Chapter 6
Harry "Meets" Hermione

The next morning (Thursday, 25th July)

When Snape had come to pick Harry up from his relatives' house, Snape had been wearing black jeans and a black "Rolling Stones" t-shirt. The plan for the day, eventually, was for Snape and Harry to go to Diagon Alley and to buy Harry's school supplies. But that shopping trip would come later, Snape announced.

The immediate task, so Snape informed Harry, was that Harry would buy Muggle clothes that were new and that fit, from Muggle shops. Snape explained his thinking: "When we go to Diagon Alley, wizards and witches will take their first look at the Boy Who Lived. It would embarrass us both if you looked like a street urchin. As the saying goes, 'You never get a second chance to make a first impression.' "

Harry laughed. "You want me to dress up to impress people? That sounds cunning."

Snape then reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a wallet. Seconds later, he announced, "I have £215 in my wallet to spend on your Muggle clothing. Later on, when we get to Gringotts..." Snape looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"Gringotts is the goblin bank, in Diagon Alley somewhere," Harry said.

"Very good. When we get to Gringotts, whatever I have spent on your Muggle clothing, I expect you to repay me in galleons, out of your trust vault. The conversion is, one galleon is the same as five pounds sterling."

Harry said, "So if we spend all the notes in your wallet, I'll need to pay you back ... erm, don't tell me, don't tell me! Forty-three galleons."

Snape gave Harry no smile, but Harry did rate a nod.

Harry asked, "To buy my Muggle clothes, where are we going, and how will we get there?"

The "where" turned out to be the Little Whinging Shopping Centre. The "how" turned out to be the Knight Bus. Snape generously covered the twenty-two-sickles (£6.47) charge; no need for Harry to pay Snape back.

At the shopping centre, Harry eventually bought a pair of black dress shoes; a pair of black trainers; three pairs of dress slacks in different colours; three pairs of jeans, in blue and black; four casual shirts, two of which were green; three dress shirts, one of which was green; socks, both dress and casual; and underwear.

The oddest part of the shopping trip was that Snape had to teach Harry how to recognise whether clothing fit or not. Not since Harry had been a toddler had anyone tried to dress Harry in properly fitting clothes!

At the end of Harry's time at Little Whinging Shopping Centre, Professor Snape only had seventeen pounds left in his wallet. Meanwhile, Harry was grinning, because every stitch of clothing that Harry had walked out of the Privet Drive house wearing, every one of Dudley's castoffs, now was shoved down a rubbish bin.

Diagon Alley

The professor and the boy just had stepped past the Leaky Cauldron's archway of bricks, and now were in Diagon Alley proper. Snape transfigured his black casual Muggle clothes into the black wizard robes, with fifty thousand black buttons, that Harry was used to seeing Snape wear.

"That's cool that you can do that," pretending-to-be-a-kid Harry said to Snape, "but why would you want to?"

Snape did not tell Harry the truth, that wizards often were rude to anyone dressed Muggle. Instead, Snape answered, "Because I am a Hogwarts professor, magicals in Diagon Alley expect me to dress this way."

Harry noticed, during the walk from the Leaky Cauldron to Gringotts, that he got a few disapproving looks from passersby because he was dressed Muggle. So what? At least Harry, unlike his first trip to Diagon Alley in his previous lifetime, was not dressed like a Muggle ragamuffin.

Another thing that was different from the previous lifetime—quite different, in fact: With Harry not wearing glasses and showing no forehead scar, not one person in Diagon Alley recognised Harry Potter as Harry Potter.

In Gringotts

The first thing that Harry did in Gringotts, supposedly following Snape's advice, was to buy a bottomless, feather-light magical bag to put coins in.

Harry had to work hard to act amazed when he was first shown his trust vault, which contained mounds of gold, silver and bronze coins. Needless to say, it was no problem at all to find forty galleons so that Harry could repay Snape for buying Harry's Muggle clothes.

It was no surprise to Snape and to the goblin cart driver when Harry dumped many galleons into the bag, so he could buy school supplies and school robes today—

—but Harry also, with no explanation, dropped many sickles into the bag.

Why the sickles? With the Knight Bus charging eleven sickles a trip, Harry now could take many trips about Britain without drawing the attention that an Apparating eleven-year-old would draw, and without Harry needing to ask an adult to magically take Harry someplace.

Harry had plans for the time between now and 1st September; and those plans would be helped greatly if Dumbledore thought that Harry was stuck at Privet Drive, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The most important of Harry's upcoming secret plans: On 31st July, Harry's eleventh birthday, Harry intended to return to Gringotts.

As Harry and Snape were walking down the steps of Gringotts, Harry held out his hand. "My Gringotts key, please."

Snape said, "The headmaster wishes the key to be returned to him. Do I wish to anger the headmaster, or to anger the goblins?" Snape then stopped walking, turned to Harry, bowed and, with great pomp, held out the key.

After Snape ended his bow, Harry saw that the Potions Master's face showed a tiny smile.

Once Harry had left Gringotts, the magical shopping trip began for Harry (and for Snape). First stop: buying Harry's wand.

At Ollivander's wand shop, Harry, just like in his previous lifetime, was shunned by the first twenty or so wands that he waved. Eventually Mr Ollivander was obliged to fetch dusty wand-boxes from the back of his shop. Soon after this, Harry was handed a wand that was made of "holly wood with a phoenix feather as its core." In Harry's hand, the wand felt burning hot.

Harry waved the wand.

The wand exploded. A tiny wand-chunk hit Harry's left cheek, hard enough to sting.

Snape asked in droll tones, "Must you continue to be different, Mr Potter?"

Thankfully, Harry found a suitable wand soon afterwards: elder wood and thestral heartstring, eleven inches. This wand had been made not by Garrick Ollivander, the old man who owned the wand shop, but by Pliny Ollivander.

"What does it mean," Snape asked Mr Ollivander, "that this unique wand is a match to Mr Potter?"

"It means that Mr Potter has a great task to accomplish. A task that involves death. A task that only he can achieve," the wandmaster replied.

Snape looked sharply at Mr Ollivander.

Mr Ollivander then looked at Harry. "I hope that when the time comes, you will overcome the challenge you face."

"So do I," said the time-travelled boy.

"Else you shall die untimely," Ollivander said sombrely.

After Harry and Snape left the wand shop, Snape asked, "Your birthday, Mr Potter, is it at the end of July or at the beginning of August?"

Trying to keep his voice casual, Harry replied, "It's 31st July. The last day of this month." Snape has figured it out, Harry thought.

Snape said, "I know something that you urgently need to hear, Mr Potter, but not for some hours yet. I need to choose my words carefully."

At Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, Harry bought four black school robes, not three as Hogwarts required. Furthermore, Harry paid extra, for better material for his school robes and for one year's worth of Resizing Charm. Harry also bought a formal robe with Resizing Charm.

At the trunk shop, Harry went all out. He bought the shop's most expensive trunk, which had enough security spells on it that only a team of goblin cursebreakers could open his trunk. Snape, despite a raised eyebrow, did not ask why Harry wanted such a secure trunk. Nor did Harry tell Snape his reason: that if Harry wound up sharing a dorm room with Ron Weasley, no way was Ron going to break into Harry's school trunk!

At Eeylops Owl Emporium, Harry bought a female snowy owl. Harry told Snape that he was naming the beautiful bird "Hedwig."

The time soon came when Harry had only two shopping stops left to make: at Flourish and Blotts, the bookshop; and at the apothecary.

In Flourish and Blotts

As soon as Harry and Snape walked into the bookshop, Snape pulled a paper from his pocket and handed it to Harry. "The magical quill that writes letters to prospective Hogwarts students, has no instructions for someone from a wizarding family who is Muggle-raised. The letter that is sent to Muggle-borns suggests certain books to buy so that those children can fit into this world. I suggest that you buy all the extra recommended books, and read them all, plus every book on wizarding-world etiquette that you can find. The money you spend today will save you from embarrassment in the future. Wizard-raised people, especially children, will not spare your feelings when you act Muggle."

Harry was touched by Snape's thoughtfulness, and spoke heartfelt thanks. Snape looked like he did not know how to accept thanks that were not part of some calculated scheme.

With Snape's additional list in pocket, Harry stepped forwards to begin his bookbuying.

Ten feet inside the front doors was a special display of Harry Potter books. A sign that floated above the books read, "The Boy Who Lived starts Hogwarts this year!"

The real Harry Potter picked up one of the books on offer, Harry Potter and the Terrible Trolls by Roy Locke. What disturbed Harry greatly was that the boy on the cover wore round, black glasses (like what Harry had worn, until yesterday), and had a lightning-bolt scar on the right side of his forehead (like what had defaced Harry's forehead until yesterday). The boy on the cover, like Harry himself, had messy black hair and bright-green eyes.

