Chapter 2.
It hadn't been a joke. Lily Evans arrived with her parents at a place she clearly recognized as a pub, but as her parents saw only as a broken down, boarded up old store. So they were obviously hesitant before entering, but this disappeared as they walked in to find a smoky room where several cloaked figures sat around in various places. A few sat at tables drinking from large mugs reading the "Daily Prophet" a newspaper that immediately told Lily it was not a hoax as she saw moving pictures of what she assumed to be wizards looking grim on the front page with a green skull behind them, a snake protruding from its mouth. She then overheard a young woman who leaned over to the man neighboring her and whisper.
"You know I heard they tortured Derwood Vance' wife just for fun before killing her."
The man replied sharply. "What! Waddin't she a muggle"
"Yes, yes of course, they call it muggle baiting, do it just for fun."
She shivered and went on, "Derwood, you know, works at the ministry. he came home to see it hovering above his house and couldn't even go in, he just apparated right back to the ministry and broke down on the floor. His daughter luckily had been visiting a friend. Poor girl … only in her third year come fall."
Lily was in shock. She had heard of this murder, this Vance woman had an unsolvable case. Neighbors heard terrible screaming and the house was completely locked up when the police arrived. Though in the newspaper there had been no mention of anything hovering over the house. She put this image in the back of her mind, hoping her parents had not heard, and to her relief saw them talking to the Barman already. They turned to her after he was finished pointing and said,
"Come, he asked another man to show us in, Nice bloke."
They lead the way to behind the pub and stopped at a brick wall where they were joined shortly by a slightly balding man. "hello, you must be the Evans"
Mr. Evans shook his outstretched hand and said, "Yes, yes that's right, I'm Harold and this is my wife Rose."
Then he gestured to his daughter and said proudly, "This is Lily"
The man smiled politely and replied, "Pleased to meet you my name is Ofred Willer… Er
Right then," he tapped a few bricks and Lily jumped back. The whole wall began to shake and then move, clearing a sort of doorway into a very busy street. Or what looked like a street without a road, anyway. He smiled at Lily and said "Next year you'll be able to do that yourself" then gave a hearty goodbye and hobbled back into the pub. The three walked in and stood in awe, until the bricks began to move again and they jumped out of the way. Lily had never been in such a place. She tried to drink everything in at once and found it to be just too much. Groups of people in long, flowing robes hurried to and fro between shops. Kids ran, skipping and jumping through the streets ignoring their other's pleas to stay close by. All in all it wad a wonderful magical feel to it, except that there was an obvious anxious way the people moved about. Everyone seemed to feel the sooner that were home the better. It reminded Lily of the rats in the bushes that squeeked in fright at the slightest human movement. She shook herself and pulled out her list looking at it for the first real time. She stopped at the word wand. "Dad!" he exclaimed. However he seemed to ignore her as he eyed the apothecary interestedly. "Mum!" she then tried.
Her mother turned, "hmm.. what is it dear?"
"Oh we have to go get the wand first. I just can't wait."
Her mom agreed, eager to see magic.
Luckily on the far right they spotted a business that said Ollivander's Wands. She rushed towards it and saw a boy in the store waving a wand. Then she read the smaller sign and felt dismayed. "6 galleons?"
she frowned "Gallons of what?"
The boy in the store exchanged golden coins with the old man for his wand. Lily watched with interest and thought aloud "They must have a different currency"
Her parents looked up from the sign puzzled, but then realization dawned on her mother's face an she pointed at a tall crooked building behind Lily. Lily whirled around as her dad read " Gringotts, wizarding bank."
They made their way through the crowd into the building and stifled a gasp. Small creatures with long fingers and large ears were quite numerous in the building and Lily heard the word "goblin" from someone nearby.
She led her parents to a desk that said muggle money exchange and finally realized that muggle must be the opposite of a wizard. A small scowling goblin appeared and announced he was Gordock. He stared at the Evanses for quite a while until Mr. Evans pulled out his wallet and began pulling out all his paper money. He ended up exchanging all the money he had in his wallet for the wizarding gold.
While her parents took care of the transaction she busied herself in memorizing how many knuts were in a sickle and how many sickles in a Galleon. Lily decided this was defiantly something she needed to know. Although she wished she were like the other kids who already seemed to know everything about the world she thought so foreign.
She assumed everyone knew more than she did as she had already seen boys crowding around a broom shop talking excitedly about something called Quidditch. She could not see what possessed them to be excited about brooms, but maybe it was like on TV and brooms really were used for flying. She was so absorbed with this thought she did not realize her parents had led her out of the bank and into the wand shop. Lily's Dad looked at the old man in front of the many shelves containing boxes of wands and whispered, "We will run get the other supplies. Meet us in front of that robe shop afterwards."
The old man with frizzy wild hair and grey eyes bent over very near to Lily's face and said "Well, let's get you started. With that fiery hair maybe dragon heart string is appropriate." He shuffled over and bent down, gently pulling out on of the bottom boxes. "Oak" he muttered fondly, "9 inches, quite sturdy."
He handed it to her, but Lily had no idea what to do. She stood there and stared at him. He finally caught on and instructed, "just give it a swish" She jerked her wrist and the vase behind the man exploded.
"Oh, no" he thought aloud, "definitely not, but then no one ever gets it on the first one"
He turned around and waved his own wand clearly enunciating "Reparo" before hurrying away to get another wand. He returned with what he revealed to be Yew, Unicorn hair. Lily waved it smoothly this time and one of the shelves was died a hideously bright shade of blue.
"better," he said.
Once again he waved his wand and repaired the damage of the new wand. This process continued for sometime until he finally retrieved a wand from the top shelf in the front row. He came forward and said confidently,
"Yes I think this will do"
Lily soon saw, or rather felt he was right. She held out her hand and gripped the wand. When she did she found that a warming sensation spread through her fingers to her toes and she simply knew that this wand agreed with her.
"Success!" The old man cried.
After she paid for the wand, Lily hurried to meet her parents. She worried they had been waiting for a while as she had been in the wand shop for quite some time. However, when she arrived she could not see her parents and stood to wait. Her mother promptly appeared a little while later dragging along a rather large bag and a bigger item Lily soon realized was her father.
"Oh dear, Lily sorry we took so long. Have you had to wait?"
"No, mum it's fine. Have you enjoyed yourself, then?"
Her mother smiled and said, "Yes, but not as much as your father. We got your school books and some other books, too quite quickly, but we took ages in the Apothecary as your dad examined every magical herb in there."
"That's brilliant that you enjoyed it. I've got a willow, unicorn hair wand, look" She produced her wand proudly. Her father suddenly became very interested in the conversation as he took the wand and waved it gently. He let out a low whistle and handed it to his daughter with a large grin plastered to his face.
"What!" Lily asked.
"Oh nothing," he sighed.
"It just still seems like a movie to me"
Lily knew exactly what he meant. She couldn't help, but feel this was too good to be true and it would end abruptly like when the lights pop on in the theater and the directors name is stretched across the screen. Lily soon replaced this pessimistic feeling with a confident feeling as she looked over her books and opened the door to Madam Malkins, knowing that she would do everything possible to fit in to this newfound world. Though Lily attempted to hold on to this wonderful dream, she would one day realize just how correct her original feeling had been.