Hagrid paused just beside a large, overflowing refuse bin, his massive frame momentarily blocking the view of the plain, crumbling brick wall. He leaned in conspiratorially toward the two children, his voice dropping to a gravelly, intimate murmur.
"Listen carefully, Harry, Tierra. If you ever need to slip back into Diagon Alley without me, you'll need to remember the sequence. It's three blocks up, two blocks sideways from this very spot."
He glanced at Harry, then his eyes flicked quickly to Tierra, who was standing a deliberate few feet further back, observing the entire transaction with the unnerving stillness of a seasoned operative. "Alright, Harry, step back. And, er, Tierra, you're practically in the next district, girl! Get closer, now."
Tierra obeyed, closing the distance but keeping her analytical stance. She didn't trust the apparent ease of the process.
Hagrid produced his battered, pink umbrella—a blatant infraction of Ministry regulations, she noted—and tapped the tip three times against a specific, grimy brick.
The brick Hagrid struck didn't just move; it shuddered with the sudden intrusion of magical command. A ripple of displacement ran through the mortar, and a small, almost invisible fissure appeared in the brick's center.
This fissure widened, the bricks around it grinding and shifting with a sound like ancient stones whispering secrets. They began to fold inward, collapsing upon themselves with the fluidity of liquid metal, until a grand archway was revealed—wide enough for Hagrid's considerable bulk to pass through easily. It led onto a winding, cobblestone street that curved away into the unseen heart of a forgotten city.
"Welcome," Hagrid boomed, a deep pride resonating in his voice. "Welcome to Diagon Alley. The only place on Earth where a person can truly breathe."
Hagrid stepped through the portal first. Harry followed, his gaze immediately captivated by the dizzying transformation of the wall behind them as it sealed itself back into a perfect, mundane barrier. But Tierra, the pragmatic observer, wasn't looking at the wall. She was paralyzed by the overwhelming, sensory assault of the street itself.
In her previous life, she had consumed every piece of fictional material on the Wizarding World—movies, books, online fan lore. She had seen Diagon Alley countless times in her mind's eye. Yet, none of that could have prepared her for the sheer density of magic packed into this narrow space.
The afternoon sun, filtering down through the cramped canyon of buildings, seemed to deliberately highlight a teetering, haphazard stack of cauldrons in front of the nearest merchant. Above them, copper, brass, pewter, and silver cauldrons of every imaginable size hung suspended, occasionally jerking or tilting as their anti-gravity or self-stirring charms momentarily activated.
A corpulent woman stood outside a dark apothecary, gesturing wildly and shaking her head in outrage. "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce! They are insane, I tell you, absolutely unhinged! Merlin's beard, those greedy bastards in that pharmacy must be mad from their own volatile potions!"
Tierra's mind immediately calculated: Dragon liver. Essential for high-level potion brewing. Seventeen Sickles. Need to translate the exchange rate quickly.
A low, resonant who-whooo sound, soft yet penetrating, emanated from a shadowy shop whose sign advertised: Eeyore's Owl Emporium – Barn, Screech, Grass, Tawny and Snowy Owls. The very air seemed to vibrate with unseen potential.
Further down the street, a cluster of children, approximately her and Harry's age, were pressed against a window displaying sleek, carbon-black racing broomsticks. "Look!" one child shrieked, his voice choked with covetousness. "That's the new Nimbus 2000—the full-speed model! It's impossible!"
At the corner stood a robe shop. The sign depicted a pair of golden scissors slicing a piece of metallic-pink fabric, with the words "Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions" etched in gold. Everything shimmered, everything moved, everything felt alive.
Windows were crammed with baskets of dried bat spleens, preserved eel eyes, towering stacks of heavy, leather-bound spellbooks, quills crafted from impossibly vibrant feathers, ancient parchment scrolls, and moon globes that slowly rotated, tracking celestial bodies invisible to the naked eye. It was a glorious, overwhelming market of the impossible.
"Come along, now, both of you," Hagrid urged, patting Harry and Tierra's shoulders with the casual force of a sledgehammer. "You'll have plenty of time to gawk later. We've got a tight schedule today; there's a whole world to outfit."
Harry, however, was suddenly pulled back to earth by a sharp, painful jolt of reality. "But, Hagrid, I haven't got a single penny," he stammered, the wonder draining from his face, replaced by shame. "Uncle Vernon said he wouldn't spend a single shilling on my school fees or anything else."
Hagrid let out a hearty, booming laugh that caused several owls to ruffle their feathers in alarm. "Aha, Harry! Did you truly think your mum and dad left you with nothing? Wizards don't keep their fortunes under a mattress, boy. We operate on a proper, private system."
"But... you said they didn't even have a home," Harry countered, genuinely confused.
"I said they didn't have a traditional home, Harry. But they had a vault," Hagrid interrupted, waving a massive hand dismissively. "Our first and most vital stop is right here: Gringotts Wizarding Bank. We need to retrieve the inheritance your parents left you. And for you, Tierra, we have a different kind of business to settle."
Tierra, who had been listening with rapt attention, spoke up, her voice sharper, more analytical than Harry's bewildered tone. "Business? What kind of system would involve a six-year-old in its financial affairs?"
Hagrid's large brow furrowed slightly as he processed her query, clearly unused to such detailed, practical questions from a child. "Ah, the matter of Student Loans," he explained, his tone suddenly laced with cynical resentment.
"While those greedy, conniving Goblins who run Gringotts haven't lost all their senses and acknowledge a begrudging responsibility to the community, they are still goblins."
He spat the last word out almost contemptuously. "These funds, approved and vouched for by Hogwarts, provide a loan of 100 Gold Galleons per year for any student demonstrably unable to afford their tuition. It's interest-free, thankfully, but any student accepting their aid is required to repay the principal within five years of graduation or dedicate five years of service to the Ministry or a designated magical institution."
A debt-for-service agreement, Tierra calculated instantly. A restrictive contract disguised as benevolence. It's far better than any Muggle system, but it's still a leverage point. Her mind whirred, recalling the three pouches of antique currency stowed in her alien library. Her immediate goal was clear: secure enough local currency to avoid the Goblin's gilded debt trap.
Hagrid paused, leaning his bulk against a barrel. "Beyond the loans, Gringotts also allows Muggle-born children to exchange their currency for Galleons. The rate is set at five Muggle pounds for one Galleon, with a generous cap of one hundred Galleons per student. Tierra, if you have any Muggle funds left, I strongly suggest you exchange the maximum. Trust me, Madam Nancy's Liquorice Wands on the Hogwarts Express are legendary—you'll want to try one."
Just as he finished the pragmatic advice, Hagrid's eyes, as easily distracted as a child's, landed on the window of a garishly decorated sweet shop. He stopped dead, gazing at a display of dark, coiled sausages with the reverence of a connoisseur.
"Merlin's beard, look at that!" he exclaimed, excitement replacing his financial cynicism. "They haven't run out of Dragon Sausage yet! Harry, Tierra, you must try a stick. They're phenomenal."
Without waiting for a response, Hagrid lumbered into the confectionery. He emerged a minute later, triumphant, holding three thick, smoky sausages and a small, clear plastic bag containing a dense, black, oddly writhing mass.
He handed the sausages to the children. As Harry recoiled slightly from the grotesque, oily meat, his attention was immediately drawn to the bag in Hagrid's hand. The black, sugary contents seemed to subtly curl and twitch inside the plastic.
"Ah, these," Hagrid said, catching Harry's horrified expression. He chuckled warmly. "These are Lemon Cockroach Balls. Headmaster Dumbledore's absolute favorite sweet. He insists I bring him a bag whenever I'm in the Alley. Don't let the name fool you. They're actually made entirely of concentrated lemon juice, honey syrup, and liquorice. Would either of you care for one? I doubt the Headmaster would begrudge a sampling from his stash."
Harry visibly flinched and shook his head with desperate quickness, already preoccupied by the intense flavors of the Dragon Sausage.
Tierra, however, made the immediate, decisive counter-intuitive choice. This was not a world for hesitation or fastidiousness. It was a world of the impossible, where the repulsive often contained the sublime.
"One, thank you," she said, her tone level and serious.
She accepted the black candy from Hagrid's immense, thick fingers. It looked exactly like a large, larval cockroach—pale yellow, bulbous, and faintly sticky. She peeled back the outer paper wrapper with clinical precision and popped the entire thing into her mouth.
The moment the 'cockroach' touched her tongue, she felt a distinct, almost unsettling squirm of resistance, an illusion so perfect it blurred the line between candy and creature.
But the sensation vanished instantly, replaced by a devastating, sharp sourness that faded into the complex sweetness of honey and the earthy depth of liquorice. The burst of citrus was intense, an electrical jolt to her exhausted system.
"It is excellent," Tierra confirmed, allowing a rare, genuine smile to curve her lips. It was a gesture meant to signal her immersion, her acceptance of the absurdity of this new life, in contrast to Harry's continued, understandable shock.
Harry, still silently consuming his dragon sausage, merely watched the dizzying array of magical wares, his eyes wide and fixed. He was a bewildered tourist. Tierra, however, was now a student surveying her deadly new campus.
"Alright, enough of the sweets," Hagrid announced, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "We have arrived."
They stopped before a structure that demanded attention: a towering, sheer-white edifice that dwarfed the surrounding, colorful shops. It was crafted from pristine marble, rising like a cold, gleaming fortress.
The structure possessed not a door, but a massive, shimmering bronze gate, flanked by figures clad in scarlet and gold livery. The air here was different—no longer chaotic and whimsical, but heavy, cold, and utterly authoritative.