Shopping
As the day grew to its end, Dudley was getting more and more irritated by the fact that he still hadn’t received a Hogwarts letter, “It’s coming soon, I know it”, he muttered to himself, just loud enough for Harry to hear. He couldn’t bear it any longer, so Harry went up into his room, deciding to go to bed early that day, only to be awoken at midnight by a teary eyed dudley, “I didn’t get one”, his cousin sobbed, “I’m not a wizard”
Before he could say anything, Dudley’s arms were around him, forming a crushing hug as his cousin’s tears wet his shoulder. Every once in a while, he heard a quiet ‘I’m not’ between the mighty sobs of his cousin. He could do nothing but try and give him the most supportive hug he could muster up, which admittedly wasn’t very supporting. Minutes of ugly crying turned to hours and as the hours neared half a dozen, dark unconsciousness fell unto the pair of cousins, like a blanket of comfort.
After that night, Harry and Dudley’s relationship felt strained. Harry’s normally so extroverted and happy cousin didn’t laugh or loudly tell a story, sometimes it even seemed as if he was avoiding to look at him and nothing he did helped it a bit. He promised to talk with someone about it back at Hogwarts but he knew -as seemed Dudley also knew- that even the Professors couldn’t give a muggle magic, and so, the rest of his summer break was spent in quiet tension and loneliness. He didn’t have any muggle friends apart from Dudley and exchange with Cho was slow, only one letter at a time. So he, the-boy-who-lived, without his cousin, quickly became the-boy-who-had-no-one.
Eventually, after his birthday, he got his Hogwarts letter.
“Aunt Petunia, my letter is here”, he called out from the foyer, “I’ll take the bus to diagon alley today”
“Yeah, sure, just be careful”, Petunia waved him off.
Stepping out of the house, I quickly checked if anybody was watching. Since they weren’t, I raised my wand into the air. There were a few seconds of tense silence before, with a mighty *Plop* The Knight Bus appeared on the street before me. An older wizard came out of the front and introduced himself as, “Augustus Baker, I’ll be attending to your needs this fine ride”
“Yeah, hi. I just need to get to the leaky cauldron”, Harry said, pulling out his coin purse
“That’ll be three sickles”
Money was exchanged and Harry was on his way to diagon alley. Amongst the many jumps they were doing, Augustus made some small talk, “Did’ya know that Harry Potter is already in Hogwarts? How time flies, am I right… my cousin is in the same year, he told me that Harry is in ravenclaw”
“How interesting”, Harry shuffled in his bed-seat, still not used to the attention he kept getting. It wasn’t as bad as it had been at the beginning but it was still very uncomfortable for him to know that people spoke so highly of him. Augustus kept babbling on and on, till, eventually, they reached the leaky cauldron and he could escape the conversation. The pub was just like he remembered it to be, dark and dusty but with a home-like feel to it which made one want to relax.
He didn’t dally there for long however, walking straight into the back alley, where he touched the appropriate stone with his wand, causing the brick wall to move and morph till it formed a masterfully made archway, with the words ‘Let money flow as water through a stream’ etched upon it.
There weren’t as many people there as had been when he first went shopping, which just made those who were stand out all the more, especially Professor McGonagall, who was escorting a muggle family, with one child -the witch daughter he presumed- whom was a girl with bushy brown hair and more than a few crooked teeth.
“Good to see you professor”, Harry yelled over
“Ah, mr. Potter, good to see you as well”
“Muggle born?”, he asked the little girl
“Yes”, her bright smile was contagious
“Well then”, he mused, pulling a few of his old books out of his backpack -enchanted to never get heavy- and handing them to her, “I am muggle raised, so I understand the struggle, here, take these. They are fantastic for easing into our world”
The girl practically jumped in excitement, staring at the books, wonder filling her eyes, “Thank you, I’m Hermione”
“Harry”, he turned back to McGonagall, “I’ll be going then, I look forward to second year transfiguration”
From there on out, he met no one he knew. He got all his equipment easily, buying a few extra sets of potions ingredients and multiple books that weren’t on the list, such as the books for the electives. He got one for each elective, so that he could read ahead and decide which ones he wanted to learn. He couldn’t take all the electives -sadly-, there was not enough time. So, this was the best course of action he could think of.
After a good meal at the leaky cauldron, he made his way back home, this time with the muggle transit. It was surprisingly a bit faster than the knight bus had been on the way there but then again, there had been quite a few stops before his so that added quite a bit of traveling time.