"Will I cry if I go in?" Declan asked in a wobbling voice. "I cried when Dobby died."

"Dude, if you're gonna cry, let me know before so I can record it at least." Jordan joked, but he sobered up quickly staring at the path ahead of them. "I cried when Dobby died too."

"Who didn't?" Alex teased, resisting the urge to whip out her phone and take pictures. They would be back tomorrow, and she could capture every moment then. For now, she just wanted to savour the entire day to come.

"I didn't," Dix said sheepishly. "When Kreacher led the house elves into battle in the books, I did though. I still can't believe that only the books were available in the palace."

"Nowhere else had them," Kaiden said with pretend-jealousy, "Even I had to sneak in and read it there."

"You're lucky you even got to sneak in, I had to wait until Alex brought them back." Declan sniffed his nose delicately before returning to his usual self. "We should go in now. People are gonna think we've got our feet stuck in cement if we stare at it all day."

Declan's words grounded all of them, and they began to make the walk down the street. On their right were a row of houses. Alex recognised one of them easily by its gloomy demeanour compared to the other bright buildings to its left. Number 12 Grimmauld Place stood proud and tall, perhaps a bit thinner compared to the others. A slight twitch from one of the curtains caught her attention, a window on the upper level of the house distrurbed by a thin hand. Kreacher. The house elf gave the onlookers below a slow sneer and withdrew behind the curtain.

"How'd they do that?" Bear wondered, "Probably some sort of robot, right? The mecho-autonism parts—"

"Hello hello, six tickets for the Knight Bus 'ere?" interrupted a very British voice. Dressed in a very bright purple, a Knight Bus conductor gave them all a grin. "Or are you heading into Diagon Alley?"

"The latter, kind conductor."

"Well I won't be getting on your way. Stay safe and outta sight of Muggles, all right?"

"Gotcha."

Alex and the others strode for the brick wall, skirting around the fancy fountain and milling crowd. They walked around the fake wall, and it was like she'd stepped through another door to another world. The same feeling - wonder - washed over her, and she could tell the others were experiencing it too. Crossing the boundary to another world was just a boatload of deja-vu right here.

Unexpectedly, her stomach twisted at the memory of her first opening the headmaster's door to Medora. There was no throwing across worlds here, but the same enchanted feeling had overcome her body. It wasn't a lush canopy of leaves above here, but a hodge-podge of tall buildings. There was no haunting future-enemy to provide weird words, but her friends. And that was way better. Then and there, Alex knew that they had come far.

The nightmares still existed, of course.

Aven's eyes. Niyx's. Her tortured friends. A dead Kaiden. Her parents lying lifeless. The alternate dream timeline dream-Kaiden had shown. Her consciousness had never really been able to replicate when the real Kaiden looked at her with bright blue eyes. In the alternate timeline, it had . There was no Aven here. Maybe a fake Voldemort, but no Aven. Her own story was still being written, but the climax? The war, and the pain? That was over.

"Sorry, I just, uh," Alex cleared her throat and plastered on a bright smile for everyone. "I just needed a moment."

"No worries," Jordan smiled. They all knew how it felt. Sometimes it all just came back in a rush and you couldn't stop it. Sometimes you could push through it. Others you couldn't. Alex's single bed back in the dorms was drenched in sweat every other night. Dix's, too. She could wager the same for the others, for everyone involved in the war.

Finally, her eyes stopped blurring everything out. They rested on a large orange building on her right, towering overhead with a massive head poking out one of the curved windows. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was bursting with life and pranks, little brown Quality Quidditch Supplies looking a bit meek next to it, but just as busy.

On her left were a few places like the Leaky Cauldron with Madam Malkins sandwiched between it and Slug and Jiggers. A long line was already forming outside the Leaky Cauldron, and as they all began an awe-silenced walk down the cobbled path, Alex caught sight of more and more shops. Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour in all of its large ice-cream cone decorated glory was already gathering a crowd of customers even if the weather was barely hot.

Olivanders peeked out on the right hand side, just before the crossroads headed by Gringotts Bank. A large white dragon that looked much thinner and sleeker than the draekons in Medora sat atop the bank with its huge jaw unhinged.

"Holy mother of Medora." Jordan's jaw dropped at the perfect moment when a plume of fire shot out of its sharp-toothed mouth. "HOLY MOTHER OF—"

"We heard," Dix interrupted her boyfriend's amazement with a light smirk. Everyone else in the crowd seemed to be drawn to the dragon spectacle as well. From down here, it looked life-like; a little lazy maybe until it decided flaming breath would interrupt the wizarding patron's day. The whole alley had a slight lean into it so nothing was properly straight, the roofs slanted and slated, the street filled with chatter.

They had captured the magic from the books and the movies and managed to build something so realistic Alex half-expected a witch to zoom past on a broom from Quidditch Supplies. Everything down to the tiny details, a Niffler's footprints, wanted posters and discarded wizarding supplies. The staff were dressed in wizarding robes, and half the people wandering were in them too. It wasn't just the looks and the architecture magic that made it real, it was the buzz people brought.

It was a little bit like stepping onto the grounds of Akarnae after not knowing which direction she was going and ending up at the edge of campus. Everything hit her in one rush that seemed unreal - like, how were that many strange buildings all in one place? Going to new worlds was entirely different, but the small places, like the Academy or Diagon Alley, were what made it memorable.

"Ooooh, wanna get ice cream?" Dix suggested, clapping her hands together. Her eyes were bright and filled with excitement.

"Sounds good!"

A bell chimed overhead as the six of them strolled into Florean's. The cold swept all around from the shop, with the blue-apron wearing scoopers behind a long ice cream bar. People were already enjoying the flavours at the small side tables, and they were beginning to leak outside. Most carried Butterbeer flavoured cones, others had bright green or orange or toffee topping their waffle cones. The ones sitting at the small two-person tables had large souvenir glasses piled with flavours.

One of the workers tossed them a smile and raised their ice cream scoop. "Welcome to Florean Fortescue's! What flavours are we looking at today?"

"Butterbeer," Bear and Declan said in unison.

"Two Butterbeer ice creams,"

"Salted caramel blondie for me, thanks," Kaiden peered at the menu then nodded to himself.

Alex looked down into the ice cream freezer, immediately deciding against mint, orange marmalade, and granny smith. Vanilla and chocolate looked like good basic choices, but Alex was sure they would return to the ice cream shop many many times. Basic could lie in wait a little longer. Mint would take a while to get used to - she would not eat toothpaste in cold form.

"One scoop of chocolate and one scoop of toffee," Alex settled on the two as a compromise and waited for Dix and Jordan to order theirs.

The scoopers worked quickly behind the counter, and soon enough their names were called out. Alex gently picked up her ice cream from the plastic holder, tipped them with some of the back up cash she'd brought and tapped her band to the payment machine. The Tapu Tapu bands were essentially like the Magic Bands at Disney, but for Universal. It wasn't a problem to afford six of them, though Alex wasn't sure if their physical cash funds would last the day the way her friends were tipping. She'd have to find an ATM and use the Medora-Freya cash device Bear had invented.

Thank the stars for insanely smart friends. Said friend now had ice cream on his face but Alex ignored that and nearly shrieked when Dix sunk her teeth into her ice cream.

"What?" the redhead looked at all of their astonished faces and then down at her ice cream. "Oh. Yeah, I've been able to do that since I was a kid."

"How did I not know this?" Jordan's face was the most shocked of them all. "I'm so jealous of you."

"Jordan gets brain freeze from ice," Bear sniggered, only to be elbowed in the stomach. His tall swirl of ice cream threatened to topple off the cone, and that nearly started a scrappy play fight between the two. Aside from Jordan's poor cold-item capabilities, the gang began exploring the rest of Diagon Alley with ice creams in hand and a new place to discover.

A/N: 'how many words did you milk out this dommie' '1.5k' 'what the faw-' jk jk im watching purpled live rn beat a toxic player anyways!!! I haven't decided the amount of days and that kinda decides how many chapters i write so i should do that next. I really had to whip out my map from my trip years ago and what about it??? I'm giving you accurate info :)

-dommie out

Part Eighteen