Diagon Alley

"Albert, are you sure we haven't come to the wrong place?" Herb compared the map in his hand but could not find the pub Professor McGonagall had mentioned.

"We need to find the bookstore first. There's a record shop next to it." Albert raised his hand and pointed at the large bookstore ahead. Sure enough, there was a record shop beside it.

"This is it? But I..."

"...can't see the pub?" Albert finished for him.

If he had not been looking carefully, he would never have noticed the small pub beside the large bookstore.

The hurried pedestrians did not even spare it a glance. Naturally, that included his father, Herb.

"I can already see the pub. Do you remember what Madam McGonagall said?"

"Muggles can't find the pub?" Herb muttered. "I hate that word, Muggle."

Herb took his son's hand and let Albert lead him forward. A few seconds later, he saw the legendary Leaky Cauldron.

It was a filthy, cramped pub.

"I hate this place. It's too dirty."

"So do I. Let's go in!"

Hiding the disgust on their faces, father and son pushed open the door and entered the pub one after the other.

Filthy, messy, dark.

That was their assessment of the place. Several men and women who looked anything but normal sat inside, most of them elderly. They wore ridiculous top hats and looked utterly absurd.

If this group walked out on the street, they would definitely draw countless stares. Yet here, Albert and Herb seemed more like the odd ones out, as eye-catching as a flame in the darkness.

Herb quickly calmed down and walked toward the counter. Looking at the bald old man, he asked tentatively, "Mr. Tom?"

"A young wizard from a Muggle family?" Tom studied Albert, then looked up and smiled at Herb. "You want to know how to get to Diagon Alley?"

"Yes, Mr. Tom. Professor McGonagall said you could take us to Diagon Alley." Albert studied the old man before him as well, forcing a polite smile onto his face.

"Of course. Please follow me." Tom came out from behind the bar and beckoned for them to follow.

The three of them arrived at the pub's backyard. There was only a brick wall, a trash bin, and several empty barrels.

"This trash bin will always be here. Count three bricks up from it, then two across. That's the brick." Tom pointed to the spot he had just tapped, then drew his wand and tapped the brick three times. Turning to Albert, he said, "Once you have your own wand, you can open the entrance to Diagon Alley yourself. Remember, tap it three times with your wand."

The brick Old Tom had tapped began to tremble. The wall shifted in a bizarre manner, and a small hole appeared in the middle. The opening grew larger and larger, and within mere seconds, an archway wide enough for all three of them to pass through had formed before them.

A cobblestone street stretched out from beneath their feet. Shops lined both sides, while wizards and hawking street vendors filled the road.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley." Tom smiled at them.

"Mr. Tom, how do we get back later?" Herb asked.

"Once you've finished shopping, just follow the method I showed you to open the door." Tom answered Herb's question patiently, then reminded him, "Oh, you'd better go to Gringotts first and exchange some Galleons with the goblins. Muggle currency cannot be used here. Walk straight ahead from here—the white building is Gringotts Wizarding Bank."

"Thank you for the advice, Mr. Tom."

"Have a pleasant day." Tom smiled and waved at them before turning back toward the pub. He liked this job.

After Tom left, the entrance vanished and became a wall again.

"Let's go exchange some money." Herb took a deep breath.

"This place feels very different." Albert looked over the surrounding shops and smiled at Herb. "It feels like we've gone back a century."

"To be honest, I'm starting to doubt whether sending you to Hogwarts is the right choice. Maybe Daisy was right to insist against it." Herb sighed. The Wizarding World might be magical, but it always gave him the sense that it had fallen behind the times.

"Dad, it's not like I have to live in the Wizarding World." Albert could not help rolling his eyes. "I'm going to Hogwarts mainly to master this amazing power."

"Oh, you're right." Herb felt a little better. The two passed through the crowd and headed for Gringotts.

Just as Tom had said, it was a white building. A small figure stood beside the bronze doors. That was... a goblin.

"They really are unusual." Herb's expression was somewhat stiff. It was his first time seeing a humanoid creature that was not human.

Albert did not care much. He studied the goblin's appearance—short, with a pointed beard, long fingers and limbs, and a dark face. A creature with no sense of beauty whatsoever.

When they entered, Albert noticed the goblin bowing to them.

There was a second door beyond it, silver in color. Words were engraved on both doors. Herb stepped closer, examined them carefully, and read aloud, "Enter, stranger, but take heed of what awaits the sin of greed, for those who take but do not earn shall pay most dearly in their turn..."

"I really don't understand how diligently wizards must rob banks for them to need warning slogans carved onto the doors," Herb muttered after finishing.

Albert nearly laughed when he heard that. He quickly cleared his throat and asked, "How much are you planning to exchange?"

"This?" Herb thought for a moment and said quietly, "One thousand pounds. If it isn't enough, we can exchange more later."

One thousand pounds was equivalent to most people's monthly salary.

Albert made a rough estimate. It would be around two hundred Galleons. He nodded. "I think that should be enough."

After they entered, two goblins bowed to them and led them into a tall marble hall. Herb stated that he needed to exchange some Galleons.

The goblins led them to a counter on the right and handed Herb a sheet of parchment. Written on it were the exchange rate between pounds and Galleons, as well as the Wizarding World's monetary system.

1 Galleon = 4.95 pounds.

1 Galleon = 17 Sickles, 1 Sickle = 29 Knuts.

Herb handed the parchment to his son and asked, "How many pounds do 200 Galleons cost?"

"990 pounds."

"Please exchange 200 Galleons for me." Herb took 990 pounds from his wallet and asked the goblin to exchange them for Galleons.

"Certainly. Please wait a moment." The goblin took the pounds and began counting them.

"Excuse me, Mr. Goblin, can any amount of pounds be exchanged for Galleons here?" Albert curiously asked a question that had puzzled him in his previous life.

"Theoretically, yes, but we do not accept too much Muggle currency." The goblin rang a bell and summoned another goblin, giving him an instruction. That goblin brought over a bag of gold coins and handed it to Herb, then led them aside to verify the number of Galleons.

"I didn't expect them to actually be gold coins." Herb turned a Galleon between his fingertips and could not help remarking.

After counting the Galleons and confirming that there were no mistakes, the two left Gringotts with their Galleons.

As they walked down the bright, sunny street, the gold coins in their pockets clinked pleasantly together, as though urging them to spend them as quickly as possible.