Down the Rabbit Hole We Go

Severus was starting to develop a headache. Since Alice readily went to Gringotts, he thought that it would be quite easy to shepherd her to where he needed her to go. He was instead dragged around by the robe.

Before Alice let him be the guide of the journey, she asked him about how much would it take to get an enchanted suitcase and how much it would be to have an enchanter modify her current suitcase. Severus didn't see why she needed so much space but admitted that it would probably help the girl when it came to carrying the supplies so that she didn't need to borrow a trolley. Snape had no desire to push a cart for her.

He guided Alice to a store that he knew had pretty good storage charms and enchantments. It was a small store that catered to witches and wizards that liked to travel outside of their magical circle. A popular trip for English witches and wizards right now was Japan, because of the recent spike in technology and magic that boomed. At least that's what the poster ad was displaying with a moving image of a Japanese wizard showing off his tiny enchantments on a little metal plate.

There were other animated posters and different magical items that were lined up neatly. The most noticeable line of products was the suitcases and briefcase. They were advertised with a cheerful "keep everything you need in one stylish, convenient place" and a "need to bring your pets overseas?".

There was barely a soul inside since everyone else was gathering their daily needs or getting school supplies for their children. Enchantments weren't sold every day, but they were quite expensive. Alice noted the price was probably due to the cost of labor and reasoned that this was probably why she never really saw these devices used by Harry and the crew.

The only man in the store was busy inscribing what Alice could identify as runes into an amulet of some kind. His back was hunched over his table that was littered with grid paper and scratch notes He had a large glass monocle that he moved closer and away from his face with magic as he used a strange needle to etch finer details. His focus was so intense that he didn't notice the small girl approach him from behind.

"Woah," he said as he leaned back. He quickly moved the needle away from his workspace and tried to rebalance himself on his work stool. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for an enchanted suitcase or to enchant my suitcase," Alice said. "Was this a bad time?"

"Not at all," the wizard said. "Welcome to Traveller's Journal. My name is Juno Estrada. I'm the enchanter in charge of this store."

Juno put away his work neatly and left his glass and needle floating over it.

"My name's Alice. What were you working on?" Alice asked, looking at the amulet.

"It's just a magical device that a client wanted," Juno said. Although he tried to play it off, he was excited to talk about his work. "You see, he wanted an amulet that he would never lose. So in here, I put an enchantment to send a signal and a steady interval, while his compass will be able to pick up that unique magic signature-"

Snape interrupted the man with a gruff cough. Juno looked at the greasy-haired man and sighed, "Of course, that's not important. What did you want the suitcase to do? More storage, privacy, sealing magic, or perhaps an enchantment so that it moves on its own?"

"All of those sound amazing," Alice said with a wide smile. She could think of several uses for all of those things.

"What are the fastest things you can enchant into...that?" Severus gestured at the pink carry-on suitcase.

"Probably increase the storage, make it lighter," Juno said as he brought his monocle up to his right eye. "I'm guessing this is to carry books for school then. It'll take me a few moments. You can pay me 5 galleons now as a deposit and it should be done by the time you pick up the school books. The final price is 20 galleons though, can you afford this young lady?"

"That's no problem," Alice said as she got 5 galleons from her pouch. "How much would it be to get tools for enchantment?"

"Oh, so you're interested in enchantment?" Juno asked. "That's more of a 5th year thing to learn, but if you're willing to learn I have some old tools to lend you. I'm sure you can find some books on enchantment in Hogwart's library. The library at Hogwarts is famous, you know."

"How did you know I was going?" Alice asked, tilting her head.

Juno gestured to the grumpy adult in the room and Alice just nodded slowly. Of course, Severus Snape would have a reputation in the small wizarding community. Since they would have to come back for the suitcase, the two decided to continue their shopping.

When Severus pointed out that they needed books and tried to bring her to Flourish and Blotts, Alice had dragged him over to a neighboring bookstore that sold second-hand books. She then proceeded to leaf through the required books for the course and picked up select ones that she liked.

