Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 3
The Dursleys did not come out of their room for the remainder of the night or the morning after. Much to their dismay the man called Hagrid slept through the night on the couch that Dudley had been sleeping on before his arrival. Considering his size, I was very surprised that the old piece of furniture could hold him up, but it managed to do its job in holding him up that night.
When I woke up the following morning, I was fairly surprised that what happened the night before wasn't a dream. It took me a moment to remember what happened, and I still could hardly believe what was going on. When Hagrid saw me looking up at him from my spot on the ground, he gave me a big smile.
"Would ya like some breakfast?" he asked me.
"I would, but I don't think we have any more food," I told him.
"Not a problem," he said as he pulled something out of one of the various pockets in his jackets.
After pulling out several small trinkets that I had trouble believing would fit into his pockets, he pulled out several small sausages that were wrapped in aluminum foil and stood up so he could walk toward the fireplace. He took his pink umbrella from his side, looked at me and then back at the fire, before inaudibly saying a word that caused fire to come out of the end of the umbrella and start a fire in the fireplace in front of him. Seeing my jaw drop, Hagrid smiled.
"Don't tell anyone about me using magic around here, would ya?" Hagrid said sheepishly.
"Uh...not a problem," I said.
Harry woke up just in time for the sausages to be cooked up and ready to eat. All three of us sat around the fire and happily ate a warm meal in the cold shack. Once we were done, Hagrid looked down at us and sighed.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Well, I suppose that ya ought ter know the truth about yer parents," Hagrid said.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Ya said last night that the Dursleys told ya that yer parents died in a car crash," Hagrid said. "But it's not true. A simple car crash couldn't kill yer parents. They were great wizards, James and Lily."
Harry and I looked at each other, but remained speechless. We gathered last night that there was a lot that the Dursleys did not tell us throughout our lives, but we could not have prepared ourselves for what really happened to our parents all those years ago. Since as far was we could remember, our aunt and uncle told the same story: they died in a car crash. They never spoke any more about it than that, and now that we figured out that they hid our magic from us, it was not that hard to believe that they lied to us about our parents as well.
"Yer parents didn't just die," Hagrid said. "They were murdered."
Our eyes grew wide and Harry's jaw dropped.
"Murdered?" I asked in horror. "By who?"
"They were killed by a great, dark wizard," Hagrid said uncomfortably. "His name...isn't really something that people like to say."
"What was it?" I asked.
"Er…" Hagrid said, his face showing obvious signs of discomfort as he searched for the courage to say it aloud.
"Would you rather write it down?" Harry suggested.
"No," he shook his head. "It...er...Voldemort - don't make me say it again. Just call him You-Know-Who."
We both nodded, but I know that I did not fully understand why saying this man's name upset Hagrid the way that it did. He was clearly an evil man, but I couldn't imagine why just saying his name made him so uncomfortable.
"He was the one who killed our parents?" my brother asked.
"Yes," Hagrid said. "And many others. He came ter yer parents house that night and killed them before turning on the two of ya. But fer some reason, somethin' went wrong."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"He tried ter kill you," Hagrid said. "But it didn't work. Somethin' happened that night with the two of ya that made it so the spell rebounded and hit him instead."
"W-what?" Harry asked. "So he's dead?"
"No one knows what really happened that night," Hagrid said. "Some say that he's dead, but I'm not so sure about it. He hasn't shown up anywhere since then, but I 'ave my suspicions. Either way, he left the two of ya without parents and with those scars all over ya."
After he said that, there was silence. I had so many questions to ask, but I didn't even know where to start. Why was Voldemort after us in the first place? It didn't make much sense that we were the ones that took him down if he was so powerful. What could we have done that made it so the spell that killed our parents went back on him instead? It was too much to take in at once.
Just when Harry went to say something, we all turned when we heard movement coming from the Dursleys' room. They were awake again, and after all that I discovered they kept from us all these years, I didn't want to see them again any time soon.
"Do you two want ter get out of here fer a bit?" Hagrid asked us with a smile.
"Where would we go?" Harry asked.
"Well, it seems that ya both need some supplies for school if ya wants some help with yer shopping," Hagrid suggested.
"That would be great," I said, but was a little discouraged. "But we don't have any money to pay for anything. Besides, where would you even get the stuff on this list - I've never seen any of it in a shop."
"We're gonna 'ave ter go ta London," Hagrid said. "I know just where ter take ya. And don't ya worry about money ter pay fer it - yer parents left ya plenty behind fer ya both."
Harry and I didn't need much more of an argument to get away from the Dursleys who were undoubtedly hiding away in the small room in the shack for Hagrid to leave them. We got in a small boat outside of the shack and took off at a magical speed that Hagrid suggested we not discuss with anyone else. For the time being, we were just thankful that we could have a moment away from our only family members as we went on into the unknown. Though seeing the look of horror on their faces one more time would have been amusing.
When we got to London, Hagrid took us to an unfamiliar place called The Leaky Cauldron. When we stepped in, there were various strange looking people sitting around the tables with clothes that I knew my uncle would be angry to see. We were only in there for a moment when the entire place went quiet when the door closed behind us. We stared back at everyone for a moment and I began to feel uncomfortable with the looks of fascination went across the faces of our onlookers. Once I looked down in attempt to ignore the sudden attention we were getting, frantic whispers began to go across the room.
"Let's get a move on," Hagrid said as he pushed us forward.
Getting through the Leaky Cauldron was not as easy as Hagrid would have expected. What he failed to tell us last night and this morning was that we were really well known throughout the wizarding community. Despite never meeting or seeing any of these people, just about every person knew us by name and rushed over to meet us as we were walking by.
"Harry and Emily Potter," a man in a large red cloak gasped as he took our hands to shake them. "I'm so honored to meet you both. Look at them, Jeb, it's the Potter twins!"
We smiled nervously as we passed by several other people who had the same greetings, and we did what we could to stay polite even though we were so uncomfortable with the amount of attention we were getting.
Just as we began to move toward the back of the building, we were stopped by a very strange, pale looking man in a turban who had a large, nervous smile on his face. While he seemed pleased to see us, something about the man made me feel very uneasy.
"H-Harry Potter," he stammered. "E-E-Emily Potter. It's s-s-s-so nice to meet you b-both."
Used to shaking so many people's hands in the building, we both held our hands out to shake his, but were surprised to see him back up with a look that said he didn't want to shake our hands at all. Instead, he just gave us another smile.
"Er...nice to meet you," Harry said.
"This is Professor Quirrell," Hagrid said. "He's going to be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."
"Oh, really?" I asked with fascination. "What are you going to teach us?"
"D-Defense Against the Dark A-Arts," Professor Quirrell told us.
It hadn't occurred to me until then that this school would not have ordinary classes. I figured that there would be classes teaching us about magic, but I didn't realize until then that I would never have to take another maths class again, much to my enjoyment.
"I l-look forward to seeing y-y-you both at H-Hogwarts," our professor said.
"Well, we better be off," Hagrid said politely. "Lots of shoppin' ter do."
Professor Quirrell nodded and Hagrid began to push us in the direction we were heading before we got stopped. Once we reached the back door, Hagrid pushed it open to reveal a giant brick wall in the back. When he closed the door behind us, we were left staring at it with seemingly nowhere else to go.
"Don't worry about Professor Quirrell," Hagrid said. "He gets nervous easily."
"No worries," I said. "Hagrid, why are we out here?"
"This is the way there," he said.
After he said that, he stepped forward with his umbrella in hand and began poking and prodding at the wall for a few moments. Harry and I looked at each other with a raised eyebrow in confusion as we stared at the large man doing another strange thing. That's when the wall began to rumble.
Both Harry and I stepped backwards as the wall in front of us began to break apart slowly as each brick began to turn on its spot and move around. This happened for a few moments before the wall turned into a brick archway that led to a busy looking street filled with people in strange robes like the ones in the Leaky Cauldron.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley," Hagrid said with a smile as he looked at our bewildered faces.
With Hagrid's encouragement, we walked forward and onto the strange street that just appeared. When I looked around the corner, my eyes couldn't seem to focus on one thing at once. There were so many things to see and I didn't even know where to look first. People were wearing loud colored robes and clutching onto large books, cauldrons, and animal cages as they excitedly moved through the shops on the street. Owls flew overhead holding onto small pieces of paper while small children chased after them and failed to catch up. Broomsticks could be seen all around in cases as children of all ages hustled around them and looked at them with the same fascination that we did.
As we passed by each shop, my desire to go through everything grew, but Hagrid insisted that we had to go by some place called Gringotts first so that we could get the money that we needed to pay for our school supplies. As we made our way to this wizard bank, time ceased to exist as I took in every inch of Diagon Alley with an amazement that I had never felt in my life. I wanted to see everything.
"Here we are," Hagrid said as he pointed ahead. "There's Gringotts."
"Can't we just look around, Hagrid?" I asked as my eyes stuck to everything around.
"We'll get ter that," Hagrid laughed. "Don't be impatient. We just need ter get some money first so ya can get yer stuff."
When we stepped into Gringotts, my fascination with this street did not stop. The bank was no ordinary bank, as I was expecting, but filled with small creatures in fancy gowns that eyed money at their desks and muttered inaudible words to one another. One of them caught me staring at him too long and gave me a nasty look that made me look back to Hagrid.
"They're goblins," Hagrid explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "They're the best ones ter run the bank - ya'd be crazy ter try 'n rob 'em."
