Mr.
Sorenson drove.
He was the most flexible of the group, a fact he mentioned twice before they’d even left the driveway, and Elias had long since stopped being embarrassed by it.
Snape sat in the passenger seat, radiating the particular disdain of a man who considered automobiles a personal insult.
Hermione sat in the back beside Elias, her fingers drumming against her knee, her eyes fixed on the window like London might reveal its secrets if she stared hard enough.
The Leaky Cauldron appeared between a bookshop and a record store, exactly where it shouldn’t have been.
Mr.
Sorenson squinted at it.
“Huh. Never noticed that before.”
“Most don’t,” Snape said, and the way he said it made clear he considered this a character flaw of the entire non-magical species.
Inside, the pub was cramped and dark and smelled of something Elias couldn’t name — woodsmoke and yeast and something older underneath.
A few patrons looked up as they passed.
One nodded at Snape.
Snape didn’t nod back.
They emerged into a small courtyard hemmed in by brick walls on three sides.
A trash bin sat in one corner.
Nothing about the space suggested anything except dead end.
“Here,” Snape said.
“Remember this.”
He extended his wand and touched the tip to a specific brick — third from the left, second row up, nothing to distinguish it from its neighbors except what was about to happen.
“You tap three times.”
He waited.
Long enough for Hermione to mouth the brick’s position to herself.
Long enough for Elias to commit it to the particular shelf in his mind where he kept things he might need to find again.
Then Snape tapped.
The brick vibrated.
A small hole opened at its center, then widened, bricks folding back into themselves in a sequence that made no physical sense, the gap growing until it became an archway tall enough to walk through.
Beyond it: cobblestones.
Crowds.
A street that curved out of sight, lined with buildings that leaned toward each other like old friends sharing secrets.
Diagon Alley.
Snape strode through the archway without looking back, his robes billowing behind him.
Elias kept three steps back, not out of deference but because the hem of those robes snapped like a whip with every stride, and he had no desire to lose an eye before he’d even bought his wand.
Hermione walked beside him, her head turning so fast Elias half-expected her to pull a muscle.
Her lips moved silently — cataloguing shop names, window displays, the contents of every cart that rattled past.
The tallest building in sight was white marble, its columns gleaming even under the grey morning light.
Gringotts Wizarding Bank.
Snape led them up the steps and through the bronze doors without breaking stride.
Inside, the marble continued.
The ceiling soared.
And on either side of the main hall, long counters stretched into the distance, each manned by a goblin in an elegant uniform.
Elias glanced at the piles of gold on the nearest counter — coins stacked in neat towers, gleaming with that particular warmth that gold had and nothing else did.
Something stirred in his chest.
A faint pull.
The barest whisper of hunger.
[Greed +1]
He inhaled through his nose and looked away.
Deliberately.
Carefully.
He fixed his eyes on the back of Snape’s head and did not let them wander again.
The last thing he needed was a sudden outburst of rage in the middle of a bank full of armed goblins.
An old goblin in a uniform with silver buttons greeted them with a slight bow.
“Withdrawing or depositing?”
“Withdrawing.” Snape’s voice was clipped.
“These two are Muggle-born first-years. They need to exchange pounds.”
The goblin nodded and summoned another with a flick of his long fingers.
The second goblin led Snape away.
The first turned to Elias and his father, gesturing toward a long counter where a third goblin sat behind a brass scale, a monocle screwed into one eye.
“How much would you like to exchange?”
“Are there restrictions?” Elias asked.
He turned to his father.
Mr.
Sorenson had made a trip to the bank the day before, after Snape’s appointment was confirmed.
The envelope in his jacket was thick.
The goblin’s expression didn’t change.
“We don’t accept excessive amounts of Muggle currency. But so long as you remain below the threshold, you may exchange as much as you wish.”
He said it like he’d said it a thousand times.
Probably had.
Every year, new Muggle-borns asked the same question.
Gringotts was the only wizarding bank in the world, with branches on every continent.
Pounds were useless in the magical world, but they bought more gold than Galleons were worth on the open market.
The exchange rate favored the bank either way.
The goblins weren’t stupid.
Mr.
Sorenson pulled out the envelope and handed it over without ceremony.
The money he’d saved for Eton, now bound for somewhere considerably stranger.
The goblin’s eyes flickered — the barest twitch — and he began counting.
His fingers moved fast, practiced, the notes riffling through his hands in a blur.
When he finished, he gestured to another goblin, who began stacking gold coins on the counter.
“Sir,” the goblin said, and his smile was the smile of someone who had done this math ten thousand times and would do it ten thousand more, “4.97 pounds exchanges for 1 Galleon. Your total of 2,500 pounds yields 503 Galleons and 8 Knuts.”
He paused.
The smile widened a fraction.
“Would you like to open an underground vault? I can assist with storing your Galleons.”
Mr.
Sorenson leaned forward.
“What’s the interest rate?”
The goblin’s mouth fell open.
For a moment, he looked genuinely offended, as if Mr.
Sorenson had asked whether the bank employed dragons as security — which, for all Elias knew, it did.
“Interest?” The goblin’s voice pitched higher.
“Of course there’s no interest, sir!”
“You need only pay 200 Galleons to open a basic vault. After that, a mere ten Galleons per year for a decade of secure storage. Gringotts is the safest place in the world for your assets. We guarantee your property against all loss.”
“Then I’ll pass.” Mr.
Sorenson waved his hand.
The goblin’s smile didn’t waver.
“Yes, sir.” He pushed a large leather bag across the counter.
“Your Galleons. Would you like to count them? We have scales.”
“Of course.”
They spent some time weighing and counting.
When they finished, Mr.
Sorenson divided the coins into two bags — one for Hermione, one for Elias.
He pocketed three Galleons and eight bronze Knuts for himself.
“Thought I’d try the pub,” he said.
Each Galleon weighed about ten grams.
A bag of 250 came to roughly five pounds.
Manageable, but not nothing for an eleven-year-old.
Hermione’s bag found its way into Elias’s hands without discussion.
He added it to his own without comment.
Outside Gringotts, Snape stopped.
“Diagon Alley is safe. Do not wander into Knockturn Alley.” He didn’t elaborate on what Knockturn Alley was or how to avoid it.
“The rest is shopping. I have other matters to attend to.”
He left.
His robes snapped once more, and then he was gone into the crowd, a dark shape swallowed by brighter colors.
Mr.
Sorenson looked around.
Children wandered the street alone or clustered in front of shop windows, watching broomsticks rise and hover behind the glass.
No one seemed concerned.
“I’ll be at the Leaky Cauldron,” he said.
“Don’t get kidnapped.”
And then he left too.
Hermione already had the supply list out, her finger tracing down the parchment.
“Right. Flourish and Blotts first. Then Madam Malkin’s. Then—”
“Lead the way.”
She did.
Elias followed, the woven bag of Galleons heavy against his hip, watching Hermione duck into every shop they passed.
She wanted to see what each one sold, what was in the window, what the signs said.
He let her.
It was easier to let Hermione exhaust her curiosity than to try to contain it.
Since their lists were identical, he mostly waited while she chose what they needed, offered suggestions when she asked, and paid.
At Flourish and Blotts, Hermione bought the required textbooks and then kept going.
A History of Magic.
Hogwarts: A History.
The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts.
She stacked them in her arms until Elias took half the pile without asking.
He found his own additions.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Introduction to Alchemy.
He was a decent cook — Chinese food, mostly, the kind his previous life had taught him — but laziness had worn him down to English cuisine, and English cuisine had worn him down to whatever required the least effort.
His Gluttony score reflected this.
He bought Fantastic Beasts to see if the magical world had anything better to offer his stomach.
Then came Madam Malkin’s, where measuring tapes flew and pins hovered in midair.
Potage’s Cauldron Shop, where pewter cauldrons sat in stacks that reached the ceiling.
Slug & Jiggers Apothecary, which smelled like a chemistry lab had a baby with a graveyard.
Wiseacre’s Wizarding Equipment, where brass scales and crystal phials glittered under enchanted lights.
First-years couldn’t bring broomsticks.
They could bring a pet.
Elias chose a snowy owl from Eeylops Owl Emporium — pure white, young, with eyes that tracked his finger when he moved it.
He named him Toothless, a joke that existed entirely for his own amusement and would remain that way forever.
Hermione wanted a cat.
She looked at several, held two, and decided none of them were right.
She’d come back another day, she said.
Elias didn’t argue.
And then, with everything else crossed off the list, they reached the last shop.
Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
The sign was faded.
The window display held a single wand on a faded purple cushion.
The building leaned slightly to the left.
Elias pushed open the door.
A bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop.
It was time to see what kind of wand chose a man with seven sins ticking in his soul.