Hermione walked for forty minutes to get to the nearest bus station where she waited until she could board the next bus into London. She boarded the bus trying her utmost to look as casual as possible, she did not want to have her night ruined by a nosy prick calling the child protection system. She should not have worried; it turns out that the kind of people riding a bus at two in the morning had their own problems and just could not be bothered to pay attention to a small skinny eleven-year-old. The bus driver gave her a small glance before realizing he did not care, and the only other people on the bus were a man asleep in the corner and a couple drunk out of their minds snogging on one of the benches.

She got off the bus near Hyde Park, she assumed that this Leaky Cauldron would be closed at this point in the night, so she trekked over to the park. She found a nice, secluded grove of trees and finding a comfortable spot leaning against a trunk, she closed her eyes. It was a chilly September night, but the thought that she would never have to see her parents again warmed her immeasurable. I will never let myself be at another's mercy Hermione promised herself as she drifted off to sleep.

Hermione woke up to the feeling of her shoulder being roughly shaken. She shot up. What was happening? Why was she being woken up? She relaxed as she realized that she was safe, or as safe as one could be sleeping in a public park in London. Her alarm clock who she now observed was a mean looking middle aged woman took this moment to start jabbering at her.

"Where are your parents? Why aren't you in school? You really shouldn't be sleeping here."

Hermione only took a moment to run through some scenarios, if this woman realized she had run away, she would be back with her parents or in foster care in a second, obviously not an option, the way Hermione saw it, she only had one option. She opened her mouth and started shouting at the woman in quick French.

Que fais-tu? No me touche pas femme. Je n'nésiterai pas á appeler la police. *

The woman looked startled then annoyed. Hermione watched with satisfaction as the woman walked off, muttering some very unflattering things about the French and their chosen times to holiday. She mentally filled away that pretending to be a foreigner worked great for getting people to stay away. She was also reasonably confident that she would be able to pass as French with most people, she had a large vocabulary from reading books in French and her impeccable memory, but she had been told by her teacher that her accent, although passable became more pronounced with harder vocabulary due to her learning it from books instead of orally. She checked her watch to find it was almost ten o'clock. Nearly bouncing with excitement, she started walking towards Charing Cross.

The Leaky Cauldron was so much easier to find than she expected. She could spot it from two blocks away by the massive sign in the shape of a cauldron that hung out over the street, as well as the completely out of place front of the building. Surrounded by modern boutiques and restaurants, the Leaky Cauldron looked like it had been taken out of the 1800s and no one had bothered to maintain it since then. Another dead giveaway was the occasional person entering or exiting wearing what could only be described as robes.

Honestly how were wizards not common knowledge, Hermione wondered as she watched a man in purple robes exit the pub, then disappear on the spot. Hermione readied herself and entered the pub. Inside the Leaky Cauldron was not much different from the normal pubs she had glanced into before, other than the corners being grimier than the department of health would ever allow. Her breath momentarily caught in her throat as she looked over at the bar and saw a tea towel floating in the air, cleaning out glasses seemingly of its own accord.

Hermione summoned every bit of confidence she had and walked up to the extremely bald bartender, acting every part as if she belonged. She waited as he rang up a customer, learning that his name was Tom. "Can you let me through to Diagon Alley" she asked. "Alright young missus" Tom replied as he walked around the bar, smiling at her with his toothless mouth. She followed him through the back to the pub to a small area behind it. Tom turned to her and said with a knowing look on his face "I know muggle London is fun to explore, but next time you lose your parents, be sure to be careful" he emphasized with a wink. She kept her face expressionless but filled away the information, it seemed non-magical people were referred to as muggles, and if there were kids with magical parents, it must be genetic, so how did she get it? Tom pulled out what she assumed must be a wand and tapped certain bricks on the wall with it.

The wall folded into itself, building itself into an open archway leading into the most wonderful place she had ever seen. Witches and Wizards bustled everywhere. The Leaky Cauldron might have been close in appearance to a normal pub, if one put aside some of its quirks, there was no way this could have ever been mistaken for a street in London. To begin with, the street was cobblestone and all the buildings had animated signs in their windows advertising sales on dragon liver, dress robes, and other things. One building even had an infinite, miniature fireworks display going on in front of it. A dozen fireworks would go off around the second floor of the building, then would implode back into themselves to repeat the action a few seconds later.

Hermione walked up and down the street a couple of times, taking it all in. She noted that although she was in the minority, wearing normal clothes- no muggle clothes she mentally corrected herself- was not entirely uncommon.

She walked towards the building bearing the sign Gringotts Bank, she figured that she would have to exchange some of her muggle money for galleons if she wanted to buy anything. It was the largest building on the street, built out of marble with two small gold statues with spears flanking the doors. When she approached the doors though, she quickly realized that they were not statues, but instead small, hairy, heavily armed creatures.

Hurrying into the building, she saw more of the creatures manning the desks, thankfully not in full armor. She walked up to the first empty desk. She stood in front of it waiting to receive some acknowledgement of her presence. None was forthcoming as the little thing just kept writing on the parchment in front of him.

Hermione finally noticed a small bell on the corner of the teller desk and realized, this petty little thing had just been ignoring her until she rang. She rang the bell and was granted the attention of the irritating thing. "Hello, I would like to make an exchange." The thing pulled out a thick tome and fanning through the pages eventually settled on one, responding "The rate is five pounds to a galleon. How much would you like to change?"

Hermione was torn, on one hand she desperately wanted to go out and buy everything she could, become part of the magical world as fast as possible, but on the other hand she was homeless with less than 300 pounds and nowhere easy to get more from. "I guess 50 pounds" she uttered uncertainly. "Very well, sign your name here." The creature pointed to a line at the base of a form that had seemed to pop into existence right in front of her. Signing and handing over the money she was given back the requisite number of galleons.

She was about to turn to leave when the little creature spoke to her again. "Ms. Granger, while you are here, do you wish to collect your stipend?" "The 50 galleons from the Hogwarts fund" he clarified in response to her confused look. Hermione quickly agreed once she understood and happily exited Gringotts feeling more excited than she had ever before, she was away from her old life, with money in her pockets and a whole new world to explore.

Feeling her new wealth burning a hole through her pocket she first entered Flourish and Blots where she purchased all her course books as well as Hogwarts: A History by Bathilda Bagshot and Modern History by Dorian Bellwether. Her new library caused a serious problem for her because she was unable to squeeze her books into her backpack, and she assumed that carrying The Standard Book of Spells around muggle London would not be a good idea.

Hermione knew she would need a trunk to pack in for Hogwarts, but she really did not thing a trunk would be convenient to lug around everywhere. So, on her way down the alley, she took a quick stop into Bargain Bags and purchased a used bookbag, it was worn, but still in good condition. Placing all her new books into it, she hurried off towards the most rundown looking shop on the street.

She stopped in front of the shop and took it in. The gold lettering reading Ollivander's was peeling, and the front window contained only a single dusty pillow with a wand lying on it. She really would have expected more from a store selling such an essential piece of wizarding equipment. She also did not care if she would have to wait almost an entire year to start studying magic with teachers, she was a witch now and having a wand was her right.

She entered the dusty shop, the door causing a small jingling sound as it rang a bell attached to the frame. The store was barely a store, more of an aisle with bookshelves rising up on either side, filled not with books, but long narrow boxes that Hermione could only assume held wands. There was a desk at the front with a bell on it and at the other end of the shop, Hermione could see through an open door what appeared to be a workshop with blocks of wood stacked on a work bench.

Ringing the bell, Hermione watched as an old man slowly walked out of the workshop towards her. He appeared extremely old and frail, but he walked although slowly with purpose and poise, making Hermione think that he would be quite capable of moving much faster if he chose to.

"Hello there, miss…" Ollivander greeted Hermione, his voice deeper than she had expected, trailing off at the end of his sentence making it a question of her name. "Granger" Hermione answered.

"Well Ms. Granger, I suppose you are in need of a wand?" He said, fixing her momentarily with his piercing silver eyes. "Yes, yes of course" he continued to himself, answering his own question as he moved into the shelves.

"Well, what will it be" he said. Hermione got the feeling that Ollivander was not all there as he continued talking out loud, explaining every thought that went through his head as he sifted through stacks of wands finally pulling one out. "Unicorn hair and cedar wood have to start somewhere." Turning to Hermione he handed her the wand "Well just give it a wave" but as she started to raise her arm, he immediately snatched it from her. "No definitely not" he exclaimed adamantly.

According to Ollivander, Unicorn hair was clearly not for her, and it seemed neither was any other of the standard wand cores. She had briefly thought that had something when a phoenix feather wand had conjured a small shower of sparks when she waved it, but Ollivander had just taken it back looking a funny combination of disappointed it did not work, but excited to have an interesting client. "Not to worry, not to worry" he tutted, "Get a couple of these every year, come follow me." He led her further down the aisle into some of the emptier stacks. "I have some different wands back here, made when I was experimenting or exchanged with other wand masters" he explained in his usual half to himself manner.

Once they were in the back shelves it did not take long to find the correct wand. When Hermione waved the wand, a gust of wind blew through the shop, dusting all of the boxes and coating Ollivander in a fine layer of powder. Ollivander placed the white wand into a box and tying it with a bow commented to her "Yew wand, thestral tail hair, 10 and ½ inches, reasonably springy. You and this wand will see much death but also have many chances to protect lives." He told her, looking deeply into her eyes. Hermione shuddered remembering Oliver, a small reaction that she was sure Ollivander picked up. She did not respond to his comment though, instead she broke their eye contact and dropping seven galleons on the counter and exited the shop.

*What are you doing? Don't touch me woman. I won't hesitate to call the police.