Chapter 12: MUGGLES IN DIAGON ALLEY
Another good thing came of this, though. Dudley had, to everyone's surprise, convinced the Dursleys to send him to Hogwarts. Oh, but just for a year, of course, and then not do it again the next year, no way... His aunt and uncle insisted it was because they had a money problem sending Dudley to college but Harry knew better: they certainly had no such problem, they just wanted to use Harry's gold. To further convince them, Harry offered to pay for Dudley's school supplies ("You better," snarled Uncle Vernon harshly).
Harry and Cho took Dudley to the Leaky Cauldron, Aunt Petunia having driven them there. The Leaky Cauldron was a pub, hidden by magic to Muggles who didn't know any better. The pub itself hid the entrance to Diagon Alley. One had to tap bricks in the correct order to get them to split to reveal Diagon Alley. Harry having forgotten, Raides roared at it and it opened. Cho insisted Harry take Raides with them, concealed under the Invisibility Cloak, and then let her out once they got into the Leaky Cauldron. Everyone in the pub had stopped what they were drinking, eating or talking about to look at Raides as she swept past them.
Upon entering Diagon Alley, Dudley's first instinct was to run right into the magical creatures shop and buy the first bat he saw. Harry told him to look down at his Hogwarts supplies list and point out that it said owl, cat or toad and not bat, rat or komodo dragon. Aunt Petunia cringed at the sight of the bats lining the ceiling of the shop, all sitting upside down, their small, leathery wings covering their sickly furry bodies.
After getting some money from Harry's vault at Gringott's, the wizard bank, enough for both Harry and Dudley, Aunt Petunia needed to sit for a good fifteen minutes outside on a bench to get rid of the putrid boogey color in her face. Harry knew that the carts you used to get around the vaults in Gringott's made Hagrid sick, too. Returning to the Magical Menagerie, Dudley chose a small frog that reminded Harry of a sickly green one that had contracted a deadly disease that was shown on the Discovery Channel. Dudley blessed the sickly green frog with the name Prince.
Dudley was particularly not keen on the measuring tape used in Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. It measured one's body all by itself. Madam Malkin said she had never had a customer as wide as Dudley and needed to get out her extra-large measuring tape as the usual one wasn't long enough. Dudley insisted he be given a different colored cloak than everyone else as black wasn't his favorite color. Harry watched, laughing silently to himself with Cho as Aunt Petunia pleaded with Madam Malkin but she said no very firmly once and that was the end of the bickering. Dudley walked out of the shop all sulky.
Harry allowed himself to be measured up for some new robes as well and then, needing dress robes for the Yule Ball at Hogwarts, pulled a Mrs. Weasley and got ones the same color she had gotten him: the green color of his eyes. The champions for each school started the dancing on the floor with their partners and then, shortly after, the rest of the students were allowed to get up and dance. Harry had asked Cho, but she had already been asked by Cedric Diggory, which left a one way road of bad feelings from Harry to him.
Harry would have happily bought Ron robes, too, but he would never let Harry spend money on him. Ron had been forced to wear frilly maroon robes that resembled a dress. He tried to trim them but did so messily, leaving the ends frayed. Dudley sniggered while Madam Malkin fitted Harry up for his new ones.
"And just so you know, anyone under fourth year isn't allowed to go unless they get a partner fourth year or up," Harry told Dudley, smiling.
"And who are you going to go with?" Dudley sneered, forgetting about Cho, who was in Harry's view, but standing behind Dudley so he couldn't see her. Harry's view automatically shifted towards her but somehow he didn't think he'd be allowed to ask her to the ball since she didn't go to Hogwarts anymore. The smile slowly melted off his face; he would certainly have to ask when the time came.
As soon as he had the dress robes safely away in a bag, Harry immediately went to buy quills, ink and parchment. Seeing as how all his quills were old and dirty, a very nice, eye-catching phoenix-feather quill caught his eye.
"Ah, Mr. Potter," said the shop-keeper in a misty voice, immediately recognizing him by the lightning scar on his forehead which unnerved Aunt Petunia, "an excellent choice."
He payed the seven sickles for it and the shop-keeper (on purpose, Harry realized, as they all exited the shop) had given him another one for free, stuffing it in the bag without him seeing.
Harry's aunt was not too happy about buying potion ingredients.
"Who d'you reckon is going to be the professor for Potions?" Harry asked Cho as they stepped inside the Apothecary.
"No idea," Cho replied. "Hope it's someone nice even though I'm no longer there. I still have nightmares about Snape's classes."
Peering down, Harry saw that his list consisted of dragon toenails and a gross item that reminded him of what you get when you mix swirly brown stuff with grease from Snape's hair and smelling twice as nasty. The witch running the shop put on a gas mask, ordered them to hold their fingers over their noses, opened the big container and dumped the thick glop into a jar and sealed it with a top and Odor-Occluder Charm. Harry could still smell it, his fingers pressed so tightly over his nose it felt like he was flattening it like a pancake.
When the witch closed the container, she pointed her wand up, shouted, "Fragrodorus!" and a misty, pink cloud flew out of it. Immediately, the room smelled better and she told everyone to uncover their noses. Aunt Petunia took extra large breaths, apparently liking the new fragrance. Harry would be sure to remember this spell in case it ever came in handy and with such a potion ingredient, he didn't doubt whether he would have been stupid not to.
