Chapter Text
Cassandra walked down the cobblestoned street of Diagon Alley at a snail’s pace and craned her neck from one side of the street to the other, eyes wide as she tried to take in everything at once from the shops to the people. This was the first time she’d been to Diagon Alley and she wanted to get a good look before those Ministry people realized she was gone from her note and went looking for her.
Wait.
Maybe she should walk faster and go to one of the shops she really wanted to see. No matter how pretty some of the owls in their cages were in front of Eyelops Owl Emporium. I want an owl when I’m older. Or a kneazle. Her guardian - Althea - said she wasn’t responsible enough for a pet yet and now she was going to end up with some stranger, who also might not like animals. She gripped the straps of her pink knapsack tighter and thought, They could like pets. That’d be nice.
Cassandra spared one last longing look at the owls before she started darting through the crowd, ignoring the muttered curse of one wizard who nearly tripped over her. Her stomach grumbled as she passed an ice cream parlour, and she almost stopped, but she could come here after she went to the bookshop or Weasly’s Wizard Wheezes.
She said a quick apology when she nearly collided with a woman leading two boys outside and ignored the familiar pang when she caught a glimpse of the woman taking the smaller boy’s hand. Book shop or joke shop? She only had her beaten up but well-loved copy of The Boy Who Lived in her bag, and a new book would be great, but the joke shop was owned by some of the Weasleys, people who actually knew Harry Potter.
And it looks fun.
The outside of the shop was bright and colorful and she was drawn to the display in the window. She didn’t know what to focus on as her eyes glanced from one product to another, all of which revolved inside the display. Tiny fireworks popped off in the background, and other products turned colors or bounced or-
So much at the same time.
Her eyes started to water and she rubbed them quickly before going inside. It was less overwhelming on her senses than the window display, and thankfully not crowded since it was the middle of the week. There were a few customers scattered around and two employees moving around the store.
Where to start? Cassandra decided to walk towards a bright pink window display and eyed a package with the words Patented Daydream Charm printed on it - that sounds cool - and picked one up only to put it back down when she read for ages sixteen and older on the back. She was tall for her age according to her last guardian, but they probably wouldn’t believe she was sixteen.
She circled the rest of the table, but didn’t see something that immediately grabbed her like the Daydream Charm. Her nose scrunched up at the names of some of the potions, but she did pause when she saw the little bottles of Ever Changing Nail Polish . As she looked them over, the liquid inside the glass bottles changed from pink to red to blue to green to purple and so on. Cassandra chewed her bottom lip before picking one up and then came to a stop when she got closer to a cage in the same section.
Inside, they were little balls of pink and purple fluff of various shades,\ and she watched as they blinked up at her and rolled around. “Aww.” They looked so soft and cuddly and she wanted to pet one so much. Could I sneak one with me? They’re small, I could hide one in my backpack. But..but what if the Ministry people find it and make me take it back? Her shoulders slumped at the thought, and she made herself walk away from the little creatures.
There was a lot more to see anyway. At a table close by, a man and a girl younger than Cassandra, with matching shades of dark hair, took turns playing some sort of game. The girl spelled out a word and groaned as the tiny wooden man moved up a stair closer to a noose. Reusable Hangman: Spell it or He Swings! was the name on the box next to it. The father reached down to ruffle the girl’s hair and Cassandra suddenly found a nearby, barrell interesting; she peered inside to find it full of long, fleshy string things which she frowned at until she saw the sign on it: Extendable Ears.
Now, that could come in handy.
She picked one from the barrel and craned her neck to look around. She spotted a woman walking past a curtain into another room, but she was more distracted by the shelves upon shelves lining the walls, filled to the brim with all sorts of things from trick wands to dungbombs to Skiving Snackboxes. She skirted past a tall, red-haired man in magenta robes to examine a box of Fever Fudge. Should she get something like this just in case? She didn’t know who the Ministry would put her with, and if it was someone bad maybe she could use it as a distraction and-
“Hey,” said a man’s voice from beside her. She jumped and looked up at the man in the magenta robes she ignored before: he frowned down at her, blue eyes narrowed. “How old are you?”
“I’m eleven,” she said, not looking him in the eye.
He chuckled. “I might have believed ten. Nice try, kid.” He gestured towards the snack boxes on the wall. “We don’t sell those to anyone not old enough to go to Hogwarts. You can buy the other stuff you’re holding though.”
Her shoulders slumped, but she didn’t put the box back down immediately. She didn’t know if she would even need it yet, but what if she did? Was the door of the shop that far away?
“I wouldn’t do it, if I were you,” said the man again. “George likes to put some nasty surprises on everything here for people who leave the shop without paying.” He crossed his arms and there was a slight furrow between his eyes as he watched her.
“I’m not doing anything,” she said, scowling, but she returned the box to the shelf. Her face pinked and she looked down to try and hide it.
The man chuckled again. “Of course not. I’m only talking to a customer. Are you ready to pay or are you looking around more?”
He’s going to be watching me now. Cassandra stopped herself from groaning, but it was a close thing. Stupid. “I’ll pay now.”
“Alright, I’ll ring you up. Come on.”
She trudged along after him in silence and didn’t say anything as she dug her coin pouch out of her backpack and counted out the correct amount. “I don’t need a bag,” she said when he pulled one out from behind the counter. Without looking up at him, she grabbed the nail polish and Extendable Ear and shoved them inside her backpack along with the coin pouch.
“Are you trying to hide them from your parents?” he asked, amused.
Cassandra stiffened. “I just don’t need another bag!”
“Right,” he said, and something in his tone made her glance up at him. “You know this time of year, mostly kids come by themselves on the weekends. On weekdays, they usually start showing up later in the afternoon or with their parents.”
“Okay?” Unconsciously, she ran a hand through her honey-colored hair.
He tapped his fingers against the counter as if in thought. “Is one of them waiting outside for you?”
Uh-oh.
Cassandra’s heart thumped harder in her chest, and she shook her head. “They’re in another shop. I promised to meet up with them there.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she was already turning to leave. “I should go now. Bye!”
She walked, not ran, towards the door, though her heartbeat didn’t slow back down until she was outside. That was too close. Without looking back at the shop, she hurried down the street, ignoring the feeling of eyes watching her.
Any remaining anxious feelings vanished once she walked into Flourish and Blotts. Cassandra’s eyes widened as she looked around at the shelves upon shelves of books. This was a lot bigger than the book shop her guardian rarely took her to. Some of the books themselves were so big she wouldn’t be able to fit them into her backpack and some were so small she wondered how people could read them.
Above her head, there was the sound of rustling paper and she looked up to see a group of red books, flapping their front and back covers to fly out of a back room. From the same room, she heard an exasperated voice: “Merlin’s pants! I told you to immobilize the Flight of Fancy books before opening the box, Michael!”
Cassandra giggled, but didn’t stick around to hear whatever excuse Michael would come up with. She spotted that one of the many signs in the shop’s interior had Fiction written on it along with an arrow pointing towards the ceiling. Upstairs then.
Her footsteps echoed in the nearly empty shop as she walked up the staircase. Cassandra laughed again as one of the flying books flew lower over her head, ruffling her hair. I love magic.
She moved to the side as an older woman passed her going down the stairs and then took the rest of the steps two at a time until she was at the top. Music came from an open book someone left discarded on a table and Cassandra started humming under her breath as she wound her way around both bookshelves and stacks of books on the floor. Her humming stopped when she caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man reading the back of a book down one aisle, but she picked back up the tune when she turned down the next aisle.
Cassandra glanced up and down the shelves and chewed on her bottom lip in thought. She didn’t recognize most of the titles nor could she see the covers, so there was not a lot to go on and she didn’t know how much time she had before the Ministry people finally found her. Her eyes finally stopped on one book on a higher shelf, which was one of a few books sticking out slightly. She couldn’t reach it, but maybe if she jumped she could grab it?
She jumped up and just missed it. She grumbled under her breath when she missed it a second time. The book did lean a little farther now though. Come on. She jumped again, and she just about had it in her grasp that time, but she not only landed back down without it, the force of her jump that time caused the books on the edge of that shelf to fall.
Cassandra threw her arms above her head to shield herself, but nothing hit her. What? Her eyes snapped open and widened at the sight of the books frozen in the air above her head. Did…did I do that?
“Are you alright?”
She jumped at the unexpected voice and pivoted to see the dark-haired man from earlier, standing at the end of the aisle. His wand was in his hand, pointed at the books, and her shoulders slumped. Oh, it wasn’t me then. His green eyes, hidden behind a pair of glasses, were trained intently on her and she realized she hadn’t answered his question.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Thank you.”
