Tatiana and Hagrid got to London without too much trouble. They had gone to the underground station first, but Hagrid didn't have any cash. At least not regular cash. He had a lot of strange fat coins in his pockets.

"Aren't they heavy?" Tatiana asked, trying to get a better look at the coins. Some of them looked like they were made of gold.

"They are sometimes," Hagrid replied. "But Gringotts puts charms on them, so they're real light now." Tatiana stared at the coins.

"Well, we can't buy the tickets with these," she mused, "and I'm out of real money. Got any ideas?"

As it turned out, Hagrid had a different way of transportation. Tatiana watched him as he pulled a pink umbrella out of his pocket. Why didn't he use that before? Tatiana wondered drowsily. Why did we have to walk all the way to the train station She sat down on the sidewalk and watched Hagrid wave around the umbrella. If Hagrid was doing magic, why was it in the open? And why did she trust him again? Tatiana didn't have a very good reason to trust him. Actually, none at all. The Dursleys didn't trust him either. Actually, Tatiana thought, her head slowly drooping towards the pavement, maybe that's why I wanted to go with this guy. To prove the Dursleys wrong.

Tatiana must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, she was moving. The night air, chilly on her cheeks, woke her somewhat.

"Hagrid?" she asked blearily. "Where are we?" And then she opened her eyes. They were flying! Hagrid was driving a motorcycle, but in the air. Tatiana blinked and sat up. She was in some sort of rickety side-car attached to the motorcycle. Through the cracks in the bottom, Tatiana could see the earth go by below. They were flying pretty high, but definitely not as high as an airplane, Hagrid just having narrowly dodged a four story house. They were passing over the countryside now. Tatiana stared, breathless with awe, as she passed over the grass and trees. The Dursleys had never taken her anywhere fun, always choosing to leave her with Mrs. Figg, their elderly neighbor. Tatiana grinned broadly, then winced as the cold air hit her teeth. This was the reason she'd left the Dursleys.

"Wow," Tatiana yawned. She could just go on staring at the countryside forever, but she was too tired. Yawning again, she settled back into the side-car's seat and closed her eyes.

Tatiana woke up the next day in a strange room. For a moment she panicked. Did I get kidnapped or something? Then she remembered the night before. Magic actually existed, and she was an actual witch!

Tatiana stretched and looked around. Her room was sort of lacking in the light department, but that was probably because the window was all covered up. She padded over to the curtains, and noticed that someone had removed her shoes before tucking her into bed. Tatiana opened the window, and gasped. Before her was a view of a busy street with wide sidewalks. Lights flashed, and cars sped by. She was in London! It looked fantastic, so busy and crazy compared to Little Whinging. Then Tatiana turned around and gasped again. She wasn't in an ordinary hotel room. In the middle of the room was a four poster bed with royal blue curtains drawn back on the sides. The floor was a matching blue tile, and the walls were a beautiful deep brown wood. However, it was the portrait on the wall that drew Tatiana's attention. The woman seemed to be moving. She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and smiled.

"Good to see you've finally woken up," she said. "It's already after noon." Tatiana gaped.

"You can talk? But you're a-"

"Picture?" The girl shrugged. "Yes, I know. Haven't you seen one before?"

Tatiana frowned. "Well, not one that talks. I'm kind of new to all this magic stuff."

"Oh, are you a Muggle-born? That would explain a lot. Hagrid told me your letter didn't get to you, so he had to come find you. Oh, and he's waiting for you, by the way. You're going to Diagon Alley in just about-" she checked an old fashioned pocket watch- "ten minutes."

Tatiana was now thoroughly confused."Wait, what?" she asked. "What's a Muggle-born, and why am I going to … Diagonal Alley?"

"A Muggle-born is a witch or wizard with non-magical parents," the witch replied. "If you aren't one, then why don't you know anything?" Tatiana bristled.

"My parents are dead, thank you very much. And they were magical, but since they died, I had to be raised by my extremely 'Muggle' relatives."

The portrait reeled back. "Oh, honey," she cooed. "I'm so sorry. I really didn't know. Anyway," she said briskly, straightening her skirt, "Diagon Alley is where you get your school things. Get ready!" She whirled around and waltzed out of the frame.

Tatiana didn't waste time with getting ready. She raced out of her blue bedroom and down the hall, which was lined with more talking portraits.

