Chapter 7: A Trip to Diagon Alley is Planned
"Albus, I must request a day off." Severus Snape said walking into the headmaster's office with Leia trailing behind him.
"Why, Severus?" Albus asked concerned. "Has something happened?"
"You could say that…Leia isn't a squib. I would like to take a day and get her a wand and all the things she will need to complete a home study program so that she may catch up with witches her age" Severus said coming to stand in front of Dumbledore's desk. The old man smiled at Leia and waved then turned back to her uncle.
"Well, of course you can go!" Dumbledore said standing up. "I'm sure you're happy to have found this out. How does tomorrow work for you? You can use The Three Broomsticks to Floo out of and go to Diagon Alley. I'll owl Ollivander's so that they'll be ready for you. Have fun," he said as Severus and Leia walked out of his office. He quickly scratched a letter to his friend Mr. Ollivander to make sure Severus and Leia would be able to use the floo connection from The Three Broomsticks to Ollivander's then sent Fawkes off with it. It would do Severus good to have somebody to look after and to teach.
Severus and Leia, meanwhile, walked to the Great Hall to eat Lunch. When they entered, Hermione and Neville ran up to them…well, Hermione ran, Neville walked a bit slower. "Can Leia sit with us, Professor Snape?" Hermione asked, grabbing Leia's hand. Snape nodded and Lei smiled at him and ran back to the table to sit between Hermione and Neville. She got to meet the Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter, and a lot of other people whose names she couldn't remember to save her life. Lunch was overwhelming. The kids in Oklahoma hadn't accepted her as easily as the people here did. She smiled and laughed and listened to everyone's descriptions of all the teachers. Most people around her avoided talking about Professor Snape, for obvious reasons, but she understood. She wanted to know how bad he got though.
"I guess my uncle can be kind of…harsh, eh?" she asked. Everyone around her quickly took a bite of food. Finally one brave soul spoke up: Neville.
"He can be intimidating…really intimidating…But, my Gran says he's just trying to 'encourage' me." Neville said stirring his food around his plate.
"Encourage you?!" Ron yelled. "Encourage you by embarrassing you and taking points off of Gryffindor?"
"Rooon..." Hermione kicked Ron.
"So he's a little intimidating and favors the Slytherins. Okay" Leia said. "I have another question: What's Quidditch?"
"Oh! It's a game that…" Harry and the rest of the guys spent the rest of lunch gushing over the wizarding sport and by the end of lunch Leia couldn't wait for the first match. When the bell rang for the next class, Leia walked with her uncle back down to the dungeons to observe the next class. This class she paid more attention to what they were doing. She was going to be doing that soon, she might as well start learning early.