Mr. Ollivander, the owner of a shop by the same name, greeted Harry with a handshake but looked ready to faint at the sight of Raides. Aunt Petunia stood outside for a minute, however, gazing up at the sign saying this store had been stablished in 382 B.C.
"O-oh m-my!" he croaked, staring at Raides' beautiful, golden fur.
Raides launched herself onto a table and rested her head on a paw.
"You've heard of Animagi... but not Anistaffi?" she said, grinning.
Yet Mr. Ollivander kept staring at her, his hands folded in front of him, his eyes darting to a quill and piece of parchment, going through a great internal struggle. For a ridiculous second, Harry thought Mr. Ollivander wanted Raides' autograph. Aunt Petunia then walked in and seated herself on a nearby creaky chair.
"Want to me see as a staff, then?" said Raides, reading his mind.
Mr. Ollivander's pale eyes turned paler and he smiled weakly. He had spoken to Harry about the Staff of Cybele to him very fervently just last year but, like other wizards, didn't believe it existed. And now here it was, talking to him. It was like watching a baby who'd had a first taste of chocolate. Or like Ron after he had gotten an autograph from Victor Krum.
Raides stood up on the table and launched herself at Harry, turning into the enormous Staff of Cybele in mid-flight. Harry had become quite adept at catching her when she did this.
"Don't think of using her, though," Harry warned Mr. Ollivander, grinning. "She gets testy."
"She doesn't want anyone but ancients using her, correct?" said Mr. Ollivander and then he started muttering soundlessly to himself.
"Yes," said Harry.
"It's just a staff," said Aunt Petunia and then everyone stared at her.
Mr. Ollivander's attention was quickly diverted to the Staff of Cybele, though, as the crystal disappeared from the lion's mouth and Raides began speaking, the tiny little mouthing moving just as her bigger one did.
"Hun, you only wish you had fur that looked this good," she growled looking at Aunt Petunia like she was a piece of nature that was way beneath her. "I look this good at over five thousand years old. And you're what, sixty?" Aunt Petunia looked outraged and Harry and Cho were giggling. Raides sighed. "It's not all good. It's a real pain to clean all this fur... And don't you dare think of giving me a sponge bath."
Harry held Raides on her end, upright. She was easily at least two feet taller than him and would make quite a good weapon even if he wasn't going to use magic.
"Doesn't that hurt?" said Cho, looking at how Raides' tail was supporting her.
"Oh, I don't feel any pain," Raides informed her. "Ahem. Enough about me. This boy needs a wand, yes?"
"Right, right," muttered Mr. Ollivander and he swept into the back room.
Harry clutched Raides with both hands and pulled her close to his face, leaning on her. His feet were tired from walking around all day. Dudley spent forever goggling at Harry's stockpile of gold back at Gringott's and Aunt Petunia had given him a tirade on how he failed to mention he was hiding a mountain of gold from them. It was finally when Griphook, the goblin that brought them down, screamed at them to get going, saying that others were waiting to get to their vaults that they stopped at once. Aunt Petunia instinctively walked very close to Raides and Harry when she saw the first goblin inside the bank...
Mr. Ollivander returned with an armful of boxes of wands and opened one. The wand inside was a tintish of red with a purely wooden-colored handle. Short, about ten inches. He stuck it in Dudley's hand and told him to wave it. Dudley, feeling very stupid, waved it like one waves their finger in front of a television to get that stupid see-my-finger-one-hundred-times effect and was very upset to see that nothing had happened.
Mr. Ollivander opened wand after wand, stuffing sticks of wood ranging from nine inches to enormous wands that looked more like the size of a small staff, weighing in at fifteen inches. One time when Dudley waved a rosewood wand containing the hair of a veela, very beautiful women who had the strange effect on men of making them swoon, something behind Mr. Ollivander fell. Dudley thought it was his prowess at magic but it was just that, in his haste to grab as many wand boxes as possible, Mr. Ollivander had not realized that one was about to fall off of it's shelf. Aunt Petunia grabbed the wand from her son's hand, shook it violently, muttering, "stupid wood," and dropped it immediately when green and silver sparks erupted from it's tip. Harry grinned; those were the colors of Slytherin House.
"Ah," said Mr. Ollivander dramatically, "you might consider attending Hogwarts! After all, it would appear that you do have the gift -"
"No, thank you," Aunt Petunia replied shortly, sitting back down in her chair and ignoring the stifled sniggers from Harry and Cho.
After a half hour, Mr. Ollivander picked up a staff sitting on a chair, waved it at the open boxes of wands, none of them having worked for Dudley and muttered something. Instantly, all of the wands flew into their appropriate boxes and he magicked them back onto the proper shelves. Despite the fact that after what had to be fifty wands failed, Mr. Ollivander looked excited as ever, quite like he had been when Harry had been put through the same ordeal. His pale eyes glittering with delight, Mr. Ollivander strode back into the back room and out of sight.
"How long are we going to be here!" whined a hungry Dudley. "My stomach's growling and my feet hurt."
"He put me through the same thing," Harry told his cousin, stilling leaning on Raides like she were a soft, furry pole. He noticed that she had been very straight. Harry looked down and saw that her tail was keeping her perfectly still even when Harry's balance tried to tip her towards him so that they both fell over.
"So... anyone heard that one about the hag, the vampire and the phantom?" said Raides, breaking the boring silence.
Mr. Ollivander returned with another armful of boxes of wands.
