Chapter 3: Diagon Alley, books and a new friend…

It was a week before school would begin and Rachel was getting ready to buy school supplies with Gabriel at Diagon Alley. But she was missing a very important ingredient to do this shopping, namely Gabriel. Her son, sometimes managing a laziness that could only be rivaled by the primal ooze from which all spawned, was still curled up in his bed.

The extra poncho that made sure the blanket didn't go anywhere while he was sleeping, lay at the other side of the room. The blanket itself was rather mangled up between the floor and Gabriel's legs. The pillow had joined the poncho in being as far away from Gabriel as possible.

Rachel sighed and glanced at the clock. It was nearly 12 o'clock and she really had wanted to get there early. But no hope for that though. She'd have to resort to drastic measure to get her lazy son out of bed.

"Okay, Julia, your turn. And please try to leave him conscious?"

Julia nodded and sped of to Gabriel's bedroom. When she got there, she slowed down and entered quietly. Approaching the bed, she poised herself to pounce on her prey. And then…

"Oi, Jules. Don't make such a racket. I'm trying to sleep here."

Julia twitched, wondering how he had even known she was there. But it was still a big waste to spoil such a good pouncing just because she had been caught. So she pounced.

"Gack! The hell? Aaah, getteroffme getteroffme!"

"Wake up, Gabi. We're taking you to this Diagon Alley thing to get your school stuff, remember?

Gabriel relaxed a little, or at least as much as being held in a death grip could allow without actually dieing.

"Okay, okay, I'll get up. Can you let me go now, please?"

"Sure, sure. Get a move on though, we're going to have lots of fun. I can't wait to see what it will be like there." If Julia would've looked in a mirror then, she would've noticed that her eyes had gone all starry.

"Yup," said Gabriel groggily. "Now push off and let me get dressed properly."

After Julia went back down, Gabriel got up and put some decent clothes on. He also gathered some stuff to get ready for their trip, mainly a backpack and his wallet. He knew Julia was excited about going along, since she has never been to a magical place. Being a Muggle while Gabriel was a wizard didn't bother her, but magic still fascinated her to no end.

Rachel, Julia and Gabriel put all their necessary stuff in the pickup and drove to London. They arrived there in relative calm, putting aside the fact that Julia was trying to poke Gabriel into full consciousness. Gabriel, on the other hand, had taken to falling over on Julia's lap and trying to fall asleep again. This all was accompanied by a lot of muttering on both sides.

They arrived soon enough in downtown London and parked somewhere near the Leaky Cauldron.

"Huh, why did we stop here?" Julia was surprised to see that they were nowhere near someplace with sparkles flying in the air or at least a flying cat or something. "There's nothing in here but a that book store and the shabby-looking record store."

Gabriel gave a snort and Rachel let a smile form on her lips.

"Muggles always say that when they first come here," said Rachel. "but just try to focus on the space between that bookstore and record store, okay?" And with that, Gabriel and Rachel began walking to the space between the doors, where she suddenly noticed that a pub lay there.

"Eh, how come I didn't notice that before?"

She began walking towards the pub that Rachel already went in. Gabriel was waiting outside the entrance for her. Above the entrance hung a creaking sign with a depiction of an apparently cracked cauldron. The words 'Leaky Cauldron' flowed under the picture.

"Come on," said Gabriel excitedly. He was going to like her reaction to the entrance to Diagon Alley. "get a move on! We're going to have lunch when we're in the alley."

"Okay, okay. Don't get your knickers in a bunch." Julia said dismissively.

"I don't wear knickers… that would be you." Gabriel replied as Julia stepped inside.

The pub wasn't at all what Julia would expect from something magical. It was kinda shabby-looking and the only thing pointing in the direction of magic were the patrons. Most of them were donned in wizard robes and were talking excitedly about one thing or another. The guy behind the bar was chatting a bit with Rachel and seemed very old. He was bald and his mouth seemed to have no more teeth. She turned to Gabriel and saw that his face was turning slightly green.

"Nose giving you a headache again?" She asked him.

"Yeah, it always takes me awhile to get used to the strong smells here. It's so annoying. I'll be okay though." Gabriel rubbed his nose a bit.

Rachel came up to them and noticed Gabriel looking green. She didn't say anything about it though, since she knew that happened to him usually when there was a great change in the strength of the smells in the environment. And smells in the wizarding world were not necessarily stronger than normal scents, but just lingering with a lot more abundance.

"Come on, you kids. We'll enter the alley now."

Rachel walked to the back of the pub and went outside through a door there. When Julia and Gabriel followed, Julia was amazed to see that after Rachel had poked a few of the bricks on the wall there, the entire wall seemed to slide open.

She was amazed by what she saw then, she thought it was like walking into a fairytale. All kinds of magical people walking around, chatting amiably with each other, young kids running around with fake wands that turned into chickens or exploded. Older children walking to and from the shops, carrying an abundance of items. Julia figured they must've been back-to-school supplies. But then her eye was caught by something that seemed to be like a small monument to an occasion.

The monument wasn't large or imposing, but it consisted solely of a large slab of what seemed like a kind of metal with engraving's on it. It had a symbol on it that Julia recognized as an ancient representation of the world and on it the following text could be read.

Oktober 24,1999

To the end of a dark era

And in

Celebration of the

Union of wizards everywhere

That made it possible

"This monument was erected 13 years ago, at the end of the war against Voldemort, an extremely powerful, dark wizard." Rachel told Julia as they walked towards it to examine it.

Gabriel seemed nonplussed at the monument, but that was only because he was still trying to keep his hastily eaten breakfast inside his stomach and he had seen it several times already.

"Harry Potter made a great deal of difference in that war, helping in uniting the wizards from several countries against Voldemort. They placed this here to remind everyone that we should be united at all times." Rachel sighed, knowing that after the war, the union was mostly over.

The countries have gone back to their petty rivalries, even though something like this might happen again. Her thoughts on this were interrupted from an audible growl from Julia's stomach.

"Heh," said Julia embarrassed. "I guess I'm pretty hungry. Can we eat something somewhere?"

"Sure," Gabriel interjected, his face regaining some of its normal color again. "I'm hungry too, let's go grab something at that new place, what's-it-called… Puddi's Cafetaria."

"Okay then. I guess I can do with lunch myself too." Rachel responded to the two of them.

They went to the cafeteria, which was located next to a shop that sold magical instruments. The cafeteria itself was decorated only in minimal ways and quite tasteful. The chairs and tables had the right feel to them and the rest of the interior matched the pleasant atmosphere perfectly. They ate some good dishes that resembled Muggle-dishes, but with ingredients replaced by their more magical counterparts to make the flavors stand out even more.

Afterwards they left and bought the school supplies that Gabriel would need. They first made a stop at one of the stores that sold quills and ink to write with. They bought those, along with some eraser-fluids and blank scrolls.

After that, they made a stop at Flourish & Blott's bookstore, to get Gabriel's new books for the year.

"Okay," Rachel had taken out Gabriel's school list and read it over. "We need the 'Standard book of spells, Grade 4'… Ah, here it is. And 'Guide to advanced Transfiguration' by Richard Dort, 'Magical and Mythical Creatures' by Katase Shima, 'Advanced Potions for Healing and Harming' by Severus Snape and 'Defensive Magical Theory' by Wilbert Slinkhard.… Now, I'll leave you to get those, while I'll just go and leaf through some of the romance books." Rachel almost giddily went to the romance section of the bookstore, making Gabriel and Julia roll their eyes.

The 'Standard book of spells' had been easy enough to find. Since it was such a popular series of grade books, they had their own display near the entrance. For the other books Gabriel and Julia would have to look around the store.

Julia didn't really know where she was going, so she just followed Gabriel around and looked around. She noticed an odd book that was placed on a shelf with the cover in front. It read: 'Dangerous Creatures Bestiary'. There weren't any books near it and there were several chains securing it to the back of the bookcase. She reached out to look into it, but then…

"You better watch that." Gabriel said, as he caught her wrist in his hand.

He pulled out a stick with a hook on it that Julia didn't notice before and used it to poke at the book. Immediately the book opened its cover to reveal a row of very dangerous looking teeth and began to snap violently at the stick. Julia gasped and stepped backwards, her back pushing into the bookcase behind her, which fortunately didn't have any dangerous book on it.

"Some of these books are dangerous you know. It's the magic. Sometimes the books leak or absorb some of it and they get altered to match their contents." Gabriel explained to the scared Julia.

"Those things are dangerous!" Julia exclaimed, very weirded out at the fact that such a book just lay in a bookstore for all to touch or be eaten by.

"Very true, that's why they placed that warning sign next to it." Gabriel pointed out the sign that Julia had completely missed. "Incidentally, if you find a book about hurricanes, don't open it. Unless you want the salesperson to place a curse on you."

"Now let's see… since this is the bestiary section anyway, we should find one of my books here. Ah, here it is." Gabriel picked up 'Magical and Spiritual Creatures' from one of the shelves and tossed it to Julia, who seemed somewhat twitchy about catching it.

"Don't'worry." Gabriel tried to reassure her. "They don't all bite. This is a pretty common book and it's hardly interested in soaking up magic."

They walked around the bookstore a bit more, grabbing copies of other books that he needed.


"Hey," asked Julia. "how come there's only one book of each on the shelf? Apart from that standard spell book and some other odd ones, there's so little of them. Shouldn't there be more, because they're designated books?"

"That's the shop's magic system kicking in." Gabriel explained. "Didn't you notice that a little while after we took the books to buy them, another copy appeared? It keeps doing that until the shop has to restock."

After a little while more, they ended up in the Potions section, searching for 'Advanced Potions'. When Gabriel found it, he groaned.

"Jeez, this book is massive." He looked at the book in the bookcase.

It had a poisonous green cover with a depiction of a black and white snake entwining each other and eating each other's tails. The book was about the same width as his palm and a tad larger than most books would be, making it stick out a bit from the bookshelf.

"I think we should call this BGB-TWOAS." Julia commented.

"Have you been sniffing stuff here?" Gabriel was looking at her incredulously. "I know it's all new here, but we can't have you sniffing every substance or book that you come across. You'll end up with extra arms and a head as large as a walnut or something."

"Hey, sniffing is your department, wolf boy. And besides I was referring to Bloody-Green-Book-That-Won't-Fit-On-A-Shelf."

"Good name. But I bet that the bloody wizard that came up with this book, must've had an inferiority complex or something. This must be compensating for something."

Julia and Gabriel were laughing about that, while he lifted the green book from the bookshelf with only one hand. He practically had to drop the book on top of the pile he held in his other hand. Then, they both heard a voice behind them.

"You know, you really shouldn't let Snape hear you talking about his book like that."

Gabriel and Julia turned to the voice. It had come from a girl, about Julia's height, that had several books piled in her arms. She was wearing formless, dark blue robes. The girl's black hair had been cut short, so that it only reached to her eyes. Her brown eyes looked serious and accentuated her slightly asian features.

After taking in the new appearance for a second, Gabriel found that a reply was needed.

"Oh yeah?" Gabriel was wondering why she said that. Surely potions book authors weren't going to pop up from every corner to attack people that insulted their books? "I mean, what's the author of a book going to do? Give me detention?"

"Actually," replied the girl. "I think that's exactly what he'll do. Not to mention take away a lot of house points and make you clean the filthy cauldrons or something dreadful like that."

Julia and Gabriel gave her an odd look. What was she going on about?

"Severus Snape is the Potions professor at Hogwarts. A really mean one at that, though he is brilliant with his potions."

"Oh… better not mention this too loudly then when I'm in school." Gabriel had a rather healthy instinct for unnecessary survival.

"I think not. Could you step aside a bit please?"

The girl stepped past the retreating Gabriel and tried support the pile of books her hands in such a way so that she could remove one hand to take a newly appeared potions book of the shelf. After about 10 seconds of that Julia got tired.

"Here," she said, grabbing the book from the bookcase. "you're going to drop all that if you keep that up."

Julia neatly put the book on top of the girl's pile. She looked grateful and made for some small-talk.

"So, you guys going to Hogwarts as well then? I don't remember seeing you there, though. And since you're going to be in my year, I'd think that I'd know you by now."

"The books make it that obvious what year I'm going to be in?" Gabriel looked slightly surprised that the girl was able to tell that so quickly. "But to answer your question, I'm transferring to Hogwarts to be a fourth year student."

"And I'm just here to make sure he gets his supplies properly," grinned Julia. "Not being able to cast magic makes it kinda hard to go to a magical school."

"You do realize I don't need a babysitter?" Gabriel told Julia irritably.

"Yes you do."

Gabriel gave a slight growl at the obvious insult. But he was used to Julia, so that wasn't a problem.

"So," the unknown girl asked. "Can I ask your names? It's fun meeting new people and names make it all so much easier later. My name is Gloria Richards."

