The Diagon Alley

The Diagon Alley was, perhaps, the most amazing place Elise had ever seen. It was amazingly colorful, and everywhere there were shop announcements of every single magic object imaginable. People walked around in colorful cloaks, with their large families. Some looked richer. Oddly, all of those witches and wizards seemed to have stopped on time in a different century. Elise and Thomas turned their heads left and right so fast and obsessively it was amazing they didn't get dizzy.

When their euphoria finally gave them a break, Elise managed to ask Thomas where he wanted to go first.

"Let's just walk through the alley and keep one eye on our lists. After we are done, we buy some icecream." He said. Elise could tell Thomas was just as excited as she was, but kept most of it to himself.

They walked, completely unable to keep their eyes off the shops and what was being sold on the shops. Even the people doing their shopping was interesting. Everything, everything was unusual. There were caldrons, books, quills, potion ingredients…

"Brooms!" She squealed, pulling Thomas towards a shop called Quality Quiddich Supplies. There was a beautiful broom in exposition, which carried the words Nimbus 2000 written in gold letters on one side. Neither of them had ever seen a broom, but judging by the appearance and by other children's reactions to it, that was the finest model available. Thomas had to drag Elise from the shop in order to move on, or she would never have left.

"Come on, Elise, firth years are not allowed to have their own brooms anyway. Let's go to the book shop."

"Alright, alright..." She said, still not wanting to go.

"Oh, good lord... " Thomas muttered to himself when they stepped into the shop called Flourish and Blotts. There were all sorts of books that a mind could possibly imagine.

There were books about hexes and curses, books about runes, books for children, books filled with pictures, with peculiar symbols. Some were just as large as paving stones and others small enough to easily fit in a pocket. There were even books about muggles. And, as both were amazed, the pictures in the books moved. Moved!

They went through the whole book list and then looked for some more. Thomas found an encyclopedia, while Elise got her hands on a book called Quidditch Through The Ages. Well, wasn't that amazing? They paid for the books and walked out of the shop, nearly missing it.

It was easy to find somewhere to buy the robes, as there was a shop called "Madam Malkin's robes for all occasions". Madam Malkin was a very kind woman and quickly adjusted the robes to their bodies. There were two large boys also getting their robes pinned by an unknown woman. One of them was especially large and looked especially dumb.

"Hello." The less-stupid looking boy said.

"Hi." Thomas and Elise answered timidly at the same time.

"I'm Vincend Crabbe and this is Gregory Goyle."

"I'm Elise Boyd." She said, leaving Thomas to introduce himself. The two boys put on a disgusted expression.

"Oh. Muggleborns." Mocked The one called Goyle. "Shouldn't be sent to Hogwarts, that's what my father says."

Elise knew that she herself wasn't a muggleborn, therefore the offense was not meant to her. But Thomas was. And she could nearly feel how embarrassed he was. For some reason, maybe because he was really thin and shy, Thomas never stood up for himself. Even when he got bullied at their old school because of his skin colour, Elise was the one to hit the boys who mocked him.

That was the reason why she moved towards the boys, with her hands in fists, with a flaming gaze in her green eyes. However, Thomas held her back. When she looked up, she could see that her friend was not upset or angry, as he looked at her with a reassuring smile. Of course he wasn't comfortable with the situation, but obviously had decided that fighting Hogwarts students even before going to Hogwarts wouldn't be a very good idea.

"There you go, dear." Said madam Malkin. They paid her and left the shop with their robes. They looked around for a moment, trying to find Lina's red hair. She was nowhere to be seen.

"Thomas, who do you think is Sirius Black?"

"What?"

"Did you not hear what that man told to me? Severus. He was very surprised that my father wasn't this man named Sirius Black."

"Well… I wasn't listening. That man frightened me. Weren't you frightened?"

"No, of course not! Couldn't you see it? Severus was terribly devastated at something. Nobody can be as cold as that naturally."

"What do you mean?" Thomas was a very good reader, but his skills applied to books only. He was so introspective that, sometimes, he couldn't actually see behind other people's faces and voices. The only person he knew enough to understand was, in fact, Elise. Not that he wasn't caring towards anyone he loved, it's just that he didn't allowed himself. Thomas wanted to know things, not feelings.

"I think he lost someone."

"Aren't you just saying that because of your father?" If Thomas were anyone else, she would have punched him right there and then. But she liked how direct he could be sometimes. "I don't mean to be rude." He completed.

"You weren't. I like that you go straight to the point." That was Elise's answer, while Thomas pulled her into the caldron shop. "Of course it is because of my father, though. How could I understand that he lost someone, if I hadn't lost my father?"

Thomas stared at her for a moment, worried. Until the night before, Elise had been crying about her father, unable to talk about him. And then she suddenly started talking about how that was part of her life experience and how much she had learned from it? He, himself, still couldn't talk about his father and he had never met him. They continued talking about it while they bought their caldrons.

"Anyway… Do you think this Sirius could be my father?"

"Well, you have to consider the fact that I am just one day older than you and there's no way I could know."

"I don't even look like my dad, I'm exactly like my mom. There was no way anyone but her could know..."

Thomas thought for a moment, looking at the ceiling to seek inspiration for his conclusions.

"Why don't you ask her, then?"

"Would you ask your mom if she ever cheated on your father?" Elise looked at him, wondering how he had managed to say such nonsense. "Anyway, where do you think this man is?"

"Probably mad at your mother because she married someone else."

They became once they left the caldron shop to look for potion ingredients. There was a shop called Apothecary, and there was a funny smell coming from there. It was slightly dark inside and the kids spend some time examining a unicorn's horn. How beautiful it was… There were also things such as dragon scales, strange plants, thestral hair… What was a thestral, anyway? It took a while for them to notice that the man in the pub, Severus, was also in the shop, since he was probably the most silent man to ever walk on earth. It meant that Lina was also somewhere in the alley. But Severus still hadn't noticed them and had the most disturbed expression on his face, so Elise whispered to Thomas that they shouldn't talk to them and waited for him to leave before paying for their ingredients. They found Lina outside, carrying a cage with an owl inside, and a cat.

"An owl!" Shouted Elise, instantly forgetting about her previous conversation with Thomas and running to see the animal.

"So you can send letters throughout the year, and the cat can keep you company." Explained Lina. She handed the owl cage to Elise and the cat to Thomas, who had always wanted a cat.

"Thank you, Mrs. Boyd." He said timidly while Elise shouted "Thank you so much, mom!"

The barn owl inside the cage friendly hooted at the girl.

"Well, I see you got the books, the caldron and the ingredients. I suppose the only item left is the wand."

She guided the children towards a narrow, shabby shop with peeling gold letters on the sign that wrote Ollivanders. Makers of fine wands since 382 B.C

They barely fit inside the shop, so Lina waited outside with their stuff. A bell rang when the two kids went inside. They looked around, waiting for something to happen, when suddenly a very old man appeared at the balcony.

"Another Weasley?" He said, seeming annoyed. "I just sold your brother a wand yesterday."

"That was probably my cousin. I don't know him, though." Said Elise.

"Oh, then I'm surprised indeed. I never expected that your mother would ever come back to our world, even if she had a magical child. I still remember the wand I sold her. Oak, thirteen inches, unicorn hair for the core. A specially beautiful female, if you ask me. Fairly flexible, if I recall it. Let's see what destiny has kept for you, young lady."

Ollivander left for a moment and came back with a wand.

"If you do follow your mother's steps, this one will do for you. It's unicorn hair inside orange tree. Go on, try it." He handed her the wand. Elise held it for a second and Ollivander almost immediately took it off her hand. "No, not this one." He said, although Elise was unsure how he could possibly know it. "We will know when you get the one. You will feel it attaching to you."

Elise tried a couple more wands before she got the right one. When she took hold of a bendy ten inch wand made of silver lime with unicorn hair for the core, she felt somewhat warm. As if someone had lit a fire just next to her. No. Inside her. She could feel the wand's fidelity towards her as gold and red sparkles came out of it's end.

"Well… that is it then. It chose you. The unicorn that produced the hair to this wand was an especially kind one… very friendly towards me and anyone who went near it. I expect… we can expect the same from you." He said. Then turned to Thomas. "As for you, young man, I see that I have an beechwood wand with dragon heartstring for the core that might fit for you." He went to get it and was back in a moment. The man had been precise. That was the wand for Thomas. It's sparkles went higher than the ones produced by Elise's wand.

They paid for the wands and left the shop to get their promised ice cream.

In their way back home, Elise wouldn't stop asking her mother about Severus. She only got a few answers despite her efforts. Severus Snape had once been her mother's classmate and she had deep respect for him, although they had never really been friends. He had hated the man called Sirius, and hated even more James Potter. Lina stopped answering once Elise started asking the "whys". She didn't get any straight answer about Sirius Black either.

The four hours in a train didn't make anything better. Besides being bored and insisting on asking questions, Elise still had to hide the wand and ignore the weird glances at the owl in the cage. They spent the whole trip trying to decide what would be the proper name for a female barn owl. At the end, Elise decided to go for Helga, in honour to Helga Hufflepuff, the founder of house Hufflepuff, her mother's house. She wondered on which house she would go. And where Thomas would find his place.