Harry Potter and the Second Chance

Chapter Three - Diagon Alley

"Diagon Alley!" Cassandra said dramatically as the brick wall opened up.

Seth laughed as she did some form of jazz hands.

Right away, the noise overwhelmed me, but not in a bad way. It had been a couple days since we'd gotten our Hogwarts letters, and apparently everyone else in England decided to go shopping on the same day we did.

"Here, let's get robes first." Mum corralled us all over to Madame Malkin's, where we were fitted for our school robes. Then, we went to Flourish and Blotts. Mum let us go our separate ways to find the books we each needed, and I followed Cassandra. A few steps into the store, we ran into Angelina and her family.

Cass ran off with her to get their third year books, and I was alone. I had no idea where to look, and I was about to go out to find Mum when I heard a voice.

"Do you need help, dear?" A motherly voice asked. I turned around to find a wide-set, red-haired woman looking down at me. I nodded my head.

"Here, follow me. You're a first year?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"My son Ron is, too. The first year books are right over here." She gestured to a section of different books, and I thanked her. I pulled my school list out of my pocket and collected one of each book, then ran over to my mother.

"All set, everyone? Alright, hold on just a minute. I'll go pay for everything." She walked off, Seth following in her wake.

"Did you see him?" Cassandra asked anxiously.

"Who?"

"Harry Potter! He was in here!" Timothy was even getting excited.

"Really? How'd you know?"

"He was being body-guarded around by Hagrid!" Cassandra was waving her hands around, as she often did when she was excited.

"Hagrid? Who's that?"

"He's the gamekeeper at Hogwarts. He's a huge ol' man, about five times the size of a normal man!" It was comical to see Tim talking like this, as he very rarely got so excited.

"So he really does exist, huh?" I gave a pointed look at my brother, and Cass laughed.

"Of course he does!" Tim gave me a look, as if he'd never doubted that fact at all.

Mum came back over, and she took me to get my wand. I was so excited that I could have screamed. Ever since I could understand what magic was, I had been waiting to get my very own wand.

We went into Ollivander's, and I took in the atmosphere. There were shelves upon shelves of different wands, from floor to ceiling, ceiling to floor. Any of them could be right for me.

"Hello there! Name?"

Mum gave me an encouraging nudge. "Go on."

"I'm Eleanor Berwyk."

"Eleanor, yes! I gave your mum and dad their first wands many years ago." Mr. Ollivander climbed down from a ladder and set some boxes down on the counter.

"Joanne, how good to see you! 10 and 1/4 inches, dragon heartstring, hawthorn?"

"Yes, sir. It's good to see you again, Mr. Ollivander." My mum smiled, touching her wand unconsciously.

"Well, Eleanor, let's see what your wand will be." I smiled and nodded, excited. "I will warn you, though, that the owner does not choose the wand, the wand chooses the owner."

Mr. Ollivander took one of the boxes off of the counter, examined the label, and opened it.

"9 and 1/2 inches, dragon heartstring, cherry." He handed me the wand, and seeing my confused look, said, "just give it a small flick."

I did as he said, and a stack of papers went flying around the room.

"I see, that is not the one." He gave me a reassuring smile and grabbed another box. "The first one isn't always the right wand. In fact, it almost is never the case. This is 10 inches, unicorn hair, aspen."

I took the wand and flicked my wrist, and a small light started enveloping me.

"This is the one! It's perfect." Ollivander started restacking the papers that I knocked over.

My mum and Mr. Ollivander chatted for a bit as she payed for my wand, then we went to find Tim, Cass, and Seth.

"Did you get your wand?" Tim asked as we walked up.

"Yeah. It's really cool!" I pulled it out of my jacket to display it to them. Cass had a distant look in her eye.

"What's wrong with Cass?" I whispered to Tim.

"She saw Fred." He rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Who's Fred?" My mother asked curiously.

"The boy Cassandra fancies." I told her, emphasizing the word "fancies". Cass turned bright red.

"Really now? Cassandra, aren't you a bit young to have a boyfriend?" Mum was trying very hard not to laugh.

"He's not my 'boyfriend'. He's just... a friend." Cass was smiling nonetheless.

---

We went to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, then we took Floo Powder back home. When we got back, Mum said we should all go riding together. Tim wasn't all that excited, but Seth definitely was. I think Mum organized the trail to make him happy. All day, he'd been kind of down. I used to be, too. Whenever we had to go shopping for Tim and Cass, I was always sad because I didn't get to go to school yet. It was the same for him, except he didn't expect to get to go to school.

On our way to the stables, Mum pulled Cass, Tim, and I back.

"You know your brother's been sad lately. Let's try to cheer him up, alright?"

"Of course." Tim was always good at putting Seth in a good mood.

We horse-backed for an hour or two before Dad got home, then prepared the horses for the night. When we got back inside the house, Cassandra and I went upstairs to sort our supplies into our trunks.

"It's a good thing to do it beforehand." Cass told me. "Even if it's a long while beforehand."

We pulled the trunks down from the attic and started piling our things inside. While Cass haphazardly tossed things into her trunk, I neatly stacked everything.

"There's no point, El. Everything just gets all jumbled by the time you get to the castle."

"Still, it gives me the satisfaction of knowing I've done it correctly." Cass snorted and threw her robes into her trunk.