Mischief Managed Year One: Mayhem of the Moon

Chapter Three- The Draining Trip to Diagon Alley

TW: Small Implications of Neglect

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The rest of school, and then summer, flew by, yet seemed to move at an agonizing pace. Remus' father never mentioned the boy's birthday, but the next two full moons he hugged Remus before ushering him into the dark dilapidated shed. More shocking still was that both times, when Remus woke up in St. Mungo's, his father was in the room, which somehow made the brisk and cold treatment that always followed his stays more bearable.

But best of all was that his father took him to Diagon Alley, which Remus had only been to once before, back when his uncle didn't know what he was and still liked him. He didn't dare hold his father's hand, not wanting to make him uncomfortable or risk his disapproval when everything had been going so well between them lately. But his resolve not to hold his hand nearly broke as they reached the crowded alley.

"Here are some coins; I'll meet you right here at the Quidditch Cup Monument. Only go to these two shops." His father scrawled down the names on a slip of paper and pointed to two shops across the way. But which ones they were, Remus couldn't tell, due to the constant stream of witches and wizards. He nodded in agreement and slipped through the crowd feeling odd in his new wizard robe gifted to him by the headmaster of Hogwarts himself! He found that he kept tugging at his long sleeves self-consciously, which he did whenever there were a lot of people around.

Of course, he was more self-conscious than usual, as the last full moon, though it had been weeks ago, had left him with a nasty scar on his upper arm, stretching as far as his wrist. However, even this couldn't dampen his excitement at being here. The whole place was alive with magic and people. Everywhere he looked there were witches and wizards dressed in colorful robes talking about magic things he couldn't understand...not yet at least.

He grinned ear to ear, gazing up at the small but brilliant little stores half hidden by the constant flow of the crowd. He heard owls hooting over the racket of hundreds of conversations piling on one another and distinctly heard a few peddlers bellowing out whatever they wanted to sell. It was hard to tell where one shop ended and the other began, they all looked so pleasant and homely. A jumbled collection of little stone buildings with strange colored smoke rising from chimneys despite the heat of the day, which created a rather picturesque scene.

Finally squeezing his way to the other side of the street, he saw steaming cauldrons and large leather-bound books propped up for display. The unmistakably magical sight along with the hanging cages holding bats and any owl imaginable meant that it was a wonder Remus wasn't giggling like a little boy. He couldn't get caught up in his excitement though—his father had given him a mission and he had to carry it out correctly.

His father had circled what he needed to buy, and he knew he'd be getting most of his books from his father's old collection. His father had said he would take care of getting Remus' beginner's potions kit from a different apothecary, as the ones here were overpriced. This left a rather short list of things for Remus to obtain on his own, and he certainly wasn't going to get away with dawdling as much as he wanted to.

So inside Belby's Book and Quill Emporium he was physically pained by the fact he couldn't browse the tall shelves of books. He inhaled the smell of the shop deeply, the quiet atmosphere helping him to relax from the excitement and anxiety the outside caused. He walked to the M's and picked up the most used copy of Murky Murphy's Beginner's Potions he could find. Appalled to find they were all pretty new, but seeing no other more used editions, he walked to the counter and paid for the book and a handful of quills, following his father's instructions to a T.