RAVENCLAW!

23. School Supply Shopping

Draco was excited. In two weeks school was starting again and he'd just received his letter with the supply list. This meant he would have to go to Diagon Alley soon. Usually his mother was the one to take him shopping but she just so happened to be busy that day and his father was free from work and still wanted to sell stuff in Knockturn Alley. Draco hadn't been able to believe his luck when Lucius had mentioned this at breakfast and told him the two of them would be attending to their respective businesses together. His mother had always prohibited going to Knockturn Alley and as he was in fact very interested in Dark Arts the Malfoy heir couldn't ever be more curious about a place. As his father's appointment at Borgin&Burke's was rather early, this was the first point on their list. The Alley was a dark and scary place, Narrow walls, weird people selling questionable products. Draco was amazed and disgusted at the same time. (And maybe a little scared, too, but he would never admit that.) This was the first time he saw the ugly side of dark magic. He always had more of an elegant, strong and powerful impression of the art. A rough hand grabbed his upper arm and Draco jumped.

"Don't wander off, Draco! And don't stare!"

Relieved, he let out a breath and complied with his father's orders. Swallowing his disappointment he straightened his back and pridefully strutted the rest of their way, showing all the scum that lingered around here, that he was superior to them in every way possible. Just like he had learned it from his father. The store that was their destination was definitely the most clean and safe-looking place there was in this Alley. Actually it was like a very dark verion of a Diagon Alley shop. Weird, unnatural, valuable, beautiful and scary objects were presented in the shop window. Finally they entered and Draco didn't take in Lucius' warning to not touch anything due to a distraction. And even though everything in this shop was fascinating and at least partially desirable, it was not what had distracted him. No, but in the far corner of the shop there was a tall, wooden cabinet and Draco could've sworn that he saw a movement over there just a moment ago. Then, the shop owner turned up and he decided to investigate upon that suspiscous movement as soon as his father was caught up in the transactions.

"Good Morning, Mr Malfoy. I'm very honored to have you here. Oh, and as I see you've brought young Mr Malfoy, too. It's a pleasure to meet you, young Sir!"

The greasy, small wizard made what some people would call a bow towards each of them and in return received a halfhearted nod from Lucius who still wore a disgusted scowl on his lips.

"Let's get directly to the matter,..."

And Draco was out.

Slowly he made his way over to the cabinet, taking a look at some interesting objects but mostly faking his interest in them. His mind was completely focused on the weird reflections on the floor right in front of the small open slit of the cabinet door. Reflections such as the ones only produced by curved glass.

Glasses! There's someone in there!

He considered telling the shop owner about it but something felt off with the whole thing. And his gut feeling turned out to be correct. When he was close enough he recognised the glasses. How could he not after having to look at them every single day of the previous school year? There were cracks in the lenses but these were unmistakingly Potter's.

Draco's heart rate doubled when he hastily threw a glance back at his father to check if he had noticed that somehting was off. He hadn't. Quietly he picked up the glasses and held them into the opening of the cabinet. Nothing happened. After another quick glance at his father he dared to whisper something.

"I know your're there, Potter. Just take your damn glasses."

Suddenly a thin hand softly squeezed his in a grateful gesture, took the glasses and pulled back again. For about a minute Draco just kept standing right there, frozen in his tracks but all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Then, pushing these sensations to the back of his mind, he continued to take in all the magical artefacts in the shop until his father calles him to go.

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Harry was confused. Even when Hagrid had already taken him to Diagon Alley he stilll couldn't get his mind off of what had just happened. This, in fact, distracted him so much, it took him way too long to realise that Hermione Granger was standing right in front of him, greeting him cheerfully. As soon as he caught on, though, he immediately flashed her a smile.

"Hey, Mione! Good to see you! How was your summer?"

"Amazing! What did you do to your glasses again?"

She tutted, shaking her head. But instead of fixing them with a spell like she did on the train, she asked another question.

"Where's Ron? He told me that you were staying with his family for the rest of summer. You'll have to tell me everything about what happened later, I'm really -RON!"

Harry turned around to find that Ron -or rather the whole Weasley family- were gathered a few meters in front of them. In an instant Mrs Weasley was at his side, fussing over him.

"Oh, Harry, darling. Are you okay? You frightened us to death. You could've ended up anywhere!"

Harry blushed madly as she spit on her thumb, rubbing at some sort of smudge on his cheek.

"I'm fine, Mrs Weasley! Really!"

Molly didn't seem to have heard him, though. She just continued to brush white ashes off his robes. Mr Weasley meanwhile used this chance to cast 'reparo' upon Harry's glasses and soon they were off to Gringotts, right after Hermione had introduced them to her parents. When the Weasleys entered their vault, Harry was shocked. He'd known that they weren't particulary wealthy but he didn't epect that they only had a few galleons in total - which they all took to spend on school supplies this day, leaving the vault completely empty. Shame came over him when he stood in front of his own money, trying to hide the view of piles and piles of galleons and sickles and knuts from his friends. Somehow he wished he didn't own any of it and could just leave it to the Weasleys. But he knew they wouldn't take it. Hastily he stuffed a few coins of every sort into a small purse and then shuffled back out of the door. Relief flooded Harry when they finally were out in the Alley again but he still felt the shame prickling in his stomach.

"I'm so excited for this year!"

Of course it had been Hermione who said that.

"You're probably the only one who is."

Harry didn't argue Ron even though he secretly was pretty much looking forward to being back at Hogwarts himself. He couldn't await trying out for the Quidditch team, nor could he await to finally use his wand again. He also missed his Ravenclaw friends, especially his roommates (Draco excluded. Maybe not after today? Ugh, this boy was confusing!) and Cho Chang.

"What even-?"

The group came to a halt right in front of Flourish & Blott's. An incredible mass of people - especially witches of all ages - were crowded inside the small bookshop. All of them blushing and giggling and overall being excited. A shriek from Hermione brought clearance into their confusion.

"Gilderoy Lockhart!"

She pointed to a big sign next to the shop window. It read:

Gilderoy Lockhart
Order of Merlin, Third Class
five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award
Successful Author and Adventurer
BIG SIGNING SESSION AT NOON

Suddenly both Molly and Hermione seemed overeager to just get inside and ushered them forward as fast as possible. And if it hadn't been for the events of the recent year, he would say that this was the biggest mess he'd ever been drawn into.