The Art of Secrets

Chapter Two: A Trip to Diagon Alley

It was several days of cleaning and gardening with her mother later before Erica found the time to get in touch with her friends again. Though they had exchanged letters frequently whilst in Paris, she had let the habit drop since coming back home, much to their annoyance.

Harry had frequently regaled her with tales of his Godfather Sirius and his partner Remus, which only served to make Erica feel even guiltier about what she had done, whilst the others chatted about their own summers, only Hermione ever delving deeper and asking how she was feeling and talking about several books she had been reading on muggle history, which fascinated them both.

She'd even been talking to Adrian, who had enjoyed his summer down in Somerset, along with Fred, who was frequently complaining about his siblings, and even Gemma, an older Slytherin prefect, who liked to check up on her ever since a fight she had been involved in during a Quidditch match months ago. It had later been revealed that she had been dating Percy Weasley, Fred and Ron's older brother, towards the end of the year when Ron accidentally walked in on them, much to everyone's but his amusement.

So it was, the morning after their Hogwarts letters had come for the new year, that she found herself in Diagon Alley, laughing with the others again as they traipsed down the street towards Gringrotts.

"So then he just walked out. The waiters were chasing us down the streets but we were faster than them," Harry finished, face red from laughter. He had many stories about Sirius and Remus, his face red and excited and hair stuck up in tufts, and like all of them, he too had grown a few inches over the summer and filled out a bit.

"I'm honestly surprised you haven't been arrested by muggle police with all the stuff you get up to," Hermione frowned, crossing her arms, "Is it honestly wise for you to stay with such irresponsible adults?"

"It's only Sirius that's the irresponsible one," Ron snorted, "Remus is so strict it's insane and he makes us do all of our homework." Ron had been staying with Harry for the past few weeks until the end of the holidays, and he complained often about how much work Remus had them doing in order to keep on top of school.

"He's not so bad," Harry defended, but he was still grinning widely, "He's only like that because he cares and he tries to compensate for Sirius' lack of... well, seriousness."

"That was so lame," Erica snorted, hiding her giggles behind her hand as Draco knocked into her, linking his arm through hers, "Your puns are terrible."

"Yeah, well, you're terrible," he protested, shaking his head when he realised he couldn't come up with a better comeback than that. "Merlin's beard, it has been too long since we've done this."

"But it's good to be together again," Neville smiled meekly, ducking the arm Blaise tried to swing over his shoulder and blushing when it caused him to stumble into a stand of collapsible scales in front of one of the shops.

"Yeah, it is," Pansy snorted, failing to hide her laughter as giggles slipped out from between her fingers. "So where are we going to go first?"

"I need to go to Gringrotts to change some muggle money," Hermione frowned, shuffling around in her bag to retrieve her purse, along with the Hogwarts letter, "We have a really long book list this year, especially for Defence. All the Lockhart books, to be sure."

Erica shuffled around in her own bag to retrieve the book list, frowning down at it. She hadn't noticed before, but the vast majority of the books were by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Second-year students will require:

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk