Devious Future

Chapter 3

The two exited the bank and continued to talk for several minutes before agreeing to sit down and have tea once the school year had begun, and finally parting ways.

Once he was alone again, the first place that Harry went was to the local luggage and storage shop. He purchased a rather nice two-compartment trunk that was charmed to feel feather light, no matter how full it was, and to sprout a pair of wheels on one end, and an extendable handle on the other for easy travel. The second compartment, that you got to by turning a dial around the lock three turns to the left and then once to the right, wasn't a storage compartment at all, but rather a magically expanded space that revealed a ladder that lead down into a 8x10x8ft room.

The shop didn't offer any furnishing for the space, so once that was purchased he went to a furniture store and got a small desk, a chair, and a simple cot bed. He knew he couldn't permanently conjure furniture himself yet, but he figured he could at least try to transfigure what he got into something more appropriate once he had determined exactly what he needed later.

He spent several hours walking from one store to the next getting all the supplies listed in his Hogwarts letter, and anything else that caught his fancy, and dropping it down into his trunk once it was purchased.

He got parchments, quills, all of his needed school books, and quite a few others, a couple cauldrons and other needed potion supplies, as well as a rather extensive collection of ingredients from the Apothecary.

He pulled the list of school supplies out of his pocket to see what was left. Robes. He still hadn't gotten any robes. He wandered into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and glanced around the room.

"Hogwarts, dear?" a squat, smiling witch asked him, once she spotted him.

"Yes ma'am," Harry said, nodding his head.

"Well, come right over here. I've got another young man being fitted right now."

She led him into the back of the shop where a pale boy with a pointed face was being measured by another witch. Harry caught sight of him and almost groaned. He really wasn't ready to deal with this boy yet. He thought that by putting robes off till the end that he'd avoid his run in with the platinum blond boy, but apparently that wasn't to be.

Harry was led to stand on a footstool beside the boy and Madam Malkin slipped a long robe over Harry's head and began to pin it to the right length.

"Hogwarts too?" the boy drawled and Harry sighed, trying to decide how to handle this.

"Yes," Harry replied.

"My father's next door buying books and Mother's up the street looking at wands. Then I'm off to look at racing brooms. Don't see why first years can't have their own broom."

"I imagine the school is afraid the first years will try stuff they're not ready for and just end up falling off and breaking their necks," Harry said with a shrug.

"Well, sure, the ones who've never been on a broom before might do something stupid that, but it's not fair to punish the rest of us just because somepeople don't have access to a proper broom before coming to school."

"I suppose it's just easier for them to make sure everyone has had proper lessons before they let any of the first years into the sky."

"I still hate it. I think I'm going to bully Father into getting me a racing broom and smuggle it in somehow. I've been riding a broom for years. Just because they're afraid that some stupid muggleborn is going to break their neck, doesn't warrant the rest of us suffering."

Harry sighed and shrugged noncommittally.

"Any idea which house you'll end up in?" the boy asked with disinterest.