Bab 4: Diagon Alley
"Albert, are you sure we didn't go the wrong place?" Herb was comparing the map in his hand, but couldn't find the bar that Professor McGonagall said.
"We need to find the bookstore first. The bookstore is next door to a record store." Albert raised his finger to the big bookstore in front of him, and next door is a record store.
"Is it here? But I..."
"...Can't see where the bar is?" Albert finished speaking for him.
If it weren't for his careful observation, he would never pay attention to the small bar next to the big bookstore.
People passing by in a hurry did not even look at it, of course, including his father Herb.
"I have seen the bar, do you remember what Ms. McGonagall said?"
"A Muggle can't find the bar?" Herb muttered, "I hate the word Muggle."
Herb took his son's hand and was moved forward by Albert. A few seconds later, he saw the legendary broken cauldron bar.
It was a dirty cramped bar.
"I hate it, it's so dirty."
"Me too, go in!"
Condensing the disgusting expression on their faces, the father and son pushed the door one after the other into the bar.
Dirty, messy and dark.
This was the two people's evaluation of the bar. There were some men and women who didn't look normal. Most of them were elderly. They also wore ridiculous top hats on their heads, which looked very funny.
If this group of people walk outside the street, they would definitely attract the attention of countless people, but now they are even more alien here, as dazzling as a ray of fire in the dark.
Herb immediately calmed down, walked towards the counter, looked at the bald old man and asked tentatively: "Mr. Tom?"
"Little wizard from a Muggle family?" Tom looked at Albert, then looked up and smiled at Herb. "You want to ask how to get to Diagon Alley?"
"Yes, Mr. Tom, Professor McGonagall said you can take us to Diagon Alley." Albert also looked at the old man in front of him, barely squeezing a polite smile on his face.
"Of course, please come with me." Tom came out from behind the bar and beckoned the two to follow.
The three came to the backyard of the bar, where there was only a brick wall, a trash can and a few empty wine barrels.
"This trash can will stay here all the time. You need to count three pieces on top, and then two pieces in the horizontal direction. This is the brick." Tom pointed his finger at the place he had just tapped with his hand, and then pulled it out. The wand tapped on the brick three times, then turned to Albert and said, "When you have your own wand, you can open the entrance to Diagon Alley by yourself. Remember, you need to tap it three times with the wand."
The brick knocked by Old Tom began to shake, and the brick wall moved strangely. There was a small hole in the middle. The opening of the hole became bigger and bigger. It only took a few seconds to form a strip in front of the three of them. They passed through the archway.
A cobblestone street stretches from underfoot to the front, with shops on both sides, and there are many wizards and hawking stalls on the street.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley." Tom smiled at the two.
"Mr. Tom, how shall we go back later?" Herb asked.
"After you finish shopping, you can open the door as I did just now." Tom answered Herb's question patiently, not forgetting to remind: "By the way, you'd better go to Gringotts to find the goblins first. Exchange for galleons. Muggle coins cannot be used here. If you go from here, the white building is the Gringotts Wizarding Bank."
"Thank you for your suggestion, Mr. Tom."
"Happy to you." Tom smiled and waved to the two of them, then turned and returned to the bar. He liked the job.
After Tom left, the entrance disappeared and turned back into the wall.
"Let's go and change money." Herb took a deep breath.
"It feels very different here.
Albert looked at the surrounding shops, smiled and said to Herb: "It gives me the feeling that the times have gone back a century. "
"To be honest, I am doubting the decision of letting you go to Hogwarts. Maybe Daisy's persistence is right." Herb sighed lightly. Although the magical world was magical, it always gave him a way to follow. The illusion of the last era.
"Dad, I don't necessarily have to live in the magical world." Albert couldn't help rolling his eyes and reminded, "I am going to Hogwarts to study mainly to master this magical power."
"Oh, you are right." Herb's mood improved a bit, and the two went through the crowd and headed to Gringotts.
As Tom said, this is a white building, and there is a small figure standing beside the bronze gate, that is... a goblin.
"They are special." Herb's facial expression was a little stiff, and this was the first time he had seen other humanoids other than humans.
Albert didn't care. He looked at the appearance of the fairy, short, sharp beard, slender hands and toes, and a dark face, a creature with no sense of beauty.
When they entered the door, Albert noticed the goblin bowing to them.
There is a second door in the back, silver, with lettering on the two doors. After Herb came closer, he took a closer look and said: "Please come in, stranger, but you have to be careful about what it is to be greedy. If you leave the game blindly, you will receive the most severe punishment..."
"I really don't understand, how hard do wizards need to rob the bank before they need to engrave warning signs on the door?" Heber couldn't help but mutter after reading it.
Albert wanted to laugh a little when he heard that, and quickly cleared his throat and asked. "How much are you going to change?"
"This?" Herb thought for a while, and whispered, "One thousand pounds, if it's not enough, you can change it."
One thousand pounds is equivalent to one month's salary for most people.
Albert estimated that it was about two hundred galleons. He nodded and said, "I think it should be enough."
After entering, the two fairies bowed to them and led them into a tall marble hall. Herb said that he needed to change some Galleons.
The goblin led them to the counter on the right again, and handed a piece of parchment to Herb. The parchment was about the exchange rate of pounds and galleons and the concept of money in the magic world.
One galleon was equal to 4.95 pounds.
1 galleon was equal to 17 sickles, and 1 sickle was equal to 29 knuts.
Herb handed the parchment to his son and asked, "How many pounds does it cost 200 galleons?"
"£990."
"Please help me exchange 200 galleons." Herb took out 990 pounds from his wallet and let the goblin exchange it for galleons.
"Okay, wait a minute." The goblin took over the pounds and started counting.
"Excuse me, Mr Goblin, can pounds be converted to galleons limitlessly?" Albert curiously asked the doubts of his previous life.
"That's true in theory, but we won't collect too much Muggle currency." The goblin rang the bell and called another goblin to give him an order. The goblin took a bag of gold coins and handed it to Herb. Then led them aside to verify the number of Galleons.
"I didn't expect it to be a gold coin." Herb fiddling with a galleon at his fingertips, couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
After counting Galleons and confirming that they were correct, the two took the cash and left Gringotts.
Walking on a sunny street, the gold coins in their pockets collided with a pleasant clink, as if urging them to spend the gold coins quickly.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone