Harry Potter: The Alchemists' Quest

by The Ferryman

The cards have been redealt but the game is the same, and the only thing on the line is the future of the world. A Shade stalks the corridors of learning, shadows gather on the horizon. A prelude to approaching war. Hufflepuff Harry, Year 1, post-Downfall

4. Chapter 4: Once and Future

Chapter 4: Once and Future

"…generally the hero of a journey story is very young."
David Guterson

The day of Harry's birthday dawned bright and clear, and for the first time since he had arrived he managed to beat the twins downstairs for breakfast.

The last three months had been the most exciting in his life. Everywhere in the house that he looked there was some piece of magic at work. Dishes that washed themselves and pictures that moved were just the beginning. There was a laundry basket that would sort clothes and load them in the washer, and an ironing board that not only ironed, but folded and sorted as well, and a pair of enchanted little garden gnomes—though not real garden gnomes Parvati insisted—that patrolled the garden and chased rabbits away from the growing carrots. Padma told him that there were some homes where everything was enchanted in some way or another to the point where electronics didn't work anywhere near them, but Harry found it hard to imagine if for no other reason than what would they use for lights? The Patils, and Allie for that matter, preferred a mixed household, using magic where magic was superior (and sometimes not even then) and mundane where magic was not.

Allie had no qualms about admitting that in her case it was due to her magic nullification wards requiring non-magical solutions if she didn't want to have to bathe in cold water. But for the Patils it was largely because Mr. Patil was only second generation magical (Anjuli came from a very long line of Indian witches) and firmly stated that the wizarding wireless couldn't be compared to the quality of mundane programming.

Easily Harry's favorite room in the house was the library. A two-story affair with bookcase-lined walls, a wooden floor, and a large fireplace that always had a log burning (though charmed not to give off heat in the warm summer). There were large red leather armchairs with brass tacks, an old-fashioned desk with a built-in inkwell, and a brass ladder that ran along the shelves so that you could reach the hard-to-reach books and, if you asked politely, would zoom around the room until you became dizzy and had to jump off. It was also Padma's favorite room and while Harry read about the magical world she would often curl up in another chair with a dusty old spellbook or a muggle fantasy novel—her opinion, which Harry quickly came to share, was that since the muggles didn't know what they were talking about they were free to be much more creative than mere reality would otherwise allow. Parvati—whose tastes ran towards old stories about Merlin and other magical heroes—tended to take her current book of choice to one of the upper limbs of a mammoth old oak tree in the back yard.

Reading wasn't the twins' only shared interest, but, like most of their interests, Harry quickly discovered that they tended to go about them very differently. Shortly after Allie left they had endeavored to teach him wizard chess which, as far as Harry could tell, was just like muggle chess only the pieces moved, talked back at you, and bashed each other into pieces but would quickly pull themselves back together in time for the next game. Padma played a dizzying game of maneuver that would leave him confused about just what was the real attack, while Parvati's strategy usually came down to 'I attack it with my horsies'. He was privately certain that this wasn't actually the way the game was meant to be played, but it proved effective enough against Padma's often baffling strategies.

They also, he learned almost as quickly, both had an extensive list of cosmetic spells they were waiting to practice with (and their mother had apparently given up trying to talk them out of if dinner conversations were anything to go by); but where Padma's contained mostly glamours and complex illusions, Parvati seemed to have a near-endless supply of simpler (and more specific) charms. And, much to Harry's dismay, neither of them had tried to disguise their interest in the young wizard who had come to live with him.

It had taken Padma only a few days of asking occasional questions to ferret out his home life (unpleasant), what he knew of the magical world (very little), and what he knew about Allie (not much more). But where Padma had asked, Parvati had spent almost a solid week watching him. To Harry it was uncomfortably similar to what Dudley and his friends had done while 'Harry Hunting', but aside from watching him she never actually did anything and after a while he learned to ignore it. When they had friends over, however, both would often spends hours huddled together giggling which never failed to produce a feeling of impending doom.

If Harry had expected to be left alone to sit in the library and read he'd been sorely mistaken. While it was true that he hadn't had to attend his mundane primary school anymore he quickly found himself being tutored in a number of subjects. From the twins there was Parvati's endless exposé on what robes were in fashion and Padma's recital of great wizarding events of the past century. When he managed to get away from them Mrs. Patil had insisted that she teach him the rudiments of Latin—which formed the backbone of the incantations for most of the more common spells—and Mr. Patil would often engage him in the evening by telling him about the magical world.

Finally, the breakfast dishes had cleared themselves away and Harry and the Patils had lined up to use the floo when Allie came through the fireplace. She was still pale—even Harry had darkened somewhat—and her denim jacket had been replaced with a long robe-like duster similar to the one Mr. Sullivan had worn, though her t-shirt still promoted a muggle band, but otherwise she looked the same.

"Allie, you made it!" Harry said.

"Told you I would, didn't I?" she asked.

"Well, yes but—"

"But you didn't believe me," Allie said.

Harry looked away. "Sorry."

"You know what, Harry? I'm too happy today to be brought down by you," she said with a teasing smirk. "I'm going to Hogwarts, I'm getting my first wand, and later today there's going to be cake. You can stay here and mope through your birthday if you want, the rest of us will eat the cake for you."

"No you won't!" Harry said.

"What are you waiting for then?" she asked as the twins darted past and made for the fireplace. Their father stopped them with a smile and motioned for Harry.

Harry waited for Ms. Patil to go through first and then grabbed a handful of floo powder from the small pot and tossed it in the fire. "Diagon Alley!"

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Harry fell out of the fireplace into a pub that looked as though it had seen better days. He revised his initial impression as he struggled back to his feet and dusted black soot from the 'Potter'-green robes that he had bought the day after he'd come to live with the Patils. Merely saying that the pub had seen better days was giving it far too much credit. Three steps past being condemned would be much more accurate, he decided. There was a trio of old women sipping sherry from tiny glasses that looked like they hadn't been cleaned in at least a decade, a man in a corner smoking from a pipe that was far too long and issued pea green fumes, and the bartender bore a distinct similarity to a walnut.

The fire flared green behind him and Harry stepped out of the way of the red and blue streaks of, respectively, Parvati and Padma. Both, despite the very obvious momentum that they carried through the fireplace with them, somehow managed to stay on their feet. Mr. Patil followed a moment later at a much more sedate speed.

"Are we all here then?" he asked glancing around after managing to corral both of the twins.

"Allie's not," Harry said just as the door of the pub opened.

A silver bell, unconnected to the door, tinkled a merry little tune as Allie walked into the pub followed by Mrs. Patil.

"Chirag," the bartender said, reaching for a glass. "Can I get you your usual?"

"Not today, Tom," Mr. Patil said. "We're just passing through, have a little shopping to take care of."

"Of course, of course," Tom said. "Hogwarts. It's that time again." He paused and peered at Allie and frowned slightly, "I didn't know you had an older daughter…"

"Friend of the family," Allie said.

Tom nodded and his gaze slide over to Harry, and fumbled the glass he was vainly trying to polish clean. "Sweet and Merciful Merlin," he said, leaning down over the bar as he peered at Harry. "Is this—can this be—?"

The bar went deathly silent.

"Why bless my soul, it is," the bartender said. "Harry Potter…what an honor."

He fumbled and a glass, an actually clean glass, almost fell to the floor before he recovered it. "Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back," he said, seizing Harry's hands with his and pumping furiously over the bar while somehow managing to maintain control of the glass. "Let me get you something, on the house of course."

"We really can't," Mr. Patil began.

But it was too late. Harry never did get the drink Tom offered, but he was inundated by everyone else in the pub. A small man in a purple top hat that he vaguely remembered from one time that Aunt Petunia took him shopping, a rather large woman in yellow robes who kept coming back for a second handshake.

A young man with skin so pale it had a blue cast from the blood vessels beneath it stepped forward.

"Ah, Professor Quirrell," Mr. Patil said. "Harry, girls, Professor Quirrell will be one of your professors."

"M-Mister P-P-Potter," Quirrell said, taking Harry's hand in a death grip. "I c-can't say how p-p-pleased I am t-to m-meet you."

"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor?" Harry asked.

"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," Quirrel shivered slightly, as though thinking of it was something he would very rather not do. "N-not that you need it m-much, eh, P-P-Potter?" He laughed nervously, his eyes flicking around and fixing on Allie.

Allie stared back at him, not at all amused, and her head cocked to one side in thought. "Fascinating," she murmured softly.

Quirrell jerked his eyes away from her, "G-getting all of y-your e-e-equipment, then?" he asked. "I-I've g-got to pick up a new b-book on v-v-va vampires—" he expelled the word in a rush, "—myself." He looked terrified at the thought.

Harry saw Allie smile, and heard her ask: "Professor, might I get your opinion about…"

But the others wouldn't let Quirrell monopolize his time, Professor or not, and exactly what Allie was asking for an opinion on was lost in a crowd that eventually took her, all four of the Patils, and almost ten minutes to finally break him free of.

"What was that?" Harry asked as they walked out the backdoor of the pub.

"Your adoring public," Allie said with a sneer directed back towards the closed door. She shook her head, "I did tell you that you were famous, didn't I?"

"Well, yes, but…" he looked back at the door. "Is everyone going to be like that?"

"Probably," Allie said with a shrug. "Most of them at any rate."

"Wonderful," Harry muttered as the twins giggled. He looked around the alley that Mr. Patil had led them into. It was so old that it used actual paving stones instead of the asphalt that he expected of roads. The stones were badly worn, and weeds poked up, giving each stone its own frayed boarder of green. A pair of battered trashcans sat against the far wall of brick that was as ancient as the paving stones.

"Is Professor, uh, Quirrell always so nervous?" Harry asked as they walked down the alley.

"Yes, poor man," Mr. Patil said. "I was on the Board—"

"The Board?" Harry asked, then flushed as he realized he had interrupted.

"The Board of Governors of Hogwarts," Mr. Patil said. "Eight of the positions are hereditary, held by various families. The other four posts serve seven years and are elected by members of the alumni organization. I actually left the Board not two weeks ago.

"Professor Quirrell was an outstanding teacher, when he stuck to books." His thoughtful expression changed into a slight, worried frown, "he went on sabbatical the year before last to pick up some first-hand experience. They say he got in trouble with a vampire, and then there was that business with a hag…he hasn't been the same since. He's scared of his subject, scared of his students," Mr. Patil shook his head, "he spent a year holding the Muggle Studies post while Professor Burbage did some fieldwork."

"Muggle Studies?" Harry asked. He didn't recall seeing any textbooks that looked like they would be useful in such a class.

"It's an elective, one of several you can start taking in your third year," Mr. Patil said. He looked back at the pub and frowned, "It was hoped that the time in the normally sedate posting would help him, but if anything he looks more nervous than he did at the start of last year. I'm afraid the Curse strikes again. I do hope that Dumbledore manages to find someone competent next year."

"The Curse?" Harry asked, but Mr. Patil was deep in thought and did not reply so Harry turned to Allie.

"Why didn't you use the floo?" Harry asked Allie as Mr. Patil headed down the alley to the far wall.

