Diagon Alley proved to be a place of my dreams. Of course, I saw magic at home on a daily basis. Ma uses magic to cook and clean. Grandpa uses magic for everything. And Dad tries to do magic. There were always whooping and clapping whenever some little magic escaped from me, but mostly my sisters knew that.
But here in Diagon Alley, it was magic everywhere! I mean, look at the flying kites – they are flying even though there is no wind outside. Then there are pots and pans hanging out of a shop – and by hanging I mean not on nails, they are hanging in mid-air, revolving slowly, gleaming in the sunlight. Then there was this shop full of screaming, fighting and biting books, that tore each others’ pages and seemed to shake in silent anger. Few men looking very somber emerged from shop clutching a carpet that seemed to be trying to escape from their grip, followed by a shopkeeper who was waving his fists at them, yelling something. “Ministry people”, I heard Dad telling Ma.
My sisters looked like they were frightened and awed at the same time. They clung to Ma and Dad as though they were scared of getting swept away in the throng of shoppers around us. I kept close to them, but kept turning my head everywhere, trying to look at everything around me. Finally Dad said something to Ma and she grabbed my hand and pulled me and Tiffany with her saying that we are going to split up and shop. She dragged me all the way towards a grubby little shop that said ‘Wear and Tear’.
It was dusty inside. Two women were arguing over something. One was clutching what looked like a robe half her size and shouting something that sounded like ‘shrinking’ and the other was shouting back from behind a counter in a language I couldn’t properly discern. Ma rapped the door with her knuckles and the lady behind the counter cast a look at us and said something to the other woman who stormed out of the shop.
“Vivian! How nice to see you about in London! Such a long time it has been since I last saw you! How are you and, er, John, isn’t it?” said the lady behind the counter with a smile. It didn’t reach her eyes and somehow it gave me chills to be in the shop.
“James” said Ma trying to hold a squirming Tiffany still in her hands, “I need Hogwarts uniforms for my eldest one here, Gina. She is to start school this September”
I heard a hint of pride in Ma and saw a frown on the lady’s face. However she smiled again and came forward towards me and started pulling my arms up and taking measurements with a tape that hung quite on its own. Fascinated, I tried to see how it was taking measurements, when Ma put her hand on my shoulder and shook her head.
“She is quite tall for her age” said the lady making me stand on a rickety stool and pulling a robe from over my head.
“Yes” said Ma, smiling a little, “she takes after her father”.
“Oh!” said the lady with her mouth twisted in a weird smile, “well at least, she didn’t take other things after him”
I could see Ma clenching her fists tightly and taking a deep breath. She did that whenever she got angry. I didn’t know what made her angry but I glared at the woman for making her so.
After a few minutes that lady said she was done and asked us to come back to collect the robes in an hour or so. We went out and then Ma took us to a tiny shop that seemed to be overflowing with books. She gave a list to the shopkeeper who looked so old and frail. He tottered around the shop climbing over ladders and chairs and pulling books from the shelves and always seemed to be in a constant danger of getting buried under the cascading books. However, he managed to get a lot of tattered books for us and put them in a brown bag that seemed ready to burst under the weight. Ma put the brown bag in her handbag which seemed to swallow it all so easily. I always liked this trick of hers. Once she put an entire pumpkin, the size of a car tire into her handbag and it didn’t even look stuffed.
After getting the books, we went around a couple of lanes. I saw a shop that was selling broomsticks that were sleek and shiny and seemed to hang in the air about a foot from the counter behind the window. Another shop was selling owls that were staring out with their beaded eyes and clawing at the glass panes. A few feet away, a tiny man was selling mirrors that seemed to have a voice of their own and kept shouting at the passers by. One broken mirror was wailing.
Finally, Ma pulled us into a shop that was so narrow that it seemed like only one person could fit in it at a time. But when we went in, I gasped! The ceiling was very high and the shop was quite spacious. A few people were sitting on the chairs, thumbing some newspapers and an elegant woman was sitting behind a highly polished wooden counter and smiled as she spotted us.
“Vivian dear!” she said hurrying out from behind the counter and coming forward to shake hands with Ma, “it is so good to see you here! I received your letter yesterday and have been waiting quite restlessly”, she smiled at us, “these yours?”
