Revelations in Diagon Alley
I sighed as he sat down with a double dark chocolate ice cream from Fortescue’s after wandering throughout the ally for the last day before the Weasleys arrived. I ate my ice cream while reflecting on the odd things I noticed while staying in the leaky cauldron for the last month. Most people interacting here in the ally act… differently than the people. The Weasleys, Dumbledor, hell even half of Gryffindor Tower act very… muggle.
I always thought those in Slytherin acted the way they do, all formal and lordy because they were prejudiced gits. But the way everyone in the alley acted, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students, people affiliated with the light, shop owners, and the everyday shopper acted with some degree of the same quirks and habits as the Slytherins. Literally, everyone acted like it somewhat was still 1750s Britain except the muggle-born student my age (why do older muggle-born students act so…assimulated?), and the extremely light-leaning families like the Weasleys. I don’t know the specifics of what they are doing differently, just that they are and that the mannerisms are similar enough that it seems almost culturally related. Oddly enough, it seems that the people who don’t act this way like the Weasleys are consistently the ones people tend to ostracize or at least people aren’t willing to approach them.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this” I mutter under my breath as I throw my trash away and begin walking back toward the leaky cauldron. While most of the time little questions live rent-free in my head, this one does. It almost is as if I missed some critical piece of something, manners or language or some other social quirk, and has some correlation to the weird criticism and unprompted hatred I get. ‘I’ll consult Hermoine tomorrow’ I decide. Because if there is something weird going on here and it is not all in my head, Hermoine will put her finger on it, and if not she’ll know how to get to the bottom of it.
I walk into the leaky cauldron and wind my way past the patrons. I opt to order some shepherd’s pie to my room for dinner, then wash up and curl up under my covers.
“Maybe we’ll figure out what I missed that makes me so different from everyone else,” I whisper to Hedwig. I am so done with people thinking I can’t use my head. I may not be Hermoine, but the Dursleys made bloody sure I knew social cues and manners so as not to bring the same one to their house. I hate not knowing the rules, and there seem to be some big ones I missed. I fall asleep, promising myself that I will figure out if I did something or if it is completely my anxious pink mass.