"The stairs are the other way!" a cantankerous old man in a gilded frame told her. Tatiana spun around and raced down the stairs. Her frenzied run was only stopped when she hit Hagrid with a thud.

"Ouch!" She craned her neck to look up at the big man. "Sorry." She smiled. "So what do I have to get for school?"

Diagon Alley was the complete opposite of London. The first thing Tatiana noticed was the weather. In the real world, the sky had been a dreary gray, but here- Tatiana supposed this was real too, but still- here it was sunny! Tatiana tore her eyes away from the bright blue sky to look at the buildings. They weren't the industrial structures or perfect suburban houses she was used to. These buildings were a random assortment. On Tatiana's side of the street was the hotel they had just come out of, a shabby, yet welcoming structure. Across the street were a pair of squat little shops that seemed to be selling newspapers and big fancy feather pens. At the far end of the street stood the biggest building by far. Gold and white and majestic, it rose proudly for three stories and ended in a domed glass roof.

"That's the bank," Hagrid announced. "We'll go there first."

"The bank? But I don't have any money!"

"Well, Tatiana, yer mum and dad had money. Quite a lot, yeh see."

"So, I'm rich?" Tatiana had never had any spending money in her life, and was excited at the prospect of buying stuff. "Can I get that shirt?" She pointed at a black lacy top proclaiming the words The Weird Sisters on it in neon green paint. Hagrid shook his head.

"We'll see, after we get yer school things."

The bank had a bunch of doors and a big fancy plaque with a poem on it. Tatiana didn't really pay attention to the decorations. Money, money, money! she thought over and over. I'm gonna buy that shirt, yes I am! Hagrid spoke to a creature at a desk and gave it a key, and Tatiana followed them to a rickety looking cart on tracks. That was surprising, considering that the rest of the building looked so nice.

The cart creaked as Tatiana and Hagrid climbed in. Tatiana was sure she saw it bend under Hagrid's weight, but at least it held. What is magic for,Tatiana mused, if it can't even fix an old cart on a track? The wheels started turning, and Tatiana realized that this was actually a lot like a roller coaster. Not that she'd been on one of course, but she'd seen pictures in the Super Adventures comics. This 'roller coaster' was slow at first. Tatiana bounced in her seat. She wanted to get her money fast!

Just then, the cart sped up. Tatiana flew back in her seat and clung to the railing. The car was going so fast, she feared she would fly out! Tatiana gasped and held on even harder as she saw what they were traveling over. Below their track was a gigantic cavern expanding down far below what Tatiana could see. Multiple tracks crisscrossed this massive space, with tiny cars stopping at rocky ledges far below her.

Wow, life is so much better with magic! Tatiana thought. Then everything was pushed out of her mind but the desire to not fall off as the cart went upside down. Moments later, the three people (well really three people and one strange creature with keys) were disembarking on a small ledge in the wall of the cavern. This ledge was the entrance to a rough- hewn hallway of heavy stone doors. The creature (Tatiana was sure she had heard of one of these things somewhere but couldn't remember the name) stopped at the third door down. Tatiana bounced eagerly on the balls of her feet as she stared at her vault. The door opened, and Tatiana raced inside. There was her money. Quite a lot, in fact. Tatiana counted at least three large baskets full of coins. Some were silver and copper, but Tatiana noticed that most of them were gold. So Tatiana's parents really had been rich. Tatiana looked back at Hagrid, who was still in the doorway, having had been too tall to go into the vault.

"So, do I get to take as much as I want?"

After a very short heated argument, Tatiana agreed to only take out a hundred Galleons, which was supposed to last her for the entire school year.

"But, what if I run out?" Tatiana asked curiously. "Is some owl going to just fly in with some cash?"

Hagrid shook his head. "Too dangerous," he replied. "Yeh gotta come back here to get more money. And yeh won't run out. Yer not going to be buyin' anything at school anyway."

Soon Tatiana and Hagrid were back in the warm sunlight and walking towards the clothing shop. Hagrid was consulting a list carefully.

"Right, so it says you need three pairs o' school robes in black," he told the girl, "and you need a cloak as well, and-"

"Hagrid?" Tatiana interrupted, totally off topic. "What was that creature in the bank?"

Hagrid looked deeply shocked. "A goblin o' course! Don't tell me you've never seen one of those before!"

"I'm telling you that right now," Tatiana shot back, mildly annoyed. "I've been living with the Dursleys my whole life, remember?"

