Chapter 2 – Diagon Alley

A/N: Thanks to MuggleBuddy for his/her review (to my previous fic; it has since been deleted, sorry!)! And yes, I am pretty sure this is my first HP fic. I'd know right? ;)

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Harry Potter; only the storyline and Ki are mine.

As Harry and Lupin walked towards Diagon Alley, Harry asked Uncle Lupin about how he knew Uncle Dumbledore and, most importantly, his parents.

"Let's just say I was at Hogwarts once, together with your parents. Uncle Dumbledore was my Transfiguration teacher."

"Oh, I see. So you must be very clever?"

Lupin laughed. "If only you could say that." With that, they had entered The Leaky Cauldron, and Lupin called for two Butterbeers. Handing one to Harry, he said, "Come with me, and try not to get lost. We've got quite a lot to do today."

Lupin led Harry to what seemed like the courtyard of The Leaky Cauldron, and after a little counting, tapped one of the bricks there with his wand. Harry stared as the place where the wand hit brick formed a hole, which increased in size as every second passed. Soon, the hole was big enough for a Hippogriff to walk through without bending.

"Wow, Uncle Lupin!"

"The brick is supposed to do that, so we can step into Diagon Alley," explained Lupin as their made their way through. "You see, the London from where we have come from is actually Muggle London. Diagon Alley is a part of London which is inaccessible to a Muggle, unless he or she was specially chosen to be able to do so. In that way, we can have a whole street of shops selling wands, wizard's robes, potion ingredients and other whatnots.

"Now that we are finally in our own world, we better get your shopping done," muttered Lupin, as he led Harry to Gringotts, the wizarding bank which was guarded by goblins. He walked in to the building, and went straight to a counter, talking to the goblin at it.

"Hello, Griphooks. I would like to make a withdrawal from vault seven-one-three."

"Ah, Harry Potter's. Do you have his key?"

Lupin produced it. Griphooks looked at it for a moment, then said, "All is in order. Please come with me."

Griphooks went to the locked door at the left of the building. As Lupin and Harry made their way there, he used his fingers to stroke the door, and soon enough, the door was Transfigured into a cart.

"Ah, not a very bad cart, if I may say so myself. Ok, hop on aboard, Mr. Lupin and Potter."

When all three were ready, Griphooks muttered something, and the cart began moving underground. Lupin hurriedly told Harry to hold on the side. Just as Harry did, the cart began to tilt - or so Harry thought. The cart was now aiming for the darkness at a sharp angle, and without any warning, began to speed down towards the Gringotts vaults.

Just as suddenly as the cart had sped up, it stopped. Harry, gasping for air, looked up at the door to his left. From the light of the lamp, Harry realised that they have reached vault 713; his vault. Griphooks went out of the cart and said, "Come on, come on, get out already, I don't have all day. Key please."

Lupin handed the key to Griphooks, and helped Harry out before getting out himself. Meanwhile, Griphooks had slotted in theukey into the door. Harry stared in awe as the door simply melted away into gold ("Don't worry, when you get out later you get a new door and key for advanced security," Griphook assured Harry.), and revealed piles of golden Galleons, silver Sickles, and bronze Knuts. His surprise must have been written on hs face; Lupin asked amicablly (?), "Thought you were a poor kid? You're probably tue richest boy around, dear Harry!"

Lupin began withdrawing some of the money in the vault. "This should be enough for a first year. Griphook, if you please."

"With pleasure, Mr. Lupin."

Lupin and Harry stepped out of the way as Griphook pointed his finger towards the vault and uttered some words. Just as he finished, melted gold flowed from the ceiling, and soon, a new door protected vault 713 from any stray passer-by's sight, with a new key at the lock. Griphook removed the key and passed it to Lupin before beginning their journey to go above ground again.

When they reached the now-familiar Gringotts building, Lupin helped Harry out again, and on their way out -

"Arnold Weasley!"

