"Oi, Potter! Potter! Ova 'ere!"
As Albus swivelled his head towards the yell, the apprehension forged by his entry into the pub began to thaw. His father grinned and adjusted his round-framed glasses at the source. "Long time, no see, Mullard! Enjoying your Easter break, are you? Albus, mate, this'll be one of your Hogwarts professors next year." The newly-minted eleven-year-old nodded deferentially at the imposing figure. Mullard, he noted, was dressed for the part, wearing a navy fisherman's jumper over a collar crisper than the April air outside with a tie, set against his earthly russet skin. His Yorkshire accent was thicker than the froth on top of his butterbeer. A shadow was flung over it, a calloused hand held above his eyes, shielding them from the steadfast light that poured through the Leaky Cauldron's windows.
"Thi' yer son?" Harry gestured affirmatively, sprawling out across the warm and snug armchairs, his familiar appearance remaining as reassuringly lanky as ever. "Misbehave an' yer'll be 'aving it-" With a half-hearted snort, his dad smacked Mullard over the head with a creased copy of the Daily Prophet. For just a millisecond, Albus glimpsed a brilliant technicolour image of a bespectacled man, pencilled scratches overlaying an obnoxious smirk. Attentively watching him, Mullard's broad eyebrows furrowed. He offered a caution so discreetly Albus nearly missed its surly undertones. "Yer don't want to be readin' thi' muck, I only get it fer t'crosswords." According to James' letters home, the professor's notoriety in noticing the subtlest of details had forced his sibling to abandon numerous practical jokes with Louis and Roxanne, their Gryffindor cousins.
When Albus looked again, swallowing nervously, the cinematised man's sneering face had shifted into the soft, contrasting lines of an Art Deco-stylised broomstick advertisement. Another glance told him it vaguely presented its vast speed capabilities- Albus squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn't been on a broom since- Fuck, fuck, his mind echoed in a monosyllabic pattern. Fuck! He shook his head to dispel the fragments of memories-
Pain. An aeon of agony, falling through the grey murkiness… The contorted branches hacked at his skin, each twig clawing at his flesh like starved creatures desperate for their next meal...
"Albus." His father deliberately brought his hand down- Albus' fingers prickled with heat, the blood rushing to his limbs. "Albus!" Wheezing, he attempted to inhale thoroughly, filling his lungs with ambrosiac oxygen. The gradual hand signal had always been their agreed one whenever his mind began oscillating with worry, but his father hadn't done it so openly since-
"Wha' books do yer need, lad? Yer dad says yer into Charms an' wha' was it? Transfiguration? Says yer been readin'," Mullard asked, his thin face hovering above the page reserved for the crosswords, the decrepit end of a pencil resting on his chin. What would he think of Albus after that?
His stomach lurching with gratefulness, Albus recited the list, shoving aside the what-ifs that threatened to engulf his mind. "The Standard Book of Spells: Grade One, Students' Almanac of Enchantments, The British Isles' Magical Heritage, Basic Theoretical Charms, Transfiguration Trials: Third Edition, Advanced First Year Charms: Behind The Incantations… I spent all of last summer picking berries sir, I've saved up. I know I can't practice anything but- but I can't wait to try all of the spells I've learnt out... Grandma Weasley taught me Tersus…" Breathlessly jabbering away, he saw the crow's feet in the corners of Mullard's eyes deepen, reserved satisfaction ingrained into the academic's face as he described the multitude of theories he'd read about Charms after finishing Muggle primary school for the day.
"Go on, Albus, go get your stuff, we'll be here if you need us," his father asserted, pride indisputable in the apple-green eyes behind the frames. As he turned away, the dappled sunbeams filtering through the glass revealed specks of dust trapped in mid-air: his auntie, Hermione, had austerely taught him that fixed atoms indicated the presence of a muffling charm. Dad had always used them throughout his childhood, training his wand on the boundary of his office upstairs to keep his Auror meetings private. On sporadic occasions when they were bored during the holidays, he and his cousin would speculate on the nature of the covert discussions. A fugitive dragon running riot in the Scottish Highlands, posing as the Loch Ness Monster? Several witches, high on Felix Felicis, masquerading as Muggle athletes during their Olympic Games? They let their imaginations run wild, Lily piping up with progressively nonsensical ideas they couldn't help but guffaw at.
