-9-

April 1996

Sirius eyed his surroundings mistrustfully, glanced down at the piece of parchment in his hand, and wrinkled his brows. The address was correct, but the grey multi-story building in front of him couldn't be the right place, could it?

"Number 18," he murmured, as he inspected the board of buttons, names, and numbers that was right next to the entrance door.

Finally, he found the right number. Shrugging, Sirius pressed the button next to it. The expected ringing of a bell never came, instead, a female voice with a strong German accent answered:

"Hallo?"

Bewildered, Sirius bent down to the small board, near to the area where the voice came from.

"Hello? Um, Sirius Black here. I have an appointment with Miss Steinmann."

"Right. Come up. Top floor."

The door buzzed loudly and clicked open. Hesitantly Sirius entered the building. This was definitely not what he had expected. He followed the stairs, walking past various apartment doors, some decorated for Easter with small bunnies, flowers, and twigs until he reached the topmost floor.

A young woman with long, brown hair and friendly blue eyes, she could be no older than twenty-five, held one of the doors open. "You're Mr. Black?"

"Yes, and you're Miss Steinmann, I presume?"

"Yes, that's me. Come in."

Sirius followed the woman into her apartment. She wore muggle clothes, jeans, and a dark green sweater, and her apartment was very modern – light floors, white walls, and new – albeit cheap-looking – furniture. She led him through a truly tiny kitchen into her living room.

"So… You're a seer?" Sirius tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice, as he looked around the cozy living room – comfortable red sofa, plants, a few wizarding photos on the walls – but she seemed to have picked up on it anyway.

"Yes, I guess you expected something different?" She smiled at him and took a seat on the floor on one end of a round table, tying her long hair back into a ponytail as she did so. "Most people do. But to be honest, being a seer doesn't pay very well these days, and Munich is an expensive place to live, especially the wizarding district. This muggle flat was just more affordable."

Well… maybe if she had a workplace that instilled more confidence in her skills, her business would pick up too. Sirius didn't voice his thoughts. She was probably just a fraud anyway.

"Please take a seat opposite me. Did you bring something belonging to the person you want me to scry for?"

"Yes, one moment." Sirius pulled Harry's old favourite stuffed toy out of his coat pocket and reluctantly handed it to the woman, who promptly dropped it into the big bowl of water situated on the table between them.

"Wha-"

"Shh… I need to concentrate. You can ask questions later."

The woman closed her eyes and started to hum while the stuffed rabbit saturated with water and slowly sunk the bottom of the bowl.

Definitely a waste of his money. Sirius sighed. His search for Harry had led nowhere so far. It was as if the boy had simply dropped off the face of the earth, and Sirius felt forced to resort to desperate measures.

Still humming, the woman slowly raised her hands to touch the water surface. Her eyes had a strange far-away look when she opened them, and she started to mutter quietly.

It took so long that Sirius was surprised when she finally addressed him again.

"Ich kann Ihnen ni- Sorry. I can't tell you where he is now. I only saw lots and lots of different shades of green, but I'm not sure what this means. The obvious thing would be to assume that he is somewhere where it's very green, but then again, divination is rarely so straightforward."

She looked apologetic, but Sirius didn't buy her act for one second. She was a fraud, of course, she couldn't tell him any details.

"I think I caught a glimpse of his future. Please, don't take this information at face value, the future is never sure, it's subject to constant change. We make hundreds of decisions each day, and each decision can change the course of our future. I can only tell you what I see for him now."

Sirius made an impatient noise, urging her to get to it. He really didn't want to spend more time than he already had to watch this disgusting display. She – like so many other 'seers' – was just a fraud taking advantage of desperate witches and wizards.

"There… there is blood and death in his future. Betrayal. But also a reunion. With whom I can't say, but I know that he will reunite with someone thought lost."

"Thank you." Sirius stood briskly, summoning the soaking wet rabbit in his outstretched hand. He cast a drying charm on it, put it back into this pocket, and dropped the agreed sum on the table.

Blood and death. For a prediction like that he wouldn't have needed to travel all the way to Germany. Trelawney would have done the job just fine.

And 'reunite with someone thought lost'? Merlin. Everybody was thought lost to the boy, wherever he was.

He apparated straight out of her living room. It was considered impolite, but then so was deceiving paying customers. He could hardly believe this woman had been so highly recommended. She was a fraud. Obviously.

.

July 1996

The sun was burning down mercilessly; Harry felt sweat trickling down his brow and blinked to keep it from dropping into his eyes.

He bent down to avoid Al's next attack, and that's when he saw it: Al's knee wobbled, and for a split second, he shifted his weight to the other leg. If Harry hadn't been looking for it, he wouldn't have noticed the brief show of weakness. Now, if he would only manage to…

Quick as a snake, Harry darted out, feigning an attack to the right. He could hardly believe it when Al fell for it, it seemed the old man was getting tired too. At the last moment, Harry twisted around to attack Al's unprotected side. Al jerked around in surprise; his knee made a cracking sound and Al went down with a pained cry. Harry went after him, bent over Al, and pressed his knife against the man's throat.

"Got you," he breathed. Finally. He felt his body relax.

"You got me good," Al said through clenched teeth. "Won't deny that. But-"

And suddenly Harry could feel a sharp blade digging into his rips.

"If I push, it goes straight into your heart," Al smiled, and it wasn't nice.

"Damn," Harry cursed and fell back onto the grass next to Al. "Impasse?"

Al nodded.

They remained on the ground next to each other for the next few minutes, trying to calm their beating hearts, then Harry got up. Al tried to follow, but his knee gave out and he sank back to the ground.

"Damn it," he cursed. "Help me up, will you?"

Harry pulled Al to his feet and supported him on the way back inside.

"I think I might have just ruined my knee further."

"Sorry…" Harry looked down guiltily. He shouldn't have…

"Nonsense," Al said. "You saw my weakness and you took advantage of it. Finally. I've been waiting for you to lose your stupid sense of nobility for ages. A fight isn't supposed to be fair. And it's not only a measure of strength. It's about ruthlessness, cunningness, and you finally showed me that you have both."

"Well… if you put it that way," Harry grinned. "So you're saying that if I had only taken advantage of your injury sooner, I would have won long ago?"

"Don't twist my words around," Al grumbled. "And you didn't win. Impasse, remember?"

Harry chuckled, left Al sitting at the table, and went to prepare dinner.

.

However much Al's knee had hurt him before, it must have been nothing compared to the pain he was in after their fight. Over the next few days, Al was practically bedridden, unable to walk on his own, even with the aid of a stick.

A week had passed since their fight, and like every day Harry was sitting at the table next to Al – the old man refused to lie in bed all day long and made Harry help him hobble around the house – surrounded by books on Healing magic.

"How come you have so many books about healing?" Harry asked as he put aside yet another useless book on the topic.

"I told you I lost my magic after a traumatic experience in my past?"

Harry nodded. Al had told him as much, but nothing more.

"Well, my family… In the beginning, they tried to help me find a cure, but after a few years went by without any sign of betterment… they, well, no not they, my sister Walburga," he spat her name with disgust, "…felt I was too big an embarrassment to stay with the family any longer."

Al's face was twisted in anger, but Harry could see the underlying pain, the vulnerability, and he regretted raising the issue immediately. Whatever had happened between him and his sister, Al was not over it.

"There was a self-styled Dark Lord gaining power at the time. Squibs have always been a blemish, a spot on any family's name, and the rise of this Dark Lord gave her an excuse to get rid of me. She said she feared our family would be targeted if the Dark Lord got wind that there was a Squib in the family – not that I really am one anyway –, and so she cast me out. Burned me off the family tree. What she didn't know though-,"

and now Al grinned,

"-was that my grandfather had made preparations for this eventuality. Before his death, he made sure that I was entitled to a small part of the family library and a hefty sum of money. You should have seen her face when she found out. Brilliant."

Al chuckled.

"I even left half of my money to one of her sons, just to spite her - and of course to remunerate him for his troubles. I don't think anybody else ever managed to make her as livid as that boy. Not even me, but not for lack of trying." Al wallowed in his memories for a few minutes, before he continued:

"But anyway. I got part of the library and took most of the books on Healing magic. At the time I still hoped to find a cure for my… affliction."

"You don't anymore?"

"I'm seventy-one years old, Harry," Al sighed. "I've been looking for a cure for the better part of my life. If I haven't found it until now…"

Harry returned to his research, not saying anything. He knew Al was probably right. But… the old man was like a father to him. It hurt to know he had given up.

Two hours later Harry's efforts finally paid off.

"Found something," Harry said and handed the thick book to Al. "It's a potion. I'd need to vanish your knee and regrow it."

Al studied the page. "Skele-Gro." He nodded. "I was hoping we'd find something else. We don't have the ingredients for this potion. Damn it. I'll have to write to my associates. The next letter will arrive in a few days, if I write them back immediately it will still take a few months for the package to arrive."

.

Over the next few days, Al's mood grew increasingly worse. He hated being confined in his movements.

The day the new letters were scheduled to arrive, his knee was still so bad that he couldn't even make it to the clearing on his own, and Harry had to accompany him, alternately serving as Al's walking aid and simply levitating the man.

On the way back from the clearing, a pensive expression marred Al's features.

"Can we talk for a moment?" he asked once they were back in the hut.

"Sure." Harry took a seat opposite Al at the kitchen table.

Harry had never seen Al look so uncomfortable. He avoided Harry's eyes and looked constantly down on his hands or out of the window. Finally, he seemed to have gathered his bearings.

"Do you- do you regret killing that boy, your girlfriend's brother?"

Harry was surprised by the question, and not in a good way. He didn't often think of this night, because these thoughts would lead him to think about Courtney… the girl he hadn't seen in months now, and who probably either thought he was dead or had killed her brother or both.

"No," he said after a while. "It's like you said, isn't it? The stronger triumph over the weaker, and I was stronger."

Al hummed. "Yes. Do you," and now Al looked straight at him, "do you think you could kill another person again? Or watch someone be killed?"

Harry held his breath. He had an inkling where this conversation was going…

He thought back, remembering Rob's eyes, the fear in them, the satisfaction he felt when he got his revenge when he saw the life leaving them… the barely-there feeling of triumph because this was the confirmation that he truly was better, stronger, more capable than the muggle.

Could he do something like this again?

To his surprise, the answer was yes. Yes. Death was just part of life, wasn't it? The strongest survived; such was the law of nature, and he saw it applied every day. A snake hunted a mouse, a fox a rabbit, a human a deer. A wizard a muggle?

"I think so," he answered carefully.

"Are you sure?" Al pressed.

"Yes. If the circumstances demanded it, I could kill someone."

Al sighed. "This is not something I ever wanted to ask of you, at least not so soon, but with my knee… the situation is complicated. You know that I leave here a few times a year. I do some… jobs, for wizards."

"What kind of jobs?" Harry asked though he thought he already knew the answer.

"I deal with people… muggles for them. Sometimes they just want me to intimidate the muggles, deliver a warning shot, other times it's… an assassination."

"Why do they involve you? If they're wizards, wouldn't it be easier for them to just, you know, do the job themselves?"

Al shook his head. "No. Magic… it leaves traces. More often than not the Ministry knows of or at least suspects the association of certain wizards with muggles, and if they think that a wizard might be involved in a crime they send Aurors to investigate. So these wizards contact me when they want their involvement to stay secret. I can't use magic, so it automatically looks like a muggle job."

Harry nodded. It did make sense. In a weird way.

"Wouldn't it be easier for them to just hire a muggle though?"

Al laughed. "Most of my clients hate dealing with muggles. They are involved with muggle businesses to further their winnings, but they avoid them where they can. Also, they know that I'm up for the job, and as thanks to my dear sister the Ministry thinks I'm dead, the Aurors don't come looking for me. With muggles there always the risk that the Ministry would find them, and get them to give up the person who hired them."

"Okay…" Harry hesitated for a moment, unsure what to do with Al's unusual forthcomingness. "So, um the letter, that's your next job?"

"Yes. It's an assassination. I'll do the actual job. But I'd like you to come along to cover my back. I don't feel like dying just yet," Al grimaced, looking down on his knee.

Harry didn't feel as shocked as he should – maybe because he had suspected something like this for a long time now.

This was, after all, the most obvious explanation for Al being as skilled a fighter as he was, for his disappearances, for the time he had returned wounded after one of his jobs, for the letter with the names on it he had found in Al's room a few years ago…

It was due to his actions that Al's knee was so useless at the moment. If Al died because of an injury Harry had caused, he would never be able to forgive himself. Of course, he'd help him, it was the least he could do. Harry held Al's eyes and nodded.

