Disclaimer: I don´t own anything all rights go to J.K. Rowling
Chapter 3: Diagon Alley
AN: So here is chapter three!
I really hope you´ll like it
The day after Jen and Peter got their letters, they both said goodbye to a very jealous Olivia and then got on to the bus that would take them to Charing Cross Road from where they would get to Diagon Alley. There they would get everything that Jen would need for her first year at Hogwarts.
Both Jen and Peter had gotten a bit of money from their parents before they left. Both parents had looked very displeased when they had given their children the money, it was probably because they didn´t want their hard-earned money to be used to buy magical things.
As they sat on the bus Jen was nervously fidgeting in her seat while looking out the window.
"Do you have the equipment list?" Peter asked. "I've forgotten what it is first-years need."
"Yeah, I have it here," Jen said taking the list out of her pocket and unfolding it and started to read it:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDY
UNIFORM
First-year students will require:
Three sets of plain work robes (black)
One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupils´ clothes should carry name tags
SET BOOKS
All students should have a copy of each of the following:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
A Beginner´s Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble
OTHER EQUIPMENT
1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set of glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set brass scales
Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST-YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS
Jen read the list twice before handing it to her brother.
"Peter, the letter says that I´m allowed to take a pet with me, can I please get a pet?" Jen said pleadingly.
Jen loved animals and had always wanted one, but their parents hadn't allowed it. When Peter had come home with Popcorn after his first time in Diagon Alley Jen had been so jealous that she had refused to talk to Peter for two days, no matter how tempting it was to ask about all the magic he had seen.
"Yes, you can get a pet," Peter said with a small smile on his lips. "But you´re going to have to take care of it yourself."
"Thank you, Peter!" Jen said happily and gave her brother a hug. "And I know that I can take care of a pet."
Peter started to read the list while Jen once again looked out of the window slightly less fidgety then before. They sat in silence before Jen suddenly realised something.
"Peter, wizards have a different kind of money, right?" Jen asked and Peter nodded looking up from the list. "How are we going to get such money?"
"Well, as you said, wizards have a different kind of money," Peter said. "And we are going to exchange our Muggle money..."
"Muggle?" Jen said not understanding the word.
"Muggles are people without magical powers, like our parents," Peter said. "But, as I was saying, we are going to exchange our Muggle money at the wizarding bank Gringotts. We will get gold Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts. Seventeen Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it´s a bit confusing in the beginning but you will get the hang of it soon enough."
"Okay," Jen said as she was repeating the information in her head. "Wait, wizards have banks?"
"Yeah, of course they have," Peter said. "Gringotts is one of the safest places in the whole world if you want to keep something safe, so of course witches and wizards want to have their money and valuables stored there. Oh, I nearly forgot to say, Gringotts is owned by goblins."
"Goblins!" Jen said chocked.
"Yeah, they are not very friendly so don´t get on their bad side," Peter said.
"Okay," Jen said.
About five minutes later the bus stopped at Charing Cross Road and they stepped off. They started to walk up the street and Jen tried to see where the entrance to Diagon Alley was but as she looked around, she couldn't see anything that looked remotely like it could be the entrance to a magical street.
"Peter, where is the entrance to Diagon Alley?" Jen asked as they stopped at the opposite side of the street from a big bookstore.
"The entrance to Diagon Alley is through a pub called the Leaky Cauldron," Peter said. "Which, actually, is just over there."
Peter pointed to the opposite side of the street and Jen looked to where he pointed and saw a tiny, grubby-looking pub lying between the big book shop and a record shop. As she looked over at the pub, she was sure that it hadn't been there when she had looked that way a minute a go.
"It´s only wizards that can see it," Peter said. "Muggles can´t, and wizards have to have it pointed out for them the first time. Come on we can´t stand here all day."
They crossed the street and walked into the pub. Inside it was dark and shabby and there were only two people there, an old lady with a large glass of wine and the barman, who was quiet bald and Jen thought he looked a little bit like a gummy walnut, standing behind the counter cleaning glasses.
"Hey, Tom," Peter said to the barman who nodded at him before returning to cleaning glasses.
Peter led Jen through the pub and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a dustbin and a few weeds. Peter took a step towards the dustbin and pulled out his wand. It was made of oak, 11 inches, slightly springy and with a core of dragon heartstring. He then tapped a few stones at the wall.
"Three up and two across," Peter said to Jen as he tapped the stones. "Remember that."
The stones he had tapped started to wiggle and a hole appeared. The hole became bigger and bigger until it became an archway which revealed a cobblestone street that waved itself out of sight.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley," Peter said as he stepped through the archway.
Jen followed him with wide eyes and mouth agape. Diagon Alley was amazing, turning her head back and forth Jen tried to see everything at once but there was so much to see that it was impossible. They headed up the street towards Gringotts and as they walked past all the shops Jen tried to look through all the shop windows at all the interesting things inside. She cached a glimpse of thousands of books stuffed into bookcases in one shop, in another she managed to see a wizard produce many coloured baubles from his wand and in a third hundreds of eyes were staring back at her.
She saw an apothecary that smelled awful and made her gag when they walked by it, a cauldron shop with all kinds of cauldrons in different sizes, shapes and forms, a robe shop where she could see all kinds of fabric in every colour imaginable, a pet shop where Jen could hear a lot of rustling and squeaking from the inside as they walked by and they walked by a lot of witches and wizards who all were dressed in different coloured robes, cloaks and pointy hats.
As they made their way through the crowed Jen sometimes cached snippets of conversations between the witches and wizards.
"16 Sickles for a pound of dragon liver, this is going to ruin us..." a young woman said outside the apothecary.
"George, stop throwing beetle eyes at your brother!" a middle-aged woman said to a red-haired boy that seemed to be a year or two older than Jen.
"Grandma, I´ve lost Trevor again," a boy in Jen´s age said to an older woman in a strange vulture hat.
"Oh, Neville, not again!" the older woman answered.
Jen turned to her brother to ask how much further it was to Gringotts when she saw that he wasn't beside her anymore. Jen stopped and frantically turned around in search of her brother afraid she had lost him in the crowed. Fortunately, she nearly immediately saw him standing nearby with his face pressed to a shop window.
"Look Jen, it´s the new Nimbus 2000," he said excitedly and pointed at a broomstick on displayed in the window.
"I guess it´s nice," Jen said.
"It´s the best broomstick there is," Peter said excitedly. "It would be wonderful to be able to fly it. Unfortunately, it´s too expensive for me to get, but I´ve got enough money to buy my own broomstick this year so I don´t have to use the schools. They´re awful."
Peter eventually managed to tear himself away from the shop and they continued walking up the street while Jen tried to look into every shop they passed. After a while Jen saw a snow-white building raising above all the other small buildings. Guarding the gleaming bronze doors of the building, wearing a uniform in scarlet and gold, were goblins.
Jen didn't really know what she had expected a goblin to look like but what she now saw was a creature that was barely taller than her, had a clever face, pointy beard and very long fingers and feet.
Jen and Peter walked up the white stone stairs to the bronze doors. The goblins guarding the doors bowed as they walked through them. At the other side of the bronze doors Jen now saw a pair of silver doors with words engraved upon them:
ENTER, STRANGER, BUT TAKE HEED
OF WHAT AWAITS THE SIN OF GREED,
FOR THOSE WHO TAKE, BUT DO NOT EARN,
MUST PAY MOST DEARLY IN THEIR TURN,
SO IF YOU SEEK BENEATH OUR FLOORS
A TREASURE THAT WAS NEVER YOURS,
THEF, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, BEWARE
OF FINDING MORE THAN TREASURE THERE.
As Jen walked through the silver doors, she promised herself that she would never even think about steeling anything from Gringotts.
Jen walked out into an enormous marble hall full of goblins sitting on high stools behind a long counter, helping customers, scribbling in ledgers, weighing coins on brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses and showing people in and out from doors in the sides of the hall.
Jen and Peter walked up to a goblin that was writing something in a ledger.
"Hello, we would like to exchange some Muggle money," Peter said.
The goblin looked up from the ledger and trained his small greedy eyes on them. He put the quill down with his long fingers before speaking to them.
"Of course, how much would you like to change?" the goblin said.
Both Jen and Peter took out the money they had gotten from their parents, Peter also took out the money he had spared from earlier years and gave it to the goblin.
The goblin called on second goblin and gave him the money before the second goblin walked through a door out of the hall. After a few minutes the second goblin came back with two sacks of money in his hands which he gave to the first goblin before leaving again.
"Here," the goblin said and gave the bigger sack to Peter and the smaller one to Jen before picking up the quill and continuing to write in the ledger.
A minute later Jen and Peter walked out of the building and down the stairs before they stopped at the street.
"Where are we going first?" Jen asked while studying her list of things that she needed. "Oh, please can we get my wand first?"
"I don´t think so," Peter said. "It can take a very long time to get a wand, so I think it´s best if we take that last. But both you and I need new robes, so I suggest we start there."
They started to walk towards Madam Malkin´s Robes for All Occasions. Jen was a little disappointed that she wouldn´t get her wand right away but didn´t let it ruin her mood.
When they walked into the shop they were met by a chubby witch in purple robes.
"Hogwarts, dears?" she asked.
They both nodded.
"Follow me," she told them.
Jen and Peter followed Madam Malkin to the back of the store where they got to stand on stools while Madam Malkin and an assistant were measuring them. When Madam Malkin and the assistant was done measuring them, they told them to put on robes that Madam Malkin and the assistant then pinned up in the correct lengths.
"There you are, all done," Madam Malkin said and gave Jen a package that contained her robes, cloak and hat.
Peter was done just a couple minutes later, and they left the store.
Thereafter they went into one shop after the other. From the stinking apothecary that made up for its smell with its interesting wares and the cauldron shop that had cauldrons in all shapes, sizes and materials that could do all kinds of amazing things if you wanted (Jen even found a gold one that could fold itself down into the size of a post stamp) to the place that sold telescopes and other trinkets that had all kind of stuff that you could think of and all kind of stuff you couldn't think of and the parchment and ink shop that had ink and parchment from floor to ceiling.
When Jen and Peter only had three stores left, they decided that it was time for lunch and walked back to the Leaky Cauldron.
When they were sitting and eating Jen decided to ask Peter something.
"Peter, when we were at the apothecary, I heard a man say that it was too many muggleborns in the store for his liking," Jen said. "What is a muggleborn?"
"In the magical world there are different blood statuses," Peter said. "Firstly, there is muggleborns. A muggleborn is a magical person with Muggle parents, like us. Then we have the half-bloods. A half-blood is a magical person with one muggle parent and one magical parent. Lastly, we have the purebloods. A pureblood is a magical person with two magical parents. Some purebloods think that they are better than muggleborns because both their parents are wizards, but they aren´t, they just believe they are."
"It sounds ridiculous that they would think they are better just because who their parents are," Jen said.
"It is but it isn´t anything we can change," Peter said solemnly.
((&))
When they were done eating, they went to the bookstore Flourish and Blotts. Jen loved the shop from the first time she walked into it. The shop had books from the floor to the ceiling and it was like walking in a dream for Jen.
Jen couldn't tear herself away from all the books and spent a long time at nearly every shelf in the store looking at the books. There were books for everything in the store like instructions to how you could turn a human into a toad, recipes for both potions and cooking and the latest fictional books.
Eventually Peter had to drag Jen away from the books to the register so they could pay. Jen got all the books that was on the list plus some extra. She got Hogwarts: A History and A History About the Dark Arts Rise and Fall and some books about magical creatures and some fictional books.
After they left the bookstore, they walked to a pet shop. It was quiet dark inside the shop, and it was full of small noises and glowing eyes.
Jen went around the shop and looked at the different animals while Peter was talking to the shop assistant. Jen stopped at the back of the shop where she found a small long-haired kitten whose fur looked like silver when it moved.
"I want this kitten," Jen said to the shop assistant who smiled and nodded.
"Of course, dear," the shop assistant said. "Anything else?"
Ten minutes later Jen walked out of the shop with the little kitten, which she had named Silver because of its fur, in a wicker basket and everything a small kitten would need.
Jen now only needed a wand and then she would have everything, so she excitedly started to walk towards the wand shop, but Peter stopped her.
"Is it okay if I go and buy a broomstick while you are getting your wand?" he asked.
"Yeah, sure," Jen said, and they started to walk in separate direction.
Jen walked up to the narrow and shabby shop where over the door it stood in peeling gold letters Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC. A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as Jen stepped in through the door.