"The Leaky Cauldron floo hates me," Allie said. "Mrs. Patil side-along apparated me to the Leaky Cauldron." She grimaced.

"It hates you?" Harry repeated.

"It does, it really does," Padma said.

Her sister nodded in agreement, "There was one time when Mum asked her to help carry potion ingredients home and—"

"—and we agreed that incident was never to be spoken of," Allie cut Parvati off. "We all remember what happened last time it was spoken of, don't we?"

Parvati turned pale and suddenly became very interested in the cobblestones.

"Never been through the Leaky Cauldron entrance?" Allie asked Harry.

Harry shook his head as Mr. Patil walked up to the wall and pulled out his wand. "Last time we side-along apparated." He frowned, "That was really…weird."

"That's one word for it, I suppose."

"Three up," Mr. Patil said out loud as he tapped the bricks with the wand, "And two over." He tapped the wall three times with his wand.

For a moment nothing happened. The first brick folded back, then two more, then bricks were folding and sliding too quickly to keep track of. In moments the wall had transformed into a magnificent archway that soared overhead, and led out into a twisting, bending, cobblestone alley.

"Welcome, to Diagon Alley," Mr. Patil said as Allie reached back and flicked the hood of her coat up over her head.

Harry had only been in Diagon Alley briefly to draw some money and purchase a few robes. Even then most of his shopping had been in the mundane part of London. His recollection was of a few shops crammed together and a narrow space filled with people.

This entrance was perched slightly above the main level of the alley so that you could see down it despite its crookedness until the turn after a large white building he had completely missed seeing on his last trip to the alley. Everywhere Harry looked there were shops, carts where there wasn't room for shops, and throngs of people winding through wherever there wasn't a shop or room for a cart. There was a cauldron shop with cauldrons in scores of sizes and shapes and dozens of different metals, all for a hundred different purposes or more. A shop on the left featured a large eye painted in glowing pink paint on frosted glass, and several large stacks of boxes marked Crystal Balls in 10-, 12-, 14-, and 16-pound weights were out front with a cat perched lazily on top of the tallest stack.

A woman walked out of an apothecary right in front of them, muttering, "Dragon's liver, a galleon an ounce, they're mad…"

There was soft hooting coming from a low, dark building. Boys were clustered around a shop selling brooms. Everywhere Harry looked there were piles of books and scrolls, stacked barrels of newt eyes and bat wool, robes hung in the window of one shop, and piles of trunks were in the one next to it.

Mr. Patil hurried them up the street to a building, taller and straighter than the others, and made of white stone that gleamed in the morning sunlight. A short creature—a full head shorter than Harry—dressed in a scarlet and gold uniform with a dark, swarthy face, and a long, twisting beard, pulled open a burnished bronze door.

Harry nodded politely to the goblin, noting fingers and toes that were much too long. The creature smiled, revealing rows of sharp teeth, and bowed back to Harry. Harry glanced at Allie who had also nodded, though a short, curt, nod, at the creature.

"Goblins," she muttered admiringly as they were confronted with a second set of doors.

Harry looked up. They were broad and high, though smaller than the enormous outer doors, and made of silver. A short poem was burned into the metal, and seemed to be a warning against theft.

"You'd have to be pretty stupid to try and rob this place," Allie said.

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Goblins," she repeated. "And magic," she nodded at the doors as they were pulled open by two more goblins. "That's a kind of ward: a contract too, for that matter. You read it, you give it power. It forms a magical contact of sorts between you and the goblins. Lots of wizards and witches use this place; every time they come in they read it, most of them. Each time it grows a little stronger. After a couple of hundred years…"

She shrugged. "Not only is it a warding and a contract, but the thing also invokes Guest Laws by welcoming you as a stranger and it lays out a specific condition of guest-rights."

Her voice trailed off as Harry turned his attention to Gringotts. They were in a large marble hall. Marble columns held up the ceiling far above him. A long, high counter made of expensive woods formed a long U-shape down the length of the room behind which sat goblins; goblins counting gleaming metal coins, goblins writing in large, thick books, goblins measuring bars of metal on brass scales, or peering through eye-pieces at glittering gems.

Mr. Patil led them to a free goblin at the counter.

"Yes?" the goblin asked in a low voice with a slight sibilant accent.

"We're here to make some withdrawals," Mr. Patil said. "The Patil Vault, Harry Potter's Vault, and—"

"Allison Boxthorn's vault," Allie interjected.

Harry looked at her, "Out of curiosity, how many names do you have?"

"Not here," she said, nodding to the wizards and witches around them.

Harry nodded warily.

"Do you have your keys, Sir? Ma'am?"

Mr. Patil produced two small bronze keys. "Dumbledore fire-called early this morning to give me yours, Harry," he said, turning to Harry.

Allie produced a similar key and handed it to the goblin.

The goblin peered closely at the keys Mr. Patil had given him, then nodded and handed them back, "Very well, these are in order." He picked up Allie's key and peered at it, then he peered at Allie for a moment and frowned slightly. He stroked the key, almost petting it, with a solitary finger. He finally nodded, "Very well, Ms. Boxthorn." He turned back to Mr. Patil. "I will have a goblin take you down," he paused. "The carts only hold four."

"Harry can come down with me," Allie said.

Mr. Patil nodded.

"Dropcleft, Griphook, take these people down to their vaults," the goblin said as two more goblins appeared at their elbows.

"This way," one said, leading them to a door.

Harry wasn't sure what he expected to see, but the narrow stone corridor wasn't it. It sloped downward, lit by torches in iron brackets on the walls. The air became damp, and then the passage widened as it came to a stop. There were dark holes in the walls to the left and right, and what seemed to be a set of narrow railway tracks connected the two. One of the goblins—Griphook, he thought—whistled and a pair of carts came zooming out of the right-hand passage.

Allie led him to the one in back.

"Keep your arms, legs, and any other body parts you wish to remain attached, inside the cart," Griphook said.

"What does he mean, 'attached'?" Harry asked. Since he had wanted some money changed the last time the entire transaction had been completed at one of the counters and he hadn't needed to go down to the vaults.

"Just what it sounds like," Allie said. "I suggest you hang on," she added, grabbing a bar on the back of the front seats.

Harry was about to ask her why, when his questioned was answered. Both carts hurtled into the tunnel so quickly that Harry was slammed back into his seat. They started a sharp left turn that was as much down as it was left, and only Allie sitting next to Harry kept him from pitching out. Then they were hurtling straight again, more tracks branching off of theirs as the two carts hurtled along. Left, right, right left, left, middle path, too quickly for Harry to keep track and the Patil's cart in front zoomed up as the track climbed and it shifted in time for their cart to go plummeting down instead. They passed over an underground lake that glowed faintly blue, its surface as smooth as glass.

The cart slammed to a halt in front of a small alcove in the passage wall. Inside the alcove was a metal door with a single keyhole in the center. Griphook hopped out of the cart and walked over to the vault door. "Your key, sir," he said to Harry.

Harry climbed out of the cart, followed by Allie. He pulled his new key out of his robes and handed it to the goblin.

Griphook took it and placed it in the lock, then twisted it once to the right and the vault door popped out into the alcove and inch or two. For a moment nothing happened, then with a hissing sound venomous green smoke poured from the edges of the vault. Griphook stepped back, "A quarter turn to the left, if you please, Mr. Potter."

Harry walked up to the door and pulled on the key, it was stuck fast.

"A quarter turn to the left," the goblin repeated testily.

Harry turned the key and the door sank back into its former position. Then, with a grinding sound, it rolled out of sight to the left. For a moment the vault was concealed in darkness. Then a gentle glow illuminated the room. He didn't know how much the mounds of gold and silver coins were worth, but he didn't need to. There were so many of them that he knew that whatever their value he was rich.

"The silver ones are Sickles, seventeen of them make a Galleon, those are the gold ones," Allie said. "The bronze ones are Knuts, twenty-nine of them to a Sickle. It's easy enough, once you memorize it."

"Can we talk now?" Harry asked.

"Sure," Allie said, producing a bag for him.

"So what's your real name?" Harry asked when she didn't say anything more. He bent and scooped some money into the bag. "Alice Hawthorn or Allison Boxthorn?"

"If you mean, which is the name I was born with, then neither," Allie said. "I used Hawthorne growing up since my mother was the Thorne heir. Technically, I mean according to the House of Thorne's Charter, I could use it because I've been the heir since her death, but Granny-dearest and I really do not get along and only stupid people deliberately antagonize the Mistress of Thornes.

"I use Rune Thornberry for my business dealings, since it isn't one of the names the Thorne cadet branches use and I'd just as soon not have people link my job and talents to me and my family. I used Andrea Brickle in the mundane world until, well, let's just say that the mundanes think she's dead. The goblins could care less about what name you want to use—in fact you don't even need to give them a name if you don't want to—but I found it easier to just use one vault thus Allison Boxthorn. But since Hogwarts was one of the things I can actually tap my trust funds for I can use the old Hawthorn family vault…" she shrugged.

"And that's legal?" Harry asked, then added as he lifted the bag, "Do you think this is enough?"

Allie shrugged, "It's a gray area. The goblins, as I said, don't care. I'm sure the muggles have some law against it if they knew. The wizarding world for the most part couldn't care less." She glanced at the bulging money bag. "Yeah, I'd say that'll last you a while."

"So what are you going to use at Hogwarts?" Harry asked as they went back to the cart.

"Something Blackthorn, I think," Allie said. "'Allie' is a diminutive of my real first name which is just as well, and Dumbledore knows me as Blackthorn."

"Then why did you use Hawthorne?"

"I panicked," she said tightly. "How old a family is and how long it's been magical are…important in some circles. It used to be that the Thorne's were regarded with a considerable amount of respect…and fear. When I found out he was coming I blanked so I threw out the most impressive legal identity I have and in doing so told him that I was the next Lady of Thornes, though I'd be surprised if he didn't know that already."

She shook her head. "Anyway, I need to come up with yet another first name it seems."

"Alice?" Harry suggested as they headed back to the cart.

Allie made a face. "I never really cared for that name, and as I said, I like to keep my identities separate. What would you think of Alexandria?"

"Isn't that a city?" Harry asked.

Allie shrugged as she climbed in.

"What about Allison?" he asked as he joined her, "I like that one."

Allie shook her head. "Elissa was fairly commonly among the Blackthorns back when they were a distinct family, if I remember correctly. What do you think?"

How was he supposed to respond to that, Harry wondered. "It sounds nice enough," he said with an awkward shrug.

"Okay, I'll probably use that then," she said as Griphook entered the cart again, and once more it took off down the tracks.

"What about the Potters?" Harry asked over the rushing of the wind.

"What do you want to know?" Allie asked.

"Um, history, I guess."

"Old family, ten, eleven hundred years old," she said. "I'm not sure if they actually pre-date the Norman invasion but that's around the time they really started to grow into prominence. Historically they weren't so much against dark magic as they were against the irresponsible use of magic, a distinction that is lost on most people today and a policy that shifted in the last couple centuries. They are very prominent in light circles. They tend to produce powerful wizards and witches, not Merlin-powerful, but definitely in the upper half. They are known for their fair-play and honesty, but tended to support a traditional line."

"Wow, all that?" Harry asked.

Allie shrugged. "I know something about most of the really old wizarding families. It was more or less expected of me. But it's not something I'm expert in. There are some families where being able to recite your entire lineage—and all of their major accomplishments—is practically mandatory, along with memorizing the highlights of all the other old families."

"What?" Harry asked as she fell silent.

"My father's family was one of them, the lineage-obsessed families, I mean. I never got the whole story but I know that they were prominent supporters of dark magic, and they liked Voldemort's anti-mundane and mundane-born stance."

"And he was captured and thrown in prison," Harry said.

"That came later," she said. "Personally I don't think he got half of what he deserved, but then, I'm biased."

"Why?" Harry asked. "I mean, if he's your father."

Allie looked at him for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity. "Harry…sometimes family can be the most wonderful thing…and other times it can be a person's living hell. The man had no concept of responsibility, he broke his oaths more than once, he killed a lot of people, and in the end he was stupid enough to do it front of witnesses that couldn't be killed or memory-wiped or bought off. He more than deserved his life-sentence in Azkaban, but maybe I could have forgiven him all of that. But along the way he broke my mother's heart and I had to watch as she wasted away and died.

"So as it is…" she shrugged, "Of course, if he ever gets out, I'll kill him."

"I…um, I'm sorry?" Harry asked, not quite sure how to respond. It was hard trying to imagine hating a parent so much that he'd want to kill them.

Allie didn't respond as they zoomed through twisting tunnels that all looked the same, one time a cart zoomed past on another track going back the way they had come…except that the track was on the ceiling.

"Was that cart on the ceiling?" Harry asked.

"No," Griphook turned and flashed pointy teeth at them in what might generously be called a smile. "The surface is that way," he gestured at the track flashing past beneath them.

"Oh," Harry said rather softly as the cart stopped in front of another vault.

"As I said, you'd have to be crazy to rob this place," Allie muttered.

They got out, and Allie handed her key to the Griphook. He took it and slid it into the lock, and Allie twisted it open.

"If you don't mind my asking," Harry said, noticing that Allie's vault was significantly less full than his, and most of what she had were the silver and bronze coins but she did have at least several dozen of the gold galleons too. "Why is it that you put our keys into the vault locks rather than having us do it for ourselves, er, Mr. Griphook?"

"Just Griphook," the goblin stated. "We do not use your human titles."

"Griphook, then," Harry said.

"Security," Griphook said.

"He does not understand, Griphook," Allie said.

"Not many do," Griphook said with a toothy smile, leading them back to the cart.

Once more they went zooming along the tracks that seemed to go every which way except towards the surface. Harry saw a flash of orange down a side tunnel with a brief rush of heat that was gone as quickly as they had past it.

"Was that a—"

"Dragon?" Allie finished for him.

"Security," Griphook repeated.

"Um," Harry wanted to ask Allie about her exchange with Griphook, but with the goblin sitting right in front of them…

"Ask," Griphook said.

"Excuse me?"

"You are ignorant, but not so arrogant as to revel in your ignorance. Ask."

"What do you want to know, Harry?" Allie asked.

"Um…well, it seemed that you and Griphook were saying one thing, but meaning something other than what I heard."

"Goblins have their own culture, Harry," Allie told him. "Older than most human cultures, in fact. I think I told you that the magical community likes to stick to itself?"

Harry nodded, and when he realized that she hadn't seen it because of the jerking of the cart he added: "Yes, you have."

"Well, the Ministry of Magic is run by humans, and it, or at least some of those inside it at least, regard non-humans the same way it regards mundane humans. The ones that it doesn't regard as merely being 'beneath' them it regards as worse. Most wizards and witches share that attitude."

"You've studied their culture?" Harry asked.

"I know enough to do be polite while doing business," Allie said. "A half-dozen phrases and a few old customs, nothing more."

"Which is more than most wizards or witches know," Griphook said.

"So, security…what happens if a witch or wizard puts their key in?" Harry asked.

"The same thing if they tried to access a vault that they weren't authorized to use," Griphook said. "They get sucked inside."

"And then what…you come and take them into custody?"

Griphook twisted in his seat so that he could stare at Harry and grinned nastily. "Eventually."

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The Patils were waiting for them when they returned to Gringotts proper. With them was the largest person Harry had ever seen. He had to be at least ten feet tall, and was broader than Harry was tall.

"Harry," Mrs. Patil called, noticing them as they approached. "Harry, this Rubeus Hagrid. He's the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

"'Arry!" the giant man said, his ham-like hand swallowing Harry's whole as he pumped Harry's arm. "Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," he confided. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes."

"You knew my parents?" Harry asked.

"Did I know yer parents?" Hagrid asked. "'Course I knew yer parents. Everyone knew yer parents. Me? I was the one tha' found you and pulled you out of yer house after, well, You-Know-Who killed 'em."

"You-Know-Who?" Harry asked. "You mean Voldemort?"

Mrs. Patil hissed and Hagrid seemed to whimper slightly as he looked wildly around. Mr. Patil's lips were pressed into a vaguely disapproving, look. Allie, on the other hand, gave one of her not-quite smirks.

"You said his name." Parvati looked impressed.

Her sister looked very disapproving. "Daddy won't let us."

"I should say not," Hagrid said. "And yeh should know not to say his name."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Because the Ministry didn't bother to finish the job and a lot of his followers still walk free," Allie said. "And because ten years after he bit the big one people are still scared of him." She smiled, "And they should be scared, 'cause nobody ever found a body."

"Allie," Mr. Patil said, making her name a warning.

Hagrid frowned, at her. "'S'not really yer place ter be talkin' 'bout tha', Allie."

"I thought you didn't agree with them," Allie nodded towards the witches and wizards going about their business.

"I don'," Hagrid said. "Don' mean I go startin' a panic neither."

"But," Harry began, "if he's gone, then why…" he shrugged, unsure how to finish his question.

"Are people still afraid to speak his name?" Mr. Patil asked. "They do not speak it because he was so terrible that almost ten years after his death they are still afraid to speak it for fear that he will hear his name whispered on the wind and come for them."

"Oh," Harry said softly.

"So what are you doin' in the Alley, Allie?" Hagrid seemed as amused by the feeble joke as he was eager to change the topic, and Allie gave a sigh of long-suffering patience.

"I'm starting this year, Hagrid," she said softly. "I'm finally going to Hogwarts."

"Tha's great news, Allie!" Hagrid said in a loud voice. "I though', I mean—"

"I know," Allie said. "Still…it is good news, Hagrid."

"It was the righ' thing ter do," Hagrid said. "Dumbledore probably jus' needed ter convince the Governors is all."

"Why are you here, Hagrid?" Mrs. Patil asked curiously.

"Secret business for Dumbledore," Hagrid said. "He trusts me. Important business, needs me ter clear ou' a Gringotts' vault fer 'im, Vault 713."

"Then we will delay you no further," Mr. Patil said. "Good day, Rubeus."

"And a fine day ter yeh too!" Hagrid proclaimed. "G'day, Harry," he added, then strolled off towards the counters.

"So where to first?" Harry asked as they left the bank and Hagrid behind them.

"Magic Books," Padma said.

"Wand," Parvati said.

They glared at each other

"Uniforms," Mrs. Patil said, pointing across the street at Madam Milkin's Robes for All Occasions.

The twins traded looks, looked at Harry, and then back at each other. They nodded in agreement, grabbed Harry by his arms, and charged off down the alley.

\|/\|/\|/

Harry remembered Madam Milkin's Robes for all Occasions from the first time he was in the alley, and it was to that store that the twins dragged him inside.

Madam Milkin, a short, frumpy witch, glanced up at them from a blond boy perched on a stool. "Hello, Parvati, Padma, finally ready for Hogwarts?" she asked with a smile that disappeared as she turned back to the boy on the stool without waiting for an answer. "Hold still."

The boy scowled, but turned back from staring at them.

"Adrianna!" the witch called.

A tall witch, much younger than Madam Milkin, in sleek robes a vibrant, eye-watering combination of neon orange and bright lime green, emerged from behind a curtain. "Yes, Madame Milkin?" she asked.

"Take Padma and Parvati and start getting them fitted for Hogwarts robes," Milkin said. She turned to Harry as the twins followed the assistant, "Hogwarts, dear?"

Harry nodded.

"Right then, hop up on that stool," she gestured next to the boy she was fitting and a stool hopped over from a stack.

Harry nervously stepped up onto the stool as a third witch arrived from the back room with a long black robe which she dropped over Harry's head.

"So you are going to Hogwarts too?" the boy asked.

"Yes," Harry said.

"My father is next door buying books, and my mother is up the street looking at wands," the boy said in a bored, nasal, faintly drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't bring one, I've been flying for ages. I think I'll bully father into buying me a new one and smuggle it in somehow."

Harry was reminded of Dudley. A smaller, thinner version of Dudley.

"Do you have a broom?" the boy asked.

"No," Harry said.

"Play Quidditch?"

"No," Harry said again.

That was as far as his interest in Harry went, it appeared, because the boy began to talk about himself again. "I do. Father says it would be criminal if I wasn't selected for my house team, and I must say, I agree," the boy smiled in a way that suggested he couldn't imagine anyone disagreeing. "Do you know what house you're going to be in?"

"I wasn't informed in my letter," Harry said. It was a nice, logical answer, that didn't keep him from feeling even stupider.

"No one is told, of course," the boy said. "We aren't even supposed to know until we get there, but I do. I'll be in Slytherin, all our family has been—imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Uh—" Harry managed, but the boy was less interested in Harry's answer than he was in Harry listening to him.

Hagrid walked by outside in his moleskin coat with a grimy package under one arm.

"Say, look at that man," the boy said.

"That's Hagrid, he works at Hogwarts," Harry said.

"Oh, I've heard about him. He's a servant of some kind, isn't he?"

"He's the Gamekeeper," Harry said.

"Exactly," the boy said, as though Harry had agreed with him. "I've heard he's some kind of savage—lives in a hut on the grounds, and twice a term gets drunk, tries to do magic, and sets something important on fire."

"I think he's brilliant," Harry said coolly. Yes Hagrid was big, and acted sort of bumpish, but he was apparently a friend of his parents and Mr. Patil and Allie both seemed to like him. Allie didn't seem to call a person 'friend' easily, which made Hagrid even more special.

"Do you?" the boy asked with a slight sneer. "Is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"He's not with me," Harry said tightly. "And my parents are dead."

"Sorry," the boy couldn't have purposely have managed to sound less sorry. "They were our kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean," Harry said.

"I really don't think they should let the other kind in, do you? They just aren't the same. They haven't been brought up with our ways, our history, our traditions. Why, some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts before they get their letters! Can you imagine such a thing? I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"

Harry was saved by Allie entering the shop, followed by Patils.

Madam Milkin looked up from Harry, "Padma and Parvati are with Adrianna in the back," she said. She turned to Allie, "I can be with you in a moment."

"No hurry," Allie said. "I can wait until my friend is done."

"Hogwarts student?" Madam Milkin asked curiously as she worked on Harry's robes. "Do you need a lengthening or—"

"I will be requiring Hogwarts robes, no house badge," Allie said. "I have yet to be sorted."

