FicWad

Disclaimer: Yeah right. Me, own Harry Potter? You’d know if I did!

Author’s Note: /I’m afraid this chapter is a bit filler-ish, but there is a purpose to it, no worries! It’s kind of like a snap-shot in time, one of those things I need for character development and interaction, and such, though some important-ish stuff happens (not vital to the plot, but there nonetheless). Enjoy!/


Alchemical Reactions

Chapter Five
Alleys and Allies

“Master Potter, sir. Mistress Flamel is telling Teppy that she be wanting you to be reading to be going to the Wizarding World. Mistress Flamel be waiting in the parlour, Master Potter, sir,” Teppy the House-Elf said moments after he had popped into Harry’s bedroom. Harry groaned and rolled over in bed, covering his head with a pillow. The House-Elf began shaking him, insisting that he awaken or ‘Mistress Flamel’ wouldn’t be pleased. Half awake now, Harry remembered Perenelle Flamel’s punishments for tardiness weren’t exactly cruel, but they were quite tedious and annoying, a fact that spurred him out of bed and into the shower in record time.

As the warm water washed over Harry, he contemplated his life now. He had been with the Flamels for about five months since his discovery of magic and the re-growing of his eyes, and he found himself almost liking it. The Flamels tended to leave him alone for the most part, unless it was important or he was in lessons, and he never really got bored. He had no true longing for companionship of his own age, as he had spent the majority of his time in the orphanage and at various foster homes avoiding it, and he generally found himself satisfied with his life.

The Flamels had celebrated his tenth birthday with him only a few weeks earlier, and it had been a quiet affair. It had included a small cake and a gift from the two of them (a gift certificate which he was eagerly awaiting to spend at a wizarding bookshop), a gift from Teppy (which was the cake, really), and a gift from Margaret Mallory (who sent him a gift every year on his birthday and Christmas, though he never even saw her, or really remembered much of her). It was more than he usually got—the orphanage had used to give the children more sweets on their birthdays, or an extra helping of dessert—and he was generally pleased with his home life now.

The days where Harry wished he was back at the orphanage were few and far apart, though dreams of his life with Cameron before the wide variety of foster homes made him wish that he had something more with the Flamels than the simple connection of teacher and student. On the other hand, nightmares of his life at foster homes and the dread that the Flamels would send him back in spite of everything prevented him from connecting with the aging couple on any emotional level aside from the one of teacher and student. Not to mention his nightmares of a flash of green light, a high pitched scream and then /nothing/. That void scared him nearly as much as commitment.

He sighed, stepping out of the warm embrace of the water into that of a rough towel, and began dressing. His clothing was all relatively new—Mrs. Flamel had taken him several weeks ago to get new clothing as most of his clothing was composed of hand-me-downs, so the two had ventured into Muggle London. Harry had, of course, stopped by the book store and grabbed several books to keep him busy. He imagined that today would be much of the same, with the addition of some Wizarding supplies, such as his own scales and cauldron, and wand, of course. Though Harry barely used the hand-me-down wand he had been given (which was fiercely protested by Nicholas Flamel for reasons unknown), it couldn’t become public knowledge that a ten-year-old wizard was able to perform feats of magic that even Albus Dumbledore would have trouble doing.

As soon as Harry had finished dressing, he quickly applied some Muggle make-up to hide his scar. He then dashed out of his room and down the long corridor towards the entrance of the manor, passing by many portraits that called out to Harry things like “Slow down!” or “I hope you break your neck running at that speed!” as he passed by. Harry ignored them, only slowing when he reached the door leading to the entrance room of the manor. He paused, caught his breath, and walked in as if he hadn’t gone faster than a meandering stroll. Only hair that was messier than usual betrayed the truth of the matter.

“You know,” stated Perenelle Flamel, looking her charge up and down as if to find some fault, “Tardiness is not a redeeming quality.”

“You didn’t tell me we’d be going today,” Harry pointed out. If he had known he wouldn’t have spent half the night reading a really interesting text on human transfiguration.

“True,” Perenelle said calmly. “But there’s another quality you possess that is far from flattering,” she said, her eyes gleaming with wicked mischief. “Sleeping in late; sloth is not one of the best qualities.” Now that the boy wasn’t in torment while living with them, Perenelle took great pains to teach Harry proper manners and decorum, and she was a very strict teacher.

Harry simply rolled his eyes at her words. “Alright, can we go now?” he asked impatiently.

“Do you have what you need?” Perenelle asked, referring to his gift certificate and bank key, which the Flamels had kindly asked the goblins for.

“Yes,” Harry replied, containing the urge to roll his eyes once more. He barely put up with Mrs. Flamel—she seemed to attempt to find fault in everything he did, whether she said it teasingly or not. She set standards for him that he found to be, for the most part, something just to amuse herself with. He more or less put up with it, considering that Mr. Flamel had detailed how she got every time she sunk her teeth into a project—and she saw teaching him to be a proper young man as a project.

“Fine. I’ll go through the fire first—you follow,” she said. With that, she turned to the fireplace, threw a handful of floo powder in and watched as it flared to life. Stepping into the warm—but not hot—green flames, she calmly intoned “Diagon Alley” and vanished.

Harry copied her actions, and found himself spinning and whirling, only catching the briefest glimpses of fireplaces and the rooms beyond before being spun away once more, as if he were the debris being carried by a whirlwind. He flew out of the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron and landed flat on his face, before rising and beginning to cough.

Perenelle Flamel waited for him to finish coughing and wiping the last of the ash from his body (aided by a small charm that Harry used unobtrusively) before indicating for Harry to follow. He did.

Harry had never been to Diagon Alley before. While they had been touring around Muggle London, they had come quite close to the Leaky Cauldron but had never ventured inside. Harry’s curiosity about the solely Wizarding street grew as they approached the gateway to the Alley, and he raised his Magical Sight level—for that was what he had chosen to call the spell that had been cast upon his re-grown eyes—and watched in fascination as the brightly coloured spell wove in and out to form the archway leading to the alley.

Harry risked a glance inward, using his raised Magical Sight, and barely contained a wince. It was like looking at the sun—even with his Magical Sight barely in play. He dimmed it to as low as he could, still staring as the magic was still very much visible, though perhaps not as bright. Perenelle, seeing him squinting, made a mental note to tell Nicholas to make sure Harry grew accustomed to the magical intensity of magical areas.

Perenelle lead Harry through Diagon Alley, heading towards a large white building in the distance. Harry could barely keep up with her—he was too busy staring. Despite having been a part of the Wizarding World for five months now, there was a lot that he evidently didn’t know. It was so much to take in—the bright glare of Diagon Alley’s magic, the garish decorations that permeated themselves throughout the Alley, the stores, the witches and wizards themselves…it was utter chaos to Harry.

They approached the white building that loomed all over the other shops, “Gringotts Bank” as the sign said. Harry tried hard not to stare at the odd looking things that guarded the doors—something about their demeanour made him a touch more wary than usually—and instead he stared at the inscription upon the doors to the bank:

Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.

Sensible, Harry thought to himself. More menacing than Muggle banks, of course, but I’d assume that the guards of this bank are a touch more menacing than Muggles.

“Goblins,” Perenelle said in an undertone to Harry, as if she had read his thoughts, as they passed out of earshot of the guards. “They’ve kept Wizarding money safe for centuries.”

Harry nodded, thinking. I can’t believe I never really asked the barmy old man about other intelligent magical beings...I never even entertained the thought. That was stupid of me, /Harry told himself derisively. /Could have cost me my life, for all I know. I’ll have to find a book on it…

While he had been berating himself for leaving such gaps in his education, Perenelle had approached the nearest goblin teller politely. “I’d like to speak with someone in private, if that’s at all possible,” she said calmly. The goblin looked at her sharply, before nodding and leading them to an office. Harry followed, not really caring as he knew he didn’t have money to his name—this was probably just some Flamel business that she was trying to include him in to make him feel like ‘part of the family.’

They were lead into a bureaucratic office that looked no different from the many he had been in while foster parents signed documents either to take him in or renounce their adoption, except for the goblin sitting behind the desk. He looked up from the paperwork he had been scrawling across with a quill and derisively asked, “Yes?”

“I’d like to claim the key to Mr. Harry Potter’s vault, please,” Mrs. Flamel asked. Harry stared at her, confused. Why on earth would he have a vault?

