C1 Diagon Alley Part 1
So the days passed quickly and near the end of June 1991, exactly one week after Albus's visit, Little Charms Professor Filius Flitwick appeared at Tanya's orphanage.
Tanya was... Disappointed perhaps? The one who introduced himself as Flitwick in front of her door was a small man even shorter than her, and that was taking into account that she was considered slightly short for her age; Flitwick was a middle-aged man with a friendly mustache on his face and a pair of circular glasses over his eyes, Flitwick's clothing, on the other hand, was also worthy of a second glance if it had to be described in one word it would be: strange; colors everywhere, a tie over a green hoodie with baggy pants and a dark navy cape draped over his shoulders. Tanya didn't understand how someone with such a horrible fashion sense could present himself as a professor, and although she thought at first that Professor Flitwick was a scammer, she finally relented when he told her that he was the Hogwarts professor sent to help her buy her materials for the school year.
Tanya had many questions about this professor, but she refrained from asking such things as: 'Professor Flitwick, do dwarves exist in this world by pure chance?', or 'Are you a dwarf or a short human?', even simpler questions of the nature: 'Do they teach color theory at Hogwarts ?' and 'Is your outfit the school uniform?' were kept silent despite her concern.
However, Flitwick was kind enough to explain several things about the magical world that existed in secret.
Both were walking through the streets of London towards the subway as they spoke.
"You know, Professor, I find it hard to believe that wizards manage to keep themselves secret over the years," Tanya said while looking for some coins in her wallet for the subway ticket, however, Flitwick took out a £500 to pay, the guy's face in the box was a work of art as he changed the ticket and returned a couple of tickets; Flitwick fiddled with the coins for a moment before answering.
"Ah!, Yes, well, the Ministry of Magic is in charge of most of the encounters between wizards and muggles."
"Muggles?" Tanya asked as they waited for the subway.
"That's what we call non-magicians."
Tanya put a hand to her forehead as she thought about how stupid the division was, plus putting a name on it was just an invitation to separation and discrimination.
"Excuse me if I sound skeptical, but are you telling me that a secret institution called the Ministry of Magic covers up all magic in the world? Really?" Tanya asked with a sigh. "A single institution that controls the whole world from the shadows, this time being X outdid itself." She mutters to herself.
"Although I don't know what a 'being X' is, I don't see why the Ministry of Magic couldn't keep magic a secret from Muggles." Declared the little professed shrugging his shoulders. "We wizards have been hiding throughout the centuries, we have quite a bit of experience doing it." Tanya looked at Flitwitch's clothes and seriously doubted that statement.
At that moment the subway arrived and they both got on.
"Besides, it's easy to manipulate Muggles, they believe what they want to believe, as they don't want to believe in magic it's easier for them to believe that magic doesn't exist."
As Tanya settled into a seat next to the little professor, she couldn't help but think about religion and how there were people at the time she died as a salaryman who would reject even scientific evidence if it didn't really stick to their beliefs, no matter how crazy these beliefs were. Anti-vaccines and flat earthers too, it's easier to convince them that there is a magical world if you tell them that the earth is actually flat and the vaccines actually want to control your mind; however the same applies in the opposite sense.
If in her first life, you had told the salaryman that there was a hidden magical world with wizards who went to hidden wizarding schools, he would have kindly asked you to learn to differentiate reality from fiction, and if you insisted he would probably recommend you go to a psychologist.
Even in her second life, Tanya was a woman of science and reason, for the magic she knew was more scientific than a fairy tale where you wave a wand and the forest animals gather around you or some damn butterflies appear out of nowhere. No less, this had not changed for her third life, and that's why it seemed absurd to her how hidden the wizards and witches were.
"Never a wizard has participated in a war? I'm not too sure about the limitations of wizards but I would imagine, based only on what I could do now, that wizards have quite an advantage over ordinary humans, for example, I would imagine wizards can fly, if you give a flying person a weapon you create a high mobility unit, if you somehow give him a barrier you also give the infantry a real nightmare."
Flitwick was somewhat surprised by Tanya's question, an 11-year-old girl thinking of military uses for magic? Not only that, it seemed that she already had an image in mind for the military use of wizards, although a rather muggle vision without a doubt, this new generation was undoubtedly unique for some one like him.
"We wizards stay away from muggle conflicts so no; there are no wizards in muggle wars..."
Tanya chuckled having prepared a reply for that. "And what about the wizards born in a non-wizard family, let's say for example that Dumbledore doesn't visit me and a war breaks out, if they send me to the battlefield it's natural that I use magic to defend myself even if I don't know how to control it properly. Wouldn't that be proof of the existence of magic?"
Flitwick wondered why the question seemed so situationally specific before shaking off the doubt and answering.
"Just like Dumbledore did with you, we contact the children at an early age to educate them and prevent such things from happening."
Tanya looked at Flitwick doubtfully. 'Did he just confess that they kidnap children to indoctrinate them from a young age?' Tanya thought before clearing her throat.
"And let's say that for example, that the child who was educated decides to join the war to save his family or perhaps for a reason of patriotism or some bullshit like that, and in that war it uses magic in front of hundreds of soldiers. What would happen then? How would they hide it?"
Flitwick put a hand to his chin as he thought. "I am not the most versed in magical law but exposing the secret of magic leads to the destruction of your wand and in the most serious cases they can take you to Azkaban, the prison of wizards. Also, language little lady, we are not in the school yet but there I would have to punish you for swearing."
'So there's a prison for wizards huh...' Tanya thought, ignoring the scolding and asking another question. "However, condemning them after the crime was committed doesn't stop the person from performing magic in front of Muggles."
Flitwick waved his hand as if the question was unimportant. "There are various potions and spells to manipulate people's memories, the Ministry of Magic and their aurors are particularly adept at dealing with such cases. Also if that happened, they could also hide it somehow, I remember once a battalion entered a dragon's lair by accident during the First World War and they disappeared, the minister of magic somehow just turned it into an urban legend and muggles never thought of magic." before Tanya could ask anything else both arrived at their stop and got off the subway. As they left, Flitwick dawdled lightly, passing out the tickets to go out. And once outside he seemed to have forgotten what they were talking about as he walked through the streets of London quite surprised. 'Uh... these muggle mobile things are bigger than I remembered.' The short professor was waving as they walked, at that moment Tanya took him out of his thoughts.
"Excuse me, professor, you mentioned something about wands and Aurors. Would you mind telling me...?"
Flitwick made a slight startled movement before smiling helpfully.
"You have a good head on your shoulders Tanya, when you enter Hogwarts I hope to see you in my house. Responding to your question, magicians use wands to do magic, each one is unique and different from the rest and each magician has a suitable one for which depends on their personality; the Aurors, on the other hand, are magicians in charge of fighting against the dark forces of this world."
Tanya nodded. "So they are the militia of the ministry. At Hogwarts, you also mentioned the houses..."
Flitwick chuckled slightly. "Maybe I shouldn't spoil the surprise for you but this is general knowledge for children from magical families, you will see at Hogwarts we separate students into houses depending on their character, Gryffindor is for the brave and proud, Hyperpuff is for the honest and hardworking, Ravenclaw is the house of which I am the head, it is for the intellectuals and thinkers, then there is Slytherin, in this go the ambitious and people of pure blood. I really hope to see you at my house."
Tanya thought for a moment about which one she would like to be in before nodding. "I would also like to be in your house, it sounds like the one that will give me a good opportunity in life. To all, this in Slytherin you mentioned pureblood... that is?..."
"Oh, that's how people refer to those who have wizard ancestors, there are some people who worry about blood purity but don't pay much attention to it."
Tanya sighed as she felt the beginning of a headache. 'Just what I needed, even more discrimination.' While rubbing her head, they both arrived in front of a small local with the sign 'The leaky cauldron' hanging at the entrance.
Both entered and were greeted with a scandal. Tanya was slightly taken out of her thoughts by this commotion. Inside were a group of suspicious people in cloaks of various gaudy colors huddled around a bearded giant in a great long coat; That was a real giant, maybe four times as tall as Tanya and at least five times as wide. Tanya took a second look at Professor Flitwick and thought that if there were dwarfs it was only natural that there were giants as well.
However, why were they all gathering around that giant? Was it some kind of party? However, Tanya suddenly realized that people weren't paying attention to the giant but rather to a boy who was with him. Tanya didn't see it well, but she felt slightly curious about the situation. Flitwick, on the other hand, seemed equally curious in front of all the people, but his short stature prevented him from seeing properly, with a sigh they both ignored the situation and headed for the back exit of the bar.
Finally in the back and with some peace of mind, Flitwick was able to breathe a little. Tanya looked around and felt somewhat skeptical about the situation, this was perhaps the most simple alley she had seen in her life. Did the professor make a mistake taking her to Diagon Alley?
However, the professor hit the bricks of the alley wall a few times, counting the bricks before giving a last hit a little harder than the rest, then the brick wall began to move as if it had a life of its own; Tanya jumped back quickly, preparing for any attack before slightly lowering her guard.
Behind the wall was something magical, Tanya rubbed her eyes before taking a second look at the place. This was really something... She was just speechless. The street was full of people in colorful capes and pointy hats, Owls going from left to right. The shops were full of color and life, the streets lined with men and women, boys and girls so full of emotion. The buildings seemed to have been built without anyone really thinking about making them straight. A lady with a cauldron was arguing with a guy with several owls on his shoulders, someone was shouting promoting snake eyes, and a family of redheads was running after a rat.
Tanya took a couple of steps forward and rubbed her eyes again, was she hallucinating? Some kind of giant illusion spell? This surely couldn't be real.
Approaching the window of a busy store she saw a broom labeled 'Nimbus 2000' suddenly she found herself surrounded by a group of young people her instincts developed in the orphanage and the war prepared her for a fight, but the boys didn't pay much attention to little Tanya, she trembled for a few moments calming her nerves and focusing again on what caught everyone's attention. That broom... Tanya knew what was going on, she had seen it on TV once, a joke by a group of people who praise something to make a person believe that what they are seeing is actually valuable, she knew it more as the experiment to see how much wanting to fit into a social environment made you lie and you would end up saying that the shortest bar of all was actually the longest. (The Asch's experiment) However, none of these boys seemed to have even noticed Tanya's existence, all of them looked with a mixture of longing and desolation at the broom. Tanya sighed for a moment as she looked at it and felt that even though all her reason was telling her how unreasonable it was that that broom actually looked somehow beautiful, for a moment a fleeting thought crossed her mind. 'Don't tell me that damn wizards fly through the sky with brooms...'' In fact, if she thought about it, that was quite probable. Actually, this world had shown her that a good part of what she considered fantasy or impossible was the reality of these magicians... Wouldn't it be crazy if there were love potions, people turning into animals, and hell, didn't Professor Flitwick mention a dragon before?
Tanya stroked the glass wistfully.
She would... she would be able to fly again, this was a dream there was no other explanation... Wait, Flitwick? True, she left him behind while she was impressed by the view; Tanya slipped past the boys and found herself once again in the middle of Diagon Alley completely lost. Hell, it was such a fantastic place that finding Flitwick was a real challenge, she was so short that it would be almost impossible to find him. If only she had a tracking spell this would be so simple... she could actually do it but she didn't have a computation orbe for the spell, if things got too complicated maybe she could go to the wand shop and use a spell In order to find the professor, the magic of a calculation orb and a wand couldn't be much different, right?
However she had no money, Flitwitch gave her a letter telling her that they were going to Gringotts to take Tanya's student loan but Tanya wasn't sure which of all these magical buildings was Gringotts from what she had seen for now, it could be anyone. Tanya asked a brown-haired girl her age what Gringotts was but apparently, she didn't know either, after asking a couple of other people she discovered that the big twisted white building at the end of the alley was Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Sneaking through the crowd, she finally reached the place; this one was one of a kind like everything else in this alley, if it had to be described in one word... Elegant, although as with everything it seemed that the architect who built the facade of this bank consumed certain suspicious substances while building it.
