August 1993
First week of August brought the particular chaos that I’d come to recognize as the lead-up to the school term — a steady swell of families crowding the Alley, robes and cauldrons and rolls of parchment changing hands at a pace that kept my till considerably busier than the quiet, patient rhythm I’d gotten used to through July.
I liked it, mostly.
There was something satisfying about a shop finally earning the kind of foot traffic I’d been patiently building toward since opening day.
It was in the middle of that particular rush — a Tuesday, I want to say, though the days had started blurring pleasantly together — that a stern, formidable-looking witch swept in, trailing a girl of about thirteen who had the same sharp, no-nonsense set to her jaw, though considerably less battle-worn.
“Amelia Bones,” the witch said, extending a hand with the brisk efficiency of someone used to introductions being a formality rather than a getting-to-know-you exercise.
“Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
This is my niece, Susan.”
“Marcus Hale.
Welcome — let me know if I can help with anything.”
Amelia’s eyes had already found the glasses display, sharp and assessing in a way that reminded me, not unpleasantly, of Lucius Malfoy’s scrutiny a few weeks prior, minus the theatre.
“I’ve heard about these from two separate colleagues now.
Vision correction, no prescription needed?”
“That’s right.”
“Could they be made as a monocle instead?
I’ve no interest in a full pair — I find spectacles constantly sliding down my nose in the middle of testimony, which is its own particular indignity — but a fixed monocle, worn properly, might solve the problem without the same fuss.”
I considered it honestly rather than simply promising yes on the spot, which I suspected she’d have respected less.
“Harder than it sounds, if I’m honest — most of the stabilizing charm relies on the weight being balanced across two lenses rather than one, and a monocle’s a different anchoring problem entirely.
I won’t promise it works on the first try.
But I’d like to actually attempt it properly, rather than tell you no just because I haven’t done it before.”
Something in her expression eased into approval at that — the specific respect, I was coming to recognize, that direct people reserved for other direct people.
“I’d appreciate that.
Write to me once you’ve something worth testing.
I’ll make time to come try it in person rather than trust an owl’s description of how it feels on the face.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said, and meant it, already turning the anchoring problem over in my head with the particular, itching pleasure of a genuinely interesting puzzle.
Susan, meanwhile, had wandered to the storage ring, examining it with rather more open delight than her aunt’s careful reserve allowed for.
“Could you fit an entire trunk’s worth of things in the big one?
My friend Hannah’s dead jealous already and I haven’t even bought anything yet.”
“The fifty-cubic-metre tier could manage a good amount more than a trunk, yes.
I would imagine a ten-cubic-meter being sufficient.”
“Brilliant,” Susan said, with real feeling, and I decided, watching aunt and niece leave a short while later — Amelia with a promise of correspondence, Susan with a low tier ring she’d talked her aunt into buying — that this particular kind of afternoon, three strangers becoming three acquaintances over twenty honest minutes, was exactly the sort of thing I’d hoped running this shop would feel like.
●●
I noticed the boy the very first time he walked past my window, and I knew exactly who he was before he’d taken three steps into view.
I’d like to say I played it cool because I was simply that composed.
The truth was closer to sheer force of will.
Some part of me — the part that had spent a previous life reading about this exact street, this exact scar, this exact too-large jumper — wanted very badly to drop the box I was holding and stare the way half the Alley plainly was.
Because the rest of the street wasn’t being subtle about it at all.
A witch near the Apothecary actually gasped and grabbed her companion’s sleeve.
A shopkeeper two doors down came out from behind his own counter just to watch him pass.
Someone near Flourish and Blotts said his name like it was a whole sentence on its own, reverent and a little too loud, and Harry’s shoulders climbed a fraction higher with every step, the specific flinch of someone who’d learned to brace for exactly this reaction and never quite gotten used to it.
I made myself go back to restocking the shelf in front of me instead.
Not because I didn’t care — I cared, rather more than I had any right to on a first sighting — but because I suspected, watching his shoulders, that the single most valuable thing I could offer a boy who’d just been stared at by an entire street was the experience of being looked at like an ordinary customer for once. Visit novelping(.)com for the full chapter.
I let him drift past my window without so much as glancing up, and felt privately, ridiculously delighted with myself for managing it.
He didn’t come in that day.
It took two more passes before he actually crossed the threshold — same slightly too-large jumper, same messy dark hair, same careful, unhurried study of the storage ring on its cushion each time — and I let myself notice, with no small amount of internal glee that I kept entirely off my face, that whatever had drawn him back a third time, it was the shop itself and not the several extremely enthusiastic welcomes I suspected he’d received elsewhere on the street in the meantime.
He came in on the third day.
The bell rang, and I looked up from restocking a shelf — deliberately unhurried, deliberately unimpressed, every bit of my actual internal reaction locked down tight — to find a boy standing just inside the doorway, round glasses a little crooked, the famous scar just visible beneath a fringe he clearly kept a bit long on purpose.
He hovered near the door the way people hover when they’re not entirely sure they’re allowed to be somewhere, glancing at the shelves rather than at me, and I understood, watching him brace for a reaction that hadn’t come yet, exactly how rare a shopkeeper’s plain indifference must have felt to him by now.
“Take your time,” I said, easily, going back to my restocking rather than watching him too directly.
I’d learned that much, at least, from three weeks of nervous Hogwarts first-years — some people needed to feel unwatched before they’d actually look at anything properly.
I also, privately, needed a moment to get my own face fully under control before I trusted myself to look at him directly without grinning like an idiot.
He drifted, slow and careful, toward the storage ring, and I caught the exact moment recognition crossed his face — not recognition of me, but of the item itself, the specific light-up interest of someone who’d clearly been eyeing it through the window for days and was only now working up the nerve to actually ask about it.
“Does it really hold a whole cubic metre?” he asked, not quite looking at me, addressing the question more to the ring itself.
“The sign said that’s just the smallest one.”
“It does.
Weightless too — you could fill it with books, camping gear, whatever you like as long as it’s non-living, and it’d sit on your finger no heavier than the ring alone.
There’s an option for ten and a fifty as well, if you ever need to move house in your pocket, but this little one covers most people’s day to day lives.” I set down the box I’d been unpacking and came around the counter, keeping my tone as level and unremarkable as I could manage, wrestling my own excitement all the way down to something that could pass, from the outside, for ordinary professional friendliness.
“Go on, pick it up if you like.
It won’t do anything without your say-so.”
He picked it up carefully, the way you handle something you suspect might be worth more than you could ever afford, and turned it over in his fingers.
A woman browsing nearby had gone very still, I noticed, her eyes flicking between Harry’s scar and his face with the particular, badly-hidden intensity I was already learning to recognize as recognition.
I caught her eye deliberately and gave her a small, level look — nothing rude, just enough to say not today — and she had the grace to look faintly embarrassed and return to her browsing.
Harry hadn’t noticed.
I decided to keep it that way if I could help it.
“How’s it — I mean, it doesn’t collapse?
My friend’s dad works at the Ministry, he says spaces like this go wrong sometimes.”
“Your friend’s dad isn’t wrong to be cautious.
Get the anchoring wrong and it can, yes.” I didn’t dress it up or dismiss the concern, which I suspected, watching his shoulders ease slightly, was probably the right call — a kid who’d clearly learned to be wary of adults smoothing things over for him would likely trust an honest answer more than a reassuring one.
“Mine’s anchored properly.
Took me three tries to get right, if I’m honest — first attempt ate a sock and never gave it back.”
That got the faintest flicker of a smile out of him, there and gone.
“What happened to the sock?”
“No idea.
Somewhere in a pocket of space I can’t reach anymore, presumably having a very quiet time of it.” I shrugged.
“I keep meaning to feel bad about it.
Haven’t managed yet.”
He laughed — a short, surprised sound, like it had escaped before he’d properly decided to let it — and set the ring down gently, though I noticed he didn’t step away from it entirely.
“It’s brilliant.
I just—” He stopped himself, glanced briefly toward the door, and I got the distinct sense he was doing some private math about money he either didn’t have or wasn’t sure he was allowed to spend.
