Harry Potter and the Ones to Finish It

Chapter Five

Shopping

Sunlight cascaded through the bedroom window and aroused the girls from their dreams. Lina sat up in her bed. Emma and Jess simultaneously rolled over away from the light and tried to go back to sleep.

'Guys, get up,' said Lina. 'We're in the Leaky Cauldron! The magical world! Don't you want to go and look around?'

Emma said something that sounded like 'muhhambumner,' and Jess shoved her pillow over her ears. Lina got out of her bed and walked over to open the window.

'Its summer!' she exclaimed, turning back to the beds, 'and breakfast is here!'

That worked. Jess and Emma sat bolt upright and scrambled out of their beds. Sitting on each girl's wooden chest was a large tray and a piece of paper.

'Well, I've never had THAT for breakfast before,' said Jess sarcastically.

'It's a menu,' said Lina, rolling her eyes. 'I s'pose we just say what we want and it will appear, like at the Yule Ball.'

'Don't ask,' Jess mumbled to Emma. 'Ok, let's see then.'

She picked up her menu and read it.

'It's pretty much normal breakfast food,' said Emma. 'I'm going to have...the muesli with sliced peaches and natural yoghurt, and a cappuccino.'

Jess ordered pancakes with maple syrup and a mochaccino, and Lina had the bacon and eggs on toast and a hot chocolate.

As soon as each of them had said what they wanted, the menus disappeared from their hands and with a small pop their order sat neatly on their trays.

After finishing their breakfast the girls got dressed and headed downstairs to the bar.

'Did either of you notice how, uh, differently we dress to everyone here?' said Emma.

'Yeah, I did,' said Jess. 'Did you see that guy in the bar with the feathers last night?'

They entered the bar. Sunlight struggled through the dirty window panes above the door, casting filtered light through the room and illuminating the floating dust particles. Tom the barman walked towards them.

'Enjoy your breakfast girls?'

'Yeah,' said Lina, the other two nodded.

'These arrived for you this morning.' He handed them each an envelope. 'Feel free to explore Diagon Alley and London if you feel confident that you can find your way back.'

The girls glanced nervously at each other, and silently agreed not to even try. Tom turned on his peg-leg to walk away.

'Wait, uh, Tom?' called Lina.

'Arrr?'

'We can't...I mean, we don't know how to get to Diagon Alley.'

'Oh yes of course!' said Tom, 'I forgot!' He frowned momentarily at Emma, who was trying to catch the floating pieces of dust before handing each of them a small round button.

'Just put these on the third brick up, second across and a hole will open right up. And please, call me Cap'n Tom.' He disappeared into a small room behind the bar. Strange noises could be heard from that little room, and Lina was quite terrified. Jess, Lina and Emma went and sat down at a table in the corner and opened their envelopes, reading the identical letters in silence.

I hope your stay at the Leaky Cauldron is comfortable. Enclosed are tickets for the train which you should catch from Platform Nine and Three Quarters at Eleven O'clock on the First of September. I am looking forward a great deal to meeting you all, the ones who will finish it. If you need help, just call for me.

Albus Dumbledore.

Lina was first to finish.

'The ones who will finish it?'

Emma and Jess looked up from their copies.

'Maybe "it's" a puzzle...' said Emma. 'I'm good at puzzles.'

'I don't think Dumbledore would go to all the trouble of getting us here just to finish a puzzle, Mz.'

'What about if it was a really HARD p...'

'Did you guys get a second envelope?' Lina interrupted.

'No,' said Jess.

Lina pulled out a small purple envelope and read the address.

'Oh, it's for Gringotts, the bank. It must be about our money.'

'Sweet, I want to go shopping,' said Jess.

They tucked their letters away in their pockets and went out the back door of the bar into the alleyway.

'Third up...second across,' mumbled Lina, counting bricks. She placed her button on the brick and waited. Nothing happened. Emma put her button on the brick too and motioned for Jess to do the same. Suddenly the brick quivered and a small hole appeared. It gradually grew bigger and bigger until it was the size of a large doorway. The girls walked through and found themselves in a busy street unlike any street they'd seen before. Wizards and witches hurried past in all directions and everywhere the girls looked there was something that interested them. Theirs' were the only jeans in sight.

'We should go to the bank first,' said Jess.

The headed down the cobblestone street, turning their heads in all directions as they passed the crowded shops. A huge marble building came into view. The girls climbed the steps to the front door where two goblins stood guard. Emma screamed.

'Mz, shut up!' said Jess urgently. The goblins scowled and bowed them in reluctantly.