The main artery of Diagon Alley was as animated and characterful as Albus remembered it, feverishly packed with eager Hogwarts students, their families and entrepreneurs jostling for space. Darting under the outstretched arm of a buoyant storekeeper bellowing into the crowd about her portable jinxes, he mused at where to get his pewter cauldron. Another broad-shouldered young witch, this time bedecked in the dark green uniform of the Holyhead Harpies, offered a selection of discounted sports equipment on a folding table. A crowd was developing around her, their elbows thrust into Albus' ribs. He yelped, laughing as he scrambled past, glancing at the Quality Quidditch Supplies shop-front opposite. It claimed to sell Britain's pride and joy in wooden form: Colwyn Nitherscott's favoured Cirrus Cairngorm. Teddy and Uncle George still hadn't stopped talking about seeing it in action across the Bulgarian team at the World Cup three years prior. If he thought about flying in the context of his family, he could almost pretend it was...normal. Eyes drifting past the Cairngorm's furnished ash grips to the reserved bookstore next door, he considered wandering in before reminding himself about his cauldron.
Trudging into Potage's Cauldron Shop, several cauldrons stacked in a pile teetering haphazardly over the wide French doors, he surveyed the prices with bewilderment. Picking berries had weighed his money-bag down with dull coins: not enough for the fifteen galleon price-tag on the newest ones. Resigned, he deposited five sickles and twelve knuts for a second-hand pewter vessel with a few small dents etched into its sides on the counter. Carrying it under his arm and dismayed by the displacement of the majority of his hard-earned knuts, he knocked into a goblin.
He clambered to his feet as it scowled at him. Heart racing, he copiously apologised, making sure to adopt civil and respectful body language. His uncles had forewarned him: one, an enduring gaze, two, relaxed facial muscles, three, measured movements. What else was there? He didn't want to offend the goblin - its dark eyes stared at him, knowing, calculated, resourceful. It would be his luck to unwittingly provoke hostility from the formidable creatures, as highly intelligent as they were compared to him.
"Careful, Potter," the goblin trailed a long, curved finger across their pale, dome-shaped head, tufts of silvery hair protruding from patches on its skull. How did it know his name? He hadn't achieved anything worthwhile. "Your cauldron is dented."
Albus grasped the roughly scratched handle of his vat tightly. "Th- thank you, sir. How did you know…?" he invited, keeping his voice cordial despite his fear. His aunt had lectured the Weasley brood on the goblins, demanding they respect the creatures in contempt of the Ministry's disingenuous viewpoints on them. Hadn't they expanded access to the Alley to non-wand holders in the decades following the wizarding wars? The reformed Inclusion of Magical Creature Access Act had been intended to ease the bitterness between those who were permitted to carry wands and those who weren't. However, Albus' misgivings led him to doubt it had worked. Why were adults so...insincere and duplicitous? Why couldn't they do what they'd promised to do?
The goblin regarded him with interest, the ten-inch height difference contrary to the power dynamic in the exchange. "We talk of those who interest us, Potter."
The frustratingly meagre response was all Albus was left with as the goblin strode away, their gait unbalanced as if they had a pronounced limp. Brushing the detritus off the exterior of his cauldron and examining its latest notch, he repeated the list of tomes he needed for his first year over in his head in a bid to ward off the questions. What had the goblin meant? Colebach's Chronicles of Conjurations: Through the Twentieth Century, Abracadabra! A Muggle's Introduction To Spellcasting, what else was there, scribbled onto the Hogwarts list?
The storefront of Ellis Emporium was placid with its books fluttering through their pages for intrigued passersby and a wooden bench for those who wanted to stop and rest. What kind of enchantment effected the rifling through reflex? Was it a simple one? Could he learn it? Enticed by its natural quietness, he entered the shop.
"Good afternoon, fellow inquisitive warlock!" a tall wizard, seasoned by the relentless summers at Diagon Alley, amicably challenged him. The speaker, lounging atop a stepladder, beamed at him, the sleeves of his blue flecked shirt rolled up. They exposed wiry arms built for duels, the tattoo of a kaleidoscopic compass marked there. Its northernmost point migrated a few degrees west as he affixed his trouser braces, presumably to descend the ladder. His temple hinted at greying hair, a contrast to the motley of delicately packed bookcases occupying the walls, floor to ceiling.
A frail stool, struggling under the weight of seven copies of Antiquities of Athens: Fourth Volume and a crate of old-fashioned ink pots, drifted to the highest shelves where its items began slotting themselves into place. As Albus' mouth gaped, an assortment of sheaves of parchment glided through the brackets, quills, unaided by the wizard's intervention, composing notes. "Don't mind them, they count the stock."
"How does that work?" Albus queried, neglecting his manners. A freckled adolescent, a shop assistant roughly his age, lingered behind a threadbare bundle of hardback books, a vigilant eyebrow poised. Albus almost swore as he realised his mistake. "I'm sorry, sir! Ignore my rudeness." Would the older wizard overlook him or speak condescendingly, as the Muggle shopkeepers in his village had?
The bookkeeper studied him with an air of goodwill, unscrewing the cap on a flask. "It's a combination of two spells: levitation and calculation. Can you see they're utilising the same movements?" His index finger followed the quills as they flitted between editions of the same textbook. "If you blend the two with Latin modifiers, like Wingardium Leviosa and Calculo, which become Levis Calculia, you can adapt spells to your wishes. This'll be taught in your fifth-year lessons, now the examination board's changed the curriculum…" The wizard sighed, sipping his tea. He had an unassuming scholarly manner which made Albus wonder if he was amongst the additional intake of professors at Hogwarts next year. "Think that was more than you wanted to know but you seem an unusually keen first-year…"
A direct invitation to Albus to explain his curiosity. The sharp grey eyes behind the stacked collection met his own pea green and a glint of knowing - of shared 'geekiness' as James nicknamed it - occurred, passing between them. "Dad encouraged me to follow whatever interested me. I think he knows it keeps me out of trouble," he laughed clumsily. "I read about how verbal constructs, premodifiers, irregular verb forms, the lot, represent the root of magic, instead of body language...but my cousin reckons it excludes non-speaking wand-bearers… In all, I'm looking forward to getting more books, sir. Find out about that class of runes that creates magic just by reading it…"
"Ah, another Ravenclaw whippersnapper!" the learned merchant smiled, striding to the counter and drumming a tattoo into the wood with his long fingers. They were mottled with ink. Albus liked to spot obscure details, accumulating them for a later date. So what made him so certain that he'd heard the etymological ramble from eager first-years before, their pockets more bloated than their minds? The field fascinated him, the abstract theories transcribed from journals nudged into his hands by his thrilled aunt swirling around his brain. Alongside his cousin, Rose, he'd adored listening to Hermione's exhaustive addresses on the intricacies of magic and its origins at the Ministry over the last year, although most of it went over their heads.
But Charms… Its dynamic nature massively appealed to him; he felt as restless and unsettled as the subject was portrayed.
The bookkeeper placed his hand on the adolescent's shoulder. "This little sod's in your year, I'm afraid. If you're unlucky, you might wind up in the same house! My dearest grandson's got your required textbooks ready… Unless you'd like to add some supplementary reading?" He winked at Albus, optimism registering in his veteran grey eyes. "We're clearing out old stock so it's all offered at a concession. Sky?" He'd plainly seen Albus' second-hand cauldron, nicked and dimpled, and empathised.
"Do you mind taking knuts?" he asked, his eyes pursuing the six or seven volumes that hurtled across the shop.
The juvenile version of the bookkeeper, Sky, his nose moulded in the same pointed way as his grandfather, shuffled a row of Wizards Without Identities pamphlets as he spoke to Albus, his voice warmly curious. "Honestly? Charms… It's beyond me… You've set Grandad off now, that'll be all he talks about for the next six months," he quipped, shrugging. "I think I'm more historical though? Goblin and werewolf rebellions and stuff like that. Do you like history?" Binding the textbooks in brown paper (Albus itched to ask if it was ecologically friendly; Rose would kick his arse otherwise. He'd heard too much about the welfare of Ashwinders not to), he worked out the conversation rates on a slice of scrap paper. "That's twenty-three knuts. Have you heard about the new Wizarding Literature lessons? What d'you reckon they're about?"
"Let him get a word in sideways!" Sky's grandfather chuckled as Albus heaved his books into his cauldron. "Sorcerer of a scrutinising mind, I really do look forward to meeting you again at Hogwarts, if not sooner."
"What subject are you teaching, sir? Charms?"
"Oh, no, admittedly, I'm a Potions man through and through. It'll be refreshing to have an inquiring mind in my classes. Sky doesn't count, of course," he joked, ruffling his grandson's dark hair.
Bewildered by the wizard's commendation, Albus thanked the pair before plodding outside to the boisterous cobblestones of Diagon Alley. He'd never considered Ravenclaw as a possible avenue before... Wasn't it about the pursuit of knowledge for its sake? James had taunted him about Slytherin throughout the Easter holidays, his horrendous enumeration of Pseudo Echo's His Eyes catching on with his Weasley cousins, who howled his version of the lyrics at Albus. 'There was a boy so shrewd, the snake was in his eyes… He had a book so hard, I'd never seen him smile…'
'I could've told you then, you'd heard it all before… And now you're in suspense, you'll have to wait for more…' Rose and Fred yelled into the bustling masses crammed into Diagon Alley, their faces sunburned from another summer working in the orchards. Giving them the finger, Albus examined his tattered Hogwarts letter. The last remaining item, decisively underlined as if to exemplify its importance, was his wand. The internationally-acclaimed Ollivanders outlet in the Alley was precisely six feet away, although the avenue may as well have been a huge gorge. Was he ready for the concluding step towards becoming a wizard?
It'd been five mundane months since he'd been this close to his new wand, over one hundred and fifty days of enduring algebra, percentages and pie charts and classmates snickering 'Posho Potter' at him under their breath. Lachlan, a bony ten-year-old with blistered fingers who sat next to him in English, had parents that obstinately disapproved of Albus and his family. In light of the fact his secondary school place was at a boarding school in rural Scotland, they'd practically come to fisticuffs with his father one parents' evening. "Fuckin' Tory layabouts!" had been one of the grunted insults from Mr Lachlan, closely followed by "Loungin' off our taxes, are yer?!" and "Bet yer never worked a day in yer life!"
"Mr Potter, your appointment was three minutes ago!" A diminutive house-elf pointed a finger accusatorily, its eyes blazing with displeasure. As it advanced towards him, he recognised it as being adorned in a casual shirt, emblazoned with the Ollivanders family crest (a wand lining an open book). "Mr Aloysius is very busy, sir, he does not tolerate lateness!" His father had arranged the consultation for him as a late birthday gift, with Grandma Weasley tucking the coins into his palm as they embraced. Albus stammered his apologies, hanging his head as he followed the house-elf into the shop.
A surprisingly youthful wizard, thirty years' worth of boyish stubble ingrained into his chin, stood behind his desk. His long, champagne-coloured hair was tightly coiled into a braid that dangled over his left shoulder and bolo necktie. "Ah, the second-youngest of the Potters. What can I do for you?"
He earnestly set his pencil down, scouring the shop-floor with purpose. It was ordered to precision, labels denoting the primary cores and woods, subdivided by size, instead of the overflowing shelves Albus had visualised. "Your older brother needed half an hour last summer but we got there in the end." There was a sweeping Birmingham nasality in his words, his vowels rounded in a way reminiscent of the Gobstones Leagues' commentators the same year as the Quidditch World Cup. "I'm estimating a ten to eleven-inch length for you, possibly more depending on the wood reactivity. Do you want to start with unicorn hair? These tend to be excellent matches for consistency."
A curved wand, its handle tangled with a bleached colour, sailed into his clammy hand. Whilst the wood remained cold, its tip yielded blue sparks which skittered across the stone floor. "How does it feel?"
"It's alright?" Albus searched for the tentative exclamative, unsure what Ollivander expected.
Aloysius shook his head. "Not quite. James suited dogwood; sometimes a particular wood will prefer a set of siblings. Maybe willow?"
He handled a sandy wood which was marginally bent to one side, its surface soft and tender to the touch. Albus performed a hesitant flick, an outpouring of forest-green incandescence emerging from its tip. Whilst the wand trembled in his palm, the brilliance resembled an aurora, its ever-changing hues resplendent in the midst of the shop floor. He'd achieved magic. Notwithstanding that he'd read about it for years, watching with envy as his older relatives fashioned charms and hexes out of nothing - he'd actually accomplished something.
"Nearly there, Mr Potter," Aloysius announced cheerfully. "This one's cedar. Give her a whirl."
The cedar's colour mirrored that of fresh toast, reviving images of the butter sizzling as it ran over the bread in his grandmother's kitchen. It gave him a sense of comfort; the inflexible wood saturated with familiar, humdrum images, his bulwark in a world that assumed his acceptance of the Potter legacy from birth. Its polished handgrip thrummed with conscious intensity, moulding itself around his clasp. Holding his breath as he pointed it into vacant air, it produced a solid column of light which fractured into crescents of colour across the spectrum. Each arc spun around the Ollivanders store, ricocheting off reflective objects. "This is it, sir."