Dudley spent ten minutes trying out wands before Mr. Ollivander took everyone by surprise and called him a stupid Muggle boy and showed him how to wave a wand properly. Harry had a feeling Dudley was worse than a Squib, a person born into a wizarding family with not a drop of wizard blood in them. Neville Longbottom, a boy in Harry's year blessed with a horrible memory, was one of Harry's friends and nearly a Squib. The Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch was completely a Squib. He couldn't do magic if you shouted "MUGGLE!" in his ear and gave him a staff.
Finally, after another ten minutes, one wand, a very strange one that Mr. Ollivander took the time to point out that no one had ever tried, let Dudley emit blue and red sparks from. It was short at eight inches, very dark-brown and made of birchwood. Only a few of them were ever made, because it's core, a dragon's eye, was a mighty hard ingredient to convince someone to use for a wand.
Dragon eye wands, Mr. Ollivander explained, were for those wizards who would otherwise have been declared Squibs. They had to squeeze the eyes to fit into the wand core and making it even harder to use as a core, the wand-maker had to prevent the juice from going anywhere but inside the wand. Further increasing difficulty was the careful Charm placed on the wand to prevent the dragon eye juice from destroying the wood. Dragon eyes had other uses, particularly potions. Harry had several dragon eyes.
"Neville's going to be happy," Harry whispered to Cho as they left Mr. Ollivander's shop.
Dudley tried to complain about his feet hurting, seeing as how Harry had been leaning on Raides the entire time in the wand shop, and seemed to be trying to convince Raides to let him ride on her back. She slapped him forcefully on the lower leg with her very powerful scarlet tail and told him to lose some weight again.
Harry peered down at his Hogwarts letter and saw that he needed a few new books and, most depressing, he needed three new ones for Divination.
A Cloudy Future by Claire Pordent
Runes As Limns Lucy Rucid
Elucidating the Myrrh by Meredith Rucid
"Lets get your books, Dudley," said Harry.
They headed towards Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore in Diagon Alley and upon entering --
"Ron!" said Harry, picking up his pace a little. "Hey!"
"Oh, hey, Harry!" Ron called back.
"Get a load of your Divination list?" Harry said, frowning, now inside the bookshop and glancing between his list and Ron's, which was exactly the same.
"Yeah," said Ron, frowning even more. "And there's a bit of a problem."
Ron, very suddenly, took his list out of view of Harry and walked over to his mother, Molly Weasley. Harry stood there for a second, watching them talk to each other so low that he couldn't make out a word of it, her patting him on the back a few times. It looked like they were almost having an arguement. Mrs. Weasley noticed Harry and she looked in his direction, smiling and waving, before turning back to Ron and going back to a very serious face.
Concerned, Harry finally dropped the arm that was still holding his list up, pointed Aunt Petunia and Dudley to the first years' book section and walked over to Ron and Mrs. Weasley who abruptly stopped talking as if they didn't want Harry to hear.
"What's wrong?" asked Harry simply.
"Oh," said Ron, avoiding Harry's gaze, "nothing."
Mrs. Weasley looked sharply at Ron, put her fists on her hips, cocked her head and sighed deeply, looking at Harry. Harry blinked. She tutted.
"It's just what with the cost of getting Fire Quidditch tickets, Arthur working overtime, the expense for him traveling all around the country" -- and she sighed again and Harry understood without her finishing -- "we happen to be in a spot of trouble where money is concerned... And you know, grade seven books are usually quite expensive."
The Weasleys, having seven children, two in Hogwarts, had been strapped for money for as long as Harry knew them. Ron had been given hand-me-downs ever since he entered Hogwarts, as had Ginny, and Ron was always very uncomfortable talking about it. He knew well, though, that Harry would happily split his fortune, sitting in Gringotts, with the Weasleys but they would never accept it.
"I thought they let you go for free like they did last year and the year before?" Harry asked, confused.
Being part of the game and going with the Weasleys, the Ministry of Magic had let the Weasleys go to the game for free.
"This year," said Ron heavily, "they wouldn't because of Vol -- er -- You-Know-Who. Mr. Fudge says the Ministry's strapped for cash, too. Dad's boss is such a --"
Mrs. Weasley tugged on his arm.
"Ron!" she hissed. "Don't say such things about Cornelius! Wait 'till we get home! Don't you remember me telling you this? Then no one can quote you on it!"
Harry tried hard to stop himself from laughing. Mrs. Weasley obviously agreed the once at least partially-approachable Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had turned slightly mean in the wake of Voldemort.
"Look," Harry said, "here..."
Harry took his money bag out of his pocket, pulled out enough golden Galleons to buy both Ginny's and Ron's sets of books, put the bag back in his pocket, opened Ron's forcibly closed fist, ignored Mrs. Weasley's gaping, stuffed the money in Ron's hand and said, "Take it."
"Harry, dear --" started Mrs. Weasley nervously...
"Take it," Harry repeated firmly. "I owe you a lot, Mrs. Weasley. Almost every summer... it's the least I could do. And you don't have to pay me back."
Mrs. Weasley laughed nervously. "I insist we do," she said.
Harry then went around with Ron, buying their books. Cho hesitantly agreed to escort Dudley around to get his books. After paying, Mrs. Weasley said they had to make their way back to the Burrow as soon as possible but they didn't fool Harry. It was obvious that both of them were still feeling quite awkward, having had Harry force them to take money from him. He wished he could do it more often as he had a lot of repaying to do for the Weasleys for all the time he had spent at their house... it was, after all, the least he could do.
