"Professor Loki, what a surprise to see you here," a feminine voice greeted as they entered Flourish and Blott's Bookshop.
"Professor McGonagall," Loki answered with a smile as he stepped up to an elderly woman, took her hand, and bent over it gallantly. "A pleasure. You are escorting a student today?" he enquired when he spotted the couple in jeans and collared shirts behind her, a little girl similarly dressed between them (though she wore a pale pink t-shirt instead of a collared shirt).
"Indeed," she agreed. "These are the Grangers. Their daughter will be attending Hogwarts this year. May I ask what brings you to the Alley?"
"Well, I had a very little bit of shopping to do this morning, last things to get before the school year, when I saw Hagrid escorting young Mr Potter here to the bank, and offered to give the young man a... more comprehensive introduction to magical society than Hagrid would have thought to."
Professor McGonagall nodded approvingly. "Really, what Albus was thinking, sending Hagrid to fetch Mr Potter," she grumbled softly.
Loki just smiled and gave no answer. After all, how could he understand what was going on in the mind of his employer? He had only just been hired that summer, after all.
"Hello," the little girl greeted Harry.
"Hello," he answered. "I'm Harry."
"I'm Hermione," she answered with a tentative smile. "What shops have you been to so far?"
"Well, after the bank, Professor Loki took me to the luggage shop to buy a trunk first, so that I'd have somewhere to put all the things I'd have to buy today," Harry started, counting off on his fingers. "Then we went to the Portobello Road Market for a while, to buy things that I needed because my relatives wouldn't buy them for me, like new clothes, and after lunch we came back to Diagon Alley and I got school and casual robes from Madam Malkin's, as well as formal robes from a tailor, and then there was Hyde's Hides where I got a lot of dragon leather things like gloves and boots, and after that was Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment for the telescope, scales, and a set of vials, then we went to the apothecary, then the optometrist where I got contact lenses to replace my old glasses, and now we're here," Harry finished.
"Wow," Hermione breathed. "We came straight here after going to the bank and exchanging pounds for galleons." Then she frowned – and Hermione frowned with her whole face, not just her mouth. "Wait, if you went to a luggage shop and got a trunk, where is it?" she asked.
Harry grinned. "It's in my pocket," he answered. "It shrinks."
"Wow," Hermione breathed again, eyes even wider than before.
"Perhaps, if there is luggage that will do that, we should have gone there first," commented Mr Granger.
"If you like, Mr Granger, Mrs Granger, I could escort one or both of you to the luggage store, while Professor Loki supervises the children here?" Professor McGonagall offered.
"You go David," Mrs Granger urged. "I'll keep Hermione's bibliophilia in check."
He kissed her cheek and bid Professor McGonagall lead the way.
"A bibliophile?" Loki asked the girl with a smile.
Hermione blushed.
"What's that?" Harry asked.
"Someone who loves books," Loki answered the boy. "Arguably, a little too much," he added, and his smile twisted slightly into an amused smirk.
For some reason, Hermione blushed more deeply and frowned – again with her whole face – and dragged her mother off into the shelves in a hurry.
"Better than thinking reading will make you go blind," Harry muttered, thinking of his cousin and uncle with distaste.
"Indeed," Loki agreed with a sigh, then gently urged Harry along towards a different stack of shelves. "Come along," he instructed. "There are shelves to search and books to find. The first-year standard texts are in nice neat bundles by the counter, as are full sets of the The Standard Book of Spells series, so I suggest you look around to find something interesting for alternative reading."
"You mean apart from those two tomes the apothecary lady sold me?" Harry joked with a smile.
Loki smiled back at the boy. "Indeed," he agreed.
~oOo~
"You don't have any history books," Hermione noted when they all (McGonagall and her father having returned by this time) met up again. She had at least three such texts in her arms.
Harry raised an eyebrow at that. "Professor Loki said that if I wanted to learn about history, I was better ordering books from Italy and learning either Italian or the translation charm, if not both," he answered. "Apparently there isn't a lot of journalistic integrity in the British historical records, but the Italians are nuts for it and keep records of what's happened all over the world," he explained.
"Oh," Hermione said softly, then frowned again. "You mean... these books could be wrong?" she asked.
"Almost certainly," Loki interjected. "They might have some birth-dates right, but I wouldn't trust them beyond that. Your assigned history text is passable, as far as it goes, but if it isn't Italian or more than a two-hundred years old, I simply don't trust it for historical facts."
Hermione sighed sadly, and removed the historical texts from her pile of books. She didn't want to read books that were trying to pass off lies as facts after all.
