Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Two: Past the Brick Wall

Lily's family followed her into the commotion of the alleyway. They consulted the map and determined that they needed to find Gringotts, the bank where they would exchange money. As they walked, Petunia's mouth spread open into a silent scream that suggested she'd seen something really horrible. As for Lily, her mouth fell open as well...but not in a horrorstruck way. She opened her eyes as wide as she could and attempted to take everything in.

The alleyway was a cobblestone street just wide enough for a few human-pulled carts to pass on each side. Other than these, the alley was filled with pedestrians. But Lily found a fascination with these people that she had never felt before. Most were wearing robes that dropped to their feet, rather like graduation robes, and tall pointed hats. And there were wizards and witches of every age; from stooping old men that walked along at the pace of snails, grumbling to themselves, to the little girl who had gotten a hold of her mother's wand and was now rising steadily toward the sky, screaming her head off. Groups of teenagers with large bags wandered through the streets with their friends, probably buying school supplies. Middle-aged witches sat outside Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor, gossiping happily in the sun. Parents dragged their children away from the window display of Quality Quidditch supplies, where they were ogling a silver broomstick that had a giant sign over it, reading The Quicksilver. A bearded man outside of an apothecary yelled to the crowd "Today only: powdered tortoise shell at 3 sickles an ounce!" Immediately, a whole crowd of package-laid women attacked the barrel in front of him; the man was forced to dive out of the way.

Lily couldn't help it; a huge grin spread over her features. This was amazing. Nothing she'd ever seen before rivaled the sight she viewed now. She was so amazed that she nearly passed by the wizarding bank, an astounding feat, as the bank was twice the size of any other shop and a very bright, luminescent white color. Lily grabbed her mother's arm and pointed at the entrance, for her parents had nearly missed seeing the bank as well.

At the top of the stairs, they met the bank's bronze doors. Lily reached for the handle, anxious to get inside, but before she had so much as touched it, a bloodcurdling scream came from behind her. A scream that sounded very much like-

Petunia was walking backwards as quickly as she could, screeching and gesturing madly. Lily whipped her head back towards the doors, alarmed at what would make Petunia panic so obviously. Then she saw it. A creature ten inches shorter than Lily, with dark skin and a rigidly pointed beard, stood there, looking rather annoyed at Petunia's outburst. Perhaps he didn't understand why Petunia had panicked, but Lily knew, immediately. This was a goblin.

The redhead turned back to see Petunia, still shrieking madly, lose her balance and tumble down the marble stairs. Mrs. Evans joined in the screaming of her daughter, shrieking even louder when Petunia's outburst suddenly stopped. Mr. and Mrs. Evans raced down the stairs to Petunia, who was by now surrounded by quite a large crowd. Lily followed them too, nervous at how mad her parents might be with the magical world after this had happened.

She felt rather ashamed to admit it, but she wasn't really that worried about Petunia; the older girl had always been so mean to her, and anyways, Petunia was near indestructible. By the time Lily had reached the innermost circle of the crowd, Petunia was being supported and led away by her mother. Lily could see a trickle of blood running down the side of Petunia's head. An unbidden shiver of fear ran down Lily's spine.

"It's alright, sweetie, she's fine, just a little dazed," Mr. Evans slightly breathless voice came from behind Lily. "Your mother is taking her back to the Leaky Cauldron so that she can rest. Those - goblins - gave your sister quite a fright. But she gave me the money, so shall we continue onward?"

"Yes, let's," Lily answered. She allowed herself one more glance at her mother's retreating back, then led her father up the stairs to where a few irritated goblins stood.

"So - so sorry!" Mr. Evans called as he and his daughter passed through both doors.

But when father and daughter reached the innards of Gringotts bank, Petunia was very nearly driven out of their minds. Scores of wizards and witches stood in a long line through the center of the giant marble building, underneath a few unlit chandeliers and giant skylights. Surrounding two and a half sides of the hall were a large number of goblins, who acted as tellers. Some were doing such bank-like things as exchanging currencies, but the majority were instead weighing large jewels, or stacking gold coins the size of car doors, or counting tiny, luminescent floating crystals. Even more goblins were leading people in and out of doors on the last wall.

