Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter 3

The next morning, the Weasley's took the annual trip to Diagon Alley so Ron, Harry, Hermione, Nellie, and Ginny could get their school supplies. Fred and George tagged along and Percy stayed home. Mr. Weasley was working at his Muggle job so he was also not attending.

"Have you ever traveled by Floo Powder, Nellie?" asked Mrs. Weasley showing her a flowerpot that was full of green dust.

"Well. No. I've heard of it before."

"All you do is put it on the fire-"

"I know." Nellie interrupted. She took a pinch of the dust and tossed it on the flames of the fire Fred had started in the kitchen fireplace.

"Diagon Alley!" she said and was swept away. Nellie closed her eyes as ashy wind moved her on her way. Wand clutched in her hand, she tumbled out of a fireplace in a dusty bar.

"Why hello, Ginny!" said a voice. "Is your family coming?" The voice belonged to a blonde boy who was searching his pockets.

"Um." Just then, Harry came out of the fireplace next.

"Hey Neville!" Harry said to the boy.

"Hi Harry. My Gran sent me to get my supplies but I've seemed to have misplaced my school supply list."

"Don't worry Neville. You can tag along with us (Hermione came out of the fireplace) and you can look off of my list."

"Gee thanks Harry!" Neville said. "Hi Hermione!"

"Hello Neville." Hermione said. "Lost your list again?"

"Be nice!" said the real Ginny as she stood up after entering the store.

"But---" Neville stuttered as he looked from Nellie to Ginny.

"I swear we're going to have trouble with those two." Said Harry to Hermione. "Neville, this is Nellie. She's staying with the Weasley's and is going to Hogwarts as an exchange student."

"Oh! Gosh, I'm sorry! I called you Ginny! Gee, I feel dumb!" Neville said, going red in the face.

"That's okay." Nellie said smiling at him. He grinned back. Fred arrived and was closely followed by George who came out of the fireplace so fast he crashed into Fred and they fell on the floor. They were still lying on the floor laughing when Mrs. Weasley came and she tripped on the boys.

"How many times have I told you boys not to just jump in the fireplace without waiting?" she scolded, catching herself and straightening up.

"Hello Neville. How's your grandmother?" Mrs. Weasley asked seeing him.

"She's doing good, thank you." Neville said politely.

"Neville can't find his supply list so he's going to go shopping with us so he can look off my list." Harry told Mrs. Weasley.

"The more the merrier. Now let's go." She said, beckoning everyone out the back door the shop. There was a wall with (All right. Everyone reading this gets the point. Skip to Diagon Alley.)

As the gateway closed behind them, Mrs. Weasley immediately trooped them over to Gringotts, the Wizarding bank so that they could exchange Nellie's American money for Wizard money. After that was done they all headed to get their 7th year and 6th year books at Flourish and Blott's. Hermione got more books than usual for 'bedtime reading'. Mrs. Weasley ushered Nellie into Madam Malkin's robe shop to get Nellie her Hogwarts Robes. And there they met, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville's worst nightmare. Draco Malfoy.

"Well, well, well." He sneered at them as they came in. "Can you all afford some first hand robes?" he asked. Mrs. Weasley paid no attention to Draco and Harry glared at him. Hermione, Ron, and Neville did the same. Ginny did too. Nellie didn't even know who this kid was, but he was sure cute!

"And what do we have here?" Draco said, looking away from his wallet from which he was paying for his new robes, and stared at Nellie.

"I'm Nellie. I'm a Hogwarts exchange student from America." She said. She did what she thought was proper and held out her hand for him to shake.

"Charmed." Draco said, flashing her his best vampire smile. Ron grimaced. "I guess I'll be seeing YOU around." He said. He looked down at his wallet again and brought out a small piece of paper. It looked like a business card.

"If you want to know the best people." Draco said. Nellie stared at the card as he left the store, swinging his bag so that it hit Harry.

"That Malfoy! Sometimes I wish I could just kick his---" Ron said.

"RON!" said Mrs. Weasley sternly. Nellie stared more at the card. All that was written on it were the words, "Death Eaters of The Northern Magical Quadrant". What the heck was a Death Eater? Maybe it's some kind of club member status. Nellie thought. Nellie stuffed the card in her pocket.

Nellie didn't really like her robes. They were too.. Black for her taste. But she reminded herself that she shouldn't get too picky. Harry, Ron, Fred and George rushed to Quality Quidditch Supplies and drooled over all the Quidditch supplies but Hermione dragged them away so they could get potion refills and more parchment. Neville kept going over his purchases to make sure that anything hadn't fallen out of his bag. She often caught him looking at her. He seemed to turn red a lot. According to Hermione who constantly whispered in her ear, Neville usually turns red with embarrassment in Potions class when the teacher is mean to him in front of the entire class.

"Who wants Ice Cream?" sang out Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh! Oh! Me! Me!" said all the boys. Mrs. Weasley treated them all to ice cream. The boys had a brain freeze contest. George won. While the boys moaned and clutched their heads and begged for a spoonful of the girl's ice cream since they still had some left, Nellie kept thinking about what Death Eater's could be like. Sure, the name didn't sound too pleasing but then again, neither does Smashing Pumpkin's, and they're okay people. So they all headed back to the Leaky Cauldron, the place where they had traveled from the Weasley fireplace. Neville said good-bye to them and went outside to catch the underground sub back to his grandmother's house.

The days went by and Hermione went over all her books. Ginny watched the Wizard TV set and talked on the phone. Harry, Ron and the twins often went out to fly on their brooms. Harry was nice enough to let Nellie try out flying on his Firebolt. Percy spied on Nellie wherever she went and since he lived at home, Mrs. Weasley made him do chores. And the big day came. It was September first and everyone woke up early to get ready to go to Kings Cross Station to go to Hogwarts. The morning was a very foggy one and made the emotions in the air mysterious. Nellie had only been on one kind of train once and that was the underground. She had never been on a real train before.

"They're fun." Hermione had told her as they did their make-up in the bathroom that morning.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I think you better sit with me and Harry and Ron instead of Ginny or people will start mixing up names again." Hermione suggested. Nellie didn't say anything. Mrs. Weasley had made soggy waffles and freshly squeezed orange juice. While they all ate, she made sandwiches for everyone.

"Okay. One corned beef for Harry, one peanut butter for Ron, 2 pastrami on rye for Ginny and Hermione, and one deli style for Nellie."

"Hey! Why don't I get deli style?" whined Ron.

"Because you take just about everything except for the cheese and lettuce off of them." Snapped Mrs. Weasley. Glancing at her watch she told them all to drag their trunks outside to load into the rental car. Ron dropped his on his foot and he yelped in pain and pushed it down the stairs again making very large dents. Mrs. Weasley scolded Ron all the way to the car. Harry drove the car to the station with Mrs. Weasley and Hermione in the passenger seats. Everyone else was in the back. The fog had mostly cleared when they reached King's Cross. Ron got everyone trolley's and they piled their trunks onto them. Harry set his owl Hedwig's cage on top of his trunk and Ron did the same with his owl, Pigwidgeon. Nellie had to agree with Ron that Pig was annoying. Sometimes he flew around in circles in his cage so fast he hit the bars. That was funny though. Harry and Ron went first through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. Nellie was surprised at how this was the way to get onto Platform 9