The relief on the adult Granger's faces was clear to McGonagall and Loki both, but Hermione missed it as she was already looking for other books to replace the ones she'd removed from her pile, and Harry himself was too busy setting his collection of books on the counter, and picking up a set of first year texts as well as the full The Standard Book of Spells collection.
"So, Mr Potter, to the wand maker or the pet shop next?" Loki asked the young man as he stored his purchases in the compartment of his trunk that he was keeping his books in.
"Pet shop, please Professor Loki," Harry answered.
Loki smiled and peered into the compartment. "And, Mr Potter, do I suppose that you would like some sort of bird?" he suggested as he pulled out a book Harry had bought while they were in the Portobello Road Market. A book on falconry.
Harry ducked his head briefly, a slightly sheepish smile on his lips. "I know the letter said that students could have an owl or a cat or a toad, but I thought... well, falcons are just... so much cooler, and I could have them hunt rabbits that I could cook when I'm not in Hogwarts," he explained softly.
Loki smiled and patted the boy on the head before replacing the book.
"Professor McGonagall?" he called to the grey-haired woman. "Mr Potter would like a slightly different bird than an owl, but I'm unfamiliar with the strictures of the matter."
"Oh, it's no great stricture," McGonagall answered. "Students really are allowed any pet, but owls, cats and toads have always been the most common. The letter simply emphasises that they may only have one pet with them at Hogwarts," she explained.
"Thank you, Professor McGonagall," Loki said, and bowed his head in gratitude. "Well then Mr Potter, let us see to finding you a bird."
Harry smiled as he finished stowing his books and closed the lid of his trunk. He was just shrinking it when Hermione returned with her new pile of books.
"I'll see you later Hermione," Harry bid as he put the trunk back into his pocket.
"Can I look for you on the train?" Hermione asked quickly.
"Train?" Harry asked, turning questioning green eyes up to Professor Loki.
"The Hogwarts Express, a train that will take students from Kings Cross Station to the Hogsmede Station, from which first years are carried over the lake to Hogwarts castle, while returning students are taken in carriages," Loki answered.
Harry smiled and turned back to Hermione. "Sure," he agreed. "I'll get there early and find a compartment for us to share!" he promised, and with a last wave, he left the shop with Professor Loki.
"Now, Mr Potter, there are people who would claim that where I am going to take you, no child should ever go. They would spread fallacies that it is a haunt of exclusively wicked witches and cruel wizards, and that the whole place should be set ablaze," Loki said as he guided Harry through the crowds towards another alley branching off Diagon. "These people, Mr Potter, are wrong. It is a place where the ugly, the unwanted, and the uncommon are found, and some, I grant, are unpleasant, but the people here are still people, and the businesses here are still just that, and want repeat custom as much as any other. Do you understand what I am telling you?" Loki asked the boy.
"Yes Sir," Harry answered. "It's like my aunt and uncle telling all the neighbours that I'm a criminal and a delinquent. I'm not, but I look – I looked like one. People are stupid."
Loki smiled sadly at the boy. No child should have been treated the way it seemed young Harry had been. "Indeed," he agreed. "It is the responsibility of every person to use their minds to their fullest capacity. Sadly, most people do not. I am glad to see you know enough to not be so easily blinded by public opinion."
Harry smiled back, pleased to have pleased this man. This man who had actually looked out for and helped him – him! – all day.
Loki led Harry down Knockturn Alley to a place called St Alban's Mews. The counter had a break in it that would allow customers to follow the shopkeeper through another door to the back, as opening a door to a room full of birds really was, potentially, just asking for trouble. As for the man at the counter, well, he was a little bit scarred, but otherwise seemed none the worse for his chosen profession.
"Gentleman," he greeted with a smile. "If you will permit me to turn the sign on the door and lock it, I will escort you out the back where the birds are."
Harry blinked in surprise. But, he supposed, if anybody were coming into this shop, then they would be coming for a bird. The shop next door, which looked joined but which had written above the door Dame Juliana's Provisions for Hawking, Hunting and Heraldry probably covered everything else needed for tending to the birds that would be bought here.
"Did you have in mind the sort of bird you were looking for?" the man asked once he'd dealt with the door and the sign and was moving past them to the counter once more.
"A goshawk," Harry answered.
The man chuckled. "I should have you to be more specific than that lad," he said easily. "There's near thirty different varieties of goshawk, and that's not including cross-breeds. But I only have the local breeds of birds and the birds that migrate here naturally, meaning for goshawks I've only got the goshawk breed that was originally the goshawk, that's the northern goshawk lad, just so you know."
Harry nodded in understanding.
