Nope, not owning any rights here.
Chapter 3: Diagon Alley
Explaining to Aunt Petunia that the Deputy Headmistress of a school was going to visit next Friday was relatively easy. Elaborating that said Deputy Headmistress was a witch was, on second thought, probably not his brightest move.
Harry was sitting on the bed of Dudley's second room that was now his, his gaze travelling from the locked door – he was grounded for telling lies – to the small wristband-lacking digital watch on the side of his bed. Once again, he re-read the small piece of too-thick-to-be-paper informing him that Minerva McGonagall would be arriving at one o'clock which was only ten minutes from now.
'12:51' the discarded watch indicated when he looked at it after scanning the stains and dents on the wall for the umpteenth time. He knew them by heart.
Once more, he checked the door, glanced at the window and looked back at the red digits taunting him. He glared at them and sparked his lighter.
He caught the spark with practiced ease, willing the smallish flame into existence and focused on it until it was the size of an egg in his palm. He threw it up and deftly caught it with his left hand. He threw it back and forth a few times, then separated the fire egg into two smaller flames that he grew again. He glanced at the wrist watch – 12:54 – and tried juggling the balls. He almost dropped one and switched to something less hazardous. Fusing the two burning shapes once more, he spread the newly reformed "egg" on the back of his left hand and began coating his forearm in a layer of flames.
The process was complicated, and he had never been able to maintain it for more than a few minutes, but he supposed that, like with all the rest of his fire powers, training would make everything easier.
The doorbell rang, and he started. He looked at the watch – 13:00 – and shook his head in amusement. As usual, the flames rushed to his fingertips to vanish, and he got to his feet. Tiptoeing to the door, he crouched to press his ear against the keyhole.
The muffled sounds of a feminine voice were suddenly drowned by his aunt's angry tone and Harry grimaced at some of the words used. He hoped he was not going to be held responsible for it. The rising flow of insults abruptly stopped, and the feminine voice spoke again, too softly for Harry to hear her words.
Then, there was the creaking of the fifth stair step and the sound of someone approaching his room. He got up and took a few steps back as the door handle rattled and a voice, with a heavy Scottish accent shot an offended question – "You locked him up?" – presumably to his aunt still downstairs.
A light erupted from the keyhole and the door opened to reveal an elderly tall woman, with a strict bun of grey hair, a thin stick in her hand and an ankle length tartan skirt.
She looked at him, then at his room, and back at him, her eyes travelling up and down his small form and cast-off clothes. He noticed a flicker of anger in her eyes before her expression smoothed down to something between affable and professional.
"Young Mr. Potter, I presume?"
"Um, yes, ma'am," he answered with a nod. "You're the Deputy Headmistress?"
"That is correct. I am Minerva McGonagall. You may call me professor."
"Yes, ma'a-…professor. Sorry."
"That's quite alright," she replied with a small smile and looked around. "Is that your room?"
"Yes, professor. Do you… want to sit down?" he asked before remembering he did not have a chair and waving imprecisely in his bed's general direction.
"That's quite alright Mr. Potter," she declared, although her clipped tone led Harry to believe that it was not 'quite alright'. "This is most certainly not your fault." Harry watched her take a deep breath. "Now, I believe you said in your letter that you never heard of the Wizarding World?"
He nodded.
"Um, that's correct, professor. Never heard of magic at all."
"Well, in that case, the first thing to do is usually a demonstration." She raised the thin wooden stick presented it to his eyes. "This, Mr. Potter, is called a wand. It is one of the items you will be asked to purchase for school and is usually considered the most important part of a wizard's equipment. The wand is a conduit for your magic and the great majority of the spells you will learn can only be cast with one."
She pointed the wand at the head of his bed and his pillow turned into a fluffy white rabbit that looked around with a very stunned expression. Harry approached the creature with caution and patted his hand on the soft fur of its back.
"Wow!" he exclaimed when the rodent hopped away from his hand. "That's a real bunny! How did you do that?"
She smiled, and Harry was sure that she was about to reply along the lines of 'magic, duh'.
"This was a Transfiguration," she explained instead, "the art of reshaping matter into something else. It is the subject that I teach and is, as you can guess, extremely useful."
Reshaping matter, Harry thought. That sounded like a really nifty power to have. She waved her wand and the rabbit was a pillow again. Harry contained his disappointment and placed the pillow back at the head of his bed. When he turned back to the Professor, she was looking at a round golden pocket watch with pinched lips.
"Mr. Potter, I believe it is time we go buy your supplies."
"I, um… I don't have any money, Professor."
She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.
"Of course, you do. Your parents left you all of their belongings, and quite a hefty sum, in their will."
Among the cautious bubbling of hope, a doubt crept in his mind.
"And that money," he asked cautiously, "is in a bank?"
She arched a dignified eyebrow.
"Why yes, it's in Gringotts. Where else would it be?"
