Rose didn't know where to run first now that she had a bag full of money, she didn't need to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than she'd ever had in her whole life- more money even Dudley had ever had.
"Might as well get yer uniform," Said Hagrid nodding to Madam Malkin's Robes for all occasions.
"Listen, Rose would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Rose nodded and entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.
Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve. "Hogwarts dear?" She asked eyeing the girl up and down.
When Rose started to speak the woman cut her off. "Got the lot here- a young man being fitted up just now, in fact." In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale pointed face was standing on a footstool while a witch pinned up his limp black robes.
Madam Malkin stood Rose on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over her head, and began to pin it to the right length.
"Hello, Hogwarts too?" Asked the boy, "My father's next door buying my books and Mother's up the street looking at wands, then I'm going off to look 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 smuggle it in somehow." Said the boy, he had a bored, drawling voice.
This kid reminded Rose strongly of Dudley. "Have you got your own broom?" The boy went on.
"No." admitted Rose embarrassed.
"Play Quiddich at all?"
Rose wondered why on earth Quidditch could be.
"No." Rose said again.
"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?" The boy glanced at Rose for about a half second, noticing how one sided the conversation seemed.
"No." Said Rose feeling more stupid by the minute, she looked away from his gaze.
"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - Imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" The boy remarked.
Rose wondered if Hufflepuff was an animal.
"Mmm," said Rose wishing she could say something more interesting.
"I say, look at that man!" Said the boy suddenly, looking towards the front window.
Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Rose and pointing to two large ice creams to show that he couldn't come in.
"That's Hagrid, he works at Hogwarts." informed Rose, pleased to finally know something to keep up the conversation. "Oh, I've heard of him. He's sort of a servant, isn't he?" snorted the boy. "He's the gatekeeper," said Rose narrowing her eyes.
She was liking the boy less and less each second.
"Yes, exactly. I heard he was some sort of a savage - Lives in a bit on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed." The boy laughs slightly.
"I think he's brilliant." Rose said coldly looking him in the eye. "Do you?" Said the boy. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"
Rose felt a slight pang in her chest. But she simply looked at Hagrid again and smiled. "They're dead." She said shortly. She didn't feel like going into the matter with this boy.
"Oh sorry.'' Said the boy looking awkwardly at her. ''I didn't know.'' They stood in silence for a few minutes.
Rose could tell that the boy was being sincere, and thought maybe he's not as similar to Dudley as she thought, right as she was about to say that it was okay, he cut her off, ''But they were our kind weren't they?"
"They were witch and wizard, if that's what you mean." Rose looked at the boy once more confused.
"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them had ever even heard of Hogwarts until they get their letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizard if families. What's your surname, anyway?"
But before Rose could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's done, my dear." And Rose, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.
"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy. Rose nodded and gave him an awkward smile, walking away.
The boy's eyes looked at her once more, had he upset her? He felt kind of bad thinking about it but he just shook it off and tried not to think about it.
Rose was rather quiet as she ate the ice cream Hagrid had brought her. (Chocolate and vanilla with chopped strawberries.)
"What's up?" Asked Hagrid concerned.
"Nothing." Lied Rose.
They stopped to buy parchment and quills.
Rose cheered up a bit when she found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote.
When they had left the shop, Rose questioned, "Hagrid what's Quiddich?"
"Blimey Rose, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know - not knowing about Quidditch!" Hagrid remarked. "Don't make me feel worse." Rose groaned.
She told Hagrid about the pale boy she encountered at Madam Malkin's. "-and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in-" Rose was interrupted.
"Yer, not from a Muggle family. If he's known who you were- he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles - look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!" Hagrid exclaimed.
"So what is Quidditch?" Asked Rose changing the subject.
"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like- like soccer in the Muggle world- everyone follows Quidditch- played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls- Sorta hard to explain the rules." Hagrid said.
"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?" Questioned Rose curiously.
Hagrid turned to look at the child. "School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers but-" Rose had a grim look on her face as she interrupted him.
"I bet I'm In Hufflepuff." She betted. "Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin, there's not a single witch bit wizard who went bed who wasn't in Slytherin. You-know-Who was one."
Rose thought this was very stereotypical, surely not all wizards who were in that house went bad. What she was surprised about, was the fact that Voldemort went to Hogwarts. "Vol-, sorry I mean you-know-who was at Hogwarts?" Hagrid nodded. "Years an' years ago." He said.
They bought Rose's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather.
Books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk, books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all.
Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these.
Hagrid almost had to drag Rose away from Curses and Counter-curses (Bewitch your friends and Befuddle Your enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Toss, Jelly Legs, Tongue-Trying and Much, Much more) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.
"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley." Rose stifled a laugh at the thought of turning Dudley's hair blue, he would look even more of an idiot than he already does.
"I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances." said Hagrid.
"An' anyway, yeh couldn't work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get yer that level."
Hagrid wouldn't let Rose buy a solid gold cauldron, either. But they got a nice set of scales for weighing potions ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope.
Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of rotten eggs and cabbages.
Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor, jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls. Bundles of feathers, strings, fangs and snarled claws hung from the ceiling.
While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for sully of some basic ingredients for Rose, Rose herself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes. (Five Knuts a scoop.)
Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Rose's list yet again, "Just yer wand left - oh yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."
Rose felt herself go red. "You don't have to-" she started. "I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at- an' I don't like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everything." Hagrid concluded.
Twenty minutes later they left Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes.
Once Rose went inside and observed all the owls, there were a handful of screeching owls, owls that looked quite creepy as they kept staring at her not moving and some that were sleeping.
But Rose only chose one, a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. Rose couldn't stop stammering her thanks, just like Professor Quirrel.