Madam Milkin frowned. "You're a little old to be—" she paused, and then asked, "Apprentice sash?"

"Yes, but keep it separate," Allie said. "My schooling over the past several years was non-standard. I am regularizing my education now, but…" she shrugged slightly.

"I understand," Madam Milkin said, though it was clear that she didn't. "What field, dear?"

"Basic-arts, white," Allie said.

Madam Milkin looked up from the piece of parchment she was writing on.

"I didn't move beyond basic arts before this… opportunity occurred," Allie explained. "But border it with whatever color belongs to the combined fields of wards and ritual magic—I think it's periwinkle but I may be wrong, the book I looked in was old and the ICW put out a revised international standard only a few years back. I already have the appropriate insignia."

"Very well," Madam Milkin said. "Will there be anything else?"

Allie nodded, "I am going to require several other robes. Most of my current wardrobe is not suitable to the climate where Hogwarts is and those that I do have are much worn."

"I can have your school robes ready today," Madam Milkin assured her. "But today is so busy that I'm not sure I can get to them."

"Nor would I expect you to. Would two weeks suffice?"

"Perfectly, barring any extraordinary requests, of course."

"Excellent."

"All done with you now," the witch working on the boy next to Harry said.

Harry waited until the boy had left the shop, then turned to Allie. "Apprentice sash?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," Allie said Madam Milkin's assistant dropped a robe over her head and began pinning it to the correct length, "A sash that designates apprentice status. Most witches and wizards don't bother with apprentices any more, choosing an education at Hogwarts instead."

"And since you didn't go to Hogwarts," Harry said, "You were apprenticed instead?"

"Exactly," Allie said.

Harry shook his head in exasperation, first the twins, now this. He was rewarded by a pin pricking him in the neck. "Allie, what is Quidditch? I've heard Padma and Parvati talk about it, mostly about players, but I don't…" he hesitated, then shrugged helplessly, wincing as a pin pricked at a shoulder.

"Quidditch is a sport," Allie said. "It's played up in the air on brooms, and is followed, in most of the world, the same way that football is followed in the mundane. There are four balls, six goals, and two teams of seven players each."

"Sounds dangerous," Harry said after Chirag had explained a bit more.

"Eh," Allie said. "I think the last recorded fatality in an official game was more than a hundred years ago. Broken bones, concussions, I understand that those are a lot more common…and every so often a referee disappears and turns up later in the Sahara desert." She frowned in concentration, then shook her head, "and that exhausts my knowledge of the game. Personally I've always favored rugby."

"And Hogwarts houses?"

"There are four, one named for each of Hogwarts' founders," Allie said.

"They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin," Mr. Patil added. "Students are sorted based upon what qualities each of the Founders prized most. Ravenclaw prized intellect and wit, Hufflepuff preferred loyalty and hard work, Gryffindor prized the brave, and Slytherin the ambitious and cunning."

"And there wasn't a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin," the witch who was working on Allie's robe said. "Or witch, for that matter."

"No?" Allie asked in a tone that Harry would have pegged as 'conversational', only he was pretty sure that Allie didn't have a purely conversational tone.

"Allie," Cherig said.

Allie looked at him and frowned, but she didn't continue.

The rest of the fitting was done in tense silence as Harry wondered once again about what secrets his new friend carried.

\|/\|/\|/

"What was that about?" Harry asked as they left.

"The reason why I live on the fringe of the magical world rather than the mainstream," Allie said. "Well, a symptom of one of the reasons."

Harry started to ask more, but a tall figure, looking much like he thought a vampire would look, emerged from the crowd and would have walked into, or perhaps over, him if Allie hadn't pulled him out of the way.

"Watch where you are going, boy," the man said, peering down at Harry. His black robes billowed around him like inky shadows cast by a flickering candle. His pale face was framed by dark hair that hung thick and greasy to his shoulders.

"Professor Snape," Mr. Patil said cheerfully. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"I had to arrange for my stocks to be refilled from last year," the man said in a soft, silky voice, "As well as for a few…unique ingredients for my personal stocks."

Mr. Patil's face brightened, "You think you found the answer to that contamination problem that was plaguing your last series of experiments?"

"Perhaps," the Professor allowed. He looked over the children, "You've mentioned your twins, often enough, who's are these?"

"Padma, Parvati, this is Professor Snape, he teaches potions," Mr. Patil said, ignoring the impatient look the man gave him. "Professor, these are—"

"Elissa Blackthorn, sir," Allie interjected. "I will be starting this year."

"A little old, aren't you?" the Professor asked coolly.

"Yes, sir," Allie agreed. "I was apprenticed at an early age, since my Master chose to focus on wards and runes I'm sadly lacking in basic magical arts. With Headmaster Dumbledore's permission I am taking steps to correct that."

"I see…" he turned to Harry, "And you?"

"Harry Potter, sir," Harry said.

Something that might have been distaste or disgust flickered across the man's features, and then disappeared again. He started to turn back to Mr. Patil.

"Er, Professor?" Harry asked.

"What is it, Potter?" the man snapped.

"Um, well, my class list of supplies said crystal or glass phials," Harry said. "Which would you recommend?"

Professor Snape stopped, then slowly turned and peered down at Harry from behind a rather long nose. His face a perfectly blank, emotionless, mask. After about half a minute he straightened and tersely said, "Crystal."

"Thank you," Harry said.

Snape grimaced, but gave a very sharp, very short, nod.

"Uh, can you recommend a, er, an apothecary?" Harry asked, working his way around the unfamiliar word.

"Pennyforthe's Potion Provisions," the Potions Professor said. "It is at the end of the alley. It is small and somewhat expensive, but the quality is excellent. I would suggest you ask for his first year potion's supply kit. At least that way you won't lose anything with your socks or get lint in your black beetle eyes." He turned abruptly, his robes whirling about him, and stalked off up the Alley towards the Leaky Cauldron.

"Charming fellow," Allie said.

"He can be a bit rigid, but he knows his potions," Mr. Patil said. "One of the youngest Potion Masters in history; absolutely top in his field. I never understood why he decided to teach rather than do private research. He grows on you though, after a while."

Allie glanced at Harry, "Like mold."

Harry stifled a laugh.

Mr. Patil took them to a shop that specialized in trunks. After looking over everything from a set of matching luggage, each with multiple compartments, to a steamer trunk that could hold a not-so-small library's worth of books, Harry settled for a trunk with only one compartment, but was somewhat bigger inside and out with charm on it that made it lighter than normal. Allie proclaimed it a very fine trunk, but declined to buy one of her own.

All four took Professor Snape up on his recommendation for potion supplies in a shop that smelled of dried spices. Small crystal jars were filled with everything from aconite to zebra parts in various states ranging from dried to potted, brined to tainted, and from abraded to whole. Most of the items had multiple versions from different countries or regions. Separate jars were filled with each so that a customer could open and smell the various ingredients, or run them between fingers to test consistency. One entire wall was given over to shelves of jars filled with once-living things in various fluids. Horns, claws, teeth, and feathers hung in bundles on strings from the ceiling, as did bundles of dried herbs. Harry joined the Patil twins in examining silver unicorn horns (21 galleons each), and after asking the wizard behind the counter he bought several small jars of the more commonly used ingredients that weren't part of the first-year potion kit while Allie purchased a small parchment envelope filled with dried pufferfish spines.

"Which just leaves us with wands and books," Mr. Patil said as they left the apothecary.

"Wands," Parvati said.

"Books," Padma returned.

They glared at each other.

"Odds," Parvati said, making a fist.

Both twins shook their fists three times, then Parvati held out two fingers and Padma held out none. Parvati said a rude word, to which her sister stuck out her tongue and then both took off before their parents could respond.

Anjuli shook her head and set off after them.

"We'll go get our wands," Allie told Mr. Patil.

"As you wish," he said. "Meet us at Fortescue's after you are done shopping?"

"Of course," Allie said.

\|/\|/\|/\|/

Allie led him down Diagon Alley to a narrow and shabby shop. A solitary wand rested on a much worn purple pillow in the dusty window, and a peeling sign on the door said that the Ollivanders had been making wands for almost twenty-four hundred years.

Inside the shop wasn't much better. Long shelves, so close together that Harry had a hard time imagining himself, much less an adult, being able to move between them were packed to over-flowing with long, thin boxes. A thick layer of dust covered everything. A bell tinkled somewhere deep in the shelves and stacks of boxes, and aside from a solitary, rather spindly chair, the front area was deserted. Harry felt like he'd walked into a rather strict library…only that wasn't quite it. It was as though the silence was part of the nature of the place, not exactly a rule, but something that no person who walked into the shop would dare even dream of violating.

"Good afternoon."

Harry jumped, Allie, he noticed, did not.

A tall, painfully thin, old man peered down at them. His eyes, behind very round glasses, shimmered like twin little moons in the hallowed gloom of the shop.

"Ah, yes," the man said. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon, Harry Potter," it wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday, that she was in my shop buying her first wand. Ten and one quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow, particularly fine for charms work."

Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he could blink, those silvery eyes were creepy.

"Your father, on the other hand, favored mahogany. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it—really it is the wand that chooses the wizard, or witch, you know."

Mr. Ollivander had slowly walked towards Harry while saying this, and now leaned so close that Harry could see himself reflected in those shimmering, misty, eyes. One long, pale finger reached out and stroked along his scar. "And that is where…"

He straightened slightly, "I'm sorry to say that I sold the wand that did it. Thirteen and a half inches, yew, phoenix feather core…powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands…well, if I had known what that wand was going out into the world to do…"

He shook his head, and then, to Harry's immense relief, spied Allie.

"Ms. Hawthorne…I must confess, I never expected you to arrive in my shop again," he said. "As it is, Albus owled me earlier to tell me that he had decided to accept you into Hogwarts. I remember your mother coming in…for both of her wands, actually. The first one was a particularly fine hawthorn wand, I was sorry to hear of its destruction. Her second was rowan, stiff, excellent for defensive magic. Your father—"

"Is best not spoken of," Allie growled. "And it's Blackthorn."

Ollivander paused and raised one nearly non-existent eyebrow, "As you wish." He turned back to Harry and procured a small measuring tape inscribed with silver markings. "Let us start with you, Mr. Potter…" he turned and disappeared into the stacks of wands as the tape began measuring Harry on its own. "Which is your wand hand?" his voice floated from among the shelves as the tape measure measured between Harry's eyes.

"Er, well, I'm right handed," Harry said. Immediately the tape measure began measuring the length of the arm, then elbow to armpit, length from second joint to the tip of his right ring finger…

"Each Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance," Ollivander's voice said. "We use dragon heartstrings, phoenix tail-feathers, and the tail hairs of unicorns. Each wand is unique, as each dragon, unicorn, and phoenix is unique. And you will never get so good results with another wizard's wand."

The tape measure, by this point, was measuring the distance between Harry's nostrils and Mr. Ollivander's voice proclaimed: "That will do." The tape measure flopped limply on the floor as Ollivander emerged with a small stack of boxes.

