Dan and Phil at Hogwarts (A Dan and Phil AU)

Diagon Alley

Dan

It was more...rustic than I had expected. Cobblestone streets, brick walls, bushes poking out in between tightly knit shops. Rustic, but in a way, homey. I suddenly felt very self-conscious about being in a place we might not have belonged. People were scattered along the road, wearing pointy wizard hats and long robes that swept the stones. There were some wizards clumped together, walking along tittering and gossiping, and some just window shopping alone. I glanced at Phil and saw the shock turn to wonder in his eyes as a mongoose jumped past our legs toward the wall behind us. A wizard in khaki pants and pinstripes ran after it, cursing various phrases. Phil giggled and I couldn't help but smile as we began to walk slowly toward a shop to our left. I heard a squeak in my ear and felt a warm being on my shoulder- I looked over to see Phil balancing Susan next to my head. "She must feel at home." I said, taking her into my hands and raising her to eye level. She was emitting a constant high-pitched shriek and wriggling around, watching everyone. To our immediate left was a cauldron shop, with piles of the pots teetering in the window of varying size and color. Phil wandered over to a shop 2 doors down, one I recognized from the movies: Eeylop's Owl Emporium. "Dan, Dan Dan Dan look!" he was practically jumping up and down- he looked giddy as I arrived next to him and he leaped toward the door. Making sure not to drop Susan I followed. The room inside was dark, and nearly every surface available was coated with owls. Covering the walls all the way up to the ceiling were perches, most of them occupied by a multitude of owl breeds:  tawny, screech, barn, brown, snowy, according to the sign. I nearly lost Phil in the crowd, I could only see his coat tails as he disappeared behind a group of magenta hat-wearing witches. "Look!" I followed his voice and found him ogling a particularly large cage containing a beautiful snowy owl. "We have an owl, Phil, remember?" "Yeah, but this one looks just like Hedwig, it's so beautiful." I glanced at the small plaque that rested on the side of the pedestal the cage was resting on. "This live statue was erected in memorial of Hedwig the Owl, who showed valiant friendship and bravery, until the very end." I read aloud. "Oh." Phil said with a small frown. I laughed. "It's still very beautiful. C'mon, let's go get some owl treats. Before we forget, again."  I could hear Phil trailing behind me as we got up to the counter and browsed the various owl treat flavors they had displayed next to it. He crouched down and lifted up a bag colored red. "Jalapeno flavor? D'you think Winston would-" "Phil, that sounds absolutely horrid. Let me see." I bent down next to him and the vlogging camera fell out of my pocket. "Whoops." Phil grabbed it and started recording again. "LOOK WHERE WE ARE." He said, giving the camera a quick tour around the room. "WE'RE GETTING OWL TREATS FOR WINSTON. I'M SO EXCITED. OH MY GOD." "Phil, I'm going to take the camera before you explode. We'll talk to you guys soon!" We ended up buying blueberry flavored owl treats, but we ran into a bit of a dilemma at the till. "That'll be 5 sickles." I had just pulled out my wallet and my eyes widened. "Shoot. I forgot we needed to exchange money." The lady at the register inspected us closer and glanced at the "muggle money" in my hand. "I recognize you two. You're those 2 lads from Radio 1, aren't you? My son begged me for ages to go see your show. He enjoyed it a lot. You haven't gotten to Gringotts yet, 'ave you?" I shook my head apologetically. "Ah, it'll be alright. Colin'd be fascinated to see some muggle money. Consider it a welcome to Diagon Alley." She bagged up our shopping and we both thanked her generously. "Okay, priorities. We need some wizard money." "At least the shop lady was nice." Phil replied, sifting through the bag of owl treats. He took one out and sniffed it. "I wonder how they taste." "pHIL!" I re-positioned Susan on my shoulder and Phil made a 'blegh' noise. "Not very good?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. Phil stuck his tongue out and shook his head. He then pointed to a shop ahead of us on the right that seemed to be drawing a crowd. "I completely forgot about Quidditch!" "We talked about it yesterday, Phil." "Yeah, but look, an actual broomstick!" We approached the window everyone was fawning over to see a well displayed broomstick with a long, sleek handle made of dark wood. It did look pretty cool, to be honest. "Ooh, a stationary store, let's see what they have." We began to walk away when 2 youngsters blocked our path, both with gigantic smiles on their faces. "Y-you're Dan and Phil!" The girl said. "We watch your videos all the time! Our mum thinks we're mad." The boy added. Phil smiled and bent down to be more their size which is understandable, seeing as we're both giants. "That's great! Thanks for watching, we really appreciate it." "Yeah, thank you guys! We love meeting fans." "Sissy, get something to sign, Mum won't believe this..." The girl rooted around in her bag and Phil took the opportunity to look at me. It was always nice when we met people, especially young people that liked our videos, because it always reiterated that we were still doing some good in the world, still making people happy.  The girl handed Phil a notebook and a pen, only the pen was a quill and her brother held a well of ink. I signed the page as well and we both straightened out. "Are you guys going to Hogwarts too? I heard a lot of older students are going to be starting this year, it's going to be great!" "Yeah, we will be, maybe we'll see you around!" Phil said, giving them both a big smile. "You don't happen to know where Gringotts is, do you?" I asked, remembering I didn't actually recall where the bank was and not wanting to get lost. They both turned around and pointed straight. "All the way at the end." The boy remarked. "You can't miss it." His sister added. I thanked them again, we hugged them both and we went on our way. It took twice as long to get there since I had to keep pulling Phil away from inspecting all the windows which I kept reminding him we would come back to. Then it came into sight. 

Gringotts.