After splitting up with the Weasleys, Harry, Cho, Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Raides, Dudley whimpering of sore feet, they walked back towards the Leaky Cauldron, covered Raides with the Invisbility Cloak and then drove all the way back to number four, Privet Drive. Harry, Raides and Cho all agreed they had a great time in Diagon Alley. Dudley and Aunt Petunia strongly disagreed.
Getting back to Privet Drive, Uncle Vernon didn't even want to look at Dudley's new things. Aunt Marge wasn't remotely interested. But Harry was happy. September the first was only a week away and the entire time, Dudley became increasingly friendly towards Harry, a side-effect that Harry himself would probably never get used to.
September the first did come and for the first time ever, Privet Drive was awake at the crack of dawn for two of their number to head off to King's Cross and platform nine and three-quarters.
"DUDLEY, YOU BETTER HAVE PACKED THOSE EXTRA PAIRS OF SOCKS I BOUGHT FOR YOU YESTERDAY!" wailed Aunt Petunia from the laundry room to her son who was in the kitchen eating his breakfast.
"I DID, MOM!" he roared back.
Harry was keen on taking a familiar pen that was on his desk, even though at Hogwarts, you used quills and bottles of ink. It was a momento, Harry told himself for the hundredth time as he looked at it and then at Cho, knowing he would be without her for a good ten months, a momento of Cho...
"AND IF ANY OF THOSE FREAKS TRY TO GET YOU TO COME BACK NEXT YEAR, YOU REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU, SON!" thundered Uncle Vernon from the bathroom to his son who was now licking his plate clean.
"I WILL, DAD!" he shouted back.
Cho had been helping Harry pack the last of his things and in general, make sure he was ready to catch the train in time. While the Dursleys helped Dudley to get ready, Harry was left on his own to make sure not to forget anything, to pack every last bit of clothing (Cho made sure he didn't forget the clothes they bought at the mall), made sure he actually had breakfast and then made sure Raides wasn't torturing Aunt Marge.
"You do realize we're not all going to fit in the car," Harry told Cho.
"We'll manage," she assured him. "Dudley takes up three seats. We can all just sit on his lap. Either that or Raides will show you a new Reduction Charm," she said, letting out a short lived giggle.
Harry did, too. They both sighed at Dudley's expense and found themselves staring each other in the eye. Harry blinked.
"I'm gonna miss you, you know," he said.
"Oh, don't get all soppy on me," said Cho. "It's just not you. One year left and we can decide from there. You don't want to stay here the rest of your life do you?"
"Ha!" Harry said as he turned around and ushered Hedwig into her cage. "Of course not."
"You know, I've been thinking about that -- that night. The one where you..." Harry grunted to show he understood. Cho was referring to the night she said three little words to him. "I really did mean it, you know, because I do..."
Harry felt like his body was starting to freeze up again. The words echoed like a distant memory in his head. "I love you," she said to him. It was like a brick wall forming around him. His brain just couldn't accept what had reached his ears that night and it didn't look like it was any more ready to process it now, either.
"Look, if you can't tell me you do, at least show me," Cho said, grabbing Harry's arm and turning him around. "It's important to me..."
There was a slightly depressing expression on her face as she cocked her head to the side and looked unblinkingly at him.
It would have been better if she asked him to do that before bringing that other night up. His body was locked again. His mouth wasn't moving. He had become numb. And he still had no idea why other than becoming flooded with a sense of emotions... and he hated himself for it. Harry wasn't at all helped by the salt water showing itself at the edge of Cho's eyes.
Her bottom lip quivered and Harry felt her warmth before she even did it. She held him tight and he had just enough of his own strength to drop the scarf in his hand and hug her back.
It was these very actions from her that made him feel things he never normally felt but it still left him wanting. Holding her close to himself, his eyes closed and he didn't really care if she never let go. Harry quickly recalled the time he could ever recall a similiar feeling. Mrs. Weasley had hugged him in his fourth year just after he had witnessed Voldemort rising after his first downfall.
His mother's face, the voice of his father, the sight of Cedric Diggory spread-eagled on the ground, dead... all of it wanted to come out and he screwed his face up in an effort to stem the waterworks. He didn't think if such a thing ever happened again that he would be so successful, until Cho said it again --
"You stupid prat!" she said, dripping tears on Harry's shoulder as she rested her chin on it. "I still love you!"
Harry broke apart from her so quickly it was rude. He picked up the scarf from the floor, put it in the trunk and shut it. In the few seconds terrible silence, he truly feared what Cho was going to say. He just hoped she would understand but he doubted that she would... Harry's eyes moved lazily from his closed trunk to Hedwig's open cage.
Cho drew in a breath and said heavily, "Fine," as she exhaled. "I don't get you! Why?"
Why, why, why did he had to freeze up!
"Fine," she said crossly. "But I'm only coming in the car with you because my Aunt Blossom is meeting me at King's Cross."
Harry picked up his trunk and turned around and saw her staring at him like a hawk. He didn't catch her eye -- he didn't even catch her head -- and walked out of the room.
Within the next ten minutes, everyone had eaten, both Harry and Dudley had packed their trunks, Dudley had put Prince in a container, complete with holes for breathing and Hedwig's cage door was closed. Cho was clearly upset and there wasn't a thing Harry could do. Though he very much wanted to say the words back to her, his mouth wouldn't contort itself to even say the first one.
