Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Diagon Alley
[I am the great astrologer, Trelawney!]
[Acquired skill: Intuition: Level 0 (1/100), (Your intuition has been sharpened)]
Tom: "..."
Embarrassed, he stopped continuing to draw card draws, he's drawn almost a hundred rounds, has emptied a third of his savings, and only got two cards from Professor Trelawney....
He was afraid to continue, it was clearly not a good day for drawing cards! So he gave it up.
He didn't play the Draw again until the next day, when Professor McGonagall came to see him.
"Professor Dumbledore has given you permission to study at Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall smiled, "Congratulations." She said as she pulled a leather bag of money out of her pocket and handed it to Tom, "This is the Hogwarts fund for students who need a scholarship. It's not much, but you can save enough to get by, the Ministry of Magic and the Council have cut school fees these last two years..."
Professor McGonagall cut her speech short as she saw Tom eagerly opening his money bag and counting the amount of gold galleons in it, which made her feel a little flabbergasted: it was the first time she had seen such a greedy and uneducated man.
Why don't you wait until I leave before counting the money?
The image of Tom in Professor McGonagall's mind inevitably slipped into one of greed and ungratefulness.
But the next moment, she was struck dumb. For she heard the boy say, "Professor McGonagall, I owe Hogwarts twenty galleons for this, and I will find a way to pay it back."
Professor McGonagall was silent.
After a moment, she said, "Fine."
Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she looked down and said softly to Tom, "It occurs to me that I haven't thrown away my spell book from my school days, if you don't mind having some notes I remembered in it..."
"Thank you, Professor." Tom bowed to Professor McGonagall, thoughtfully.
You don't mind the notes in it? What a joke, that was the most valuable part of the book! Harry had only gotten the textbook in Professor Snape's sixth year and he was like a novel protagonist who had turned on his golden finger and was on a roll that even Hermione couldn't match, how could Professor McGonagall's books be worse than Professor Snape's?
They were both smiling wholeheartedly.
Along with the bag of money, Professor McGonagall handed her a letter with a train ticket to Hogwarts and the necessary items to start school.
"Well, today I'm taking you to Diagon Alley." Professor McGonagall held out a hand, "Hold on to my hand."
Tom did as he was told, he squeezed his hand firmly on Professor McGonagall's forearm, and the next thing he knew, everything seemed to go dark around him, a pressure coming from all sides and making it hard to breathe, as if his whole body had been stuffed into a rubber tube.
Finally, he "spurted" out of the tube, with some of the stale air entering his lungs, and after wiping the tears from his eyes that had welled up uncontrollably, Tom found himself standing in a dingy little bar. The bar was dark and dingy, a couple of old ladies were sitting in a corner drinking sherry, and a small man with a large bowler hat was chatting with the bartender, who had almost lost his hair and looked like a dried walnut, as soon as they entered, the bar fell into silence, but when they looked at the person who entered, they started chatting and drinking again.
Professor McGonagall led him through the bar to a small walled courtyard where there was nothing but a garbage can and some weeds. Professor McGonagall nudged the bricks on the wall over the garbage can.
"Remember, count three up and two down," Professor McGonagall pulled out her wand and tapped three times on the wall, which began to shake and soon formed a wide archway leading to a bustling cobblestone street.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley." Professor McGonagall and Tom entered the bustling street together, and the archway disappeared behind them.
The system's voice rang in Tom's head: [Mission accepted]
[Mission: Travel the world]
[Objective: To explore the magical world]
[Stage 1]
[Progress: 1/1]
[Map of Diagon Alley unlocked]
[Description: There are countless places in the magical world waiting to be explored, so keep your curiosity alive, traveler!]
[Stage 2]
[Progress 0/2]
[Stage 1 Quest Reward: Occlumency (5 stars)]
With a smile on his face, Tom used the scroll to learn Occlumency, of course, it's also zero level and zero experience. It's like anti-virus software on a computer, it doesn't save you from hackers, but without it, you feel like you're running around naked.
Next door to them was a store selling cauldrons, and Professor McGonagall strode resolutely in, bought Tom a cauldron and then headed for Madame Malkin's store, Robes For All Occasions, deciding that it would be best if they bought uniforms first.
The owner of the robes store, Madame Malkin, was a smiling, short, plump witch who greeted Tom warmly and then prepared a Hogwarts student's robe for him.
She tried to suggest additional robes, but Tom felt his pocket deflated and declined. Mrs. Malkin had to dismiss him with a regretful look and a sigh of relief that this was a strong-willed boy, as not many children in the wizarding world would be able to resist her special offer.
Next they went shopping for parchment and quills, and of course ink and other items for school, although Professor McGonagall had taken care of the textbooks for his Transfiguration class, the shopping trip had left Tom with very few gold galleons in his pockets, and Tom wouldn't have enough money if he wanted to buy new textbooks.
