Chapter Text
July 31, 1991
Harry watches as Hagrid makes a brisk escape from the cart, muttering something about a pint at the Leaky Cauldron. He is still a bit stunned himself so upon leaving the cart himself, it is not until he gets out the front doors of Gringotts that he realizes he has been left alone.
He looks around but doesn’t see Hagrid anywhere among the brightly clothed witches and wizards crowding the Alley.
This doesn’t particularly bother him as it means he can explore the wondrous ally. So, with furrowed brows, Harry pulls out his list.
School robes, books, wand, cauldron, phials, scales… a telescope?
Seems simple for the most part. He can find everything by himself. It wouldn't be that hard… Right?
Looking up and around Diagon Alley, Harry realised it would in fact not be simple. Not with all the displays showing weird and wonderful and magical things.
He went into the first shop that caught his eye just a few doors down from Gringotts.
It wasn’t much but there was a singular stick of wood on a purple cushion in the dusty window of a narrow shabby little shop and in gold painted letters above the door it read simply:
Ollivander’s: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
I need a wand, don’t I?
Harry pushed the door open, a faint ching sounding from above the door, to a dust covered shop with narrow boxes lining the walls from floor to ceiling. A girl with short brown hair in faded green overalls with a beige sweater stands with her back to Harry at an old wooden counter. There had to be over forty of the narrow boxes upon it all stacked precariously one on the other and, from the looks of it, even more stacked up behind the counter.
The girl must have heard him come in as she turns to look at him.
Silver eyes meet emerald green as a man comes out from the many shelves behind the counter with several more boxes. A knowing smile dawns on the man’s face.
“I wondered when I would be seeing you Mr. Potter,” the man says, drawing Harry’s attention from the girl.
She seems to startle at this slightly, eyebrows shooting up. Tilting her head to the side she asks, “You’re Harry Potter?” Her accent is distinctly foreign to Harry sounding like something out of one of the shows his aunt watches on occasion when his uncle isn’t home.
Harry can’t help but shrink in on himself. “Uh- Yes… um,” he says, his newfound courage evaporating in the face of his apparent fame.
He had been more than uncomfortable with how everyone had treated him in the Leaky Cauldron and did not want a repeat of that if possible.
The girl frowns, the man watches him with curiosity.
“It's alright. I won’t treat you differently for being famous,” she says nonchalantly, a warm and sunny smile pointed at him, “I’m from the muggle world too and I’m sure it is overwhelming to come to the wizarding one. Has been for me at least.”
Relief washes through Harry as he gives a small smile back. Confusion follows.
“How did you know that?” he questioned.
The girl giggles softly in cheery amusement. “You’re wearing muggle clothes silly.”
He looks down at Dudley’s too large cast-offs that practically swallow him.
“Oh.”
“I believe I have just the wand for you Ms. Quinn.”
Harry jumps slightly at the man’s voice having forgotten he was there too.
The girl, Quinn she had been called, turned to the man who had moved to retrieve a very dusty looking box. Open curiosity shone on her face as he presents a dark, nearly black coloured wand that has strange patterns inlaid with silver around the handle.
Quinn’s face pinches as if she is trying to figure out a puzzle, glancing up at the man.
She takes it and almost immediately the calming smell of lavender and earl grey floods the shop, bright purple sparks shoot off the tip of the wand lighting up her face in the coloured glow.
Heat rises to Harry’s cheeks as he watches the girl in a trance.
A smug smirk breaks out across Quinn’s face as she looks at the wand clearly pleased.
“About damn time ain’t it?” she says as she inspects her new wand closely, breaking Harry out of his reverie.
The man chuckles, shaking his head. “Walnut and dragon heartstring. Thirteen inches. Reasonably solid. You, my dear, are destined for interesting things.”
Quinn tilts her head to the side, warm amusement on her face. “Destined is definitely a way to put it,” she says quietly and chuckles to herself at something she only appears to be in on.
The man raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
‘ She’s odd, ’ Harry thinks passively. Odd but Harry thinks he may be starting to like her brand of oddness if she was always this… bright.
“Now then it is your turn Mr. Potter. Come, come. You may have a seat over there Ms. Quinn,” the man gestures to a single-worn wooden chair beside the door.
