August First 2014

"Good morning James. Did you sleep well?" Mum asked me.

"I guess," I mutter. "Where's dad?"

"Oh, he's already left for work. It's been a little busy at the ministry lately."

"Oh. Okay," I say. Dad doesn't usually leave for work this early.

"James," My mother says catching my eyes. "Is anything wrong?"

Should I tell her what I heard last night? Should I ask about it? No. I can't. But if it really is a big secret.... Ugh! I hate decisions.

"Er-" I say, "No. I guess it just finally dawned on me that I'm going to Hogwarts next month."

"Yes. I remember the month before I first left for Hogwarts. It was difficult. Me being the youngest in the family.... And unfortunately that was the year with the diary."

"Diary?" I ask.

"Er- nothing. Forget I said anything."

I was obviously not going to forget that. But at that moment Lily, my six year old sister, came staggering down the stairs.

"Whas for breakfas?" She asks groggily.

"Well, what do you want?" Mum asks her.

"Pancakes!" She says, eyes growing big.

"James?" My mother turned to me.

"I'll just have some bacon," I say.

She sighs and mutters, "I swear, you are getting more and more like your Uncle George everyday."

I smile. George was my favorite Uncle. He owns a Joke Shop in Diagon Alley, Weasley's Wizards Wheezes. I want to be just like him when I grow up. I don't tell my mom this though, she'd probably want me to get a ministry job like my dad or something. Something 'practical'.

After about three minutes, I'm eating my bacon and Lily is happily pouring syrup on her pancakes.

"Lily?" I ask. "Are you trying to drown your pancakes."

"No," She says. "I jus really like syrup."

I snort. I don't think I liked syrup that much when I was her age.

After about two more pieces of bacon, Al, my brother, comes walking into the kitchen.

"Good mornin'." He says stealing a piece of bacon off of my plate.

"Hey!" I say, "That's mine!"

"Was," Al corrected taking a bite. Lily giggles at him.

"Boys," mum says, "Be nice."

"But we are, mum," I say.

She sighs, "James."

"What?" I ask.

"You know I'm not going to put up with this behavior forever." She says.

"What behavior?"

"Never mind," She says, "Just-"

At that moment, the muggle telephone(which we hardly ever use) rang. My mother quickly glided across the room, and answered.

"No," she said. "He just left for work, sorry. If you were to call later...."

I shrugged and continued to eat my breakfast. Probably somebody who works with my father, but I don't see why they wouldn't just send him an owl. It's much easier than the telephone in my opinion.

"Who?" I hear my mother asked shakily over the phone, "Yes- I'll tell him you called. Er, thank you," She set the device down and sighed, "He's never called before. What could be so important now?"

"Who was that mum?" Albus asks.

"Er- nobody that you need to know about."

"But I need to know everything," I say with an unintentional smirk.

"Do you now?" Mum questions. "Let's hope you get into Ravenclaw then."

"But- no- I don't want to be a Ravenclaw!" I stamper, "I want to be a Gryffindor like you and Dad. And Teddy! Like, Victoire, Dom, and Aunt 'Mione, and Uncle Ron, and-"

"James," My mother laughs. "We've been over this. Your father and I don't care what Hogwarts house you're sorted into. No matter what, we'll be proud of you. Whether or not it's Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or even Slytherin."

"Even Slytherin? Are you sure about that? It's Slytherin....

"James, I learned the hard way. Don't let house reputations and rivalries have an impact on you. Did you know I didn't even talk to your Aunt Luna until our third year. Before that I thought she was-"

"Thought she was what?" Lily asks.

"Er- nothing."

"What were you going to-"

"Speaking of school," Mum says quickly changing the subject, "how about tomorrow we visit Diagon Alley for school supplies?"

"Really?" I ask, completely forgetting the previous conversation.

"Definitely," she answers.

"Can I come too mummy?" Lily asks her.

"Yeah, me as well," Albus speaks up, "I really need to stock up on Weasely's Wizard Wheezes- I mean books," He says catching mum's glare.

"Well, I can't leave you two home alone, can I? Especially after last time...." I smile. Good memories. It was the first and last time that mum trusted me as a baby-sitter. God knows, she's never letting that happen again. But from that experience I've learned, to never put Skiving Snackbox products in the microwave to see what happens.... Lily still occasionally coughs up purple bubbles.

August Second 2014

I had raced downstairs, dressed in normal as possible muggle clothing. I made my way to the living room and found my mum and siblings waiting for me.

"Are you ready James?" My mother asks me, handing me the bowl of floo powder.

"Yep," I say. I step into the fire place, throw the floo powder into the flames and say as clearly as possible. "Diagon Alley!"

I felt as if I was being sucked down a giant drain. I was spinning quickly- with deafening roaring in my ears. All of a sudden, I'm in my Uncle George's joke shop. Then Al, Lily, and my mum come walking out of the fire after me.

"Hello George," My mum says as the shop owner comes walking toward us.

"Oh hey Ginny," He laughs. "It's been forever since I've seen you, not literally two days."

Mum shoots him a look and we all laugh.

"So. Lemme guess," He says. "School supplies?"

"Yes. And only school supplies," Mum glares at Albus and I.

"But mum-" I say.

"Come, Gin. Don't you remember your fifth year? You came strutting in here, asking Fred and I to hook you up with love potion. Let them have a little fun."

"One," Mum says, "I didn't 'strut in here and ask for it'. And two, your products are banned from Hogwarts-"

"So? Everyone sneaks them in, anyway," George counters.

"Please, mum," Albus asks.

"I'm sure Ron would agree with me," George says.

"Where is he anyway?" Mum asks, "I thought he was working today."

"Oh he is. He's just on break right now," George says with a grin.

