Chapter 6
Hogwarts
Students slowly started to trickle out of the hall as the end of breakfast neared. Mei looked up to see Professors Sprout and Snape heading her way.
“Oh-Ho you got the surly potions master as an escort to the alley, best of luck today,” Fred says leaning forward on the table. Mei wasn’t too sure what to make of that, Severus Snape hadn't seemed all too bad last night, albeit a bit grouchy. Much like Aizawa, no time for problem children. Or loud idiots.
“I don't know, I think he might like me,” she says, throwing a grin at the approaching professors that gets a returned smile from Sprout but Snape's scowl definitely deepens.
“I hope these miscreants haven't succeeded in their task to bring you down to their level of stupidity Miss Hatsume?” Snape Drawl’d upon their arrival, eyeing the twins with well-concealed amusement but also genuine annoyance with the red table in general.
Hatsume giggled, “I think we both know that's definitely the case, sir.” A chorus of Hey! rings out from the group around her.
Snape heaves a sigh while grinning internally at the Gryffindors reactions to him treating her kindly. “I was afraid that was the case. Now then, come along.” Black robes swished behind him as he left the hall. He’s so fantastically dramatic, she wonders if there's a trick to his robe swish.
Pomona waits there for Mei to stand up and grab a roll for the walk. “We’ll probably need to grab lunch while we’re in the alley. Normally supplies shopping doesn't take too long but you’ll need a full new wardrobe and other personals too, won't you dear?” They started walking down a hall she hadn't been to yet that led to a flight of stairs going down. “We’ll be taking Professor Snape's Floo to get to Diagon, his office and quarters are down here in the dungeons.”
“What's the floo?” Mei was excited to try traveling using magic.
“It's one of the 3 main ways for fast traveling in the wizard world. The Floo is a network that connects to your fireplace where you can either make fire calls or travel to another fire place.” Mei’s head was spinning. How would that work?! “The other types of travel is Apparition, which you need a license for, and portkeys which are mostly ministry regulated. I’m sure you can find more information in the library”
“You said you can make calls with it, what other forms of communication do you have?”
Ms. Sprout looked thoughtful for a second. “Other than fire calling, and that's hard on the knees and back, we just send letters. Very select few can do Patronus messages but that's mostly during emergencies if they do. Your phone thing would be truly revolutionary to our society.” The thought that their communication was so behind got Mei’s planning brain going into overdrive. “Well, here we are!”
She gets ushered through a portrait of jarred potion ingredients. “Now, to use the Floo, you’ll need to grab about this much floo powder.” Grabbing a small handful to show her and handed the jar to Mei. “Hand it to professor Snape when you're done.” The powder felt very interesting in her hand, like cooling liquid sand.
Snape draws her attention by moving toward the fireplace on the left wall. “You’ll throw your fist of powder into the fire, you’ll then clearly state the name of your destination and step into the flames. Once the spinning stops, continue to walk forward. Clear?” His arch eyebrow drops at her nod of confirmation. “I’ll go through first, followed by you, and then Ms. Sprout”
“I’ll be behind you in case of any emergencies,” Pomona said with a calming smile.
With a fist full of magic sand and about to travel by fire, Mei thinks the professor is misunderstanding her wide eyed expression.
In front of her, Snape throws his sand and the flames turn a brilliant green. “Diagon Alley!” The flames flare and he disappears in a swirl. “That's so cool,” She whispers.
“Okay dear, your turn.”
Standing in front of the small fire she takes a deep breath and tosses in her floo powder. The flames sizzle and burst into green, makes her wonder how long you have before it burns away. “Diagon Alley!” Stepping into the fire expecting heat but instead feeling like shes been swept off her feet and sent spinning feet overhead and sideways. It was only really about 3 seconds before she felt the world slow down. Remembering what they said, she tried to take a step when the world felt mostly stable, and promptly stumbled to her knees. Putting her hands over her eyes to quickly help the dizziness subside as she felt Professor Snape help her up.
“Are all wizard transports that spinny?!”
“I'd say, for the most part, they are as you put it more ‘spinny’. You get used to it eventually” The sound of the fire flaring behind them let them know Ms. Sprout had arrived.
When the dizziness subsided -- she really need to design something that minimizes that -- and she was able to take in her surroundings, she realized they were in a dingy bar. Older wizards roamed around the counter. The tables were filled with various groups out for the day, and individuals eating breakfast. To her left, she saw someone come down a flight of stairs with a travel trunk. Maybe it's a hotel of sorts?
“Follow along,” Snape does the dramatic robe spin she's started to associate with him and strides out of the bar. Chuckling to herself she runs along excited to finally see the alley her new friends told her a little bit about that morning.
The first thing Mei noticed leaving the bar was the colors. Only during festivals in Japan does it look anything close to this. It was busy but not overly so, a decent amount of adults and small kids bustled about getting supplies they needed for the day.
To her left, there were booths set up outside showing off merchandise, brightly colored bobbers and magic spinning gadgets were everywhere she looked. Tinctures to remedy all illnesses. The place where Dumbledoor definitely gets his robes if the display mannequin wearing Bright Orange with Light Blue diamond designs said anything.
Looking to her right was a bookstore that seemed to have pretty frequent customers. She should see if they have order catalogs so she can check the library first and get what they don't have. Madam Malkins? Oh, her eyes zoom on the faded end of the sign, a clothing store! A bit further down and her attention is grabbed by the giant marble building standing out like a white beacon in the rather dirty alley. Eyes zooming on the witches and wizards entering and leaving, she pans over to the guards and.. And.