And thus begins the next half an hour of Harry trying wands. Well… more accurately Mr. Ollivander, as Harry found out his name is, giving him a wand only to snatch it back saying, ‘no not that one’ or ‘two difficult customers in one day’ and variations of them, grinning a bit like a madman all the while.
By the end several lamps had burst, boxes had come flying off the shelves leaving several feathers still on the floor, and Harry was sure there was not going to be a wand for him. He had felt like giving up about ten wands back but the encouraging looks that Morgan, as he quickly told he could call her, had kept Harry going.
Finally, Mr. Ollivander seemed to think of something, bringing only one box out instead of six.
“I wonder,” he muttered to himself as he took the wand out of its box. “Holly, phoenix feather core, eleven inches, nice and supple,” Mr. Ollivander presents.
Something inside Harry perked up at the sight of the wand being presented to him.
Taking it warmth spread up through arms into the rest of him. A sense of home and rightness brought a smile to his face as bright yellow and red sparks shot from the end of his wand.
Harry shared an excited look with Morgan who whooped and jumped up to have a closer look at his wand.
“Oh bravo Mr. Potter! Yes, very good indeed. And how very curious… very curious indeed…” Mr. Ollivander trails off in thought.
“Sorry sir, but what’s curious?” Harry asks, confusion and suspicion intertwining.
Morgan’s gaze raises to look up at Mr. Ollivander with curiosity as well.
The older wizard pauses for a beat before telling Harry, “ I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather resides in your wand gave another feather... just one other. It is curious that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar.”
On reflex Harry’s hand comes up to brush over the jagged lines of lighting that spread from his hairline to just above his eyebrow.
“And who owned that wand?”
Mr. Ollivander shakes his head looking at Harry’s scar more than him. “We do not speak his name. The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter. It's not always clear why. But I think we can expect great things from you. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible, oh yes… but great.”
A reverent look crosses Mr. Ollivander’s face before he turns sharply, sending the boxes of wand that had piled up away with a flick of his own wand, making his way behind the counter to ring them up.
Harry and Morgan share a look as they pay for their wands. They also each get a holster at the suggestion of Mr. Ollivander. Each a simple black dragonhide.
They leave the shop quietly walking down the Alley a little way before Harry is stopped by Morgan.
Morgan looks nervous, fidgeting with the sleeve of her sweater. She seems to struggle with her words until she finally blurts out, “Do you want help navigating the Alley?”
Harry looks at her surprised that she would offer. “Uh…”
“It’s not that I don’t think you totally could, and you probably don’t really need my help but I don’t have a lot of friends and so I was sort of hoping maybe you would like to be my um… friend?” Morgan rushes out quickly waving her hands around as she talks. She takes a breath, ploughing forward, “You probably are here with your guardians anyways…” She looks down at her feet, shoulders drawn in.
He blinks at her confession, a tentative smile on his face. “I- I would like um- that. My uh,” Harry cringes, “ relatives didn’t bring me. Hagrid did but he left me alone at Gringotts looking a bit pale.”
“Oh,” she says looking up at him, surprise on her face. “Right well then, we best get you sorted, yes? I’m assuming you are going to Hogwarts.”
“Yeah,” he says with a shy smile. Harry quickly asks a thought occurring to him, “Are you?”
It would be nice to already have a friend.
Morgan’s face drops a little as she shakes her head no. “I only just moved here and besides I’m twelve not eleven so I don’t think they would take me now.”
“Oh.” He tries to not let his disappointment show.
“Hey, we can still spend the day together,” Morgan comforts with a gentle smile. Her face suddenly lights up as she then excitedly says, “We should get ice cream! There’s this place here that sells a bunch of weird flavours that I’ve wanted to try. Come on, I'll show you!” She grabs Harry’s hand dragging him through the crowds.
A warm feeling comparable to the way Harry’s wand made him feel settles over Morgan and Harry as they shop. Laughing and talking about whatever they think of, making silly faces at one another, it was a good birthday for Harry.
The best birthday.
Unfortunately, the day came to an end when they finally ran into Hagrid at the Owl Emporium.
They had tried to keep up the easy atmosphere they had created but things got awkward after that, so they instead parted ways with the hope to see each other again.
That was the last time Harry saw Morgan for the coming years.
That is until his fifth year at Hogwarts came around.