As they exit the bank Petunia sags with relief while Harry spots the ice cream shop.

Tentatively, Harry tugs Petunia's sleeve, "Auntie, can we get some ice cream please?"

Petunia looks over at the store longingly before shaking her head, "Not yet, if I sit down now I'm not getting up until my hand stops shaking, and we need to get your wand."

Harry's eyes drop down to the floor and he mumbles, "Yes Auntie."

Petunia puts her hand on his shoulder, and flinches as he flinches from her touch, "Harry, I'm not saying no. I'm saying not until we've got your wand, as we promised we'd go there this morning."

Harry tries to look excited again, but even with the clarification he still feels like she said no.

Morosely, he trudges after Petunia to the wand maker.

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El looks up as Petunia and Harry walk into the store. With a smile he leans down and takes a long, lacquered box from the shelf under the counter.

"Good morning. As promised, I've finished your wand Mr Potter."

Harry looks up from his funk, a little excitement returning to his eyes as he spots the box. Though, when he doesn't see any form of happiness on Petunia's face, his own expression remains in wary neutrality.

A moment later, Petunia smiles at Harry, "Well, go on. It's your wand."

With her encouragement, Harry gives a small smile and walks up to the counter.

With an easy smile, El opens the box and presents it to Harry. "Go on then, give it a swish."

Hesitantly, Harry reaches into the box and closes his hand around the hilt of the wand. As he lifts it out of the box, and trail of red and magical sparks trail behind the tip and float around the store for a few minutes, leaving Harry looking at the wand in awe.

El nods with a satisfied smile, "One well matched wand." He places a short loop of leather on the counter, "Might I suggest that you take the opportunity to also purchase a wand holster, such as this one, for your wand. If you see this small pocket on the front of the holster, it's a specially expanded space that is designed to keep your wand safe."

Pulling his own robes open, he shows both Petunia and Harry the handle of his own wand sticking out of a similar holster. "These are only three sickles each, and they fit on your belt so that only the handle of your wand is exposed. In my personal opinion, it's a worthwhile investment for something that will prevent most accidental damage that is likely to break a wand."

Petunia just reaches into the money pouch, and pulls out three silver coins. "We'll take it."

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Despite the short amount of time they spent in the wand shop, the ice-cream shop,, seems to have almost completely filled up with families, and the occasional group of older teenage friends, trying to escape the growing heat of the day. By the time they've finished buying their ice-cream there's only a single table left free, a booth in the direct sunlight right behind another family wearing normal clothing.

With a shrug the two of them take their seats, with Harry sitting with his back to the family. Licking his lips, Harry lifts up his spoon to dig into his ice-cream medley, a scoop of strawberry, lime, vanilla, and chocolate, with a drizzle of hot chocolate fudge, and two little sticks of chocolate 'for saving all of us'. A moment later his owl swoops down out of the sky and lands on the table between him and his ice-scream and starts barking and screeching at him.

As she's barking and screeching Harry shakes his head as he replies, "Oh come on!… I'm sorry… We had a… Well I didn't know… Ok… Yes… But I was meeting…Ok, ok, I'll tell you next time I know that I need to leave you behind…" His shoulders sag as he continues, "Yes, if it's possible I'll bring you along too… No you can't just ride on my shoulder, it's not something people do… I don't know why… Look, if you can find a way for me to do it in the normal world I'm all ears… Yes… Can I eat my ice-cream now?"

As his owl hops up onto Harry's shoulder he looks around and hunches in on himself as he realises that the entire store is looking at them. As he tries to shrink into his chair, the girl with bushy brown hair leans over from the booth behind him and says. "Hi, I'm Hermione, were you really talking to your owl? How did you do that? What breed is it? Are you going to Hogwarts? What do you think of Diagon Alley?"

During the rapid fire questions, Harry slinks further and further into the corner of the booth until one of the adults in the other booth calls, "Hermione! Slow down a little."

Hermione flushes scarlet before ducking her head down and mumbling, "Sorry, I get carried away. Um do you mind if I sit next to you?"

Harry shakes his head slightly, and Hermione grabs her own ice-cream and darts around the double backed chair to slide in next to him. With a broad smile she says, "Um, can I try that again? Hi, I'm Hermione."

Tentatively, Harry smiles back, "I'm Harry, and I haven't named my owl yet, she was a birthday present."

Hermione continues to smile as she says, "Well Happy Birthday. What breed is she?"

As Harry is searching for the answer, Petunia gently leans forward and says, "Harry, don't forget your ice-cream."

With that reminder, Harry dives for his spoon and takes a large mouthful of ice-cream to cover his lapse. As he swallows, he clutches his head as a shooting pain goes through his temple.

With a wince, Hermione says, "I get that. Mum and Dad are dentists so I can only have ice-creams on special occasions, like today when we're out. The trick is to take small bites, or licks, and wait a few seconds before your next bite."

Harry nods gratefully, "Thank you, this is only my second ice-cream. Oh, and I think Hagrid said that she was a snowy owl."

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As the two children start to get to know each other, Petunia gets up and walks round to the other table with her own pot of tea and her ice-cream when Hermione's parents give her a sly wave.

As she sits down, the conversation behind her becomes far more muffled than just the chairs would suggest. Before she can ponder this further, the man opposite her says, "Hi, I'm Callum Granger, and this is my wife Nicole. As you can probably guess, that's our daughter."

Petunia smiles politely, "Petunia Dursley. It's nice to meet you."

Callum shakes his head, "It's our pleasure, especially given that Hermione's actually talking to someone rather than burying her head in a book."

Petunia nods, "I know what you mean. Harry hasn't had the… easiest life, so it's nice to hear him actually talking to someone for once. I'm hoping that getting away from home will do him a world of good."

Nicole nods, "Oh god yes. Oh, and call me Nicky, I always feel like I'm in trouble when people call me Nicole."

"So, dentists. I bet this came as a bit of a shock to you."

Callum shrugs, "Dentists is the simple explanation of what we do. We're actually cosmetic dentists, though we do have some NHS patients our primary business is private customers."

Nicky thumps Callum on the arm, "Callum, don't get started on the difference, as I'm sure that Petunia doesn't need to know."

Petunia smiles politely, "My, husband, sells drills for a living so I know far more about all sorts of obscure industries than I ever wanted to know…"

A few minutes later, Hermione leans over the back of Petunia's chair, "Mummy, Mummy, can we get a bad like Harry's, as I can put my arm into it up to the shoulder. Just imagine how many books I could carry around."

Petunia shakes her head in amusement and puts her own bag on the table, "They're not too expensive. I think Harry's one worked out at around £25, though you do need to make sure you get a bag with runic enchantments rather than normal enchantments as some of the ones on my bag stopped working, and Harry only bought it for me yesterday."

Nicky and Callum both whisper together for a couple of seconds before Nicky says, "Ok honey, we can do that later."

As Hermione slips down the other side again, the three adults chuckle and begin to talk about their experiences in the magical world, which leads Petunia to pull out the list that Gringotts sold her.

It's another couple of minutes later that Harry kneels over the back of the chair, his normal caution temporarily forgotten in his excitement, "Aunt Petunia."

Petunia looks up, "Yes Harry?"

"Can you tell Hermione about the The Dream, as she doesn't believe it's real."

Hermione pops over on the other side, "I can't be true, as all the books say it's a fairy tale used to scare children into going to sleep."

Petunia sighs and carefully pulls Nixie from under her hair, "Given that Harry and I have both been there, I would have to say it's true. It's where I got Nixie after all."

Hermione shakes her head, "But there's nothing there…" As Petunia places Nixie on her arm Hermione's face goes all queer, "Ohh… It's so furry, why can't I see it?"

Petunia shrugs, "I don't know, she's perfectly visible to both Harry and I. Try holding her and letting her suckle on your finger."

Hermione carefully moves the invisible animal around till she's on her palm, and then she giggles as Nixie's tentacles tickle her thumb before latching on, "That feels so funny, and it tickles too. Look Mum!"

Nicky smiles indulgently as Hermione walks to stand in front of her, and then stretches out a finger to stroke the invisible thing.

As she does, Hermione shrieks, "Don't do that, you'll hurt her…" She trails off as Nicky's finger passes straight through Nixie, "How did you do that? You just put your finger straight through her."

Petunia shares a smile with Nicky and Callum, but before she can say anything Hermione's eyes widen, "Wait! If she came from The Dream, why do the books stay it doesn't exist?"

Callum chuckles, "Hermione. You know we've taught you about logical fallacies. Well, one of those is treating speculation as fact. In this case I believe it would be assuming that absence of evidence is evidence of absence."

Hermione looks at her father with a slightly betrayed expression, "Why would they do that?"

Callum looks at Hermione seriously, "Hermione, do you remember me saying that The Sun newspaper wasn't allowed in our house?" When Hermione nods he adds, "Do you remember why?"

Hermione does a passable impression of her father as she recites, "This isn't worth the paper it's printed on, all they do is make stuff up and say it's facts."

Callum nods, "That's right. So what have you learnt today?"

Hermione frowns, "Sometimes books lie?"

Callum shakes his head with a smile on his face, "Close enough."

Hermione starts to hand Nixie back to Petunia, before she abruptly freezes and her expression turns to one of fear, "Mum, Dad, the books say that people who stay up too late just disappear."

Petunia shakes her head, "Hermione, that only applies to people with magic. Your parents will be fine."

Hermione starts to shake her head with small little shakes, "I don't want to disappear."

From the back of the chair Harry softly says, "I'm learning to meditate so I can learn how not to disappear."

Hermione latches onto that idea, "Mum! Dad! I want to learn to meditate so that I don't disappear."

Callum and Nicky share a glance before looking at Petunia, who nods, "Ok dear, we'll get you some books on it and you can learn."

Hermione beams at them and hugs her mum as hard as she can, momentarily forgetting about Nixie, who escapes to Petunia's hair once more. "Thank you! Thank you! I'm going to get really good at it, then I'll become a warlock, like in the fairy tails, and take you to see the dream with me."

A moment later she's run back to her ice cream, and begins questioning Harry on how to mediate.

With an indulgent smile at the other table, Nicky pulls out a business card and a pen before scribbling their home number on it, "As they're both going to Hogwarts, and they've already made friends, we should see if we can meet up during the last of the holidays."

Petunia nods and turns the list over to reveal a rough map of the alley, "Well, Harry and I were planning on heading to Globus Mundi Travel over here in Carkitt Market. I also wanted to pop into the House-elf placement agency, just to find out what on earth a house-elf is. If you feel up to it, we could give those two a galleon each and leave them in Wizz hard books while we do the other stuff."

Callum and Nicky both share a glance before Harry pops over the chair again, "Aunt Petunia, can I take Hermione to our room, as she wants to see my suitcase."

Petunia shares a glance with Callum and Nicky, who nods, before picking up her bag, "Make sure you've got all of your things, and then we can all go."

Harry yips in happiness and grabs his bag and Hermione's hand before running off down the alley.

The three of them quickly grab their own bags and hurry after the children.

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It doesn't take much to persuade Callum of the utility of buying Hermione one of the travel suitcases as well as an expanded bookbag. Or as he put it, "She can use the bloody thing as her dresser at home, book storage, and still have space for her holiday stuff. And we won't look like idiots trying to heft the stupid thing into the car."

From there, the children are left in Wizz Hard Books while Petunia, Callum, and Nicky all familiarise themselves with the different shops on Petunia's list. Nicole's exasperated sigh when Gladrags is pointed out comes with a, "I wish Professor McGonagall had shown this to us before we spent a small fortune on school clothes."

Globus Mundi is easy as the Knight Bus has a small display with parchment pamphlets detailing the instructions for calling, and the price list.

Then they walk into the House-elf placement agency.

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No sooner has Petunia crossed the threshold to the House-elf Placement Agency that there is a series of pops and she's surround by 10 short humanoids around three foot tall and bald, with long almost bat-like ears, and large soulful eyes.

"Missy Magic, please can I come home with you. Please, I am a good elf and I won't be any trouble."

From outside the store, Nicky chuckles, "Well, they're certainly something."

Helplessly Petunia looks around, "Hello, is anyone here?"

"Please Missy Magic, you's is so strong you could easily take all of us."

