Chapter 1: A Beginning

Of course, Diagon Alley was already occupied by Flourish and Blotts, and I didn't want to compete with someone who's been around forever. Hogsmeade needed a decent bookstore, so that's where I decided to set up shop. Not that I knew at all how to go about setting up my bookstore. I went to the owner of Flourish and Blotts, a nice old witch named Andi Sillamere.

And this, friends, is where we take up the story.

***

I walked up to the door of Flourish and Blotts one day, about three months after my graduation from Hogwarts. It was September first, and the back-to-school rush had just gotten over. The inside of the store looked a little empty, after all, everyone had just bought out the supply of schoolbooks.

A bell rang as I pushed open the door. A woman came out to meet me.

"Hullo, dear," she said to me. "How may I help you?" She seemed rather pleasant.

I smiled back. "I'm thinking of opening a bookstore in Hogsmeade. I don't have any idea of how to go about it, though, and I was wondering if I could speak to the owner about how he or she did it."

"You're looking at her." She held out her hand. "Madam Andi Sillamere at your service."

I shook her hand. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Alex Baretto."

"It's nice to meet you, too," she replied. "What would you like to know?"

"Well, I don't know. How did the store get opened? How do you run it? Anything you think would be helpful."

"No problem. Would you mind walking around the store with me and tidying up? I've just finished selling the last of my textbooks, and the schoolchildren are really rather messy." She turned and walked over to the nearest shelf where she began to neatly set the books into rows again.

"Sure," I replied, doing the same with the books on the opposite side of the aisle from her. "Why don't you clean up with your wand?" I asked.

She gave me an off-centre look over her shoulder. "It's too impersonal. It's like cooking. You may be able to conjure up all the ingredients, but sometimes you still have to get your hands messy. Besides, how could anyone be around books all day and not want to touch them?"

I smiled. I understood completely. I dropped a medium-sized book on the floor and immediately began apologizing.

"Oh, no, don't worry, it happens." She leaned over and picked up the turquoise book, looking at the cover. It was a grinning, waving picture of Gilderoy Lockhart. Magical Me, the title read. "It really is a shame about him. He may have been a fraud, but he sure sold a lot of books."

I laughed. "I wonder what they did with the old guy," I said.

"I wonder," she replied. She scrubbed at a spot on the cover, but it wouldn't go away.

"Allow me," I said, taking the book from her. I retrieved my wand from my sleeve and cleaned the spot with a simple word. "You can't always do things by hand." I stood on tiptoe to replace the book from where it had originally fallen, but Madam Sillamere stopped me.

"Actually it goes over here," she told me. "I can't imagine what it was doing hiding up there where no one could see it." She took the book from my hand and placed it on a shelf that was eye-level on her side of the aisle.

"So," I said, still arranging, "give me a quick history of Flourish and Blotts?"

"It's been in the family for as long as it's been open. My great-grandmother opened it about a century and a half ago. She passed it down to my grandmother, then it went to me mum and finally to me. My great-grandmother loved books and everything to do with them. Of course she was a witch, you know, this being a wizard's store and all. Her daddy was the first in his family to have magic, and her mum was a muggle who took it quite well when she learned about it. Our whole family went to Hogwarts, and we were all Hufflepuffs. I assume you went there also? Which house?"

"Ravenclaw."

"Ah, good house. Anyways. When my grandmother graduated, she had this great idea to open a bookstore here in Diagon Alley, since the owner of the old bookstore was planning to up and move to America or some such. There was a lot more space over there, not so much of a chance of bein' found out." She paused and listened. The door had just opened and the bell had rung. She turned to me. "Can you hold on a moment, dear, while I go and help whoever that it?"

"Sure, no problem," I replied. I walked to the front of the store with her to see who had come in.

It was a tall young witch with long, straight, black hair. She stood patiently near the front counter looking over a display set near the window. She was dressed in simple, light-pink robes that covered her ankles.

"Hullo, how may I help you?" Madam Sillamere asked pleasantly. She swept up to the girl with a cheery smile on her face.

The girl looked up. "Hi," she replied. "I was wondering if you had any more copied of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?" she asked hopefully.

"A little old to be buying your books for Hogwarts, aren't we?" the shop owner joked.

The girl smiled. "Actually my little sister has just gone off to Hogwarts today, but she lost her copy, so I sent her with mine. I need a new one. Do you still have any?"

"I do. One last copy." She took down a battered book from a nearby shelf and handed it to her. "It's not exactly new, so I'll give it to you for half price. That'll be sixteen sickles, please."

The girl handed over the money and exited the shop.

Madam Sillamere turned back to me. "Well, it's nearly lunch time. Would you let me buy you lunch at that nice little Italian shop on the outside?"

I looked down at my pale blue robes. "I'm not exactly dressed to go out there," I told her.

"Oh, nonsense. I'm in there all the time on my lunch break, and I always wear my robes. They just think I'm strange. Now they'll think I have a strange friend. Come on, it'll be fun."

"All right, if you're sure."

She smiled broadly. "That's more like it. Let's go."

She led me out of the shop and waved her wand at the close door. A stream of letters that read "OUT TO LUNCH" attached themselves to the door.

We walked to the entrance to Diagon Alley, the wrought-iron gateway and stepped through into the courtyard behind The Leaky Cauldron. I followed her through the dim-lit bar and out onto the street. She turned down the street and entered a restaurant called Girababldi's, where we ate lunch. There she finished the story of the founding and upkeep of Flourish and Blotts.

"That was a lovely story, Madam Sillamere, and thank you very much for lunch, but I have to be somewhere in a hour. Will you excuse me please?"

"Of course. You're very welcome for lunch. Come back for a chat anytime, and tell me how it's going."

I left the restaurant and headed for home.

***

That night after I got home from work, there was a small brown owl waiting patiently on the balcony of my apartment. I opened the door and let it fly in.

"What've you got there?" I asked, untying the roll of parchment from its leg. The owl hooted softly and tapped at the window. I gave it an owl treat that I kept around for such an occasion before letting it fly off again. The parchment was a letter from Professor Dumbledore:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

Dear Miss Alex Baretto,

The staff of Hogwarts has decided to expand its curriculum to include language classes in Latin, Ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew. Because of your special talents in these areas, we are pleased to offer you the teaching position. Please owl back within one week with your answer.

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Headmaster

Well, Andi Sillamere's grandmother had taken another job to save up for her bookstore, and I knew I should do the same. Life at the pet shop just wasn't a high-paying job. I decided to accept. I sat down with a quill and parchment and scratched out a letter of acceptance. When I was done I tied it to the leg of my barn owl, Maia, and tossed her out the window.

I assumed the course would be starting immediately, so I packed what I would need for the year in my trunk and waited.

Disclaimer: I still don't own the wonderful world of JKR, just Alex, Maia, and a few other things you don't recognize.