Once upon a new life... Book one: Tom

Chapter Two

DIAGON ALLEY

My mother squealed in delight as she embraced me tightly.
"My little girl is off to Hogwarts as well! Oh you will love the castle, the classes!"
Fred looked confused at first.
"Are they not a year early, sis? I mean, you turn eleven at the end of this year?"
"I guess mum and dad just wanted their little princess to be off to school so they can have their inner peace again." Ignatius said with a playful smirk. I stuck my tongue out at him but was immediately corrected by my father with a stern glance.
"Let me see the supply list my darling." Mum said as she grabbed he letter. She scanned it quickly before walking towards the door where all our cloaks hung. "Let us go right away! We need to collect your brothers' new school essentials as well. No use in letting you wait any longer." I jumped towards my mother excitedly as she hung my cloak tightly around my shoulders.
We took the Floopowder network to go to the Leaky Cauldron. A worldy famous pub in London and one I had visited a couple of times already.
It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old barman, who was quite bald and looked like a gummy walnut.
"Ah, the Prewett family!" Tom the barkeep said with an inviting smile.
"Hello Tom, how have you been?" My father asked politely as we approached the barkeep while trying to dust off any remaining sued from the hearth.
"I have been doing fine, Mr. Prewett. Thank you for asking! And Mrs. Prewett, lovely as ever. Your beauty never seems to expire." My mother giggled at this gently, mostly because of the slightly jealous look my father gave the chubby barkeep, yet Tom didn't seem to notice as his eyes glided towards my brothers.
"And Fredrick and Ignatius. My, how you have grown! Has it honestly only been a year?" Ignatius rolled his eyes while Fredrick gave a small smile and wave before Tom's eyes finally landed on me.
"Oh my, little Millie! My dear, you have grown so much as well!"
"Our little Millie is going to Hogwarts as well!" Mum said, no longer being able to conceal her excitement. I smiled brightly as Tom's face formed a shocked face.
"Little Millie off to start her education?! Oh my, I am getting old. So that means you must be too old now for my famous toffee's? Oh, my poor old heart!" Tom said dramatically as he helt onto his chest making me giggle.
"Of course not! Please may I have a toffee, sir?" I asked politely.
"Look behind your ear." Tom said as he leaned over the bar to look at me with a kind smile. I felt behind both my ears but was disappointed to not find the caramel deliciousness. I pouted in disappointment, but tom chuckled softly before reaching behind my ear and grabbing the toffee.
"Tadaa!" He placed the toffee in my hand and smiled brightly as I ate the large piece in one go, my mouth quickly being glued together due to the stickiness of the sweet.
"Alright, it is time to go. We have lots of shopping to do. But we will be sure to stop by for supper, Tom." Mum said as she looked at her pocket watch.
"Glad to know! I will make my stew with freshly baked bread!" he said excitedly. My parents walked towards the backdoor that led to a little backdoor alley where Tom kept the rubbish bins. I followed them quickly but saw Tom press a small bottle of Butterbeer into each of my brothers' hand with a little wink, making the boys smirk in mischief. Mother didn't like it when they drank Butterbeer, as it made them rather giggly from all the sugar.
My father, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the dustbin.
"Three up ... two across ..." he muttered as he tapped the wall three times with the point of his wand.
The brick he had touched quivered, and it wriggled in the middle, and a small hole appeared slowly growing wider and wider - a second later they were facing an archway large enough to fit a small giant, an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.
We stepped through the archway and as usual I was mesmerised. We took a couple steps into the shopping street, and I quickly looked quickly over my shoulder to see the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons - All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self-Stirring - Collapsible said a sign hanging over them.
I turned my head in every direction as we walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.
A plump woman outside an apothecary's was shaking her head as they passed, saying, 'Dragon liver, seven Sickles an ounce, they're mad ...' A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown and Snowy.
Several boys of about Ignatius' age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it.
"Look, the new Cleansweep Five! The newest on the development for Quidditch brooms!" one of the boys said while they all admired the broom.
There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon ...
"Let us first get some money from Gringots, my darling. Then we can shop." My father said as he gently kissed my mother on the cheek while trying to distract her from the bookshop as we passed it.
"Very well, my love." My mother sighed in defeat as we continued the path down to the wizard bank. The bank was a snowy-white building which towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was a Goblin!
The goblin was about a head shorter I was. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard
and very long fingers and feet. He bowed as we walked inside facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, hut do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn,
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.

A pair of goblins bowed to us through the silver doors that led in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins on brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. My father quickly led us to the counter.
"Goodmorning." my father said to a free goblin. "We have come to collect some money from the Prewett family vault. Vault 7713.
"You have the key, sir?" the Goblin asked.
"Certainly." My father said as he grabbed a tiny golden key from a pocket in his silver trench coat. The goblin looked at it closely.
"That seems to be in order. I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"
Griphook was yet another goblin that we followed towards one of the doors leading off the hall.
Griphook held the door open for us as we made our way through a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downwards and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks towards us. We quickly climbed in (after a small discussion who would sit at the front between my brothers and I... Fred won in the end and took the spot besides Griphook) and were off.
At first we just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. I never could keep track of where we were going, yet the rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.
My eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but I kept them wide open while giggling at the same time from the speed. Once, I thought I saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.
The cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Griphook unlocked the door with the tiny golden key my father handed to him. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, my eyes grew wide, still impressed by the mounds of gold Galeons, columns of silver Sickles and heaps of little bronze Knuts.
My father quickly filled his pouch with the money and off we go, back towards the cart and ready to go shopping!