As the door closed behind her Jen nervously looked around the seemingly empty shop and saw thousands of long narrow boxes that were piled nearly all the way to the ceiling and in one corner there were a spindly chair. The shop reminded Jen of a very serious library.
"Good day," someone suddenly said, and Jen jumped at the unexpected sound.
Jen turned to her left and before her stood an old man, with big pale eyes and tufty grey hair. Jen immediately realised that this must be Mr Ollivander.
"And you are?" he asked Jen, fixating her with his big pale, lamp like eyes.
"Jennifer MacAvity," Jen said.
Mr Ollivander continued to stare at her with his pale eyes and it made Jen more and more uncomfortable until he finally looked away.
"Ah, Miss MacAvity, I remember your brother's wand," he said. "Oak, 11 inches, slightly springy with a core of dragon heartstring, if I remember right. A really good wand."
Mr Ollivander then took out a measuring tape and started measuring Jen.
"Which is your wand arm?" Mr Ollivander asked.
Jen assumed he meant to ask if she was left or right-handed, so she told him that it was her right.
"I remember every wand I have ever sold, Miss MacAvity," Mr Ollivander said. "Every wand is unique. Every wand has their own magical core and is made out of different kinds of wood. Here we use three types of powerful magical cores, unicorn hair, phoenix feather and dragon heartstring. It is the wand who chooses the wizard or in this case witch, Miss MacAvity."
While he talked, he had released the measuring tape so that it was measuring by itself at all kind of bizarre places and Mr Ollivader had walked into one of the aisles between the rows of shelves. He came back when he stopped talking with some of the long thin boxes.
"It is enough," he told the measuring tape, which were measuring the top of Jen´s pinkie, which fell to the ground in a heap and then he continued to explain about wands "Every wand can achieve grate magic together with its owner. Now try this."
He gave her one of the wands he had taken from the shelves.
"Cedar, 10 and a half inches, dragon heartstring."
Jen took the wand, but Mr Ollivander immediately ripped it from her hand.
"No, no, no that doesn´t work," he said and then put it back in its box again.
Mr Ollivander then took out a new wand from another box.
"10 and a half inches, willow and phoenix feather."
This wand apparently wasn´t right either because he ripped the wand from her hand nearly immediately again and so it continued. Jen went through one wand after the other and she slowly started to lose hope of ever finding a wand that would be hers.
As yet another wand was ripped from her hand Jen started to wonder what would happen if she didn't find a wand. Would she be allowed to go to Hogwarts, or would they stop her from going? Would she be forced to go to a normal school and get a boring normal job?
"Ebony wood with a phoenix feather core, 11 inches and Slightly Springy flexibility," Mr Ollivander said and gave her a new wand.
When Jen held the wand in her hand, she felt warmth go through her body and it felt right.
"Yes, yes, good, very good!" Mr Olllivander said and clapped his hands.
Jen smiled happily and gave him back the wand and he put it back in its box before laying the box in a bag.
"Ebony wands are good in Transfiguration and all kinds of combative magic. Ebony wand chooses those who will hold fast to their believes no matter what the external pressure and will not be lightly swayed from their purpose," Mr Ollivader said. "It will be seven Galleons please."
"Thank you, Mr Ollivander," Jen said happily and handed over the money. She was overjoyed as she now knew she would go to Hogwarts.
Grabbing the bag from Mr Ollivander Jen walked out of the shop and into the street.
She headed to the shop where she had seen the broomstick earlier that day and found Peter there, holding a new broomstick. They now had everything they needed and started to head back to the Leaky Cauldron; but first they stopped at Florean Fortescue´s Ice Cream Parlour to get ice cream. Jen got a strawberry and melon and Peter got a blueberry and apple.
When they had finished eating their ice creams they went back through the Leaky Cauldron and out into the muggle world where they took the bus home, with a lot of people staring at their many strangely shaped packages.
The bus ride felt very unreal to Jen, only this morning she had been sitting in a similar bus excited for her first glimpse of the wizarding world and now she was sitting here with everything that she would need for her first year at Hogwarts.
All to soon they were once again home, having put all their things in their rooms, having a very tense dinner with Olivia chatting nonstop.
That night when Jen lay in bed, with Silver sleeping on the pillow next to her head, she thought about the day she had just had and thought that it had been one of the best days in her life.