.

They left for London the next morning. As it turned out, the letter was a Portkey that would take them to an apartment where they could prepare for the mission.

Once again standing on the clearing where they usually received the letters, Harry grabbed hold of the parchment.

"Ready?"

Harry nodded, and a moment later felt like he was jerked forward by his navel. The ground disappeared beneath his feet and he was pulled through a swirl of colours. The wind rushed in his ears, and Harry was thankful that his hand seemed to be glued to the letter; otherwise, he would have let go of it in shock.

When his feet hit something hard, he buckled over and found himself lying on a dark wooden floor. He looked around hesitantly. Al was next to him, standing even though his knee must be giving him hell.

"You could have warned me," Harry murmured as he got to his feet.

"Wanted to see your face," Al chuckled. "And a warning wouldn't have changed a thing," he said when he saw Harry's indignant expression. "Can't really explain that sensation, can you?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Harry looked around. They were standing in a rather big room. A comfortable-looking sofa stood in its center, a few meters away from a big fireplace; the ceiling was made of glass and a floating violin was playing a soft tune.

"Nice," he said appreciatively.

"Mhm." Al hobbled to the sofa, sat down, and picked up a thin folder waiting there for him. "Usually I read through the details-" He held the folder up high. "and afterward lie down and listen to the music until it's time to leave. It's just something I do to get into the right frame of mind for the job."

"Just pretend I'm not here then," Harry said. "I'll just look around a bit, enjoy the view." He walked towards one of the big windows to his left. It should be dark outside by now, but the city lights kept the true darkness of the night away.

"We'll make it look like a mugging," Al said.

"What?" Harry turned around just as Al was putting down the folder.

"The job. The target is out tonight, and I'm supposed to make it look like a mugging that ended in its death."

"Right," Harry murmured and turned back to the window.

Beneath him, the busy streets of London unfurled. There were dozens of cars, hundreds of people… The city crawled with muggles like the forest with ants.

It all seemed so surreal.

If he hadn't found Al, would he too be one of those people down there? Narrow-minded? Ignorant of the wonders of magic? Caught in a boringly ordinary life? Satisfied with normality?

No. Magic was in his blood. It was in his nature, his heritage. Even if he hadn't run into Al, he would have found his way to magic, he was sure of it.

The minutes trickled by at snails-pace. Al slept or meditated or something, and Harry got increasingly bored. There were no books, no paintings or photos… as interesting as the room had seemed at first glance, as boring turned its bare walls out to be at the second.

Finally – Harry was convinced he would die of boredom if something didn't happen soon – a clock nearby struck ten, and Al opened his eyes and sat up.

"Time to go. Are you ready?"

"More than ready," Harry murmured and followed behind Al. The old man picked up two knives from a table next to the door, took a step back, turned around, and threw them at Harry.

"What the fuck?" Harry jumped out of the way.

"Back," Al said, and the knife flew back into Al's hand before it even reached Harry's previous position.

"Just checking if you're alert and ready."

If Al hadn't been hurt already, Harry might have hit him.

"The knives are charmed to always come back to me." Al grinned. "Wouldn't have let it hit you."

"How nice of you," Harry muttered, following Al out of the door. The older man was already at the stairs, descending slowly.

Grinning, Harry swished his wand and levitated Al without warning. Al yelped and shot the loudly laughing Harry a furious glare.

Revenge was sweet.

Al relaxed and allowed Harry to float him downstairs. "Once we leave the building you have to be more careful. Can't let muggles see you use magic."

They took a cab to drive through the city. Harry's eyes were glued to the window, taking in the streetlights, cars, and huge billboards; the people huddled together in groups, faces hidden behind umbrellas…

The cab stopped near a big park. High trees overshadowed the pavement, and a shiver went down Harry's spine as he stepped out of the car and followed Al down the rain-wet street.

They were about to kill a guy. Kill. Anticipation mixed with fear and no small dose of trepidation spread through him.

What if something went wrong? What if Al's knee gave out and…

Harry shook his head. He couldn't allow his thoughts to go there, not if he wanted to keep his wits about him.

