I officially love Diagon Alley.
It is incredible.
We arrived first through the muggel route. Father was adamant about muggel respect and understanding so we took the tube, which was... interesting.
Stood beside a very angry entrepreneur in a very fancy suit and a mum with her kid who was eating a sweet that was making its tongue blue was an interesting experience. Not bad...
But when I had to step around a couple sat on the floor with their shopping to reach the doors opening to our stop, I couldn't help but feel a bit relieved.
We traipsed through the London streets until we came to the 'Leaky Cauldron' which is hands down the best name for a pub ever created. Actually no, I once went to a pub called the 'Soggy Duck' that made amazing hot chocolate, so they win.
Anyway, the Leaky Cauldron was really cool and I would have liked to stay there, order some chips or something but Father tugged me right through it to the courtyard behind.
It looked like a dusty concrete square with a couple foul smelling bins in it but I felt the magic, drawing me to a particular spot, a particular brick in the wall.
I looked to Father and he nodded with the sad expression he has whenever he remembers his magic. It doesn't happen a lot but I know the look so I get into the headspace and channel the 'big red bubble' through my fingers to tap on the wall.
It was a very beautiful piece of magic and I marvelled as the bricks moved and aligned into a beautiful archway, with just one spark of magic.
And then behind. Oh, the treasures through that arch.
I went full on geek mode, not even questioning why there was a disguised door inside the invisible pub, which in hindsight is pretty excessive. And I do not say that lightly.
Full. On. Geek. Mode.
Father had taught me very well but I had never been given equipment, really. Never had exotic ingredients for potions, only the native plants gathered in our surrounding area, and I'd never had books, only the magical encyclopedia, the one-hundred-year almanac and the Materia Medica.
I also had a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them given to me directly by Newt Scamander who had been one of the few scholars Father had introduced me to, but that was it.
The Lovegoods, other family friends, had an exciting range to choose from that I often obsessed over whenever we went to visit, but nothing had prepared me for the majesty of Flourish and Blotts.
Towering piles of books climbing to the ceiling, wobbling slightly inwards giving an arched affect or the feeling of a very tall igloo. The gilded spines, new and fresh, the shelves arranged by alphabet or subject or author or curse.
I was curious about the last category and though my father advised me to stay away from them, I just couldn't help myself.
Luckerly the shop assistant was able to clear up the dripping ink and shredded pages fairly easily and the papercuts would heal over time.
It was an interesting selection of books;
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5 (also four, three, two and one for catch up revision),
Magical Drafts and Potions (I gave it a once over, it seemed pretty familiar, other than the exotic plants and creatures that seemed to take up half the ingredients, despite being easily substituted by simpler, native plants),