From further in the store comes a disgruntled voice, "Oi! What have I told you about mobbing the customers?"

Nearly a minute after the initial shout, a surly man walks out of the back of the story while wiping his hands on a rag, that he then vanishes with a negligent flick of his wand. "Good afternoon… Right you lot, back in your rooms, and if you're not there in 10 seconds you'll be taken off the register for a week."

All the elves take one last longing look at Petunia before they vanish with a series of soft pops.

A little discombobulated, Petunia cautiously puts her hands down and walks up to the desk, "Good afternoon, I spotted this store last night when we were checking in next door. Um, what is a house-elf?"

The man sighs as he sits down at his desk, "Muggleborn parents huh? Don't get many of you lot here. Well, before I even start on anything else, the first thing you need to know is that House Elves are not slaves. Nobody quite knows where they originally came from, but what we do know is that they require magic in order to survive. They are also active little buggers, and they need to be doing something nearly all of the time otherwise they start going stir crazy." He points at Petunia, "With the way they were all crowding around you, I'd imagine you're probably a squib, as there ain't no way you're a muggleborn yourself as you'd know what a house-elf is. You might be able to bond one house-elf if you share the bond with your kid. Otherwise you'll just make yourself sick, and condemn them to a slow lingering death. If, in the future you think you could use a devoted servant that would literally die in order to please you, then bring your kid back with you, and we'll see. Apart from that, you know what they are, now please leave before they decide they've been in their rooms long enough to count."

Slightly nonplussed, Petunia turns around and walks out. "Thank you for the information sir."

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As they're leaving the Agency, Nicky exclaims in surprise, "Hermione! I thought we told you to stay in the bookshop."

Standing beside her, Harry shuffles his feet and looks down, "I'm sorry, it's my fault as Hermione said that she didn't have her wand, so I figured that as El was so good about my wand I should take her to get one."

Petunia covers her face to hide her chuckling as Nicky adopts a put upon expression while Callum tries to stifle his own laughter, "Harry, when Hermione said she didn't have her wand, she meant that we made her leave it at home. Not that she didn't have a wand."

In a small voice, Harry says, "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

Petunia crouches down and holds her hands out to Harry, "Harry, come here. You did nothing wrong. The only thing you could have done better is to check with Hermione's parents to see if it was ok to buy her a wand. Now how did you pay for it?"

Harry smiles shyly as he walks over to Petunia, "I put some extra money in my backpack yesterday, just in case you stopped being my Auntie and decided you didn't want me."

Petunia pulls Harry into a gentle hug, "Oh Harry. Nixie will never let me become that person again. You know how she ate the spell yesterday? She can do that to me again and again."

Awkwardly, Callum coughs, "Well, we should really be going as we've got a 2 hour train ride to get back to Crawley."

Petunia looks up, "Harry has his wand, why don't we all use the knight bus. That way Harry and I can bring Hermione in to get her wand tomorrow."

Nicky looks at the hopeful expression on Hermione's face before looking at Callum, "Well, it might save us time, and it means she's not moping around the surgery tomorrow."

Callum considers it for a couple of seconds before nodding, "Well, we might as well find out what it's like. It'll certainly be cheaper than the tube and train in future if it's even close to the same speed."

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Less than half an hour later, a smiling, if slightly dizzy, Harry and Petunia both step down off the Knight Bus at the end of Privet Drive and wave goodbye to the Grangers.

As they get to around 10 yards from the front door, it feels like they've just walked into an electric fence, and it feels like all the strength has just drained out of them as something digs deep into their souls.

Blinking tears out of his eye, Harry braces himself on his suitcase as Petunia collapses onto his shoulder. Shaking his head from side to side he grinds out, "We're almost home auntie, you just need to get your key out."

Petunia fumbles the flap of her handbag open and fishes around for her key. Only the fact that the bag is on a shoulder strap stops her from dropping it as a dull red shield starts to glow around the house.

With shaking hands, Petunia finally fishes out the key and slots it in the door. As it swings open she whispers, "Get inside, we'll be safe there. Remember the protections."

Harry just nods as he helps Petunia in through the door and manages to push the door closes behind them before she lurches towards the sofa and collapses weakly onto it.