Megan Potter - A saga of the Heart - Book 3 - Past and Present

Chapter 4 - Now that's what I call a holiday

It took a few days for Megan to get used to her new freedom. She had never had the chance to get up whenever she wanted, to eat whatever she liked, and go anywhere she liked in Diagon Alley. And with all the shops there were to see, she had no desire to go to Muggle London. But she managed to find a routine. She had breakfast every morning, where she liked observing other witches and wizards, in town to shop or discussing articles. After that, Megan would go to Diagon Alley through the passageway Hagrid had showed her two years before. Then, she would spend her long sunny days walking around the streets, looking at the shops, and watching people around her. One of her favourite places was Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, where the owner, Florean Fortescue, as well as knowing all kinds of things about witch burning in the middle ages, gave Megan free chocolate and raspberry sundaes every half hour, and helped a great deal in Megan's essay. When she had refilled her bag with money, it took a huge amount of self-control on Megan's part to not spend it all at once. Two things helped: the prospect of having five years to go at Hogwarts and that it would not be fun to ask the Dursleys for money, let alone for spellbooks and potion ingredients. And another was the Weasleys. They had very little money and a lot of mouths to feed. And Megan didn't want to brag her fortune when her best friends couldn't. Several things tempted her, but the one that put her most to the test, she saw in her first weekend.

A crowd was cluttering Quality Quidditch Supplies, and Megan, curious to know what it was about, made her way inside. She then soon glimpsed a newly erected podium. She squeezed through and gasped before the most beautiful broom she had ever seen.

“Just come out, it's a prototype,” someone said.

“It's the fastest broom in the world, isn't it, dad?” Megan heard a little boy ask.

Megan then saw a sign.

The Firebolt

This state-of-the-art racing broom sports a streamlined, super-fine handle, treated with a diamond-hard polish and hand-numbered with its own registration number. Each individually selected birch twig in the tail has been honed to aerodynamic perfection, giving the Firebolt unsurpassed balance and pinpoint precision. The Firebolt has an acceleration of 0-150 an hour in ten seconds and incorporates an unbreakable braking charm. Price upon request.

Megan didn't need to know how much it cost to know it was expensive. And that she had never wanted something so badly. She'd show that pest Draco Malfoy and his Nimbus Two Thousand and One, a broom faster than her own, the Nimbus Two Thousand. He was a boy she knew in school and spent every waking moment making things difficult for her and her friends. He'd even gone so far as to entering his house Quidditch team to taunt Megan even But she had never lost a match with her broom, so why empty her account to buy something she didn't need? But she often returned just to look at it.

There were, however, things Megan really did have to buy. Her new school books, mainly, and her potion ingredients. And she needed new robes. She was surprised at how much she had grown in two years. She had a feeling the good food from Hogwarts had helped. Megan got a surprise when she went to Flourish and Blotts' to get her books. Thrashing around in a cage, were green snappy leather books. And then, Megan looked at her list. The Monster Book of Monsters was listed. Megan now understood why Hagrid had said she would need it. She felt slightly relieved, having considered Hagrid might have needed help with a new pet. She entered the shop.