“Yes, Madam Plumcreek. The eldest one and the youngest. Is Mr. Harefeld inside? We are in a hurry and have lots of shopping to do,” said Ma in the tones that she used to talk with Grandpa when he did something naughty.
That Madam Plumcreek put up a stiff smile and told her to go through the door at the very back of the hall. She asked me to sit in one of the chairs beside a wrinkly man reading a newspaper that said ‘The Quibbler’ and put Tiffany on my lap before she went through the door.
I looked around. There were huge pictures of a man wearing a ‘pince – nez’ that Grandpa wore while reading something. In one picture he was standing beside a horse with a single sharp horn, all white and white fluffy tail. I thought of unicorns, but silly me, they don’t exists really. I never saw one around our fields anyway. Madam Plumcreek seemed to be staring at me and I stopped looking around and instead concentrated on the back of the newspaper ‘The Quibbler’. It said (I am really good at reading stuff) that the local Quidditch (yeah that’s what it was spelled like) team of Alderley had pitched up to play against the international Bavarian Quidditch team, all because the coaches married each others’ sisters and challenged each other over who was a better husband.
Ma came back after a short while, thanked Madam Plumcreek and ushered us out.
“What is Quidditch, Ma?” I asked holding her hand as we walked towards a Gigantic White building.
“Oh dear!” said Ma, “It’s a game. Played using some balls and broomsticks. You will find out all about it once you go to your school. It’s really simple, you will see”
The white building said Gringotts Bank. Dad was waiting near the end of the steps leading up to its entrance with each of my other sisters clutching what looked like an ice-lolly. He himself was holding four of them. I wondered why they weren’t melting in this heat. Why, the one I had a few weeks back at home melted even before I could have a few slurps.
“Did you get it?” he asked looking nervous.
“Yes” said Ma, putting Tiffany down, “wait here, dear. I will take Iz with me and get all things done. Or you could all wait at the Leaky Cauldron. We won’t be late. And we can have our ice-lollies there itself.”
Dad scooped Tiffany into his arms and ushered the rest of them after casting one last glance at Ma. She sighed a little and grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the door. First came a set of bronze doors that had a huge engraving on them that looked like a weird looking tiny man holding a too – large – for – him hammer above his head and an anvil placed in front of him. The second set of doors seemed to be made of silver and had something written on them but Ma ushered me through them too quick for me to even make out what it was. Then opened a set of Golden doors on whose either side were those weird looking tiny men in dress robes and before I could even ask who they were, my mouth fell open looking at what was within those doors.
I have never been to such a place in my entire life. It was HUGE. Not just ‘Good Heavens!’ huge, but it was ‘Praise the Lord’ huge! There were candles overflowing what seemed like huge glass bowls (they are called chandeliers, Grandpa told me later) hanging from the ceiling. The floor was smooth, shiny and creamy white. Many of those weird looking tiny people were sitting behind counter and counters of polished black wood. The counters seemed to stretch far and wide and Ma pulled me up at the nearest counter where the people waiting in a line were less. I looked around and found gold, silver and bronze coins exchanged on the counters along with papers, sparkly stones, mounds of currency, blocks of gold and what looked like half a cart full of silverware.
It took us a few minutes to move up the line and finally we were facing one of those weird men behind the counter.
“This is my daughter Isabella Sefton. I have a letter here to allow her access her vault. She needs, er, 100 galleons worth of galleons, sickles and knuts in equal number” said Ma giving him a letter that she pulled out of her handbag.
“Please wait here” he said and slid down his high chair and went inside a door behind him. I caught sight of stony walls glowing in some sort of yellowy light.
“They are called Goblins” whispered Ma to me, “this is Gringotts. The bank run by them. They are not humans. But they are very good with money. When you go to school, you will have to use different kind of money that we use in our village. We are here to get those for you, alright?”
“But I do have enough of my pin – money, Ma”, I protested knowing how difficult it was for her to spend more money on us, “can’t we get some of that money here and exchange. Look! They are doing that behind that counter over there. May be we can exchange some there too”.
Ma looked at me mistily and ruffled my hair. She did this when I did something good. I liked it and smiled whenever she did that.
