If you want to read by 20+ Chapters from here you can visit my Patre-on.
[P] [A] [T] [R] [E] [O] [N]
[email protected]/Makimafic
••••••
It was not an exaggeration: there were so many children, teenagers and young adults accompanied by the older generation the racket was properly crazy. To Alexandra's great surprise, however, not all this young wizards and witches were familiar faces. Some harboured black robes with unfamiliar coat of arms, while others were wearing completely different uniforms.
Internally, Alexandra wondered what the names of these schools were and why she had never heard of them in Hogwarts: A History. There were only two mentions of foreign schools in the history books: Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, both of which along Hogwarts were considered 'the three greatest schools of Europe'. Given that one was located in France and the other somewhere in Eastern Europe, she was sceptical its students would go here to do their school shopping.
Arriving to the quill shop, she turned her musings to other subjects, in particular what she had the time to do this morning before meeting Hermione and Nigel at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Initially, it had been her plan to buy everything save the school books before she met them at the point they had decided at midday, but it was not going to be humanly possible. There were too many wizards, goblins, witches, hags and other strange species in Diagon Alley, a fact made abruptly clear by the quarter of the hour she spent in the quills shop, not because she needed time to decide upon a quill, but to reach the vendor with her purchases. Buying the potions ingredients was a bit easier, as the odour in the apothecary was such no one in his right mind wanted to spend an hour in it, but Alexandra renounced seeing the long column of persons waiting in front of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
The green-eyed girl still had an hour before going to Fortescue, but apart from the books at Flourish and Blotts and the robes of Madam Malkin's she had not much to search for Hogwarts. She had bought a magic pouch from Accountant Grimjaw which allowed her to withdraw two hundred galleons before going to the disastrous expedition of Brise-Roc, so going to Gringotts was not needed as she had still had plenty of margin before reaching that limit. Anyway, after what having witnessed the fanaticism and the suicidal thinking of this race, she was really not eager to be in their presence again. Moreover, she preferred delaying the explanations of the travel inside the mountain for another day. Alexandra supposed it was a bit cowardly, but as long as she didn't shout her version of events in public, the beings who had destroyed the expeditionary force wouldn't hunt, track and kill her. If only the salamander ceased to pursue her in her dreams too...
"Mum, I want an owl!" Screamed an eight-old or so kid passing on her right.
"You will have one when you will go to school!" Replied a middle-aged witch, who seemed to be one second away to have a nerve crisis, latching on the kid's arm as the child wanted no better to abandon the guard of his mother.
Alexandra smiled at the spectacle, before frowning in contemplation. As the library and the clothes shop had way too much people inside and outside of them, she could very well go make a trip to a menagerie. Atalanta owl treats were fast nearing the end, and she had also to find a present for Hermione and Nigel's birthday, which were coming respectively on August 29 and September 19.
Both her friends had sent her presents by owl on July 28 while she was on her way to return to Britain. Nigel had offered a book titled Diplomacy in the Wizarding World for Dummies, while Hermione had gifted her The Curses of the Irritable Witch, both of which had been rather enjoyable to read. The birthday cake sent along with Hermione's book had also been delicious, and not only because it was the first one she had received in her life.
An animal would be an original present, and Nigel would have finally an excuse to leave his old-fashioned toad at home. Turning in an alley less-presented, she slalomed between the crowds to go to the Northern streets where animal shops were concentrated.
After five minutes of avoiding the flow of persons coming, the young witch saw a shop named Magical Menagerie which seemed to have almost no people in it. Narrowly missing a crash with a person who looked like a hag and smelled like it, Alexandra crossed the street and entered the shop.
When the Potter Heiress took her first steps inside, the evidence jumped to her eyes: this shop had not a lot of place available. There was not an inch of place left on the walls; every single emplacement was covered in cages. And as every single occupant was doing his best to attract attention, be it by hissing, jabbering, squeaking or jabbering, the atmosphere was really nosy in spite of being only three persons inside the shop: the witch owning the place, a rather young wizard who was in the process of buying a grey owl and Alexandra herself.
In the instants she had, Alexandra examined the cages around her. There were toads of every colour, orange snails, cats, rabbits of unlikely characteristics (like horns and odd numbers of paws), ravens, rats and a few other animals she had never met before, either in book pictures of at the television with the Dursleys.
The young wizard left, and she was free to approach the counter.
"Good morning," Alexandra told the witch. "The birthdays for two my friends is next month, and I want to offer them an animal."
"Certainly," smiled the witch. "Do you have an idea about what sort of animal they would like?"
"A cat for the first, I think." She said, being fairly certain Hermione had never manifested a fondness for any species of owl. "And...OUCH!"