Minerva arrived at the Clarke home at exactly nine the following morning.
Twenty minutes later, she led Adrian and his parents down Charing Cross Road and stopped in front of a grimy pub squeezed between a bookshop and a record store.
Peter looked up and down the street.
“This is the entrance?” Claire tightened her grip on her handbag.
She had clearly expected something more impressive from Britain’s hidden magical society.
Muggle pedestrians slid past the entrance without even glancing at the weathered sign.
Peter looked back twice over his shoulder just to confirm the pub actually existed in physical space.
Inside, the Leaky Cauldron was loud, crowded, and nothing like the gloomy pub Adrian remembered from the films.
The space was filled with students carrying heavy trunks, arguing over supply lists, flirting in the corners, drinking tea, and passing a silver flask beneath the table.
Returning students wore fitted shirts, open academic robes, short skirts edged in their house colours, stockings, and heavy boots.
It was a chaotic, thriving university crowd, entirely devoid of baggy school uniforms and confused eleven-year-olds.
Minerva led them straight through the pub and out into a small, walled courtyard.
She drew her wand and tapped a specific sequence on the bricks.
Claire gripped Peter’s arm as the wall folded open, revealing a cobbled street that twisted out of sight.
Diagon Alley was busy, expensive, slightly dirty, and completely alive.
Deliveries blocked the narrow lanes, owls dropped parcels onto awnings, enchanted shop signs shouted at passersby, and older students wove effortlessly between overwhelmed parents.
Half the shop signs meant nothing to Adrian.
There were magical solicitors, private owl couriers, robe-cleaning services, and at least three businesses selling objects he could not identify.
The films had shown him one narrow street and allowed him to assume that was everything.
Their first stop was Gringotts.
Inside the white marble bank, Peter approached the nearest available teller with visible caution.
The caution lasted until the goblin quoted the exchange rate.
“Is that fixed?” Peter asked.
“What are the conversion fees?
Can funds be transferred between accounts?
Do you provide business services?” Claire gave Adrian a familiar look.
His father had found numbers.
The magic was no longer the most interesting thing in the room.
The goblin answered without smiling, but its first clipped responses gradually became more detailed.
By the time Peter asked about business accounts, it had stopped trying to end the conversation quickly.
Adrian stood back, listening to the numbers.
He quickly learned that potion ingredients, university-level books, robes, and a proper wand were going to cost far more than he had initially expected.
Looking at the exchange rate, the prices made him study the banking displays for profit margins rather than merely admiring the magic.
A notice near the currency desk listed the price of common healing potions.
Even the simplest bottles cost more than Adrian expected.
A useful recipe would not make him rich by itself, but it was the first thing he had seen in the magical world that could provide serious starting capital.
Leaving the bank, they paused outside a pharmacy window.
Adrian focused on a bottled bruise salve on display and activated Magical Appraisal.
The system screen appeared.
Bruise Salve Grade: Common Purity: 61% Condition: Stable Primary Ingredients: Dittany, comfrey, powdered moonstone Adrian compared the ingredient names with the prices displayed in the pharmacy window.
Even using the shop’s own prices, the difference was enormous.
Adrian pulled out the small ledger his father had given him and quickly wrote down the estimated ingredient costs beside the shop’s listed selling price.
Peter looked over his shoulder, noticing the math.
He quietly joined the calculation, tapping a finger against the glass.
“That difference is ridiculous,” Peter murmured.
“Even if the ingredients double during brewing, they’re still charging several times the cost.” Peter looked at Adrian.
Adrian looked back.
Neither of them said it aloud, but they were thinking the same thing.
There was money here.
“Let’s get your uniform sorted first,” Claire said, steering them away from the potions and toward a shop with a pair of self-stitching shears in the window.
Madam Malkin swept toward them in a fitted violet robe, pins held between her lips and a silver measuring tape floating behind her like an impatient tail.
A silver measuring tape hovered around her neck, moving with the restless energy of a curious snake.
She greeted them and explained that first-year uniforms were sold in neutral black.
Once Adrian had been Sorted, the trim, tie, and inner lining could be changed to his house colours in minutes.
The shop was crowded with returning students collecting altered uniforms.
One witch argued that her skirt had been shortened too much.
Her friend disagreed and asked Malkin to take another inch off hers.
Madam Malkin guided Adrian onto a small wooden stool while Claire followed an assistant toward the winter-cloak display while Peter became distracted by a rack of self-repairing work robes.
The measuring tape circled Adrian’s waist, dropped to his hips, and tightened.
“Stand straight,” Madam Malkin said.
“And stop watching the other fittings.
You’ll make me record the wrong measurement.” Adrian looked at her.
“I thought the tape did that by itself.” “The tape is easily distracted.” Her eyes dipped briefly toward his trousers before returning to his face.
Before Adrian could say anything, a pink screen appeared in his vision.
[Pervert Mission — Grab Madam Malkin’s ass before the fitting ends.] [Reward: 5 Enchanted Clothing Blueprint Fragments and 40 PP.] Failure Penalty: Every pair of trousers crushes your balls for seven days.
Adrian kept his face neutral while Madam Malkin moved around him, checking the fall of the trousers.
His parents were occupied, but several customers remained within sight.
He needed an opening.
“The waistband pulls when I turn,” he said.
Madam Malkin stepped behind him and hooked two fingers beneath the waistband.
“Turn, then.” Adrian turned too quickly and bumped into her.
She steadied him with one hand against his stomach.
“Careful,” she murmured.
Her body remained pressed against his back for one second longer than necessary.
Adrian took the invitation.
He reached behind him, placed his hand squarely on her ass, and squeezed once.
Madam Malkin went still.
Then the measuring tape snapped sharply against the inside of Adrian’s thigh.
“That,” she whispered near his ear, “was not part of the fitting.” Instead of shouting or causing a scene, she simply pressed the silver measuring tape flat against his thigh.
She leaned close to his ear and murmured, “Do that again without permission,” she whispered, “and I’ll measure you for a skirt in front of your mother.” “Would it be a short one?” “Adrian,” Claire called, holding up a strip of thick red fabric, “what do you think of this cloak lining?” “Too bright.” Madam Malkin released the waistband and stepped away before Claire looked over.
Adrian faced forward again, trying not to react when the measuring tape struck his thigh one final time.
[Mission Complete.
Rewards deposited in Inventory.] Adrian chose practical trousers, fitted shirts, a dark waistcoat, house-neutral robes, heavy boots, and a formal winter cloak.
The outfit was designed to make him look capable and confident without turning him into a gothic pure-blood noble.
While boxing the uniforms, Madam Malkin placed a slim catalogue on top.
“University alterations and private enchantments,” she said.
“Read it before you touch anything else in my shop.” Adrian caught a glimpse of the cover before the lid closed.
It was a catalogue for enchanted clothing— The first pages advertised self-cleaning underwear and temperature-controlled robes.
The later pages were marked PRIVATE FITTINGS ONLY.
Adrian realized instantly that enchanted clothing could become a highly lucrative future business line rather than just a one-scene He thanked Madam Malkin, who offered him a knowing, sharp smile, and followed his parents out of the shop.
Back on the street, Adrian checked the reward.
Enchanted Clothing Blueprint: 5/20 Fragments Not enough to create anything.
Enough to prove the system could eventually give him designs no shop in Britain possessed.
Peter was still studying the prices written in Adrian’s ledger when Minerva pointed toward the next storefront.
Rows of preserved beetles, dried roots, bottled organs, and powdered minerals filled the windows.
“The apothecary,” she said.
“You will need the standard first-year ingredients.” Adrian closed the catalogue.
Potions were where the real money began.