"Now you go on in there lad," the man encouraged as he gently nudged Harry towards a door off his hall of doors – a door that said 'goshawks'. "And you come out again when you find one you can get along with. And lad? The bigger ones is the females. Don't get 'em mixed up or they'll get scratchy with you."
Harry nodded quickly that he understood, accepted the thick glove the man handed him, and entered. After ten minutes of looking at (and admiring) every bird there, Harry emerged with one that the shopkeeper clearly recognised.
"Lad, how is it that a tiny thing like you gets the largest and most bloodthirsty of the females to be preening your hair like you're her own chick?" he asked, his voice pitched a little higher. It could have been incredulity, or fear for the boy, or even both that had caused the man to squeak at the end of his question.
Harry blinked in surprise and could only shrug.
"Do you have a name for this bird?" Loki asked the man, "or will it be up to the young man to choose?"
"I been callin' this one here Her Majesty," the man answered, his voice calming, though there was still a hint of a quaver in it as he eyed the bird distrustfully.
Loki tentatively reached out to the goshawk and, while he was not snapped at or scratched, the bird did watch him very closely and flex her claws threateningly when his fingers were close enough to lightly brush her feathers.
"She reminds me of Sif," he declared softly as he withdrew his hand.
The shopkeeper frowned. "Ain't she the Norse goddess of, er, marriage or some such?" he asked.
Loki chuckled. "The Sif I knew, sir, would sooner disembowel you than be held up as a pillar to matrimony," he explained, a smile on his face. Oh yes, definitely a different woman to how she had been when Thor was telling drunken tales of godhood to the Vikings.
Harry, for his part, smiled as he gently stroked the birds breast feathers. "Sif," he said softly. "I like it. What about you, beautiful? Do you like that name?" he asked the bird.
The bird's head bobbed up and down in a parody of a nod, and that was that.
"Sif it is then," Harry decided with a smile.
"I've got a door that lets you into the shop next door for supplies, so ya don't have to worry about takin' her outside," the shopkeeper offered. "But she'll be seven galleons and five sickles before I let ya through."
Harry nodded in agreement and reached into the pocket that held his money with his free hand, and pulled out the coins requested.
In the next shop over, a hood was bought for Sif with the Potter crest quickly (and magically) embossed onto the back, as well as a gauntlet of Harry's own so that he could return the glove borrowed from the man they'd bought Sif from, and a great many other bits and bobs that were needed for training the bird not just to accept Harry as her master, but to hunt for him as well, not to mention the things needed for her general upkeep like a perch and water dish.
Then, with Sif hooded and on his shoulder, Harry followed Professor Loki back down the street.
"Just the wand left, I believe?" Loki questioned.
"Yes Sir," Harry answered.
"Well, we have two options, and I would recommend taking both," Loki said firmly. "First, we shall return to Diagon Alley and purchase a wand from Mr Ollivander. This will be the standard wand that you will use in whatever classes require you to use one. Then, we will return to Knockturn Alley and see a crafter I know about having a focus made specifically for you."
"Sir?" Harry asked curiously.
"You'll see what I mean, Mr Potter," Loki answered with a slight sigh. "Come along."
"Yes Sir."
~oOo~
Loki took Sif – and she dug her claws in sharply when he did, though she made no other protest against being passed off – and sat to one side behind Harry as Ollivander offered the boy wand after wand to try, to give a wave, until half an hour later and they'd finally happened upon a winner. Holly, and a tail feather from a phoenix who was particularly miserly and only gave two – the other of which had been purchased by the man who had killed Harry's parents, among a great many other people.
"Sir," Harry said politely. "What was his name? I've only heard people refer to him as 'he who must not be named', and 'you know who'."
"I'd have told the young man myself, but I only entered the country this year. I don't know it either," Loki admitted when Ollivander sent him a questioning look.
Ollivander hummed. "Well, he put a taboo on his assumed name during the war," he said. "But his real name, Mr Potter, was Tom Riddle. Tom Marvolo Riddle. It might be best if you keep that to yourself though lad," he advised.
Harry nodded in acceptance, if not understanding, and paid for his wand.
Loki handed Sif back to him, and together they headed back down Knockturn Alley.
"Professor, why do I need two wands?" Harry asked as they walked.
"When you look at your wand from Ollivander with your new glasses, Mr Potter, you will find that there are tracking charms on it. They are activated from the moment that wand leaves the shop and will only fade after five years, meaning you will have passed your OWL exams and are legally permitted to use magic outside of school," Loki explained. "I am not advising you to do anything illegal, Mr Potter, but having a wand that does not have such tracking spells on it for alternative use during the summer months is sensible. It will also enable you to practice your spells during the summer without the trackers alerting the Ministry. Though I do advise you to be discrete about such," he added firmly.
