Chapter 3: Diagon Alley

[I am the great astrologer, Trelawney!]

[Acquired skill: Intuition: Level 0 (1/100), (Your intuition has been sharpened)]

Tom: "..."

Embarrassed, he stopped continuing to draw card draws, he's drawn almost a hundred rounds, has emptied a third of his savings, and only got two cards from Professor Trelawney....

He was afraid to continue, it was clearly not a good day for drawing cards! So he gave it up.

He didn't play the Draw again until the next day, when Professor McGonagall came to see him.

"Professor Dumbledore has given you permission to study at Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall smiled, "Congratulations." She said as she pulled a leather bag of money out of her pocket and handed it to Tom, "This is the Hogwarts fund for students who need a scholarship. It's not much, but you can save enough to get by, the Ministry of Magic and the Council have cut school fees these last two years..."

Professor McGonagall cut her speech short as she saw Tom eagerly opening his money bag and counting the amount of gold galleons in it, which made her feel a little flabbergasted: it was the first time she had seen such a greedy and uneducated man.

Why don't you wait until I leave before counting the money?

The image of Tom in Professor McGonagall's mind inevitably slipped into one of greed and ungratefulness.

But the next moment, she was struck dumb. For she heard the boy say, "Professor McGonagall, I owe Hogwarts twenty galleons for this, and I will find a way to pay it back."

Professor McGonagall was silent.

After a moment, she said, "Fine."

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she looked down and said softly to Tom, "It occurs to me that I haven't thrown away my spell book from my school days, if you don't mind having some notes I remembered in it..."

"Thank you, Professor." Tom bowed to Professor McGonagall, thoughtfully.

You don't mind the notes in it? What a joke, that was the most valuable part of the book! Harry had only gotten the textbook in Professor Snape's sixth year and he was like a novel protagonist who had turned on his golden finger and was on a roll that even Hermione couldn't match, how could Professor McGonagall's books be worse than Professor Snape's?

They were both smiling wholeheartedly.

Along with the bag of money, Professor McGonagall handed her a letter with a train ticket to Hogwarts and the necessary items to start school.

"Well, today I'm taking you to Diagon Alley." Professor McGonagall held out a hand, "Hold on to my hand."

Tom did as he was told, he squeezed his hand firmly on Professor McGonagall's forearm, and the next thing he knew, everything seemed to go dark around him, a pressure coming from all sides and making it hard to breathe, as if his whole body had been stuffed into a rubber tube.

Finally, he "spurted" out of the tube, with some of the stale air entering his lungs, and after wiping the tears from his eyes that had welled up uncontrollably, Tom found himself standing in a dingy little bar. The bar was dark and dingy, a couple of old ladies were sitting in a corner drinking sherry, and a small man with a large bowler hat was chatting with the bartender, who had almost lost his hair and looked like a dried walnut, as soon as they entered, the bar fell into silence, but when they looked at the person who entered, they started chatting and drinking again.

Professor McGonagall led him through the bar to a small walled courtyard where there was nothing but a garbage can and some weeds. Professor McGonagall nudged the bricks on the wall over the garbage can.

"Remember, count three up and two down," Professor McGonagall pulled out her wand and tapped three times on the wall, which began to shake and soon formed a wide archway leading to a bustling cobblestone street.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley." Professor McGonagall and Tom entered the bustling street together, and the archway disappeared behind them.

The system's voice rang in Tom's head: [Mission accepted]

[Mission: Travel the world]

[Objective: To explore the magical world]

[Stage 1]

[Progress: 1/1]

[Map of Diagon Alley unlocked]

[Description: There are countless places in the magical world waiting to be explored, so keep your curiosity alive, traveler!]

[Stage 2]

[Progress 0/2]

[Stage 1 Quest Reward: Occlumency (5 stars)]

With a smile on his face, Tom used the scroll to learn Occlumency, of course, it's also zero level and zero experience. It's like anti-virus software on a computer, it doesn't save you from hackers, but without it, you feel like you're running around naked.

Next door to them was a store selling cauldrons, and Professor McGonagall strode resolutely in, bought Tom a cauldron and then headed for Madame Malkin's store, Robes For All Occasions, deciding that it would be best if they bought uniforms first.

The owner of the robes store, Madame Malkin, was a smiling, short, plump witch who greeted Tom warmly and then prepared a Hogwarts student's robe for him.

She tried to suggest additional robes, but Tom felt his pocket deflated and declined. Mrs. Malkin had to dismiss him with a regretful look and a sigh of relief that this was a strong-willed boy, as not many children in the wizarding world would be able to resist her special offer.

Next they went shopping for parchment and quills, and of course ink and other items for school, although Professor McGonagall had taken care of the textbooks for his Transfiguration class, the shopping trip had left Tom with very few gold galleons in his pockets, and Tom wouldn't have enough money if he wanted to buy new textbooks.

"Come on, let's get the wands first. It's better for new students to have a wand that suits them," Professor McGonagall thought it made more sense to have a new wand than a new book. So they came to a small, ramshackle store with a peeling gold sign that read [Ollivander: wand making since 382 BC], but not many people would have believed the hype.

In the window display there was nothing but a wand sitting alone on a faded purple cushion.

Inside the store, apart from a bench, were thousands of narrow cardboard boxes, densely stacked, almost as high as the ceiling.