Another good thing came of this, though. Dudley had, to everyone's surprise, convinced the Dursleys to send him to Hogwarts. Oh, but just for a year, of course, and then not do it again the next year, no way... His aunt and uncle insisted it was because they had a money problem sending Dudley to college but Harry knew better: they certainly had no such problem, they just wanted to use Harry's gold. To further convince them, Harry offered to pay for Dudley's school supplies ("You better," snarled Uncle Vernon harshly).
Harry and Cho took Dudley to the Leaky Cauldron, Aunt Petunia having driven them there. The Leaky Cauldron was a pub, hidden by magic to Muggles who didn't know any better. The pub itself hid the entrance to Diagon Alley. One had to tap bricks in the correct order to get them to split to reveal Diagon Alley. Harry having forgotten, Raides roared at it and it opened. Cho insisted Harry take Raides with them, concealed under the Invisibility Cloak, and then let her out once they got into the Leaky Cauldron. Everyone in the pub had stopped what they were drinking, eating or talking about to look at Raides as she swept past them.
Upon entering Diagon Alley, Dudley's first instinct was to run right into the magical creatures shop and buy the first bat he saw. Harry told him to look down at his Hogwarts supplies list and point out that it said owl, cat or toad and not bat, rat or komodo dragon. Aunt Petunia cringed at the sight of the bats lining the ceiling of the shop, all sitting upside down, their small, leathery wings covering their sickly furry bodies.
After getting some money from Harry's vault at Gringott's, the wizard bank, enough for both Harry and Dudley, Aunt Petunia needed to sit for a good fifteen minutes outside on a bench to get rid of the putrid boogey color in her face. Harry knew that the carts you used to get around the vaults in Gringott's made Hagrid sick, too. Returning to the Magical Menagerie, Dudley chose a small frog that reminded Harry of a sickly green one that had contracted a deadly disease that was shown on the Discovery Channel. Dudley blessed the sickly green frog with the name Prince.
Dudley was particularly not keen on the measuring tape used in Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. It measured one's body all by itself. Madam Malkin said she had never had a customer as wide as Dudley and needed to get out her extra-large measuring tape as the usual one wasn't long enough. Dudley insisted he be given a different colored cloak than everyone else as black wasn't his favorite color. Harry watched, laughing silently to himself with Cho as Aunt Petunia pleaded with Madam Malkin but she said no very firmly once and that was the end of the bickering. Dudley walked out of the shop all sulky.
Harry allowed himself to be measured up for some new robes as well and then, needing dress robes for the Yule Ball at Hogwarts, pulled a Mrs. Weasley and got ones the same color she had gotten him: the green color of his eyes. The champions for each school started the dancing on the floor with their partners and then, shortly after, the rest of the students were allowed to get up and dance. Harry had asked Cho, but she had already been asked by Cedric Diggory, which left a one way road of bad feelings from Harry to him.
Harry would have happily bought Ron robes, too, but he would never let Harry spend money on him. Ron had been forced to wear frilly maroon robes that resembled a dress. He tried to trim them but did so messily, leaving the ends frayed. Dudley sniggered while Madam Malkin fitted Harry up for his new ones.
"And just so you know, anyone under fourth year isn't allowed to go unless they get a partner fourth year or up," Harry told Dudley, smiling.
"And who are you going to go with?" Dudley sneered, forgetting about Cho, who was in Harry's view, but standing behind Dudley so he couldn't see her. Harry's view automatically shifted towards her but somehow he didn't think he'd be allowed to ask her to the ball since she didn't go to Hogwarts anymore. The smile slowly melted off his face; he would certainly have to ask when the time came.
As soon as he had the dress robes safely away in a bag, Harry immediately went to buy quills, ink and parchment. Seeing as how all his quills were old and dirty, a very nice, eye-catching phoenix-feather quill caught his eye.
"Ah, Mr. Potter," said the shop-keeper in a misty voice, immediately recognizing him by the lightning scar on his forehead which unnerved Aunt Petunia, "an excellent choice."
He payed the seven sickles for it and the shop-keeper (on purpose, Harry realized, as they all exited the shop) had given him another one for free, stuffing it in the bag without him seeing.
Harry's aunt was not too happy about buying potion ingredients.
"Who d'you reckon is going to be the professor for Potions?" Harry asked Cho as they stepped inside the Apothecary.
"No idea," Cho replied. "Hope it's someone nice even though I'm no longer there. I still have nightmares about Snape's classes."
Peering down, Harry saw that his list consisted of dragon toenails and a gross item that reminded him of what you get when you mix swirly brown stuff with grease from Snape's hair and smelling twice as nasty. The witch running the shop put on a gas mask, ordered them to hold their fingers over their noses, opened the big container and dumped the thick glop into a jar and sealed it with a top and Odor-Occluder Charm. Harry could still smell it, his fingers pressed so tightly over his nose it felt like he was flattening it like a pancake.
When the witch closed the container, she pointed her wand up, shouted, "Fragrodorus!" and a misty, pink cloud flew out of it. Immediately, the room smelled better and she told everyone to uncover their noses. Aunt Petunia took extra large breaths, apparently liking the new fragrance. Harry would be sure to remember this spell in case it ever came in handy and with such a potion ingredient, he didn't doubt whether he would have been stupid not to.
