*Marauders Era Love Story*

Diagon Alley

*Saph Pov*

 “Where’s Dad?” I asked and noticed dad wasn’t with us.

“He’s not coming” Mom spoke strictly as we all rolled our eyes and sighed.

“I’m staying home” Susan spoke before running off with the wind up the stairs before we could protest.

“Come on now!” Mum grumped as my brothers, sister and mother raised their wands. I held onto Leo and Lucas as we apparated to Diagon Alley. I gasped. It’s beautiful!

"Welcome, to Diagon Alley Sis." Leo smiled as I had the biggest grin on my face. 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.

I wished I had about eight more eyes. I turned my head in every direction as we 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 we 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 my age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments I 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," Lucas said. We 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," Leo whispered quietly as we walked pasted them as they stood up the white stone steps.

"Leo, help Sapphire around and get her uniform, Lizzie, Lucas here’s some money, go buy your books," Mom spoke as we split off. Leo and I chatted and smiled as we walked past as he waved to a few of his friends. We soon made our way toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. We entered the shop. Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.

"Hogwarts, dear?" she said, when I started to speak. "Got the lot here -- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact."

In the back of the shop, a boy with a platinum blonde hair, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood me on a stool next to him slipped a long robe over my head, and began to pin it to the right length. My brother just watched lazily in the corner.

"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," I said.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.

"Uhhh," I spoke slightly confused. Yes I had my own broom, but I never used it.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"Sometimes, with my brothers--," I said began, but he wasn’t interested, I thought he was a brat in every way form.

"I do -- Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"I hope I get in Gryffindor," I replied confidently as he just sneered.