(Arcane Tinker) Chapter 7: Wares and Lanes

Chapter 7: Wares and Lanes

10 June 1991, Willowbrook Village

Life at the orphanage was relatively simple. That was a fact that Dean realized after just a few days. He only needed to be polite to the matrons and not cause any unnecessary trouble for them, to avoid being punished. So far, he had only dealt with Kara and not the other matrons. Apparently, each one of them was responsible for a group of children but they did so completely.

There wasn’t exactly a rivalry between the groups, but they were more distant than anything. They didn’t have the same common rooms, didn’t sleep near each other, and only saw each other during meals.

To be perfectly fair, it wasn’t like the orphanage was overflowing with children, which was pretty surprising. Apparently, Pureblood or Half-Blood orphans were tied to their family, no matter how distant it was, and so, there were at most fourty orphans in this place. Still, Dean couldn’t find anything about other orphanages in Britain and weirdly enough, neither did anyone he asked, even Jake. It was weird, very weird. There had to be other magical orphans in the world, but he just couldn’t find them.

This place seemed to be made up of either muggleborn orphans or ones that just didn’t have anyone in the magical world.

Jacob McKinnon was probably one of those. It had taken embarrassingly long to figure out why his name was so familiar. Marlene McKinnon was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and her family was massacred to the last person. He had figured it out when Lisa told him about what happened to Jack’s family. This was a relatively new family who mostly married muggleborns and other new magical families.

These ‘new blood’ families were the ones who were massacred the most by the previous war.

There wasn’t a lot about the conflict, probably due to the ministry’s censorship. Then again, he only had Lisa Turpin as his guide, and she didn’t really have access to much. What she knew could be summarised as Voldemort being bad and the Ministry being heroes. She didn’t know anything about what the fight was actually about. Which wasn’t really surprising; she didn’t really have access to any resources other than word of mouth.

Dean was definitely going to research the matter when he went to Hogwarts. It was only right, especially since there was a very good chance some fucker with a snake face would try to kill him for not having a magical parent, something that he dearly wanted to avoid.

He had made friends with most of the other children in his group under Matron Kara’s care. Well, he introduced himself to most of them, and only two actually stood out. Sally-Anne Perks, a small, mousy and shy girl, and Harrold Dingle, an outgoing boy a year older than Dean, who also tried to scam him out of his first allowance, not that he had plans on using it before his trip to the alley.

Curiously, alongside Lisa, these were the other residents his age. For some reason, magical activations tended to occur mainly in the ages of twelve to fifteen for muggleborns. Activations before the age of eleven were pretty rare for muggleborns, but fairly common among children with at least three generations of magical ancestors.

This also explained a bit why they tended to be better learned mages. They had a more magical education. Often, muggleborns had to take specialised courses in the summer to catch up to others their age, and they managed to pass. Otherwise, they have a few options. One of them is for them to have to sit in a classroom with children far younger than them, which often led to them lashing out in embarrassment. However, most of the time, they just refused to go to Hogwarts until they self-studied enough to scrape by their tests, which meant that they kept missing more and more material, and delaying being ready.

The result was obvious, with most of the muggleborns ending up as bitter, subpar wizards, whose personal magic was their only salvation. That’s not to mention to rumours of their mental instability, which were frankly warranted given the stories Lisa and Jack told him, telling him to expect how people would treat him publicly. It all seemed so unfair, but he couldn’t exactly see a way to fix it.

Thankfully, he hasn’t experienced any discrimination so far. Most of the other residents either wanted to be left alone or were friendly enough. Of course, there were outliers, specifically a few small gangs of older boys who liked to bully the younger orphans during the summer. They hadn’t approached Dean yet, but it was only a matter of time until the monthly supervised trip to Diagon Alley took place, which, to Dean’s dread, was planned to take place today.

The worst thing was that he wasn’t able to make any headway with his specialised magic. According to Jack and Lisa, it was supposed to be an instinctual thing. Something that was like a third arm that he could call on, on a whim.

The issue was that he had no instinct. There was nothing at the back of his mind telling him how to control his magic and it was driving him mad. It didn’t help that every time he thought of his magic, he imagined the world burning around him, as he hugged his mother’s dying body, and he spent the rest of his day doing his best not to tear up.

As much as they wanted to hide it, Jack and Lisa both knew that his situation was unusual. It was possible for people to not know what their magic was just after its activation. It was a mixture of denial, exhaustion and confusion that was to blame. But as time passed, in just a few days, they should quickly start using their magic.

After some effort pushing away the nightmares, Dean tried to create an explosion like he did that day but got no headway whatsoever.

His train of thought was interrupted by Matron Kara’s loud voice, “Dean, Lisa and Sally-Anne. You have five minutes to come down or else I’m buying everything myself.”

He hurried and ran down the stairs to the entrance hall. The matron definitely wasn’t screwing around. Considering the somewhat fragile finances of the orphanage, this was literally the day the most was spent on them. For one, they were matched with a wand and no one wanted to risk going to Hogwarts with a second-hand one, which would have happened if the matron decided to do the shopping by herself.

They were already getting the books and most of the clothes second-hand. However, the telescope and potion materials were up for grabs. It was well known that Kara would try to pay for new stuff if there was some extra money. There was a reason why people tended to be harassed after their first visit to Diagon Alley, which was only afforded to first years during the summer before the school year. There was another visit scheduled the following month, but it was just one supervised by one of the matrons. They had to pay for everything from their pocket money.

Dean arrived at the entrance and found the matron as well as the two other girls waiting for him. Kara gave him a severe look, “Try not to be late again, Dean. I was this close to just leave without you.”

The young wizard suppressed the urge to look down at the matron’s comment, “Sorry, Kara. It won’t happen again.”

She nodded severely and brightened, “Alright then. This will be your first visit to the Alley, so I need you to stay pretty close to me when we get there. This isn’t Willowbrook. People aren’t as nice as here, and while there are a lot more magic shops, you need to be very careful that no one steals anything from you. One of the things I’ll be buying you is money pouches, which will be keyed to you and will release an alarm if someone else tries to touch it or use any telekinesis to grab it. There are other ways to bypass this, of course, but the others will be very expensive.”

They continued to walk until they found themselves in the inn they came and arrived at the floo. She gave each one a few bronze coins to pay for the floo powder. Each one of them stepped into the fireplace and yelled, “Diagon Alley!”

When Dean did this, he found himself in a small corridor, and he walked forward to reach Lisa and Sally-Anne. The matron arrived soon after him with a wide smile on her face, “Great, there weren’t any mishaps. Alright, first things first, this is the official wizarding entrance to the Alley. It’s at the ministry branch near it. It’s not a big branch like the one on the other side of London, but it’s useful for small things, like paying a few fines and very common paperwork. For example, we’re going to pick up your identification runes.”

Dean couldn’t help but ask, “Identification runes?”

“You’ll see,” she simply replied.

They walked further into the corridor, until they found themselves inside a giant room. The floor was made of white marble, with hundreds of paintings moving around all over the walls. Dean read the first sign on the right which said ‘Diagon Alley’.

However, the matron took them towards a small queue labelled ‘Registration’.

They didn’t really say anything. They just stood on the side while Kara spoke to a man who looked dead inside. Then she called them, one by one. Sally-Anne was the one who came first, and she returned whilst holding her arm slightly. Dean didn’t have time to ask her what happened since he was being called next. He walked somewhat anxiously towards the front of the bored-looking man.

They didn't really say anything. They just stood on the side while Kara spoke to a man who looked dead inside. Then she called them, one by one. Dean was the one who went last, and he arrived somewhat anxious in front of the bored-looking man.

"Right, hand out," the clerk muttered, barely glancing up. Dean nervously extended his palm, his fingers trembling slightly. The man waved his wand, and a small, glowing rune appeared briefly before sinking into Dean's skin, leaving no visible mark.

"This rune will store your basic information: date of birth, magical ability, and your magical guardian," the clerk explained in a monotone. "It's invisible, but it can only be activated by you or authorised personnel."

Dean nodded, feeling a strange tingling sensation in his hand. He made a fist, and a small hologram with his name and details sprang up. He made another fist, making the information disappear.

The clerk sighed, looking even more weary at his actions. "You’ll need to come back and register again once you’ve received your wand. Until then, this will suffice."

Kara gave Dean a reassuring smile and guided him back to where the others were waiting. As they walked away, Dean couldn't help but glance at his palm, feeling the hidden magic beneath his skin. This was the first step into a world he was just beginning to understand.

It made sense, in a way, to have a way for the authorities to identify people, and there was probably a lot more to it than that. Probably some kind of tracer to identify the source of magic or something similar.

When Lisa was done, she and Kara came back, with smiles on their faces, “Alright, with all that boring stuff out of the way, why don’t we get to explore the alley a bit. Why don’t you follow me?”

They nodded and followed her towards the entrance where the Diagon Alley sign was being put up. They walked further into the small corridor and opened the wooden door on the other side.

Despite himself, Dean stepped through, he felt a rush of excitement and anticipation. He had heard so much about Diagon Alley from Jack, and he already had his expectations from what he had read in the Harry Potter books. It was supposed to be a place where magic was supposed to be alive in every corner.

To his surprise, Diagon Alley was not the fantastical wonderland he had pictured in his head. Instead, it was a relatively calm and orderly place, lined with shops that looked fairly normal, albeit with magical wares. There were no wild displays of magic, no chaotic crowds, and no grand spectacles. It was just a bustling shopping street, much like any other, except for the unique items in the shop windows.

Dean noticed a store selling robes with signs advertising various magical properties, like self-ironing and temperature regulation. Another shop had a window full of cauldrons of different sizes and materials, all neatly stacked. There was a quiet bookstore, Flourish and Blotts, with neatly arranged shelves and a modest display of magical tomes. The Apothecary next door had jars filled with odd ingredients, but it was just as clean and organised as any regular pharmacy.

People moved about with purpose, chatting casually, carrying bags of supplies, or simply window-shopping. It was all very ordinary, with only the occasional flicker of wand magic to indicate that this was, indeed, a place of wizards and witches.

Kara led them down the alley and spoke up, “Almost everything you need for your school supplies is here. That’s Ollivanders, where you’ll get your wands. There’s Madam Malkin’s for your school robes. The orphanage can afford to buy you one new robe each, but the rest will have to be second-hand, I’m afraid. You could use your allowance to buy more; she gives very good rates to Hogwarts students, but that will be on you. But first, we’ll need to get to Ollivander’s for your wands, then we’ll stop by the Apothecary for your potion supplies. Then we’ll see where else we can go. I hope you brought your savings; this is probably the day you’ll spend the most this year.”

AN: I’m not sure about this chapter, to be honest. I tried to make the trip to Diagon Alley somewhat different, while adapting to an easier way for wizards to identify themselves (it’ll be useful in the future). I don’t know if I pulled it off, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.