin at his father's lame comments, but when he saw Anastasia's piercing glare, he looked away. Arthur Weasley did not deter his gaze from Lucius.
"Last time I checked, Malfoy, it was the content of the book that mattered, not it's physical condition. Same goes for magic folk, muggle-born and pureblood alike." he said with more dignity than Mr. Malfoy could ever summon.
"Yes, well, we differ on that opinion, Weasley. Good day." As he ushered Draco away, Anastasia heard Draco whisper to his dad.
"Have you found mum, yet? She vanished I think."
Hermione and Anastasia decided to let the boys continue their own shopping, as they had finished their own. The two wandered over to Florean's to have ice cream while they waited for Hermione's parents to finish their own shopping in London.
"Hello, girls! Welcome in." Florean said with a smile. He looked absolutely giddy, an ice cream scoop in both hands as he danced around. A few people sat here and there, all jovially enjoying their treats. The girls giggled as they approached the counter.
"Looks like you're having a good day," Anastasia commented.
"How could I not? Lockhart's signing has brought so many people into the alley. This is the most lucrative day I've had all summer!"
"He's wonderful, isn't he!" Hermione gushed over the new professor. Anastasia rolled her eyes.
"Well, I haven't the chance to meet him myself…wait, I remember you! Where's your little friend? The blonde one?" Florean pointed at Anastasia with a grin.
"What friend?" Hermione asked, although she already had a hunch as Anastasia's face turned pale. Florean, in good spirits, seemed delighted to tell her.
"Why the boy she was always palling around with, making mischief for everyone in the alley. I remember last year! You were arguing about how you would be sorted. And it looks like you've made it to Gryffindor, you thought you would be in Hufflepuff!"
"I-um-I…" she froze. She had not told Hermione that she had in fact met Draco before, and that they had once been friends. "We're not really friends right now," she managed, "he's in Slytherin."
"Oh, well, sorry to hear that. A bit of a troublemaker, isn't he?" Florean asked, trying to make friendly conversation, but reading the tone of the girls and failing desperately, "Never mind that, now what would you like?"
Anastasia asked for her usual cinnamon, and Hermione asked for rocky road. They headed for the back corner tables. An abandoned, half-melted cup of ice cream sat on the table in the furthest corner, so they took the second from the back. Anastasia sat in the seat facing the front door, and Hermione across from her. Hermione's face was still aghast.
"You were friends with Draco Malfoy!" Hermione said quietly. "Well, that explains why he was asking about you last year. We had no clue what got into him."
"Look, we ran into each other in the alley twice. It wasn't like we hung out on purpose. And in my defense, I had no clue what he or his family were such blood purists back then. Also, I didn't have my secret identity totally worked out, and so when I got to school, I had to throw him for a loop and pretend I'd never met him before."
"Oh." Hermione said, taking this all in. Anastasia waited in the silence and heard the restroom door open and close, and the person behind her resume their seat. Hermione leaned towards her and lowered her voice. "But that still doesn't explain your simultaneous injuries. Did anything happen when you met him that seemed out of the ordinary?"
Anastasia shook her head.
"No, we talked…well there was the ordeal with his nurse."
"His nurse?" Hermione's expression became squinter.
"Yes, well, he was in St. Mungo's for observation because he has asthma, that his parents refuse to treat, something about pureblood inheritance not allowing for muggle treatments."
Hermione's eyes widened in disbelief.
"And he was hiding from this nurse, and so at one point she found us, and we had to run, but as we were running, he started having an attack, and I started to black out…at the same time…it happened in the Forbidden Forest too during detention, which is why I stole a bunch of inhalers from the infirmary and gave them to him for the summer."
"And at Halloween…" Hermione remembered, "…and at our first flying lesson."
Anastasia nodded.
"I can't ask grandad about it though, I'm afraid he'll worry even more than he already does, maybe lock me in the headmaster's suite forever—" Anastasia cut her sentence short as the bell clanged, and two familiar figures entered the shop. Draco and his father. She put a finger to her lips and pointed so Hermione would know, and they both quietly ate their ice cream.
Draco looked around, saw them in the corner and had a look of recognition, he stormed towards them, and Anastasia looked toward the window, unsure of what to do.
"Mum, there you are!" Draco went behind Anastasia and grabbed the shoulder of the woman sitting behind them, "We've been looking for you for ages. Let's go home!"
"Oh, right, of course." The woman said in a low voice.
Anastasia and Hermione stared at each other in a state of horror as Draco pulled the woman Anastasia ran into earlier towards the door.
"Hermione, why didn't you say something?" she asked in a whisper.
"I'm sorry," Hermione mouthed. "I didn't know."
Anastasia stared mortified at the woman, expecting to see rage in her eyes for everything they let slip only moments ago. But when Narcissa Malfoy looked back at the girl, she didn't appear to be angry…she looked desperate.