In was a normal day in London. Light overcast skies covered overhead as people roamed through the streets, going about their everyday business. Visitors from other towns and countries were also out and about, the Fenton family among them. With a few days off of school, Jazz managed to convince her parents to take a trip to the UK instead of to an old mansion only a few miles from Amity Park. Danny had gotten permission to invite Tucker and Sam along, and their parents had approved. However, nothing could stop Jack from bringing his ghost equipment. With such an old city, he figured there would be hundreds of ghosts!
"I can't believe there isn't a single ghost in this city!" Jack complained, shaking the ghost-tracker frantically. They were making their way into a park, the three younger kids ahead. Jazz stood a few feet behind her parents, holding her head in embarrassment.
"I still think you should have left those things at home, Jack," Maddie said calmly, "Isn't it nice to just go on a holiday and not have to worry about ghosts? We're in London!"
"And as such, there should be ghosts here! Why do you think A Christmas Carol is set here!?"
"Maybe because Charles Dickens lived here?" Jazz said from behind in an annoyed voice, "Can't you put that thing away!?"
"Sorry Jasmine," Jack said, turning around, "As a professional ghost-hunter I'm duty-bound to make this a working vacation!"
"Mom's not having a working vacation!"
"Well, she's on vacation from working vacations," Jazz sighed with an air of resignation.
"I'm going to hang out with Danny," her voice sounded monotone from annoyance.
Up ahead, Danny and Sam were watching the streets and buildings from a nice, shady area of the park. Tucker had stopped by a vendor to get food, and anticipating a long confusion over currency and food names, they had left him behind.
"Wow," Sam said, eyeing one tower in particular, "For once, I'm glad your family took your sister's advice."
"Me too," Danny smiled, "This place is great. Almost wish we lived here. No ghosts, cooler, no Valerie..." he heard a snap of a twig, and his smile quickly dropped.
"Tucker," he said without turning around, "the first 54 times back in Amity were somewhat amusing, but now this has to stop."
"What?" Tucker's voice asked from behind them, "You think I've been following around spying on you, hoping for a situation that will call for another fake-out make-out so I can get some pics?" he stood up from behind the bushes; a digital camera was hooked into his PDA.
"We have our suspicions."
"What fake-out make-out?" Jazz walked up, causing a nervous look to cover Danny and Sam's faces. Tucker grinned slyly.
"Well it's funny you should ask that," he said, "You see..."
"Tucker, did you buy that food yet?" Danny interrupted quickly with a hint of threat in his tone.
"Yeah. Now, what happened was..."
"Can we have it?"
"Sure, sure. My girl Valerie was..."
"Now?"
"Alright, alright. Here you..." Tucker finally bothered to look at the food he was given, "What's up with this? I ask for chips and they give me fries? Well, we'll just see about that!" he marched off, Sam rolling her eyes.
"Don't ask," she and Danny said together, annoyed. Without looking at her, they could tell Jazz had opened her mouth to ask about the fake-out make-out; again without looking at her, they could tell she had shut it.
Of course, having been listening in on ghost-related conversations since she found out about his powers to make sure he was safe, Jazz already knew about the fake-out make-out. She was just playing the part of the not-knowing big sister.
----
"Just one ghost!" Jack was still upset, "Just one! In this entire city you would expect to find just one ghost!"
"Jack, just give it a rest and have fun," Maddie said; he was starting to grow annoying.
"I just don't understand it, Maddie. How, in this whole city, can there not be one single..."
"Looking for ghosts?" a voice asked. A man in a black cloak pulled low over his face stood behind them. He had another part of his cloak pulled across his body like a cape, making his face even more impossible to see. His voice almost sounded like that of a man trying to hide his true voice.
"Yes..." Jack answered, eyeing the cloaked figure suspiciously, who began to chuckle to himself.
"Well then, I think I can help you."
"How?"
"Try and keep up," with that, the cloaked figure dashed off, leaping over the fence of the park and down the streets.