His hopes were instantly drowned under a metaphorical cold shower. Any money left in a bank would have been already drained away by his aunt to pay for Dudley's extravagant gifts.
"Um," he warned her softly when she waved him into the corridor, "there's probably not much left."
"And why would that be, Mr. Potter? Have you gone to Gringotts to retrieve money in the past?"
"No, but my aunt…
"Mr. Potter," she interrupted him and waited until he had stopped staring at the floor. "Gringotts is a Wizarding bank and the vault is to your name. No one but you can retrieve anything from the Potter Vault, not even your guardians. If you never went to Gringotts, it is safe to assume that everything is still there. If there is one thing that the Goblins can be trusted with, it's that no one steals from them and walks out to tell the tale."
He slowly nodded. That was… good to know.
"Additionally, Mr. Potter, Hogwarts has a fund for impoverished students. No magical child will be denied an education because of financial difficulties, I can assure you." She extended her hand to him with a solemn expression. "Now hold on tight. I am going to apparate us to Diagon Alley."
Just before she did, however, she turned towards him with a concerned glint in her eyes.
"Oh, I almost forgot to ask. Mr. Potter, have you eaten recently?"
"Um, no Professor."
"Good."
Ω
Retching on the pavement of a narrow back alleyway was not what he would have expected to be his first experience of the Wizarding World.
Their expedition improved famously when his Professor magicked the foul taste away and handed him small sandwiches that had been prepared for him at Hogwarts. Then, they started walking in Diagon Alley itself and, soon, Harry had all but forgotten the puddle of bile left next to the entrance of a dusty little shop called "Pheles & Athan's Ritual Materials".
Professor McGonagall first led him to Gringotts, an almost-collapsing building – that apparently was not collapsing at all – where he learnt that Goblins were a bit scary, but very polite. In fact, they smiled to him quite a lot, showing their sharp and numerous teeth, which made him distinctly uncomfortable and, taking his courage in both hands he told a passing goblin that their smiles were very intimidating.
There were even more smiles directed his way after that, so Harry wisely shut up and sat in an iron cart with a strangely pinched-lips Professor McGonagall. He was about to ask if she was feeling ill when the cart suddenly sped through the thick darkness of tortuous caves at ridiculous speeds and sharp turns that left his stomach in his throat.
It was wonderful.
They eventually stopped, and Harry pretended not to notice the way the Professor wobbled on her legs when they got out of the cart.
He turned to their goblin guide and exclaimed his approval of their transport system, to which he was answered with the widest – and most unsettling – smile of the day.
Ω
He had money.
Harry was still reeling from the shock when they left Gringotts. He had money, and no one had ever told him. Well, he amended, the Dursleys probably did not know, so he could not blame them, and they would not have let him use it anyway, so things were most likely better the way they were.
Besides, he had a pouch full of gold and was on his way to buy a wand, so nothing could dampen his enthusiasm.
Well, the creepy wand maker did dampen it a bit but, toughened by his recent goblin exposure, Harry remained valiantly composed against the eerie remarks and foreshadowing comments of Ollivanders.
Armed with a brand-new wand – of which the core was twin to one belonging to a Dark Lord who had done great-but-terrible things – Harry faced the rest of the Alley with renewed confidence. He patiently endured the horrors of being fitted for clothes he did not know how to wear, and wisely chose to keep his investment in the matter to the strict minimum of the three black robes and one winter cloak required for the year. Then, he was led to the apothecary and instructed to buy his cauldron and potion ingredients while his Professor retrieved his school books from the library across the street.
Finding the right potion ingredients on his own proved to be less of a challenge than he had anticipated. The clerk simply handed him the 'Hogwarts first year package', which smelled extremely bad, and the sale was done. Harry decided to buy another one in case he ran low on ingredients. Who knew when he would be able to come back to the apothecary?
Professor McGonagall returned a few minutes later, holding a lot of interesting additional books, which she had insisted were essential he read before the start of the term, as they would give him a more thorough understanding of magical society. There was also a thick tome – Tales of Beedle the Bard – wrapped in a golden ribbon and given to him as an early birthday present.
When they passed in front of the book shop, the number of wizards cramped inside told Harry that his Professor had not simply wanted to keep her present a surprise, but also to prevent him from being trampled by the busy crowd.
It was very thoughtful of her.
Harry had no idea that Minerva McGonagall had placed a Notice-Me-Not charm on him and his scar and that she had been careful to never call him by his name. To her eyes, there was really no need to subject an eleven-year-old child to the riot his fame would certainly provoke if words got out that Harry Potter was in Diagon Alley right now. No, Minerva was of the firm conviction that someone's first experience in the bustling magical district should be private and undisturbed.
Which was why she had resolved to avoid the Leaky Cauldron and its tactless barman like the plague.
And since they had done the visit in a timely manner – she should remember to use the Notice-Me-Not more: nothing was more time-consuming than being constantly called to chat with every witch or wizard whom she had taught – she allowed Harry to drag her to a high-class trunk shop that mostly catered to purebloods.
