Chapter 4: To the Alley
Author's Note: They're off! If you would all be so kind as to sign your reviews, even if you just put your first name, nick name or e-mail address (preferably your e-mail) at the bottom of the review I'd greatly appreciate it. I like to thank my reviewers personally and it's hard to do that without an e-mail address.
The last lingering days of August were passing quickly and there was school shopping to be done. Bethany and Percy had left Elanus' house soon after they arrived though they made occasional visits. One bright Tuesday morning Elanus insisted that James go to Diagon Alley and pick his books and other supplies up. His cousin has been kind enough to place an order for them several weeks before and the bookshop had begun to send owls. After brief instructions about a pub and a brick wall Samuel and James set out for Diagon Alley. Elanus decided to give Gene a tour of the Ministry to avoid accidents in the highly magical alley.
After negotiating the London trains and streets the two brothers found themselves on a rather ordinary looking street. In front of them was a book shop, and a record store beside it.
"Didn't he say the pub was right here?" James whispered to Samuel.
"Some sort of enchantment I'll bet," Samuel said, looking up and down the street.
"I thought you weren't fooled by enchantments," James commented.
"Some," Samuel said, "Memory charms, and stuff like that. This is illusion pure and simple."
"Why can't I see it? I'm a wizard," James asked.
"That is a very good question indeed, we'll have to ask about that when we get to Hogwarts," Samuel replied.
"What do we do then?" asked James.
"Well I would suggest we sit at that little diner across the street," Samuel said, "Instead of standing here like idiots looking at the space between the shops."
With that Samuel started across the street with James close behind him. The two walked into the diner and ordered two sodas and sat down at an outside table, watching the shops closely.
"What are we looking for?" asked James.
"Basically, anyone disappearing," Samuel said, "Sometimes that breaks the disbelief."
What seemed like a long time passed before Samuel spotted an elderly woman walking down the street. She was hunched over slightly and carrying a rather large leather handbag, the sort some people carried small pets in.
"Witch at two o'clock," Samuel said, nodding to the old woman.
"How can you tell?" James asked.
"She's a tad uncomfortable, her clothes are a bit out of date too," Samuel said.
"So?"
"Her hat is on backwards, and there's a toad in her handbag," Samuel said, "Not likely she's a muggle woman at all."
The two watched with interest as she approached the book shop and then started to disappear. A rather shabby looking building appeared between the book and record shop, though it seemed like it had always been there and nothing around it had moved.
"And there we go," Samuel said as he dropped a few coins on the table and started across the street. James ran after him and they both entered the tiny pub. It was filled nearly to capacity with witches and wizards, which wasn't saying much as Samuel guessed there were only about twenty people in the pub. The patrons turned their heads to look at the new arrivals and one or two began to draw their wands.
"Muggles," one of the wizards said, pointing his wand at Samuel.
"It's alright Burt," a middle aged man at one of the tables said loudly, "That's Samuel Green and his brother James." The man lowered his wand, as did the rest, but everyone eyed the two suspiciously.
"Mr. Longfellow!" Samuel said, shaking his defender's hand, "How are you?"
"Quite well, can I buy you two fellows a drink?" Longfellow asked.
"I'm fine, James?" Samuel said, turning to James.
"Butterbeer," James said.
"Tom! One Butterbeer!"
The bartender quickly brought out a filled mug and set it on the table. Longfellow flipped him a coin. "So I see they convinced you to return eh?"
"Yep, I'm back to teach muggle studies, and resuming my role as the most unqualified councilor at Hogwarts," Samuel replied.
"I'm just here to learn to change animals into drinking glasses, and water into rum," James said.
"Two very important skills to be sure," Longfellow said with a laugh.
"That reminds me," Samuel said producing a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, "He was fairly ill equipped last year. All he had was a wand I made him and some left over books for his classes. Now we have this list of things he'll need, are there any additions you know of?"
Longfellow looked over the list carefully and nodded. "This is all standard first year equipment, and it looks like some third or fourth year books and two fifth year books. It looks like they're going to be moving him right along" he said. "Personally I would pick up a book of basic charms and spells to supplement all this. I recommend Adalbert's Grimoire myself, since it explains the theory behind the magic and will give you a lot of useful spells to learn. Also grab a copy of Goshawk's Utilitarian Magic. It's a somewhat thick book used mostly by housewives and such, but it has a lot of stuff in it to make his life easier."