"Right then, Mr. Potter," Ollivander said, pressing a wand into his hand, "Try this one. Beech-wood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Give it a wave."

Harry, feeling rather foolish, waved it around a bit, but Ollivander snatched it out of his hand.

"No, no—try this one. Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try—"

But Harry had barely tried before "Ebony and unicorn hair. Eight and a half inches, springy," was forced into his hand, and just as quickly snatched back out.

He tried wand after wand. Some he actually managed to wave, others he barely had time to touch before they were discarded again. The stack of discarded boxes was starting to resemble every other stack of boxes, and Harry wondered briefly as he waved willow and dragon heartstring—twelve inches, bendable—if every other stack of boxes was made from failed wands from a previous person looking for a wand.

"No, no, that won't do at all," as Ollivander reclaimed 'Poplar and unicorn, nine and five-eighths inches, intractable'. He examined Harry for a moment, "Tricky customer, eh?" he asked. "Don't fret, I'll find a wand for you, I always do, you know. Hmm…I wonder," his eyes gleamed speculatively, then he disappeared behind the stacks again and emerged with a rather dusty box.

"An unusual combination, holly and phoenix feather," Ollivander said. "Eleven inches, supple."

Harry took the wand, and felt a warm rush that started at his fingers and flowed up his arm and through him as he held it. After a moment he gave it a swish and a flurry of multi-hued sparks burst from the tip, sending lights dancing against the walls in the dusty shop.

"Curious, very curious," Ollivander said.

Harry looked up from his wand, "What's curious?"

Ollivander fixed Harry with an owl-like stare, "I remember every wand I've sold in this shop, Mr. Potter, every one. As it happens, the phoenix whose tail feather resides in the core of your wand only gave one other feather—just one. It is curious that you should be destined for this wand, while its brother—why, its brother gave you that scar."

Harry swallowed.

"Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember. I think we can expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. After all, You-Know-Who did great things; terrible, yes, but great."

Harry shivered, not certain he liked Mr Ollivander any more.

"Hey!"

Harry heard something flop as he turned around to find Allie giving the tape measure, now coiled up on the floor, a rather dark look.

"Er, yes, you next," Ollivander said, reaching for a box. "Let's see, I think we'll start with ash and dragon heartstring…"

Allie gave the wand a short wave, and the stack of wand boxes holding Harry's rejects was scattered over most of the shop with a small 'boom'.

"Obviously not," Ollivander said, reclaiming the wand before anything else could happen.

Harry watched as Allie's stack of discarded wand boxes surpassed his own. With each failed wand Mr. Ollivander seemed to get more and more excited until he nearly seemed to be bouncing.

"Tricky, very tricky," he burbled happily, disappearing once more into the shelves. Despite the piles of boxes the shelves seemed to still be as full as ever. "Let's see…oh, another rare combination," he emerged with another dusty box, "Cypress and phoenix tail feather."

Allie picked it up and waved it, there was a shower of sparks; but they were wane and feeble compared to the blast Harry had managed to produce.

"Very nearly, but not quite," Ollivander hmmed as he took the wand back and examined it minutely. "Occasionally a witch or wizard comes into their magic late and has a great deal of difficulty in finding a suitable wand."

"I didn't get a wand as early as I could have so I have the opposite problem," Allie said.

"Indeed," Ollivander said. "Why wands make the choices they do continue to elude even the brightest of minds. Fortunately, however, the choice is not entirely random. Body size and conformation, heritage, the propensity for certain magics—charms, for example, in the case of your mother, Mr. Potter—innate capacity for magic…"

"That's what the tape measure was measuring?" Harry asked.

"In part, Mr. Potter, in part," Ollivander told him.

"And from these you can tell what kind of wand would be best for a wizard?"

"Most likely to choose a wizard, yes," the wandmkaer replied. "You, Mr. Potter, will find unicorn-hair wands difficult to use, and find those of holly, yew, mistletoe, and perhaps lindenwood, the most responsive."

"And me?" Allie asked.

"If I had one I would be most interested in seeing your reaction to a wand made of Acacia drepanolobium," Ollivander told her. "The whistling thorn of east Africa. Alas, I do not. It has never been a favored wood in these parts and I have not had a chance to work with a member of the Mimosoideae before.

"The measure suggested that you would be suited for a yew wand, but we've tried most of those in stock with little indication of success so I see no reason to expect to find a match there. We could try something made of elder next, the measure only very rarely suggests a wand of such wood but there have been a surprising number of matches with it when other wands fail." He paused, and Harry thought that his watery eyes twinkled for a moment. "Say, are you feeling especially daring?"

"Not really," Allie replied, but Ollivander had already darted behind of a shelf of wandboxes that was still, somehow, impossibly full.

"I wonder," Ollivander continued as he came out of a door wedged between two shelves on the right hand-wall that Harry was certain hadn't been there before. In his hands the wandmaker carried a small chest. He placed it on the counter and opened it, and a rack with a dozen wands popped up. "These wands are the work of my godfather, Drosselmeyer."

He paused and cleared his throat, "not that that was his actual name, of course. I called him that because he was my godfather, and was an absolute genius with automatons and clockworks and the like. He used to make the most fantastic toys, all without the aid of magic. He likely inspired the story, but I digress. He was a wandmaker as well, if a rather eccentric one."

Coming from Ollivander Harry thought this was a bit rich, but he didn't say anything as the wandmaker opened the chest and a shelf popped up with little cubbyholes for wandboxes.

"He sent me these recently to evaluate and we just might find a match in here. Now let us see…this one won't do," he said, pulling out one box and setting it aside.

"Why?"

"Phoenix Feather in erumpet horn," Ollivander said. "He was trying to replace wood with ivory, but I fail to grasp his reasoning for using that horn. I can just see it, swirl—" he whipped his hand around as though holding a wand "—jab—" this a fencer's lunge, "—KABOOM!" he shouted.

He paused, took in Harry who was watching him intently, and cleared his throat. "As I was saying, it simply won't do." He turned back to the rack of cubbies and ran a finger along the markings. "Now let's see…" he plucked a wand off the rack. "Elder wood and phoenix feather."

Harry could see Allie start to object, but then she warily took the wand and gave it a slight wave.

The side of the shop disappeared in a flash of light and a wall-shattering KABOOM that picked Harry up and slammed him down into something hard, before burying him in wand boxes. Aside from his ears which were ringing nothing felt hurt, so Harry reached up and started to brush boxes away until his hand encountered something smooth and hard. He followed it, pushing boxes away until his hand broke the surface and he could gingerly stand up. He tried his best, but he was certain he'd crushed at least a dozen wand boxes.

Allie and Ollivander were both still standing. The former was untouched by the explosion, but Ollivander's hair stuck straight out, and the skin on his face was covered with dark soot.

"Intriguing," Ollivander said, carefully taking the wand back. "It is clearly a very temperamental wand, and it doesn't seem to like you much."

Harry looked over at the wall. There was a very precise, very large, seven-sided hole that people were poking their heads into to see what had happened.

Ollivander pulled out a long, thin wand and whipped it at the hole. The air around the hole shimmered briefly before forming a bright purple patch. "Let's see, petrified pine and unicorn tail hair, quite hard."

Allie took the wand and flicked it. Nothing happened.

"Hmm, no," Ollivander said. "Dear Godfather Drosselmeyer had such high hopes for it, but I fear the mineral nature of the wood, that is, the fact that the wood has been replaced by stone, makes it a thaum resistor.

"Perhaps mangrove and the hair of a mermaid—a native of tropical seas, mind you, not our cold, dark, freshwater lakes—purportedly excellent for underwater magic."

Allie had barely touched the wand before the shop began to fill rapidly with water. Only the fact that the patch leaked, Harry was sure, kept them from drowning until Mr. Ollivander was able to get rid of the water by the simply expedient of blasting away his front door.

"No, definitely not," Ollivander said, replacing the wand in the rack after drying Harry and Allie with a flick of his wand. He appeared content to drip on his sodden floor. He paused and considered his front door and Harry turned to look.

The top of a gate was evident near the top of the door frame, either it had been conjured before the door had been blasted, or it was on some kind of automatic release, as a large pile of wand boxes caught up in it hide the entrance from sight.

"Hmmm, I wonder…" Ollivander said. Harry turned back in time to see the wandmaker pluck a wand from the very bottom of the rack. "This one has possibilities. According to the letter he was left with a wand-blank, a piece of prepared wood that is intended to become a wand, that was too short for the core. .

"He ended up taking the remains of a previously failed experiment—an attempt to keep dual wand cores from either separating apart or violently exploding, as would normally be the case, whenever two cores were used. He had the idea that using two woods was the answer."

"Was it?" Harry asked.

"You've heard of Tunguska, of course," Ollivander said.

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Or perhaps not," Ollivander said. "Hmm. It seems as though the obliviators were even more successful that I had hoped. It seemed impossible at the time to keep it from the muggles.

"Still, the experiment did give him some practical experience in joining wand-blanks together which would normally be little more than a curiosity piece, but in this case perhaps…" he offered it to Allie.

Allie took it was a grave trepidation, then slowly relaxed. "This one," she said softly as black and silver sparks danced out from the tip. "It's certainly better than the others."

Ollivander hopped and clapped excitedly. "Oh very well done. Dear Godfather Drosselmeyer will be so very happy. You see, he thought it was a failure for so very long. The wood of the shaft is cypress which is why I thought of it, and it has a mistletoe grip. Its oddly metric—twenty-seven centimeters long to be precise—and slightly unbalanced."

"Unbalanced?" Allie asked.

"It has a fwooper feather core," he said in warning, "and is a half-gram heavy on the tip end."

Allie frowned at him for a moment before nodding.

"If you have any problems, any at all, let me know," Ollivander said. "I would dearly love to hear how that wand works for you."

Allie paid for her wand, then Harry gave Ollivander seven galleons for his and the wandmaker bowed them out of his shop.

"What's a fwooper?" Harry asked.

"Some kind of bird, I think," Allie frowned, "its song is supposed to drive people mad. Or maybe it just enchants them into listening to it until they die of starvation or something."

"It feels right, though?" Harry asked as they wandered back up the alley towards the bookstore they'd passed by earlier. "I mean, when I touched mine it felt like I'd just jumped into a pool of warm water, only it wasn't wet, and it felt like I could do anything at all… Did you get that feeling, Allie?"

"Sort of," Allie fingered her wand distractedly. "It feels better than any of the other wands I tried."

Harry was about to inquire further, but she stopped suddenly, and pulled him into an apothecary.

"I suddenly realized I needed something," she told Harry as she bought a small sachet of dried herbs.

"What are those for?" Harry asked as they left the shop.

"I'll explain in a moment," Allie said. "If I remember there was a magical equipment shop between here and Flourish and Blotts."

"Magical equipment?"

"We got scales and the crystal phials earlier, but we still need telescopes," Allie pointed out.

"Oh," Harry said. "I thought that a magical equipment shop would have, well, magical equipment."

Allie gave him a puzzled look. "It is equipment that is clearly used for…wait, did you mean enchanted equipment? Thing that have magic in them like the Patil's dishes?"

"A little more exciting than magical dishes," Harry managed despite his face heating up.