Mr. Ollivander, the owner of a shop by the same name, greeted Harry with a handshake but looked ready to faint at the sight of Raides. Aunt Petunia stood outside for a minute, however, gazing up at the sign saying this store had been stablished in 382 B.C.
"O-oh m-my!" he croaked, staring at Raides' beautiful, golden fur.
Raides launched herself onto a table and rested her head on a paw.
"You've heard of Animagi... but not Anistaffi?" she said, grinning.
Yet Mr. Ollivander kept staring at her, his hands folded in front of him, his eyes darting to a quill and piece of parchment, going through a great internal struggle. For a ridiculous second, Harry thought Mr. Ollivander wanted Raides' autograph. Aunt Petunia then walked in and seated herself on a nearby creaky chair.
"Want to me see as a staff, then?" said Raides, reading his mind.
Mr. Ollivander's pale eyes turned paler and he smiled weakly. He had spoken to Harry about the Staff of Cybele to him very fervently just last year but, like other wizards, didn't believe it existed. And now here it was, talking to him. It was like watching a baby who'd had a first taste of chocolate. Or like Ron after he had gotten an autograph from Victor Krum.
Raides stood up on the table and launched herself at Harry, turning into the enormous Staff of Cybele in mid-flight. Harry had become quite adept at catching her when she did this.
"Don't think of using her, though," Harry warned Mr. Ollivander, grinning. "She gets testy."
"She doesn't want anyone but ancients using her, correct?" said Mr. Ollivander and then he started muttering soundlessly to himself.
"Yes," said Harry.
"It's just a staff," said Aunt Petunia and then everyone stared at her.
Mr. Ollivander's attention was quickly diverted to the Staff of Cybele, though, as the crystal disappeared from the lion's mouth and Raides began speaking, the tiny little mouthing moving just as her bigger one did.
"Hun, you only wish you had fur that looked this good," she growled looking at Aunt Petunia like she was a piece of nature that was way beneath her. "I look this good at over five thousand years old. And you're what, sixty?" Aunt Petunia looked outraged and Harry and Cho were giggling. Raides sighed. "It's not all good. It's a real pain to clean all this fur... And don't you dare think of giving me a sponge bath."
Harry held Raides on her end, upright. She was easily at least two feet taller than him and would make quite a good weapon even if he wasn't going to use magic.
"Doesn't that hurt?" said Cho, looking at how Raides' tail was supporting her.
"Oh, I don't feel any pain," Raides informed her. "Ahem. Enough about me. This boy needs a wand, yes?"
"Right, right," muttered Mr. Ollivander and he swept into the back room.
Harry clutched Raides with both hands and pulled her close to his face, leaning on her. His feet were tired from walking around all day. Dudley spent forever goggling at Harry's stockpile of gold back at Gringott's and Aunt Petunia had given him a tirade on how he failed to mention he was hiding a mountain of gold from them. It was finally when Griphook, the goblin that brought them down, screamed at them to get going, saying that others were waiting to get to their vaults that they stopped at once. Aunt Petunia instinctively walked very close to Raides and Harry when she saw the first goblin inside the bank...
Mr. Ollivander returned with an armful of boxes of wands and opened one. The wand inside was a tintish of red with a purely wooden-colored handle. Short, about ten inches. He stuck it in Dudley's hand and told him to wave it. Dudley, feeling very stupid, waved it like one waves their finger in front of a television to get that stupid see-my-finger-one-hundred-times effect and was very upset to see that nothing had happened.
Mr. Ollivander opened wand after wand, stuffing sticks of wood ranging from nine inches to enormous wands that looked more like the size of a small staff, weighing in at fifteen inches. One time when Dudley waved a rosewood wand containing the hair of a veela, very beautiful women who had the strange effect on men of making them swoon, something behind Mr. Ollivander fell. Dudley thought it was his prowess at magic but it was just that, in his haste to grab as many wand boxes as possible, Mr. Ollivander had not realized that one was about to fall off of it's shelf. Aunt Petunia grabbed the wand from her son's hand, shook it violently, muttering, "stupid wood," and dropped it immediately when green and silver sparks erupted from it's tip. Harry grinned; those were the colors of Slytherin House.
"Ah," said Mr. Ollivander dramatically, "you might consider attending Hogwarts! After all, it would appear that you do have the gift -"
"No, thank you," Aunt Petunia replied shortly, sitting back down in her chair and ignoring the stifled sniggers from Harry and Cho.
After a half hour, Mr. Ollivander picked up a staff sitting on a chair, waved it at the open boxes of wands, none of them having worked for Dudley and muttered something. Instantly, all of the wands flew into their appropriate boxes and he magicked them back onto the proper shelves. Despite the fact that after what had to be fifty wands failed, Mr. Ollivander looked excited as ever, quite like he had been when Harry had been put through the same ordeal. His pale eyes glittering with delight, Mr. Ollivander strode back into the back room and out of sight.
"How long are we going to be here!" whined a hungry Dudley. "My stomach's growling and my feet hurt."
"He put me through the same thing," Harry told his cousin, stilling leaning on Raides like she were a soft, furry pole. He noticed that she had been very straight. Harry looked down and saw that her tail was keeping her perfectly still even when Harry's balance tried to tip her towards him so that they both fell over.
"So... anyone heard that one about the hag, the vampire and the phantom?" said Raides, breaking the boring silence.
Mr. Ollivander returned with another armful of boxes of wands.
