Charlotte Granger - Hermione's Twin

Chapter 3

(Charlotte's point of view)

This morning, I was going to Diagon Alley! I brushed my hair back into a high ponytail to keep it out of the way, before wondering whether witches wore make up. I eventually decided against it, as I wanted to look natural. I checked my watch. Great - it was 6am - 5 whole hours until someone called Kingsley Shacklebolt came to take me to Diagon Alley - Tonks was on a mission for the Order of the Phoenix. Apparently, Kingsley usually worked for the Prime Minister (the muggle Prime Minister, I corrected myself), so I was surprised that he would be able to spare enough time to take me shopping. We had agreed that I would be learning magic with the Order of the Phoenix, rather than going to Hogwarts, until I had caught up enough.

I pulled the hastily-scrawled list out of my jeans pocket and regarded it again. It was based on the Hogwarts items list, but didn't have some things - such as school robes and the pointless Lockhart books. It read:
One pair of dragon hide (or similar) gloves for Herbology.
One pair of dress robes for special occasions.
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1-7)
A History of Magic
A Beginner's, Intermediate and Advanced Guides to Transfiguration
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi
Magical Drafts and Potions
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The Dark Forces: A Guide To Self Protection
Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Guides to Potions
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set glass phials for potions (also crystal available)
1 telescope for astronomy
1 set brass scales, for measuring
Potions ingredients
An owl

It seemed like a very long list, but I remembered that it was seven years' worth of shopping. The remaining problem seemed to be money: the wizarding world did not seem to use pounds and pence, Francs, shillings, dollars, or any other type of currency I had met. It used Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. Galleons were roughly £3. 17 sickles went into a Galleon - making it around 20p. Then, 29 Knuts were in a Sickle, which meant that it was worth about 0.8p. I had £560 in a bank account, so I reckoned I could get about 150 Galleons from that - with about £110 left over.

At this point, I was confusing myself, so I decided to stop thinking about money and instead focus on the shopping and cultural aspects of my trip. My parents would probably pay anyway. I would get to see the wizarding shops, other witches and wizards and all of the things for sale. Now, I decided to practise with my wand. I drew it out and purple and gold sparks flashed out from the end. I took out another piece of parchment and read the spells that Tonks had given me yesterday to practise with.

The scrap of paper read:
Alohomora - opens locked doors
Lumos - creates light at the end of wand
Windguardium Leviosa - levitates objects ...

I read on greedily, learning the incantations and wand movements to create all sorts of coloured sparks, transfigure matches into needles and repel boggarts (whatever they were).

Soon, a rainbow of sparks decorated my bedroom, before individually disappearing in puffs of smoke for me to create different colour schemes. My locked window flew open and allowed me to enjoy the fresh summer breeze while my suitcase lazily floated through the air, along with various ornaments. I loved magic. All too soon, I was being called down to breakfast.

* * * * *
Kingsley Shacklebolt looked very majestic in dark purple and gold robes, which went well with his dark skin. Usually, he wore a suit, but because he was going to Diagon Alley, he had donned wizarding robes. I don't think that the muggle Prime Minister had seen him with his earring in, either. He had a calm, soothing and slow voice, which instantly reassured Aunt Matilda.

Soon, we were out of the house and Kingsley instructed me to grab onto his arm tightly. He then turned on the spot, like Tonks did, and we were apparating to Diagon Alley. I was beginning to get used to the unpleasant feeling.

We arrived in the middle of a busy street - with what seemed like ordinary shops on each side - book stores, hamburger bars and clothes shops. Then, Kingsley pointed out a dingy pub that I might've missed otherwise, and we entered. It was empty, apart from the bald man at the bar. Not deterred, Kingsley carried on through, until we reached a small courtyard at the back of the pub, which had a bin and a brick wall. Taking out his wand, Kingsley tapped a brick and an archway appeared, leading to Diagon Alley.

It was almost empty - I remembered that it was still eight days until Hogwarts finished, so there were only adults there. We made our way towards a shop labelled: Flourish and Blotts. The window was covered in a faded purple poster advising lots of pointless things that you only needed common sense for, anyway. Inside, there were lots of books. Lots. Some were tiny, written on silk, while others were bigger than paving stones. Kingsley had a quick word with a man at the back of the shop and returned carrying a massive pile of books. I was amazed, and longed to read them all. Dumping them inside his tiny bag (which I learnt had an Undetectable Extension Charm put on it to make it bigger), we then stopped at Pottage's Cauldron Shop. Inside, it was full of cauldrons - pewter, copper, iron, silver, bronze, gold, self-stirring, collapsible... We took away a large pewter Cauldron, which also fit into Kingsley's bag.

We stopped of at lots of other shops - to buy everything else in the list. At the Magical Menagerie, I bought a beautiful barn owl, but I couldn't think of a suitable name, until lunchtime,when the owl ferociously pecked at my cucumber and cheese sandwich, until it has eaten all of the cucumber. I decided to call her Cucumber. A bizarre name, I know, but she looked very wise and Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom. And she did love cucumbers!

Kingsley had paid for everything so far, so finally we went to Gringotts. I had £150 which I hoped would cover everything. After queuing outside the impressive marble building for about an hour (it was very tight security at the moment), we finally got inside and went to the goblin free, where we exchanged the money for 49 Galleons, 16 Sickles and 29 Knuts (it's always good to have change, I remembered)

Exhausted because of our day's shopping we bought some ice creams and sat eating them in a sunny corner. Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour was deserted so instead we got them from a stall outside Twifitt and Taflings - a rival robes shop. We had bought my dress robes at Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions. Most of our purchases were inside Kingsley's bag, but I held what we had bought at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes - my favourite shop so far today, other than Flourish and Blotts. There was a box of nosebleed nougat and puking pastilles (the most effective items in the skiving snack-boxes by far), some squeaking soap and a fake wand that danced a jig when picked up.