He flicked his wand and the books returned to the shelf. Grown-ups make it look so easy. Magic happened most often to Cassandra in accidental bursts - some much bigger than others - though she tried more than once to will herself to do magic. Sometimes, she felt as if it worked, like the time she jumped from her old bedroom window and her fall slowed, but many times she often gave up in frustration. Althea said nothing when she looked through old spellbooks, sounding out the incantations as she did so, but would never allow Cassandra to so much as hold her wand, let alone use it.
She was broken from her thoughts when the stranger asked her another question. “Which book did you want?” She stared at him and he shrugged. “I can get it for you. Which one was it?”
She pointed to the one in the middle.
He looked from her to the book and he smiled slightly. “Oh, I knew someone who really liked that book.” His hand paused in mid-air and he stared down at her. “Parts of it might be on the er…scarier side. Are you sure you want it?”
She glared at him. “I’m not going to get scared. I’m not a baby.”
And you’re not my dad.
He smiled again, this time more amused. “Fair enough.” He plucked the book off the shelf and held it out for her.
“Thanks,” she said again.
”No problem.” He ran a hand through his already messy black hair. “Hey, are you related to-“
Cassandra would not find out what he was about to ask because at that moment an irritated voice called up the stairs: “Cassandra! I know you’re up there!” The next thing she heard was the sound of hurried running up the stairs.
She groaned. It had to be Mr. Allard who found her.
The man raised an eyebrow. “I reckon you’re Cassandra then.”
She nodded.
“Are you in trouble?”
”Probably,” she said, sighing.
He frowned this time, but he didn’t have time to say anything before Mr. Allard rounded the corner, his light blue robes whipping around him. His face was flushed and he was panting, but it didn’t take him long to start on her. “Do you know how worried everyone was when no one could find you? We searched the entire floor-“
“I left a note,” she said, ducking her chin.
Mr. Allard’s face turned a deeper red. “That isn’t the point! You know you weren’t supposed to leave on your own! How did you even get to the floo-“
The stranger next to her coughed.
Mr. Allard’s gaze went from her to the man and he did a double take. “Oh, Mr. Potter, I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Wait, Mr. Potter?
His eyebrows raised. “In a bookshop? I can read you know.”
“That is not what I meant. Thank you for finding Cassandra.”
“No problem. How did she get away from your office anyway? Isn’t there always meant to be someone keeping an eye on the younger kids?”
“Yes, but-“
“Are you Harry Potter?!”
Both men looked down at her, startled, before the man who’d saved her from the books sighed. He lifted the hair that fell over his forehead to reveal a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt.
No. Way!
Cassandra was speaking before she could think. “Can you please sign my book?”
Mr. Allard started, “Cassandra-“
“It’s fine,” Harry Potter said.
She had her backpack open in seconds. In her haste to get her book, she nearly knocked Moondancer - the Aethonan stuffie she’d had since she was a baby - out of the bag. Sorry.
Harry Potter took the book she thrusted at him and reached into his pocket to pull out a muggle pen. “I don’t always bring a quill with me.” He quickly wrote his name on the first page of the book and handed it back to her. “Just so you know, the writer of this didn’t get everything right.”
Cassandra blinked at him. “You didn’t fly a muggle car to Hogwarts?”
He flushed. “Alright, that part did happen, but-“
”I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Mr. Allard, who did not sound one bit sorry. “But I do need to bring Cassandra back to the Ministry.”
“Wait, I need to buy this,” she said, holding up the new book.
There was a tick in Mr. Allard’s jaw. “No. Put it back.”
She didn't move. “Please.”
“No. You have a book with you already-“
“I’ve already read it,” she protested. A lot.
“We have books in the office you can read and we need to get back now. Your little stunt has put us severely behind schedule.”
Cassandra tried to think of an argument that would work on Mr. Allard, but the pinched expression on his face told her that nothing she said would work. “Fine,” she said and turned to put the book on one of the shelves and froze when Harry Potter held out a hand.
“Give it to me. I’ll buy it and have it delivered to you at the Ministry.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Mr. Potter this is really unnecessary-“
He shrugged. “I know, but I want to.” He smiled down at her. “I promise they’ll send it to you.”
Cassandra smiled widely, her green eyes shining with happiness. “Thank you! I’ll pay you back!”
He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. One book isn’t going to bankrupt me.”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but Mr. Allard started to herd her back towards the stairs. She waved at him and then let herself get led down and out of the shop, not expecting to see him in person ever again.