"How will they help?" asked James.
"Well, it appears they're trying to get you through a basic course quickly so you can be at the same level as other students your age. I'd say you'd be a sixth year this year?" Longfellow asked.
"I think so, I'm sixteen," James replied.
"About sixth year then. My reasoning for those books is that it's probably more important to increase your repertoire of spells right now, instead of trying to learn some of the finer points of magic. In other words it's like having a rather large vocabulary and knowing how and when to use those words, rather then having a small vocabulary and knowing where the words come from and knowing their meaning, but not being able to use them well," Longfellow said.
"So I should learn as many spells as I can?" asked James.
"In my opinion, yes," Longfellow said, "Those two books have a wealth of useful information in them you won't find in the schoolbooks. I picked a copy of them up when I was at Hogwarts and had a much easier time at it. Of course that was many years and three editions ago."
James finished off his butterbeer and nodded to Samuel. "Well it was good seeing you again Professor," Samuel said, shaking Longfellow's hand, "We must be going though, we have some shopping to do."
The two brothers went out the back door and found themselves in a small yard with a high brick wall. James took a note from his pocket and looked the wall over carefully. He reached out and tapped one of the bricks and a small passage opened in the wall. They passed through and found themselves staring down a long street filled with shops of all kinds.
"Did you bring the gold Elanus gave you?" asked Samuel.
"Sure did, twenty galleons I believe," James replied, "He paid for all the books already so we'll just need to buy equipment."
"Right, well if you don't have enough I've got some at Gringott's," Samuel said.
"Won't need the wand, you've already taken care of that. I need a cauldron set, brass scales and some vials. I would imagine a set of those modified Omniculars would suffice for the telescope set," James said.
"I'd say we best get to Flourish and Blotts first, this late in the year it shouldn't be too crowded," Samuel said, walking off in a seemingly random direction. James hurried after his brother and looked around in amazement at all the shops lining the street. They entered the bookstore and were immediately greeted by a cheerful clerk.
"How may I help you?" asked the clerk.
"We're here to pick up an order for Elanus Green, and we need a few other books as well," Samuel said.
"Green you say?" the clerk asked as he went behind a large counter and produced a large bundle of books, "Interesting selection for a student I'd say, did you know we ran out of the new Muggle Studies books right after he placed his order. You're lucky to get one."
"Wonder why he paid for a book you wrote?" asked James under his breath.
Samuel shrugged and looked the pile over, "It seems to all be here. We need a copy of Goshawk's Utilitarian Magic and Adalbert's Grimoire as well."
"Certainly," the clerk said as he scuttled about the shop pulling an oversized but thin book from the shelves and a thick but average sized book as well. "Wise choices sir, few people would think to get these books while in school."
"What about this one?" asked James as he held up a dark leather bound book.
"Curses and Countercurses? I don't know," Samuel said.
"Hey I can either learn these here or from Harry, your choice," James said with a grin.
"Why not, you need to defend yourself," Samuel said.
"What else can I get for you two?" asked the clerk.
"I think that'll be
it, what do I owe you?" asked Samuel.
"Two galleons," the clerk replied.
James placed two gold coins on the table, which the clerk quickly placed in a safe box. He kindly bagged their purchase and they went on their way down the street. They found the proper shops for the rest of the equipment and even stopped by the Apothecary for some basic, and not so basic potion ingredients. As they walked down the street they both stopped dead in their tracks, staring at a shop across the street from them.
"I don't believe it," Samuel said.
"We must, we just have to go in. It's the principle of the matter," James said, nearly dropping his books.
"I agree my good man," Samuel said in a mock cockney accent.
The two walked across the street and reverently entered the building. They looked around as if awestruck by the splendor of the aisles of merchandise.
"Samuel! James!" a familiar voice called from the back of the shop, "What can I do for you?"
"Don't come any closer Fred, we need to gawk a few moments longer," Samuel said as his eyes looked the shop over. Two identical red headed young men dressed in fine but overly colorful clothing approached the front of the shop.
"Welcome to our little niche in the world," George said.
