Weasleys are red, Ravenclaws are blue, I don't own Harry Potter, and neither do you.
Harry shivered as he stepped into the Gladrags Wizardwear and brushed the show off his cloak. It was freezing in late February and the snow was falling heavily outside.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Potter, and what can I do for you?" a kindly witch, in ghastly purple robes, asked. She stepped out from behind the counter and beckoned him further into the shop.
"Urm, well, this might sound a little bizarre," Harry hesitated. How was he supposed to explain to this sales-witch that he was looking for 365 different kinds of socks? And not just any socks, no, they had to be the most crazy, outlandish socks this woman could get her hands on.
"Nonsense Mr. Potter, what exactly are you looking for? New dress robes perhaps? Everyone knows it's uncouth to wear those more than once. Something stylish perhaps?" The sales-witch took Harry forcefully by the arm and led him to the back of the shop. "How about something in silver, that would bring the green in your eyes so nicely. Or perhaps something in Gryffindor red-" Harry pulled his arm out of the woman's vice like grip and took a step back.
"No," he said forcefully, "I am not looking for new dress robes, mine are perfectly fine. I am looking into something a little more peculiar."
"Aren't you a little young for that kind of thing?" the sales-witch asked, crossing her arms across her chest and looking disapprovingly at Harry.
"What? No, of course not. I'm not looking for anything like…like…that," Harry said. Before the sales-witch could make any more outlandish assumptions he blurted, "I'm looking for 365 pairs of socks."
The sales-witch's penciled in eyebrows rose. "That is an odd request, but I have heard more bizarre things in my day, young man. This way." She led him through a back door into a large room that was completely filled with socks and underwear. "We do have a lovely package of socks. There are only seven, of course, but they are bewitched to show the date on them. The pattern also changes each time you put it on so in essence you really will have one pair of socks for every day of the year without filling your whole wardrobe up with socks either." She handed Harry seven pairs of socks, bound in yellow ribbon. The tag read Everette Evenbee's Ever Changing Socks – A Sock For Every Day of the Year.
"No, thank you. I am looking for something more unique. I really do need 365 pairs of socks." Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"Heavens boy, what do you need that many socks for?" the sales-witch asked.
"They're not for me. They're a present, for a friend, a friend that saved my life."
"This friend saved your life and all you can think to buy him is 365 pairs of socks?"
"Trust me," Harry said, shaking his head. "He'll love it."
The sales-witch looked at him skeptically and then shrugged her shoulders. "Well, let's see then," she said, and started picking up each pair of sock as she went by. "Generally speaking, we don't carry socks with crazy patterns on them but I do know a few charms for altering the designs, so I say we pick up 365 pairs of socks and alter them each. That way they'll all be unique. Go ahead, start counting."
"Brilliant," Harry mumbled and started counting out pairs of socks.
Harry picked up red ones and blue ones and yellow ones. He had socks in gold, silver, and bronze. The shades ranged from neon colors to pastels. Finally when he and the sales-witch had collected 365 socks they were both sweating profusely and extremely exhausted.
"That was harder than I thought it would be," the sales-witch murmured as she took out her wand. "Now, I know you're not supposed to do magic outside of school, Harry, but these socks aren't going to charm themselves. So watch me and then you can work on the patterns as well." Harry didn't protest. He was ready to get on his way and get out of the shop.
The sales-witch took out her wand and pointed it at the first pair of socks. "Revelare exemplum," she said, tracing a figure eight over the socks with her wand. "There now, that was simple enough." The socks had originally been yellow. Harry watched as the yellow started to drain from the fabric and form itself into tiny canaries.
"You try Harry," she said, putting a pair of blue socks in front of him.
Harry twirled his wand in a figure eight over the socks and said, "Revelare exemplum." Parts of the blue faded away, leaving funny shaped objects on the socks.
"Ah yes, I think those are suppose to be clouds. You'll get better with practice, your forms will get clearer and clearer. Keep going, then," the sales-witch said, placing a pattern on a particularly garish pair of pea green socks.
Harry grabbed some orange socks and was thinking about how they reminded him of orange juice and how much he missed orange juice while he placed the pattern spell on them. When the shapes had stopped shifting Harry let out a gasp. The socks now showed a tiny picture of a boy, with black hair, drinking a glass of orange juice. He quickly picked up a pair of purple ones and cast the spell on them while thinking of grapes. Sure enough little purple bunches of grapes appeared.
The excitement of designing socks wore off after about the fifteenth pair and Harry was sorely bored as he continued on with the socks. He was running out of interesting ideas to charm onto the socks. It got to the point to where he was simply casting the charm over the socks and just letting whatever showed up there stay. He was a little perturbed when a particularly mustardish yellow pair of socks ended up having little representations of Heinz Mustard bottles on them. What would Dobby do with socks with mustard jars on them? Surely the little elf wouldn't appreciate that. Harry tried to change the pattern only to find it was permanent.
After what seemed like hours, Harry finished up his last sock (a beige sock with sea shells on it). He put his wand away and laid his hands down on his head. He was getting a headache from concentrating to shard on the pattern charm. Harry was pretty sure he would be dreaming about socks tonight.
"Well, sir, I believe we are done, finally," the sales-witch said.
"Thank Merlin, I was beginning to think we would never finish."
"That was one heck of a job we did," she said, looking over the hundreds of socks they had charmed. "Now who are these going to and are you sending them by owl?"
Harry hadn't even thought about how he was going to get the socks to Dobby. "Erm, well, they're for a house elf, up at the castle," Harry confessed.
The sales-witch gasped. "You're going to free one of the school elves? What'd he do, let one of the fires go out? Burn your food?"
Harry shook his head. "I told you, he saved my life. Anyways, he is already a free elf. Dumbledore pays him and everything apparently. Can you get these delivered to the castle for me? Send them to the kitchens, for an elf named Dobby?"
"Aye," the sales-witch said. "Shouldn't be a problem. Them elves come down to the village pretty frequently to buy food and such for the school and get supplies. Next time they're down here, I'll have them take the socks back up to the castle with them, that way I don't have to charge you for delivery."
"That'd be great," Harry replied. "How much do I owe you?"
"Let's see," she said, taking out her wand. "5 Sickles per pair of sock, so that would total 1,825 Sickles which of course comes out to 107 Galleons and 2 Sickles. Add 2 extra Sickles per pair for the Pattern Charm and you have 730 which is 43 Galleons. Your total today, Mr. Potter is," the number 150 popped out of the witch's wand and hovered in mid air, "150 Galleons if you will."
"Thanks," Harry said as he reached into this money bag. It was significantly lighter than when he had filled it at Gringotts before coming to Hogwarts. "Actually, I don't think I have enough money with me, I'm sorry."
"Not to worry, Mr. Potter, we can write up a vault draft for the money."
"What's a vault draft?" Harry asked.
"It's a written contract of payment, from you to Gladrags. We send it in to Gringotts and the Goblin's transfer the money from your vault, to ours. It's relatively simple," the witch explained as she took out an official looking parchment with the Gladrags logo embossed on the top.
"Now, just write here how much you wish to pay today, directly from your vault, that's it. Now sign here."
Harry signed where the sales-witch indicated.
"Perfect, you're all paid up Mr. Potter, now is there anything else I can do for you today?"
"No, that will be all, thank you." Harry said, walking out of the shop. He would be happy if he never saw another pair of socks again in his life.