Jupiter | Harry James Potter

iii ; magical menagerie

  While it took Harry only a few days to get used to his newfound freedom, it took me much longer. I had never been able to simply hop out of bed and go wherever my heart desired until I arrived at the Leaky Cauldron.

My mother had rarely taken me to Diagon Alley for school shopping. In fact, one of the few times I had been there  was when I was younger, and my mother had brought me to Borgin and Burkes, a shady decor shop. I had been too young to fully comprehend what my mother was buying from Mr. Borgin, but I tried not to dwell on it too much. Deep down, I had a feeling I didn't want to know.

One of my favorite aspects of my new life was the sense of routine. Each morning, Harry and I would have breakfast in the Leaky Cauldron, where we enjoyed observing the other guests. Both of us had had limited exposure to the diverse array of witches and wizards that populated our world, so encountering new people was always an exciting experience for us.

We witnessed peculiar country witches, wise-looking wizards debating articles in Transfiguration Today, eccentric warlocks, noisy dwarfs, and even a suspiciously disguised hag once, who ordered raw liver from behind a thick woolen balaclava.

After breakfast, Harry and I would go out into the backyard, wands in hand, tap the third brick from the left above the trash bin, and watch as the archway into Diagon Alley materialized in the wall. Our days were spent exploring shops and dining under vibrant umbrellas at outdoor cafes, where our fellow diners were showing one another their purchases or discussing the case of my cousin, Sirius Black.

One thing I most relished about these days, was that I no longer had to do my homework alone. Now, I could sit in the bright sunshine outside Florian Fortescue's, Ice Cream Parlor, finishing all of my essays, as well as copying my work down onto Harry's parchment and changing the words a bit to not seem to obvious. I had tried to explain the topics to him at first, but I soon realized that it would be much faster to just dumb it down onto his parchment.

Harry dragged me to Gringotts, the Wizarding bank, where he proudly showed me his vault brimming to the ceiling with galleons. Ignoring I's protests, he filled my money bag with coins from his vault. I was the voice of reason, preventing Harry from squandering his inheritance at the enchanting Wizarding shops lining the cobbled street. I halted him from purchasing a set of solid gold Gobstones and a moving model of the Galaxy in a glass ball by promising to tutor him in Astronomy.

My biggest challenge to conceal him from was his new obsession in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies. I had to pull him away from the store multiple times a day, and remind him that he had in fact never lost a Quidditch game on his perfectly fine Nimbus Two Thousand.

I, in stark contrast to Harry, had no desire to squander the money he had forced into my bag. The mere thought of having to ask my mother for money sent shivers down my bones, so I was extremely careful not to waste the bagful of coins I carried so begrudgingly.

After a long day of shopping for our required spell books, including one for their Care of Magical Creatures class that terrified me, Harry and I heard two voices calling out to us.
"Harry! Jove!" the voices yelled from Florian Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. Sitting under a vibrant pink umbrella were their two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Both of them were frantically waving at us. Ron had grown at least a foot and gained a full face of freckles, while Hermione's hair had become significantly less voluminous and her skin a few shades darker.

"Finally!" Ron grinned as Harry and I sat down. "We went to the Leaky Cauldron, but they said you'd left, and we went to Flourish and Blotts, and Madam Malkin's, and-"

"We got all of our school supplies earlier this morning. We were at Quality Quidditch Supplies for like an hour while Harry boggled at a stupid broom." I shrugged, earning a severely dumbfounded look from Harry.