“And your right to Mr. Potter’s vault?” the goblin asked snidely.

“I am his guardian,” she replied firmly. “You should have received notification when he was adopted.”

“Ah, yes,” the goblin said after a moment of shuffling through his papers. “Well, everything seems to be in order then. We just need a brief test from Mr. Potter here to prove his identity.”

“Of course,” replied Mrs. Flamel.

Harry spoke up for the first time, slightly peeved to be offered up for some ‘test’ without his knowledge or consent. “And what sort of proof do you need?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. “An eye test, a health test, a genetics test, what? Though I suppose the eye test would be slightly difficult, what with them being the way they are,” he mused aloud.

The goblin’s expression did not change towards Harry’s candid remarks, nor did his tone of voice, while Perenelle glared down at her charge. “A simple blood test, Mr. Potter. Just a prick of the finger.”

“Oh, alright then,” Harry said, and stuck out his hand. “Just discard the blood when you’re done with it. I’m sure there are plenty of potions that could be used against me with my blood.”

The goblin did not even raise an eyebrow at the paranoid ten-year-old ordering him around. Instead, he pricked Harry’s finger, mumbled in Gobbledegook, and said quite calmly, “You can take care of the blood yourself, Mr. Potter.”

Harry wiped his finger on a handkerchief Mrs. Flamel passed him, slightly disgruntled. The goblin said a few more words to Perenelle, before handing Harry the key and dismissing them from his office. Harry left without even asking how on earth he’d gotten a vault, and he refused to ask Mrs. Flamel.

Two whirling cart rides later Harry had decided that the contents of his vault were definitely intriguing. He knew that the money had come from his parents, but what on earth had they done in their short lives to be the possessors of such wealth? It was a puzzle that he was determined to find out on his own. After all, it was his past.

“Here,” Mrs. Flamel said to Harry, handing him a bag full of coins. “This is your allowance. You can spend it on whatever you deem necessary, and I’ll leave you to it, as long as you promise not to go down Knockturn Alley. I’ve got my own shopping to take care of, and Nicholas said you’d be fine on your own,” she said firmly. “We’ll meet back at the Leaky Cauldron in two hours.” Seeing Harry’s look of puzzlement at the coins in the bag, she explained, “The little bronze ones are kunts. There’s twenty-nine knuts to a sickle, which are the silver ones. Seventeen sickles to a galleon, the gold ones.”

“Alright,” Harry nodded.

“Behave,” Mrs. Flamel told him sternly. She seemed to believe that little boys were nothing but trouble. “And try not to use magic in public. You don’t even look old enough to be at Hogwarts yet, let alone seventeen!”

Harry frowned, but agreed. Personally, he felt that he looked older than his ten years of age, but he hadn’t been around enough other children recently to really notice. All he knew was that he looked young enough for anyone to mother him, and that fact along annoyed him more than anything.

Left to his own devices, Harry quickly found his way into the bookstore. It was fairly busy, many of the customers going off to Hogwarts shortly and needing there school books. Harry had no such limitations and instead began searching for any books that held his interest. There were many.

Harry finally exited the shop, twenty books laden in bags and roughly twelve galleons lighter. After all, he didn’t know when he’d be allowed another excursion into the Alley and he wanted some more up-to-date books than the ones in the Flamel’s library. Shopping done, he decided he’d wander around the Alley to see what was there.

There were a lot of interesting things to see in the Alley, though Harry only really understood the purpose of half the items on sale. Some of things seemed to be really odd—who needed a spinning moon?—but most of the Wizarding folk in the Alley seemed to take it in stride. One shop stopped him in his tracks. Broomsticks.

A wild thought flitted through Harry’s head—did witches and wizards actually ride broomsticks as a form of travel? By the price tag on the broom on display, he could see that it was either a very efficient cleaning tool or something akin to a car in the Muggle world. How…clichéd.

“I can’t believe Muggle myths were actually right,” he said aloud, staring at the broom on display.

“Right about what?” a redheaded boy asked beside him.

Harry shrugged and replied, “Riding broomsticks, of course. I can’t believe you lot actually/ ride/ them!”

The redhead stared at him incredulously. “Well of course we ride them!”

