Harry Potter and the Norse Gods

{6} Weasley's Wizard Wheezes

ALEX'S POV

A few weeks after Harry's birthday party, we had to shop for school supplies in a place called Diagon Alley. It was an entire street hidden behind the wall of a rundown pub in London. Apparently, it was a 'magical, amazing, enthralling place', but I didn't see it.

Half the shops were empty, and most of those looked like they had been ransacked. Street vendors selling obviously fake enchantments hassled us as we walked down the cobbled road, arms laden with shopping.

We had finished buying what we needed, so we were heading to a shop that the Weasley's twins owned. I had never met them, but I had heard stories. Lots of stories.

Let's just say, I was eager to meet them.

Their store stood out from the grim backdrop of Diagon Alley. It was attracting vast amounts of customers with their flashy lights and bright colours. It took a moment for us to squeeze our way into the building through the crowd of people, but the moment we got in we were ambushed by two identical red-heads with matching grins.

"Hi, I'm Fred," one of them said.

"And I'm George," the other continued.

I was 100% sure that they had switched names.

"Welcome to our store of wonders, Americans," the first announced, spreading his arms out wide and almost hitting a customer in the head, "feel free to explore. There's a foreigner's discount."

"Is the foreigner's discount just for us?" Magnus asked.

"Why, yes it is," he beamed.

"Come on, Harry," the second twin said, "We want to show you back of the store."

Somewhat reluctantly, Harry followed them after exchanging a wide-eyed glance with Ron and Hermione. The rest of us dispersed into the crowd, exploring the store.

I had been to the other stores in the alley, but this was the first one that struck me as magical.

There were piles of boxes stretching towards the ceiling that proclaimed themselves to be Skiving Snackboxes - from what I gathered, they were sweets that made you sick so you could get out of class, but also came with a cure so you wouldn't be stuck with whatever it was.

I scored the last box of Nosebleed Nougat.

There were bins full of trick wands that did things like turn into rubber chickens or clobber the user around the head when used. With a sideways glance at my boyfriend, who was preoccupied looking at Daydream Charms, I snagged two.

There was a surprisingly wide variety of quills as well, like Self-Inking, Spell-Checking, and Smart-Answer ones. I took one of each. As a demigod, my spelling and reading were atrocious. Normally I wouldn't care about school, especially since it wouldn't impact my future at all - I was dead for Thor's sake - but Magnus and I had made a bet to see who could get the best marks on the end of year exams, and I had no intention of letting him win.

There were joke cauldrons as well, and a very interesting hang-man set, as well as a number of joke sweets like Canary Creams.

This place was a child of Loki's dream.

Unless you were Samariah. She'd probably hate it.

"We have a problem," Storm said.

She was suddenly behind me, and I had absolutely no idea how.

Nico was also hovering behind her. He looked rather bored, but I noticed that he had several of his own purchases, most of which were Skiving Snackboxes. He raised an eyebrow in challenge when he caught me looking, but I shrugged and turned back to Storm.