A Bite of Hogwarts - chapter 36

“We are now at the last stop, London-Paddington Station. All passengers, please leave the train in an orderly manner.”

The swaying train car finally stopped, and there was a ringing bell to inform all the passengers that they had arrived at the destination.

Alina glanced at ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ and closed it in satisfaction. Moving around her somewhat stiff neck, she turned her head and looked out the window.

Night had wholly engulfed London. London, at the end of the twentieth century, was not as brightly lit as it would be later on. Pedestrians wearing dark jackets rushed here and there on the duskily lit streets.

“So now, I need to use that passage in the Leaky Cauldron to get to Diagon Alley…hmm, right, how do I get to the Leaky Cauldron again?”

As Alina sat by herself on a train station bench with only her two books, the smile on her face began to fade.

Although her first memories were of the streets of London, she had only wandered the streets for a few hours before Benitez found her.

Thus, she was a complete stranger to this massive city, and she certainly had no idea where the Leaky Cauldron was, and there was a 99% chance that this place didn’t appear on any Muggle maps.

For the first time, Alina came to realize that, without a guide, the hiding ability of the Magic World was just too good.

Simple spells for Unplottability and a Muggle-Repelling Charm were enough to conceal any magical passage in a city from a low-intensity search.

“It seems like I”ll have to get help from the Ministry of Magic…”

A train station in the middle of the night was no place for a single girl to stay for long. The warm lobby and comfortable benches would quickly attract the wandering vagrants of the city.

If the descriptions from the original novel held true, the visitor’s entrance for the British Ministry of Magic was a broken red phone booth located near the British Ministry of Defence. In the phone booth, one simply needed to dial 62442 (MAGIC).

After following the operator’s prompts, a pass would drop out from the change dispenser. At the same time, the booth would descend into the ground to the eighth level of the Ministry of Magic, the Atrium.

As a half-Veela, Alina was completely unaffected by the Muggle-Repelling Charm. The only problem was that the novel did not go into much detail on where exactly the red phone booth was. She wasn’t sure how big the ‘nearby’ region was.

“At least I should go and take a look.”

Alina quickly made up her mind and stood up to leave the station.

After all, once she was in the Ministry of Magic, Alina could use the power of the Galleon to reach Diagon Alley.

Guguguha~

The strange call of an owl came from above.

A few moments later, Alina felt a feathery little ball crash into her stomach and affectionately rub against it.

“Food Reserve? Why are you here?”

Alina grabbed the owl, and curiously asked. She remembered that this little owl should have been obediently staying with Benitez at the orphanage.

Gu~

The owl stood on Alina’s knee and excitedly flapped its wing. Only now did Alina notice that there was a thick envelope tied to its leg.

{Stay safe, and keep in touch every day. If I don’t receive a letter from you by dinner tomorrow, I will inform that little elf who brings the meals, Mister Boli.——Benitez.]

Besides this, the envelope had an additional two thousand British pounds, a few sheets of blank paper, and a pencil.

“I have to report every day? What a troublesome big uncle, especially when he doesn’t understand what’s going on.” Alina softly grumbled, but there was a smile on her face as she carefully folded up the letter and put it away.

The problem she faced right now as not something that could be resolved with British pounds.

Wait a moment! Besides getting help from the Ministry of Magic, wasn’t there another way?

The silver-haired girl glanced at the owl on her knee. The little laughing owl was currently beating its wings excitedly, beating its wings over its first successful delivery. Now that she thought about it, how had it managed to find her over such a very long distance so accurately?

Alina’s eyes brightened as she hugged Food Reserve and happily kissed it. Her eyes glowed as she stared at the owl.

“Food Reserve, I love you to death!”

Gu?? ⊙▽⊙!

In Alina’s view, the owls of the Magic World weren’t just letter deliverers with delicious meat. They had many more potential uses.

In reality, as the vital link between the Magic World and the real world who had taken on the important duty as letter couriers, owls, in a general sense, could also be considered a kind of magical creature. Although they didn’t possess magic, they could sense magic and enter some areas that were hidden by magic.

As long as a wizard was not trying to hide from or disrupt them, owls were able to deliver letters to the right recipient. Thus, it was clear that messenger owls were able to differentiate, or perhaps one could say that they could identify a specific person within a certain area.

This gave rise to another practical question. From a certain perspective, the owls of the Magic World could be used as guiding fairies, perhaps even search tools.

After all, one only needed to write a letter and then follow the owl, and there was a very high chance that it would help one find the target. This was particularly the case if the target was in a fixed location, like Hogwarts, or…the Leaky Cauldron.

Hugging Food Reserve, Alina passed through a set of ordinary streets, going past a bookstore, record store, hamburger store, and movie theater. Finally, she stopped between a large book store and another record store. Squeezed between these two was a small bar. Pedestrians were hurriedly walking by without even glancing at it.

“Thank you for the trouble, Food Reserve. Cough, you don’t need to deliver this letter.”

Alina smiled as she looked at the owl with a strip of paper in its mouth, excitedly attempting to fly out of her embrace and into the bar. On the strip of paper in its mouth was written: [London, Leaky Cauldron, For Tom Abbott].

Alina could remember the name of the Leaky Cauldron’s owner, which she owed mostly to the novels written by so many Harry Potter fans, who had tirelessly talked about (though this was really just filling space) the character Hannah Abbott, so much so that she had specifically gathered information on ‘Ironforged Hannah,’ upon which she had learned this rather obscure fact.

Otherwise, she would have resorted to having Food Reserve take a Galleon and go to Gringotts to find Gally Wix so he could show her the way. But this might have had some uncontrollable effect on her future plans.

Shaking her head, Alina pushed open the door to the Leaky Cauldron and entered.

Compared to the cold and quiet scene outside, the bar was extremely noisy. For witches and wizards who had spent the entire day busy with work, sitting down to have a drink was a joyous occasion. The dark and dirty space was hot and smoky. The owner of the bar, Tom Abbott, with a face like a shriveled walnut, his head almost completely bald, was working hard to care for his patrons.

No one noticed a little girl coming inside, and Alina happily walked past the counter into a small courtyard surrounded by walls on all sides. There was nothing here besides a trashcan and some weeds.

The silver-haired girl looked up and began to count. “Three bricks up from the top of the dustbin…two bricks across…should be about here.”

She had initially been worried that there might be a problem with the counting method, but when she looked up, she understood. In that area, there was a brick that was clearly much more worn than the rest, as if it had often been touched.

“One, two, three…”

Alina used the two books to prop herself up. Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up and tapped on the brick three times, and then went back down and nervously stared at the wall.

A moment later, the brick she had tapped began to tremble and move. A small gap appeared in the center, getting larger and larger. A few moments later, it had transformed into a spacious archway leading to a winding cobblestoned street.

“Whew! Finally here. My most important goal for the new year: get taller.”

Alina sighed in relief, happiness on her face. She grabbed the books with her left hand, used her right hand to push Food Reserve from its perch on her shoulder down her collar so that only its head was showing, and rushed inside.

“I hope Gringotts works twenty-four-seven…”