The next morning her father decided to be the one to take her to Diagon Alley. Meghan still needed to get her own supplies for school, so Mary Jane took her to the stores. Kate got dressed quickly and practically flew down the stairs.
She was magical and she was going to be cured! No more stinking diseases! No more horrible prednisone! No more enemas or colonoscopies! She skipped to her father's car. He was almost as excited as she was. She was grinning broadly at him as they backed out of the driveway.
"I've never been to London." Dr. Slate explained as they drove out. "So this will be a very interesting experience for both of us." Kate saw Harry Potter sitting forlorn in his front lawn. She waved to him and he returned the gesture, smiling faintly at her.
"It's so weird that we're driving on the left side of the road." Kate said as they continued. "England's a strange place."
"No stranger than America." Her father corrected her.
"I guess." She looked out the window. "This isn't a dream, is it?"
"I hope not." Dr. Slate said, grinning. "Here's London." Dr. Slate pointed to the city ahead of them.
"William Shakespeare used to work here." Kate said absent-mindedly. "There's Big Ben. Nifty."
Dr. Slate laughed and pulled into a parking lot. The parking meter demanded change for two hours.
"We should have taken the Underground." Dr. Slate said, forking some change over. "All right, let's come back in two hours and repay." Dr. Slate looked down at the piece of paper his wife had given him for directions.
People bustled down the street, looking from shop to shop. On the corner of the street, there was a grimy little bar, but Dr. Slate looked right by it.
"Aren't we supposed to go to the Leaky Cauldron?"
"Yes."
"Dad, you're about to go by it."
"What?"
"The Leaky Cauldron." Kate pointed.
"I don't see anything."
"Come with me." She took her father's hand and pulled him inside.
"Whoa." Dr. Slate was jolted. Inside it was dark and dingy and as they entered many faces peeped up to look at them. Kate smiled unsurely at them and was rewarded with many smiles. There was a man who caught her attention before the rest. He was twice the height of an average man and at least three times as wide. He nodded to her and she nodded back. At the bar was a toothless old man.
"The name's Tom. Can I help you fine people?"
"Terry." He reached across the bar to shake Tom's hand. "My daughter, Kathryn, has just been accepted to Hogwarts and we need help getting into Diagon Alley."
"Ah, yes, this way." Tom walked out from behind the bar and took them into a walled back-way outside. He pulled out a stick. A wand. And tapped the wall three times with this wand.
The brick quivered and kind of wriggled and a small hole began to appear. It started growing, wider and wider and soon they were facing an archway large enough for a van to go through. They were facing a street full of shops bustling with people wearing robes and pointy hats.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley!" Tom said. "Must get back to the bar. Gringotts is that way;" he pointed ahead, "the rest is rather self-explanatory." Tom waved and left, leaving Kate and Dr. Slate to stare in awe at the busy street before them.
"Whoa." That was all that could be said. Swallowing, Kate stepped through the archway, followed by her father. Kate adjusted her glasses on her nose, licked the bar of her retainer and pulled down on her shirt.
"Gringotts." Dr. Slate said. "That's the wizard bank." But he stopped talking to stare at all of the shops. What amazing contraptions were inside! In one shop there were signs advertising "dragon hide" and "unicorn hairs" another boasted "every book you'll ever want!" Whizzing silver machines and elaborate feather pens were on display.
"Eleven sickles for an old cauldron! Still in mint condition!" A witch was crying from a store entrance.
"Sickles?" Kate whispered to her father.
"Magical currency, maybe." He guessed. "Let's go to Gringotts."
The doors were guarded by two short, warty creatures with large noses, pointed beards, long fingers and feet, and a very calculating look in their clever eyes. The doors were bronze and glinted in the morning sunlight.
The creatures bowed and allowed them through the doors. They were then faced by another pair of doors, silver this time. There was a poem engraved on the doors:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
Dr. Slate and Kate gave one another sideways glances, agreeing silently that they were both intimidated. They pushed these doors carefully open and found themselves in a grand marble hall.
"Shock after shock." Kate muttered to her father. "Where do we go?" There were so many doors and a long, high counter with countless creatures weighing jewels, writing notes, examining coins and speaking with people.