"Oh, they have that too, of course," Allie told him. "In fact, I'm counting on it."

\|/\|/\|/

The magical equipment shop did indeed have telescopes. Fat, squat reflector telescopes and long, skinny refractors. It had telescopes in brass, as well as silver, bronze, and electrum. There were telescopes that had detachable ends that you could put on a shelf or stick to a wall, and when you looked through the eye-piece you could see the room it was in; and telescopes that had tubes that could be bent for seeing around corners. There were telescopes for viewing things at night, and telescope for viewing things in daylight, and even telescopes that could see through clouds. There were telescopes with glass lenses for viewing stars, and telescopes with a variety of crystal lenses for viewing—actually, Harry wasn't sure what they were for viewing, only that the shop had them.

In addition to the telescopes (they each got one that was collapsible and made of brass) there were all the magical devices Harry could have thought of and more. Two entire sets of shelves, each taller than Hagrid, were devoted to silver spindly things that whirred or spun or emitted puffs of colored smoke. There were crystal spheres that contained miniatures of the entire solar system, but with a touch of a wand could show Saturn and the complex array of rings and a multitude of moons, or even just one moon in particular if that's what the viewer wished. There was a teapot that was enchanted to heat water put in it and didn't need tea-leafs or bags to produce tea (hot or iced) on request with a matching silver bowl that could produce sugar, an enchanted flying carpet was rolled in one corner (display purposes only, not to be sold or rode on penalty of persecution by the Ministry of Magic), and an array of magical oil lamps (NO RUBBING). A display case was filled with magical rings, ranging from simple bands of gold to one that seemed carved out of one large diamond, to another with a glittering rainbow-hued gem the size of a chicken egg.

Harry had just finished examining a display case filled with watches with anywhere from one to thirteen hands, but none of which seemed to actually tell time, when Allie bumped into him.

"See anything interesting?" she asked.

"Loads," he said. He gestured at the watches, "I just can't seem to figure out what any of them do." Harry turned to her, "what about you?"

"Oh I found what I was looking for," she said with a grin and displayed a small bundle of grayish fur.

"That's magical?" Harry asked skeptically. "It looks like something one of Mrs. Figg's cats dragged in."

"That's exactly what is it supposed to look like," Allie agreed happily. She pulled out the small bundle of herbs and after a moment of prodding, opened the bundle of fur to reveal a small pocket. "Do you remember the cat that was by the cauldron store when we came in?"

"No," Harry said, looking around.

"I meant when we entered the Alley," she said.

Harry shook his head.

"Well, it's been following us," she said as she filled the mouse with the herbs. "There are some spells, really, really advanced spells, that can allow a witch or wizard to possess a living animal. More likely though it is some witch or wizard's familiar with observation charms on it that has been sent out to trail us."

"You mean me," Harry said as Allie placed the last of the herbs inside the fur and sealed the pocket up.

Allie hesitated, but then nodded in agreement. "You."

"Okay, so how do we get rid of it?" Harry asked after a moment.

Allie grinned again, and this time there was something vaguely unsettling about it.

\|/\|/\|/

Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Head of Gryffindor House, Transfiguration Professor, Double Transfiguration Mastery (Transmogrification and Conjuration), and twice Highlighted Transfiguration Master in Transfiguration Today: September, 1969 (for transfiguring—on a drunken dare—a 600-acre dairy farm into a three-day, 32-act music concert with an audience of more than a half million muggles) and June, 1978 (for the switching spell that swapped fifty kilos of bog peat for a similar mass of lunar strata after having a tipple too many at the staff party that had started quite spontaneously at the realization that the Marauders were gone…and incidentally proved both that Alberic Wiffle was wrong and magic could be done outside of the boundaries of Earth's atmosphere, and also that the moon was decidedly not made out of green cheese) was not having a good day.

To be honest that not 'good day' had actually begun more than a month earlier when Albus Dumbledore had pounded on her door on one of the last days of term to tell her that she was in charge until he got back, before disappearing in a flash of phoenix fire. That had been followed by a puzzling conversation the next day when he informed her that he had delivered Harry's letter personally so he could be scratched off the list, and would she kindly make arrangements for two students (instead of the expected one) to start come the fall term. The revelation that the mystery student was the heir to, and arguably the head of, one of the oldest and (in certain circles) most prestigious (not to mention powerful) Pureblood families in England hadn't worried her. No, Minerva had some very fond memories of Charms Mistress Miranda Thorne (Deputy Headmistress, Head of Slytherin).

On the other hand, she was also the child—acknowledged or not (not, in this case)—of one He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's more notorious Death Eaters. She had argued long and hard against accepting those students whose parents had escaped imprisonment, though in the end she'd had little choice but to agree with Albus Dumbledore that providing them with a supportive environment might help them make wiser decisions than their parents.

And then there were her…abilities.

Accepting Remus Lupin had been dangerous enough, not just for him but the other students and the staff as well, but at least in that case measures could be taken. They hadn't been enough, of course. As intelligent as James, Remus, poor little Peter and…Black had been at grasping that being animagi would allow them to accompany their friend, they had been remarkably short-sighted when it came to first studying and then actually using that talent.

And the excuses they used! They honestly expected her to not see through 'a prank gone bad' when James Potter showed up in class with hart ears and one of the more impressive racks she had ever seen? And then there had been him with a bloody tail that he couldn't control. And Poor Peter with his, well, that was best not thought about.

Not that the Headmaster had stopped them when she had informed him. No, he had let them go on as they were. First with practicing and perfecting the transformation, and then letting them continue gallivanting across the Forbidden Forest and up and down the streets of Hogsmeade and made her sacrifice a full night's rest once a lunar cycle just to keep an eye on them. If only it had ended there and not with that utterly disgraceful incident with Severus. Taking points was all well and good, but giving them (and more) back to James—not that he hadn't deserved them—in front of the boy like that, and then threatening him? Utterly disgraceful, felt ashamed to call herself a Gryffindor. Not a lot that could be done without ruining things for Remus who was really as much a victim as Severus had been, but still.

And then there had been that vampire…just the memory of those years—thankfully well-passed—were enough to make her start shedding.

But neither of those compared to this. Still, Albus had said that precautions would be taken and she fully intended on learning what all of those precautions were, and then adding a few of her own. More than a few if the girl ended up in Gryffindor.

Unfortunately one of those 'precautions' had involved her spending the day in Diagon Alley as a cat following Harry Potter and his…friend. A part of her fully approved of his standing up for someone, especially if she had gotten him away from those muggles who she desperately hoped weren't as bad as she had feared but somehow doubted it. Another part of her, the part that Pomona liked to call her 'inner lioness', wanted to jump at the girl, hissing and spitting and drive her away from Harry.

Minerva resisted the urge. She was, after all, not supposed to be seen and her markings were rather distinct. If she made too much of a commotion she'd be noticed and it was possible that Harry or friend might connect their new Transfiguration Professor with the cat that had followed them around Diagon Alley. Still, it was nice to get out on four feet sometimes and stretch. She hadn't had a chance to really be out and about as a cat in a good long while.

Which brought her back to why she wasn't having a good day.

So far she'd been chased by a dog (suddenly transforming from a cat into a witch was a noticeable occurrence even in the wizarding world and thus contradictory to not being noticed), dive-bombed by a small parliament of owls, avoided a falling stack of cauldrons, had her tail trodded on at least three times, been accidentally kicked twice, had been 'rescued' by one very young witch as a 'delightful stray' and only barely managed to get away without revealing herself (though she made it a point to remember said witch for when they'd meet again in a few years), and had been mobbed by an even younger boy with hands sticky from one of Florean Fortescue's Fabulous Fountain Freezies.

She was miserable, tired, and dirty; her fur stuck in clumps from the Freezie, and she hadn't had such a miserable time in her animagus form since James Potter was in school. Worse, for all her misery, she had very little that she could report to Dumbledore. The muggles apparently hadn't told him anything if some of what they had said was anything to go by, and the expected light show inside of Ollivanders was more spectacular than usual (not to mention wet, one of the few things she really despised as a cat was wet fur and it had unfortunately happened before the boy with the Fountain Freezie so she hadn't even gotten clean fur out of the deal and that blasted girl's mother had dried her too so she had been all nice and fluffy when the boy had attacked her). Hagrid would have to be cautioned, again, about letting slip information that he shouldn't, and Severus, miracle of miracles, had actually been polite. More polite to a student than she had ever seen before. Either his vacation had been passing extraordinarily well, or he was deathly ill.

Perhaps both.

In which case she might need to see to advertising for a new Potion Professor as well as Defense Against the Dark Arts one—one had to be prepared for next year, after all. Thankfully she already had the next advert for the later already written. It was identical to the one she'd posted the year before, only with the date changed.

As she contemplated her colleague's health (or potential lack thereof), the door of the magical equipment shop the pair had elected to stop at opened and Harry walked out. Minerva waited, expecting the girl to follow after him, but instead the door swung closed and Harry started walking up the Alley towards Flourish and Blotts. She hesitated, every instinct telling her that the girl was the one she had to watch out for. That Harry was too new to magic, still caught up in the awe and wonder of it to fully realize its implications. But Albus' orders had been precise and with a huff she set out after him.

A flash of gray out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and Minerva McGonagall sprang at the mouse that had suddenly appeared before her. She started to let it go, then the scent hit her.

Purrrr

\|/\|/\|/

Allie grinned as the tabby cat with the odd, spectacle-like markings around its eyes caught the animated toy mouse. It resumed its normal appearance of a fluffy ball of gray fur as the cat batted it around for a moment. Then it transformed into a mouse again and took off, the cat right after it.

Whistling a jaunty tune she took off after Harry.

\|/\|/\|/

Harry started when Allie tapped him on the shoulder, but grinned when he saw Allie smiling. "It worked?"

"Oh yeah," she said. "Any Rodent—Animated! Guaranteed fun and excitement for any cat, kneezle, krup, or owl. Will provide hours of enjoyment…yadda, yadda, so on and so forth."

"Neat," Harry said. "What was that that you put inside of it?"

"Magical catmint," Allie said, grinning wildly. "It almost makes me hope that someone really was possessing that cat. It's entirely harmless, mind you, at least to felines, but I've heard that the hallucinations and euphoria are quite spectacular."

"Makes me wish I could have seen it," Harry said.

"That's why I also got an Insta!Graph," Allie said, pulling out a copper picture frame. "Capture one memory for a lifetime of viewing enjoyment, anytime, anywhere."

Harry took the frame. Lying on its back on Diagon Alley's cobblestones was the cat. Its tail flicked back and forth wildly as it pawed at the ball of fluff clamped firmly in its jaws. The cat's ears were folded back, its eyes were wide, and it had a silly expression on its face as it rolled around. "Wow," he said, staring at it, then grinned up at Allie. "I think I'm going to like magic."

He handed her the frame back and was about to say more when a rather large, and very white, owl swept down on them. Harry ducked as the owl swept by so close it ruffled his hair. Immediately it banked around again, and this time Allie stuck out her arm.

The owl landed on it, gave Harry a disgusted look, and held out one taloned leg imperiously. He noted that there seemed to be something tied around the leg, but most of his attention was on the sharp talons and the curved beak.