The Goblin came out of the door and put a velvety bag that jingled as though it was filled with coins on the counter. He also put a bar of silver that looked strangely like a liquid. Its surface rippled as though it was disturbed by the air surrounding it.
“The young lady is to put her thumb in here before taking her gold” he said to Ma, “her left thumb, please”.
Ma helped me put my thumb on the silver bar that sucked my thumb right into it. I gasped but Ma said there is no need to worry and after a few seconds she pulled my finger off it. The Goblin seemed to be satisfied and let us have the bag full of coins and out we came from the bank.
“Let’s get you a wand and an owl, shall we?” said Ma smiling at me.
A wand though! A real wand! Not the make – pretend one that me and my sisters made out of twigs from our backyard. We were never allowed to touch Ma’s or dad’s wand and Grandpa had his one on him all the time. I wondered if I can use it to make our garden gnomes float in the air like those pans and pots the shopkeepers had floating around; it would be easier than swinging them in the air. Or may be I can use my sleepy pony grow big and strong like Pericles, the horse that pulls our cart; so that I can ride it through the fields double quick to the forest on the other side.
I was mulling over what to do with my wand as we entered a shop that said ‘Ollivander’s – makers of fine wands’ on the outside. A large woman with a boy of my age was coming out of it. The boy was looking flushed and quite pleased with himself as he held on to a narrow brown box that I suspected was having his wand. With doubled enthusiasm, I looked around for a wand to buy. A beautiful one was on a counter, enclosed within a gleaming glass dome. It hand a sleek white handle that ended with a carved base. I pulled Ma’s sleeve and pointed at it.
“You can’t have that one young lady” said an extremely old man coming down a ladder behind another counter, “it is just a prop. Then again, you couldn’t have it even if it was real, for it is the wand that choses the wizard, or the witch in your case”
He looked wizened and was bent with age. But had pale, glassy eyes that seemed to be looked straight through me. I backed into Ma a little who smiled and pushed me forward.
“Put up your wand arm and let me take some clues as to what your wand will be made of” said the old man pulling a small silvery tape.
I put up my right arm and the tape started taking measurements of its own just like it did at the robes shop. I stood upright waiting for the man to come back as from the depths of the shop that he disappeared into.
He came out clutching a few boxes, clicked his fingers and the tape settled on the counter, neatly folding itself. He pulled out a few wands and asked me to give each one of them a swish or a flick. For a quarter of an hour, I swished and flicked and nothing happened. And then, it happened.
A black wand with gold highlights felt warm in my hands the very first time I touched it and then when I flicked it, a few golden stars burst out.
“Ooooh”, said the old shopkeeper, “You have an Ebony, ten and three – quarters inch with a core made of single scale of Hebridean Black”.
I glanced at Ma. She seemed to be wiping her face. I got my wand wrapped in a brown box just like the boy’s who was before me. Ma put it inside her handbag and off we went, out of the shop.
I was thinking of asking Ma if I could just hold my wand, when we stopped before a shop that sold owls. A man with a beak like nose and a long moustache hailed us in.
“Miss Vivian! What a surprise! I must say, you look fine! It must have been more than ten years since I saw you in this shop! Oh, is she yours? What a beautiful young lady!” he said pinching my cheek.
Ma smiled and said, “Mister Eeylop, it is so nice to see you again. Yes she is my eldest one. We are looking for – an eagle owl, that is”.
“Ah! Keeping up with the family tradition, is it? Your father would be so proud. We do see him now – ”
“We are in rather a hurry, Mister Eeylop” said Ma cutting him across, “If you will let us look at the Eagle Owls that you have?”
“Oh! Of course, of course! Come in”
I was half intimidated by the huge owls that Ma insisted on buying. They were scary. I kept drifting towards the aisle that had tiny, cute owls, the size of fluff balls, curling in their cages but Ma kept pulling me back to look at the huge owls. Finally, I found one that let me pet it without snapping its beak at me. In fact, I thought it was sleeping. Nevertheless, we bought that owl and Ma let me carry it in its cage.
By the time we came back to the Leaky Cauldron after getting my robes from the condescending lady, I was too exhausted to be excited even when the dishes that we ordered for supper came floating on a tray. We washed them down with a glass of ginger ale and I finally got to eat my ice – lolly. I couldn’t remember the rest of the journey back because I kept falling asleep every so often. We reached home by midnight and immediately fell asleep without even bothering to take our socks off.
But here in Diagon Alley, it was magic everywhere! I mean, look at the flying kites – they are flying even though there is no wind outside. Then there are pots and pans hanging out of a shop – and by hanging I mean not on nails, they are hanging in mid-air, revolving slowly, gleaming in the sunlight. Then there was this shop full of screaming, fighting and biting books, that tore each others’ pages and seemed to shake in silent anger. Few men looking very somber emerged from shop clutching a carpet that seemed to be trying to escape from their grip, followed by a shopkeeper who was waving his fists at them, yelling something. “Ministry people”, I heard Dad telling Ma.
My sisters looked like they were frightened and awed at the same time. They clung to Ma and Dad as though they were scared of getting swept away in the throng of shoppers around us. I kept close to them, but kept turning my head everywhere, trying to look at everything around me. Finally Dad said something to Ma and she grabbed my hand and pulled me and Tiffany with her saying that we are going to split up and shop. She dragged me all the way towards a grubby little shop that said ‘Wear and Tear’.
It was dusty inside. Two women were arguing over something. One was clutching what looked like a robe half her size and shouting something that sounded like ‘shrinking’ and the other was shouting back from behind a counter in a language I couldn’t properly discern. Ma rapped the door with her knuckles and the lady behind the counter cast a look at us and said something to the other woman who stormed out of the shop.
“Vivian! How nice to see you about in London! Such a long time it has been since I last saw you! How are you and, er, John, isn’t it?” said the lady behind the counter with a smile. It didn’t reach her eyes and somehow it gave me chills to be in the shop.
“James” said Ma trying to hold a squirming Tiffany still in her hands, “I need Hogwarts uniforms for my eldest one here, Gina. She is to start school this September”
I heard a hint of pride in Ma and saw a frown on the lady’s face. However she smiled again and came forward towards me and started pulling my arms up and taking measurements with a tape that hung quite on its own. Fascinated, I tried to see how it was taking measurements, when Ma put her hand on my shoulder and shook her head.
“She is quite tall for her age” said the lady making me stand on a rickety stool and pulling a robe from over my head.
“Yes” said Ma, smiling a little, “she takes after her father”.
“Oh!” said the lady with her mouth twisted in a weird smile, “well at least, she didn’t take other things after him”
I could see Ma clenching her fists tightly and taking a deep breath. She did that whenever she got angry. I didn’t know what made her angry but I glared at the woman for making her so.
After a few minutes that lady said she was done and asked us to come back to collect the robes in an hour or so. We went out and then Ma took us to a tiny shop that seemed to be overflowing with books. She gave a list to the shopkeeper who looked so old and frail. He tottered around the shop climbing over ladders and chairs and pulling books from the shelves and always seemed to be in a constant danger of getting buried under the cascading books. However, he managed to get a lot of tattered books for us and put them in a brown bag that seemed ready to burst under the weight. Ma put the brown bag in her handbag which seemed to swallow it all so easily. I always liked this trick of hers. Once she put an entire pumpkin, the size of a car tire into her handbag and it didn’t even look stuffed.
After getting the books, we went around a couple of lanes. I saw a shop that was selling broomsticks that were sleek and shiny and seemed to hang in the air about a foot from the counter behind the window. Another shop was selling owls that were staring out with their beaded eyes and clawing at the glass panes. A few feet away, a tiny man was selling mirrors that seemed to have a voice of their own and kept shouting at the passers by. One broken mirror was wailing.
Finally, Ma pulled us into a shop that was so narrow that it seemed like only one person could fit in it at a time. But when we went in, I gasped! The ceiling was very high and the shop was quite spacious. A few people were sitting on the chairs, thumbing some newspapers and an elegant woman was sitting behind a highly polished wooden counter and smiled as she spotted us.
“Vivian dear!” she said hurrying out from behind the counter and coming forward to shake hands with Ma, “it is so good to see you here! I received your letter yesterday and have been waiting quite restlessly”, she smiled at us, “these yours?”
“Yes, Madam Plumcreek. The eldest one and the youngest. Is Mr. Harefeld inside? We are in a hurry and have lots of shopping to do,” said Ma in the tones that she used to talk with Grandpa when he did something naughty.
