Querencia // George Weasley

1.2

Diagon Alley

When I was finished gaping at the beauty of this place, Snape looked at me and asked, "Are you ready to get your things for your First Year?"

"Yes, sir!" I exclaimed. He chuckled and said to me, "You can call me Professor or Snape."

"Professor, I have a question, how am I supposed to buy anything? I don't have any money."

Snape reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of money. "We are going to Gringotts, it is a bank that you can exchange Muggle money for wizarding money." Before I know it we are walking up a set of stairs that lead to a roof with huge pillars. Then I see a set of huge double doors that Snape pushes open. 

Inside of this huge building is a hallway, which I soon realize isn't actually a hallway, it is one straight walkway with tall desks on either side. At each of the desk is an old man with a long nose. We walk to the clear end of the walkway where there is another tall desk with another man he looks us up and down with a look of disdain on his face. Snape puts the money from Mum up on the top of the desk and tells the man that we need my Muggle money converted into wizarding money.

The man takes the money and counts it out and puts it into a small envelope and hands Snape the correct amount of money in return. The money that the man gives Snape is all in coins, some of them look different than others.

Snape takes one of each of the coins and shows them to me, "This one is a Galleon, it has the most value," The Galleons are gold in color and bigger than the other two coins he is holding. "This one is called a Sickle," This one is silver and slightly smaller than the Galleon. " And the last one is called a Knut, it is the least amount of money in the wizarding world." This one is smaller than the Sickle and it is bronze in color.

After the man is done handing us the correct amount of money we walk back out of the building and that is when I ask the question that was plaguing my mind when we were inside of Gringotts, "What were those little men?"

Snape answers with, "They are what is called Goblins, they take care of everything when it comes to Wizarding money." I nod "Are you ready to get your school things now?"

As we start to walk through the streets again I try to avoid bumping into anyone because of it being so crowded. We started at a shop called Flourish and Blotts, from what I can see it looks like a book store. Snape and I walk in and we are instantly surrounded by a huge crowd of people and a lot of books. 

We walk around the shop and Snape starts picking up books, I look at the titles of the books that he is getting as we pass them and from what I can tell they are all of the books that were on the list that I was given in my acceptance letter to Hogwarts. When Snape has gathered them all we make our way back to the front of the store where he pays for them. While he was doing that I decided to look at a book that was in a section near the front of the shop. Before I know it someone shoves themselves into me. I gasp and almost fall, but the person that bumped into me catches me before I fall. I look up at the person and am immediately met with red hair. He pulls me up with himself and then says, "Sorry love, my brother shoved me. I'm Fred Weasley." The boy, or Fred as he dubbed himself, sticks out his hand for me to shake. I put my hand in his and shake it.

"You're fine, my name is Seraphina Noland, Sera." He smiles at me. 

I take my hand out of his and that is when his brother, presumably the one that shoved him, says, "Sorry love, I didn't see you standing there when I shoved good ol' Fred here."