“No pressure to buy anything,” I said, easily, going back around the counter to give him a bit more room.
“Half the people who come through that door are just looking.
I’d rather you look properly than feel rushed into a decision you’re not sure about.”
He wandered further into the shop, and I let him, occupying myself with restocking again rather than hovering, until he stopped in front of the glasses display and went very still.
“These do more than correct eyesight?” he asked, and something in his voice had shifted — less idle curiosity now, more careful, guarded interest.
“Correct eyesight, yes.
Reads the wearer, adjusts on its own — no prescription needed, and they’ll keep adjusting if your eyes change over time, so you’re not stuck buying a new pair every year or two.” I kept my tone deliberately unremarkable, matter-of-fact, the same register I’d have used describing the weather.
“Low-light vision too, and a bit of reading-speed help, if that’s ever useful.”
He picked up the display pair, slid them on without quite seeming to decide to, and went very quiet, staring around the shop with an expression I recognized instantly and felt, unexpectedly, a small ache over — the specific wonder of someone seeing the world sharpen into focus for what might have been the first time in years, not because the correction itself was novel, but because I suspected, watching him, that nobody in his life had ever quite bothered to ask whether his current glasses even worked properly.
“Oh,” he said, very softly, mostly to himself.
“I didn’t realize how blurry the edges were.”
I didn’t push.
I’d learned enough, over one summer of careful conversations with careful people, to recognize when pushing would close a door rather than open one.
“They do that.
Most people don’t notice how much they’ve adjusted to poor correction until they try something better.”
He took the glasses off slowly, looked at them for a long moment, and then, with the careful, deliberate movement of someone bracing for disappointment, asked, “How much?”
I told him — fair price, same as I charged everyone, no discount and no markup either — and watched him do the math again, faster this time, his expression settling into something quietly resigned.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, setting them back on the stand with obvious reluctance.
“Thanks, though.
For letting me look properly.”
“Anytime,” I said, and meant it.
“Shop’s open most days.
Door’s not going anywhere.”
He nodded, and made his way back toward the door, pausing just before he reached it to glance back at me — a quick, searching look, like he was trying to work out whether I’d meant the invitation as politely as it had sounded, or whether it had been the kind of thing adults said without really meaning.
“I’m Harry,” he said, a little abruptly, like the name had escaped before he’d fully decided to offer it.
“Good to meet you, Harry.” I didn’t react beyond that — didn’t widen my eyes, didn’t let recognition show, though I’d have had to be remarkably poorly informed about this world not to know exactly who he was the moment he’d said it.
Something in his posture eased fractionally at my lack of reaction, and I understood, watching it happen, that I’d just passed some quiet test I hadn’t known I was sitting.
“I own and run this shop.
No fancier title than that.”
“Right.” He hovered a half-second longer, then pushed the door open, the bell ringing brightly behind him.
“See you around, maybe.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, and watched him disappear back into the crowded street, hands shoved in his pockets, walking with the same careful, unhurried ease he’d had drifting past my window three days running before he’d finally worked up the nerve to come inside.
I stood behind my counter for a long moment after the door swung shut, turning the whole quiet, unremarkable encounter over in my head.
Nothing dramatic had happened.
No scar had been mentioned, no scenes made, no fuss of any kind — just a boy who’d wanted a better pair of glasses and hadn’t quite been able to justify spending the money on himself.
That last part sat with me longer than I expected it to.
I thought about Molly Weasley’s kitchen table, always crowded, always warm, and always insistent that everyone eat their fill.
I thought about a boy standing in my shop doing careful mental arithmetic over a pair of glasses that cost less than a single fair Galleon or two, clearly unused to the idea that he was allowed to want something and simply have it.
I didn’t know the whole shape of his story yet.
I suspected, standing there, that I very much wanted to.
I made a note in my notebook that evening, beneath all the others — customer wishes, professor endorsements, cards from careful men — a single line that felt, somehow, more important than any of them.
Harry.
If he comes back through that door.
Help him be his best self.
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