The Girl Who Lived

The Diagon Alley

Magical!

That was the only word that Harriet's awestruck mind could come up with when she first stepped into Diagon Alley.

Simply… magical!

Green eyes were constantly looking, side to side, up and down, as she tried to take in all of the sights. Her lips seemed to be frozen into a perpetual smile, but her mouth was also constantly twitching since it was taking ever ounce of self-control she possessed to keep her jaw from hanging open. However, she continued to exert the effort; she did not want to appear the fool in front of the denizens of her new world.

While the sights and the people were very interesting, the mental voices were also quite loud. Her head began to pound with increasing pressure as the weight of so many consciousnesses bore down on her. Going through the city proper on the Knight Bus hadn't nearly been this bad nor had her single visit to London before, but then, she had only been six at the time, her abilities not nearly as developed.

Regardless, Harriet was prepared for such an instance, for she had diligently worked on filtering out mental noise.

She had first practiced blocking out the annoyingly loud and quite monotonous sounds of Dudley, whose mental voice was the equivalent of a steady pounding in her head. From there, she had graduated to filtering out the screeching thoughts of Petunia and the roaring ones of Vernon.

Her skill in shielding had progressed rather quickly, but that was more a thing of survival than anything else. It was nearly impossible to think, much less actually function, with so many voices bearing down on her. The discovery that she could block them out with only a little effort, which in itself had diminished considerably over time, had been a godsend.

In fact, Harriet had become so successful in her shielding that she could block out everything, leaving only silence and her own voice in her head with almost no effort on her part.

Still, she would never shield completely. For one, the silence bothered her. Second, and more importantly, this way she heard the Dursleys and could prevent them from sneaking up on her.

Focusing on the task at hand, Harriet tightened her mental shielding, increasing it from its normal level, and smiled as the voices went from roaring to just background noise. Her headache vanished, and Harriet continued to take in her amazing surrounding.

Indeed, this place was truly wonderful, and her eyes were moving rapidly about trying to take it all in. Her gaze flickered from shop to shop, noting the varied and unimaginable goods being sold, things like unicorn horns and dung beetles. She also noted the strangely dressed shoppers bustling around her, moving hurriedly from one destination to another. Her eyes continued to diligently scan her surroundings, even as her tiny body surged through the crowd, following in Hagrid's wake.

However, one thing was bothering her, and finally, Harriet had had enough.

"Excuse me, Hagrid," she inquired softly, "but where are we going?"

The gentle giant inclined his head toward the girl but continued walking, albeit much more slowly. "To Gringotts." Seeing the confused look on Harriet's face, he went on, "Ter the wizarding bank, but tis run by Goblins."

At this comment, Harriet's eyes widened. "Goblins? Bank? I don't have any money."

A dismal, dreadful thought suddenly occurred to the girl.

"How am I to pay for my school things?" she asked, fishing her list from a pocket. Her other hand was nervously playing with the tattered hem of her skirt.

The Dursleys would go berserk if they had to pay back Hagrid for her school supplies.

The large man glanced at her. "Yeh didn' think yer parents left yeh with nothin' did yeh? Yeh haf a vault from them," he answered with a grin.