A group of people, mostly red-heads except for the mother, turned around. One of them seemed to recognize Lupin, and came up to him, saying, "Hi, Lupin! I didn't expect to see you here." With that, introductions were made; one by one, Percy, Fred, George, Ronald and Ginny Weasley were all introduced to Lupin and Harry. Then Lupin introduced Harry, saying that he would be going into Hogwarts for his first year. Mrs. Weasley was pleasantly surprised; "How wonderful! Ron is going to be a first-year too, maybe you can be friends!" Meanwhile, all the Weasley children were staring at Harry. After all, they have read about how the Potter family had been sacrificed to help vanquish…

"I think we better start now. Do you want to do the shopping together, Mrs. Weasley?" Lupin said suddenly.

"Oh, ok, since I have quite a lot of kids, and Harry and Ron would need the same stuff. So…" With that, Mrs. Weasley began assigning the children there to a adult. Harry and Ron would be taken by Lupin, Fred and George the twins would be taken by Mr. Weasley, and Ginny and Percy would follow Mrs. Weasley. The adults agreed to meet at Flourish and Blott's (a wizarding bookshop) to buy the textbooks the children would need for next year.

Lupin brought Harry and Ron around to buy their school supplies, such as a cauldron ("No, you can't get a gold one, Harry, it says pewter on your list"), potion ingredients ("Don't be greedy and take too many of those unicorn's horns, they disintegrate into nothingness if left alone for two months"), robes, and finally a wand, at Ollivander's. Harry got a wand with holly and phoenix feather as the core, and Ron got a nice unicorn tail one.

Soon, it was time to meet up with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. The trio made their way to Flourish and Blott's with their newly-bought supplies and waited outside the door for the other two groups. Soon, they had all arrived, so the Weasleys, Harry and Lupin made their way into the bookstore.

The bookstore was crowded today. As he made his way into the store, Harry saw a large banner, stating that there was a 50 discount off all Gilderoy Lockhart's books, and that Gilderoy would be there at 4pm. At the corner of his eye, he could see Mrs. Weasley getting excited. It 3.30, meaning that if they do not want to be mobbed, the group had half an hour to do their shopping. Lupin began to take charge. He used spells to get the books the children needed, then made his way through to the cashier and paid for them. Time went by quickly, and the group just managed to get out of the bookstore just as "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present, Gilderoy Lockhart!"

Lupin heaved a sigh of relief. "That guy must be the greatest fraud I've ever seen. Have you ever heard of a werewolf fully recovering and becoming totally human again, Authur?"

Mr. Weasley gave a highly significant glance to Lupin. "No, of course not. Well, I think time is getting on, and we have to go, so see you, Lupin, and Harry. I expect we'll see you on the Hogwarts train."

"No, Uncle Weasley, I live –" Harry started.

"Yes, of course you will, Authur. Harry and I have got to go also, so I'll see you around." Lupin hurriedly cut in. After the two of them were alone, he said, "You aren't supposed to let people know where exactly you stay, are you Harry?"

"Sorry, Uncle Lupin, I was carried off. It's been a long time since I had a friend of my age, you know."

Lupin sighed. Just as they turned the corner to get to a secluded place to use a Portkey to get back, Harry saw someone staring at them. He looked at the girl who was looking at them. She looked a lot like Harry did, but she didn't wear any spectacles. Harry thought he knew the girl. He searched through his memories, thinking about the girl, and who she might have been. All too quickly, Lupin said, "Come on Harry, a story's waiting for you." Harry touched a part of the blackened kettle, and when he looked back to look at the girl one last time, she was gone.

A/N: That's it for the second chapter! And, for those wondering, the girl is indeed Ki. But I've decided that this is not really a good place to introduce her into the story yet. You'll see her and someone else in the sorting, though. The sharp-eyed would also realize I didn't introduce Draco Malfoy. Now, for a preview into the next chapter:

What will happen in Chapter 3: The Story

- Harry would get more knowledge about why he wasn't like any common eleven-year-old wizard
- Lupin would tell Harry about his relationship with his parents

Till then, please R/R. I need the comments and reviews to improve!