Swiveling her head in every direction, Lily followed her father to the end of the line. It moved fairly quickly for a line of its size, but, as it was, it took Lily and Mr. Evans a good half-hour to reach a free goblin. Finally, a particularly long-bearded one called them over.

"Hello, Mr....Mr. Goblin, sir?" Mr. Evans spoke nervously. Lily fought the urge to sigh with exasperation and roll her eyes; she didn't want the good relationship with her parents to end. Meanwhile, the goblin gazed at Mr. Evans as though he had never seen anything quite like him.

"My name," he adjusted the very obvious nametag on his scarlet uniform, "is Schinlock. What can I do for you today?"

"I would like to-" Mr. Evans glanced down at his daughter. "I would like to start an account for my daughter and exchange some British money for...for the wizarding equivalent."

"That can be arranged. How much money would you like in the account?"

"Um..." Mr. Evans peered into his wife's large purse, pulling out a thick wallet. With one more glance at Lily, who smiled hopefully, Mr. Evans drew out some money. "300 pounds," he said proudly. Lily dropped the pamphlets she'd been holding.

"Dad...three hundred pounds?? Oh, thank you so much! I - I can't believe it! Th-three hundred pounds! That's just...wonderful!" Lily gushed, all composure forgotten. She threw her arms around her father's waist and hugged him hard.

"Lily, honey, your mother and I have discussed it, and we both feel so horrible for not treating you in the manner you deserve. This is rather like an apology, from the both of us," he smiled fondly down at his youngest daughter. A loud cough interrupted Lily's conversation with her father; the goblin was growing impatient.

"All right, 300 pounds," the goblin picked up the money Lily's father had set on the table and counted it carefully. After a few moments had passed and the goblin had found Mr. Evans' money adequate, he continued, "I will have someone take you down to the deposit-vaults, where we have a system for these very situations."

Lily turned back and hugged her father once more. When she pulled away, a new goblin was standing next to her.

"Done?" he asked with irritation.

"Yes," Lily smiled up at her father.

"All right then, follow me."

The goblin led them into one of the doors on the other side of the vast room. Through the door, a roughly cut stone tunnel plummeted downward. The strange tracks on the floor apparently were for transportation, because the moment after Lily's goblin guide had whistled, a tiny cart had whisked in front of the surprised Mr. Evans.

"All right, in yeh go," the goblin spoke harshly.

The cart ride was rather like one of the old, broken down roller coasters Lily had been on at the fair, except there was nothing holding her in. She stared at the various natural wonders in the underground caves they passed, from glittering crystals on the walls to the soft rustling of bat wings hundreds of meters above them. When they passed through a cavern particularly full of stalactites and stalagmites, Lily remembered how her father had told her to memorize the difference between the two when she had studied elementary geology in school: Mites go up, tights come down. Lily giggled nervously.

A few wild turns later, the rush of air on Lily's face drew lighter and lighter until they had stopped entirely. Along the walls were various small doors, each with a number over the top. Their goblin guide leapt out of the cart with enviable agility and strode over a few meters until he was stopped in front of door number 358.

"Everything should be in order by now; we've given them ten minutes," the goblin said. Lily presumed he was speaking more to himself than to Lily, as she had no idea what he was referring to. She jumped out of the cart with a lot less grace than the goblin. Mr. Evans followed.

"All right. Miss Evans," he indicated that Lily step forward. "Please come here."

He stepped aside so that Lily could stand right in front of the door. Lily followed his indication, feeling slightly silly: she could feel both Mr. Evans and the goblin staring fixedly at her back. She felt as though she ought to be doing something.

"Now, when I finish counting to three, I want you to say your full name loudly and clearly. One...two...three!"

"Lily Jacqueline Evans!" Lily called out, feeling rather silly talking to a door.