There was a rather curious poem at the entrance to Gringotts that talked about gruesome punishments for anyone who tried to steal the bank's wealth, although Tanya thought it absurd that something like this would happen to a thief actually breaking in and trying to rob... still, she would have to be cautious in case the threats told a part of the power of this bank.
Entering the place, she met many short and old goblins with long ears, for a moment Tanya wondered if they chose the goblins to take care of the bank because they were greedy or because of something else.
With a sigh, Tanya realized that there weren't a lot of people lining up so she approached a goblin who seemed unoccupied. Tanya clucked at the high table before her, wouldn't it be difficult for them to get on those chairs? However Tanya could sincerely empathize with these goblins since she herself was a small officer in her previous life, Tanya knew that height certainly commanded respect but there was a problem: if you are on a tall desk then you won't see the short girl that is in front of you
Tanya stood on her tiptoes, peeking just over the desk, and after reading the name written on the nameplate, she said, "Excuse me, Mr. Lawliet, I have a study allowance from Hogwarts that I'd like to claim."
The old goblin raised his tired eyes and saw the blond lock that was stirred over the desk, with a sigh the goblin took the letter that slid on his desk and began to read it while muttering annoyed: "Lawliet, is pronounced Lawliet damn girl . ..
After a second he sighed the goblin asked. "Tanya Shit?"
"Tanya Smith sir."
The goblin looked at the lock stirring over the table.
"Whatever, Miss Shmit wait here a moment." Lawliet stood up and walked with the letter to the other side.
Tanya sighed slightly as she recalled her bad experiences at other institutions and wondered if she would find a place of customer service at Gringotts. After 10 minutes of standing around waiting on the floor, Tanya really wondered about going to customer service at this place.
Beside her, she saw a gentleman with long white hair talking politely with a goblin or rather arguing in a very unhappy way. "I've been waiting 10 minutes for my gold, how much longer are they going to make me wait?"
"Sorry for the wait, it won't take much longer."
The man shook his head as he raised his voice. "That was not even an answer, if I knew it would take so long to receive my money I would have simply brought more from my mansion, at this rate it would be faster for me to personally enter my chamber."
"Sorry, Mr. Malfoy we assure you that it won't happen again."
The man frowned and looked away with a tired sigh, resigning himself to waiting a little longer. At that moment he realized that Tanya's gaze was on him. "And what are you looking at?"
Tanya cleared her throat. "Excuse me if my gaze makes you uncomfortable, I find myself in a situation similar to yours and it simply struck me that this was a recurring problem in the organization, I imagine that the management of this establishment is not the most competent."
Lucius Malfoy raises an eyebrow slightly intrigued by the girl in front of him. "Where are your parents, little one?"
Tanya didn't flinch as she answered. "Dead unfortunately, however, you don't have to worry about that, sir."
Lucius cupped a hand to his chin as he looked Tanya up and down, taking her in close scrutiny. "Would you mind telling me your name and who taught you to speak that way?"
Tanya smiled as she remembered that the man in front of her mentioned owning a mansion, even though she lacked knowledge about wizarding world politics someone with a mansion would surely be at least upper middle class so having a contact of this level would come in handy. "My name is Tanya Smith, sir, on the other hand, I speak this way because I believe that someone of your caliber deserves no less than respect sir... Malfoy if I'm not mistaken."
Malfoy fixed his cold eyes on Tanya's for a couple of seconds without Tanya's gaze wavering for a second, instead Tanya's silver eyes returned an analytical and knowing look that would be hard to find even among members of the Ministry of Magic and this look was being given to him by a girl who seemed younger than his son; the name Smith on the other hand was too simple to associate with a wizarding house so it was probably Muggle origin. However, she mentioned the death of her parents so Smith was probably not her real name. Tanya's features were indeed too beautiful to be simply Muggle, blond hair that looked like gold, deep silver eyes, and sharp features, she looked like something out of a painting; A lot of mages were killed in the times of the dark lord, were her parents some of them? However, Lucius didn't really remember any family who shared Tanya's appearance. What a curious situation...
"My name is indeed Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy and I find your attitude curious young Tanya, you mentioned earlier that you had a problem similar to mine when it came to withdrawing currency, didn't you?" Tanya nodded. "In that case, you are withdrawing an inheritance? Or is it a fund for Hogwarts perhaps?"
"You are quite knowledgeable, Mr. Malfoy, although I don't know if my deceased parents left me any kind of inheritance. (Or if they were wizards at all), you're right about your second guess."
Malfoy nodded slightly as he looked at the average quality of Tanya's clothes; she was a strange girl who, instead of wearing some cute style, dressed in a rather casual way with brown pants and a long-sleeved white shirt, however, clothes that were ultimately too big for her; Was it a piece of clothing she wore of her own free will or a reflection of her financial situation? Despite the quality of these clothes, they were neat and well-groomed, which spoke volumes about Tanya's well-groomed personality.
"In that case, we both find ourselves in more similar situations than it might appear at first glance, my son Draco Malfoy begins his first year at Hogwarts and my wife is accompanying him to buy class materials, for my part I find myself taking out some galleons for Draco's allowance." At that moment, a goblin arrived and handed a bag to Malfoy, who checked it and after shuffling it around a bit, took out ten gold galleons and placed them on Tanya's hand. "Hogwarts scholarships aren't very good so don't hesitate to turn to me or my son if you find yourself in financial trouble..." Malfoy's voice and cold eyes twisted the kind words with a slow rhythm and calculated tone turning the action in rater an uncomfortable situation. Tanya noticed this and with a knowing smile, Tanya responded in the same slow pace and calculating tone. "Oh, I greatly appreciate your investment, Mr. Malfoy, I sincerely hope that our relationship develops favorably in the future."
At that moment Lawliet returned and handed a bag of money to Tanya. "It seems we both have our funds now don't we sir Malfoy ?"
Malfoy nodded. "Indeed miss, now if you excuse me I fear that I must meet with my wife and my son I hope to hear promising things from you in my son's letters."
Tanya tried to offer Lucius a handshake before realizing that the height difference between the two was exaggerated, although Lucius wasn't unreasonably tall he was still at least a meter taller than Tanya. Lucius smiled cruelly. "Try that maybe in a couple of years when those 'investments' paid you and we would see how that works then." After saying that, Lucius turned around and walked out of Gringotts with his cane marking each step.
Tanya winced as she looked through the money she had and realized that those gold coins that were little more than a piece of Draco's allowance were more than the money the school was giving her. It was bitter however now 60% of her budget was financed by Lucius Malfoy and her purchasing power had increased greatly.
Tanya came out of Gringotts with a complicated face…
Author's note.
This... got a little out of hand but I wanted to do something of quality, in the end this is only part one and we still haven't seen the actual purchases, wonderful! (Sarcasm)
Anyway, what a headache I don't remember exactly what the list of items for Hogwarts was or their prices so I'm going to leave that a bit overlooked, based on the price of the wand I decided the rest of the budget but well. See you another time with the next chapter will be part 2 of this story, in general I want to cover the 7 HP books with this Fanfic but it will be somewhat complicated if I keep up with this level of content at this rate... or at least I It's going to take a while as I get on with the rest of the stories. I still have a pretty much-formed plan for the story so I'm going to be borrowing a bit of inspiration from the movies on how the early movies and books are full of magic and fantasy as they grow darker with the passage of time. It's a lot of fun making this world particularly magical from Tanya's perspective so I hope to see you again soon, I would love to see what u all think about it!
Sincerly
"I love being sick…"
J More
PS Yes, I this is going to be shining bright and it will be shining for a bit of time...
