Shopping for school

Eleven years old Izar and Harry were walking through the busy streets of Diagon Alley. The pair had been freed from their contract with a goblin two weeks ago, at the moment they had received their letter from Hogwarts. Their vaults were in safe hands. The money was flowing nicely. The two young heirs had decided to live in the Great House of Manchester, a manor that was taken care by some of the Potter house-elves.

"First, we need to have the clothes. It'd be best to not go to the usual shop that all students go to." Harry spoke calmly to his twin sister as they walked down the street.

"At the Green Clothes' shop is located in West Alley. It is not reserved for cheap clothes, it offers expensive clothes. A better quality if you ask me." The pair didn't notice the odd looks on the wizards' face when they had heard them talking about which shop would be the best for Hogwarts' robes. They turned into West Alley ; the atmosphere was different. Less people were present. There were buildings in better condition than in Diagon Alley.

At the Green Clothes' shop was a large building with a flashy sign floating. There was a shop window showing the newest and best items that were selling the shop. It was held by a minor wizarding family. The twins entered the shop, looking with wonder at the different items. There were not many clients at the moment. Two assistants approached them arboring a friendly face.

"Welcome!" They chorused together. "What can we do for you?"

"We'd like to have the Hogwarts' robes. All seasons. The neutral uniform." Izar stated. In Hogwarts' history, there is no mention of having the current robes that the shop in Diagon Alley has."

The two assistants looked at each other. Then, they signed the two customers to come with them. With a magic tap, they began measuring the two children, not questioning the fact that they were by themselves. In the next hour, the children sat still on their stool, leaving the assistants doing their work. The workers put away the clothes in a bottomless bag that the two children had provided. Then, with a special card linked to the Potter and Black vaults, they paid for their clothes. They saluted the workers and left the shop.

The pair continued shopping. For the potion equipment, they went to Potion Art. It was from the outside a small shop, but inside it was Aladdin's cave. For the equipment for assignments, they went to Jack-of-all-trades, in which they found parchments, inks, feathers, and notebooks. The twins went through their list easily, grabbing the books - they took the books for the seven years - from Books and pleasure. Finally, they arrived back in Diagon Alley in order to see Ollivander, the famous wandmaker. His shop was small and dim. Dust covered the shelves.

"Hello young lads." Ollivander appeared behind the counter, facing the twins. "Ah yes, the Potters." He said, upon laying his eyes on them.

"Hi." The pair answered arboring a straight face. The man began to speak about the wands of their parents, he looked like a passionate man. He easily showed his love for his art.

The siblings were not impressed. Ollivander stopped speaking after a few minutes. They began testing wands for three hours straight. None of the wands fit them. The pair frowned. Sharp, their current caretaker, had informed them that they would need a wand specially crafted for them. However, the wandmaker didn't seem to want to craft unique wands for them. Therefore, the Potters decided to leave the shop, leaving Ollivander completely confused. The old wizard wasn't the only wandcrafter around Diagon Alley, he was usually the one that people went to have a wand. Nevertheless, there existed three other wandcrafters. The first one was located in South Alley, the second one was living in Knockturn Alley, and the last one was in Manchester. The caretaker of the twins told them to go to Joe, the wandmaker of Manchester; he was a good crafter that descended from a line of satyrs and nymphs. He specialized in unique wands.

The method was simple. The client must let their magic flow through the room, choosing the three best composants. If by any chance, nothing happened, the client must draw their magic from their core and touch every ingredient with their hands.

The wand crafter saluted the pair of children with a friendly smile. He gave a proper introduction to his work, his history with wands, and spoke of his method. Harry stepped towards the center of the room in which all ingredients were put away in boxes on the shelves. He let his magic flow freely through the room, choosing the ingredients for his wand. The satyr noted the elements chosen by Harry's magic, then he proceeded to watch Izar's magic choosing the components of her wand.

"Alright. In two days, come back here. I'll send the payment to Gringotts." The satyr said with a smile, then he leaned towards them and whispered. "Be careful with the wizards and witches here, dear demigods. If anything happens, I can help you to reach safety."

The twins nodded. They spent the rest of the afternoon, visiting other shops, and buying things that might be useful for them at Hogwarts. Two days later, they came back to the shop of the wand crafter for their wands.

Hogwarts Express

On September 1st, the train station King's Cross was crowded with a hundred families. The sun was shining over the red train. Students were pushing their trolleys, full of luggages and cages, as their families accompanied them. The Potters were among the crowd, successfully hidden by their enchanted clothes - that made sure that none of the wizards recognized them. Being stuck in a crowd of admirative people - for what they had apparently done when they were one - wasn't pleasant at all. The demigods entered the train and went through the long corridor to the last compartiment.

"Do you have History of War with you, sister?" Harry asked, having searched through his backpack in vain.

"Yeah." Izar gave him the book. Her brother thanked her and opened the book to the page he hadn't finished reading. She took another book from her backpack, it was called the Art of War.

"People would want to find us." Harry said as he pulled out his wand to cast a minor spell that repulsed every person that wanted to see them.

"Yeah." Izar cast another spell, using Goblin magic, to prevent anybody from breaking her brother's spell.

As the train began to move, they heard the screams from the other students waving at their parents as they left the train station. If any of the parents saw them and recognized them, they didn't do anything. Soon enough, the Hogwarts Express was far away from King's Cross. The pair read in silence their own book. At some point in the journey, the door of their compartiment was opened by a bunch of people.

"There are firsties in our compartiment." One of them grumbled as they stared at the two readers. They were a group of older students, wearing the Slytherin tie.

"Oï!" Marcus Flint, Quidditch captain, yelled. The Potters raised their head and turned towards him. "Get the fuck out of here, lads. This is our compartiment."

Izar twitched. Her brother stayed silent as he watched his sister marking the page of her book before answering to the older student.

"Oh yeah? I don't fuckin' asshole! This is our compartiment so get lost, loser!" The eleven years old first year wasn't at least impressed by Flint's intimidation.

Flint, himself, was impressed by the girl's dare. She stood on her ground firm, looking ready to battle at any instant. It made the Quidditch captain pause. Marcus Flint wasn't really a wizard, he was born from a witch of a wealthy family - the most noble house of Flints - however he was a demigod. Demigods from wizards' families usually met each other in Hogwarts. There were multiple ways to recognize a fellow demigod. Marcus used wordlessly and wandlessly a spell, a creation of one of Hecate's children, on the two children in the compartiment. He was right ; both children were demigods.

"We will sit here." Marcus said, looking in the green eyes of the young girl, daring her to oppose his decision. Nevertheless, to his own surprise she didn't. Then, he saw her brother looking at his sister. The pair was having a silent conversation. It was like the Weasley Twins!

"Come on, guys." He added to his own group - all of them were demigods.

They put away their trunks and sat down. The door was closed by one of the students. An awkward silence followed the confrontation between the two parties.

"I'm Marcus Flint." The demigod introduced himself, prompting his mates - mates in a friendly way - to introduce themselves.

"Lucian Bole." Lucian, a brown-haired and green-eyed student, was the son of Hermes, one of the Twelves Olympians. Compared to him, he was a Greek Demigod.

"Terrence Higgs." Terrence - he had dark brown hair and brown eyes - was born as a child of Hephaestus. Like Lucian, he was a Greek Demigod despite having a Roman name.

"Aurora Lefroid." Aurora was a blond-haired student coming from France. She was the daughter of Bacchus. And therefore, a Roman demigoddess.

They were the only demigods of Slytherin. Demigods, while not rare, weren't common in the Wizarding community. It was a consequence of a war between the wizards and the demigods, a nasty event that had traumatized everybody. One of the consequences that had had was the fact that demigods - European Demigods - lived hidden.

The siblings looked at each other for a few seconds. They were having another silent conversation, Lucian mused to himself. They both had dark hair and green eyes. For some reason, they looked quite familiar as if he had seen them somewhere. It could be possible. However, he didn't remember where and when he had seen them.

The twins introduced themselves. Marcus stared. How did he not recognize them? His fellows were also confused by the turn of events. Then, Harry mentioned to his sister that his spell was perhaps working a bit too much.

"A spell?" Lucian asked as he pulled out his wand to identify the spell, however the answer didn't come. He frowned, wondering in what language the twins had used the spell.

"Firsties cannot normally use spells." Aurora said as a matter of fact. It was true. Usually, the first years came to Hogwarts with no knowledge of spells. "You've been practicing magic, ain't ya?"

