July 31, 1991
England, London, magical quarter
We came out of Gringotts. After visiting the Potter vault, Hagrid and I had gone with Professor McGonagall to retrieve some 'You-Know-What' from vault seven hundred and thirteen. Full of self-importance, the gamekeeper took the mysterious 'You-Know-What' from the huge, empty chamber and put the small parcel into his pocket. Probably right beside the birthday cake he'd baked for me. I decided not to remind him about the cake.
"I, er..." Hagrid rumbled. "Those goblin carts really did me in. Think I'll pop over to the Leaky Cauldron and have a little drink..."
"Yes, of course, Rubeus," the professor said with a slight grimace. "You really don't look very well."
"See yeh again, Harry!" the giant said cheerfully.
I gave him a lazy wave and looked around the local shops with interest. Last time Harry and I hadn't lingered here, and back then I hadn't known how to read English anyway. Now the signs weren't merely bright, with moving pictures — they actually meant something. 'Sugarplum's Sweet Shop', 'Stationery Shop', 'Collectible Cards', 'Mulpepper's Apothecary', 'Slug & Jiggers Apothecary', 'Quality Quidditch Supplies', 'Cauldron Shop', 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions'.
The magical quarter strongly reminded me of the main shopping street in Tanzaku, the gambling city. That place had also been crammed with everything at once: bars, brothels, casinos, cafés, sweet stalls, little shops, souvenir stands. Just as bright, and just as cramped.
"Harry, I promised you a present," the professor said. "I don't think anything terrible will happen if you go in and order your school uniform by yourself. They'll only be taking your measurements at first anyway. Meanwhile, I'll buy what I wanted to give you. Agreed?"
"Yes, I think I can manage," I nodded, and headed toward the door of 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions', which the professor had pointed out.
A plump woman who looked about fifty greeted me.
"Oh, young man, off to Hogwarts, are you? I expect you'll be needing school robes?" she chirped.
I nodded.
"Come right in, then! I've got another customer getting ready for school at this very moment."
I followed Madam farther into the shop and saw a white-blond boy about my age. He looked a little like Dudley, except my brother wasn't nearly as pale and his nose was a little broader. The boy stood on a stool while another woman, younger than mine, took his measurements. I was shown to another stool, and the measuring tape hanging around the woman's neck began moving around me by itself, wrapping itself around my chest, waist, and wrists.
"Hi!" the boy greeted me first, looking at me with interest. "Hogwarts too?"
"Hm. Any Seer blood in your family?" I chuckled, remembering an old conversation with Sensei. "Everyone here from eleven to eighteen is going to Hogwarts..."
"Fair enough," the blond boy smiled briefly. "You've got an unusual hairstyle. Do you style it like that on purpose?"
I noticed that his hair had some sort of product on it, probably to make it easier to slick backward.
"It's been like this for three years," I replied. "I wanted it that way... It's sort of an ability to keep my hair from changing length."
"Lucky," the boy sighed. "Mine curls a little and looks ridiculous without a special product."
"Cut it shorter," I suggested.
"My parents are against it," he sighed again. "And it isn't really done. A lot of people believe magical power is stored in the hair."
"Well... maybe that product just doesn't suit you very well? Or maybe you should use less of it," I shrugged, stretching out my arms at my Madam's silent instruction.
"Thanks for the advice," the boy nodded politely. "I'll think about it. Do you have your own broom? It's such a shame first-years aren't allowed to have personal brooms! My father is choosing textbooks, and Mother is looking at wands. After that I'm dragging them off to look at racing brooms... I think I can persuade Father to buy me the very best one, the newest model, and then somehow sneak it into school."
"Hm. Even if your 'brilliant plan' works, when exactly are you going to fly it?" I asked. "Besides, older students could simply take an illegal broom from you. Or the teachers could."
"Er... I hadn't really planned that far," the blond admitted, thinking. "But I doubt they'd take mine..."
"All right, suppose they don't. Look at it another way: you'll talk your father into buying you a broom this year, then you'll spend the whole year hiding it and worrying about it, and by next year it'll already be outdated," I said, remembering Dudley's anxieties over various computer games. "You won't even get to ride it properly, and it'll annoy you when someone else has a newer one. Your father might not buy another one next year. Those brooms are pretty expensive. I passed the shop and saw what the newest model costs."
The boy stared at me as if the Sage of Six Paths had risen from the dead.
"I never thought of that at all," he muttered, shivering slightly. "And if I insist on breaking school rules before I've even arrived... Father might not like that. He's on the Hogwarts Board of Governors."
"Pfft. You should've started with that," I snorted.
"Do you play Quidditch?" the boy asked. "Sorry, I haven't introduced myself. Draco Malfoy." He held out his hand.
The name caught on something in my memory. Right! Harry had considered him almost an enemy, or something like that. He seemed like an all-right kid to me. A little pompous, sure, but he was obviously an aristocrat. Most of them were like that — just look at Hyuga Neji. Before I knocked some sense into him, he'd considered himself the most miserable, proud, dependent-yet-independent person in the world. And this Draco was still just a kid. Most likely he copied everything from his parents and kept forgetting to maintain his 'face': he'd greeted me first, and once he became interested, he'd stopped drawing out his words.
I shook his hand and glanced at the two women measuring us. I really didn't want another mad frenzy like the one in the pub. On the other hand, these didn't look like drunken layabouts.
"I'm Harry Potter," I introduced myself modestly.
"What? You're Harry Potter?" my Madam exclaimed. The second woman almost dropped her notes. Draco stared too, eyes wide, suddenly squeezing my hand hard.
"Good morning, Miss Malkin. Harry, are you finished?" McGonagall entered the shop carrying a cage with a white owl.
"Yes, yes, everything is done," my Madam recovered. So she was the owner. "You may collect the robes and winter cloak in an hour."
Draco and I let go of each other's hands. For some reason he turned red, but continued staring at me as though he wanted to swallow me with his eyes. The kid was clearly in shock.
"And we'll send your robes by owl, Mr. Malfoy," the woman who'd been measuring Draco said politely, bringing him back to his senses.
"See you again, Draco Malfoy," I smiled and followed the professor, who had already left the shop.
* * *
Minerva McGonagall had decided to give me a postal owl as a present. A snowy postal owl, rare in these latitudes. Snow-white! The sort of owl you could spot from a kilometer away against Britain's gray scenery. Personally, I would have preferred something less conspicuous, especially considering that I spent my summers supposedly living among Muggles. Of the dozens of owls that had attacked Little Whinging during the past week, I hadn't seen a single snowy one. There had been small owls, large owls, horned owls, gray ones, brown ones, mottled ones, even almost reddish ones — but no white. Or was a 'Chosen One' supposed to have a matching owl? I'd have to check the atlases at home and see whether snowy owls even lived in Britain at all.
What was most interesting was that, if I remembered correctly, Hagrid had given Harry this exact same owl in my previous — or perhaps parallel — life. Coincidence? That two people as different as Hagrid and McGonagall would have identical tastes and preferences, and both decide that Harry Potter absolutely had to own a white postal owl? Yeah... right. Thinking about all that, I followed the professor.
At the 'Shop of Various Trunks and Luggage', they offered me a bulky wooden box almost as big as I was. The professor said it was the standard student trunk.
"Isn't there anything more compact, Professor?" I asked in surprise. Besides those student 'coffins', the shop was full of bags that, I suspected, had the same spatial-expansion charms as my book case.
"But, Harry..." the professor drawled in surprise. "This is a multifunctional student trunk, specially designed for students!"
"And what does that mean?" I asked cautiously.
"Allow me to demonstrate, young man," offered the tall, thin shopkeeper. "There are several compartments with Undetectable Extension Charms. The first is for clothing — you can see the symbol here. The second is for books. There are compartments for stationery — marked with a quill — and for various small items. Once you've placed something inside, it won't fall out even if you drop the trunk or turn it upside down. And now, watch this." He closed the trunk and stood it on its broad side, so that opening the lid would have put the lid against the floor. "There is a small mark here on the end. You touch it with your wand."
I watched where he was pointing. Suddenly the trunk shuddered and stretched. The lid slid outward and grew almost twice as large.
"You see? The trunk becomes a convenient writing desk with drawers. Your small items go there, stationery here, and books on the shelves above. Touch this mark on the end again, and it turns back into a trunk. If you stand it this way..." He turned the trunk onto its narrow side and tapped it with his wand again. The trunk transformed once more and grew taller. "It becomes a wardrobe. There's even a mirror!"
He opened the wardrobe door and showed me the mirror.
"You can put things on the shelves and hang clothing here, then turn it back into a trunk and nothing will wrinkle," the shopkeeper continued enthusiastically. "It's the most convenient student model of the last century! Unfortunately, the complex system of enchantments makes it impossible to reduce its exterior size any further."
"Yes," I admitted. "That is useful. Even if, externally, it's not a very convenient trunk. I'll take it, and that small black student bag over there. How much?"
"Six Galleons and eight Sickles," the shopkeeper replied.
I paid, and for one Knut I also rented a special luggage trolley. The shopkeeper placed my impressive new trunk on it, and I put the small bag inside. I set the cage containing my snowy postal owl on top, and Professor McGonagall and I continued through the shops to buy stationery, a telescope, an hourglass, dragon-hide gloves, a potion cauldron, a set of vials, and brass scales to go with it. And, of course, a wand. Because what wizard could do without one of those?