Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter or Maximum Ride.
Though I really want to...
I looked around at all of the strange stores. Gazzyand Iggy were eagerly looking around, probably wondering what they could smuggle into the school. Angel clung tight to my hand, making sure that she wouldn't get lost in the crowd. Nudge stood ahead of us, looking at all the shops, mostly at the ones with the clothes. Fang stood at my side, we matched each others pace step for step. Total was still in the hotel, he didn't want to come while we looked for our school supplies. Jebwas back in America, and Mom walked behind us, she was a little nervous. We had two days until the train left, and we went to the new school.
About a week ago, four large owls had come to my mom's house. Ella and mom had been too frightened to walk up and grab the letters that were attached to their legs. After a couple of seconds, I bravely stepped forward, and grabbed the letters from their legs. They didn't seem to mind, but one nearly tried to peck my head off. I was so happy Angel was there to stop it. After I had untied the four letters, the owls stormed off.
I looked through the letters, in fancy writing our names were written. All except for Gazzy's, Angel's, and Total's. I frowned, and looked at the letters again. There were no letters for the three youngest members of the flock.
I passed out the letters, my heart aching when I got to the last one. "There was no letter for us, were they?" she whispered.
"No sweety. I'm sorry." I whispered back to her. "Maybe they were late? I'm sure you'll get one." I added. She smiled, but didn't look hopeful. In my mind, I thought, 'Don't worry. We'll never leave you, never in a million years.' That made her smile a little more, but I knew she was still upset.
"Alright, let's open them." I said, slowly I tore open the letter. There were three pieces of paper in it, the others only had two. I decided I would read the one with my name on it, it had the same fancy writing, it said:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Miss Ride,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
I looked around, the others had already read it, and had moved onto their second letter. I went to my third. It said:
Dear Miss Ride,
I would like to congratulate you on your acceptance into Hogwarts. As you may know by now, you are missing three letters. One for Miss Angel, Mr. The Gasman, and Mr. Total. Sadly they are not old enough to attend our school. You see, you must be at least eleven to join. Apparently, Miss Angel is only seven and Mr. The Gasman is around eight or nine. Total on the other hand is a dog apparently, but I must add, a talking dog.
I've heard little about you Miss Ride, and from what I have heard, you will never leave somebody from your flock, as you call it, behind. That includes Miss Angel and Mr. Gasman. Graciously, our Keeper of Keys has agreed to make a cottage for your family to live in, you may go down and see them when you wish when you are not in classes.
Oh, and by they way, since you have not come to our school before, we would like to bring you to one of our teacher's before the sorting ceremony. Just to see your abilities. We will not need to see Miss Nudge, seeing how she is eleven; so she is the perfect age to join our school, like other children.
Thank you,
Albus Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore
Headmaster
p.s. Ask for Tom the barman at the Leaky Cauldron. He'll tell you were Diagon Alley is, you'll need to go there to get your books and other supplies.
I smiled toward Angel and Gazzy, who looked disappointed. Angel looked up to me, her small eyes hopeful. "You won't be allowed to go to school with us, but you'll be living in a cottage that's on the grounds of it. We'll visit you everyday." she said to them both. She passed them the letter, Angel held it, while both read it. They smiled as they read the ending.
The day after we got the letters, some owls appeared. I had written the letter back to the headmaster, and the four owls flew away, with only one letter. About two days later mom decided that we should go to London, to buy our books and stuff. We had agreed, Nudge couldn't wait to see everything around. Mom had tried to get us on a plain, we all laughed, and told her that wasn't necessary. We could fly them all there easy. But my mom didn't like that idea, so we were forced on a stupid plane for so long. Other then me hyper ventilating, we were fine.
When we arrived, a taxi was there to drive us to our hotel. Good ol' mom, always thinking ahead. We had two rooms, one for the girls, and one for the boys. Ella and my mom had one bed, Nudge and Angel had the other. I got to sleep on a coffee table, it wasn't to bad, it just gave me a tense neck, but I'd live.
After what seemed like an entire day of sleeping, we decided to go get our supplies, and then some food. So we had found a strange place called the Leaky Cauldron. Just about everyone that walked by ignored the place, we saw one or two people walk into it. It was like it was invisible to everyone.
"Hey mom," I had said, "look, it's lunch time, and there's a place to eat. Why do you think everyone is passing by?"
"Where dear? I only see a clothing store along with a furniture store." I looked at her, raising an eyebrow. I grabbed her arm and stood right in front of the store.
"Right here." I said. She looked at it, then gave me a weird stare.
"Why am I looking at a wall?" she asked. I groaned and opened the door, I waved the flock in, grabbing mom's arm, I led her in. She gaped in wonder. "This wasn't here a second ago."
I looked at my mother in wonder, then I shrugged and we walked in further. There was a barman, staring at us, with a bit of surprise. "Hello there." he said, cleaning a glass. He was defiantly English, just by the way he sounded.
"Hi." I said, my accent must have thrown him off. "We're looking for Diagon Alley. We were told to come see a man called Tom."
"Well then, you've found me. Diagon Alley is just around the corner. Go through the back, it'll open for you once you get there." he said, staring at us. Angel smiled.
"Thank you sir." she said, and started to lead the way to the door. We were led to a wall.
"What now?" my mom asked, staring at the brick wall.
Fang shrugged. "Well... maybe... me and Gazzy have been working on this new bomb..." Iggy started
"No! No bombs!" I shouted. Giving an angry glare toward the two of them. They looked disappointed.
Nudge started to tap the walls, she touched every brick. "What are you doing?" I asked slowly. The girl looked at me.
"I dunno. Maybe there's a crack or something." she said, continuing to poke to bricks. Suddenly, the ground started to shake, Nudge jumped backward, and looked at the wall. The bricks were aligning, making an arch. My mom took a few steps back, looking at the moving bricks with disbelief. Soon the bricks settled, and behind it, there were dozens and dozens of shops, and people running around, carrying thick books and boxes. They wore strange robes, some were black, others were emerald green, some where wearing a dark shade of purple. On each of the robes, there was a strange emblem. I couldn't see what they were though.
"Um, guys, I think we're in Diagon Alley." I said, looking around in disbelief. We walked into the strange street, so many people were talking, so many things were happening. "Alright, we all have that money that was in our letters, right?" I asked. Nudge, Fang, and Iggy nodded. "Good." I let go of Angel's hand to rummage through my pocket. I picked up a crumbled piece of paper, slowly unfolding it, I started to read the list.
"Alright, it seems that we need a wand first of all." I said, reading it off. "Oh yeah, because all the cool people at school have wands. Anyone see a wand shop?"
The crew started to look around, except for Iggy of course, suddenly Nudge raised her hand high. "It's over there. There's a little boy in there he just got something in a long box. There's an old man in there, and like, he's getting the money from the little boy's mom. There's a sign on top, it says: Olivanders. I think that's where we need to go." she continued on after that. Something about books and clothes. I rolled my eyes.
"Alright then, let's get going." I sighed, and grabbed Angel's hand again, and we started to walk toward the shop. My mom right behind me, Iggy and Gazzy now five steps ahead, looking at a joke shop, and Fang, we walked next to Nudge. We entered the store, a small bell announced our arrival. An old man with wild white hair turned from where he stood on a latter to face us.
A wave of confusion passed over his face. He looked toward Iggy, Fang, and me. I looked at him, giving him my famous glare. He turned to Nudge, "Your here to buy your wand."
"Doesn't take a genius to figure that out." I replied. He looked at me, we must have one weird accent. "Actually, we are all here to buy our wands. Except for these two." I gestured toward Angel and Gazzy. Angel looked disappointed, but I knew that she couldn't wait to go live in a cottage, she always wanted a home.
"Oh, why don't you have them?" he asked.
"We didn't know we needed one until now." I responded. "It's our first year at some school." I explained a little further. He nodded, and started to shuffle through his boxes. Nudge walked up, and waited patiently. Even though her patient span is only about ten seconds.
"Which is your wand arm?" he asked, finally getting over to Nudge. Nudge stuck out her right hand, and the old man studied it, he took all sorts of measurements, even a nose measurement - which I though was insane. I took me several seconds, before I realized that he wasn't holding the measuring tape. I stood ground, even though it was weird, and on the inside I was freaking out a little. I can kill flyboys, and beat up erasers, but when it comes to a flying measuring tape I freak out. What does that tell you?
After a minute, the old man went back to his boxes, bringing a large one to Nudge. "Eight and a quarter inch, yew, phoenix feather, and fairly flexible." he said. I watched as Nudge waved the wand around, there was a sudden sound of chimes and bells, then the old man nodded.
"Oh wow, was I like, doing magic? That was awesome!" Nudge exclaimed.
Then he turned to Iggy. I nudged Iggy forward, and he walked up to the counter. After his measurements were taken, he was handed a box. "Twelve and a half inch, maple, unicorn hair, nice and supple." Iggy foolishly gave it a wave, to have some boxes fall off of the shelves. Gazzy gave a snort of laughter. "Nope." the old man said, and went searching again. After a few minutes, he came out of the back, carrying a large box. "Fourteen inches, mahogany, unicorn hair, flexible." Before Iggy could do anything, he had it snatched away. This was getting annoying. Finally, after five more tries, he finally found his wand. Nine inches, holly, dragon strand, slightly flexible.
Fang found his after two tries. His had fourteen inches of oak, dragon strand, and very whippy. According to the old man, it was good for transfiguration. What transfiguration was I didn't know though. Finally it was my turn, after having to hold still for the longest time, I finally got passed the wand. Eleven and three quarter inch, unicorn and flexy, made of willow. I had barely touched it before it was snatched, finally after seven tries, a new record, I found one that worked for me.
"Let's try this one." the old man had said, "Thirteen and quarter inch, made of cherry, phoenix feather, pliable." He handed it to me, a warm sensation filled the room, I wanted to open up my wings and fly, but I kept myself tight in my clothes.
We each payed seven galleons, these huge gold round things, and left, waving good-bye to the old man.
"That was strange." Iggy said after we got a fair distance away.
"Your telling me. Come on, let's get to a used book shop. We need to get Nudge's books. We don't need them yet, since we don't know which grade we'll be put into." she said, they walked into a small book-shop. The group split up, looking for the books that were needed. After about an hour, we found all of the books, after we paid for them, we headed over to yet another shop, there stood a bunch of ingredients and things, that we would need for yet another class. After gathering the necessary equipment, we looked at the list again.
"We are allowed to bring either an owl, a cat, or a toad." I read off. We had some money left over from Nudge, and she gladly agreed. "Alright, I think we'll need an owl. We can write messages that way. Sound good?" The group nodded. "And since it's Nudge's left over money, she gets to pick it out." The flock nodded reluctantly.
"Alright then, come along." I grabbed Nudge's money. One galleon, three silver pieces, and a knut. Hopefully that would be enough. We explored the many wonders of the animals. Finally, Nudge found an owl that she fell in love with. It was a large Masked owl. I looked at it, it had a strange face, but tons of specks all over its body. It hooted at Nudge. "Okay." I nodded. I walked up to the man at the counter.
"May I help you?" he growled.
"I want the Masked owl." I said, pointing to the cage.
"That is going to cost you a galleon and three silver pieces." he growled, I handed over the money. He nodded, and gave me the cage with the owl in it. "Thanks for your business. It's a girl owl by the way." I walked away, quickly, we gathered Iggy and Gazzy from the rats who were running and doing flips. Fang stood at the entryway, waiting. My mom and Angel were looking at the cats, who were playing around, being cat-like.
"Come on you two, we got the owl." Angel looked at the owl in my hands. She smiled, my mom looked nervous. "It's not going to hurt you." I reassured. They stood up, and we started to walk out. "Alright, is there anything else that we need?" I asked. Everyone shook their heads.
"Okay then, let's go." I said, passing the owl to Nudge. We walked out of Diagon Alley, and we had to walk the three blocks back to our hotel, where Total was waiting for us in the boy's room.
"You'll never believe what happened to me! It was horrible! I was sleeping, when this young maid opened the door and screamed. I screamed, and she ran out. Then there were three other maids, and they looked at me. It was so scary!" he said. For about an hour afterwards, we kept having to get the reenactmentof how scared Total was. I rolled my eyes and sighed. I couldn't wait until we were at that school, I wouldn't have to deal with Total as much.
Suddenly the voice said, during the oh-so exciting part where Total was cowering in a corner, "Be careful Max. There are things at that school that you should be aware of."
I responded in my mind, 'Shut up. I'm going to school, isn't that torture enough?'
There was no response from the great and powerful voice. Big surprise there.
