A/N: Finally have some time to write, work has been crazy this summer. Thanks to those who have been following and reviewing. Also thank you for your patience, I know this chapter has taken a while. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Castle. They belong to J.K. Rowling and ABC respectively.

Chapter 5:

The kids thanked Mr. Ollivander and left the shop. Rick's head was swimming with thoughts about the wand that had just "chosen him" (as they said). There was definitely some kind of connection between his and Kate's wand, all be it weird. But what really was normal anymore? Rick new that the adults expected him and Kate to become friends, but he wasn't so sure that he wanted to keep up a friendship with someone who barely bothered to acknowledge his existence. On the other hand she was starting to grow on him, much like an ugly wart that was impossible to remove. Rick, however had enough good sense to keep this last thought to himself.

They stop for ice cream at Florean Fortescue's. Rick thought it oddly mundane to find an ice cream parlor in a place like Diagon Alley but he wasn't about to complain. He loved ice cream no matter where it came from. He decided to order himself a flavor called Exploding Chocolate Snap. It had rich chocolate swirls and bits of chocolate that when bitten in to resembled the sensation of Pop Rocks snapping on one's tongue. Rick would later learn that flavor's name was a clever play on words that partnered with a wizarding game popular among Hogwarts students.

Through the rest of the afternoon Rick caught Kate staring at her wand from time to time. She seemed almost mesmerized by this slender piece on wood held between her fingers and he found himself wondering if maybe his lack of such keen interest was a bad thing. After walking around for a little bit longer they all headed back to the Leaky Cauldron for a hot meal.

Dinner was great and no sooner had they Rick finished his stew than he and Kate were being sent off to bed. Rick lead their way up the stairs to the room he and Kate were sharing and went to his trunk to grab his pajama bottoms while Kate slipped into the bathroom. After folding up his jeans and leaving his sneakers near the foot of his bed on the floor, he grabbed his book to do a little reading before bed. Shortly after he was settled in with the Sherlock Holmes adventure.

"Good book?" he heard Kate ask after she had come out of the bathroom and pulling back her covers and crawling into bed.

Slightly surprised, all he could do was look up and nod. Rick sunk farther into his bed, settling back into the story. He didn't even notice when Kate blew out the candle on her bedside table and he just barely heard a mumbled "night" from her side of the room.

Rick must have fallen asleep reading last night because his book lay beside him on the bed, open to a random page and the candle beside the bed must have burnt itself out during the early hours of the morning. He looked around trying shake the sleep from his eyes but as he looked up he saw a blurry shadow hovering over his head. As the shape came into focus he saw it was an owl and then he saw what the creature had in its beak. A mouse! It wasn't that the thing was mouse but that it was dead that bothered Rick and for reasons he can't explain he let out an obnoxiously embarrassing, ear piercing scream which woke Kate out of a dead sleep. Rick had, in a way, scared himself by screaming in such a way and was frozen in his current position. The feathery creature flapped its wings and hooted in annoyance at the sudden raucous. Kate came over to the bed and held an arm out to the owl, who graciously accepted it.

"Moring Rick!" She was setting the owl down on her trunk when Rick sat up, looking at her expectantly for an explanation.

"Er. What…who is that?" Rick asked.

Kate turned and smiled at him. "This is Bertie, spelled B-E-R-T-I-E." She explained, "I got her in New York and had to smuggle her into the country."

That's great. Just one more thing she 'neglected' to tell me about. Rick just rolled his eyes and flopped back into bed in an attempt to go back to sleep. He closed his eyes and pulled his blanket over his head, trying to block out the early morning sun. After a few minutes he was able to drift back to dream land but was pulled out for to quickly for his liking by his mother beckoning for him to "get his lazy butt out of bed".

Rick never really had a problem with getting up early he just liked to put on a front as if it annoyed the heck out of him. He also planned on playing up this point a bit by going down to breakfast in his pajamas and shooting Kate a death glare. After the events of earlier this morning he thought it seemed fitting to make her feel guilty. And that is precisely what he did when he went downstairs to eat. As he came down the stairs he noticed a young woman with bright pink hair sitting and talking to Johanna and Kate. Rick thought he heard her name mentioned, Nymphadora Tonks.

Rick sat down at the table with a slight thud when he landed in his chair next to Kate, throwing his head into his crossed arms on the table. He felt his mother's bright, chipper, early morning vibe reverberating off the walls as she made way down the stairs for breakfast. It seemed that Kate and Martha were riding the same wave of happiness this morning because Kate then said, "Morning!" to Rick in a tone that was challenging him to lose his cool, even if he was just pretending to be angry at her.

So he glared up at the brunette, grumbled nonsense words at her and slumped his head back down.

"Rick, that's not polite," He heard is mom scold him as she sat down next to him. "Please make sense next time you are talking." Rick looked up, giving his mother the same look he gave Kate but doing it in complete earnest.

After a moment, Rick brought his head back up and made an attempt at the food that had been placed in front of him with him barely noticing. He was picking at some scrambled eggs when he heard Kate talking to him.

"Today we're going to get books and potion ingredients! Aren't you excited?" At the mention of books his face turned in her direction. She had his complete attention and he had completely forgotten that he was pretending to be mad at her.

"Really?" he asked in awe. Before she could give her answer Tom had placed her breakfast down in front of her. After that they were both too immersed in their breakfast to talk. His mouth may have been full but his eyes were still capable of taking in everything around him and they noticed the strange paper that Mrs. Beckett had been reading. The Daily Prophet, from a distance looked like a normal paper but up close one could see that the pictures moved. Rick, being from the Muggle world, knew about movies and television, but had never seen the moving pictures in a newspaper and thought it was very strange. He stared at the Goblins milling around outside a bank vault at Gringotts and suddenly found himself saying out loud, "The pictures are moving!"

Kate turned to him with an amused expression and her mother replied, "Yes, Rick, they do move. All of the pictures in this world move, its part on the 'magic'," with a contented smile on her face. Rick didn't reply but just continued to stare at the picture and then finished eating his breakfast.

Once he and Kate were both done eating Rick ran upstairs quickly to change out of his Pj's and ran back down. The group (including Tonks) headed to the back of the pub and toward the portal that lead to Diagon Alley. Rick noticed that Kate had a look on her face that looked as if she was trying to hide something though he didn't possibly know what.

As they walked through Diagon Alley rick took notice of a few more things that he had passed by the day before, paying special attention to a shop window that held in the coolest looking broomstick Rick could possibly imagine. There was gold lettering on the handle that read "Nimbus 2000".

Ok, I'm not sure what that's for exactly but that does look pretty awesome.

He was brought out off from his daydreaming about flying by Tonks, who was talking to both him and Kate.

"So are you excited about Hogwarts?"

"Yea!" Kate said, "I've been waiting for my letter ever since I can remember."

Rick was not at all surprised by the question and answered with a giant smile, "Sure am. I never knew about this world, so the letter was a surprise, but I sure am excited now."

Just then they stopped in front of the book store. "Well this is where I leave you guys," said Tonks. "I have to go over to Gringotts, then I'm due at the Ministry." She explained with a pained expression on her face. She then gave both Johanna and Martha a hug and shook hands with Jim. Finally turning back to Rick and Kate she said, "Good luck at Hogwarts. Don't get into too much trouble." She smiled and winked, turning to go, walking off toward the bank.

The sign above the door of the shop read "Flourish and Blotts" and walking in Rick could see the store itself was huge. The place had two floors and more books than Castle had ever seen. He wandered away from the group finding a nook between the shelves in which to wedge himself. He scanned the rows of books until something caught his eye. "One Vampire, One Werewolf, and One Dead Guy" he brought it off the shelf and skimmed through the summary on the back. Wow an actual mystery novel in a wizarding book shop. Rick was pleasantly surprised. He opened to the first page and started in on it, sitting there for a few minutes, losing track of the time. The next time he looked back up his mother was holding a handful of books and was summoning him to come back to her.

"What? I just found a wizarding mystery book. Can't we wait?" Rick was slightly disappointed because he knew that the book would not be coming with him that day.

"Sorry Ricky," his mom said. "But we have a full day ahead of us. Next we're heading over to get potions ingredients and after lunch we're going to get school robes for you two."

Rick's face was downcast and he was disappointed but pushed to thought aside as they came upon another shop. This one had a large jar in the front window full of what looked like giant worms but on closer examination, Rick could see they were actually snakes. Cool. This place ought to be interesting. The inside had a dang musty smell to it put seemed well enough put together. The shelves that lined to walls on all sides held jars of all shapes and sizes that contained a great number of different things.

A man appeared out of the back room. He was hunched over, balding at the top of his head but lower down had long black hair that reached his elbows. He had a grubby appearance to him, at least that the way it looked by the state of his robes.

The man spoke with a dull monotone. "May I help you?" No one spoke at first then Rick was surprised to hear the voice of Mr. Beckett.

"Erm, yes. We need two beginner potions kits. These two youngsters are just starting their first years." His voice wavered slightly but seemed to be in control. Rick thought that perhaps talking to this strange man made Jim nervous.

The shopkeeper (whose name they never did find out) glanced down at the kids. "Ah, yes. New Hogwarts students." When he smiled suddenly at them rather toothlessly Rick was officially creeped out and hoped they wouldn't have to stay there too much longer. He lazily made his way toward a shelf and pulled down a pair of matching boxes then returned to the counter. The man was again staring at the kids but spoke ot the adults in the room when he quietly said, "Two Galleons, 5 sickles. Each." Finally he took his gaze off Rick and Kate.

"Right" Jim replied and pulled the money out of the pouch. Martha then stepped up to the counter and paid for Rick's potion kit as well.

"Thank you very much." The shop keeper said in further hushed tone. With not another word, the group left the store.

The five of them went to the Leaky for lunch, during which Johanna announced that they were ahead of schedule and would be able to go get robes that afternoon. Both Rick and Kate, as it turns out, hated shopping for clothes and they were both determined to not enjoy this experience.

When they reached the shop Rick spotted that the sign above the door said Madame Malkin's Robes for Occasions. As they five of them entered the shop none of them could help but notice that there was a group of red-headed children leaving being corralled by a rather loud, stout woman who appeared to be their mother. "Alrght, Weasleys," the woman said with the most authoritative voice Rick had ever heard, "You all know the drill, it's time to get a move on. I need to get home and get supper ready."

Rick soon forgot about the red- headed gaggle as they stood in a brightly lit room with more yards of fabric than he had ever seen, and his mother had once taken him backstage into the costume room of one of the shows she was performing in, talk about torture.

Just then there was a woman's voice coming from behind a working bench, she seemed to have popped up out of nowhere. "New Hogwarts students I suppose?" Madame Malkin smiled at them affectionately and continued with her greeting. "Hand-me downs or new?" she asked glancing at the adults, expectantly.

"New please," Martha answered for everyone, having talked it over before coming here. Ricked smiled just a little when heard a small groan come from Kate and She was soon shooed away by her mother and brought into the back room to be fitted. Rick was soon attended to by a shop hand that got him set up with a set of school uniforms which included robes, pants, shirts, sweaters, and a hat. The young man that was helping him, named Timothy, mentioned that he had been in Ravenclaw house while he was at Hogwarts and had been taken on as an apprentice by Madame Malkin because he had a knack for fashion and she thought he could be rather useful. So far Rick had to admit that Timothy was proving himself to be so.

Kate finally returned and Johanna looked back and forth between her daughter and Rick and said, "Ready?"

"Yep" Kate replied looking a bit irritated but content.

"Yeah, I'm done Mrs. Beckett." said Rick, happy to be leaving.

"Good let's get back to the Leaky Cauldron for dinner then."

The rest of the night turned out to be rather uneventful. After dinner Rick and Kate both headed up to bed, rick taking the time to read a bit before heading going to sleep. Reflecting on the day they had and wondering if he would see the Weasley family at Hogwarts perhaps. Any family with that many kids has to be fun. Rick did find it lonely at times being an only child. The thought made him think about the young girl in the next bed over and wonder if this is what it might be like to have sister.

A/N: Oh my gosh! Finally finished that chapter. Sorry it took me so long. Hoping the next chapter will be a bit more interesting. Thanks for being patient with me. As always reviews are appreciated but not required.