"Well?" Allie asked.

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to see what it has to say?"

Harry looked at the leg doubtfully. "You think it'll let me?"

"Yes," Allie said succinctly. "Wizards use owls to deliver their post, remember?"

Harry nodded, then carefully tugged at the twine holding the roll of parchment to the owl's leg until it came loose. He backed out of range quickly as soon as he had the parchment, and the owl seemed to roll its eyes and sigh.

"Uh," Harry looked down at the coarse handwriting on the note. "Harry Potter, sorry we weren't able to talk longer, um… Something about a birthday present, looking forward to seeing me on the first, Hagrid." He frowned, "Birthday present?"

"Yeah, you know, gifts commonly given to commemorate the day you were born?" Allie asked.

"I know what they are, I just never got any before," Harry muttered as a small cage rolled out of the parchment into his hand. "Huh, a cage. A really small cage."

The owl glared at him.

"I think he meant the owl," Allie said.

The owl nodded its entire body up and down.

"Is that right?" Harry asked, he looked at the owl, "Are you my birthday present?"

Again that whole body bob.

"Uh…do you have a name?" Harry asked. "And how do you fit in this cage?"

The owl rolled its eyes again and looked plaintively at Allie.

"I would think," Allie said dryly. "That the cage has been shrunk, and needs to be unshrunk for her to fit in. And you need to give her a name."

"Her?" Harry asked.

Allie nodded firmly.

"How do you know?" he asked. "Why couldn't it be a boy owl?"

"Because I'm a—" she paused, and then shrugged. "It's a girl thing, Harry. Trust me, you are better off not knowing…ever."

"Oh," Harry said, wondering just what it was she had been about to say.

"Owl," Allie said, turning from Harry to the snowy owl perched on her arm. "Harry will be staying with the Patils until school starts."

The owl bobbed once more and took off. It circled once above them, then headed east.

"Hagrid shouldn't have done that," Harry said.

Allied frowned, "Why not?"

"I mean, he didn't have to," Harry said, feeling rather foolish. "I barely met him. Why would he do something like get me an owl?"

"Because he wanted to," Allie suggested. "Hagrid is very…generous with his feelings. He also knows more about dangerous animals than any three other people I've met. He also likes animals even more than he knows about him. I haven't asked, but I'm fairly certain that Eyelops has a ban on him coming in except on business."

"So it was a way for him to get closer to some animals?" Harry asked distastefully. "First I'm famous, and now people want to use that fame."

"Probably, but not Hagrid," Allie said.

Harry looked at her skeptically, "You just told me he couldn't go in that place with the owls unless he was there to buy something."

"First off, Hagrid is in charge of the grounds and school animals," Allie said. "There are probably a hundred good reasons for being there other than to buy you an owl.

"Second, there are going to be at least three types of people who are going to want to be your friend. Type one are those at the pub, the fans who mostly possess the brains of a herd of sheep. Type two are those that want something from you, whether it's a favor, or advancing themselves by being near you, or simply sharing your fame. Type three are those who could care less and just think that Harry Potter might be a fun or interesting person to be around.

"Hagrid is too down to earth to be part of number one, and he isn't cunning enough for number two."

"Which leaves three," Harry said, nodding. "Which are you?" he asked curiously.

"Two and three," Allie said without missing a beat. "I never said they couldn't be more than one type."

Harry felt his stomach turn into a rock. He'd thought Allie was his friend, even stood up to the headmaster of his new school, his chance to escape the Dursleys and the greatest wizard alive (if Padma was right). But even she wanted something from him.

"What do you want from me?" he asked, pulling away. A sudden thought came to him, "If this is about money—"

Allie laughed.

Harry had been prepared for shock, evasion, even outright denial. "What's so funny?" he asked confused.

"The Thorne family is loaded," Allie said. "I just can't touch most of it for another couple of years." She shook her head, "Believe me, Harry, the last thing I'm after is your inheritance."

"But you just said you wanted something from me," Harry protested.

"And I do," Allie said, "In addition to your friendship, of course."

"Of course," Harry said flatly as he crossed his arms. The surprise of her sudden revelation had passed and now it just hurt. It wasn't the physical kind of hurt that came at the end of one of Dudley's 'Harry Hunting' games, but something deeper. He didn't know how to react to it, and it left him feeling confused and angry.

"When you stood up to Dumbledore for me and got him to agree to let me go to Howarts, which I'm grateful for, by the way, and I fully intend to repay the favor—"

Harry managed a tight nod in acknowledgement, not trusting himself to speak.

"—it dragged me into the magical community in a way that I wasn't before," Allie said. "That means it's a matter of when, not if, my gift will be revealed openly. I think I might have mentioned how bad its rep is? Well it's even more dangerous than its rep suggests."

"Which you told Mr. Patil," Harry said flatly.

"He already knew," Allie said. "He and Mum went to school together, they were really close which is why I lived with the Patils after she…wasn't able to care for me any more," she concluded somewhat lamely. He found out on one those take-your-kids-to-work day things. I ended up saving his life."

"But you don't live there anymore."

Allie glared at him and Harry found that he didn't care. He just looked at her defiantly.

"You really want to do this?"

"I want the truth," Harry said. "Seems like I haven't been getting a whole lot of it."

"Fine," she said shortly. "Do you mind if we take this off the main street?"

"Sure."

She led him over to an alleyway between two shops.

"So?" Harry asked when they were alone.

"So I saved Chirag's life, but I was probably about five seconds away from killing Padma before he stopped me," Allie said shortly.

Harry flinched.

"What, do you think it was all light and cheerful and he helped me out of the kindness of his heart?" Allie asked. "I told that comparing me to the Pied Piper wasn't far off. The Piper kills all the kids at the end of the story. Did you somehow think I only got the neat parts and didn't get the bad ones too?"

"I didn't know what to think," Harry protested. "Besides, it's not like I actually know anything because you don't want to tell me."

Allie wouldn't meet his eyes, but did nod grudgingly. "Fair enough."

"So," Harry said, and finding himself suddenly at a loss for what to say next, asked: "so what do you want from me?"

Allie looked up at him, and Harry had the uncomfortable feeling that she was searching him for an answer he couldn't have given, and if he had it was a question that she didn't know how to ask.

"What I am won't stay secret forever, it can't," she said finally. "I'm hoping that having Harry Potter as a friend will help convince people that I'm not the next dark lord when my secrets come out."

"Okay," Harry said, it made sense…wait, no it didn't. "I don't think you'll have that problem though, Allie," he said with a slight grin.

"Oh?" Allie asked.

Harry nodded, feeling rather clever, "Anyone with eyes can see that you're too pretty to be a dark lord."

Allie made a noise of outrage as Harry took off running up Diagon Alley towards the refuge of the bookstore.

As he ran a stray thought past through his mind.

Hey, this Tag game that Dudders likes so much can be fun!

\|/\|/\|/

Flourish and Blotts was everything Harry ever imagined a bookstore to be and more; deep and still, with the dusty, musty odor of paper, parchment, and leather bindings. Tall shelves that stretched to the ceiling lined the walls and were filled with row upon row of books. A magnificent brass ladder swung around the wall shelves and provided a perch to look down on the rows upon rows of shorter shelves—which were still as tall as Hagrid if not more—that filled the rest of the store. One set was actually a rack of diamond-shaped holes that were filled with scrolls ranging from simple parchment to an elaborate one made of silver. Tables, wood dark and heavy with age and worn silk-smooth by hundreds of years and thousands of hands, stood in corners and at ends of aisles with still more books displayed.

He'd never had a book of his very own before, but he'd recognized that reading was a type of power that the Dursleys couldn't take away from him. He'd read every book in his primary school's small library; even read some of the books at the Little Whinging library when his entire class had been trekked over to get their library cards. Harry had been careful to never bring anything back to Number 4, of course. Dudley wouldn't care that it was a library book, only that Harry had something and that he could hurt Harry by ruining it and Uncle Vernon would of course side with Dudley. That hadn't stopped him from very carefully reading all of the books on the shelf in Dudley's second bedroom where they'd sat, never read, until Harry had snuck in and opened them.

Harry quickly found his school books and then took the time to look around. There were big books and small books, books in English and books in other languages, books with clever little symbols and books with nothing written in them at all. There were books on potions, on transfiguration, on charms, on illusions. There were books on how to predict the future and how to see the past.

He would have been content to stay and just brose through books for hours, but Allie reminded him that they were to meet with the twins. He reluctantly turned from the shelves to find another problem, what to do with the stack of books that he'd pulled off of shelves, thinking that he'd find them interesting.

"Finding everything okay?" A wizard in sharp robes with the name of the shop across the chest, asked.

"Too well," Harry sighed, looking at the small mountain (it nearly reached his chin) that he had gathered. "That's the problem."

"Ah," the wizards said. "Well, I'll just be levitating these back to th—"

"Wait," Harry said sharply. He reached into the stack and pulled a copy of the Sorcerer's Almanac out of it. After a moment of thought, a paving-stone sized book that was thicker than the width of his spread hand entitled An Extremely Brief History of Magic joined it.

"That everything?" the wizard asked with an amused look.

Harry looked at the pile, then at his course books and the two books he'd chosen, and sighed. Decisions, decisions. "I'll take, uh, Francis Barrett's editing of John Dee's Encyclopedia Magica as well, please."

"The whole thing?" the wizard asked.

Harry nodded.

The wizard waggled his wand, and the remaining books hopped up and began ambling back to their shelves. "A good choice, Dee. Not as much detail as some, but very comprehensive; and Magus Barrett's annotating is superb, if Dee doesn't give you enough detail Barrett gives you good starting places to find it."

\|/\|/\|/

Harry groaned and leaned back into the couch in the living room. The third piece of cake, he thought, was probably too much. It had taken him almost two weeks to get over a surprising habit of picking at meals, though given how much he normal got to eat it really shouldn't have been. He'd replaced it with a habit of trying to match the twins at every meal, a habit that often left him feeling unwell afterwards. He'd been trying to find a comfortable point somewhere in between, and was privately grateful that neither of the elder Patils had said anything though he was sure that they'd noticed. He was equally sure that the twins had not, Padma had a tendency to start asking questions the moment she didn't understand something, and once Parvati started talking it seemed the only way to make her stop was to suggest that it might be time for a snack.

The cake had been worth it though. A giant three-tier cake that when you sliced it was any kind of cake you could name.

"That was excellent, Mrs. Patil," he said.

"I'm glad you liked it," she replied. "I usually don't like using magic for food, but I thought your first real birthday cake should be special."

Harry nodded his understanding. Once she'd found out that cooking was one of the few activities he'd enjoyed doing at the Dursleys (the few times his Aunt Petunia would actually leave him alone to cook, at least) she'd taken to encouraging his talent. Padma and Parvati both disliked cooking at the best of times, and since their mother expressly forbad any magic near her kitchen they were glad to give up helping her in favor of Harry.

Harry closed his eyes and let the couch enfold him, wondering if this was what it was like to have a family. He was rudely jolted out of his revere by something heavy being dropped into his lap. He looked up to find both twins staring down at him.