Dudley spent ten minutes trying out wands before Mr. Ollivander took everyone by surprise and called him a stupid Muggle boy and showed him how to wave a wand properly. Harry had a feeling Dudley was worse than a Squib, a person born into a wizarding family with not a drop of wizard blood in them. Neville Longbottom, a boy in Harry's year blessed with a horrible memory, was one of Harry's friends and nearly a Squib. The Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch was completely a Squib. He couldn't do magic if you shouted "MUGGLE!" in his ear and gave him a staff.
Finally, after another ten minutes, one wand, a very strange one that Mr. Ollivander took the time to point out that no one had ever tried, let Dudley emit blue and red sparks from. It was short at eight inches, very dark-brown and made of birchwood. Only a few of them were ever made, because it's core, a dragon's eye, was a mighty hard ingredient to convince someone to use for a wand.
Dragon eye wands, Mr. Ollivander explained, were for those wizards who would otherwise have been declared Squibs. They had to squeeze the eyes to fit into the wand core and making it even harder to use as a core, the wand-maker had to prevent the juice from going anywhere but inside the wand. Further increasing difficulty was the careful Charm placed on the wand to prevent the dragon eye juice from destroying the wood. Dragon eyes had other uses, particularly potions. Harry had several dragon eyes.
"Neville's going to be happy," Harry whispered to Cho as they left Mr. Ollivander's shop.
Dudley tried to complain about his feet hurting, seeing as how Harry had been leaning on Raides the entire time in the wand shop, and seemed to be trying to convince Raides to let him ride on her back. She slapped him forcefully on the lower leg with her very powerful scarlet tail and told him to lose some weight again.
Harry peered down at his Hogwarts letter and saw that he needed a few new books and, most depressing, he needed three new ones for Divination.
A Cloudy Future by Claire Pordent
Runes As Limns Lucy Rucid
Elucidating the Myrrh by Meredith Rucid
"Lets get your books, Dudley," said Harry.
They headed towards Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore in Diagon Alley and upon entering --
"Ron!" said Harry, picking up his pace a little. "Hey!"
"Oh, hey, Harry!" Ron called back.
"Get a load of your Divination list?" Harry said, frowning, now inside the bookshop and glancing between his list and Ron's, which was exactly the same.
"Yeah," said Ron, frowning even more. "And there's a bit of a problem."
Ron, very suddenly, took his list out of view of Harry and walked over to his mother, Molly Weasley. Harry stood there for a second, watching them talk to each other so low that he couldn't make out a word of it, her patting him on the back a few times. It looked like they were almost having an arguement. Mrs. Weasley noticed Harry and she looked in his direction, smiling and waving, before turning back to Ron and going back to a very serious face.
Concerned, Harry finally dropped the arm that was still holding his list up, pointed Aunt Petunia and Dudley to the first years' book section and walked over to Ron and Mrs. Weasley who abruptly stopped talking as if they didn't want Harry to hear.
"What's wrong?" asked Harry simply.
"Oh," said Ron, avoiding Harry's gaze, "nothing."
Mrs. Weasley looked sharply at Ron, put her fists on her hips, cocked her head and sighed deeply, looking at Harry. Harry blinked. She tutted.
"It's just what with the cost of getting Fire Quidditch tickets, Arthur working overtime, the expense for him traveling all around the country" -- and she sighed again and Harry understood without her finishing -- "we happen to be in a spot of trouble where money is concerned... And you know, grade seven books are usually quite expensive."
The Weasleys, having seven children, two in Hogwarts, had been strapped for money for as long as Harry knew them. Ron had been given hand-me-downs ever since he entered Hogwarts, as had Ginny, and Ron was always very uncomfortable talking about it. He knew well, though, that Harry would happily split his fortune, sitting in Gringotts, with the Weasleys but they would never accept it.
"I thought they let you go for free like they did last year and the year before?" Harry asked, confused.
Being part of the game and going with the Weasleys, the Ministry of Magic had let the Weasleys go to the game for free.
"This year," said Ron heavily, "they wouldn't because of Vol -- er -- You-Know-Who. Mr. Fudge says the Ministry's strapped for cash, too. Dad's boss is such a --"
Mrs. Weasley tugged on his arm.
"Ron!" she hissed. "Don't say such things about Cornelius! Wait 'till we get home! Don't you remember me telling you this? Then no one can quote you on it!"
Harry tried hard to stop himself from laughing. Mrs. Weasley obviously agreed the once at least partially-approachable Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had turned slightly mean in the wake of Voldemort.
"Look," Harry said, "here..."
Harry took his money bag out of his pocket, pulled out enough golden Galleons to buy both Ginny's and Ron's sets of books, put the bag back in his pocket, opened Ron's forcibly closed fist, ignored Mrs. Weasley's gaping, stuffed the money in Ron's hand and said, "Take it."
"Harry, dear --" started Mrs. Weasley nervously...
"Take it," Harry repeated firmly. "I owe you a lot, Mrs. Weasley. Almost every summer... it's the least I could do. And you don't have to pay me back."
Mrs. Weasley laughed nervously. "I insist we do," she said.
Harry then went around with Ron, buying their books. Cho hesitantly agreed to escort Dudley around to get his books. After paying, Mrs. Weasley said they had to make their way back to the Burrow as soon as possible but they didn't fool Harry. It was obvious that both of them were still feeling quite awkward, having had Harry force them to take money from him. He wished he could do it more often as he had a lot of repaying to do for the Weasleys for all the time he had spent at their house... it was, after all, the least he could do.
After splitting up with the Weasleys, Harry, Cho, Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Raides, Dudley whimpering of sore feet, they walked back towards the Leaky Cauldron, covered Raides with the Invisbility Cloak and then drove all the way back to number four, Privet Drive. Harry, Raides and Cho all agreed they had a great time in Diagon Alley. Dudley and Aunt Petunia strongly disagreed.
Getting back to Privet Drive, Uncle Vernon didn't even want to look at Dudley's new things. Aunt Marge wasn't remotely interested. But Harry was happy. September the first was only a week away and the entire time, Dudley became increasingly friendly towards Harry, a side-effect that Harry himself would probably never get used to.
September the first did come and for the first time ever, Privet Drive was awake at the crack of dawn for two of their number to head off to King's Cross and platform nine and three-quarters.
"DUDLEY, YOU BETTER HAVE PACKED THOSE EXTRA PAIRS OF SOCKS I BOUGHT FOR YOU YESTERDAY!" wailed Aunt Petunia from the laundry room to her son who was in the kitchen eating his breakfast.
"I DID, MOM!" he roared back.
Harry was keen on taking a familiar pen that was on his desk, even though at Hogwarts, you used quills and bottles of ink. It was a momento, Harry told himself for the hundredth time as he looked at it and then at Cho, knowing he would be without her for a good ten months, a momento of Cho...
"AND IF ANY OF THOSE FREAKS TRY TO GET YOU TO COME BACK NEXT YEAR, YOU REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU, SON!" thundered Uncle Vernon from the bathroom to his son who was now licking his plate clean.
"I WILL, DAD!" he shouted back.
Cho had been helping Harry pack the last of his things and in general, make sure he was ready to catch the train in time. While the Dursleys helped Dudley to get ready, Harry was left on his own to make sure not to forget anything, to pack every last bit of clothing (Cho made sure he didn't forget the clothes they bought at the mall), made sure he actually had breakfast and then made sure Raides wasn't torturing Aunt Marge.
"You do realize we're not all going to fit in the car," Harry told Cho.
"We'll manage," she assured him. "Dudley takes up three seats. We can all just sit on his lap. Either that or Raides will show you a new Reduction Charm," she said, letting out a short lived giggle.
Harry did, too. They both sighed at Dudley's expense and found themselves staring each other in the eye. Harry blinked.
"I'm gonna miss you, you know," he said.
"Oh, don't get all soppy on me," said Cho. "It's just not you. One year left and we can decide from there. You don't want to stay here the rest of your life do you?"
"Ha!" Harry said as he turned around and ushered Hedwig into her cage. "Of course not."
"You know, I've been thinking about that -- that night. The one where you..." Harry grunted to show he understood. Cho was referring to the night she said three little words to him. "I really did mean it, you know, because I do..."
Harry felt like his body was starting to freeze up again. The words echoed like a distant memory in his head. "I love you," she said to him. It was like a brick wall forming around him. His brain just couldn't accept what had reached his ears that night and it didn't look like it was any more ready to process it now, either.
"Look, if you can't tell me you do, at least show me," Cho said, grabbing Harry's arm and turning him around. "It's important to me..."
There was a slightly depressing expression on her face as she cocked her head to the side and looked unblinkingly at him.
It would have been better if she asked him to do that before bringing that other night up. His body was locked again. His mouth wasn't moving. He had become numb. And he still had no idea why other than becoming flooded with a sense of emotions... and he hated himself for it. Harry wasn't at all helped by the salt water showing itself at the edge of Cho's eyes.
Her bottom lip quivered and Harry felt her warmth before she even did it. She held him tight and he had just enough of his own strength to drop the scarf in his hand and hug her back.
It was these very actions from her that made him feel things he never normally felt but it still left him wanting. Holding her close to himself, his eyes closed and he didn't really care if she never let go. Harry quickly recalled the time he could ever recall a similiar feeling. Mrs. Weasley had hugged him in his fourth year just after he had witnessed Voldemort rising after his first downfall.
His mother's face, the voice of his father, the sight of Cedric Diggory spread-eagled on the ground, dead... all of it wanted to come out and he screwed his face up in an effort to stem the waterworks. He didn't think if such a thing ever happened again that he would be so successful, until Cho said it again --
"You stupid prat!" she said, dripping tears on Harry's shoulder as she rested her chin on it. "I still love you!"
Harry broke apart from her so quickly it was rude. He picked up the scarf from the floor, put it in the trunk and shut it. In the few seconds terrible silence, he truly feared what Cho was going to say. He just hoped she would understand but he doubted that she would... Harry's eyes moved lazily from his closed trunk to Hedwig's open cage.
Cho drew in a breath and said heavily, "Fine," as she exhaled. "I don't get you! Why?"
Why, why, why did he had to freeze up!
"Fine," she said crossly. "But I'm only coming in the car with you because my Aunt Blossom is meeting me at King's Cross."
Harry picked up his trunk and turned around and saw her staring at him like a hawk. He didn't catch her eye -- he didn't even catch her head -- and walked out of the room.
Within the next ten minutes, everyone had eaten, both Harry and Dudley had packed their trunks, Dudley had put Prince in a container, complete with holes for breathing and Hedwig's cage door was closed. Cho was clearly upset and there wasn't a thing Harry could do. Though he very much wanted to say the words back to her, his mouth wouldn't contort itself to even say the first one.