Ω
Harry wanted a trunk that no one would snoop in and the clerk – a bony, dark haired man with an overly courteous smile – assured him they had everything he wanted, as long as he could afford it. The last words had been said with a subtle disapproving glance to the too big and worn cast-offs from Dudley that Harry wore on him.
Despite his poor appearance, the wizard had shown him around the shop, explained the different features – all very pricy – he could add to a trunk and answered each of his questions with polite precision.
Harry was pretty sure that his aura of friendliness had kicked in at some point.
Nice to know it worked on wizards too.
When Harry pointed to a dark burgundy trunk in a corner that the clerk had been carefully avoiding, he was told that, no, this one was not for sale, unless he could actually keep it.
As any self-respecting eleven-years-old would, faced with such an intriguing answer, Harry investigated further and was treated to the weird tale of the trunk's creation.
Apparently, the item was a taunt from Thaumathius Sentrine – the original founder of the shop – to his son and apprentice at the time. The trunk was keyed to the shop and would teleport back to its corner no matter what banishment charms were used to dispose of it. Any attempt to destroy the trunk would be deterred by its magic-repelling dragon hide and there was no way to move it away from its chosen spot, as it could apparently hold on to the floor itself. Add to the fact that no one could open it without risking his fingers to be bitten – yes, the white indentions were dragon teeth, no, he did not know why his great-grandfather had thought it a good idea to give sharp teeth to a chest – and the monstrous trunk had become part of the shop.
The Sentrine son and grandson had reacted to the taunt by deciding to give the trunk for free to anyone who managed to open it without a more serious wound than a scratch and then see how long the trunk took to come back.
Of course, Harry wanted to try opening it, which, of course, McGonagall fervently discouraged. She was eventually convinced by Sentrine to let the child try his luck, since the shopkeeper had plenty of experience with healing bite wounds. One had to wonder exactly how much experience.
So, Harry walked to the trunk and cautiously approached his hand from the lid. The red scaled thing started growling menacingly and – with the habit born from hours of practice – Harry managed to convince himself that he felt very lonely and sad, so sad that the trunk did not want to be his friend.
The growl lowered to a purr.
Ω
"That was very nice of him to do the additional wards for free, don't you think, Professor?"
Minerva McGonagall pursed her lips in a thin smile.
"I believe he was concerned that you would unleash that monster upon him and his shop."
"That's silly," Harry retorted with a chuckle, "how could I do that?"
"The thing does seem to follow your orders," she replied curtly, glancing at the red monstrosity trotting behind Harry on four stubby scaled legs. With claws. "It would not be so far-fetched."
"I wonder if I should give it a name… Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"
She pondered for a second. The trunk did have something resembling a lizard anatomy (mind you, a very rectangular lizard), minus a head and a tail. It was made from dragon parts and enchanted to act like an animal, but was it alive? Could it breed?
She shuddered.
"I would rather not have to know the answer to that question, Mr. Potter. Please refrain from mentioning the subject ever again."
Harry complied with a polite nod and they were on their way.
Ω
All in all, Harry left Diagon Alley with wonderful memories, a huge grin and a wicked trunk.
Ω
"Levi! Levi! Look what I found!"
Levi raised her eyes from the dhampyr blood samples she was reordering on the back-shop shelves to glance over her shoulder at her associate. Mephisto was grinning like a loon and brandishing a glass vial containing a semi-transparent liquid of some sort.
"What's that," she mumbled, her eyes returning to the dozens of neatly aligned bottles of blood, "and who swindled you into buying it?"
"I didn't buy it," Mephisto chirped cheerfully and placed the vial on the table in the center of the room. "It was lying in a neat little puddle next to our door step."
She looked at him, trying to summon an exasperated glare, but this kind of situation was just too frequent with Mephisto, so she gave up. With a sigh, she left her shelves and approached the table to examine the strange substance that looked definitely like the result of someone vomiting on an empty stomach.
Considering the Alley's apparition point was quite near, this was a sight she had grown used to.
"So, you have some witch or wizard's puke," she grumbled with some semblance of enthusiasm. "I guess you can curse whoever it is who stained our threshold. It's a half moon tonight, so laurel, myrrh and hippogriff feathers should be enough."
"No, you don't get it!" her partner protested. "It's not puke, it's bile! Nephilim bile!"
She paused.
"You're kidding."
His eyes, shining with manic glee, told her he was not. How he knew did not matter – identifying stuff was Mephisto's talent, like pricing it and bargaining was hers – what mattered was that he would not joke on the matter of ingredients coming from a nephilim.
"You know what that means," she said in a hushed whisper, almost afraid to be overheard.
He nodded, an elated gleam in his eyes.
"Power."
Ω
The plot thickens ! Next is Hogwarts and some decidedly odd ... friendships ?