It's A Whole New World That We're In
Diagon Alley was the most amazing thing Steve had ever seen. They entered through an old pub, which looked as though it hadn’t changed in a hundred years and would still look the same in another hundred. Heads turned as they entered, and Steve itched to dig out his sketchbook and get everything down in graphite – the walls, the faces, the strange clothes.
Winifred murmured something to the bartender, and Steve tuned back in. “. . . a Squib,” she was saying. “I can’t do the spell.”
The man nodded and led them back through the shop to a blank brick wall. He pulled a stick from his pocket and tapped a single brick, muttering under his breath.
And the wall moved.
The bricks slid and ground past each other, pulling away from the place the man’s stick had touched. Steve felt his eyes widen. He shot a glance at Bucky, whose mouth had dropped open in amazement.
“How does that work?” he was saying.
“’S magic,” said the bartender gruffly as the brick twisted into an arch.
“Yeah, but how does it work?”
“There’s layers of spells. Ah . . . Alohomora. Movement charms. Transfiguration. Bit of illusion - Muggles can’t see it even when it’s moving.”
“Muggles?” Steve asked.
“Non-magic people,” said Winifred, shepherding them through the archway.
“Like me, you mean?” After the day of his mother’s funeral, nothing untoward had happened to Steve at all. He was starting to think he’d imagined it.
The bartender shrugged. “You can see the arch, can’t you?”
Steve grinned. “I suppose so.”
They spent a long time in Diagon Alley. They’d brought a wooden handcart with them, which the two boys took turns towing along the cobblestones, and as the afternoon wore on it grew heavier and heavier. Long black robes, from a little corner shop called Madame Ellery’s Second-Hand Uniforms. Small cauldrons on three-legged stands. Textbooks, for subjects with strange names: Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against The Dark Arts. Steve, flipping through the pages of this last as he walked, felt a shiver of excitement.
Finally, there was only one thing more. Winifred led them towards a wide, imposing shopfront with the word “Ollivander’s” scrawled in curly gold cursive across the window.
“What’s this place, Ma?” Bucky asked.
“Ollivander’s wand makers,” said Winifred. “Old family business – same name for hundreds of years. Friends of my father’s.”
“Wands?” Steve felt his eyes get wide again. “Wow . . .”
Winifred pushed open the door.
Ollivander’s was dark and rather dusty. Steve coughed, and Bucky was immediately at his shoulder. “Do you need –“
“I’m fine, Buck.”
Movement, at the back of the shop. An old man emerged, scuttling like a beetle on two sticks. He peered closely at the boys, and then at Winifred.
“Off to Hogwarts, are we?” he said. His voice was surprisingly musical for such an old man.
“Yes, sir,” said Steve politely.
“Be wanting wands, I suppose.”
Winifred nodded.
“Well, then.” The old man turned, began to hobble away. “You, with the dark hair . . . follow me.”
Bucky hurried after him. Steve watched him go, until they turned round a corner of shelves and were lost to view.
Soon there was muttering, and the thud of something falling over. More muttering, another thud. Muttering again. And then an Almighty, cascading crash, a cry of fright.
Bucky!
Steve went to dash into the dark shop, but Winifred caught his shoulder. “It’s alright, Stevie,” she said. “Ollivander won’t let him get hurt.”
Sure enough, Bucky emerged not long after, grinning widely and clutching a long, thin box. “This is amazing, punk,” he whispered to Steve.
Winifred clipped him upside the head. “Language, James!”
Steve was still laughing as he followed the old man deeper into the shop.
They rounded a corner into a room walled by more shelves, all of them packed to overflowing with narrow boxes. The old man selected a box, passed it to Steve.
Inside, there was a long, thin piece of polished wood. Steve stared, half-expecting it to move, or light up, or give off sparks.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” said the old man. “Give it a wave!”
Tentatively, Steve did so, and felt something invisible shoot from the end of the wand and smash into a shelf. Boxes flew everywhere.
Steve gasped. “Gosh, sorry!”
The old man ignored the mess. “Not that one,” he mumbled. “Let’s see . . . try this.”
He collected another box from the tumbled pile. The wand inside was longer, made of shining black wood. Steve pointed it away from anything important-looking and flourished it in the air.
This time the explosion was bigger. A lamp caught in the blast wobbled and smashed on the floor, and Steve nearly dropped the wand as it jerked in his hand.
“Hmm, definitely not,” said the old man, unfazed. “What about this?”
He passed over a third box. This wand was a deep, rich brown, about a foot long. Steve waved it somewhat apprehensively, but no explosion came: instead, a light glowed at the wand’s tip, and trailed behind as he swung it through the air.
“Marvellous,” said the old man. “It seems this wand has chosen you. Hmm, fourteen inches mahogany and dragon heartstring, fairly rigid. A warrior’s wand.”
“Really?” Steve was starting to feel a little overwhelmed.
The old man didn’t answer. He scuttled off towards the front of the shop, Steve hurrying in his wake.
“What’s yours like?” Bucky whispered, as Winifred paid the man with unfamiliar coins.
Steve opened the box to show him. “Mahogany and, um, dragon heartstring,” he said. “What’s yours?”
Bucky opened his own box. The wand inside was marbled grey and black, a little longer than Steve’s.
“Ash and phoenix feather,” he said. “Seventeen inches, apparently.”
“Do you know how to use it?”
Bucky shook his head. “I’m just as new at this as you are, Steve. Ma said she’d box our ears if we tried anything at home.”
“Aw . . .” Steve trailed, disappointed, behind the other two as they left. “We could try anyway, right?”
“Yeah – we’ll be careful about it. When no-one’s looking.”
“Oh, no, you will not!” snapped Winifred, who’d heard every word. “D’you want to be expelled from Hogwarts before you even get there?”
Steve and Bucky shut up, looking suitably chastened.