My Mute Life (Fred x OC) Book 1

Chapter 3

Harry was rather quiet as we ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought us (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).

"What's up?" said Hagrid.

"Nothing," Harry said. I knew he was lying though. We stopped to buy parchment and quills. 

Harry cheered up a bit when I showed him a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote.

When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"

"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know — not knowin' about Quidditch! Seraphine, d'you know 'bout Quidditch?"

I shook my head.

"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's. "— and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in —"

"Yer not from a Muggle family. Neither of yeh. If he'd known who yeh were — he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles — look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"

I was a bit confused by that. All I got was that Harry was famous, and he had a rotten aunt.

"So what is Quidditch?"

"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like — like soccer in the Muggle world — everyone follows Quidditch — played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls — sorta hard ter explain the rules."

"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"

"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but —"

"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," said Harry gloomily. I nodded, silently agreeing.

"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."

"Vol-, sorry —You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"

"Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.

We bought our school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. I was in heaven! Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.

"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."

Harry had told me about Dudley, his good-for-nothing rotten older cousin. I secretly thought that cursing Dudley would be a brilliant idea.

"I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."

Hagrid wouldn't let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either, which I couldn't see the use for ("It says pewter on yer list"), but we each got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. 

Then we visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry and I, I examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and Harry stared at minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop). Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked our lists again.