For punishment, James had been forced to surrender the five Galleons he had received from Grandma Potter to his mother, who had instructed that he use them to buy more ants for his farm. Also, Mr. Potter had told his son that he would not continue working on James's tree house until his mother had sold her first batch of Boils of Elf Removing Potion, or BERP. Disappointed, James and his father had immediately Floo-powdered to Diagon Alley, where James had wistfully heard the clinking of gold in his pockets and wished it had been going towards that new Venus 7000 broomstick in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, not towards ants.
Instead, they entered Magical Menagerie, the gold still jingling happily inside his pocket despite James's sour mood. They approached the counter, which was crowded with papers and something that looked slightly like a Muggle calculator and some empty cages and a large circular fish tank that held a large, sinister-looking creature. It peered at James with yellow eyes, and it claws scraped against the tank edges.
"Grindylow," Mr. Potter told James as they approached the counter. A bubbly sort of growling noise came from the Grindylow until the woman at the counter, who was conversing with a peaky sort of pale boy and his mother, smacked the tank very hard.
James and his father approached the counter, standing a ways away from the skinny pale boy, who was handed a package by the woman at the counter. The boy turned around and jumped a little, seeing James standing there. James smiled at the boy, who seemed about James's age, and the boy smiled back. James noticed something sparkling mischievously in the boy's eye that kind of reminded James of himself. He wondered what was in the boy's package.
The boy and his mother left the shop, and James and Mr. Potter walked to the counter. "What'll it be, boys?" asked the witch behind the counter cheerfully, with sort of a twangy accent.
Mr. Potter nudged James, who said darkly, "Ants," and slapped his five Galleons on the table.
The witch laughed. "I've a feeling you aren't too happy about purchasing these ants, m'boy," she said, scooping up the Galleons and leading James and his father across the shop, to where an entire wall was covered with clear boxes of ants, not unlike James's old ant farm.
"Not really," James said. The witch laughed, and then picked up a plastic bag and a scoop. "Which?" she asked James, who pointed to the purple ones at eye level near the fish tanks. She opened the box, and James expected the ants top crawl out, but they didn't.
"Are they dead?" James asked, and the witch shook her head.
"Just paralyzed," she said, and scooped a large amount of ants into the plastic bag. "Just hit them with the reverse spell and they'll wake right up." She handed him the plastic bag and pocketed the Galleons. "Have a nice day!"
As they walked out of the store and down past Quality Quidditch Supplies, James still couldn't help but staring at the new broom in the window. "We just got you a new broom for your birthday last year, son," Mr. Potter said, an arm around his son's shoulders.
"I know," James said, still wishing he had the Galleons to buy it. "I know."
They exited Diagon Alley through the Leaky Cauldron, and they stepped into the fireplace together, shouting "The Potter home!" in unison. As soon as they spun out the fireplace, their robes ashy, and fell onto the carpeted living-room floor, Mrs. Potter and Viggy both ran up, Mrs. Potter clutching a letter in her right hand.
"They bought some!" she cried, showing the letter to her husband. "I got a letter from Hogwarts! They bought everything I've made so far and two more batches! Have you got the ants?" she asked James, who handed them over. "Beautiful!" she cried. "Oh, can you believe it, James! And Dumbledore is paying such a lot for this stuff! He says there's a huge sweep of the elf boils at Hogwarts and they need all the medicine they can get! We're going to be rich, rich I say!" And this time James's mother did a little dance all the way out of the living room and into the kitchen.
Viggy stood there, smiling contentedly. "The Mistress is very happy today," he told James and his father.
"I see," said Mr. Potter, but James was only thinking of one thing: now that some of his mother's potion had been purchased, Mr. Potter was able to start working on the tree house again.