"Come on, let's get the wands first. It's better for new students to have a wand that suits them," Professor McGonagall thought it made more sense to have a new wand than a new book. So they came to a small, ramshackle store with a peeling gold sign that read [Ollivander: wand making since 382 BC], but not many people would have believed the hype.
In the window display there was nothing but a wand sitting alone on a faded purple cushion.
Inside the store, apart from a bench, were thousands of narrow cardboard boxes, densely stacked, almost as high as the ceiling.
Chapter 4: Chapter 4: The Wand Chooses the Magician
"Good morning." A soft voice came from Tom's side, and a bright-eyed old man appeared beside them.
Professor McGonagall stepped forward and said to the old man, "Good morning, Ollivander, I've brought a student to buy a wand today."
"Oh, no problem, great," Ollivander nodded, then looked at Tom and pulled out a silver tape measure, asked Tom about his usual hand, then measured his arm length, then Ollivander measured Tom's leg length, height, head circumference and other measurements, causing Tom to frown.
Tom asked, "Sir, why all these measurements? I'm just here to buy a wand..."
"Because every Ollivander wand is unique," Ollivander said in a proud tone, "we've been doing it for generations, measuring the physical parameters of our customers before offering them a wand, and then choosing a wand based on those parameters."
"But I'm only eleven now, so these parameters will change in the future." Tom was confused, "And aren't they supposed to give me a wand directly after these measurements?"
Ollivander had a happy look on his face like a teacher being asked an interesting question by a student.
"You are quite right, the body will grow, but I only need a child's data before it develops, and based on the relationship between this data, I will determine a range and give you a wand within that range," Ollivander said happily.
"I see," Tom said thoughtfully, looking around the room at the thousands of boxes of wands, and thinking that he really should narrow it down a bit.
As he spoke, Ollivander finished taking his measurements. He led Tom over to the pile of wands, but before he could choose one, a box shook and the next moment it flew out of the thousands of boxes and landed firmly in Tom's hand.
"Oh? A very rare phenomenon." Ollivander had a surprised expression on his face, which seemed to be rare. He looked closer at the box and it showed a very complicated expression.
"It's this wand..." Ollivander seemed to get lost in his memories, and it took him a moment to realize that there were customers in the store.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This wand was my father's last creation. It's been here for decades and he didn't recognize any wizard..." Ollivander looked very relieved and seemed genuinely happy that the wand had an owner.
"Which wand core do you think is the most powerful?" asked Ollivander to the pair, but he didn't wait for Professor McGonagall's answer before saying to himself, "All wizards think the tail feather of a thunderbird is the most powerful wand, but it's not. The horn of the Horned Water Snake is the most powerful core. The core of the wand of the founder of Ilvermorny is Horned Water Serpent. Horned Water Snake horns can grant its bearer the ability to understand the Parseltongue and alert the owner of danger, it has incredible power."
Ollivander gently opened the box and there was a very beautiful wand, long and slender, with protrusions that looked like a coiled snake, and a handle at the end of the wand with a hollow hole.
The wand has a noble, strange and luxurious feel to it.
"Horn of the Horned Water Snake, acacia wood, thirteen inches long, if you can get the gem from the forehead of a Horned Water Snake, it can also be set in the hilt, the gem from its forehead gives the user invisibility and the ability to fly."
Tom was a bit surprised that the wand had its own invisibility spell....
"Take it, lad, and try it." Ollivander handed the wand to Tom.
Tom took the wand and felt a warmth in his fingers, felt a sense of excitement and there was a faint sound of wind and thunder around him.
"Very good, excellent!" Ollivander looked very happy,
He put Tom's wand in a case and wrapped it in brown paper.
"Here, it's yours. He has chosen you." Ollivander handed the wand to Tom, who took out seven Galleons and bought the wand, as Ollivander bowed and escorted them out of the store.
Tom looked at his character bar and saw that there was an additional item in the magic item section.
[Wand (Acacia wood, Horned Water Snake horn, thirteen inches)]
[Star Rating: 5 stars]
[Compatibility: 96%]
Even though a wand cost only seven galleons, it was still a burden on Tom's budget.
"Have you thought about how you're going to pay the money back?" asked Professor McGonagall with some curiosity, wondering how an eleven-year-old boy could earn twenty galleons.
"I believe Gringotts has a service for exchanging Muggle currency and gold galleons." Tom looked at the tall, imposing building in the distance.
"Yes, but there is a limit. Those goblins are pretty smart, some of them even have degrees in economics from the Muggle world," said Professor McGonagall.
"Then I suppose you can get more for the gold. They're goblins." Tom had already spotted the loophole in the rule: gold was a natural currency, and goblins would dislike pounds, but not gold.
"All right, but where are you going to get the gold?" Professor McGonagall felt the boy in front of her getting more and more interesting.
"It's not hard." Tom knew just the place to go to get the gold, and it was a good place for him.
Professor McGonagall nodded and, without asking any more questions, disappeared using the 'Apparition' charm.
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