Chapter 4 Diagon Alley
In the early morning, two people, one big and one small, were walking on the street in North Yankton.
The tall middle-aged man must be at least two meters tall, while the other was a child, thin and frail, wearing a pair of black-framed glasses that could not be fixed with tape. His hair must have not been cut for a long time, piled on his head like a pile of weeds, covering his forehead.
This strange combination walking on the street attracted the attention of pedestrians around. Some people even suspected that the child was abducted, after all, the "giant" did not look like a good person.
However, no one cared about it, and no one even called the police. After all, gang activities are not uncommon for residents of North Yankton, but it is rare to see them so unscrupulous.
These two people are the gamekeeper of Hogwarts - Hagrid and the new student of Hogwarts - Harry Potter.
After a while, the two came to the door of a shed in the woods west of North Yankton. Hagrid cleared his throat and was about to knock on the door, but the door suddenly opened.
Mike looked at the giant outside the door and recognized at first sight that the person was Hagrid from Harry Potter.
Before Mike could speak, Hagrid put down his hand that was about to knock on the door and coughed to ease the embarrassment.
"You are Mike Townley, right? Um... let me see." Hagrid seemed to have forgotten the words halfway through his speech, and took out a note from the pocket of his thick coat and read it.
"Abandoned by my parents when I was 2 years old... escaped from the orphanage when I was 5 years old... wandered in London until now. Um, sorry!"
Realizing that he had read the contents of the note, Hagrid became even more embarrassed and hurriedly crumpled the note into a ball and stuffed it back into his pocket.
"Well, in short, I'm the gamekeeper of Hogwarts, and I'm here to take you, Harry, to Diagon Alley."
Mike didn't care about Hagrid's rudeness and showed a sunny smile.
"It's okay, Mr. Hagrid, and thank you for coming here specially."
Hagrid didn't waste any words. After seeing that Mike knew his purpose, he took Mike and Harry to London.
Harry was very nervous along the way and never took the initiative to speak.
He originally thought that Hagrid would use some magical method to take him to the magic world, but Hagrid first took him to pick up a Hogwarts freshman named Mike, and then took the two of them to the city of London by subway.
Harry had a good impression of Mike. After all, Harry had always felt that there was no one in the world more miserable than himself, until he met Mike.
Compared with the other's experience, the sufferings he had experienced seemed nothing.
Of course, it is not denied that Harry still had a little bit of gloating in his heart, but this thought was quickly suppressed by Harry, and followed by a strong sense of guilt. It must be said that Harry is still very simple.
Mike was very talkative along the way, always looking for something to talk to Hagrid and Harry.
After talking along the way, Hagrid's embarrassment soon disappeared, and Harry responded to Hagrid and Mike's topics one by one, and he was still very nervous.
Not long after, Hagrid took them into the Leaky Cauldron.
As a public entrance connecting the British magic world and the Muggle world, the Leaky Cauldron is obviously very famous.
But as a famous place, it is too dark and dirty. Several old ladies were sitting in the corner of the room drinking sherry with small glasses, and one of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was chatting with a bar owner who was almost bald.
The three of them attracted everyone's attention as soon as they entered the door.
Tom, the bar owner, was about to greet Hagrid when he noticed the two people behind Hagrid. After carefully observing them for a while, he excitedly stepped forward and shook Harry's hand.
"Oh my God! You are Harry Potter, right? I'm so honored!"
As Tom's words fell, the whole bar was boiling, and everyone rushed to Harry's side, hoping that the famous Harry Potter could shake hands with him.
Mike noticed that one of them was dressed like an Indian, and he stuttered when he spoke. It was obvious that he was Quirrell, the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts this year.
Hagrid seemed very proud, as if he was forced to shake hands with everyone. However, he still played his role. After driving away everyone, he took the two to a brick wall behind the Leaky Cauldron.
"Three bricks up... and two bricks across..." he muttered. "Okay, stand back, little guys."
He tapped the wall three times with the umbrella.
The brick he tapped shook and began to move. A small hole appeared in the middle. The hole became bigger and bigger. Soon, a wide archway wide enough for Hagrid to pass through appeared in front of them, leading to a winding cobblestone street with no end in sight.
Mike looked at everything in Diagon Alley excitedly. This is the magical world!
Mike and Harry wished they had eight eyes. They kept looking around, wanting to see everything around them clearly.
Hagrid laughed heartily when he saw the two of them looking like country bumpkins entering the city.
"Don't worry, let's go to Gringotts to get the money first, and then I'll take you for a good walk, Harry." Hagrid noticed Mike beside Harry. "And you, Mike, don't worry. Hogwarts has prepared all your school supplies for you. We just need to go to Gringotts to pick them up."
Mike smiled and nodded. He could clearly feel that Hagrid treated him and Harry differently.
While chatting and laughing, they came to a snow-white building that stood tall above the surrounding shops. Beside the shiny bronze door, a goblin in a scarlet and gold uniform bowed to them.
Harry was obviously very curious and stared at the goblin.
Hagrid took advantage of the situation and said something to Harry. He was afraid that the goblin would hear so he spoke very softly. Even Mike, who was standing next to the two of them, could not hear. I didn't hear it clearly.
Not long after they walked, a silver door appeared in front of the three people. There were words written on the door:
Come in, stranger, but be careful of what will happen if you are greedy. You will be punished most severely if you just ask for something that never belonged to you. Therefore, if you want to take a fortune from our underground vault, thief, you have been warned. Be careful that you will not get treasure, but bad retribution.
Mike was dismissive of this. He was a bank robber in his previous life. This kind of bank warning sign can only scare simple-minded people like Hagrid and Harry.
After passing through the door, they came to the hall. There were about a hundred goblins sitting on high stools behind a long row of counters. Some used copper scales to weigh coins, while others used eyepieces to examine gems, while hastily recording in a large account book. There were countless doors in the hall, leading to different places. Many goblins pointed bows to lead people in and out of these doors. Hagrid and Harry walked towards the counter.
Hagrid said a few words to the goblins at one of the counters, and said to Mike, "Mike, just give him the Hogwarts admission notice. He will give you the things. Harry and I still need to go to the vault to get something."
Mike nodded and watched them walk away under the guidance of a goblin.
"Hello, sir." Mike turned around and handed the notice to the goblin.
The goblin did not speak to Mike. He took the notice and looked at it with a magnifying glass for a while, then took out a large box from behind.
Mike opened the box and saw that it was filled with many learning items written on the notice.
But they all have signs of use, especially the crucible, the inner wall of the crucible is uneven, the bottom is obviously much thinner than other parts, and there are large black stains on it.
Mike even suspected that its previous user had used it to cook shi, so it still emits a foul smell today.
Mike closed the box and looked at the goblin who was looking down at the color of the gem.
"Can you exchange pounds for gold galleons here?"
"Of course, 5 pounds for 1 gold galleon, with a limit of 100 gold galleons."
The goblin looked up, a little surprised that Mike, a poor guy, would ask this.
"Keep it secret for me." Mike threw out a small bag, which contained pounds of various denominations.
The goblin opened the bag and counted the coins inside, and the speed was so fast that Mike was shocked.
After a while, the goblin put a bag of gold galleons in Mike's hand.
"We have a rule that every transaction where Hogwarts students exchange Muggle coins for gold Galleons must be reported to Hogwarts."
The goblin spread his hands on the counter, pretending to be helpless, but the smile on his face betrayed him.
"What a greedy guy." Mike took out 5 gold coins from his pocket and secretly placed them in the goblin's hands on the counter. "Also, tell the big guys who just came in that I'm going to go around and meet at the Leaky Cauldron when the time comes."
The goblin received the bribe and nodded his head like pounding garlic.
"Don't worry, sir, you have never exchanged gold Galleons."
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