The Grangers soon received a pile of shiny metal coins from the long-fingered goblin, turning them over and over with fascination. Hermione and Anthony stood nearby, debating whether Muggle-born students should still take Muggle Studies.
Soon enough, the Weasleys and Harry returned from their vaults. The children split from the adults at the Gringotts entrance, agreeing to meet in an hour outside Flourish and Blotts.
Harry and Ron, not having seen Hermione all summer, had a lot to catch up on ("No, not about homework."). Fred and George ditched the thoroughly exasperated Percy within three minutes of running into Lee Jordan; Percy wanted to buy a new quill anyway. Ginny was stuck with Mrs. Weasley. They were off to get robes.
"What are your plans, Henry?" Mr. Weasley asked cheerfully. "Care to join us at the Leaky Cauldron?"
The Grangers, having agreed in a daze, now looked uncertain. They watched Hermione depart with an almost pleading gaze, but their daughter had already vanished with her friends through the door of an ice cream parlor.
"Oh, I think not. I just spent three hours there," Anthony said, his trunk floating beside him. "I'll probably just wander the street a bit."
…
"Harry's such a good boy, isn't he?" Mrs. Weasley said, watching three distant figures with boundless affection.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were each licking contentedly at a large ice cream. Ron held up his pet rat, likely recounting once more how Fred and George's owl had terrorized the poor thing. Scabbers had his nose up, trying to steal a lick of the strawberry peanut butter cone.
"Thank Merlin term's starting soon," Mr. Weasley sighed in relief, squeezing past a group of teenagers plastered against a broom display window. "Once Errol's up in the owlery, Ron might worry a bit less about Scabbers. To be honest, that rat's nearly the size of a kitten. Doesn't look like he'd be frightened of any owl."
"He's his pet," Mrs. Weasley said understandingly, her eyes following the trio while keeping a firm grip on Ginny's hand. "Oh, they're going to the Magical Menagerie—Fred! George! Don't you dare go near Knockturn Alley!" She whirled around, shouting in the opposite direction.
Several passersby stopped, looking around blankly. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan straightened up, took off their hats, and slunk away with sheepish grins.
"Knockturn Alley, honestly!" Mrs. Weasley complained to the Grangers. "Everyone's always trying to sneak in, as if they sell Firebolts at a discount there! Oh, not Harry, he got lost, you see—if Hagrid hadn't found him, I don't know what I would have done."
"Speaking of which, who does Potter live with?" Anthony asked. "I know about the tragedy twelve years ago… but it sounds like he's at the Burrow now?"
Mrs. Weasley's face darkened. "His aunt and uncle. Ron wrote to him all summer and never got a reply—"
"Hermione either," Mr. Granger added. "Though I think she managed to get in touch with Ron fairly quickly."
He tore his gaze from the window of G.G. Specialised Magic Stationery ("Jumpy Quills! Sprinkles ink evenly across your parchment!") and glanced toward the Magical Menagerie. Several enormous purple toads were plastered against the shop window, proudly displaying their healthy chins and bellies to the world. A shop assistant was spraying them with a water bottle. Mr. Granger looked both confused and concerned.
"Exactly. The children all reckoned pretty quickly that Harry must be in trouble, otherwise he'd have written back," Mr. Weasley said proudly. "Fred, George, and Ron rescued him in the car—oh!" Mrs. Weasley stomped on the back of his shoe. Mr. Weasley hopped on one foot in the crowded street, bending down to fix his heel as he continued, "They said his aunt and uncle had him locked up, wouldn't feed him. Dreadful."
"What? How is that possible?"
Mr. Weasley straightened up, glancing at the Grangers. "His aunt and uncle are… you know, Henry, the sort of Muggles who aren't too fond of magic. Though Harry says they didn't like him much before he turned eleven either."
"Wait, his relatives are Muggles?" Anthony asked, shocked. "Don't they know that's borderline illegal?"
Mrs. Granger chimed in. "That poor boy! What are their community services doing?"
"Muggles have rules for that?" Mrs. Weasley asked, surprised.
Anthony first confirmed that Harry Potter's relatives were still on British soil. ("I forget, somewhere in Surrey—Ron would know.") Then he and the Grangers explained to the Weasleys the requirements for child guardians in the Muggle UK.
"Muggle rules are so different! Not leaving children home alone! How's that even possible?!" Mrs. Weasley looked down at Ginny. "Imagine if every shopping trip was like today…"
Ginny whispered, "If Fred and George hadn't gone to feed Errol—"
"They can't lock Errol up and not feed him!" Mrs. Weasley declared, picking up her pace and weaving through the crowd. Ginny, hand held tight, had to half-run to keep up. "What's the difference between that and what happened to Harry!"
They passed Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. It was packed with Hogwarts students. Nervous first-years stood on stools, being measured by floating tapes. Older students needing new robes leaned casually against the walls, laughing and chatting.
Anthony glanced inside. Cedric was there, hesitantly comparing two brown robes. He'd shot up over the holidays. Roger and Tracey Davis were inside too. Tracey held up various high-collared robes next to Roger, apparently figuring out which one best hid the faint red scar on his neck.
Ginny stole a few glances, but Mrs. Weasley, marching purposefully while recommending her favorite books to the Grangers, simply pulled her closer and headed for the second-hand robe shop at the other end of the alley.
Mr. Weasley steered the Grangers toward the Leaky Cauldron, praising its mead and shortbread. Before parting, Mrs. Weasley was still eagerly saying, "If you want to learn about the wizarding world, I'd recommend Gilderoy Lockhart's books—"
"We'll definitely have a look. Hermione said the booklist this year is full of his works," Mrs. Granger assured her.
Mr. Weasley sighed. "That Gilderoy Lockhart must be part-Veela. The girls go mad for him." He brightened again, peering into the pub. "Ha! I see Hagrid! We should go have a drink with him—Hermione's mentioned Hagrid, right? I reckon they're friends!"
He pulled the Grangers into the dim, shabby pub.
"See you in an hour," Anthony waved, hands in his pockets, leisurely taking in the lively street scene.
His trunk floated behind him. Some passersby cast curious glances at it or looked at Anthony with respect, trying to place him. Meanwhile, his skeleton cat slept inside the trunk, disassembled. Anthony controlled its individual bones, making them fly in the air behind him.
The wraith mouse stayed obediently in his pocket, not poking its head out. There were too many people in Diagon Alley; the undead pets weren't fond of crowds.
He spotted the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan inside Gambol and Japes, crowding around a shop assistant and seemingly haggling. The joke shop was packed with students. Anthony saw an ink that spontaneously combusted over time ("Write your secrets. Leaves nothing but magic and ash.") and privately worried if any student would use it for essays.
The café's outdoor seating was full of couples and weary travelers; inside, students were frantically finishing summer homework. Through the fancy script on the glass window, Anthony saw Angelina with a few friends, pulling out large rolls of parchment and swapping them.
Angelina even accidentally dipped her quill into a neighboring cappuccino. She jumped up to wipe off the foam, but some had already splattered onto her parchment. The café owner watched them grumpily from behind the counter.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were inside the Magical Menagerie. The shop assistant held Scabbers in his palm, lifting one of the rat's front paws and explaining something. An owl tried to land on Hermione's bushy hair, but she frowned and shooed it away.
Florean Fortescue tried to tempt Anthony with a new ice cream flavor ("Blood-flavored, sprinkled with the salt of tears and the richness of butter!"). Anthony smiled and declined. Judging by the nearly full tub, he'd only sold one or two. The neighboring caramel and chocolate tubs were almost empty.
"Not feeling adventurous today, Professor Anthony?" Fortescue asked. "That's not like you."
"No. After you sold me that salmon-wasabi cone, I've decided to become a man of tradition," Anthony said. "A vanilla cone, please."
…
He was eating his ice cream on his way to Flourish and Blotts when he stopped in surprise. The street ahead was practically blocked. A sea of people jostled and pressed together. Anthony had to float his trunk high above his head to stop it from being knocked around. A steady stream of people stumbled out of the bookstore, faces flushed, eyes glazed with a strange light as they clutched books to their chests.
"Daniel, what's going on here?" Anthony spotted a familiar shop assistant in the crowd. He stood at the entrance, looking exhausted and muttering, "Please don't crowd… mind the books…"
His voice was drowned out by a wave of screams and cheers. Daniel fell silent for a moment, then mechanically repeated, "Please don't crowd, keep quiet…"
"Daniel!" Anthony shouted, raising a hand in a wave as he spotted Mrs. Weasley and the children approaching from two different directions.
Daniel turned his head, saw him through the throng, and without a word, pointed a tired finger upstairs. He went on, "Please keep quiet, ladies…"
Anthony floated his trunk a little higher and looked up. A huge banner stretched across the bookstore's upper floor: "GILDEROY LOCKHART signs copies of his autobiography, Magical Me…"
Daniel shot him another look, gave a weak smile, and pointed at the enormous moving photograph of Gilderoy Lockhart beside the banner. It was the same one Anthony had seen in the storeroom with the Joneses, only even larger now and carefully framed in gold.
"Quite the title," Mr. Weasley panted, squeezing up next to Anthony. "Magical Me. As if there are wizards who aren't magical… Don't tell Molly I said that." He looked at Anthony and the Grangers just as Mrs. Weasley fought her way over to them.
"Where's Percy? Fred and George? Ron, Harry, and Hermione?" she demanded.
Ginny was carrying a pile of school supplies, a stack of cauldrons towering almost over her head. Anthony shrank everything for her and tucked it into a bag.
"Thank you, Henry, that's so thoughtful," Mrs. Weasley said, looking around. "Why is it so crowded here?"
"Because a big celebrity is gracing us with his presence, of course," Mr. Weasley said sourly, watching his wife's gaze lock onto Lockhart's photo.
"I think I see Hermione," Mrs. Granger said, standing on tiptoe.
Anthony saw them too and waved along with the others. But they were too short, completely missing the signals in the crowd.
Anthony floated his trunk until it was directly above the three of them. They looked around, oblivious, until the tallest, Ron, got a light bonk on the head.
"Ow, what the—" Ron cried out. Then they all followed the floating trunk as it led them to Mrs. Weasley's side. The twins, from across the sea of people, announced they wouldn't be joining and wished everyone luck before vanishing who-knows-where.
"I'll go keep an eye on those two. Meet you back here," Mr. Weasley said, squeezing his way out and pulling the Grangers along with him.
He glanced at Anthony, then at Daniel, seemed to decide Anthony's presence might be of some help, and left him there. Both Mr. Weasley and the Grangers looked profoundly relieved to escape the manic crowd.
"Why's it so packed?" Hermione said, annoyed. Then she saw the glittering banner. "A signing! It's today! Oh my goodness, we can meet him—I mean, the booklist is all his books! He must be brilliant!"
Mrs. Weasley said warmly, "Yes, he's quite brilliant."
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