Diagon Alley

The two couldn't help but gawk at their surroundings. They had been wandering the alley for over 3 hours now.

An entire world is hidden away ….. Alice couldn't help but admire. These wizards and witches weren't natural. And that was something awesome! Who cares about the stupid mediocrity of privet drive? The static, septic conditions of Petunia's hygiene conditions. These people treated the laws of physics, math, and science as an afterthought.

They had walked all over the Alley. They had visited the bookstores with sentient books, the toy shops where there was no end to the bizarro world, and the pet stores with creatures that would give a muggle zoologist a heart attack. Unfortunately, their funds were extremely limited, so Alice had to drag Dudley out of all the stores lest they blow their budget to oblivion. They still needed enough money to buy tickets back to Privet Drive on Knight Bus. They had enough to enjoy two bowls of basic vanilla ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlor. The man had been disappointed with their budget, but still served them.

Which is what they were doing after their feet refused to move another step. Dudley was exhausted, but Alice had never felt more alive. She had never felt more at home than she did right now. The thought of leaving Diagon Alley brought the taste of bitter ash to her mouth. Hogwarts: A Legacy had told her that she would most probably receive her acceptance when she reached the age of 11. That was a whole 3 months from now. She couldn't wait 3 months.

SHE WANTED TO START NOW!

"Alice…" Dudley warned as the cutlery around them began to rattle. Her latent magic reared its head more easily here than it did at Privet Drive. Alice held back tears as the sun started to set and magical orbs started going up in the sky to illuminate their surroundings.

I will never go back. Alice vowed to herself. A witch near her was working on numerous parchments and quills lying about. Unlike them, she had ordered a tasty-looking fruity ice cream with numerous sauces on it. She needed to urgently write a letter. She resisted the urge to just slide near the table and pocket some of them. The witch must have caught her starting too hard.

"You need anything kiddo or are you just going to ask?" She said while still working. Alice blushed a furious red in embarrassment while Dudley stuttered and pretended to be supremely interested in his empty ice cream bowl.

"Uhm… my name's Alice," Alice muttered, still unable to muster the courage to talk to the first real witch she had ever met. Yuri's voice raged inside her to sit up straight and project a charming façade. She buried that part of her deep inside her brain. These mages were her own people. She didn't need to use these tactics on them.

"Nymphodora Tonks." The woman replied and her hair rapidly changed colors from purple, green, blue, black, and finally settled on red. "But just call me Tonks. Bad things happen to people who use my first name."

Her skin color changed to rakish brown.

Alice gulped at such a casual use of magic. She could only levitate objects. These people could change reality at a whim.

"Wow. That was awesome!" Alice gasped. The girl looked at Alice strangely before realizing what had just happened.

"Wait. It happened again didn' it? Darn it, I really thought I had mastered self-control!" She muttered before throwing her quil onto parchment. Alice seemed worried that she had somehow insulted Tonks and started to leave.

"No no no no." Tonks placed a hand on Alice's shoulder. "Sit kiddo. If you didn't know. I am a metamorph. I can change appearances at will."

She changed her length and eye color, "See?" Alice nodded, still peeved at the bizarre display.

"So, sometimes I lose control, and my appearance changes based on my mood when I'm stressed," Tonks said and gestured to the paper pile around her. "5th Year potions homework will do that to a lass."

"You two in Hogwarts yet?" Tonks asked and they shook their heads in negative.

"Right. Just a head's up, the Potions professor is a right git. Stay away from him at all times." Tonks said. "Got it, kiddos?"

"Yes ma'am," Alice said while Dudley rapidly nodded.

Tonsk then leaned back into her chair and asked, "So what y'all wanted?"

Alice exchanged a look with Dudley before saying, "Can I, uh, borrow parchment and pen from you?"

"Pen?" Tonks said before looking at the quill in her hand. "Oh."

"You mean a quil. Not from around these parts, are you?" Tonks said.

"Uhm, no," Alice said as Tonk handed her spare quill and parchment.

"Say it is getting dark, shouldn't you be headed home to your parents by now?" Tonks asked and both kids took that as their cue to leave.

"No." Alice forcefully said before dragging Dudley away from the quirky witch lest she end up calling the magical police on them for being runaways.

It was a while later before Alice stopped Dudley near an alleyway and wrote a quick letter to Petunia. She handed it to Dudley and sternly told him not to open it, and to give it to Petunia and Petunia alone.

"Wait!" Dudley said. "You are not coming?!"

"No," Alice said. "Privet Drive isn't my home. This is my home."

"You will never survive here, Alice!" Dudley urged. "You have no money or food!"

"I will live," Alice replied. "Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself, kid."

"What if Mom and Dad call the police? What about school." Dudley said.

"Oh, trust me, Petunia won't dare do that. No after she reads this." Alice said and waved a letter in his face. Before Dudley could ask further questions, Alice pulled her stolen wand and hailed a knight bus. She quickly shoved a galleon in his hand and simply said, "See you at Hogwarts, dudders."

She pushed him onto the knight bus and then ran off into the night.

Using her instincts, she skipped off into the night. Alice knew that the seedier parts of the town would have lesser law enforcement presence. Ergo, the presence of the seedier elements. However, the idea of the presence of the said seedier elements gave her pause. She remembered some of the videos Yuri liked to watch and shuddered. This could be her fate if she wasn't careful when hiding.

With much more of a presence of mind, she looked up to a busted-up signpost signaling towards "Knocturn Alley" and went in. Two blocks in, there was a shop that looked like it had been recently busted into. It was stripped bare and for all purposes looked abandoned. She went inside and quickly tucked underneath the booth for the night. There were still some hours before she could sleep. Unknown to Dudley, she had made a purchase today from their meager funds. Alice pulled out a book called, "The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts" and quickly navigated to the part called "Lord Voldemort's Reign Over Britain".

The Day After

Her limbs ached from the cold stone floor. The dim, flickering light of a distant street barely pierced the darkness, casting long shadows that danced eerily around her. Her eyes were red and puffy, the result of hours of sleeplessness and emotions she had yet to fully process. Every inch of her body screamed for rest, but her mind was relentless.

What had begun as mere curiosity about the infamous Lord Voldemort had spiraled into frantic, obsessive devouring of every detail she could find about the man who had once terrorized the wizarding world. But it wasn't Voldemort's story that had kept her awake all night. It was her own. The name Potter—her name—had a significance far beyond what she had ever imagined.

Lily and James Potter, her parents. The words on the page had seemed to blur as she read about them, hailed as heroes who had stood against the Dark Lord. She could barely bring herself to believe it. All her life, Petunia had spoken of them with such venom, painting them as irresponsible and reckless, throwing their lives away for some cheap alcohol-borne pleasures. But now, in the quiet, suffocating darkness of Knockturn Alley, Alice knew the truth. Her parents had died protecting her. The Dark Lord had tried to kill her, too, but his curse had backfired, and he had died instead.

Alice felt tears well up in her eyes again, but she fought them back with fierce determination. She had no time for tears. She had no time for grief. There was too much to do, too much to understand. The wizarding world had stripped her of her family, of her rightful place, and left her in the care of a bitter, hateful woman who had lied to her for years. But no more.

If she was a hero, why did everyone abandon her to the Dursleys? The mages were no different from the muggles. Alice scowled angrily. They would all pay.

She had read of Sirius Black, the man who had betrayed her parents, and a savage delight had burned within her when she learned he was rotting in Azkaban. If he ever got out—well, Alice wasn't sure she could be held responsible for what she might do.

But for now, she needed to think clearly. The book had been a start, but she needed more. More information, more knowledge. There had to be something else—some relative, some connection, some piece of this world she could claim as her own. She wasn't content to simply discover who she was. She needed to learn everything there was to know about the Potters, about the wizarding world, and most importantly, about how to wield the power that was rightfully hers.

Surely there would be a library or a shop with records of magical families, histories, genealogies—anything that could give her more insight into who she was and what she could become.

Alice rubbed her sore eyes and pushed herself up from the ground, her muscles protesting every movement. She couldn't afford to be weak. She hated feeling weak. She had to be strong, and that meant arming herself with knowledge. Knowledge was power, and she was done living in ignorance.

She won't be denied!

The Library

Alice's heart pounded as she stepped into the grand library in Diagon Alley, her eyes wide with wonder. The towering shelves seemed to stretch endlessly, filled with books of all shapes and sizes. Some volumes glowed softly, their pages whispering secrets to each other, while others were in constant motion, flitting from one shelf to another as if deciding where they belonged. Stained glass windows adorned the high ceiling, their vibrant images shifting and changing with the light. One moment, they depicted a fierce dragon, the next, a serene forest. This place was unlike anything Alice had ever seen, a living, breathing entity that seemed to pulse with ancient magic.

For a moment, Alice forgot her purpose, lost in the sheer spectacle of the library. But the grumble of her stomach quickly brought her back to reality. Embarrassed, she glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, but the few wizards and witches in the library were too engrossed in their own reading to pay her any mind. She blushed and focused on the towering stack of books and newspapers she had gathered around her. The pile had grown taller than she was, and despite the awkward looks from some passersby, no one had approached her. They probably thought she was just another scrawny kid, obsessed with some nasty homework.

Alice felt a dizzying mix of excitement and exhaustion. She had found so much information on her family. The Potters were not just any wizarding family—they were influential members of the Wizengamot, the magical equivalent of a Muggle senate. They had been respected, even revered, and by all accounts, Alice should have been well taken care of. The Potters had amassed a significant fortune over the generations, and yet here she was, a war orphan, living in obscurity with relatives who despised her. It didn't make sense.

She flipped through another book, but the words began to blur before her eyes. Her head swam with fatigue, and anger over what she had learned. The Potters had all but vanished, each generation falling in battle against the Dark Lords—first Grindelwald, and then Voldemort. Lily and James, her parents, had been the last of them, killed in the war against Voldemort. Their sacrifice had ended the Dark Lord's reign of terror, but it had left Alice alone in a world that had no place for her.

Her gaze drifted toward the librarian, a stern-looking witch who had been casting suspicious glances her way for the past hour. Alice knew she couldn't keep sitting here forever, buried in books and hoping the answers would simply reveal themselves. She needed help, and as much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't do this alone.

Taking a deep breath, Alice gathered her courage and approached the librarian. The woman looked up from her desk as Alice neared, her sharp eyes narrowing slightly. "Yes?" she asked, her voice rough, like the sound of a creaky old door.

"I… I need some help," Alice said, her voice small and hesitant. "I'm trying to find out more about my family.."

The librarian raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. "What family?"

Alice hesitated, unsure how much to reveal. She didn't want to share everything—especially not about her life with the Dursleys or her strange abilities. "I'm… I think I'm related to them," she said carefully. "I found some records that suggest they were… well, they had a significant inheritance. But I've been living with Muggles, and I don't know what happened to any of it."

"The family got a name, kid?" The librarian asked and Alice looked away.

The librarian studied Alice for a long moment, her expression unreadable. "So, you're a war orphan, then," she said finally, her tone softening just a fraction. "If there's any inheritance left, you won't find it here, child. You'll need to speak with the goblins at Gringotts. They can perform a blood test to see if you're in line to inherit anything."

Alice's heart skipped a beat. Gringotts—the wizarding bank.

"Thank you," Alice said, her voice steadier now. "I'll go there."

The librarian nodded, her eyes lingering on Alice with a mixture of curiosity and something like pity. "Good luck," she said, her tone gruff again. "And be careful. The goblins don't suffer fools lightly."

Wait!

Did she just say goblins?! Alice thought. Goblins also exist here?!

Gringotts

Alice's heart pounded in her chest as she stepped into the darkened, stone-walled office of Gringotts. The Goblin behind the desk, Rotfang, looked up from his ledger with a sneer, his sharp teeth glinting in the dim light. He didn't bother to hide his disdain as he motioned for Alice to sit.

Taking the seat cautiously, Alice clutched the small bag of Galleons she had left. She had paid for the blood test with the last bit of it, not caring about the cost. She was about to come into possession of millions, after all—at least, that was what she had convinced herself. This was just a necessary sacrifice.

Rotfang's eyes narrowed as he watched her fidget in the chair. With a nasty smile, he began, his voice oily and mocking. "I see you're eager to hear the results, Miss Potter. I'll get straight to it, then. The House of Potter is bankrupt."

Alice's heart stopped. She stared at him, her mind refusing to process the words. "W-what?" she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper.

Rotfang's grin widened, clearly enjoying her shock. "Yes, bankrupt. Your family's last remaining property, a rather infamous hair formula, was auctioned off three years ago to pay off some outstanding debts. As for the Potter Manor, it was sold by James Potter himself during his lifetime to acquire liquid assets."

Alice felt the blood drain from her face. Everything she had hoped for, everything she had dreamed of reclaiming—it was all gone. The world around her seemed to tilt as her stomach dropped, the weight of his words crushing her. She had been so certain, so sure that she was on the brink of discovering a life of privilege and power. But now, she was left with nothing.

Diagon Alley was now suspiciously starting to reek of septic liquids like those at Privet Drive.

She tried to speak, but her throat closed up, and her lower lip began to tremble. She fought back the tears, determined not to cry in front of this horrid Goblin. But it was as if every dream, every hope she had clung to for the past few hours was crumbling to dust right in front of her.

Rotfang leaned back in his chair, clearly enjoying the sight of her devastation. "You see, Miss Potter, your father was quite the spender. The fortunes were drained during his lifetime, and massive loans were taken against the historical family vault. We, of course, advised against it, but James Potter never asked Gringotts for any advice on wealth management. He did as he pleased."

Alice felt her world collapse further. Her father, the man she had never known but had desperately wanted to believe was a hero, had squandered everything. The hope that had kept her going, that had driven her to this place, was gone. She felt small, insignificant, and utterly alone.

"What… what was he even doing that required so much spending?" she managed to choke out, hoping for some explanation that might make sense of this nightmare.

Rotfang shrugged dismissively. "We have no idea. James Potter was a law unto himself, never one to share his plans with us. He made his decisions, and now you're left with the consequences."

She had come here seeking answers, seeking a connection to a family she had never known, but all she had found was ruin.

Rotfang's smile returned, and he snapped his fingers. "Guards," he called, and two burly Goblins appeared at the door. "Escort Miss Potter out of the office. She has no business here anymore."

Numbly, Alice rose from the chair. She barely registered the rough hands on her arms as the guards led her out of the office and back into the cold, empty corridors of Gringotts. Her mind was a whirlwind of confusion and despair. Everything she had believed in was gone, and she didn't know where to go or what to do next.

She did the only thing she could at the moment, she collapsed at the end of the marble stairs and placed her head in her hands. She won't cry. She won't cry. She won't cry.

She cried.

Fin.

Author Notes: Read and Review.