Chapter Six | Diagon Alley, August 1991

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Chapter Six

Diagon Alley, August 1991

 

            Diagon Alley was one of Sonia’s favourite places in the world. Though any place that brimmed with magic was her favourite place, as long as it was outside the couple dozen acres of the Hester estate.

It was one of her greatest flaws to gain confidence by breaking rules, and Sonia knew it; she shouldn’t read the dark spell books that Hazel kept locked up, she really wasn’t supposed to go on walks by herself – yet Sonia knew her boundaries and bounded across them into the great beyond. And since she’d woken up feeling restless, Sonia had tugged Andrew into the woods for the day under the pretence of looking for potion ingredients, leaving her twin to read on his own in their hide out while she Disapparated to a much more exciting place were magic awaited her.

Sonia did feel bad about leaving Andrew behind, but he refused to leave the grounds; he was such a downer sometimes, and fiercely loyal to their mother, something that frustrated her to no end. Andrew didn’t even know she was gone really, though he most likely suspected what she was up to.

The crowds the sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop as Sonia wove through the crowds, doging dotty old ladies and withes with sticky children carrying large ice cream cones. Passing the cauldron shop, Sonia glanced longingly up at the sign that read Cauldrons – All Sizes – Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver – Self-Stirring – Collapsible, and thinking of her own battered cauldron. Sonia turned her head in every direction as she 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’s was shaking her head as they passed, saying, ‘Dragon liver, sixteen

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 Sonia’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. ‘Look,’ Sonia heard one of them say, ‘the new Nimbus Two Thousand – fastest ever –’ There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments, some of which Sonia recognized from Dumbledore’s office. 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...

 Reaching a snowy-white building which towered over the other little shops, Sonia entered the ice cream shop across from it. Standing beside the banks burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was a goblin; he was about a head shorter than Sonia. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Sonia noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as people walked inside. Sonia thought of the inscription on the silver doors within, wondering what sorts of beasts were held within Gringotts walls…

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.

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