“But…they’re/ broomsticks./”

“Well, yeah! What else are you supposed to do with them?” The redhead looked at him as if he were an alien species. A set of redheaded twins exited the broomstick shop and joined in the conversation.

“Clean, I suppose,” Harry shrugged.

“Clean?” said one of the twins.

“What on earth has Ickle Ronniekins been telling you?” the other said, smacking “Ronniekins” on the upside of the head.

“I haven’t been telling him anything,” he grumbled, rubbing his head. “And it’s Ron, by the way, not,” he shuddered, “Ronniekins.”

“Harry,” Harry replied. “But why not use a…safer…method of transport?” he directed the question at the twins.

“You’re Muggleborn?” one asked.

“Kinda,” Harry replied. “Found out I was a Wizard last year.”

The twins shared a look. “You haven’t heard a thing about Quidditch?”

“Quidditch? Odd word. Do you lot fly around ditches or something?”

“Ditches!” one asked as if offended.

“Us, fly around /ditches/?!” the other said, incredulously.

“It’s a sport. A bit like your basketball, except in the air.” Another redhead, this one much older, had exited the shop and caught the tail end of the conversation. “And a lot more dangerous.”

“I’d imagine,” Harry said, staring at the brooms.

“Say, where’s your mum? Your dad?” asked the older redhead, suddenly noticing Harry’s lack of a parent.

“Er…” Harry said hesitantly. “They’re dead. I’m here with my guardian, but she let me wander on my own.”

The oldest redhead stared at him dubiously. “She let you go off on your own? Some guardian,” he said the last in an undertone. “Well, you can stick with us till you have to go, then. I don’t like the idea of a kid running around on his own here.”

Harry nodded dubiously, though it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.

“I’m Charlie Weasley, by the way,” the older redhead introduced himself. “Those two jokers are Fred and George—don’t bother trying to tell the difference—and that’s Ron.”

“I’m Harry,” he reintroduced himself. Getting stuck with this friendly family wasn’t the worst that had happened to him.

“Alright, then Harry. We’re heading over to Flourish and Blotts to check up on Percy—another Weasley. He’s got no taste for Quidditch,” Charlie said cheerfully. “Did your guardian tell you where to meet?”

“I’m supposed to meet her by the Leaky Cauldron in—” Harry checked his watch “—an hour, to get my wand.”

Charlie nodded, leading the group along, while questioning Harry amicably. “So, are you off to Hogwarts then?”

“No,” Harry shook his head. “I’m only ten, and I don’t know if the Flamels are going to let me go to Hogwarts.” Harry let the last bit slip to see what the reaction to that would be.

One of the twins crashed into Charlie, who had stopped in his tracks. “You’re not going to Hogwarts?” he asked incredulously. “And your guardians are the Flamels?”

Funny that Hogwarts was the first question, and the Flamels the second, Harry mused. I would have thought it’d be the other way around, considering that they’re quite famous in the Wizarding World from what I’ve read.

“Yeah,” he said. “Is that bad?” he asked, playing innocent.

“Well, I suppose if you’re being educated by the Flamels it can’t be too bad,” Charlie replied, obviously bemused. “Nicholas Flamel especially—a genius of the century. Centuries. You know what I mean.”

Harry nodded. The reaction surprised him, but he shrugged it off. The Wizarding World as much more complex than he originally had believed. A lot friendlier too, or at least this apparently pureblood family was. He wondered vaguely if they were the sort of pureblood family who looked down on anything Muggle, but found the he already answered a definite “no” to the question before he had even asked it. It was apparent that Ron just didn’t have enough experience with Wizards raised in the Muggle world and that the twins simply loved joking around. Charlie seemed not to really care that he was raised by Muggles and was happy to explain various Wizarding objects as they walked towards Flourish and Blotts. Harry found himself liking this strange group of brothers, as numerous as they were.










Author’s Note: I figure that since a drink in the Wizarding World is about two sickles and a drink in the “Muggle” world is anywhere between one dollar and two dollars (Canadian), then books would be about ten sickles. Therefore, if Harry buys 20 books, he’s spent 200 sickles, which are approximately 11.7 galleons. Just my logic.

Anyways, this chapter, while seemingly lacking purpose actually has one…I just can’t say what yet. As always, R&R!