"Ah, I'm Julia Connor. And this guy is Gabriel Rayon." Julia, quick as always, gave a short introduction. "Let's not shake hands at the moment. That'll be painful for quite some toes."

"So, Gabriel, why come to Hogwarts now? I mean, were you attending another school before?"

Gabriel tore his attention away from the cover of a red book that proclaimed it to be the best guide to blades in the world.

"Eh, oh… I was home schooled before. That was… more convenient. But I really wanted to go to Hogwarts, so my parents decided that I could go from now on."

Gabriel wasn't about to let Gloria know why exactly it was more convenient to stay at home. He was going to keep his other side as much a secret as he could, since everyone would probably loathe him for it. Julia didn't even need to catch on to this, since it was implied between the two.

They passed the register were they would wait for Rachel. Gloria walked up to grumpy looking salesclerk and paid for her books. She then turned to Gabriel again.

"Well, it would be fun to see you get sorted into Gryffindor. That's my house. Anyway, I gotta go. I'm supposed to meet my family near here in a minute, so I'll see you later. And bye, Julia. Too bad you won't be going to Hogwarts."

She walked away, stumbling a little bit with the pile of books in her hands, and left the store.

"So, we're making friends already." Julia said. "You happy, Gabi?"

"Yup, this is going to be fun. I'm just sorry that I won't be seeing you now for most of the year."

"Aw, ain't that cute? Don't worry though, you'll be just fine. Plus, you'll be glad I won't be around for all that time."

"Oh yeah? And why would that be? It's fun hanging around you."

"Of course. I'm always fun. But I bet I'll be cramping your style immensely. However are you going to get yourself some nice girl if I'm always hanging around you?"

Gabriel took a moment to contemplate this.

"You're right." He said eventually. "You'll scare them all away with your evil looks and foul morning breath. Yup, definitely glad you won't be around me that much anymore."

Gabriel gave a chuckle when he saw Julia's reaction to this. Julia had started to fume, but because of the books in her hand she couldn't get back at him without them dropping to the ground. So, she took some preemptive action. She piled all the books in her hands on top of the pile of books already in Gabriel's hands. Then, she pulled on his ear a lot.

"Ouch, ouch! Damn, that hurts, Jules. Stop that! You're dead meat when I have my hands free."

"Now, now" interjected the voice of Gabriel's mother. "Play nice. I'm sure that whatever reason Julia is pulling your ear from your head for, it is a just reason. Now bring those books to the counter, so I can pay for them."

"And what did you get?" asked Julia to Rachel.

"Well, I got myself some new romance adventures. Those will keep me busy when Daniel is called to make late evenings again." Rachel blushed slightly, but was still smiling amiably.

When they stepped out of the bookstore, shrunk all the books, so they could fit better into Gabriel's backpack. She grabbed the school list to check what more stuff Gabriel would need.

"Now, let's see. What's next... Oh, this is going to be fun!"

Rachel discreetly let Julia see the and pointed something on it. Julia's grin as she read the next item on the shopping list nearly divided her face in half. Rachel's eyes took on a sparkly quality that wasn't really malicious, but always spelt trouble for Gabriel.

Gabriel groaned, already guessing what the next item on the list would be.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Okay, a big applause to my only reviewer since the reposting of my story. I love you… tell all your friends to review as well ^-^ Also, you have the usual reviewer answer.

Moonie: Thanks for the review, see above for praise. Hope you like this chapter.

Again thanks to my proofreaders, even though they managed not to get updates to me in time. But I know they'll give me corrections later anyway, so I'll update with those too. If you find any major errors or stuff that just doesn't read well (you know, like: "AAAAAH! What a horrible, yet still grammatically correct sentence!") just tell me.

Also, for a rant. The amount of reviews I get is not a good indicator of how many people read my stories, but it's an indicator nonetheless. This means, that since I reposted my story, I lost a lot of readers. I know the reason too, since Harry Potter is such a popular book series (and the fanfiction possibilities are endless), there are simply a lot of people creating stories. I mean, the amount of stories passed the 100k mark. And I'm guessing that there are about 150 new updates per day. This means that the usual page I get into in the default list is somewhere, oh… let's say 6th. And I know for one that most people don't go past the 5th page in search of new stories. Oh well, I guess this means I'll get less readers. Unless I somehow get lucky enough to be posted on the first page. But don't you guys worry, I'll continue updating this story, since I really want to know how it ends.

Bye bye and happy reading.

Also, review!