For a moment nothing happened, then a loud grating noise was heard. The noise continued until a small drawer had materialized out of the wall on the left side of the door. At a nod from the goblin, Lily reached forward and pulled it open. A tiny golden key fell into her palm, then the drawer disintegrated as though it had never been. Lily presumed that the key went to the vault; it was just the right size and proportion. What confused her is the process she had to go through to get it. She turned and looked at the goblin questioningly.

"Ah, that's just our licensing procedure. So that, do you lose the key, you are still able to get into your vault. Alright, Schinlock should have finished by now." When Lily didn't react to these words, he continued, "Go on, open it!"

Lily stepped forward and pushed the key into the keyhole that hadn't been there a moment before. The lock clicked and the small door swung open to reveal mountains of coins, colored silver, bronze, and gold. Lily stepped even closer, with the intention of putting some of the money into a bag, when she realized something: she didn't know how much money each coin was worth. Seeming to sense her confusion, Mr. Evans stepped up behind her and unfurled the map Lily had left in the cart.

"Here," he said, holding the map opposite side up so that Lily could see a small chart on the back:

Gold Galleons: largest denomination: 2.93 pounds
Silver Sickles: 17 to a Galleon: 0.17 pounds
Bronze Knuts: 29 to a Sickle: 0.01 pounds

"That's useful," Lily commented as her father helped her to pour a large amount of the money into her purse. Lily felt rather bad about taking so much of it, but, after all, it was her first year. Next time she wouldn't need as much money - she hoped.

Lily closed the safe with a bang and, moments later, she and Mr. Evans were standing on the steps outside of Gringotts, nodding recognition of the goblins by the bronzed doors.

When they reached the bottom of the marble stairs, Lily held out a hand to stop her father and consulted the map and her letter.

"Okay...the closest stores are-" she consulted the map a second time, "-are Cliffaulda's Cauldrons, Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions, and that apothecary, over there." She pointed toward a large building with the words 'Apothecary: Potion Ingredients, chemicals, workbooks, and acid-proofing glue'.

"Dad, why don't you get the cauldron and the apothecary materials, while I go get robes? That way, we'll finish faster, and we can meet outside Cliffaulda's when we're done."

"Sounds like a plan." Mr. Evans helped himself to some of the money from Lily's purse and took the Hogwarts letter so that he could be sure of what to get. Consulting the map a second time, Lily followed the suggested route to her destination: a small, cheery, bright yellow shop.

"My first robes..." Lily muttered to herself, happy that she really was going to Hogwarts now; there was no way her parents would change their mind after she already bought supplies. Still grinning to herself, the eleven-year-old pushed the door open and stepped inside.

For a moment, Lily thought that she had walked into an aviary; the second the door had closed, twittering had broke out all around her. Slowly, Lily registered that the brightly colored items whirling through her vision were arms, not feathers. The feather-like arms ushered a bemused redhead through a doorway of very pink beads. At this point, Lily managed to get away from them by means of standing on a stool in the room's center. Once away from the headache-inducing twittering, Lily surveyed the area she was now in.

It was a very pink room; the curtains were pink, the furniture was pink, the walls were pink, the carpet was pink, and the candles were pink. Standing in front of a bubblegum-colored loveseat were three young women, each wearing some very bright version of the black robes hanging around the room. Lily did not have very much more time to think on it, though, because the blonde stepped forward and walked around Lily, surveying the short girl's features.

"Hogwarts, are you?" She asked in a deep, musical voice that didn't suit her at all. When Lily nodded, the teenager continued: "So're we; Madam Malkin offers summer jobs to seventh years. Hope to see you in my own house! Gryffindor's the greatest."

"Whatever, Sally," spoke a girl with very strait, dark brown hair that Lily envied immediately; she'd never quite loved her own curly locks. The strait-haired girl picked up a set of black robes that were hanging on the window and held them up to Lily, snorting when she saw that they were a good two feet longer than Lily's full height. "See, nice thing about Ravenclaw is that we don't care if you're less - vertically inclined. All that matters is the smarts."

"And you think Gryffindor cares how tall you are?" The blonde, who had been called Sally, had dropped the tape measure she was holding and was now drawn to her full height in front of the Ravenclaw. "You don't have to be big to be brave!"

"Sally, Morgana, stop fighting! Friendship and loyalty are what's the most important, everyone in Hufflepuff knows that!" The final girl, who had pale brown hair and very weak, light blue eyes, spoke up. She moved forward and pulled Sally away from Morgana, then turned back to face the bewildered Lily.

"Sorry about them," she pointed her thumb over her shoulder at the two other girls. "They don't realize that they're just houses, nothing more." She rolled her eyes in exasperation, oblivious to the fact that the eyes of the other two were imitating her own mobile eyeballs.

"Yes, don't mind us," the girl named Sally grinned at Lily. "We know it's such a crime to care about something!" she ducked to avoid the pair of scissors the Hufflepuff had hurled in her direction. "We apologize for taking up so much of your time...back to the fitting?"

Even if the girls hadn't had their little argument, Lily still would have taken forever in the robes shop: the three girls, despite their competitive aura, were apparently great friends. They spent more time gossiping than fitting Lily for robes, which also meant that their attention was divided. When Lily left the shop with a package containing new robes, cloak, and hat, she sported a few nasty pinpricks where one of the girls' attention had wandered. But Lily couldn't stay in a bad mood for long: she was simply too elated at going to Hogwarts, and hearing the seventh-years discuss it had done nothing to damper the eleven-year-old's excitement. By the time she reached her father, who was lounging outside the cauldron shop with one of the large pot-like structures in front of him, Lily was grinning from ear to ear.

"What took you so long?" Mr. Evans asked as his daughter lobbed her new packages into the cauldron to join the potion ingredients her father had bought.

"Oh...long line, inattentive shopkeepers," Lily told him evasively, too fascinated with the passing cart display of giant, pulsating, orange spheres to answer with any more information.

"Very well," her father said. "Now, it's nearly five now, and I really want to know what happened to your sister. You wouldn't mind terribly if I went to check up on her, would you, Lily dear? That's it...I'll meet you outside of the large bookstore by the entrance, once I get back and you've finished your shopping." And with that he strode off into the rather diminished crowds.

"Yes, I kind of do mind!" Lily called after his retreating back, fully aware that her father couldn't hear her. A moment later, however, she felt incredibly selfish; for how her parents had originally treated her, this was a vast improvement, and her father had sacrificed the whole afternoon for her.

Sighing and shaking her head at her own annoying habit of pessimism, Lily headed off to the astrology store marked on McGonagall's map. Chiron's Healing was a small shop with dark walls and glittering specks of light in the air. Some odd perfume pervaded the place, making Lily feel sleepy and dreamy. She couldn't help it; she leaned back against a bookshelf and closed her eyes. She felt an odd vision come before her eyes just before they closed; it looked rather like the centaurs she had seen in fantasy picture books. Then she passed out.

The next thing Lily knew, she was lying on top of a scratchy rug and someone was pouring thick, gooey liquid onto her hands, which were being supported a few inches above her stomach.

"What - are you - get off me!" Lily tried to pull her hands free, but with no success. She opened her eyes to see stars in front of them. It took her a moment to realize that these weren't the stars that one sees when dizzy, these were actual stars. Grasping this concept, Lily remembered the small shop and the sleepy feeling that had come over her. She sat up.

"Mum, she's awake!" The person who had been pouring who-knows-what onto Lily called loudly.

"Um...excuse me, but might I ask what is going on?" Lily said.

"Oh, yes, dear - I must apologize for that," a new voice spoke from behind Lily, who twisted around to see who was talking. "Anyone who has been here before knows never to stand in the doorway; conflicting energies cause one to lose consciousness. But you are feeling better now?"

"Yes, quite so. Would you be willing to tell me how long I've been cataleptic? I'm in somewhat of a hurry and I still need to get the rest of my school supplies."

"Cataleptic?"

"Mum, it means unconscious," the first voice spoke with exasperation, moving forward to wipe off whatever she had put on Lily's hands.

"Ah, yes, of course. Quite an impressive vocabulary, my dear," the person to whom the second voice belonged had moved into the light of a purple candle. Lily rolled her eyes; she'd learned that word three years ago. "It hasn't been more than thirty minutes. Ah, but let me introduce myself: I am Gemini Windstorm, and this is my daughter Aquarius," she continued. "It's rather a tradition in our family to be named after astrological signs. So, anyway, I figured you were a Hogwarts student, so I got you a nice telescope, with mercury in the metal to make it stronger. And did you want one of the guides to the night sky? We've got a nice sale."

"Sure," Lily consented, standing up. She was impatient to leave; the perfume in the shop was making her dizzy and she was feeling tired: this trip to Diagon Alley was taking a very long time. She paid the two women and took the package they offered. However, just as Lily's hand brushed Aquarius', the latter let out a gasp and sank to her knees, breathing heavily and looking at Lily as though the redhead were particularly dangerous.

"Oh! Er, I'm sorry! Are you all right?" Lily reached forward to offer a hand to the fallen girl, but Aquarius backed away.

"Shush, dear," Mrs. Windstorm held up a hand to prevent Lily from coming any closer. "I know the signs...Aquarius, honey, you had a vision, am I correct?" The young woman nodded tremulously.

Her mother nodded in return, as though she had known this all along, and stepped away from the nervous Aquarius. When she returned to where she had been standing before, she was carrying a box full of glittering powder. Lily was reminded forcefully of the 'stars' that permeated the shop's interior. Mrs. Windstorm flicked some of this into her daughter's face, which caused Aquarius to sneeze a good seven times in a row.

"Thanks, mum," she spoke softly, drawing her shawl around her frail body. She backed away even further from Lily, and sank into a barely visible rocking chair.

"What did you see?" Mrs. Moonstone prompted anxiously after silence reigned for a number of minutes.

"I - you -" she pointed a long fingernail at Lily. "You mustn't go to Hogwarts!"

"WHAT?" Lily practically shouted. She had to go to Hogwarts, it was the one place where she knew she belonged. She told this to Aquarius, along with a few good curses and unnecessary information. "I've got to go! And you can't stop me!" She finished, her breath coming in short gasps. Both women looked rather taken aback at Lily's words, but Aquarius seemed to tighten her tenacity.

"You mustn't go!" She insisted. "If - if you go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you will die! You will graduate, yes, but just a few years after this, you will die!"

"This is insane. Mad, utterly mad," Lily muttered. "I don't have time for this, I've got to go get the rest of my supplies. For Hogwarts. Thank you for your help, but I don't appreciate your trying to fool me with some spurious 'vision.' I bid you good day."

She picked up her bundle and cauldron, which had been dropped on the floor, and with a last, contemptuous glance and mother and daughter, both who were staring at her with utmost horror, Lily turned and stormed out the door. Just before it closed, Aquarius' strained voice floated through.

"You're making a big mistake! You'll see, foolish girl! You just wait, you'll -" Lily slammed the door extra hard and turned up the street, very far from a good mood now.

Still incredibly annoyed, Lily paused in a corner and checked through the cauldron to see what she still needed. The only item left to get was a wand. Luckily, Lily thought. She didn't have anything against the wizarding world; on the contrary, it fascinated her, but her experiences so far in Diagon Alley were far from wonderful.

Trying to calm her aggravated spirit, Lily pushed open the door to Ollivander's wand shop (Maker of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.) and stepped inside. The shop was very tiny. Easily half the size of her attic at home, the only parts of the shop that wasn't small were the walls. They stretched up for >ages, Lily wasn't even sure where shelves ended and ceiling began. Other than these shelves, which resembled bookshelves if one ignored the long, thin packages stacked on them, a very tiny black desk chair sat in the middle of the room. Unsure of anything else to do, Lily walked over to it and was about to take a seat, when -

"Hello," said a soft, creepy voice. Lily's heart skipped several beats, and she set down her cauldron with more force than she had meant to, causing most of the bundles within to scatter across the floor.

"Oops - sorry -" Lily muttered as she darted around, gathering up her items. Face now matching her hair, she turned back to see an elderly man watching her with an expression across between amused and calculating. Sensing the burning sensation recede, Lily felt instead a cold shiver run up and down her spine. Mr. Ollivander's eyes were the same pale blue of the Hufflepuff she'd met in Madam Malkin's, but were far colder. Lily drew her cardigan tighter around her body. She waited a few more minutes for Mr. Ollivander to speak; when he didn't, she broke the silence with nervous ramblings.

"Um...hello. My name is Lily Evans...I - I need to buy a wand," Lily told him.

"Yes, of course, why else would you be here." He didn't phrase it like a question, so Lily refrained from answering.

He surveyed Lily for a few moments, then drew a tape measure out of his pocket.

"You're wand arm?"

"I'm - er, my right hand is dominant," Lily guessed at what he might be speaking of; Mr. Ollivander seemed satisfied, for he began to measure this.

"Twenty-three inches..." the man muttered to himself as he darted around the shelves, selecting different boxes.

Lily watched him, but when he disappeared into the gloom above, in search of a very out-of-the-way wand, Lily noticed that the tape measure had not stopped computing the lengths of her various limbs. It was now measuring the extent of her left index fingernail, then the span of the top of her ear, then the distance between two knuckles on her right hand.

"That is more than enough," Mr. Ollivander called as he proceeded back to normal elevation. The tape measure sailed lazily back into the wizard's left pocket. "Here, take this one - seven inches, birch, phoen - he stopped mid-sentence and grabbed from Lily's hand the wand she had been aimlessly waving. "No, no, of course not...how about this one: ash, eleven inches, dragon heartstring, rigid -" but as soon as he had finished describing the wand, he snatched it out of her hand.

Lily tried more and more wands, only partially listening to the shopkeeper's commentary. Sometimes Mr. Ollivander seized the wand right away; sometimes he let Lily wave it around foolishly for a few moments before reclaiming it.

"Ah - how about this one?" he suggested after Lily's arm was starting to grow tired, not to mention her patience. "How could I forget, I got this one particularly for you!" he held out the dustiest box yet. Lily recognized it as the one he had climbed so high to obtain.

"Yes, yes, try it - ten and a quarter inches, swishy, willow and unicorn hair -" Mr. Ollivander stopped speaking as Lily waved it around. But this time it felt different from all those other wands. Somehow, the eleven-year-old knew what to do: she twirled the wand with an abrupt wrist-flicking movement, and the next minute sparks flew out of its end. The color forcefully reminded Lily of the hunter-green nail polish she'd gotten in her hair a few years prior.

"Perfect, perfect, I thought so - the wand may choose the wizard, but the shopkeeper knows what to select!" Cackling in a very devious and slightly frightening way, Mr. Ollivander re-wrapped the wand, accepted Lily's seven galleons, ushered the girl out, and began closing up the shop.

Surprised, Lily glanced down at her watch - and nearly dropped her cauldron again. It was already six-forty, and she still had to buy her schoolbooks! Hoping that her parents wouldn't be too angry, Lily hurried up the now nearly empty, darkening streets. She felt slightly surprised that shops would close down so early, but it was a Tuesday evening, so Lily supposed people had work in the mornings. The only shops still open were a few small restaurants. As Lily walked past a Magical Menagerie, one of the few shops still open, she noticed that someone was trying to get out the door and making a lot of noise about it.

"Get - out - of here! Stupid owl, you cause nothing but trouble!" a middle-aged woman was waving a disheveled broomstick at a bird similar to the animal who had delivered Lily's Hogwarts letter. "You should be grateful that I saved you from the abusive family you used to live with! But no, you continue to cause as much trouble as you can! Get out, get going, now! Shoo!" She waved the broomstick at him again, but this time in hit the owl hard in the wing, and he fluttered with much less alacrity. Lily felt a surge of anger for the menagerie owner.

"Excuse me, but what are you doing?" Lily asked angrily. "You shouldn't treat animals like that!"

"What's that? Who's there? Listen here, whoever you are, you don't know this owl like I do! Now, SHOO!" She screeched, hitting the owl once more. The owl fell to the ground just as the irritable witch slammed the door shut.

Lily didn't really know much about owls, but she could tell by the way that the owl was lying motionless on the ground that he was severely hurt. She checked her watch one more time, aware that she really couldn't afford to stop, but she couldn't help it. Lily put her cauldron on the ground and reached down to pick up the owl, feeling its limbs inexpertly to see if anything were obviously wrong. The way that the owl was lying to motionless in her arms worried her.

The only thing that Lily's amateur fingers could find was that the wings seemed unnaturally stiff. When she touched the left one, the formerly still owl let out a very feeble, barely comprehensible, hoot of pain. Lily glanced around the now-empty alleyway. Maybe her mother would be able to help. Mrs. Evans' parents had a farm, and the woman knew a good amount of animal care.

Lily picked up her cauldron carefully, set the owl inside, and walked as briskly as she could without upsetting the injured bird of prey.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, Lily had reached the outside of the large 'Flourish and Blots,' which, luckily, was still open. Outside it, wringing her hands nervously and shivering in the brisk night air, was Lily's mother.

"Oh, Lily!" she squealed when her youngest daughter came into view. "I was ever so worried! What - what have you got there?" she gasped when she saw the partially conscious owl. "What - what happened? Dear, are you all right? Where did you get this owl?"

Lily quickly explained what had happened, feeling grateful that her mother had been waiting for her, as opposed to Mr. Evans. Try as she might to be the perfect trophy wife for her lawyer husband, Lily knew that her mother loved animals of all kinds, and really missed the farm on which she had grown up. It wouldn't be too difficult to convince Mrs. Evans that the owl needed a home. And Lily was right: her mother spent a good five minutes fawning over the owl.

"See, that horrible woman's broom handle hit him here, and here," Mrs. Evans pointed out slight indentations in the owl's wings. "He isn't hurt worse than having sprained wings, but he's been dazed badly. Ooh, look! Eeylops Owl Emporium is still open! Lily, why don't I nip over there, get some medication and a cage for the owl, and you can get your school books."

"Sounds good to me," Lily consented. She felt better than she had since the peculiar astrology shop; her annoyance had dissipated with concern for the owl.

Mrs. Evans accepted a few of the coins from Lily's purse before turning in the direction of the rustling, hooting, Eeylops. As for Lily, she hoisted the now considerably heavy cauldron into her arms and walked into the warmth of the bookstore.

The single clerk, the only person still on duty, was enjoying a plate of some bizarre, disgusting-looking seafood. Trying to block out the smell of this, Lily coughed to get the man's attention.

"Ah, a late customer!" the clerk announced after finally noticing Lily. "First year?" he asked after noticing the cauldron Lily had placed upon the ground. "We have pre-organized stacks of first year books -" he retrieved a very large, heavy looking pile of glossy books, and dumped them into Lily's cauldron.

"Oh, thanks," Lily told him. "Would you mind if I had a quick look around before paying?"

"No, that's fine. Feel free to look around; unlike the other shops, Flourish and Blots is proud to stay open until eight o'clock every night!" he told Lily proudly.

Occasionally glancing out of the display windows to see if her mother had returned, Lily browsed the shelves. Though her purse was considerably lighter than it had been in the early afternoon, she did have enough excess money to buy some extra reading material. Hogwarts, a History immediately drew her attention; Lily knew little of the school and desperately wanted to find out more. After about fifteen minutes, Lily paid the clerk for all of her schoolbooks and three additional ones: Astrology for the Stargazer, Hogwarts, a History, and A Study of Ancient Wizarding Runes.

The schoolbooks were by far Lily's most expensive endeavor, but the clerk told her (with the tentacles of whatever he was devouring sticking out of his mouth and swinging wildly as he spoke) that he would give her a 'late-night discount', which she gratefully accepted.

Mrs. Evans was already present when Lily closed the door of the bookstore behind her. She held up a cage containing the now-sleeping owl, and explained that the clerk had given her some tonic to put on the owl's wounds. Straining from the weight of all of their packages and all of their exhaustion, mother and daughter headed slowly out of the alleyway.