Mum sighs, "After we finish all of James's shopping we'll come back here."

"But Mummy," Lily says. "Dat'll take forever."

"No it won't," Mum says. "James, do you have your list?"

I reach into my pocket and pull out my school list. I had gotten it four days ago. I smile at the Hogwarts emblem on the letter, it made me jittery everytime I looked at it. In the letter it had the standard Hogwarts uniform, the course books, and lists of other stuff I might need. For example, my wand and my cauldron.

"What should we get first?" I asked mum.

"How about your school books? Those are easy to get."

"Okay."

We found our way to Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore. I had been here a few times, when I had previously visited Diagon Alley, but not often. When we walked in, there was a display of books in the front window. They were entitled "Dumbledore's Army: The Dark Side of the Demob". Wasn't that the book my parents were talking about?

"Oh, God." My mum mutters.

I turn to see what she's talking about. In the center of the shop there was a thick crowd of people. A sign read in large red letters:

RITA SKEETER
Will be signing copies of her new book
DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY: THE DARK SIDE OF THE DEMOB
Today 9:30 to 1:30

"First year all over again. At least it's not Lockhart," I hear mum mutter through clenched teeth.

"Mum, what are you talking about?" I ask her.

"Look kids, we'll come back her later. It's too crowded."

"Look!" I heard someone say, "It's Ginny Potter! With James, Albus, and Lily!" I hear chatters of excitement through the crowd.

"Ginny Potter?" Says a high clear voice from the center of the crowd. "How are you? It's been awhile," The crowd parts revealing a woman with blonde hair set in elaborate and curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She looked about sixty years old. She wore jeweled spectacles and held a quill in her right hand.

"I'm fine, Rita," Mum says hastily. "We'll just be going now."

"Oh don't go," Rita says, "Don't you want a signed copy of my book. There's a whole chapter about you in there, you know."

"No thank you. I'd rather not have a book full of lies in the house. What would my children think?" I looked at my mother. Fire danced in her eyes with hatred. I had seen my mum pretty angry before, but never like this.

"Oh well, that's unfortunate," Rita says. "But are you sure you don't want a copy?"

My mother looked at the crowd who stared at her expectantly. My mother sighed deeply. She seemed to want to get out of here as quick as possible without any hassle.

"Fine. Just make it quick, we have to get James's other school supplies."

One of the employees in the shop came over and handed my mum a stack of books, the exact ones from my list. My mum opened up her small money bag and handed her a few galleons.

"Hold these James," She said giving the books to me. "Go ahead to the Cauldron Shop. You three know where it is."

Once we exited Flourish and Blotts, Lily asked me, "James, who was dat?"

"I dunno Lily," I reply. "Maybe Mum knows her from last month when she was reporting?"

"Well, what did she mean by 'There's a whole chapter about you in there'?" Albus questions.

"I'm clueless as you two," I tell them.

We found our way in Potage's Cauldron shop. Mum didn't come in for nearly five minutes, so that left me time to browse through the cauldrons.

"Oh, James," she said. "I'm so sorry. I just got caught up with talking to Rita, that's all."

I could tell she was lying. That's not what happened. But of course, I don't say this. We continued to cross item, after item, off my school list. And pretty soon, I finished all my shopping except for one thing; I still needed my wand.

"I'm bored," Lily complained as we were walking towards Ollivanders.

"I promise after this," Mum said, "that we can go back to Uncle George's shop, right after we get James a wand.

I came to a halt. We were standing right in front of Ollivanders.

"Don't be nervous James," My mum says. "Go on in."

I push open the door and A tinkling bell rings somewhere in the depths of the shop as the four of us step inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single chair pushed against the wall.

"Good afternoon," Says a voice. I turn and see Mr. Ollivander. "Ahh. Ginny, how nice to see you it is. Let's see... I think I remember..... Wasn't it Rowan, Twleve-and-three-fourths inches, Unicorn Hair, Pliable?"

"Yep." She says holding up her wand.

"Ah, I see you've brought James. I've been expecting him soon enough."

"You've been expecting me?" I ask.

"Of course. I remember every wand I've ever sold. Your father's wand, Holly, Eleven Inches, Phoenix Feather, Nice and supple. Very curious. Very curious indeed. Seeing the connection between his and you-know-who's wands. And the fact that he preferred it to the most powerful wand in the world...."

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," My mother said. She shot Ollivander a strange look that said something like, 'not now'.

"So. Mr. Potter," He says. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Er- my right," I say.

He proceeds to measure my arm length and hands me different wands, then quickly snatching them out of my hand.

"Just like your father I see. He was also a very difficult customer. Let's see Fir, Twelve and a half inches, Phoenix Feather, Unyielding...."

He put the wand in my hand and I felt warmth in my fingers. I raised the wand above my head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework. This was the right wand. I know it. My mum smiles and Lily's mouth hangs open.

"Pretty!" She exclaims.

Ollivander laughs, "Oh very good, Mr. Potter. Bravo!"

I smile and walk out of Ollivanders. My Mum stays back handing him the money saying something to him very subtly. I wonder what that's about.

Lily, Albus, and I spend the next hour looking through my Uncle George's place. It was a rather crowded shop, as always. I spent most of my time browsing through all the products, Fanged Flyer, Sticky Trainers, Exploding Whizz Poppers, Portable Swamp, Sugar Hexes....

Occasionally, I would notice people look over at me strangely. The same with Albus and Lily. Everyone seemed to be looking at us. Lily and Albus seemed very ignorant to this. Though, I won't point it out to them.

Ever since I overheard my parents two nights ago, it seems as if I'm noticing more and more. Like a veil, that was covering my eyes, was removed....