4 Diagon Alley

I felt like I was dying.

"Just try and breathe," the diminutive Professor advised as he patted my back.

It had started as a great day. I had woken up in a great mood, finally having sharpened the 'shanker' the day before, and eaten another slice of cake, that the sister had saved for me, for breakfast.

I had taken my daily 'bird lung', 'salamander healing' and even managed to find a bat in the hideout to make a 'bat immunity' essence. After that I had begun the most annoying part of the process, the documentation.

It was something I'd begun doing shortly after the first time I'd used the array, recording the amount of each essence I'd taken and the current effects from the amount I'd consumed, in an attempt to keep track of the changes caused by the essences and to find out when certain essence benefits plateau, which they'll inevitably do.

Now why am I thinking about that now, even as I'm on my hand and knees heaving?

Because now I also need to write that one of the essences cause me to FUCKING DIE after apparition.

Like I'd thought I was prepared when Flitwick, the Professor who was taking me to Diagon Alley, had said that it'd be uncomfortable.

I hadn't been anywhere close to prepared.

Maybe it was because of one of the essences I drank or maybe this body was just really bad at handling it but the second I had exited the apparition I had dropped like a sack of potatoes and began heaving and kept heaving.

"I-is it meant," I hold back a heave, "this bad?"

"Not normally, no," the Professor replies, "normally the first time may cause vomiting but usually they recover quickly but if you're having such a bad reaction…"

"No! Nope, I'm fine now," I quickly get up, ignoring the way my stomach twists violently, "I can go get the stuff now."

"If you are sure," however it seems that Flitwick wasn't quite convinced, probably due to seeing my unsteady posture, "I suppose we should start by getting your funds first then."

That's exactly what we did, with me following the short professor, as we walked through crowds to the tall marble building. However, as we made our way through the crowd and I gawked, as much as I could with my current condition, at every bit of magic on display I couldn't help but note a few things and come to a realisation.

Magic was a lot more varied than what I had read in the books.

It was something I was expecting obviously, magic in Harry Potter had always been seen through the eyes of a school student who lived with his magic hating family after all.

But looking at the various shopfronts, containing many things that were never even mentioned in the book, it's apparent that there's a lot more to magic than just what was in the book…

Not that I can really explore all of it seeing as I'll be way too busy studying and making the next iteration of the Essence Creation array, hopefully making it able to get at least semi-magical traits from the sacrifice this time.

Maybe in the future, when I've achieved the minimum that I want to, I might go into other less direct magic. Until then I'll be doing stuff that guarantees results.

"Watch where you're going wizard," a growl knocks me out of my musing, letting me notice that I'd walked a bit too close to a goblin guard as I was walking through the grand door of Gringotts.

"Sorry!" I apologise immediately, only getting a sneer from the guard, as I rushed to catch up to the professor.

"Ah! Finally, I had thought you'd gotten lost at the doors," were the words that greeted me when I got to the professor, who was already in line for a teller, "are you feeling better yet?"

"Sorry sir, I almost bumped into a guard by accident," I mutter, somewhat embarrassed, "and yes, I'm feeling better. Thank you for asking."

"It's good that you're feeling better, and yes goblins can be quite… rude, to say the least," he snorts as we both move up to the teller as he becomes free.

"Business?" the teller practically snarls through sickly yellow teeth, the look on his (or her?) shrivelled face showing exactly what he thought of us.

"Withdrawing," Professor Flitwick however didn't seem to care about the tone or obvious disdain, "Forty three Galleons from the education funds."

"Will that be all?" again the teller grits out the words.

"Uhh, is it possible to convert some money?" the look I got from the teller really made it obvious that, while possible, he wished it wasn't.

Regardless of his disdain for me however he still extended a gnarled hand and took the little money I'd saved up, quickly returning two gold and a couple of silver coins, and soon we, that being the professor and me, finally got to the shopping.

Now, if I'm honest, I expected something to happen in the shopping trip. Maybe I'd meet Malfoy or maybe some strange, possibly sentient, book would fall on me, only to end up being a book on some obscure super powerful magic.

Nothing happened.

We went store to store and bought everything on the list without trouble until only the wand was left. The only special thing that happened was that I blew all my extra money on a wandlore book and a bunch of potion ingredients which I thought would come in useful later.

"If I wasn't sure you were going to end up in Ravenclaw before I am now," Flitwick chuckled upon seeing me excited about getting the wandlore book, oblivious to my (definetly illegal) plans for it.

"I'm just excited is all," I lie, putting on my best excited child expression, as we approach Ollivanders wand store.

"That is understandable. I remember my first arrival in Diagon Alley…" he accepts the lie easily, slipping momentarily into nostalgia, "but that's not important right now. For now you have to go get your wand."

"Wait, are you not coming with me?"

"No, this is a personal thing for you," he pulls out his wand as he continues speaking, "getting your wand is something that only happened once in your life and you don't need me there to ruin it for you."

I didn't really know how to reply to that… so, of course, I didn't.

Giving a nod to the professor, I push open the shop door and enter a tiny room, filled to the roof with boxes of wands, and immediately begin looking around.

The single spindly chair in the corner, the thin layer of dust everywhere and the way that everything looked like it'd fall over… it was exactly what I had imagined it to look like.

"Mister Adams I presume?" I freeze, barely stopping myself from going for the Shanker in my pocket, before turning around and meeting the large silver eyes of Ollivander.

"Do you try to give every customer a heart attack, Mister Ollivander?

"Well normally they show some more reaction," the old man had the nerve to click his tongue at me, "well, might as well get on with finding your wand then. Here, give it a wave."

Biting back the sarcasm, mostly because I now had tape measures flitting around me, I just take the offered wand and wave it. The fire that starts spewing out of the wand was very soothing though, helping me forgot my annoyance with Ollivander.

"No! No! Definitely not," unfortunately it didn't last long as Ollivander snatched the wand from my hand, presenting a particularly long wand almost immediately, "try this, fifteen inches ash and dragon heartstring."

This time a pile of stacked boxes fell apart, causing Ollivander to stop and look at the mess for a moment before going back to giving me wands.

- Several wands and 'accidents' later -

"Here," he holds out the wand, ready to back off if another explosion happens.

Fortunately for him and his shop, which was looking like a warzone at this point, I felt the 'tingle' and so, instead of waving it, I looked closer at the wand.

It was light colour. With the body itself being relatively long and the surface smooth and almost marble like. The handle took up almost three fifths of the entire thing and had a light twist that seemed to make the handle fit just right into my hand.

"I suppose you don't need to wave it then," Ollivander spoke up, reminding me of his presence, "good thing I suppose. I think you're the customer who's done the most damage to my shop!"

I clear my throat, "sorry about that."

"Bah! It's no problem, it's a 'hazard of the job' as they say," he picks up a fallen box and puts it back onto a pile, "that wand however… very curious."

I roll my eyes at the obvious bait, "oh really? Why exactly is it so curious sir?"

"Beech wood and phoenix feather core, thirteen inches and very flexible. A very curious combination with many possible interpretations for the wizard who's wand it is," he turned, locking his slightly unnerving silver eyes on me, "but the most obvious one is that the wizard in question is one who possesses a mind that is more advanced than their age would show."

"Very interesting," I stiffly respond, "I'll be going now."

"Wait!" I try not to flinch as I turn around.

"Yes?"

"That'll be seven Galleon."