10) School Shopping

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I ate my blueberry ice cream as we walked to the next store. Socks sat on my shoulder, swiveling his head to look at everyone.

We got parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he got some color changing ink.

"Hagrid, What's quidditch?" Harry asked as we walked out of the store.

"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know — not knowin' about Qudditch!"

"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. Then he told Hagrid about Draco.

"—and he said people from muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in—"

"Yer not from a muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were — he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' muggles — look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"

"So what is quidditch?" Harry asked while I pretended nothing bad had been implied about Draco.

"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like — like soccer in the Muggle world — everyone follows Quidditch — played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls — sorta hard to explain the rules."

"And what are Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw?

"School houses. Theres four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but—"

"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," sad Harry said.

Darkly, Hagrid said, "Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin. There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."

"Vol-, sorry — You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"

"Years an' years ago," Hagrid said.

We got our books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were full of books. Some were bigger than my head. Some I would have been able to lift with my little finger. Some had silk and some had leather. Ones with funny looking symbols and my favorite didn't have anything in it at all.

Hagrid dragged Harry away from a book while I went looking for the ones we needed and a few others for fun. I am rich now, after all.

We got nice scales for weighing stuff while Harry tried to convince Hagrid to let him get a solid gold cauldron. We also had to go to the apothecary. It smelled funny, and everything looked funny, and it wasn't very funny.

I almost slipped on some slimy stuff on the floor. There were feathers, dried roots, and gnarled claws hanging from the ceiling. Take your pick. Hagrid got our things while I looked at a shiny hippogriff scale.

Hagrid checked Harry's list when we got outside, "Just yer wand left — oh yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."

"You don't have to—"

"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went out of fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at — an' I don't like cats, no offense Socks, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."

20 minutes later, Harry walked out with a snowy white owl named Hedwig. She had been the only one to not attack me.

"Just Ollivanders left now — only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand," Hagrid said, leading us towards a shabby shop.

I'd been waiting for the wand all day.

The inside was tiny and just as shabby as the outside. Hagrid sat on the only spindly chair in the entire place while Harry and I walked up to the counter.

There were tons of boxes stacked up on shelves. I could feel the magic wafting off of them. Most of them felt wrong to me. Scratch that, all of them. I did see that one of the boxes Magic was wafting more towards Harry than the others.

"Good afternoon," a soft voice said, making Harry and Hagrid jump. I stared at the man behind the counter. I stared at his moon eyes.

He seemed to stare into me. Then he opened his palm and I saw a scar. The same one I would have on my hand.

"Hello," Harry said uncomfortably.

"Ah yes," said probably Ollivander, "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter. You have your mothers eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work. Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more powerful and excellent for transfiguration. When I say your father favored it — it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

Several tons of wands later, and some weird conversations, one finally chose Harry. The box I had seen wafting towards him. Holly and Phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.

Though there was one issue with the wand that had chosen my best and only friend.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It's very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother — why, its brother gave you that scar."

I am in a bad mood. My dad isn't the best person. He insulted my sister, whom we will call Emblem, very clearly. We were talking about how my other sister, whom we will call Sam, was going to rent a house with her friend and that we couldn't wait to spend the weekend's there. My dad said no. We were all like "why?!?" He said it was because all kids were terrible, and would bring boys over to do bad things. My sisters aren't like that. When he was saying that, I tried to say "Well, not all kids do that!" He turned to me, and I quote, "Caroline, stop. You are not a part of this conversation. I. AM. THE. BOSS." Then he left. It doesn't help that when I went downstairs and couldn't stop myself from crying. My eyes still feel weird. It doesn't even sound as bad as it was when I write it. But he insulted my sisters. I hold him in no respect.

May your fathers never treat you the way mine does with me.

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