That Madam Plumcreek put up a stiff smile and told her to go through the door at the very back of the hall. She asked me to sit in one of the chairs beside a wrinkly man reading a newspaper that said ‘The Quibbler’ and put Tiffany on my lap before she went through the door.
I looked around. There were huge pictures of a man wearing a ‘pince – nez’ that Grandpa wore while reading something. In one picture he was standing beside a horse with a single sharp horn, all white and white fluffy tail. I thought of unicorns, but silly me, they don’t exists really. I never saw one around our fields anyway. Madam Plumcreek seemed to be staring at me and I stopped looking around and instead concentrated on the back of the newspaper ‘The Quibbler’. It said (I am really good at reading stuff) that the local Quidditch (yeah that’s what it was spelled like) team of Alderley had pitched up to play against the international Bavarian Quidditch team, all because the coaches married each others’ sisters and challenged each other over who was a better husband.
Ma came back after a short while, thanked Madam Plumcreek and ushered us out.
“What is Quidditch, Ma?” I asked holding her hand as we walked towards a Gigantic White building.
“Oh dear!” said Ma, “It’s a game. Played using some balls and broomsticks. You will find out all about it once you go to your school. It’s really simple, you will see”
The white building said Gringotts Bank. Dad was waiting near the end of the steps leading up to its entrance with each of my other sisters clutching what looked like an ice-lolly. He himself was holding four of them. I wondered why they weren’t melting in this heat. Why, the one I had a few weeks back at home melted even before I could have a few slurps.
“Did you get it?” he asked looking nervous.
“Yes” said Ma, putting Tiffany down, “wait here, dear. I will take Iz with me and get all things done. Or you could all wait at the Leaky Cauldron. We won’t be late. And we can have our ice-lollies there itself.”
Dad scooped Tiffany into his arms and ushered the rest of them after casting one last glance at Ma. She sighed a little and grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the door. First came a set of bronze doors that had a huge engraving on them that looked like a weird looking tiny man holding a too – large – for – him hammer above his head and an anvil placed in front of him. The second set of doors seemed to be made of silver and had something written on them but Ma ushered me through them too quick for me to even make out what it was. Then opened a set of Golden doors on whose either side were those weird looking tiny men in dress robes and before I could even ask who they were, my mouth fell open looking at what was within those doors.
I have never been to such a place in my entire life. It was HUGE. Not just ‘Good Heavens!’ huge, but it was ‘Praise the Lord’ huge! There were candles overflowing what seemed like huge glass bowls (they are called chandeliers, Grandpa told me later) hanging from the ceiling. The floor was smooth, shiny and creamy white. Many of those weird looking tiny people were sitting behind counter and counters of polished black wood. The counters seemed to stretch far and wide and Ma pulled me up at the nearest counter where the people waiting in a line were less. I looked around and found gold, silver and bronze coins exchanged on the counters along with papers, sparkly stones, mounds of currency, blocks of gold and what looked like half a cart full of silverware.
It took us a few minutes to move up the line and finally we were facing one of those weird men behind the counter.
“This is my daughter Isabella Sefton. I have a letter here to allow her access her vault. She needs, er, 100 galleons worth of galleons, sickles and knuts in equal number” said Ma giving him a letter that she pulled out of her handbag.
“Please wait here” he said and slid down his high chair and went inside a door behind him. I caught sight of stony walls glowing in some sort of yellowy light.
“They are called Goblins” whispered Ma to me, “this is Gringotts. The bank run by them. They are not humans. But they are very good with money. When you go to school, you will have to use different kind of money that we use in our village. We are here to get those for you, alright?”
“But I do have enough of my pin – money, Ma”, I protested knowing how difficult it was for her to spend more money on us, “can’t we get some of that money here and exchange. Look! They are doing that behind that counter over there. May be we can exchange some there too”.
Ma looked at me mistily and ruffled my hair. She did this when I did something good. I liked it and smiled whenever she did that.
The Goblin came out of the door and put a velvety bag that jingled as though it was filled with coins on the counter. He also put a bar of silver that looked strangely like a liquid. Its surface rippled as though it was disturbed by the air surrounding it.
“The young lady is to put her thumb in here before taking her gold” he said to Ma, “her left thumb, please”.
Ma helped me put my thumb on the silver bar that sucked my thumb right into it. I gasped but Ma said there is no need to worry and after a few seconds she pulled my finger off it. The Goblin seemed to be satisfied and let us have the bag full of coins and out we came from the bank.
“Let’s get you a wand and an owl, shall we?” said Ma smiling at me.
A wand though! A real wand! Not the make – pretend one that me and my sisters made out of twigs from our backyard. We were never allowed to touch Ma’s or dad’s wand and Grandpa had his one on him all the time. I wondered if I can use it to make our garden gnomes float in the air like those pans and pots the shopkeepers had floating around; it would be easier than swinging them in the air. Or may be I can use my sleepy pony grow big and strong like Pericles, the horse that pulls our cart; so that I can ride it through the fields double quick to the forest on the other side.
I was mulling over what to do with my wand as we entered a shop that said ‘Ollivander’s – makers of fine wands’ on the outside. A large woman with a boy of my age was coming out of it. The boy was looking flushed and quite pleased with himself as he held on to a narrow brown box that I suspected was having his wand. With doubled enthusiasm, I looked around for a wand to buy. A beautiful one was on a counter, enclosed within a gleaming glass dome. It hand a sleek white handle that ended with a carved base. I pulled Ma’s sleeve and pointed at it.
“You can’t have that one young lady” said an extremely old man coming down a ladder behind another counter, “it is just a prop. Then again, you couldn’t have it even if it was real, for it is the wand that choses the wizard, or the witch in your case”
He looked wizened and was bent with age. But had pale, glassy eyes that seemed to be looked straight through me. I backed into Ma a little who smiled and pushed me forward.
“Put up your wand arm and let me take some clues as to what your wand will be made of” said the old man pulling a small silvery tape.
I put up my right arm and the tape started taking measurements of its own just like it did at the robes shop. I stood upright waiting for the man to come back as from the depths of the shop that he disappeared into.
He came out clutching a few boxes, clicked his fingers and the tape settled on the counter, neatly folding itself. He pulled out a few wands and asked me to give each one of them a swish or a flick. For a quarter of an hour, I swished and flicked and nothing happened. And then, it happened.
A black wand with gold highlights felt warm in my hands the very first time I touched it and then when I flicked it, a few golden stars burst out.
“Ooooh”, said the old shopkeeper, “You have an Ebony, ten and three – quarters inch with a core made of single scale of Hebridean Black”.
I glanced at Ma. She seemed to be wiping her face. I got my wand wrapped in a brown box just like the boy’s who was before me. Ma put it inside her handbag and off we went, out of the shop.
I was thinking of asking Ma if I could just hold my wand, when we stopped before a shop that sold owls. A man with a beak like nose and a long moustache hailed us in.
“Miss Vivian! What a surprise! I must say, you look fine! It must have been more than ten years since I saw you in this shop! Oh, is she yours? What a beautiful young lady!” he said pinching my cheek.
Ma smiled and said, “Mister Eeylop, it is so nice to see you again. Yes she is my eldest one. We are looking for – an eagle owl, that is”.
“Ah! Keeping up with the family tradition, is it? Your father would be so proud. We do see him now – ”
“We are in rather a hurry, Mister Eeylop” said Ma cutting him across, “If you will let us look at the Eagle Owls that you have?”
“Oh! Of course, of course! Come in”
I was half intimidated by the huge owls that Ma insisted on buying. They were scary. I kept drifting towards the aisle that had tiny, cute owls, the size of fluff balls, curling in their cages but Ma kept pulling me back to look at the huge owls. Finally, I found one that let me pet it without snapping its beak at me. In fact, I thought it was sleeping. Nevertheless, we bought that owl and Ma let me carry it in its cage.
By the time we came back to the Leaky Cauldron after getting my robes from the condescending lady, I was too exhausted to be excited even when the dishes that we ordered for supper came floating on a tray. We washed them down with a glass of ginger ale and I finally got to eat my ice – lolly. I couldn’t remember the rest of the journey back because I kept falling asleep every so often. We reached home by midnight and immediately fell asleep without even bothering to take our socks off.
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