"Suivez-moi, mademoiselle."
"Dad, how can you think of French at a time like this?"
"Je ne sais pas." Dr. Slate shrugged and held Kate's shoulder as he walked to a creature that was seemingly available at the time. "Good morning." He said jovially. "Is there a way to transfer money from a muckle-"
"Muggle," Kate corrected.
"-Muggle bank account into a wizard account? My daughter has been accepted to Hogwarts and it'd be good to have the proper currency." He put his hand on Kate's shoulder proudly.
The creature looked skeptically at Dr. Slate and his daughter then looked down at a ledger. Kate worried that they had been too informal or that it didn't speak English.
"Yes," it said after awhile, "of course. There is a safe open, but I will require the name of your Muggle bank, and the number of the account and some identification." It looked grimly at Dr. Slate.
Kate watched her father nervously rifle through a few papers from his briefcase before pulling out the proper documents.
The creature went through the documents, brushing its long, graceful fingers delicately over them as it went.
"Everything seems to be in order." The creature said monotonously. It bent down and came back up with a tiny, golden key. "Your safe key," it handed it not to Dr. Slate, but to Kate. "Kathryn Slate."
"Thank you." She said quietly, taking the key carefully from the creature. She looked at the small key with a bit of fright in her eyes. What would happen if she lost this? In order not to risk this, she pulled her necklace off and replaced the small golden heart with the key.
"Do you need money now?" The creature asked.
"Yes." Dr. Slate replied.
"Snarber!" The creature called out. Another creature walked quickly over. Kate put the necklace back on, the heart in a pocket, and she and her father followed Snarber in through one of the doors. Kate had been expecting another brilliantly enormous marble room, but was surprised by a stone passageway lit with only torches.
Now Kate was anything but shy, but she had trouble starting a conversation with this unidentified beast.
"Will you need the key?" She asked, hoping to find something to break the silence with.
"Yes." Snarber replied.
"Okie dokie. Want me to give it to you now?"
"No. I will ask for it once we are in the cart."
Silence.
"How long have you been working here?" Kate inquired conversationally.
It didn't speak for awhile. "Thirty-eight years."
"Wow. So, are you a wizard?" Kate was desperately afraid that all witches and wizards would ultimately end up looking like these creatures.
"No. I am a goblin."
"Oh! I didn't know that there were goblins for real!" Kate caught herself. "Sorry, that sounded weird."
Dr. Slate was watching her timidly, as though afraid to do anything.
The goblin did something that neither of them expected: he laughed a wheezy sort of cackle as used by someone unpracticed in the art of laughter.
"Muggle-born, I expect?"
Kate nodded, smiling weakly.
They came to the end of the stone tunnel. A small cart came barreling up to them on its tracks.
"Here we are." Snarber said, holding an arm out, beckoning them to get in.
Kate boarded first and Dr. Slate next. Snarber requested the key from Kate, who handed it to him. He stuck it into a hole in the cart and the cart took off. Wind beat against Kate's face and made her hair fly back. She grabbed onto her glasses fearfully. Left, right, right, left middle, left, right, middle, right middle! Kate's eyes were shielded by her enormous spectacles and this allowed her to look around.
She gasped as she saw a large lizard- a dragon! – perched in a cranny. It seemed to be eating something, but she couldn't see what as they hurtled away. Kate looked to watch her father, but his eyes were tightly shut and he was breathing steadily as though trying to reassure himself. The cart came to an abrupt stop beside a small door on the passage wall. The door opened as Snarber put the key into the hole. Snarber handed the key back to Kate, who put it back on her necklace. She stumbled around a bit before looking inside of the safe.
Mounds of gold and silver and bronze.
"Is this… what account is this?" She asked in awe.
"Your college account." Dr. Slate looked amazed. "I wonder what the translation was… must have been in our favor."
"Twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, seventeen Sickles to a Galleon. Galleons are the gold coins, Sickles are silver and the Knuts are bronze." Snarber explained.
"Odd numbers." Kate frowned. "Both in the normalcy sense and mathematical sense."
Dr. Slate nodded.
"How much will everything cost, I wonder?" Kate asked no one. She just scraped up a bunch of coins into her bag. "Think this is enough?"