"Goblins?" Harry whispered to me.
"I thought those were just storybook characters," I whispered back.
Before we knew it, we were standing at a desk in front of a goblin who asked us what we wanted. Apparently his name was Griphook and he was going to be helping us get our parents' money.
"I'm here ter get to the Potters' vault," Hagrid announced to the goblin named Griphook. "I also have a letter here from Dumbledore about that...er...thing...in vault 713…."
Harry and I gave each other a look, but didn't say anything as the goblin and Hagrid exchanged the letter without any other word about it. Once Hagrid dug the key to our vault out of his pocket and handed it to Griphook, the goblin hopped down from his seat at the desk and led us toward a cart that sat on rails. He instructed us to get inside of it, but I thought it would be too small to fit all of us and Hagrid, but it didn't make any difference to Griphook who impatiently waited for us to all get in.
"Sorry," Hagrid said as he squeezed into the cart and made every one of us uncomfortable with the lack of room we had in the cart.
"Hold on," Griphook said.
I didn't understand what he meant until the cart suddenly jerked forward and we plunged into the great abyss. I screamed as we suddenly dropped down and made two hard turns and came to a sudden stop. Mortified, I looked around and saw that we stopped in front of a large vault with the number 713 in the middle of it. Griphook hopped out of the cart, obviously unaffected by the cart ride that took me so much by surprise, and hobbled over to the vault.
"What are we doing here?" I asked Hagrid.
"It's Hogwarts business," Hagrid said sounding official. "Secret business for Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore?" Harry asked.
"The Headmaster of Hogwarts," Hagrid said, almost sounding offended that we didn't remember his name. "Great man and a great wizard. You'll meet him once you head off to school."
Griphook opened up the vault with a wave of his small hand, and he pulled the one small package from the large, and now empty, vault. After handing it over to Hagrid with the greatest care, he hopped back into the cart. For a brief moment, there was silence. Then the cart lurched forward again, but I was more prepared for it this time. I held onto the sides of the cart for dear life and found that the force of the speed sent me crushing back into Hagrid. We were too tightly packed into the cart that I was now certain we couldn't fall out. Just when I thought that I was going to be sick, we came to another sudden stop in front of another vault that I assumed belonged to our parents.
"Come now," Griphook demanded.
Harry and I got out of the cart with ease and were followed by Hagrid who took a moment longer to get his large body out of the cart that clearly was not made for a person of his size to easily use. We followed behind Griphook who used a key to turn into the door in front of us to unlock the door to the money that our parents left behind for us. When it opened, my jaw dropped when I saw a large pile of gold in front of us.
…
When we got back out into the street with our money and school list in hand, Harry and I practically ran into the shops so we could get a look at everything as quickly as possible.
"Where can we go first?" I asked excitedly.
"Well," Hagrid said as he looked at the list and around at the shops. "I suppose we could go in here and get yer robes for glass."
"Our robes?" I asked. "Do we have to wear uniforms?"
"Ya do," Hagrid said. "And no one makes 'em better than Madam Malkins!"
We stepped toward Madam Malkins's robe shop, but Hagrid left us to do this part alone as he went to go calm his stomach after the sickening cart ride in Gringotts. While Harry went in to check when we could get our robes measured, I went along into a nearby shop called Flourish and Blotts that held several bookcases on topics that I had never heard of. The entirety of the store was packed with young people searching for their school books, and I felt that I should probably do the same while I waited for Harry to get back to me. I pulled out my list of books and read through them when someone ran directly into me and nearly knocked me over. She grabbed my arm and I looked up to see a girl with the largest hair I'd ever seen who dropped a few books on the floor.
"I'm so sorry," the girl said as she bent over to pick up the books she dropped on the floor.
"It's fine," I said back. "I wasn't paying attention."
"Are you a first year too?" she asked excitedly as she got a good look at me.
"What?" I asked as I picked up one of her books from the floor.
"You're just starting off at Hogwarts?" she rephrased.
"Oh, right, yeah," I responded.
The girl stood up straight and stuck her hand out for me to shake it with a large, toothy grin.
"I'm Hermione Granger," she stated. "It's nice to meet you."
"Oh, I'm Emily," I smiled as she aggressively shook my hand. "Nice to meet you too."
"So what house do you think you'll get sorted into?" Hermione asked.
"House?" I asked.
She started to answer my question when two confused looking adults walked up behind her. Looking relieved to have found her, I assumed that these were Hermione's parents who were accompanying her for her shopping in Diagon Alley.
"Hermione, there you are," the father said. "We got lost."
"Are you making friends?" the mother beamed as she looked at me.
"This is Emily, she's new to Hogwarts too," Hermione said as she pointed toward me. "Emily, these are my parents."
"Oh, then perhaps you could help us figure out where to get the wands," the father said. "We're having a little trouble with the map."
They all looked at me expectantly like I knew all of the answers, but I was at a complete loss. To be honest, they were more likely to know the answer than I would at this point.
"Er...I'm not really sure," I said. "I've never been here before."
"Are your parents with you?" the mother asked. "Perhaps they might know the area a little better."
"I'm not here with my parents," I admitted. "I didn't even know about this place until today."
"Oh!" Hermione said with delight. "She must be like us - are your parents non-magical too?"
"No, they were," I replied, "but I never knew them. I was raised by Muggles though."
Hermione and her parents' faces went red when they realized that they were being too pressing with questions about my parents who they now knew were dead. They apologized frantically, and I assured them that it was nothing to worry about. Afterwards, Hermione and her parents helped me find my books in the shop and I paid for both mine and Harry's and parted ways with her family.
"I'll see you at Hogwarts!" Hermione waved as she walked away.
I waved back and walked back toward the robe shop where I found Harry finishing up with his robe fitting just in time for me to start mine. Once we were done, we walked along Diagon Alley looking for Hagrid.
"Some girl I met in the book shop asked me what house I think I'll get in when we get to Hogwarts," I told Harry. "What do you think she means?"
"No idea," Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Some boy I talked to asked me if I was interested in something called Quidditch…"
"I guess there's a lot more that Hagrid hasn't told us about yet," I said.
Just as spoke, we saw Hagrid walking out of a shop called Eelops Owl Emporium with two cages in his hands that had an owl in each of them. In his left hand, there was snowy-white owl with black spots while the other one was black with small streaks of white going throughout. When he caught our eyes, he gave us a big smile and moved toward us.
"Happy birthday!" he said as he pushed the owls toward us. "Just thought I'd get ya both an owl for yer birthday - they're real great."
The white owl was given to Harry and the black one was given to me, and we were both at a loss for words. The Dursleys never gave us anything decent for our birthday all our lives, and this was the first gift that we got from someone that actually meant something to us.
"They're beautiful," I said. "Thank you, Hagrid."
"Just make sure ya use 'em to send me some letters every now and then," Hagrid shrugged. "Now let's get the rest of the stuff of yer list."
We spent the next couple of hours walking through the different shops, even the ones we didn't need to, so we could get the full experience of Diagon Alley with the other Hogwarts students that ran in and out of the shops getting their own supplies. The last thing that we got on our list had to be the thing that I was most looking forward to: the wand. To get these wands, we went to Ollivander's Wand Shop which was surprisingly without any customers at the moment. When we stepped through the doors, a bell rang and an old man came out from behind a stack of boxes with a smile of greeting on his face. He looked at us for a moment before saying anything.
"Well, hello, Harry and Emily Potter," he said.
Harry and I looked at each other and back at him. Something about the way he recognized us was different than the greetings we'd been given the day so far. It's almost as if he expected to see us or was waiting for us for some time.
"I suppose the time has come around for the two of you to get your wands, hasn't it?" Ollivander said. "Doesn't seem like it's been that long since your parents came through here to get their wands, but I suppose it's about that time now. Let's see what I can do for the two of you…"
Ollivander disappeared behind one of the many stacks of boxes behind his desk. For a moment, he passed completely out of sight until he reappeared with two boxes that he handed to us both. We opened them up, took them in our hands and then just looked at him.
"Is that it?" I asked.
"Well, give it a wave," Ollivander suggested.
I shrugged my shoulders and waved it in the air, but nearly threw it when something shot out of the end of it that flew into a nearby light bulb and shattered it.
"I'm sorry!" I said. "I didn't know -"
"Not the first time that's happened, dear," Ollivander chuckled. "Mr. Potter, care to give yours a try."
Harry hesitantly waved his wand in the air and several boxes behind Ollivander flew across the room and Ollivander had to duck to avoid getting hit in the head.
"Seems not," he said and took both of wands back.
He placed the wands we just used into another stack and disappeared into the piles of wands behind his desk again. We tried two different wands each before Ollivander came forward with two separate wands and a curious look in his eyes as he looked from the wands to us. He set them down on the desk with care and seemed as though he had a lot going on in his mind.
"Let's see about these…" he murmured.
We both took the wands and waved them in the air at the same time. Rather than having something explode or go flying in the air, sparks pleasantly flew from each one of them and surprised us all.
"Curious….very curious indeed..." Ollivander murmured to himself as he stared at us.
"What is it?" I asked.
Ollivander hesitated for a moment and said,
"It's very curious that these are the wands that chose you, because they both share the same core as another owner," he said. "Each of your wands has a Phoenix feather core, and this particular Phoenix only have three feathers away. Two are in the wands that you're holding now, but the other one...the other one belongs to the man who gave you those scars…"
Thank you for reading!