Like the Potters, Aurora spoke English with an American accent. The older girl spent the next ten minutes talking about the trace on the wands and the law that forbid students from practicing magic outside of school and magical areas.

"It ain't your fuckin' business if we're been practicing magic." Harry finally said, glaring at the witch. The Potters had perhaps been citizens of the English Wizarding society first, however they were citizens of the Goblin nation as their Magical Guardian was a Goblin.

His sister nodded. "Besides, we ain't following your laws."

"What do you mean?" Aurora frowned. Even though she was first a French citizen, she was to follow some of the British laws to avoid international accidents.

"You won't get an answer." Terrence sighed as he was met by glares from the twins.

For the next five hours, the group was silent, or at least the twins were as they were reading their books. Marcus was interested in Izar's book, it was one of the books that his father recommended. The Slytherin students spoke about the homeworks they had over the summer, what they had done during the two months, and what they might be expecting. No student stopped by their compartiment. Whatever spells the Potters had cast, they prevented the annoying people from opening their compartiment.

The siblings marked their books and put them away. They pulled out their lunches from their backpack. It was time to eat, Aurora thought to herself as she accioed her lunch. They ate quietly, watching the scenery.

"Houses." Harry said to his sister. "We cannot be separated."

During the five hours of reading, the twins had been speaking in their mind - using the faes' magic that one of their instructors in the Goblin caves had taught them. Nevertheless, it was exhausting. The meals that the mate of their caretaker had made were healthy and a good way to retrieve from a bit of magic exhaustion - it wasn't really magic exhaustion as they had already experienced it.

"Yeah. Though, which house will fit us? Certainly not Gryffindor. If I read it correctly, our personalities don't fit the house. We might go to Ravenclaw, though."

"People will be disappointed, then." Terrence chuckled as he imagined how people would react to not see the Potters go to Gryffindor.

"Why?" Izar genuinely asked the older boy.

"Your parents were Gryffindor students." Marcus answered for his friend even though he knew that one of the late Potters wasn't their parent.

"But you're right, you aren't fit for Gryffindor. You might be ravens and enjoy the joy of Ravenclaw." Lucian commented with an amused smirk. "Nonetheless, you could be Slytherin like us."

"What Slytherin stands for?" Harry asked, curious.

"Ambition, resourcefulness, determination, and cleverness." Aurora responded with a gentle smile. "Because of You-Know-Who, Slytherin is associated with evilness while in fact it's not."

"Or if you're a hard worker and a loyal person, you could be in Hufflepuff." Terrence added with a small smile as he pulled out from his backpack something wrapped in a cloth.

"You'll find out during the Sorting Ceremony." Marcus said.

The twins nodded, still a bit worried about the fact of being separated.

The Sorting

The Great Hall was immense. The fake sky, enchanted by the remarkable Rowena Ravenclaw, was beautiful. Candles were floating over the four long tables, each one of them wore different colors. The twins were among the small crowd of firsties, waiting patiently for the song to finish. What an odd song they thought. The last words of the song died, and Professor McGonagall stepped forward, unrolling the list of the students. The first name of the parchment was called ; a blond-haired girl stepped shyly from the crowd towards the stool. The siblings watched as the students were called one by one and as they were sorted by the Hat. Hufflepuff for the first girl. The students welcomed every student sorted in their houses. It was warming in a sense.

"Potter, Harry." Whispers broke the silence as the dark-haired boy stepped forward onto the stool, hearing the reassurance of her sister in his mind.

"Is he the boy who-"

"The survivant."

"So, the girl who was next to him is-"

"His sister."

It was annoying, Izar thought to herself as the whispers continued. She turned towards the students and glared furiously at them, making them stop at once. Could they not be more respectful? She reported her attention on her brother.

"Slytherin!"

There was no applause. Harry didn't think of it as his tie turned green and silver. His sister's name was called. There were whispers. Then, the silence was quickly made with one of his twin's glares. It seemed that she was running out of her patience.

"Slytherin!"

"What are you lookin' at, fuckers?!" Izar snapped at the staring wizards and witches as she sat down on the Slytherin bench. "Stop being stupid, yer assholes!"

"We ain't evil, you shitty wizards."

And this was how most of the Slytherin students started questioning things they knew.