As Annie left Ollivanders Wand Shop and continued wandering around, intending to finish her tour of Diagon Alley, a clear voice from behind interrupted her. She had to stop looking around at all the strange sights.
"Hello, my name's Hermione Granger. Little girl, are you here by yourself?" Hermione's main reason for coming to Diagon Alley today was to buy the textbooks she needed for her second year at Flourish and Blotts. Besides those necessities, she also wanted to pick up some extra books that interested her.
Of course, first she had to go to Gringotts to exchange some money for Galleons. After all, all she had on her was pounds, and pounds weren't accepted in Diagon Alley.
After bringing her here, her father, Mr. Granger, had left her to wander around on her own, under the noble pretense of "teaching Hermione to be independent." Really, he'd just been looking for an excuse to slack off.
On her way to Gringotts, Hermione immediately spotted the curious little girl standing in the street, looking around. At first, she thought the child might have gotten separated from her parents by accident, since she looked several years younger than Hermione.
Since that was the case, the kind Miss Granger naturally had to volunteer to help when she saw what was happening. So she went over to greet the little girl, to see if she could be of any help.
"Huh? Were you talking to me just now? Oh, hello to you too! My name's Annie, Annie Hastur. It's nice to meet you!" When someone greeted her, Annie didn't get shy. She came to her senses and replied cheerfully.
"It's nice to meet you too! By the way, Annie, why are you here alone? Did you get separated from your parents? Do you want me to help?" Hermione looked around but didn't see anyone who looked like Annie's parents, so she asked.
"No, not at all! I came here by myself." Annie wanted to find her parents too, but she couldn't go back. The useless little Space Stone would probably take a long time to finish charging.
"You came here alone?!" Hermione was a little shocked.
How could such a young girl dare to come to Diagon Alley alone? And without a parent accompanying her? Her parents were so irresponsible! Just like Hermione's dad, Mr. Granger, who had abandoned her and left her to fend for herself. Irresponsible parents were just awful!
"Hey! Wait for me, Annie!" Hermione saw Annie turn and head for the pet shop after they'd only exchanged a few words. Now that she knew Annie had sneaked off to Diagon Alley alone, Hermione felt a sudden burst of compassion and decided to spend some time keeping her company. She hurried after her.
"Annie, are you... looking to buy a pet you like?" When they entered the pet shop and saw Annie staring at all the animals, Hermione assumed the little girl wanted a pet to play with. But speaking of pets, Hermione didn't have one herself. Maybe it was time she picked one out?
"Welcome to the Magical Menagerie! Two lovely young ladies, how can I help you?" Seeing customers arrive, the shopkeeper hurried over to greet them. "We have all kinds of pets here—every kind you can imagine! If there's anything you want, just ask!"
"Oh? Really?" Hearing the shopkeeper claim she had any kind of pet, Annie turned around and stopped looking. As for pets, she already had the best one, Tibbers, but she wanted another one to play with. "Then do you have anything like a fire dragon?"
"W-what? A fire dragon?! I'm very, very sorry, dear customers, but the Ministry of Magic forbids the sale of fire dragons... We really don't have any here. Absolutely none!" The shopkeeper paused, swallowed, and secretly wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.
Her eyes began to dart about as she wondered to herself whether someone had discovered and reported the two baby fire dragons she'd smuggled a while ago. That couldn't be right... She'd been very discreet, and she'd only contacted the buyers through intermediaries. How could anyone have found out? Could these two children be Aurors disguised with Polyjuice Potion? She was done for, absolutely done for! She shouldn't have been so greedy over that little bit of money...
"Um... why don't you try buying an Owl? Look at them. They're not only beautiful, they're clever too! They can even deliver your letters. So convenient! These are all just three Galleons each. Why not pick one?" The shopkeeper had already prepared for the worst. Although she was still suspicious, she forced herself to calmly introduce the shop's wares. She knew that this was exactly when she couldn't afford to lose her composure.
"No thanks!"
Annie glanced at the Owls hanging in their cages and curled her lip scornfully.
"They'll poop everywhere, and they stink. They look stupid and clumsy too. I don't want one of those flat-feathered beasts!"
"Um..."
When the shopkeeper heard Annie call the Owls stupid and clumsy, she was about to say something, but the Owls in the shop immediately erupted into a commotion, flapping around in their cages.
It seemed they'd understood what Annie had just said and wanted to break out of their cages to peck her a few times. They were magical pets, after all, and they were intelligent! How dare this human brat call them stupid, clumsy, and smelly? If they could just get out, they'd peck her head full of lumps!
"Well then, how about you take a look at these cats? They're considerate, docile, and obedient! Each one... each one costs two Galleons and ten Sickles! If you each buy one, I can even waive the twenty Sickles." After taking quite some effort to calm the Owls, the shopkeeper turned to introduce the cats.
"This cat looks pretty nice!" Hermione had her eye on a large ginger cat.
Its coat was bright gold, and it had a flat face, as if it had once run headfirst into a wall and gotten squashed. Its tail was fat and bristled out like a bottlebrush.
Hermione felt she'd fallen for the cat at first sight. Unlike the others, it sat quietly by itself, with a lonely, world-weary air. It looked rather pitiful, and Hermione's compassionate nature kicked in again. She immediately decided to save up two months' allowance and buy it.
"I don't want one! Cats shed, and they have fleas. They're filthy!" Annie would never want one of those things!
Huh? As soon as Annie finished speaking, she noticed one of the Black Cats in the group glaring at her. It even looked defiant!
Annie immediately glared back! Her eyes said, What are you looking at? Keep staring and I'll buy you and eat you! The Black Cat seemed to sense her hostility and instantly backed down. Its ears drooped, and it turned its head away.
"All right, then. How about a toad? Just one Galleon!" The shopkeeper was getting a little discouraged. She didn't seem to have much hope for the toads either. The older girl looked like she wanted to buy a cat, but the little one was impossible to please.
"Gross! I want to stomp it flat!" Annie quickly took two steps back when she saw the toad, covered in warts and oozing slime as it crouched on the table. How could she possibly buy something so disgusting?
"Don't you have anything decent here?" Annie looked around. There really didn't seem to be anything worth buying. And don't even get her started on the rats over there! Who would keep a rat as a pet? Just imagining someone cuddling a rat all day made Annie shudder. Anyone who did that had to be a freak, right?
"Sigh... I suppose not..." The shopkeeper reluctantly took off the reading glasses perched on her nose and began wiping them, feeling utterly dejected.
She'd already introduced all the main pets in her shop, but the customers hadn't liked a single one. They probably wouldn't like the others any better. She was almost certain of what she'd suspected: these two little terrors really were undercover investigators. Had someone reported her? Merlin's belly! She'd only smuggled fire dragons twice in total. How had she been found out so quickly?
"Don't you have any special pets? Something big, like a fire dragon?" Annie asked again, unwilling to give up. She didn't even have a dragon, and she dared to run a magical pet shop?
"A fire dragon?! Our shop would never do anything illegal like that! We don't have fire dragons. We don't, absolutely not!" The shopkeeper was almost scared half to death again. The little girl was still thinking about fire dragons? So she really was here undercover to gather evidence! She was sure of it! She was about to ask them to leave, but then suddenly remembered she had another good item—and, more importantly, it wasn't illegal!
"Wait, I have one more pet here that might interest you. Please wait a moment. I'll be right back!" With that, she hurried to the back of the shop, apparently searching for something.
For now, the shopkeeper decided not to worry about the two girls' real intentions. If they really were undercover investigators, throwing them out might make them think she was acting guilty and had something to hide, which would only make trouble for her later. In that case, she might as well bring out the shop's prized treasure and scare them off with a steep price.
A little while later, the shopkeeper returned with a box. Annie, who had been looking forward to it, immediately lost interest. If it fit inside such a small box, it had to be some tiny little thing, right? She wouldn't like little things like that. It had to be at least as big, mighty, and impressive as Tibbers! Something like a fire dragon would be perfect. It could fly and breathe fire, and it was big and fierce. Too bad the pet shop didn't sell any!
"Take a look. Do you know what this is? I'll tell you—it's a Phoenix Egg! Impressive, isn't it?" The shopkeeper carefully opened the box and presented it to them as if showing off a treasure. If she hadn't wanted to get rid of these two suspiciously undercover Aurors as soon as possible, she wouldn't have brought out her shop's prized treasure so readily.
"They say that if you wrap it in a Phoenix's flames, it'll hatch very quickly. Isn't that amazing?" Now they couldn't say she didn't have anything decent, could they? This was far rarer than a fire dragon. She'd stolen it years ago from an unknown nest in a sycamore tree. Only after asking someone to help identify it had she learned that it was a rare Phoenix Egg.
"Wow! It's a Phoenix Egg! Is it real?" Hermione knew all about the legendary Phoenix, and she'd seen one several times herself: Fawkes, the pet of their headmaster, Dumbledore. But this was the first time she'd ever seen a Phoenix Egg. It really was a rare sight!
"A Phoenix Egg?" Annie focused on the fiery red egg and used her magic to peer inside. After sensing the life energy within, which carried a scorching magical aura, she nodded. It seemed the shopkeeper wasn't lying. This really did look like a fine item!
"All right! How much?" There weren't any fire dragons here anyway! Annie decided she might as well buy the egg for now. She couldn't leave empty-handed.
"Ah? Well... are you sure you really want to buy it?" The shopkeeper looked at Annie's clothes and manner again. Had she really been mistaken? Were these two not Auror agents sent to investigate?
The shopkeeper considered the matter for a while, secretly calculating how much money the little girl's family might be able to pay. Since things had already come this far, if they were willing to pay, she might as well sell the egg and get rid of it. She'd been so badly shaken today that she urgently needed some coins to comfort her wounded nerves.
"Five thousand Galleons! Do you want it?" The shopkeeper didn't think Annie could afford that much, but perhaps her family wouldn't be able to resist the little girl's pleading and would eventually agree to buy it?
She'd had the egg sitting around for a long time. She didn't even know whether it might have gone bad by now. If she could sell it, that would be a good thing! After all, this kind of item was not only expensive but harder to get rid of than a fire dragon... Ahem, she couldn't think about fire dragons anymore. Her shop didn't sell them. There was absolutely no smuggling involved!
"Five thousand Galleons?! That's way too expensive!" Hermione was stunned.
How could the shopkeeper even say a price that ridiculous? Five thousand Galleons could buy more than a thousand Owls, couldn't it? Even if it really were a living Phoenix, surely it couldn't be worth that much? Hermione found the price completely unacceptable! Besides, it was only a Phoenix Egg, not an actual Phoenix! Who knew whether there was really a Phoenix inside? For all they knew, it might hatch into a cuckoo or a peacock!
"Here!"
To the surprise of both Hermione and the shopkeeper, Annie calmly pulled a large sack of coins out of her Spatial Pocket and dropped it on the table with a thud.
Annie had only grabbed a handful from her pocket, but it should be enough for five thousand, right? She had plenty of this stuff anyway; her Spatial Pocket was piled up like a mountain. It was all from the old dragon's hoard in the Voodoo Lands, so she didn't mind spending it at all!
Folding and expanding space? The shopkeeper wasn't particularly surprised by Annie pulling coins out of her pocket. She merely remarked to herself that rich children really were different; they casually carried so much money around with them. But when she opened the sack, she froze.
"These don't look like Galleons?" The shopkeeper picked up a few and examined them. Sure enough, they weren't Galleons!
"What are Galleons? They're coins, aren't they? What's the difference?" Annie didn't know what Galleons were. She'd used these coins to buy food at the Leaky Cauldron earlier, and nobody had said they couldn't be used!
"Sorry, children, but I'm afraid you'll have to go to Gringotts and exchange them first."
The pet shop owner had more integrity than Old Tom. Although these coins were heavier than Galleons, she still advised Annie to exchange them first. Of course, smuggling fire dragons had nothing to do with her character; it was just a way to make a living. Lately, her shop had been short on cash, and she'd been forced into smuggling.
"Annie, I was going to Gringotts too! Why don't we go together?" Hermione finally remembered that she needed to exchange her pounds too. When they came back, she could buy the big-faced cat she'd taken a liking to.
"All right." Annie glanced reluctantly at the Phoenix Egg in its box.
"Don't worry, children! I'll save it for you, I promise!" The shopkeeper saw Annie's concern and quickly offered her a reassuring smile.
It looked like she'd definitely make a big sale today! Maybe afterward she could take a few days off and rest. She could lie low for a while too. Once this deal went through, perhaps she'd never have to worry about being short on money again—or do the dangerous work of smuggling fire dragons.
Before you continue