They stopped in front of a brick-built townhouse with stucco-framed windows and a small front yard.

Al led Harry into the shadows of a nearby tree.

"What now?" Harry's voice rose barely above a whisper, but in the complete and utter silence of the night, he felt like he might as well have shouted

"Now we wait."

For about half an hour nothing happened. Harry was about to ask what they were going to do if the man never showed when he heard a car approach.

For a short moment, its light illuminated their hiding place, and Harry thought his heart would jump out of his chest any minute.

A bald man, probably in his late forties, stumbled out of the car.

"Thanks for the ride. I'll see you on Monday!"

"No problem. See you."

The car sped away with screeching tires. Finally, they were alone.

Al pulled a small rubber ball out of his pocket and let it bounce down the street. The noise immediately drew the target's attention and the moment he turned away from their hideout, Al stepped out of the shadows, knife in hand.

The blade reflected the light of the streetlamp, which made it easy to follow Al's movement.

With bated breath, Harry watched as Al raised the knife. Somewhere in the back of his head, a small voice urged him to look away, to turn around… but he couldn't – he didn't even want to.

The man stumbled but caught hold of himself at the last minute. He must have seen Al out of the corner of his eyes, because he turned around sharply, and his wide, horrified eyes zoomed in on the knife in Al's hand.

Al reared back to avoid the man's swinging fists, but his knee didn't support his weight and when he saw Al fall down, Harry knew he had to intervene. The old man could hardly walk these days; he wasn't fit to fight.

He stepped – no he ran out of the hideout, his own knife already clasped tightly in his hand. He knew they didn't have long. The man would overcome his shock any minute, and then he would remember to scream and draw the attention of the whole neighborhood.

"You don't have to-" Al started, but Harry was already past him. Without giving it another thought, Harry ducked under the man's arms, dodging his punches. It was just like yet another training session with Al, only his current opponent was much slower and this time, Harry didn't take the pressure off his knife when it touched the ribcage, but drove it directly into the man's heart, twisting it there.

The man's mouth dropped open, and for a moment he stared at Harry with nothing but surprise. Then surprise gave wake to understanding, pain, and at long last complete and utter freedom. To watch someone breathe, feel, live one moment and perish the next… it was fascinating, a phenomenon to behold. The man was unconscious before his body hit the ground.

"Take his wallet and watch, if he wears one."

Harry did as he was told and followed behind Al, who was walking down the street slowly.

They walked for about half an hour before Al called a cab to take them back to the apartment.

To Harry's confusion, during the whole time, Al neither spoke to nor looked at him once. He didn't think he had done anything wrong. It was Al's job to kill the guy, and he had asked Harry to help him if needed…

Al ushered Harry through the door and immediately sat down on the sofa.

"Come here."

Harry sat down next to Al, not sure what to make of the situation.

"What are you thinking about?" Al asked.

"I'm wondering… are you angry with me?"

"Damn it," Al cursed. He tried to stand up, but his knee gave out and he sank back down. "Why aren't you thinking about the man?"

"What?"

"You just killed someone, Harry! Someone you had no personal grudge against! Someone who didn't try to kill you first! And you… you just seem to be perfectly fine with it!"

Harry was not sure what to make of Al's reaction. "Yeah… but like you said. The stronger one survives. Law of nature and all that. And anyway, he was just a muggle, wasn't he?"

Al took a few deep breaths, obviously trying to calm himself, when he finally spoke he sounded more composed than before. "Yes, you're right, it was only a muggle. But… It's just, seeing you today, you reminded me so much of myself.

One of the first men I killed was a muggle too, and I just remembered how much I struggled with causing his death. Even though I technically knew that he was a muggle, the way he looked at me… his eyes haunted me for a long time."

Harry didn't know what to say. He didn't feel guilty, or desperate, or like a bad person. And he didn't want to feel like that either. He had felt all of this and more after Rob's death, and he had only managed to overcome these feelings because he knew deep down that Al had been right back then. The weak die, and the strong survive. A muggle was weaker by nature.

If he allowed doubts to cloud his mind if he allowed thoughts of guilt back into his life… then how should he survive what he had already done? What he had done to Rob, and by extension to Courtney?

"You raised me this way, Al. You raised me to accept death as a natural part of life. You told me time after time that we are on top of the food chain. I don't know what you want me to say."

"I was just surprised, is all. I don't want you to feel guilty. You probably saved my job, if not my life today. With my knee, I couldn't have dodged his punches."

To Harry's surprise, Al took his hand into his own and squeezed it tightly. "Thank you, Harry. I'm glad you were with me today."

.

"Who are you?" A loud, unfamiliar voice woke Harry from his dreamless sleep. When he opened his eyes and saw a wand pointed in his face threateningly, he deeply regretted insisting on making do with the sofa in the main room, while Al slept in the adjacent bedroom.

Great. Now he would die, just because he'd wanted to be selfless for once in his life.

"I'll go get Al," Harry said in his calmest, most non-threatening voice. "He'll explain everything, alright?"

The blond man nodded, and Harry didn't know how, but on this man, this usually innocent gesture seemed full of scorn.

"AL!" Harry knocked continuously and shouted at the same time. "There's someone here."

"I'm coming, I'm coming."

Al limped into the main room but hid his injury as soon as he was in view of the other man.

"Mr. Malfoy," Al stated.

"Mr. Black. I assume you fulfilled the assignment to my satisfaction?"

"Of course. And I assume my payment will be delivered to my Gringotts account within the next few days?"

"Of course. Who is the boy, if you don't mind me asking?"

Al turned to Harry, gesturing him to come closer. "That's Harry," he said. "My son."

Not even the shocked expression on Malfoy's face could wipe away the broad smile that threatened to split Harry's face at that moment. Al had just called him his son. In front of another wizard, no less!

"I didn't know you had a son," Malfoy said. "Who is his mother?"

"Dead," Al said tonelessly.

"A witch?"

"Are you trying to insult me?" Al still sounded perfectly calm, but there was an underlying hardness to his voice that hadn't been there before.

"Forgive me. Insulting you was not my intention." In Harry's opinion, Malfoy didn't sound sorry at all. "There's just something about him that reminds me of someone I once knew. But I just can't put my finger on it. I thought maybe his mother…"

"Maybe," Al conceded but didn't offer any more information. "Do you have the Portkey?" He changed the subject.

"Here you are," Malfoy handed yet another piece of parchment to Al. "It will activate tonight, at seven pm sharp."

Harry didn't pay attention to the two men anymore. If the Portkey activated in the evening, then he still had a few hours to spare. Maybe he could take a look around London, possibly even visit the magical part of the town…

"Al?" Harry asked once they were alone again. "Would you mind if I went into the city today? Visit Diagon Alley?"

Al looked troubled for a moment and sighed deeply before he forced a smile on his face. "No, of course not." He threw the dead man's wallet, which was lying on a table nearby, at Harry. "Take the money, have the goblins change into our currency, and buy yourself something nice."

Goblins. Gringotts. Wizarding bank.

Right.

Harry left the house and, following Al's directions, took a cab to Charing Cross Road. The Leaky Cauldron was a grubby-looking pub, which seemed to go unnoticed by the muggles hurrying by.

Harry's heart beat a mile a minute, and as he stepped through the wooden door, automatically holding his breath. The pub was just as shabby on the inside as it appeared to be on the outside, but Harry paid the dark and dusty surroundings no mind.

For the first time in his life, he was among other witches and wizards, among his own kind. A pair of old wizards were sitting at a table nearby playing a game of chess – nothing unusual, if it were not for the talking and wildly gesticulating chess pieces. The bartender, a bald man with friendly eyes, was smoking something that looked like a pipe but was giving off colourful soap bubbles instead of smoke.

"Excuse me," Harry addressed the bartender. "Could you open the path to Diagon Alley for me?"

The man looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Sure. Are you a muggle?"

"No. I'm a wizard."

The bartender harrumphed. "Sorry. Usually, it's only the Hogwarts first years who need me to help 'em."

Harry followed the man outside into a small courtyard.

"I'm Tom, by the way. How come you don't know how to access the Alley? You sound like you're from around here."

"I am, originally. I just lived abroad for the last few years," Harry said, inventing his story as he went. "So it's my first time visiting London."

Tom tapped the wall with his wand. "Three up, two across," Tom explained. "Make sure to have some ice cream at Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. It's famous all over Britain. And if you need lunch, you best come back to my pub, I serve the best sandwiches 'round here."

The brick Tom had touched with his wand started vibrating and a small hole appeared in the middle, which grew wider and wider until they were facing a small archway.

The sight of Diagon Alley was overwhelming. Wizards and witches, clad in colourful robes, some even wearing ridiculously large hats were rushing up and down the streets, owls carrying letters as well as packages flew in and out of open windows of a building with the sign "post office"…

A young boy on a broom nearly made Harry trip as he sped past him. "Look where you're going!" A round-faced woman shouted, running after him.

"…if you brew pepper up in a brass cauldron…"

"…dragged me to a Celestina Warbeck concert, can you believe it?"

Harry soaked in his surroundings, listening to conversations of various witches and wizards on his way to Gringotts – which was just as imposing and blinding white as described in his books. Even though the goblins weren't the friendliest creatures, exchanging the money was no problem and Harry left the wizarding bank 40 golden Galleons heavier.

His first destination was Ollivanders, the famous wand shop. The wand Al had given to him was fine most of the time, but Harry knew – from Al's tales and his books – that a wand that chose him would work even better.

Golden letters above the door of a narrow, shabby building spelled the name "Ollivanders", and when Harry stepped inside the shop, a tinkling bell announced his entrance.

"Good afternoon."

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. To his right stood an old, white-haired man, with eyes as pale as the moon.

"H-hello," Harry answered.

"How may I help you, young man?"

"Um, I want to buy a wand," Harry said, wishing the old man would turn his scrutinizing gaze somewhere else.

"Yes, yes, right-handed, correct?"

Harry only nodded and watched with growing trepidation as a tape measure started measuring him on its own.

"You are Mr. Potter, correct? Harry Potter?" There was a creepy glint in the old man's eyes now, and Harry really wished he would blink once in a while.

"Um, yes?" His answer sounded more like a question. How did this guy know his name?

The man handed him a wand – birch and dragon-heart string – but ripped it out of Harry's hand when a stack of paper on his desk caught fire. Harry tried wand after wand, without much success, and was tempted to just leave and continue using Al's grandfather's wand, when Ollivander suddenly started muttering under his breath.

"Yes, yes. We'll try it. Why not?"

Harry longed to leave this shop and the crazy old man behind, but he would give this last wand a try.

"Here you are. Holly and phoenix-feather."

When Harry took this one, a sudden warmth spread through his fingers and up to his arm, and gold and red sparks burst from the tip of the wand.

Without realising it, Harry smiled. Yes. This was his wand. He felt connected to it in a way he never had with his former wand.

Harry paid the man and left the shop as fast as he could, paying no mind to the thoughtful look on the shop owner's face. He'd never met a creepier person.

He didn't have much time left, and so his next and final stop was the Broom Shop he'd passed by on his way to Gringotts.

He entered the shop and was met with a wall of hot air, which curiously enough didn't seem to bother the young man behind the counter.

"Can I help you?"

"Just looking around," Harry said, taking in the numerous broom models displayed in the shop. The names – Nimbus 2001, Comet 290 – didn't tell Harry anything, but even he could see that the Firebolt was something special.

He wiped his sweaty hair out of his face, before softly touching the expensive-looking broomstick.

"Hey, no touching!" The clerk said, and Harry swiveled around, an apology already on the tip of his tongue, but the shocked expression on the man's face stopped him in his tracks.

The man looked like he'd seen a ghost, but it couldn't be that unusual that a customer touched one of the brooms, could it?

"N-never mind, no problem." The man said. "You can keep looking."

"Okay…"

Harry wasn't in the mood to stay much longer. The guy was behaving increasingly weirdly and he didn't have much time left anyway. Just as he was about to leave the shop, a flashlight blinded him.

"What was that?" Harry asked.

"Nothing. Um, just security measure." The young man's head was beet red. "Have a nice day."

"You didn't take a picture of me, did you?" The flash had reminded him of Petunia's old camera.

"No, no, of course not," the young man stuttered. "I would never- I mean… Just a security measure."

He knew too little about wizarding customs to argue with the man. Maybe it really was just a security measure? Harry shrugged the weird encounter off and left the shop.

He made it back to Al just in time for the Portkey to take them home.

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