Hagrid flushed. "Gee, I'm sorry, Tatiana. I jus' keep forgetting-"

"Its fine." Tatiana looked away from the big man. She hadn't meant to make him feel bad. It was so weird having people apologize to her. First the talking painting, and now Hagrid. Wow! Tatiana thought. Is this what being around decent people is like?

"Anyway," she continued out loud, "is there a place where they sell regular clothes too? I'm sort of tired of wearing Dudley's gross old things."

Hagrid shrugged. "Try the robe shop. And do yeh mind if I wait outside? I won't really fit in the store."

Tatiana walked into the clothing store and frowned. The shop was packed with racks of long flowing dress like things, presumably the robes on her list. They were crafted in a rainbow of colors, from a tight green dress with a long sweeping skirt and sleeves made out of something like a fishnet, to a baggy black thing covered in lace and rips. Tatiana wandered around, looking through the collection. There were a lot of ugly striped ensembles on a rack marked ‘clearance’, and a row of mannequins showed off some fancy new styles. This place certainly was interesting, but Tatiana couldn't seem to find any real clothes. She supposed she would ask the shopkeeper. Speaking of which, Tatiana wondered where the shopkeeper was.

"Hello?" she called.

"Over here," a musical voice replied. "Are you here for your Hogwarts robes?"

"Yeah." Tatiana followed the voice to the back of the store, where an eerily pale boy was being measured by a young woman with dark skin and bright green hair.

"Hi," she said to the boy, who she thought looked like a vampire. He had the good looks, as well as a cold and slightly menacing look to his light grey eyes.

He nodded. "First year as well, right?" His voice had a bit of a drawl.

"Yeah."

"Do you know what house you want to be in?"

"Um, no." Tatiana had no idea what a ‘house’ was, except in the ‘building that people live in’ sense. "Do you?" she asked, as the girl with the measuring tape guided her to stand on a block, and started finding the length around Tatiana's waist.

The boy smirked. "I'll be in Slytherin, of course. Like the rest of my family. You look like you'd be a Squib." The shopkeeper left the measuring tape and went back to the boy, starting to pin back the sleeves of his robes. Tatiana's eyes widened when she realized the tape measure was still measuring her, then widened still more when she looked at the boy again. Boys wore robes too? Didn't they hate it? That was like wearing a dress! Then she realized what the boy had said. Somehow Tatiana got the feeling that Squib was not an optimal house to be in.

"Thanks a lot," she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

"Oh, you're quite welcome. Ouch!" The boy jumped and rubbed his wrist. "If you want my family to shop here, you can't go around poking me with pins!"

The shopkeeper sighed. "If you would keep still, the pins would stay where they are supposed to go. Now shut your mouth and hold still!" The boy didn't do either.

"My name's Draco Malfoy," he said, pulling at the sleeve of his robes. "What's yours?"

"Tatiana Potter."

"Are you really?" the boy - Malfoy said. "That's funny, you don't look famous, but I could be mistaken. I had thought you'd be a bit … whiter."

"Wait, what?" Tatiana wasn't sure if she had heard Malfoy correctly. "I'm famous?" And what's wrong with not having creepy vampire skin like yours? she added in her thoughts. Tatiana was aware that she had a darker shade of skin than most of the kids at her old school, and that she looked completely different from the Dursleys, but she had never thought that it was a problem. Tatiana glared at the boy as the shopkeeper put a robe over her head and pinned it in place.

"Yeah, you haven't heard?" Malfoy was mocking her, to be sure. "You didn't realize how you killed the greatest wizard of all time when you were only two years old, and your parents died, and that's why you had to live with your aunt?"

Tatiana shook her head. He had to be making this up. And how did he even know so much about her?

"How do you know all this?" she asked angrily. "Have you been stalking me or something?" Malfoy shook his head.

"No, Potter, you're actually quite a celebrity here. Hell, you've even got books written about you. But I suppose you wouldn't know this, seeing as you've been living with Muggles your whole entire life." Tatiana definitely did not like this boy. Turning back toward the seamstress (for that must be what she was, as Tatiana's robes were now sewing themselves to fit) she asked,

"Do you sell any real clothes here?" The seamstress looked baffled.

"Real clothes? I can assure you that these robes are as real as anything else you may wish to buy."

"No," Tatiana corrected. "I mean like the ones I'm wearing."

