Ladder of Dreams

𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲

The several people who walked past Alora didn't notice the pub. Elderly woman, young toddler, bulky child, thin man, their eyes all seemed to bounce from the big book shop to the record shop.

They were all muggles. She slipped away from the mainstream crowd and shoved open a rusty door underneath the Leaky Cauldron sign.

The inside of the pub was dark and a bit shabby; the air seemed to be moist with the drink Tom, the barmaid, served a laughing man, and with the smokey fumes coming from a booth in the back. Several costumers loitered about, conversing, exchanging coins underneath the tabletops, none of the higher end crowd.

She kept her eyes trained ahead and strode through. The gaze of suspicion followed her, drilling into the back of her neck. No, curiosity. It had to be. No one would be suspicious of her; she hadn't even used her muggle persona; her hair was black, and her eyes brown.

She reached the small, walled courtyard in the back, and the door flinging shut relieved the tingling behind her head. Three up and two across, she tapped her wand thrice against the cracked brick. It wriggled sharply before it swerved aside along with the surrounding bricks, creating an archway which grew larger and larger, and when it was several feet over her head, she stepped through.

It was quite a drastic change, really. Shops upon shops lined the cobblestone street, each with brightly coloured signs, competing for attention. The sun didn't shy away from here, and it bounced off the school-aged childrens' smiles, a few holding their very first wand.

She smiled at them too, the sweet young children she had watched at least a good portion die ... but she wouldn't think about that right now.

She turned her gaze back to the shops and found it incredibly hard not to stare in wonder at all the magical items — broomsticks, robes, trunks, pets, quills and ink, books, odd-looking plants and magical creature parts. She was sure she looked like a clueless muggleborn, or at least foreign.

As she passed by, a family of three came out of Floreon's Fortesque Ice Cream Parlor. The young girl licked the topmost strawberry layer while the bottommost chocolate scoop dripped onto her white t-shirt. Her white muggle t-shirt and ragged jeans — she was either muggleborn or a blood traitor.

Alora caught the condescending look an older woman gave the girl as she exited the shop across the parlour. She was likely pureblood; most purebloods frown upon muggle attire: jumpers, jerseys, jeans, t-shirts, the like ... purebloods liked to wear "proper" dress, clothing that would preserve their culture.

The older woman continued down the cobblestone street, levitating a box with the Twilfitt and Tattings logo, and she had to be of higher-end, judging by her dark green robe, embellished in silver. It seemed like the right place for Alora to shop later.

But not everyone in Diagon Alley wore just robes or jeans. Robes were obviously wizardly, but the other tells were harder to name.

Magical clothing had a quality to it, an almost antique style and fit compared to the muggle equivalent. That man popping sweets into his mouth wore slacks and a dress shirt like the man carrying books did, but they were mundane and ordinary rather than wizardly.

Alora was currently mundane and ordinary and didn't really have any place to judge the others, but she couldn't afford to stay that way for much longer. She continued her stride down the street, only slowing but not pausing to move around the bustle.

It wasn't hard to find her first target; the snowy white building towered over all the little shops. She climbed up the white steps to the set of burnished bronze doors, high over her head.

A goblin stood in a uniform of scarlet and gold, long fingers crawled around the hilt of a sword, and his dark, slanted eyes met hers for a moment, and she could have sprinted away, but instead, she nodded at him and entered through the doorway.