"You can't fall asleep yet," Parvati said accusingly.

"What is this?" Harry asked, staring at the very large package in his lap wrapped with bright yellow paper covered with pink and purple elephants that danced across it as he watched.

"It's a birthday present," Padma stated.

"You have to open it," Parvati explained. "That one's from Padma."

"I get presents?" Harry asked with wide eyes.

"It's been known to happen," Mr. Patil teased.

Harry turned from him to Allie who was smirking at him from where she leaned against one wall.

"Go ahead and open it before they strain something," she said with a nod towards Parvati who turned and stuck a tongue out at the other girl.

Harry found a seam in the paper and ripped it back. A flash went off somewhere to his left and he looked up guiltily to find Mr. Patil smiling at him as he lowered a large camera.

"Harry's first birthday present," he said proudly, passing around the photo which quickly found itself in its own frame next to a dozen others that had labels like 'Harry's Hogwarts Letter', 'Harry's first robes', 'Harry's new wand', and 'Harry's first birthday cake'.

"Be careful," Padma whispered with a straight face.

"They might start an album," her sister added. Both shuddered.

"We aren't that bad," Mr. Patil said.

The twins gave him a look that clearly said that they thought otherwise.

"Go ahead and finish opening your present," Mrs. Patil said, giving the twins and her husband a look of long-suffering patience.

Harry ripped the rest of the paper off the top to reveal a large book with a dark red leather cover that was half-covered with gold embossed scroll-work. "Complete Collected Codices Merlinus," he read. "Wow."

"It's Grandmaster Asimov's annotation," Padma said proudly.

"You got him Asimov's annotating of the Merlin Codices?" Allie looked at her askance.

"Daddy said we could get him whatever we wanted," Padma said.

Allie shook her head.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked.

"Your girlfriend has an eye for books," Allie said.

"She's not his girlfriend," Parvati said.

"I'm not?" her sister asked affronted.

"No, I am," Parvati said.

"You, ah, what?" Harry managed.

"Don't worry about it, just do as I say and everything will be fine," Parvati advised him.

Allie snickered.

Padma shook her head, "You can't be his girlfriend."

"Why not?" Parvati demanded.

"Because I was born first," Padma said promptly. "I get first call."

Parvati glared at her sister, then looked at Harry appraisingly before turning back to Padma. "Share?"

"Help?" Harry's plea came out in almost a squeak from where he was trapped in the soft couch between the twins with the heavy book on his lap.

"Girls," Mr. Patil said as Allie burst out laughing.

"Daddy said we couldn't start dating until we're thirteen," Padma said.

"You have some time to get comfortable with the idea," her sister added.

"Allie, help me?" Harry asked.

"No way," Allie replied. "Over-fed, under-bred, cretins are one thing, the twins are something else."

The twins turned and this time both stuck their tongues out at her.

Harry laughed. From the grins the twins exchanged that had been at least part of their goal, but he didn't care. At the Dursleys there'd been precious few things for him to laugh about, and even then he didn't dare let them catch him actually laughing.

"Parvati's turn," Padma said as her sister produced a box that was just as brightly wrapped, though not as neatly as her own had been.

He ripped the paper off without hesitating this time. Parvati's present was a daily calendar on a fancy wood base that was carved with strange symbols. A small pad of paper was set next to the stack of calendar days, and came with an equally small quill and pot of ink.

"It's a horoscope-a-day calendar," Parvati said. "Each day has its own horoscope just for you. You can write important notes on the parchment and they'll copy themselves onto the proper day, and there's a charm on it that will wake you up at the time you specify."

"Wow," Harry said.

"Very nice," Padma agreed sardonically.

Parvati crossed her arms, "Well at least I got him something useful. I mean, who's even read the Merlin codexes?"

"Codices," Padma and Allie said together.

"They're long, dry, boring, written in really awful handwriting, and aren't even written in English!"

"Is too English!"

"Is not!"

"It's old English, Parvati," Allie said.

"It's okay, Harry," Padma told him as Allie and Parvati argued over whether or not Old English was really English at all. "I got you a copy that used typeset with modern spelling and translation."

"Thank you," Harry said.

"My turn next, I suppose," Allie said, flipping a package to Harry.

Harry caught it deftly and looked down. There was a small, flat box that was tied to a somewhat larger box. Neither were wrapped with paper, and the smaller box was the same kind of box that his Uncle had brought his Aunt jewelry in. "What is this?" he asked.

"It's a birthday present," Allie said.

"No, I mean…this is a jewelry box," Harry said.

"Yeah, well," Allie shrugged uncomfortably. "Just open it, will you?"

Harry hesitated, then flipped the lid open. Nestled on a velvet backing was a bird carved from amber. Its wings were upraised, and gold flames rose around it. Its eyes were chips of some green stone, and it held a black orb in its claws. The whole thing was not even an inch high, and it hung from a silver necklace.

"It's, um…"

"It's a phoenix," Padma said. She started to reach down to pick it up.

"Stop!"

Padma froze and looked at Allie in surprise.

"You won't want anyone touching that for a month or so," Allie told Harry.

"Why not?" Harry asked.

"Protection spells," Allie said flatly. "It's a charm, although technically I suppose it's an amulet or talisman, I'm not sure which. The enchantments run off your aura so you need to wear it close to your skin, and it'll only work if you're wearing it. Probably best that you don't go flashing it around or people'll realize that you have it."

"What kind of spells?" Harry asked.

"As I said, protective ones," Allie said. "It'll grow warm if you're in danger. The hotter it gets the more danger. If you pull it out it'll glow in dark places. There are some basic anchored protective runes, nothing spectacular, mind, there's a limit on what I can do on a piece that small and mobile. What anyone can do, really, since wards are meant to be anchored to one place.

"I didn't have any way of testing it, but I'll tell you right now it won't stop any high-level curses, not that we should be seeing any of those any time soon."

She hesitated, "I, uh, experimented with my magic null-zone wards. It'll need at least a year and a day to charge and it probably won't work, but if you break the obsidian orb off of it a temporary anti-magic field will pop up centered on the orb."

"How big a field and for how long?" Chirag asked sharply

Allie shrugged. "I ripped most of the arithmancy calculations from a temporary zonal protection sphere. The zone will be spherical and centered on the orb. The size should be proportional to the wearer's magical strength, but not to the length of time worn. I'm not sure on how big an area it'll cover, but it'll probably be somewhere between six and thirty feet, so at best a sphere sixty feet wide, but probably thirty or so. Duration could be anywhere from seven to seven times seven times seven seconds, but probably forty-nine seconds."

"What type of zonal ward?" Ms. Patil interjected.

Allie looked at her, "pardon?"

"What type of protection sphere did you modify?" she repeated.

"Er, one to protect against dogs," Alllie said. "But that's not important. It—"

"You took the arithmancy calculations from a mail-carrier's charm?" Mr. Patil asked.

"Enchantment, actually," Allie said. "Just for interfacing and the rune controller-sequence, oh, and power regulation, but that's really governed by the field regulator of the anti-magic ward."

"Which means what, exactly?" Harry asked quietly as he watched the two adults and Allie.

"That she isn't sure," Padma said.

"Isn't sure of what?"

"If it'll work, now hush."

Mr. Patil was pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, "How are you storing the power for all of this?"

"The primary set of enchantments all use a direct-flow pattern through a first-order power sink," Allie said. "The anti-magic field uses, uh, a," she muttered something that Harry didn't catch as her cheeks turned pink.

"Allie," Mr. Patil growled.

"A single-release fourth-order power matrix embedded in the orb," Allie muttered a little louder.

"Oh wait! I know this," Parvati said. "That means it'll blow up, right?"

"No," Allie said. "It means that it'll store power, and when the ward is activated it'll power the ward…once."

"And then it'll blow up," Parvati said.

"Unless the matrix holding it breaks first," Padma said. "Then the whole thing will just blow up instead of working."

"Not all of my wards blow up when they fail," Allie said.

"Tree house," Parvati said.

"That was that insane squirrel's fault!" Allie protested.

"And the new containment ring in my lab?" Mrs. Patil asked with a smile.

Allie crossed her arms. "Wasn't my fault. That lab mouse of yours, the one with the over-sized head, tipped over a bottle of a thaum indicator solution that wiped out part of a rune-sequence. I got the anti-gnome wards on the garden right, didn't I?"

"You got me a present that might blow me up?" Harry asked Allie.

"I did not get you a present that will—" Allie stopped and sighed. "Fine. It's not my power matrix. I had Master G do it for me. It's perfectly safe."

Mr. Patil frowned, "Perhaps you should show it to Professor Dumbledore, Harry, just to make sure."

Harry looked at the amulet again, then up at Allie. "If it's okay with you—"

"Go ahead," she said with a shake of her head. "My personal issues aside, he really is one of the smartest wizards alive."

"Okay," Harry said, he took the phoenix out of the box and fastened the necklace around his neck. "Plus it looks really neat," he said, looking down at the carved phoenix.

"Pretty," Padma agreed.

Parvati nodded, "It'd be a shame to hide it."

"I needed a shape and materials that would take the charms," Allie said, "There weren't exactly a lot of things to choose from. It takes more than what I can do to make a charm stick to most metals. It's meant to be worn against the skin, where it'll take a magical scan to reveal that it's enchanted. Wear it openly and anyone who knows what a magical amulet looks like will be able to identify it as one, and it won't charge as fast or be as effective."

Harry stopped and considered that. "You think it's likely that I'm going to be attacked?"

Allie and the elder Patils traded looks. Finally Allie shrugged. "I don't know anything for certain, Harry. Not all of Lord Vo—"

"Allie!" Mr. Patil said sharply.

"Fine, not all of His followers were sent to prison," Allie said. "A lot of them bribed or threatened their way out and still walk free. All of them have a reason to really not like you. Some of them may seek to harm or kill you, either for revenge or because they think that's what their Master would want. Just remember, there isn't going to be enough power for the anti-magic field until August 1st of next year."

Harry hesitated, then reluctantly tucked it inside his shirt. The amulet was gently warm against his skin. He picked up the flat box and started to close it, when he noticed a scrap of parchment inside of it. Curious he plucked it out and unrolled it until he could read what was scrawled on it, and stumbled through: "Hic facet Arthurus, Rex Quondam, Rexque futurus."

The wooden box that was the other half of his present disappeared and was replaced with a small hardcover book with a pale yellow-cream cover. Harry picked it up, "The Once and Future King?" he asked, flipping it over, "The magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot."

"It's a safe," Allie said. "It's a book, real enough, but if you say that phrase it turns into a box that you can store things in and back."

"It's just the kind of book the Dursleys would loath," Harry said with a broad grin. "Thank you." He picked up the parchment again and this time the Latin phrase came easier and he was left holding a wooden box a little larger than the book had been with a simple clasp. "Um, the password…"

"It's what's written on Arthur's gravestone," Parvati said, instantly recognizing the quote.

"Here lies Arthur, the Once and Future King," Padma added.

Harry dropped the jewelry box inside of the wooden box and sealed it again before speaking the password a third time.

"In that case," Mr. Patil said looking at his wife. "I believe it is now our turn…"