"Probably." Dr. Slate nodded. "At least, it should be."
"Okay, that's it then. Do we just go back?"
"Yes. Onto the cart." Snarber beckoned.
Dr. Slate looked green at these words. "Is there a way to go… slower?"
"One speed only." Snarber grinned sadistically.
Dr. Slate groaned. After the return journey, Kate thanked the goblin but all her father was capable of was a nod, mouth firmly shut. They left Gringotts and Terry Slate took a chance to sit on a bench.
"Oof, what a ride." He grinned feebly, clutching his gut.
"Yeah." Kate nodded. "All right, let's go get my books and stuff."
"Just a sec." Terry looked up at the sky. "I was afraid I'd never see that again."
Kate laughed and pulled out her supply list. "Tell you what," Kate started, "why don't you stay here and I'll go look for this on my own."
Dr. Slate's head snapped back to look at her. "No. I'm ready."
The first store they went to was a potions shop called Cauldronne Shoppe. It didn't just contain Cauldrons but also telescopes, scales, phials, and ingredients. She bought the standard pewter cauldron, though the excitable clerk was showing them the benefits of platinum and gold, but Kate stuck reluctantly to the list. They also got a collapsible telescope (which vastly excited her father, being so interested in the stars,) brass scales, and a set of crystal phials. Kate and her father couldn't resist purchasing an advanced potions book as well.
They went next to the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts. There they purchased not only what was required but they found a book on the history of Hogwarts, thinking that could be useful, a magical mathematics book ("We want your math skills at their maximum in the wizarding world." Dr. Slate encouraged. Kate rolled her eyes at this.) It was an Arithmancy book. Kate wanted a book on something called Quidditch because they'd heard a lot about it while in Diagon Alley, so they got that too. Not wanting to use up all of her money, they only purchased one more extra, and that was a jinx and anti-jinx spell book. They decided it might be good for Kate to know about some of that before heading off into a new world.
"Let's get your wand." Dr. Slate said excitedly, carrying only his briefcase. Kate's arms were aching with the load of what was in her cauldron. She didn't complain because she was too happy to mind the pain.
"There's a shop. Ollivanders." Kate motioned towards it with her head. "It's been in business a long time."
"How do you know?"
"It says 'makers of fine wands since 382 B.C.'" Kate read to her father.
"Oh." Her father sounded shocked. They tottered inside. It was a small room lined with shelves. There was a spindly chair that her father sat in. He offered it first to Kate, who refused, too eager to see the owner and to get her magic wand. She put her cauldron down slowly on the ground, flexed her arms, and looked at the counter for any signs of the person who worked here.
"Hello." A man drifted in from between the rows of shelves. The first thing that struck Kate was his impossibly blue eyes that shone like beacons in his wizened face.
"Hi." She responded, smiling somewhat uncertainly.
"I am Mr. Ollivander, and who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"
"Kathryn Slate. Pleased to meet you, sir. This is my father…."
"Terence Slate." He stood to shake Mr. Ollivander's hand warmly.
"Pleasure indeed." He smiled. "To business. Which is your wand hand?"
"Um, I'm right-handed." She held her hand out to demonstrate her point and Mr. Ollivander's eyebrows shot up. "What is it?"
"Your birthmark." He looked into her hand. On her pinky was a strange mark that was shaped something like a blobby star. "And you are American?"
"Yes."
"Hm. I don't remember what that relates to… yet…I foresee interesting things for you. Now." He pulled out a measuring tape and tapped it with his own wand. "You're Muggle-born, are you not?"
"I am." Kate nodded, watching the measuring tape awkwardly as it measured her height, arm span, finger span, nostril span and eye span before crumpling.
"All right, excuse me for a moment." He walked off and returned with an armful of boxes. "Ah… try this one." He handed Kate a reddish one. "Dragon-heart string, redwood, nine and a half inches. Give it a wave."
Nothing.
"Here, try this. Maple, phoenix tail feather, thirteen inches."
"Um…."
Mr. Ollivander snatched it away.
"Unicorn hair, willow, eleven inches."
Again, nothing.
"Tricky. Try… hmm… I wonder… perhaps… oh, it wouldn't hurt, I suppose." He pulled a box out with a label reading "1950" in bold numbering. "Try it."
Kate took the wand, which was an ivory color and felt nice in her hand. She sincerely hoped this one worked. Immediately she felt a gentle tingling and out shot silver sparks as she waved it about.
"Was that right?" Kate asked, staring at her wand.
"Yes, indeed. But… how strange."
"What's strange?"
"Nine and a half inches, birch wood, one of that last, might I add, but that is certainly not the curiosity. It is the mix inside. I've never had mixes before, it was more of a theory, I suppose one might say. Unicorn hair, phoenix feather, and hair from the golden re'em. Mixes are not done generally in wands, if ever, which is why I've had this wand for nearly fifty years."
Kate was nonplussed but felt slightly frightened.
"It shall be interesting to see what becomes of you, Miss Kathryn Slate." He charged her seven galleons for the wand and said adieu. Terry Slate looked at his watch and exclaimed.
"Oh no! I've got to pay the parking meter! Go to the clothing store then meet me back outside the Leaky Cauldron, all right?" But he was already running out of Diagon Alley. Kate watched her father bound off with raised brows and then walked into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
An older woman sat reading a newspaper called The Daily Prophet. She looked up and smiled at Kate.
"What can I do for you dear?"
"I need to get my school robes, for my school," she dithered, feeling eager and unthinking.
"Hogwarts?"
"Yes." She nodded.
"Right this way." Kate stepped up on a stool and went through a few measurements before being told that her order would arrive at her house in a week. Kate left a few galleons with Madam Malkin and left Diagon Alley with her armload of things. Her father met her outside of the Leaky Cauldron, looking worried because he couldn't find it.
"Oh, good. Sorry about that." He said sheepishly.
"It's okay." Kate smiled. "Let's get into the car so I can set this stuff down."
"Sounds good to me."
On the way home, Kate read part of her standard book of spells aloud to her father. Though slightly car sick, Kate only desisted once the drive was over.
"Fascinating." Her father shook his head. "I can't believe that my daughter is a witch!" He hugged her tightly before they stumbled into the house. Inside Mary Jane was helping Meghan put on her uniform. Meghan looked bored and slightly tired.
"You're home!" Meghan's eyes lit up. "Do you have magic stuff?"
"Your cauldron looks rather hefty." Mary Jane noted. "You should put it down before your arms fall off." Mrs. Slate couldn't keep the interest out of her eyes.
"Mom, I can put my uniform on myself." Meghan whined.
"Of course you can." Mrs. Slate moved away from her younger daughter to look through the contents of Kate's cauldron. "Look at all of these books. Magical Theory, Magical Beasts and Where to Find them, and you've even picked up some extras it looks like."
"Kate," her father cleared his throat, "I expect you to work very hard. This school is not inexpensive. If I find out that you slack off… which, I know my daughter would never do…."
"Dad, you do know that I wouldn't do that."
"Of course." Dr. Slate smiled. "This is so exciting." He finally breathed. He took the advanced potions book that they had gotten extra and flipped through it excitedly. "Do you mind if I borrow this tonight?"
Kate was sure her father would finish it before dawn, being the speedy reader he was. "Not at all."
"Can I see your magic wand?" Meghan begged.
Kate pulled the box out of her cauldron and opened it to reveal her shiny, white wand.
"Wow. Can you do anything?"
"Yeah." Kate nodded. She waved it and the silver sparks came out.
"Cool. Can I try?"
Kate held her wand to her chest, suddenly protective of it.
"Meghan, I don't think that would be appropriate." Their mother said, much to Kate's relief. Kate replaced her wand in its box and lugged her cauldron upstairs, feeling suddenly dizzy and hungry.
She remembered that she'd be off of the prednisone soon and forever. Biting her lip, she decided that it wouldn't be so bad just to stop… except that there were a few weeks still until September 1st and she really didn't want a flare-up.
Sighing, she collapsed on her bed and continued reading the standard book of spells. After a few hours, she was nearly done and her mother called up announcing dinner. Hardly paying attention to what she was eating, she went back upstairs after washing her dishes to finish the book.