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The face of her friend lightened as he opened the cage, taking the tortoise-lookalike with both hands and began examining it.
"Thank you, Alex, thank you."
"This is a hybrid of Fire crab and a tortoise so do not try to plunge it into water. He loves lettuce and I suppose he can eat quantities of vegetables."
Nigel's face was brilliant with joy, and he rose to hug Alexandra before trying to find a proper name for the animal. His grandfather, on the other hand, was on a good way to suffer from a heart stroke seeing how red and agitated he was, giving a certain similitude to Vernon Dursley. So it was him who had bought Glob the Wandering Toad to Nigel, huh. Once more, her opinion of this grey-hair old fossil fell even further.
"And for you, Hermione... meet Crookshanks."
Opening the cage, Alexandra could only laugh when a thunder of orange-ginger rushed out and jumped in the arms of Hermione in two bonds.
Throwing a look at Hermione's parents, she saw the two of them laugh when Crookshanks started to deploy all his arsenal of seduction, which consisted in purring loudly in the arms of his new mistress and encouraging her to do more caresses.
"They are made for each other." The Potter Heiress said in a pious tone which she knew fooled no one.
"Yes," laughed Nigel, evidently not fooled by her assertion. "This is going to cause problems you know." He said in a lower and more serious voice, as Crookshanks took a slobber-position on Hermione's lap and purred like a cat about to enter its own version of paradise.
"Why?" Asked Alexandra. "Last time I check, cats are on the list of animals you can take with you at Hogwarts without having to demand the permission to your Head of House." An idea burst in her mind. "Or is any Gryffindor girl in our year allergic to cats?"
"No," said Nigel, shaking his head negatively. "Not as far as I know. Lavender has a rabbit but it stays at her parent's house. Fay, Parvati and Thelma have owls."
"So what's the problem?"
"The problem is Ron." Nigel affirmed.
Alexandra tried her very best not to grimace. Ronald Weasley was not on the list of persons she could stand the company of at Hogwarts. He was far from the students she downright hated, of course, but his disgusting manners at table and the behaviour he generally manifested in the classes were more than enough to stay far away from him.
"He's allergic to cats?" Alexandra asked.
"No, he has a rat. An old thing named Scabbers one of his older siblings gave him."
"That's disgusting." The black-haired witch was forced to admit with a frown. "You have a rat in your dormitory?"
"Yes." Was forced to admit the Gryffindor boy.
"Remind me to never come into Gryffindor tower. I don't think it's very healthy in there."
For once she was not kidding. Alexandra had learnt enough of the Middle Ages in the history books of the libraries to know rats carried with them a lot of diseases. There were a reason cats had been in such high demand at one period, and it wasn't for their milk drinking habits.
After a few minutes of idle chatter and Hermione joining the conversation by sharing horror stories of the terrible state of the Gryffindor boys' dormitory while still caressing an ecstatic Crookshanks, they ordered the meal to Florean Fortescue and ate in a convivial manner. Alexandra had already met Hermione's parents in June, and she was happy to meet them again. Overall, they were a far more pleasant couple, if a bit absorbed in their work during the year which left them only holidays to spend with their sole daughter. By comparison with the Dursleys, though, they were very much the ideal family.
Nigel's grandfather stayed nevertheless on the sidelines during all this time, and he didn't participate in any way in the conversation. The grey-haired old wizard was grumbling to himself sometimes in a bitter tone and the few worlds Alexandra heard had too much coherence with anti-non-magical slogans for her to consider the aged grandfather in a positive light.
Having ended their meals and profiting from a lull in the torrent of wizards and witches in Diagon Alley, the group as a whole raced to Madam Malkin's robe shop, minus Nigel's grandfather who sent them a glare and continued his meal, refusing nonetheless the offers the Grangers or Alexandra paid for it.
The clothes and robes shop was definitely the easy part of the afternoon, however. After a quarter of an hour spent in Madam Malkin's being fitted for the new year, when the group of five went out back in the street, the crowd was back again with a vengeance.
Worse, their next destination, which was the library Flourish and Blotts, was perhaps the most crowded place of the entire Alley. There were wizards and witches pressing everywhere, in fact a lot were witches of middle-age. As they came near the doors of the books shop, the reason of this gathering became clear. Across the upper windows of the building, a large banner stretched.
GILDEROY LOCKHART
will be signing copies of his autobiography
MAGICAL ME
today 12.30 – 4.30 pm
"We can actually meet him!" Hermione shouted, giving a reason for Crookshanks to groan in his cage. "I mean, he's written almost the whole booklist!"
Alexandra took in her pocket the list of book requirements Hogwarts had send her, and realised her friend was right. When she had been in France she hadn't really thought about it, but the list literally required her to buy every book of the author's for her new year at Hogwarts! On the paper in her hands was written:
Second-year students will require:
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk
Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart
Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart