Donna was leaning against a wall, waiting until Jack was finished playing with his toys. He was determining which alien tech had the ability to look past the enchantments on the pub. She couldn't help him, since she could see the Leaky Cauldron just fine. She occupied herself by observing passersby and patrons, trying to guess from their fashion sense who would enter the building and who would walk on with a slightly dazed look in their eyes.

Eventually Jack snapped his notebook shut, causing Donna to straighten. "Ready to go then, future boy?"

Jack took back the amulet that professor McGonagall had given him, which allowed him to bypass the muggle repellant wards, and gestured towards the run-down inn. "Lead the way, fair lady!"

Inside the Leaky Cauldron, they asked for Tom the barman's help in getting to the Alley, as the professor had told them to. As soon as she'd bought her wand, she'd be able to come here without any help. With only a bare minimum of flirting on Jack's part, they were looking on as Tom tapped the correct sequence. The brick wall opened like a curtain, rolling back to reveal the street behind it. Jack and Donna sported matching grins at the spectacle.

"Magic is brilliant!"

They stepped through the arch and onto a quaint cobblestone road. People bustled past, most of them dressed in robes. There were pointy hats bobbing about everywhere they looked. They linked arms and for a while just wandered around, taking in the sights and smells of the teeming shopping district.

"I can almost imagine myself on a different planet," said Donna, while watching a toy store display, where a bunch of marionettes were dancing a jig to the tune of a couple of musical instruments that were playing themselves, while a miniature dragon swooped overhead and blasted tiny jets of flame that didn't burn anything.

Jack nodded. "I know what you mean. This could just as easily be Bartol, or the shopping enclave on Teranis 4, as the middle of London. The TARDIS could be parked right around the corner, with the Doctor ready to explain to us – in excruciating and entirely too technical detail – where the magic is coming from."

Her only answer was a barely audible "Ha!", a wistful smile visible on her face for a moment. If only.

She couldn't resist throwing a quick look around the next corner. Jack caught the movement of her head, but he didn't say anything, just wagged his eyebrows at her. Not that he had room to talk without sounding like a complete hypocrite. He'd looked too, even though he'd been joking.

There was no TARDIS of course. She would have to find her own way, again. At least this time she could do it as herself, with her memory intact. She might find the Doctor yet, but it would not be today.

Shaking her head to get rid of her gloomy thoughts, she looked around brightly.

"Anyway, we were here for a reason, yeah? Lets do some shopping."

They stopped at Gringotts to change their money into the wizarding currency – which made even less sense than the old pound system – and to open an account for her. Watching Jack get his flirt on with the very surprised goblin teller was as funny as it was disconcerting. Nothing against goblins, but she wouldn't want to seduce one, if such a thing was even possible. All the more challenge for Jack, and good luck to him, but she didn't want to know.

After that, they went over the supplies list again to see where they would go first.

"Wand!" Donna yelled.

"You sure?" Jack asked with a twinkle in his eyes. "We're closer to some of these other stores."

Donna just grinned and grabbed his hand, jumping up and down in a passable imitation of an excitable 11-year-old. "Wand, wand, wand!"

Jack laughed and winked at a passing witch who was looking at her with a sympathetic grin on her face. He gestured in the direction that Ollivanders wandshop was supposed to be.

About half an hour later, they were standing outside again, and she was the proud owner of a Beech wand, 12 and a half inches and quite flexible, with a unicorn tail hair – information provided courtesy of Garrick Ollivander, creepy wizard extraordinaire. He might be a fine wand-maker, but social skills he had not.

Their next stop was Flourish & Blotts, the bookstore. There they collected all the titles on the list, conveniently gathered at the front of the shop, with an elegant sign above them reading 'Hogwarts'. Then they browsed the bookshelves for some of the books professor McGonagall had advised, as well as anything that looked interesting, or that might help them understand the wizarding world better.

When their purchase was paid for, they worked their way down the list, buying everything she would need and anything else that might come in handy. When Donna expressed concern over the amount of money he was spending on her, Jack just shrugged. "Eh, I've got a fair bit squirreled away over the years, and it's not seeing much use otherwise. Might as well spend it on my favourite shorty."

They debated whether to get a pet, but eventually decided against it. Jack didn't have the time to take care of it, and Donna didn't want the responsibility. She'd had her fair share of pets over the years, and while she usually managed to keep them alive and generally happy, she wanted to be a bit more firmly established in her new life before even thinking about an animal.

They ended the day at Fortescue's, each with a humongous ice cream in front of them. It was delicious, if odder than anything she'd known back home. Even that horrid blue smurf ice that had been popular for a while, tasting more like chemicals than anything, did not compare. One of her scoops was slowly changing colour, and managed to taste like actual fruit, a different kind every time it changed. Another was so fluffy she wasn't sure how it kept its scoopy form, and it tasted a bit like she imagined a sugared cloud might. But the oddest thing of all, which only became apparent after a while... the ice cream did not melt.

While tackling the monstrosities in front of them, they observed the magicals going about their daily lives, and inventing all sorts of details to go with them.

"There, that one, with the purple robes," Donna pointed with her spoon. "He lost his hair and eyebrows in a tragic accident involving coconuts and shoestring, leaving him with just the beard as his only body hair – anywhere. Incidentally, koala bears were involved, and he cannot look them in the eye anymore."

The longer the game continued, the more outrageous the details became, until they were laughing too hard to continue.

Eventually, though, the day came to an end, and they made their way back to the muggle side to find their car. Jack had chartered the Torchwood SUV for the day, citing 'research opportunities' as the reason, and dropping off some alien tech that he deemed harmless in the greedy hands of Yvonne Hartman and Torchwood One.

Tom was nice enough to put a notice-me-not and a featherlight charm on her trunk and its contents, so that they had an easier time taking it with them without getting stared at. Honestly, who even used trunks anymore instead of something normal, like a suitcase? There was supposed to be a way to shrink her trunk, but she wanted to be in a more comfortable environment to try out all the features.

The drive back to Cardiff was spent discussing the sights and smells of Diagon Alley. She thought she might like to go up to London a day or two early, get a room at the Leaky Cauldron, and explore the Alley at her leisure.

On second thought, though, she might do that when she was older, so there wouldn't be quite so many questions about why an 11-year-old was wandering the street alone. There were some things she missed about having an adult body, and being able to go where she pleased was definitely at the top of that list.

Still, it was something to keep in mind. She wouldn't be 11 forever.