Another Potter

five

chapter five
the philosophers stone

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Doris Crockford shook Amelia's hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.

Hagrid grinned at the twins.

"Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh. . . . mind you, he's usually tremblin'."

"Is he always that nervous?"

"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience. . . . They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag, never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject. . . . now, where's me umbrella?"

Vampires? Hags? Amelia's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.

"Three up. . . . two across. . . ." he muttered. "Right, stand back, Amelia and Harry."

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he had touched quivered, it wriggled, in the middle, a small hole appeared. It grew wider and wider, a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.

"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."

He grinned at Amelia and Harry's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Amelia looked quickly over her shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall. The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. 'Cauldrons, all Sizes: Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver, Self-Stirring, Collapsible', said a sign hanging over them.

"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."

Amelia wished she had about eight more eyes. She turned her head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once. The shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad. . . ."

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying 'Eeylops Owl Emporium: Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy'. Several boys of about Amelia's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it.

"Look," Amelia heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand, fastest ever. . . ."

There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Amelia had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon. . . .

"Gringotts," said Hagrid.

They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was. . . .

"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry and half a head shorter than Amelia. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Amelia noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them: