Status: Rewrite of "A Little Bit of Love and Laughter" -- ongoing

Of Pranks & Princes

Trolley

She had not been anticipating Severus's early morning arrival on the first day of September, and when she answered the door, still groggy from having been asleep just moments before, he said only, "Five minutes."

Emily had thought his tone was a joke until he began a countdown. Then she rushed back to her bedroom to fight the knots in her hair as she threw it into a tight braid, the wrinkles in her sweater, her beat-up trainers. She threw the last few things into her trunk. She hurried back to the doorway and looked at Severus, expectant.

"So what's Hogwarts?" she asked, walking in step with him as they moved from the front terrace.

"A school."

"Where is it?"

"Hidden away from muggle sight," came his gruff answer.

"What's a muggle?" she asked, and he scoffed in reply. Emily seemed surprised he was a teacher with so little patience.

When they approached the edge of the path, Severus grabbed her forearm, and she felt her body being forced violently in every direction.

She couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything. It was as if her stomach was being forced up her throat, spinning and spinning in every direction at once until they suddenly stopped.

It took her a while to regain her balance, and she leaned against her trunk as a brace. Her arm was pins and needles before the feeling came back to it. Even still, it took a moment for her mouth to be wet enough to squeak out, "What was that?" She surveyed her surroundings and realized that they were no longer standing in front of her quaint home in Chard. In front of her now was a rather overcrowded shopping strip.

The lantern-lined cobblestone street seemed to stretch out infinitely in front of her in every direction, crammed to each kerb with people. Men and women were dressed in elaborate robes not unlike Severus's, though in vast varieties of colour and pattern. Trailing behind them were children ranging from near-infant to her age and older, wearing jumpers and washed-out denim. The shopfronts they stood in front of were adorned with large windows, bright with displays – some selling books and parchment, some animals, and others yet selling broomsticks and cauldrons.

"Diagon Alley," Severus said, the announcement blasé. It didn't explain how they had gotten here, but she appreciated having a name for the place.

The buildings were all large, casting long shadows onto the worn cobblestones. One in particular stood above the others with a shimmering marble exterior that reflected the sunlight. Its slanted slope contrasted against some of the finer, straighter facades of the other buildings. The aged engraving on the outside read Gringotts Bank, the letters etched in thin capitalized font.

Emily moved to hand Severus the list that had been sent, but he ignored her prodding as if he did not need it.

"Your first stop," said Severus, pulling her in the direction of the bank.

They stepped inside and noticed a substantial drop in temperature. At the tall counters sat multitudes of grotesque creatures with wrinkly skin and sharp teeth and pointed ears.

"Yes?" the creature asked, not even looking up from its work. Its – his – voice was deep and gravelly, reverberating against the vastness of the bank's insides.

"A withdrawal needs to be made from the vault of Julian Prince," Severus replied and held out a shining golden key.

The creature, still not once glancing up, pointed them to the left. Another creature of similar likeness called the two over onto a moving platform. He, too, requested to see the key before handing it back to Severus. The platform began to move, to speed along a rickety track, and Emily watched as the numbers gradually increased. 17, 53, 110, 394, 519. That was where they stopped.

"Vault five hundred and nineteen," the creature announced, stepping off of the platform. He held out his hand toward Severus. "Key, please."

With the key twisted into the elaborate lock, the door opened, revealing a pile of gold and silver coins. Severus climbed into the vault, pulled out a small change bag and began to fill it with assorted denominations. She had never seen this much money before. Well, she wasn't sure how much it even was, but it looked like a lot. More money than her mother had seen in her lifetime, though she could not use it and may not have known about it at all. As Severus and the creature stepped back on the platform, where Emily had been sitting, waiting with her hands folded on her lap, he handed her the bag and said, "This should be more than enough for everything."

She didn't know how much it was, though she could see that it was not terribly large a portion of what filled the vault.

When they finally left, the sunlight was garish against her eyes, which had grown accustomed to the dark of Gringotts. Severus pushed her in the direction of a small, peculiar shop.

"You'll purchase your wand in there."

"Do I just pick one out or...?" When she turned around, he was gone.

She entered the small building and coughed as a reflex, dust swimming around her with each step she took inside. "Excuse me?"

A short, white haired man came to the counter from the back. "Yes, how may I help you?" He paused for a moment, then answered his own question. "Of course; you're here for a wand! Yes, when you're looking for a wand, Mr. Ollivander is most certainly the one to see. Lovely, just lovely." A tape measure with silver markings floated out from the dusty drawer, and he asked, "Wand arm?"

She hesitated, looking at both hands, unsure of which was the wand arm. Was it the dominant arm? Or were things backwards here?

"Which do you write with, my dear?" he asked, softly, as if sensing her confusion.

"Right."

The man, Mr. Ollivander, she assumed, measured the length of her arm, as well as various other measurements, muttering a little, "Ah", every now and again. He began to hum to himself as he returned to the rear of the store, coming back moments later with a long black box. "Try this," he said, handing the contents of the box, a pale, pinkish coloured wand, to her. "Redwood and unicorn hair. Ten inches." As she stood with the thing in her hands, unsure of what exactly she was supposed to do with it, he prodded, "Go on, give it a wave."

She did, and a light stream of colourful sparks flew from its tip. It felt warm in her hands.

"Interesting," he said with a smile. "You know, it's not terribly common to connect with the right wand on the first try. It often takes two or three, at least." He took the wand back from her, replacing it gently in its box. "The wand chooses the witch, my dear, so even I never know how it's to go."

Emily smiled, pleasantly surprised that something about this felt right, felt natural. Meanwhile, Mr. Ollivander began to jot down notes on a small piece of receipt paper, his quill dancing in a flurry of feathers with each mark. "As a matter of fact, it's been a rather long while since last this happened here. The last wizard I remember to have managed such a feat was… a young man many years ago. Great wizard, he went on to do great things and would've done more, I'm sure, but alas, tragedy strikes the best of us, I'm afraid. I remember every wand I've ever sold, my dear." He paused, glancing back down at the paper once or twice more before ripping it from the stack. Ever so slightly, he shook his head before he continued, "But enough about that. I'll need your name, please, and seven Galleons."

She pulled out the change purse Severus had given her. Were Galleons the gold ones? She hesitantly took seven gold pieces from the bag and set them on the counter, answering, "Emily Prince."

Upon hearing her name, Mr. Ollivander seemed to stop short. "Prince? Yes, that was his name, Julian Prince." He paused, taking the coins and bowing his head to her. "Farewell, Miss Prince. I am certain that you, too, will go on to do great things."

When Emily walked out of Ollivanders, the wand box held tightly in her grasp, Severus stood waiting, an owl in a cage resting on the ground next to him.

"I've picked up your supplies," he said. "You've got a full trolley waiting."

"What's that?" she asked, pointing to the owl.

The bird looked like the one that had delivered her letter, with brown speckled feathers. It sat silently in its cage, pecking its beak against the metal bars.

Severus thrust the cage into Emily's arms, nearly knocking the wand box from her grip.

"An owl," he replied coolly, "to use to communicate with your mother."

The owl looked up at her with big yellow eyes, his smallish body set in the centre of the cage. Guardedly, she moved a finger to just near the bars of the cage, waiting to sense the bird's reaction. She half-expected him to snap at her, but he nudged his beak gentle against her skin.

"I like him," Emily said, rubbing his small feathers. "Thanks."

Severus didn't hear her – or perhaps neither noticed nor cared. "Last you'll need is to be measured for robes."

He set her off in the direction of a seamstress's shop with a stone exterior where a petite older woman greeted her. She asked if she was looking to be measured for Hogwarts robes, and Emily nodded. The woman pulled her pearl-white hair back from her face and slid gigantic bifocals down her nose as she looked Emily up and down, muttering pleasantly to herself under her breath. Like with Mr. Ollivander, this woman's tape measure trailed behind her as she circled around, occasionally pausing to let it take a measurement, of Emily's arms, chest, length, head. As she worked, she tried to ask Emily about her family, about school, but she was too distracted to answer.

All about the shop, Emily admired the stitched embroidery of some of the other cloaks emblazoned with deep purple Ms, shields bearing various colours and animals, ornate crests adorned with family names. Each one was so lovely and distinct that she wished she could know more about them.

"All done now!" the woman said with a beaming grin. She handed Emily a small stack of three robes with a pointed hat atop them. The robes, and the grey woollen sweaters that accompanied them in her pile, bore the quarter-cut crest that had been on the envelope that was sent to her. Her fingers brushed over each section – red, yellow, blue, and green – before she realized that they matched the coloured crests on some of the other robes around the shop.

The woman let out a small ah-hem, and Emily turned back to her again, having for a moment forgotten that she was still in her shop. "As soon as you're sorted, your Head of House will inform me, and I'll have your House robes sent up straight away." She paused for a moment, patiently waiting as Emily pulled out the money she owed her, both for the robes she had now and those which would come later. "Good luck, and have a fabulous first year at Hogwarts, dear!"

Severus met Emily at the door. "Done," he said, drawing in a deep breath.

He walked her outside of Diagon Alley, through a small pub at the street's fore. He handed her a ticket and rolled her now-filled trolley over to her.

"What's this?" She glanced over the ticket in her hand, and felt her body lurch, the sensation somehow much less painful the second time around. When she looked up from the ticket, they were in a dark alleyway of a populated train station. Kings Cross, she remembered. She had come here before with her mother.

"The train leaves promptly from Platform 9 ¾. Run straight at the wall between the platforms, and you'll arrive at the station."

Before she could ask him to repeat his directions, he was gone again.
♠ ♠ ♠
I promise that we'll see the twins in the next chapter, so there's something to look forward to.

As always, feedback is welcomed and appreciated!