Emma glanced nervously over her shoulder at the goblins at the desks on either side of them as they headed for the main desk, where there sat an especially ugly goblin. Jess could hear Emma's teeth chattering.

'Um, hi,' Lina said, after being nudged forward by Jess. 'We have this letter from-from Dumbledore.'

The goblin looked up over the rim of his half-moon spectacles and slowly reached out with his long fingers to take the envelope. He was worried that these three witches may see through his thin disguise and reveal him as who he really was - mini me. After reading the letter from Dumbledore carefully, he called for another goblin named Gargimon. Gargimon lead the girls down a hallway and through a door. On the other side of the door was a dark stone tunnel sloping downwards and a pair of tracks. Gargimon let out a piercing whistle and a cart came whizzing along the tracks, making an abrupt stop in front of the girls.

'Everybody in,' said Gargimon. The girls slowly lowered themselves into the cart.

'Hold onto your things,' the goblin said, and Jess clutched her Emma tightly.

The cart jerked forward, quickly gathering speed as it plummeted downwards through the tunnel. Lina let out a short scream as the cart wildly rounded the first corner. Left, left, right, left, right. Deeper and deeper. The girls were thrown from side to side as the cart continued its journey. Gargimon held up his hand and the cart stopped suddenly. On their right was a vault.

'This is the Hogwarts vault,' said Gargimon, pulling out a key and turning it in the silver keyhole. The vault door swung open and the girls stepped inside. The vault was the size of a small room, and was full of coins. Gargimon fetched three sacks and showed them each their "accounts", which were small cubby-holes in the side of one wall.

'You each have one thousand five hundred galleons there,' Gargimon said.

The girls all decided that they'd take 500 galleons now to last them for this year.

'How are we going to carry all this money?' moaned Emma, dropping her full sack with the weight of the coins.

Gargimon rummaged around in his deep pocket and handed them each a small card, like a Visa card.

'You can put your money on these, and whenever you want something, just ask the card.'

The girls got reluctantly back into the cart and with a lurch, they were off again, whizzing past all sorts of dodgy goblin goings-on and what-not. Minutes later they stood in the bank, holding huge sacks of gold, silver and bronze coins. They lugged their sacks over to some cushy chairs next to a swaying orange fern and sat down.

'How do you think we put the money on our cards?' pondered Lina. She looked at Emma. 'Mz, what are you doing?'

Emma was pulling out handfuls of coins and piling them on top of her card, smiling broadly as, with a poof, the gold disappeared.

'Hehehe!' she giggled.

Jess tookk Emma's card, which now read '4 Galleons, 15 sickles, 24 knuts' along the bottom where theirs' read '000.' The girls sat for a few minutes, literally putting money on their cards and when their bags were empty the cards read '500 Galleons'.

'Lina, how does this money work?' said Jess.

'Seventeen sickles to a galleon, twenty-nine knuts to a sickle,' Lina replied.

'Random numbering...um... can I have ten Galleons?' Jess asked her card. The number on her card dissolved slowly and reappeared as '490 Galleons'. A small pile of coins appeared in front of Jess. After they had practised putting money on their cards and taking it off again far more times than necessary the girls stepped back out into the sunny street.

'Where to first?' said Emma.

'We should get our books and things,' said Lina, unrolling her booklist. 'Look at the bottom of this.' She showed the list to Emma and Jess. Under the books required for their compulsory subjects (Transfiguration, Charms, History of Magic and Defence against the Dark Arts) there was a note which read:

As you will notice, fifth years only have four compulsory subjects. Before purchasing your books, it is necessary for you to choose three extra subjects for studying. The options are as follows: Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes, Arithmacy, Herbology and Astronomy. Please choose carefully as these are the subjects you will sit your OWLS in.

'Let's go get an ice-cream and decide,' suggested Emma. The three of them walked over to Florean Fortescue's Ice-cream Parlour and ordered. Then they found a table outside under a shady umbrella and sat down.

'I really want to take Care of Magical Creatures,' said Emma.

'Same,' Jess and Lina agreed.

'The other options are going to be a hard to decide on,' said Lina. 'Not much point in us taking muggles studies.' She crossed it out with a biro. She also crossed out Arithmacy and Divination. Jess had already decided on Care of Magical Creatures and Potions, and was tossing up between Astronomy and Herbology.

'Do herbology with me Jess,' said Emma, who had already chosen Care of Magical Creatures, Potions and Herbology, 'Then we'll have all the same subjects.'

Jess agreed and wrote down her final choices on the list as Emma had done. A message came up saying, 'Are you sure?'

'I just wrote "yes" underneath,' Emma shrugged. Jess did the same and in the space where the note had been, a list of the books she would need for her option subjects appeared.

'I love all this vanishing writing,' said Jess.

'I don't really want to do potions,' said Lina, frowning at her list and licking her cookies 'n' cream ice-cream with raspberry sauce and chocolate chips. 'I'm going to do Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology and...Astronomy,' she said, writing in her subjects as she spoke.

The girls finished their ice-creams and made their way through the crowds to Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore. After looking through the endless shelves for half an hour and coming up empty handed, Jess spotted a section right by the entrance with a large sign that read 'HOGWARTS REQUIREMENTS.' They pretended they'd seen that before and got all the books they needed. Then they went to look at the wizard magazines.

Lina picked up a copy of The Quibbler.

'Hey look, Luna Lovegood is the editor,' she said. 'She must have taken over from her dad.'

Emma was flipping through Hair and Beauty Spells and Potions. And Jess was looking at the 'Wizard Spunk' section of Witch Weekly.

'Eww, the British witch community have bad taste.' She said, holding up a centrefold picture of a man with his robes unbuttoned revealing a hairy pot belly.

'He has a nice face,' Emma shrugged. Jess exchanged her magazine for Teen Witch, which looked much more interesting and they went to the counter and bought a copy of the magazines they had been reading, deciding that they needed to learn more about the magical community before starting at Hogwarts. Plus they had so much money now and very little self control. They also all pitched in for a subscription to the Daily Prophet.

Each of them left the store laden with huge shopping bags full of books, and after stopping into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions for their uniforms, decided to make a quick stop back at their room at the Leaky Cauldron to drop off their purchases. Then they headed back to Diagon Alley, agreeing that wands were the next thing they should buy. They walked inside Ollivanders and a chime sounded in the back of the store.

'The owner of this shop sounds creepy,' whispered Emma, remembering the first Harry Potter book.

'I hope you're talking about my Uncle and not me,' said a voice behind them. They turned around and saw the speaker: a young, good looking wizard wearing muggle jeans and a t-shirt.

'Sorry...' said Emma, nervously. 'I...'

'Nah, don't' worry about it,' said the wizard, who didn't look much older than them. 'He was a creep. You girls look too old to be buying your first wands.'

'Umm, I'm sixteen, they're fifteen,' said Emma, 'but we're only starting Hogwarts this year.'

The wizard raised his eyebrows.

'Cool,' He said shortly. 'I'm Marcus Ollivander by the way, but just call me Olli.' Olli turned away from the girls and walked slowly up the isles, he pulled a box off the shelf.

'We'll start with you,' he said, motioning towards Jess and smiling. 'What's your name?'

'Jess.'

'Right Jess,' said Olli. 'Just swish this around a bit.'

He opened the thin wooden box and pulled out a wand with a gold end.

'12 inches, that's about 26.5 centimetres, and it's Rimu for the kiwi girl.'

'How'd you know?' said Emma. 'Most people can't recognise our accents.'

'I've been to New Zealand lots of times, I love it there. Where abouts are you from?'

'Wellington,' said Jess. She took the wand from Olli and gave it a quick swish. Golden sparks showered them all.

'Brilliant,' said Olli. Emma noticed he was looking at Jess's gleaming smile rather than the wand. 'That's why the call me First Time Olli.'

'They call you first time Olli?' said Emma, trying not to laugh.

Olli didn't answer as he set Jess's wand aside.

'You next then?' he said to Emma. It was more a statement than a question and Olli walked up and down the rows of wands for a few minutes before pulling out a box. He strode back towards them and handed Emma a wand with a silver tip.

'24 centimetres, willow,' he said as Emma waved the wand around. Nothing happened.

'I'm sure that's the right one,' said Olli, 'What we're you thinking about? The wand?'

'Ah, no, baboons' said Emma blushing.

'Try again.'

Emma waved the wand again and a torrent of pink sparks filled the room. Sadly, nothing blew up like it did in the movie.

'So, that's two down, one to go.' He absent-mindedly pulled a box off the nearest shelf and opened it. Lina frowned.

'Don't worry,' said Olli, grinning. 'I know what I'm doing, I'm just showing off for Jess here.'

He handed Lina the wand. Jess raised her eyebrows and looked at Emma.

'That one's 28 centimetres, ash,'

Lina didn't even lift her arm and the wand shot out thousands of light blue sparks. She twirled it round her head.

'Careful now,' said Olli, taking the wand off her and placing it back in it's box. 'Well that's strange.'

'What is?' asked Jess.

'All of your wands are particularly good for duelling. It is possible for friends to have wands with the same or similar qualities, but duelling wands are extremely rare...if fact, I think these are the only three we have. Anyway,' he added, 'that'll be eight galleons each,'

The girls took the money off their cards, Jess taking a lot longer than necessary finding hers.

'You guys go ahead,' said Jess. 'I'll meet you outside.'

Emma led a confused Lina outside, where she explained the Olli - Jess thing.

'I thought he was kidding...' said Lina as Jess emerged from inside the shop.

'So...Olli ay?' said Emma, grinning. Jess grinned back.

'He asked me to meet him at the Leaky Cauldron next weekend,' she said.

'Did you say yes?' asked Lina.

Jess nodded.

'He's pretty hot,' said Emma approvingly.

The girls were hungry and so decided to find somewhere for lunch. Lina - the Harry Potter buff - couldn't remember a café mentioned in any of the books and so the girls strolled down Diagon Alley, looking for a likely lunch spot. While they looked they discovered several interesting shops which they made a note to visit after they'd eaten. Soft hooting came from Eeylop's Owl Emporium and dozens of young boys rushed eagerly into a joke shop which turned out to be Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Finally Jess spotted a small shop at the very end of the street with a small hanging sign outside which read The Niffler Café and bar. It was painted bright purple with yellow window frames and as they approached two girls about their age walked out. They went inside and sat down at a table. There were beautiful, exotic flowers displayed in a vase and a menu already lying there. How was Emma to know that they were African Biting flowers? They chose what they wanted and waited for a waiter, Emma nursing her punctured fingers. Ten nutes later they were still waiting.

'Pretty lax service,' said Lina.

'Oh my god, I bet we're supposed to the talking-to-the-menu thing!' said Jess. She ordered a sausage roll, chocolate-caramel muffin and mango juice. Nothing happened. 'Hmmm, maybe not...'

'Look down the bottom,' said Lina. 'It says to have your money lying on the menu before ordering. The girls pulled out some money from their bags and heaped it on the menus, then ordered again. The food instantly appeared, as well as two knuts change for Emma, who had trouble remembering how many knuts to a sickle.

'It's twenty-nine, Mz,' said Lina. 'Not thirty-one.'

After they had finished they sat and talked about what they wanted to buy next. Emma was quite keen on a snake, but Lina and Jess both said they would be too freaked out by it. They settled instead, on an owl.

So their next stop after lunch was Eeylop's Owl Emporium, which contained dozens of owls in cages and smelt like poop. The owls were expensive and the girls didn't expect much mail from owl post so they all bought an owl together. It was small and brown and cocked its head at you whenever you talked to it. Emma insisted on calling it Stevie since she didn't get the snake she wanted. They took Stevie back to the Leaky Cauldron and then returned once again to Diagon Alley. The girls then purchased the other equipment they would need, for Jess and Emma this was a cauldron, a set of glass phials, a set of scales, and potions ingrediants and for Lina it was a telescope and star chart. Then they went to look in the twins' joke shop. Most things seemed quite immature, and they quickly got sick of all the boys running around laughing at fart jokes.

'Hey, this looks pretty cool,' Emma called. Jess and Lina squeezed past a group of kids towards them. Emma was standing beside a glass cabinet containing all kinds of bewitched jewellery. She pointed at a clear coloured ring which was very hard to see.

'It's an actual mood ring,' she said, 'only twelve sickles. We should all get one.'

Jess and Lina agreed and they all bought a ring, which adjusted to the size of whichever finger they put it on.

'Not many of our customers buy this for some strange reason,' said the chubby, pimple-scarred shop assistant. Lina looked around at the annoying little boys that filled the shop and raised one eyebrow him, partly for being dumb, and partly because the mullet just wasn't cool, man.

They were each given a little booklet to recognise what mood different colours represented.

'The ring can turn fifty different colours,' Jess read, 'including peach and aubergine.'

'Cool,' said Emma, looking at her booklet. 'My rings gone dark green, which apparently means I'm currently relaxed but nervous about something deep down. That's pretty freakishly accurate.'

'Mine's orange,' said Lina, frowning, 'which is supposed to mean "varying degrees of sexual arousal".'

Emma and Jess laughed.

'Well, I can understand,' said Jess sarcastically. 'I mean, that shop assistant back there was pretty damn hot...'

'I don't think that's orange,' said Emma, looking closely at Lina's ring and flipping through her booklet. 'I'd say it's more like salmon pink, which means you're currently excited and yet apprehensive.'

'Well I'm terracotta - happy with something new in my life that means an escape from monotony,' said Jess. 'That's in-depth.'

Chapter Six

Enemies

The girls walked along, all of them reading their books and closely monitoring any changes in the colour of their rings. Not watching where she was walking, Emma got separated from the others, but as they were all too engrossed in the booklets, none of them noticed. Finally Emma looked up from her book and found herself outside the Apothecary. She figured that Jess and Lina must be inside so she went in. There were only three other people inside; the shopkeeper and the two girls they had seen outside The Niffler. Emma walked towards them.

'Hey, did either of you see my friends?' she asked them. 'They're about this tall, dark hair.'

The girls, who were both dressed in casual robes eyed Emma's jeans and didn't reply for a minute.

'No,' said one of them coldly, and they turned back to the ingredients they were looking at.

'Bitch,' Emma muttered as she turned to leave the store. But as usual she spoke louder than she intended to.

'What did you call us?'

Emma turned around.

'Huh?' she said, trying to look innocent. The girls looked pretty scary and she didn't want a repeat of the Paraparaumu incident.

**Flashback**

Emma and Jess sat outside the mall, waiting for the rest of their friends. A group of girls and guys stood not too far away, eyeing Jess and Emma with dislike. Another girl walked past, wearing not an awful lot.

'What a skank,' said Jess.

'Yea,' Emma agreed. The skank disappeared inside.

Two of the girls from the group wandered over.

'Oi, did you's just call my mate a skank?'

Emma and Jess frowned.

'No...' said Jess. Afterall, it wasn't one of their friends they had been talking about.

'Well, she thinks you's did, and she wants to fuck you's up.'

Jess's eyes widened. Her and Emma were severly outnumbered, and these girls looked pretty rough, with all the foundation and eye liner.

As much as Jess and Emma insisted that they hadn't said anything, the scouts from the group kept warning them not to look at them, which they didn't.

Luckily, they escaped without a hiding. But being the good little girls they were, that was the closest to death they'd ever been. To this day Jess is still shaken.

**End Flashback**

'I didn't say anything.'

'Yes you did,' said the larger of the two girls. 'You said "bitch".'

Emma gulped.

'I meant the fact that you hadn't seen my friends...is a bitch,' she said, adding, 'it's a colloquialism we use where I come from,' seeing the disbelieving look of their faces.

'A colloqui-what?' said the big girl.

God Emma hated dumb people.

'Colloquilism...' she said, 'don't you know what that is?'

'Are you implying we're stupid?' said the smaller girl, who was still bigger than Emma and had her straw-coloured hair in two pigtails.

'No, of course I'm n...'

'She thinks we're stupid,' said the big girl, turning to her friend, 'Lucy, she thinks we're stupid!'

Emma was about to say that actually yes, she did think they were stupid, when Jess and Lina walked in, pushing their sunglasses back onto their heads.

'There you are, Mz,' said Lina as they walked over, then seeing the girls, 'Oh, hi!'

Lucy, the girl with pigtails narrowed her eyes at Emma and they left the shop.

'Whatta bitch,' muttered Lina. But she too spoke louder than she intended to.

The big girl turned angrily around and made a grab at Lina, who ducked.

'Freda, let's just go,' said Lucy, pulling her friend back. And she dragged her out.

'Shit, it was like Paraparaumu all over again,' said Jess. 'Stupid butch skanks.'

'I hope they're not at Hogwarts,' said Lina. 'Cause if they are I've got some enemies already.'

'Me too,' said Emma. 'I did what you did.'

They looked around the Apothecary for a while; Emma and Jess still needed to buy their Potions ingredients. They were all fascinated by the shiny snakes' scales which came in various colours. When they left the apothecary it was four thirty, so they decided to head back to the Leaky Cauldron.

They had dinner at five, as was done in England, then, having nothing else to do, headed off to bed.

'Urgh!' growled Jess. 'There is no way all my books are going to fit into my suitcase! And I'm the master packer!'

'Me neither,' said Lina. 'We're going to have to buy new ones.'

'From where?' said Jess, 'I didn't see any likely places in Diagon Alley.'

'I guess we'll have to go into London...' said Emma. She saw the worried look on Jess and Lina's faces. 'I have a really good sense of direction, we won't get lost.'

Jess and Lina didn't look any more reassured.

'Oh come on, we'll just stay close by, ok?'

Lina agreed, and she and Emma managed to convince Jess. They let Stevie out of his cage, telling him first that he'd better come back, and then snuggled down into their beds.