“Is that a sword?!” With that she’s off on a single-minded focus, totally oblivious to the panicking Snape and Sprout that lost her the moment they exited the Pub.
Mei’s never seen that style of a blade before, and OH the other guard has a super cool waraxe! She didn't realize she had been running til she had to skid to a halt in front of a mildly shocked goblin guard. In her magic research fiasco last night, she stumbled on a book that mentioned Goblin Metal Smiths, which led to her reading a book on different sentient creatures in the magic world. She hadn't realized they also worked for the bank!
Hand on his sword, the goblin eyed her warily. The Human wizards would sometimes offer a nod of acknowledgment when entering or leaving, but never in his 34 years of guarding this position has he ever been approached by one. And a strange one at that, wearing clothes more muggle than Wix, hair bright pink and growing like ropes, and her eyes.. He tightened his grip on his sword as he saw them zoom in on his face before their entire focus was on his blade.
“What type of metal blend is your blade? I've never seen anything tempered and hardened like this before! How long did this take to create? This must have cost a fortune. I smith all my metal projects myself but it would take me years to create something of this quality and that's after years of practice, and realistically by then I'd either be dead or lost focus entirely.” A notebook seemed to appear out of nowhere, a handy trick learned from 10 million, and she was writing all kinds of notes about the blades' design and material composition.
The 2 goblins shared an incredulous glance. Who was this wizard? They had shared this guard position for over 3 decades and had never seen anyone with a description like the girl in front of them. They both turn back to see her looking between them expectantly. Gripli, the goblin with the waraxe just shrugged his shoulders. It's the individual goblins' decision whether they disclose information about their personal weapon, but that's typically within the goblin nation.
Most Wixen are either too afraid to ask, think it's rude to ask, or simply don't care. 99% of the time leading to them never being like this Pink Haired anomaly in front of them. Who was talking to them not only with respect but also like they were equals. While physically, yes, she was looking down on them, it was with a look of awe and reverence toward their weapons and armor. No disgust, contempt, fear, malice, pity, or poorly concealed hatred. An anomaly indeed.
As Holgi started to open his mouth to respond he was cut off by a yell a little ways off the crowd. The girl has - what the young wizards would say- an ‘oh shit’ face as she also looks off in that direction.
The sound of feet running toward the bank has both guards drawing their weapons and moving to put the pink human behind them. They may have yet to talk to her but they'll offer their protection in exchange for the kindness she showed them should it be needed. From the crowd emerged two frazzled and frantic Hogwarts professors.
One, the notorious Potions Master Severus Snape, looking more put out than either guard had ever seen him. The other was the kind-hearted Pomona Sprout, who always had a smile to offer them when she brought muggle-borns to the alley. The tellers all agree that she does the best at getting kids who are new to magic ready to enter the bank and meet members of Goblin Nation. Not too easy a feat when their smiles were often more frightening than their scowls.
Behind them they heard a soft, “I got so excited over your sword I accidentally ditched them at the Bar..” Gripli loosened his stance with his Axe and let out a loud belly laugh drawing the shocked attention of the surrounding wix.
“You surely are an interesting one little dragon.”
Little dragon? She mouths to herself.
“Fitting, no? Distracted by shiny metals and leaving chaos in your wake? Now, you must reunite with your guides lest they have a heart attack prematurely. Give your name and address to Holgi and he will write to you with answers regarding his sword when time allows.” Gripli says as he walks back to his post at the other side of the door. There's still a crowd of confused wixen lingering around trying to figure out why two Gringotts guards would step in to protect a teenage witch. Everyone knows they’re there for Gringotts protection alone.
“Totally!” She scribbles and rips off a piece of the paper in her book handing it over to the Sword-wielding goblin. “Thank you so much,” She says as she dips into a bow. “ Sorry for causing a commotion, Have a good rest of your day!” With that, she rushes down the stairs toward the two out of breath professors.
“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing!” Snape bellows between pants. His hope of her not ending up in Gryfindor had lowered even more when they had seen her on the steps of Gringotts talking to the 2 guards.
“Well..” She trailed off looking at Pomona for help, only to have a similar stern expression from her as well. “I’m super sorry for running like that, I really hadn't meant to! But like the guard with the axe said I got “distracted by shiny metal” and just had to ask him questions.” Well, Severus guesses a determined Ravenclaw would do the same thing and promptly had that bit of hope re-instilled.
Heaving a sign, he knew there was nothing they could do now. Pomona was back to her cheery self, “Just try to at least point the direction for us before you run again so we can follow without the drama.” Getting a nod of agreement, she continues, “Okay, let's go to the school vault then to get your supplies!”
~~~
Little did they realize, the bank's Director was watching the interaction from the window in his office above the street. They have an alert set up in the wards to warn him if the guards are approached. Most of the time it's someone stumbling a little too close, but today he was surprised to see a teenage girl pointing at Holgi’s sword and actually asking questions. He’ll need to review his memories of this encounter because if his eyes are not mistaken, he blinked and she suddenly and unexpectedly had a notebook in her hands.
He couldn't make out all of what she was saying but was highly intrigued when his two guards stepped in front of her when there was a commotion on the edge of the crowd. Writing a short notice for them to come to his office after the bank closes, he starts to make his way toward the lobby to further observe this incredibly interesting young witch. He might even take them down to their vault. The Director takes a moment to laugh to himself before stepping out of his office with a blank mask firmly in place. Yes, that's exactly what he’ll do. It’ll be hilarious to see his Teller's reactions to him playing the part of a cart driver. Ah, he thinks, not many occasions to be mischievous these years.