Malfoy snorted. "Muggle clothes? You have to go to a Muggle store to buy that sort of crap." Tatiana glared at him.

"What about, I don't know, something you wear under your robes?"A thought suddenly came to her. "You do wear things under your robes, right?"

The shopkeeper smiled, probably at Tatiana's ignorance. "If you wanted a lingerie shop, you should have just asked directions. Its two stores down to your left." Tatiana nodded in thanks, even though that wasn't quite what she meant. She had been thinking more of a pair of jeans that fit. Then she noticed that Malfoy was snickering.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "If you had to wear your cousin's disgusting underwear every day of your life, you'd be pretty desperate too!" The boy shuddered.

"That would never happen to me,because I'm rich. And my family cares about me." Tatiana was fuming now. She made toward him, ready to make him eat her fist, but was smoothly intercepted by the seamstress, who handed both her and Malfoy an armload of clothes.

"That's five Galleons, both of you," she said. As Tatiana dug around in her pocket for five golden coins, the infuriated witch added, "And you can take your argument outside of my store!"

Tatiana was still fuming as she walked with Hagrid toward the bookstore, the third shop on the list. Tatiana had raced toward the underclothing store with an embarrassed "One moment!" and returned with a bag of knickers and bras that she had randomly selected. Fortunately, Hagrid hadn't asked any questions. Now Tatiana was kicking the cobblestone road and telling Hagrid about her encounter with Draco Malfoy.

"You know," she said bitterly, "some people need to learn manners. I mean, really, who goes and insults your dead parents and only living relatives in one sentence? " Actually, Tatiana had insulted the Dursleys many times in her life, but she felt that she had a right to. After all, they were her relatives.

Finally, at the end of the day, it was time for Tatiana to get her wand. She pushed open the door of the shop, slinging some bags over her shoulder. Hagrid had offered to carry her purchases, but Tatiana would not give up her bag of underwear. She had a vivid idea of what her face would look like if Hagrid saw what she had bought.

Walking inside, Tatiana gasped for about the fiftieth time that day. This store was much taller than the outside suggested. The walls here soared toward a high arched ceiling, and every inch of the walls was covered in flat boxes. Light poured in from the ceiling, which was made out of a strange sort of glass that seemed to be changing color. Something whirred, and Tatiana noticed a ladder rolling in out of the distance. Craning her neck, she found the owner of the shop. Perched upon the ladder was a balding old man, carrying an armload of the flat boxes.

"Greetings," he said in a voice that was somehow at the same time creaky and welcoming. "Ah, you are here for your wand. You are Miss Potter, am I correct?"

"Yeah," Tatiana answered. "Why?"

"Oh, I feel very fortunate now. You see, I have always wished to meet you, Miss Potter." Tatiana blushed. So she really was famous. This was so … weird. The wand maker got to work, measuring her with an enchanted tape, much like the seamstress. This measuring tape was weird, though. It measured both of Tatiana's hands, then fingernails, and even her ears! The man climbed on the ladder up a few rungs and grabbed a couple wands, seemingly at random.

"Which is your writing hand?" he asked. Tatiana raised her right hand. "Alright, try this one out. Cherry and dragon heart string, twenty two centimeters …"

Tatiana tried out a lot of wands. Each one did something when she touched it. A grayish wand made some mouselike noises, and a rough brown one shot out a fizzling red spark. None of these seemed to be the one, though, because the old guy made a little tsk-ing noise each time and found another box. Tatiana must have gone through five boxes by the time she saw a wand she liked. It was plain, unlike some of the ones she had previously tested, and it had one odd reddish stripe down one side. Unlike the others, it was warm to Tatiana's hand. She picked up the end she thought was the handle, the slightly wider side. As she picked it up, a stream of golden sparks poured off the tip. Tatiana poked at the sparks. They weren't too hot, so she scooped up some in her free hand and threw them in the air. Tatiana grinned as sparkles rained down.

"Holly, with phoenix feather," the wand maker explained. "I do believe we've found a match for you." He said something else too, that Tatiana didn't catch. Still gripping some of the rapidly disappearing sparkles, she paid for her wand.

"I'm going to get you a present," Hagrid said as soon as they exited, "for yer birthday. "You can get that Weird Sisters shirt you saw earlier, or I'll buy you an owl."

Of course Tatiana chose the owl.