On page 2 of Terrible Trolls, the time-travelled Harry Potter read that the Harry Potter in the book lived in a "blue palace" with a distant relative and his wife, "George and Rowena Potter." Disgusted Harry Potter (the real one) closed the book with a bang and put it back.

Harry found the textbooks that had been listed on page 2 of his Hogwarts letter, and Snape used his wand to pull the books off the shelves, then to move the selected books into the shopping basket that Snape carried.

Whilst shopping, Harry caught a glimpse of a well-dressed Muggle man who was carrying his own shopping basket, and Harry assumed that this man had been assigned pack-mule duty just like Snape. Harry figured that the man was Justin Finch-Fletchley's father or a second-year student's father.

In the "Herbology and Potions" section of the bookshop, Snape had just pulled One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and Magical Drafts and Potions from their respective shelves, and had placed those two books in the shopping basket. Snape asked Harry, "Are you willing to spend more money, in return for not seeming like a dunderhead?"

"You see other books that I should buy? Sure, drop 'em in."

Snape wanded two more books, A Beginner's Guide to Potions and Basic Potion Preparation, off a shelf and into the basket.

A minute later, the last book on the Required list for wizard-raised children, The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, dropped itself into the shopping basket.

As Harry folded up the list of required books and other things to bring to Hogwarts, he said, "I still need to buy a cauldron and brass scales. I'll need your help with that."

Snape nodded. "After here we go to the apothecary, then home."

Harry pulled out the other list, the one that Snape had given him when they had entered the store. "Where would I find these books written for Muggle-borns?"

"In the 'Muggles and Muggle-borns' section. Follow me."

Harry and Snape turned a corner, and Harry gasped. Standing in front of Harry was the well-remembered bushy-haired, eleven-year-old girl of last lifetime's firstie train. Now she seemingly had been hit by a double-strength Cheering Charm. Hermione was chattering to the well-dressed Muggle man whom Harry had spotted carrying a shopping basket. Hermione had a book in her left hand, and she was waving the book about, like a conductor's baton.

Harry wanted to laugh in delight. At the moment, Hermione was acting so Hermione-ish!

"—doesn't teach maths, science or nonmagical history, and that's sad, but when I go to school here, I'll learn so many things I could never learn back in Crawley! How to brew healing potions, and make light without a candle or a torch, and how to transfigure rubbish into roses. Dad, I can't wait! Oh, and Harry Potter is coming to school this year—I hope I meet him!"

In the shopping basket that Hermione's father was carrying, Harry was dismayed to notice that the top book was Harry Potter and the Scary Inferi.

Harry reached into the Granger shopping basket, grabbed the Scary Inferi book, and dropped it onto a nearby chair. "Save your money. This book is nothing but lies."

Both Grangers stared at Harry in shock. Then Hermione picked up the Scary Inferi book and threw it back into her shopping basket.

"How can you say such rubbish?" Hermione demanded of Harry, her chocolate-brown eyes flashing. "If what Mr Locke wrote wasn't true, they wouldn't have printed his book!"

Harry said, "I know this Harry Potter book is lies because I'm Harry Potter."

"No you're not!" Hermione said. "You're not wearing glasses. And"—the hand that wasn't holding a book, now shot forward to pull Harry's bangs up—"you don't have a lightning-bolt scar on your forehead either."

"He doesn't?" Snape said. He peered at Harry's forehead. "Indeed you do not, Mr Potter. How did this happen?"

Harry shrugged. "I got the scar ten years ago. It faded. These things happen." Harry thought, I'm not about to tell Snape that I magically erased the scar myself, only hours before he visited me.

Meanwhile, Hermione was interrogating Snape: "You called him 'Mr Potter.' Why did you call him that?"

"Easy, professor," Harry warned. Harry knew well that Snape was quite able to verbally eviscerate young children, and Harry did not want Snape tongue-lashing Hermione.

Hermione's anger vanished instantly. She asked Snape, "You're a professor at Hogwarts?" in a fangirl voice.

Snape replied, "I shall answer your questions in reverse order. I am Severus Snape, and I teach all seven years of Potions at Hogwarts, besides doing work as a Potions Master. When time permits, I also perform original research in potions. How do I know Mr Potter? I visited him yesterday at the house where he lives with his Muggle aunt and her Muggle family. I knew Mr Potter's aunt and his mother when both girls and I were children."

Hermione looked confused. She asked Harry, "You live with your mum's sister? Not your sixth-cousin George?"

Harry said, "I told you the book was a lie."

Hermione looked utterly shocked, gobsmacked and flabbergasted at the idea that a book could lie.

Snape said, "However, the boy on the cover has messy black hair, like the real Mr Potter and like his father; and the boy on the cover has bright green eyes like Mr Potter and his mother. I do not like the implications of this."

Harry thought, Neither do I. Dumbledore has no problem sending wizards and witches to Little Whinging to see what I look like, but sending magical people to check on whether I'm treated well by my relatives? He can't be bothered.

Hermione, it turned out, had bought her school supplies, textbooks and Hogwarts: A History last September—almost a year ago. Hermione and her pack-mule father had made a second trip to Flourish and Blotts last December, to buy more books. The two Grangers had made a third trip to Flourish and Blotts a month ago, the first Sunday after summer holidays had begun for Hermione. What Harry and Snape had stumbled upon was Hermione's fourth trip to Flourish and Blotts.

Snape began to pull all the books on the "Supplemental Reading for Muggle-Borns" list, plus two books on wizarding etiquette, off shelves and dropped them into the shopping basket he carried. As Snape was magicking the books (and as Dr Granger was staring), Snape said to Harry, "Mr Potter, we need to finish up here. After the apothecary, I need to get you home, then the headmaster and I need to have," he paused, "a conversation."

Of course Hermione then asked Snape if there were any Potions books she should buy, besides the one required textbook. When Snape gave his two recommendations, Hermione's eyes lit up. Clearly she was eager now to drag her father to the "Herbology and Potions" section of the bookshop, to buy the two extra books.

But before she did this, she looked nervously at Harry and said, "I hope I'll see you on the Hogwarts Express, Harry. I'm sorry I called you an impostor."

Harry smiled at her. "If I get there first, you come find me. If you get there first, I'll come find you. Either way, then I'll get to know your name."

"My name? You want to know my name?"

"Well, sure! How can we be friends if I don't know your name?"

"You want to be friends with me?"

Dr Granger said, "Her name is Hermione"—he pronounced the name slowly, enunciating clearly—"Granger. G-R-A-N-G-E-R. Hermione's brain gets stuck sometimes."

Harry said, "Glad to meet you, Hermione Granger my friend." The girl and the time-traveller shook hands. "You heard Professor Snape, I need to go. See you on the train!"

Hermione was grinning. "Pleased to meet you, Professor Snape. I'm looking forward to Potions class. Goodbye, Harry Potter my friend."

Harry said, "Look for my owl, I'll write you soon."

Harry was grinning as he and Snape walked towards the cashier to pay for Harry's books. Whether he and Hermione were soulmates or not, the fact remained that in the other timeline, Hermione was the first person to do him a kindness after his parents died: she had repaired his glasses. Now Harry repaid that kindness with a kindness of his own: giving the formerly friendless girl his friendship, three months early.

Fifteen minutes later

After Harry and Snape walked out of the apothecary shop, Snape Disillusioned himself and Harry, then Snape Side-Along Apparated Harry to the park near Number 4, Privet Drive.

But before Snape ended their almost-invisibility and they walked back to Harry's relatives' house, Snape added the Muffle Charm to their Disillusionment.

Snape then told Harry the Prophecy—or rather, as much of the Prophecy as Snape knew: "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies..."

Then Snape said, "I do not know the rest of the prophecy. I do not know whether the prophecy is fulfilled or is still active, though Mr Ollivander's words imply that the prophecy still is in play. I believe that the headmaster believes the Dark Lord still is alive, though Dumbledore has not outright told me this—the headmaster is secretive. But the subject of the prophecy, 'the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord'? It is you, Harry Potter. I am sure of this."

Harry paused, seemingly to think, then said, "I've started to read Mum's second-year diary. She mentioned a place where prophecies are stored, in little glass balls, but she didn't write down where the place was. Do you know?"

"The prophecies-room is part of the Department of Mysteries, in the Ministry of Magic building."

"Department of Mysteries, Ministry of Magic. Department of Mysteries, Ministry of Magic. Got it."

"Would you like me to take you there, then wait outside?"

"Thank you but no, Professor Snape. You've already helped me more than enough. Somehow I'll figure out a way to get there." Harry spoke not even a hint about riding a loud, purple, magical bus.