"You've done a good thing here," Samuel said.
"Well, are you two looking for something in particular?" asked Fred.
"Why don't we just start somewhere and you can give us the tour," James said.
The twins grinned widely, "We'll even show you the back room," they said.
The joke shop was the most fantastic thing they'd seen so far. Fred and George had everything from standard issue dungbombs and the like to devices used for spying. There were fireworks and even books on how to make many joke items yourself. The twins gave the two brothers the grand tour and provided them with many free samples. Finally they ended up in a spacious back room lined with shelves of every kind of magical novelty one could imagine.
"We shouldn't be letting you back here, or even in this shop at all Professor," Fred said, "But since you're one of our biggest customers we thought it would be ok."
"All I ask is that you keep me supplied and tell me how to remedy jokes played on me," Samuel said, looking around the back room.
"Of course, of course," George said, as he retrieved a few items from a shelf. "Now as you know we produce mostly joke items and the like. We're thinking of branching off a little with stuff like this," he continued, handing Samuel what looked like a large book bag.
"This looks like a wizard's bag," Samuel said, examining the bag.
"Ah, yes, but this bag has three compartments and a secret compartment that keeps things cold or hot," George said, demonstrating how to pull flaps back to access each compartment. "You pick a password when you buy it and only you can access the secret compartment."
"We also have a version that looks much like a muggle backpack we saw and a briefcase as well," Fred said, presenting one to James.
"These are incredible," James said, sticking his whole arm into the backpack.
"Would you two do us a favor?" asked George.
"What's that?" asked Samuel.
"A bit of advertising. If everyone saw Hogwarts most popular professor and his brother carrying one of our bags," Fred replied, "Then everyone there would want one."
"I don't know," James said, "What kind of compensation would we get?"
"Five percent," George said.
"Two percent, and you owl us a package on a weekly basis full of things we might find useful and stuff we can sell," Samuel said.
"Done, we get ninety percent of the profit from what you sell," George said with a grin.
"We have some other things we'd like to show you," Fred said, "Wouldn't hurt for you to use these at school either."
"Here's an improvement on the self writing quill," George said, "It can write in six different languages perfectly and copy anyone's handwriting. We've even taken the liberty to put several professors' handwriting already in them. All you have to do is brush the feather over the handwriting you want to copy and start dictating. It will even remember the handwriting. We only sell these to a very exclusive group of people."
"Interesting," Samuel said as he turned the quill in his fingers, "Is there anyway to tell when one of these has been used?"
The twins looked at each other and grinned, "Not that we'll tell."
"Good," Samuel said, "What else have you got?"
"Plenty," Fred commented, "Vanishing Parchment for note passing, Color Changing Ink, and what should be a big seller with the girls; an Impervious Diary."
"There are a lot of magic diaries," James said, "I got a catalog, what makes yours so special?"
"Features," George said with a grin, "You can dictate to it, or write in it. The ink disappears after it's written so no one can see it. It takes a key, and a password to make it reveal its contents. The best feature is, if someone other then you tries to make it reveal stuff it will reveal the most boring, hard to read entries imaginable."
"We borrowed some of Professor Binn's lectures," Fred commented, "The best part is that when it reveals those entries it puts a sleeping charm on the reader and anyone nearby who's looking or listening to the diary. After the reader is asleep it returns to its owner. All you have to do to recharge the sleeping part is put a few drops of a Sleeping Draught on the pages. A bottle of the Draught comes with the diary."
"Very nice," James said as he looked at the diary.
"We have a more masculine journal for boys," George said, handing James a dark leather bound book, "Works for a spell book too," he said with a wink.
"How does it put people to sleep?" asked Samuel.
"It emits a gas," Fred said, "We're very proud of that feature."
Fred and George showed Samuel and James their products for the next hour or so, loading them up with things to use at Hogwarts for advertising purposes. When it was all said and done they walked out with two wizard's bags full of stuff. They had even supplied them with two sacks full of things to give away to the students. The rest of the day was largely uneventful by comparison.
The last remaining days of August passed quickly though they definitely weren't boring with all the stuff the Weasley twins had given them. The first day of September arrived and the two brothers, and Maria found themselves looking up at King's Cross Station.