"Ravenclaw then," Snape absently remarked in his head, before he felt a small headache grow. This was taking longer than he'd like.

"What are you doing?" Severus asked, rubbing his temples."You have the money for books. You don't have to save every knut."

Alice shook her head and opened up a book that she had in her arms. She used her tiny finger to point at the writing in the margins and the lines.

"Second-hand school books can have notes that can help me with tests and learning," Alice explained. She wanted to roll her eyes at Snape since the man had written helpful notes in books as well, as Alice knew from the Half-Blood Prince. "Although some of them do have worthless doodles like this."

Alice took a copy of Magical Draft and Potions to show Severus. She flipped to the page that she recently found a doodle of a badly drawn picture of Snape bending back in laughter with a snake tongue extending out of his mouth in a wiggly fashion. His nose was extra bulbous and large.

Severus grab the book and quickly flipped to see if there was a foolish student that wrote his name on it. Unfortunately for that student, there was. The potion professor made a mental note to take at least 5 points from Griffindor when the school year started.

Alice got the books that were required of her and paid the man who was quite happy to sell them. Not many wizards wanted to buy second-hand books. Most wanted to buy brand new editions for their children, or simply opted out of buying the books at all.

Alice had to carry all of the books back over to Traveller's Journal so that she could put them into her suitcase. Juno had just finished his work inside of the suitcase. There was a series of runes that looped to form a circle in the plastic of the suitcase. Another series of runes formed a triangle inside the circle. It was the closest thing she saw to a magic circle in this universe so far.

"This is pretty easy," Juno explained. "You should be able to fit 5 times the items in it than you normally would. Without the runes to make it weight lighter, it might have been too heavy for you to move despite the size."

Juno pointed to the circle formation.

"I need you to teach me this," Alice said, looking at the enchantment in wonder. If she could master this, then having a portable shop would be easy. She could probably store all sorts of potions and products inside.

"Maybe when you get older you can become an apprentice here," Juno joked as he patted the kid's head. Normally runes would put a wizard to sleep since it was rather a logical form of magic. "I put my old tools inside already if you want to try it. Try to treat them well, they aren't as sturdy as they used to be."

"Of course!" Alice said as she paid the rest of the commission. She added another 3 galleons as a tip with a wink.

This was a connection that she wanted to keep in mind since it wasn't explored much in the books or the movies. It had a lot of potential in her mind.

Before Alice and Juno could continue talking about enchantments, Severus cut them off saying that his time was valuable and dragged Alice out with her new shiny suitcase.

The rest of the shopping trip went off without a hitch. Severus thought that Alice would try to buy second-hand things whenever she could, but she drew the line at things she deemed equipment, such as the pewter cauldron and flasks. While he was biased, since they were the items needed for his class, he appreciated that mindset. The only thing was that he hated how confident Alice was about every decision. She acted like she knew every shop and everything that Severus couldn't help but hope that something would cause this girl to slip up that confidence.

Towards the end of their shopping trip, he had found it.

The last spot on their trip was in Ollivanders. Alice had no experience picking out a wand so when she walked into the store, she was a little overwhelmed.

Ollivander was cleaning up some soot marks and other displaced merchandise. It was as if a tornado had been summoned within the shop, but Alice knew it was Harry Potter that did this. Alice silently hoped that she had similar results. After all, to be successful in a magical world, you needed to be strong in magic.

"Oh, this is interesting," Ollivander said as he put the last wand away into its home. "That is an expression that I don't see much around here."

"Most are excited when they come to pick out their first wands," he continued. "But as far as I can tell, you're just annoyed with the mess. Don't be surprised. I'm fairly good at reading people, as you see I've been selling wands for quite a long time."

"Excuse me, my name is Alice Blair," Alice said with a small curtsy of her dress. "Can you tell me what I need to do to get a perfect wand for school?"

"My name is Garrick Ollivander," Ollivander replied. "Well, you can't choose the wand, the wand has to choose you. I can only guide you based on experience. Here. I have an idea."

The man flicked his wand to levitated a wand to his hand.

"12-inch, Hazel, with Unicorn Hair core," he explained as he handed the wand to Alice. "It's perfect for someone who is under control of their emotions since they are easily swayed."

The blond girl tried a swish like in the movie. A moment happened and then there was a sizzle at the end of the wood. Severus wouldn't have noticed the small steam if he didn't squint.

"Hm, a bit underwhelming," Garrick Ollivander said as he took the wand away. "Maybe you are too in control of your emotions."

Alice felt her face flushed. She wanted to hide her face with her hands, but she needed to press forward and try more wands. The shame sunk in after she tried a total of 4 more wands; sycamore, hawthorn, fir, and spruce. Each one she tried was equally if not more disappointing. With every swish, she only served to give Ollivander a nice breeze to sweep away the summer sweat.

Severus was highly amused as the girl continued to shrink away from the wands. Alice wasn't perfect and in the end, she was a total novice when it came to casting magic.

"Hm...these wands seem to not like you very much at all," Ollivander said as he pulled out another one. "When we do find you a wand, it's unlikely that you can use another."

He held the wand in this hand for a moment longer than the others.

"This wand might work for you," Ollivander said as he handed the wand to Alice. "It's 12-inch hornbeam, with a unicorn core."

Alice was reluctant, but she gave it a nice swish and a wind picked up quite nicely. It swirled around the shop and lifted her into the air in a gentle manner. Alice would have enjoyed the sensation of floating if it wasn't for the fact that her dress threatened to raise above appropriate height. It lasted for a good minute before she landed on her feet.

"Yes, I think this one is for you," the wandmaker said as he nodded to himself. "Since you cannot use other wands, you can find comfort that no one else will use this wand. My own wand is made out of this wood. These wands are attracted to those with a life long vision, some say obsession. After you use it for a while, it won't know how to perform for any other user."

Alice looked at the wand, examining it closely now that she was chosen. It had a groove in the area where she could grip it in her hands. It felt natural, practical, and smooth. It was a modest wand, except for a lone wood grain that seemed to spiral up the length. Alice took out seven galleons and paid Ollivander with a small smile.

Snape almost found it sweet how Alice was staring at the wand, so fixated that she had absentmindedly paid Ollivander the money. He only almost found it sweet, because no one had told her how much money was for a wand.

Before he had doubts about Alice's origins, but now they were confirmed. He didn't know why someone would disguise themselves as a muggle-born child, but he needed to confirm what was going on for the security of Hogwarts. That's why when they took a quick lunch break before ending the day, Severus decided to probe Alice's mind.

To do so without detection, he decided to take Alice to one of the cafes that sold magical treats. He hoped to distract the girl with some sweets.

Alice had picked out the most popular item. The peculiar thing was that she wasn't eating cake that was magically shifting colors in every layer she was examining it and appreciating the display.

Severus didn't mind since it did grab her attention enough for him to prod the muggle-borns mind. A child's mind is usually a strange place to be since they have almost limitless imagination. Their memories and mind were usually not fully sculpted to a pattern like some simple adults.

While Alice's mind was jumbled, Severus encountered not a flight of fantasy or a crude pile of memories to sort through, but towering buildings that comprised of what he could see as zeros and ones.

Initially, Snape felt that the unusually occlumency proof enough to not let the girl into the school, but he found out that this mind space wasn't a product of occlumency at all. Snape could easily go through this code and access memories. He just couldn't make sense of any of it.

There were too many memories that consisted of looking through numbers of graphs. Others consisted of simply watched a series of letters and numbers climb and fall on an animated screen. Snape could only conclude that it was some advanced math that muggles taught at their schools.

For these memories to be so many and yet unique, he wondered why they were important to Alice. He wanted to dive deeper, but Alice had noticed by saying that she felt uncomfortable.

"You shouldn't just stare at me," Alice said, shifting uncomfortably. By the time that Snape was out of her mind, she had already eaten the cake. "People are going to start saying some rude things if you do."

She gestured with her head at the concerned strangers that were walking by and whispering. That was when it was Snape's turn to be embarrassed.