"Yes Sir," Harry agreed quickly. "Sir, why do I even need a wand?" he asked. "I mean..." he hesitated when Loki stopped walking and looked down at him. "I... made things happen when I didn't have one, so..."
Loki smiled. "Very good, Mr Potter," he congratulated. "Yes, it is possible to learn to use magic without a wand, or a focus of any kind, for that matter, and indeed there are a great many types of magic that require no wand at all. My subject for one, Potions for another. But as you say, you made things happen without a wand. The trick, Mr Potter, is learning how to do them on purpose. To be able to direct your magic. A wand, originally, was nothing more than a training tool, to help students get a feel for their magic. In more recent times, however, it has become a crutch, and the second greatest punishment any witch or wizard of this day faces is to have their wand taken from them and snapped."
Harry frowned a moment in thought, chin nearly pressed flat to his chest. "I'm going to practice magic without my wand," he decided quietly.
Loki smiled. It wasn't a nice smile, but it was a victorious smile. "I really am very pleased to hear you say that, Mr Potter," he said, even as he placed his hand on the door of a shop called Cid's Tuning.
"Tuning, Sir?" Harry asked as he took in the sign.
Loki smiled. "The person here can craft and tune items to be aligned with your magic, so that they work only for you, and bring out the best you have to offer," he explained.
Harry nodded in acceptance and understanding.
"Hm, should probably also buy you a holster and care-kit for your wand. Keeping it in your pocket isn't really the best of ideas," Loki mused as he ushered Harry in.
"If you want me to do anything for the boy, I refuse," the old woman at the counter said flatly, not even looking up from her magazine.
"Ma'am?" Loki questioned, caught off balance.
"I can tell from here he has some sort of parasite leeching off of him. I'm not doing anything for the boy until he gets at least that removed," the woman explained. "It wouldn't be tuned right, and I have a professional standard to uphold. The bindings and suppressors I could work around, but the leech? Not a chance."
"Ah," Loki said softly, and turned Harry around to examine him carefully. "Probably in this," he decided, and gently tapped Harry's infamous scar.
"And no purification rituals in my shop," the woman added sharply. "You'll upset some of the merchandise and probably botch it. Get the goblins to do it, they'll make sure it's cleaned off properly, and probably won't charge too much for the service."
"Thank you Ma'am," Loki said with a smile, and urged Harry out of the shop and onto the streets once again.
The goblins of Gringotts didn't charge too much for the service, just as they were told, and Harry found that the ritual he was put through wasn't even painful, which he had sort of thought it would be, though he wouldn't be able to say why he'd thought that. It had been embarrassing though, as he'd been required to strip down to his birthday suit. He had definitely felt lighter afterwards though. The goblins informed him once he was redressed that they'd removed the suppressors and bindings and a great many other spells from his person in the same ritual, which would likely explain why he felt so light.
Spells upon a person, despite what people thought, did have some physical weight. Not much to the individual spell, generally speaking, so people didn't really notice when a spell was cast on them, but as they piled on, so did the weight of them.
"Better," the woman declared when they returned to her shop, and put her magazine away. "I'm Cid. What can I do you for?"
"A wand, or power-channelling device of some other sort if that would suit better, for the young man here," Loki answered.
She nodded. "Alright," she agreed. "Step up here and let me look at you. Leave your bird and that Ollivander bit with your dad, and anything else magical you're carrying too for that matter. They'll get in the way."
Harry blinked at the 'dad' comment, but did as he was bid all the same, a questioning, doubtful look in his eye as he passed his possessions to the Professor.
He only seemed amused by the comment, but really, they did have similar colouring: black hair, green eyes, and pale skin. It was a passable assumption, but one he didn't feel the need to comment upon.
The resultant object looked more like an exotic dagger than a wand, and it definitely had a sharp edge. It was a combination of unicorn ivory, silver, and ebony. The ivory and the silver made up the 'blade', while the ebony was the handle.
"You," Cid informed Harry as she handed the thing over to him an hour after she'd started, "are a very strange young man. Do you want a sheath with that?"
"And a wand holster and maintenance kits to go with as well please," Loki interjected.
Cid nodded in acceptance and rummaged through her shelves. She pulled things down and flicked her wand between Harry and the objects, nodded a few beats later in clear satisfaction, and then moved to her register. "Twenty galleons even for the lot," she informed them.
Harry handed over the coins quickly.