"Hey!" Jack shouted, "Wait! Get back here!" Jack also jumped the fence, charging after the man, who stood out even with the streets as crowded as they were. Maddie followed behind, yelling at Jack to come back to the park. The man turned down an alley and out into another street, lined with bookshops, cinemas, hamburger restaurants and music stores. He stopped in between one big book shop and a record shop and ran into a small building, with a frail, almost unnoticeable sign. Shaped like a witch stirring her cauldron, the sign read "The Leaky Cauldron." Jack stopped just short of entering, looking up at the sign. How anyone could single out this one little pub was beyond him. It appeared to be a gritty, run-down old tavern. Yet something about it seemed to draw him in.
"Jack?" he was just barely aware of his wife's voice behind him.
"Maddie, go back and get the kids," he said without turning around, "I found us a new place to stay for the night."
----
"Why??" Jazz moaned, "Why, why, why, why, why-y-y!?" the inside of The Leaky Cauldron wasn't any more impressive than the outside. It was a dark, shabby looking place. The few people inside were dressed in either Victorian or outlandish clothes that seemed to come right from Grimm's Fairy Tales. Two old women sat together at a table, one of them smoking a long pipe. A hunchbacked man who resembled Count Orlock in Nosferatu was chatting with a proper-looking man with a slick haircut. The old bartender was cleaning the counter with a rag. The Fentons and friends stood there, the only people dressed somewhat normally and holding all of their luggage, the rented car right outside. It was a full two minutes before the bartender finally noticed them.
"Anything I could help you with, sir?" he asked with a slight smile.
"Have any rooms here?" Jack said seriously.
"Yes..." he replied, still smiling, though now it seemed more nervous than warm, "Are you in need of one?"
"Yep. How much?" there was a pause. The bartender seemed unusually upset over a request for rooms.
"Excuse me a moment. I must double-check something," he hurried out from behind a bar and headed down a dark hallway.
"Well, I guess we wait," Jack dropped his bag and sat down on the floor, "Feel free to look around, kids," Danny, Sam and Tucker immediately dropped their bags and began to do so; Jazz just stood, still moping.
"Guy seemed kind of upset over a lousy room, didn't he?" Tucker said.
"Maybe it's 'cause we're from out of town," Danny said, eyeing what looked like a stuffed deer's head except more extraordinary antlers. He was close to the hunchbacked man and the proper one; a bit too close. When the hunchback turned, he swung his arm, knocking Danny back down the hallway the bartender had gone down. He ended up falling over some short steps and into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trashcan and a few weeds. As he got up, he noticed that some of the bricks in one side of the wall seemed to be closing back up.
"What the...?" he felt the place where the bricks had been open. He tapped them a few times; nothing happened. He continued to stare at the wall, trying to figure this out. Had he just imagined that? Was it the fall down the stairs? Guess he had to do this the hard way. Taking a deep breath, he went intangible and phased through the wall, coming out to a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight. A street sign at the end of one turn read "Diagon Alley."
"...Wow," that was all Danny could manage to say. This was the most amazing, fantastic place Danny had ever been before in his life. "Cauldrons – All Sizes – Copper, Bras, Pewter, Silver – Self-Stirring – Collapsible," read the sign on the nearest shop. The strangest and most interesting people were rushing around this setting, dressed in fantastic clothes. Some with younger children carried cauldrons filled with supplies; older children carried their own. These cauldrons held what looked like ordinary books, but also wands, robes, unusual gloves, and all sorts of other things. One shop had two redheaded boys standing outside, talking to a group of small children and showing off outrageous devices; it was a joke-shop.
Something in the back of his head told him it might be a good idea to go back into the tavern, or at least get Tucker and Sam. But he wanted to look around on his own first. He started down one turn, moving his head in every direction trying to take in everything around him. He was so preoccupied with this that he did not even notice the one man that should have stood out among the rest, an eight-foot man covered in shaggy black hair, and ran right into him.
"Sorry," the man said as he noticed Danny.
"It's alright," Danny replied, now realising how large this man was, "My fault."
"Not from aroun' here, are yeh?" he asked, noting Danny's lack of accent, "On holiday?" Danny nodded, "Well, enjoy yerself, then," he patted Danny on the shoulder and headed down another turn of the street.
Neither one of them, or anyone on the street, noticed that the cloaked figure who had led Jack to The Leaky Cauldron was watching Danny, having lowered his cloak enough so that, if one were looking, they would have barely seen his blue-tone skin, red eyes, and nasty grin. He turned around and phased through the brick passage back to the tavern exactly the way Danny had.