Early the next morning, despite the small upheaval of the night before, Vera still woke on time.
Though, to be fair, it might have been more accurate to say that after what had happened last night, she had been too excited to sleep properly at all.
She had changed into an ordinary outfit by herself first thing in the morning and now sat before the vanity, looking at the girl reflected in the mirror. Her pale complexion stood in stark contrast to the dark green fabric she wore, giving her a fragile, almost sickly beauty.
Kreacher stood behind her, carefully combing her long hair with the tenderness of someone handling delicate porcelain.
"Miss looks much better today," he muttered, tying her silver-gray hair back with a dark green ribbon. "Far better than yesterday."
Vera lowered her lashes and absentmindedly touched her fully healed wrist, a faint smile curving at the corners of her lips.
Last night had also been the first truly restful sleep she had had since transmigrating here.
Her fingers unconsciously traced the hidden engravings along the wheelchair's armrest. Those were modifications Kreacher had specially added for her. At present, it only had a basic Levitation Charm, a Cushioning Charm, and a few defensive runes meant to save her life in emergencies.
If necessary in the future, it could be further upgraded on that foundation.
"Is Miss really going to Diagon Alley alone?" Kreacher asked worriedly. "Old Kreacher still doesn't feel at ease…"
"I want to go by myself and have a look around," Vera said softly. "Besides, Kreacher, you can't follow me into school forever."
More importantly, as far as Voldemort was concerned, Kreacher ought to be dead. If he appeared openly in Diagon Alley and happened to be seen by Voldemort or Quirrell, it would only bring trouble down on her later.
Kreacher's ears drooped, but he still nodded and silently pushed her out of the room and down to the fireplace in the first-floor sitting room.
Vera grabbed a handful of Floo powder and tossed it into the flames, then rolled her wheelchair straight in.
"Diagon Alley!"
Green fire instantly swallowed her whole.
Amid the dizzying whirl of spinning motion, Vera clutched the wheelchair's armrests tightly, enduring the discomfort of space twisting around her.
When the chair touched solid ground again, she slowly opened her eyes and found herself inside the dim fireplace of the Leaky Cauldron.
The noisy clamor of the pub rushed into her ears at once, and the air smelled of toasted bread and ale.
And the very first thing Vera saw, past the crowd of wizards, was the young man seated at a long table with his back to her.
Quirinus Quirrell. Voldemort's servant.
It was July 31. Vera remembered that at this point, Quirrell had not yet broken into Gringotts.
In the original story, Quirrell failed to obtain the Philosopher's Stone from Gringotts, and only afterward was possessed by Voldemort as punishment.
Which meant that, for now, he was not quite so dangerous.
Vera swiftly swept her gaze across the room, letting it pause on Quirrell for the briefest instant before moving on at once.
The Leaky Cauldron was even shabbier than she had imagined. As her wheelchair rolled across the rough wooden floorboards, it gave off a faint creaking sound.
Yet in that short stretch alone, Vera could already feel eyes turning toward her from all directions—curious eyes, pitying eyes, even mocking ones.
Clearly, in this magical world, a disabled child wizard was a rare sight.
"Look, a crippled little wizard…"
"Poor thing, stuck in a wheelchair. Wonder whose child that is."
Whispers rose here and there throughout the pub, but Vera paid them no mind at all.
From behind the counter, Tom the innkeeper set down the glass he had been polishing and leaned over to ask, "Hey there, little miss. You came to Diagon Alley all by yourself? Need any help?"
Vera shook her head. "Thank you. I can manage on my own."
She pushed her wheelchair slowly away from the fireplace, deliberately choosing a route that kept her as far from Quirrell as possible.
Fortunately, Quirrell only gave her a distant glance and showed no further interest in her.
He looked as though he was deliberately waiting for someone, and a nameless nobody like her—even with a somewhat unusual appearance—wasn't worth his attention.
That was a good thing.
Remaining alert the whole time, Vera wheeled herself into the back courtyard and, just as Kreacher had taught her, took out her walking stick and tapped the wall a few times.
As the bricks shifted apart, sunlight from Diagon Alley spilled down in a bright flood.
What greeted her was a bustling crowd, a riot of colorful shop signs, and the air thick with the mingled scents of potions and sweets.
Sunlight fell across her pale face. Vera narrowed her eyes slightly to adjust, then slowly wheeled herself into the noise and liveliness of Diagon Alley.
She moved gradually along the cobbled street, her wheelchair's wheels rolling almost soundlessly under the influence of magic.
Vera noticed keenly that with the activation of her Magic Circuit, the flow of magic in the surrounding environment had become something tangible to her sight—
The protective enchantments glittering across shop windows looked like translucent membranes, while the traces of spellcasting left at the tips of passing wands floated in the air like tiny fireflies.
"How incredible," Vera murmured, her fingertips unconsciously brushing over the flowing magical patterns along the wheelchair's armrest.
Carefully steering around the crowd, she came to a stop outside the display window of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.
In the glass reflection, she noticed that the gold in her irises had faded again. But whenever she focused, a faint halo would reappear at the edges of her pupils, like amber lit through by sunlight.
Vera let out a soft breath and was just about to push herself onward when a middle-aged man hurried out from the crowd of children gathered around the ice cream shop and came up to her, visibly excited.
"Dairin… you…"
The man's excited expression froze the moment he got a clear look at her face. Then, with visible difficulty, he managed a strained smile.
"Sorry. I mistook you for someone else."
Vera looked up at the middle-aged wizard who had appeared so suddenly before her. His gray-blue eyes were brimming with disappointment so deep it seemed almost ready to overflow.
"It's all right, sir," she answered softly.
The man nodded stiffly, but his gaze still lingered on her face.
"You look… very much like my sister did when she was younger."
His voice was so soft it was nearly inaudible. Then, as though suddenly jolted awake, he stepped back half a pace.
"Oh—please wait just a moment!"
With that, he turned and hurried into the ice cream shop behind him. A short while later, he returned holding a serving of raspberry ice cream.
"Please, take this. I'm the owner of this ice cream shop," he said, offering it to Vera with a kind of earnest sincerity in his voice. "Think of it as an apology for my rudeness."
The pink scoop of ice cream was sprinkled with crushed nuts, gleaming enticingly in the sunlight.
Vera hesitated for a brief moment before accepting it and thanking him.
Fortescue's gaze softened.
"I hope you'll like it. If—if you ever happen to meet a witch named Dairin Fortescue, please tell her that her brother has been looking for her."
His voice grew quieter and quieter, until the last words were nearly nothing more than a murmur to himself. Then, head lowered and looking utterly lost, he drifted back into the shop.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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