Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive

[kaylee māhealani mahi'ai]

After a full day spent recuperating from having travelled all the way from Hawaii to England, Kaylee knew that she and her siblings needed to start to learn their way around London. They had gotten a room at the Leaky Cauldron, which wasn't far from a place called Charing Cross in the No-Maj world. Besides that, it was their direct link to Diagon Alley, the main magical shopping street in London.

They had lucked out, being able to get a room at all, with as many people as were needing to make reservations. Any non-magical hotel, Kaylee knew, wouldn't have taken a sixteen-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, and a fourteen-year-old who were traveling without their parents. Traveling with their parents, although perhaps possible for some people, had never entered the realm of possibility for the Mahi'ai kids. It would have been too challenging for their father, with his prostheses, to journey there with them and far too expensive to have all of their immediate family stay in Britain for the whole summer.

The room in which they were staying was admittedly a little cramped. She, her brother and sister had tried to sleep horizontally on one bed the previous night, which had been neither comfortable nor particularly practical. Kaylee hoped that she would be able to find out what some of her classmates were doing for accommodation before the start of school in September, because not only did she not want to force her brother to sleep on a cot for three months, she also didn't know if her family could afford to pay for three months' worth of nights in a hotel room.

While her siblings got ready for the day, Kaylee decided to go downstairs to scope out how to get to this Diagon Alley place. Supposedly, it would have everything that she and her siblings needed—new wands, schoolbooks, cauldrons, and the like. If that was true, Kaylee thought, they would be in a good position.

The pub was reasonably crowded, even for morning, so Kaylee hoped that it wouldn't be too much of a challenge to find out how to reach Diagon Alley from where she was. She looked around cautiously, trying to figure out whom to approach. It was already obvious enough that she wasn't from Britain, considering the plumeria she had stuck over her right ear, and she briefly wondered if she should remove it.

“Excuse me…” she began, approaching one wizard who didn't even bother to look at her to see what it was that she wanted. No luck. She looked around again, seeing if there was anyone else who could be of help.

[Deleted]

Pemberly's dad had moved them over to England in a hurry, and hadn't even come up with a house for them to stay at before telling them to pack their bags. And that was fine, really, they were used to periodic upheaval, but it was rare that it was their dad causing it. And when they weren't at the hospital visiting Viola, he was off in Hogsmeade finding them a place to call home near WWN headquarters, leaving Pem to fend for themself from their temporary home at The Leaky Cauldron.

But with the announcement that literally all of Ilvermorny would be going to Hogwarts next year - and they did not understand that decision in the slightest, because how had they forgotten that the last time there were foreign students at Hogwarts three quarters of them had DIED - Pem wasn't the only teenager left to their own devices. Students had started to arrive well in advance, and the pub was increasingly crowded with them at all hours of the day.

And there was one now, maybe the same age as them and looking confused. Well, they had a week's worth of experience, and since they didn't know anyone anyway, it was probably as good a time as any to start changing that. "You look a little lost. Can I help?"

kaylee māhealani mahi'ai

[kaylee māhealani mahi'ai]

Getting used to London wasn’t supposed to be such a hassle. Sure, it wasn’t Hawaii, but it hadn’t seemed like it would be too different from Massachusetts. Everyone spoke English—even if that English was a little bit different, with its added letters and words like “aluminium”—but apparently a common language wasn’t sufficient for someone to get any help in a pub with plenty of other travelers who were probably looking for the same place.

Just as Kaylee was about to approach the bar or try to find some sort of door marked for employees so that she could get an actual answer, she was startled by the sound of a voice. “You look a little lost.” Kaylee turned to see a girl about her own age who was speaking to her. The other girl wasn’t very tall—just slightly shorter than Kaylee’s own height—and pale with bobbed black hair. “Can I help?”

Kaylee was grateful to the girl for having stepped up to help her and guessed that she must have been a Hogwarts student, maybe even one in her same year. “Yeah,” she nodded, smiling in her relief that she wasn’t going to have to ask everyone in this pub until she found someone. “Um, do you know how to get to Diagon Alley from here? I was told it was right here, but I haven't seen a sign anywhere.” Not only did she need to find the street to get school supplies, Kaylee realized, but she also needed to change over her Dragots to the currency that they used in Britain. She had a few Galleons on her that her parents had managed to get beforehand, but that was it.

@pemberly

[Deleted]

Thank goodness the girl was only looking for the entrance to Diagon Alley - Pemberly knew where that was. "Yeah, it's out the back. It, er, needs a wand, so it's probably just as well you found someone to show you." They led the girl towards the back of the pub with a tilt of their head and a sense of purpose in their stride. "I mean, I'm assuming you're one of the American students," they added, because even though it was pretty obvious, it was only polite to check, especially when anyone else would have thought Pem was too.

kaylee māhealani mahi'ai

[kaylee māhealani mahi'ai]

Fortunately, the girl said, Diagon Alley was just out the back of the pub somewhere. That meant that she and her siblings hadn’t been wrong to stay at the Leaky Cauldron, though the girl did mention one little detail that nobody else had bothered to tell her: She needed a wand to get there, so it was “probably just as well” that she had found this other girl. “I mean, I'm assuming you're one of the American students.”

Kaylee nodded, despite thinking that it would have been nice if she had known the needing-a-wand aspect of the whole thing sooner. Apparently, the news that all of the Americans—for the most part—were without wands had crossed the Atlantic with them, which was both another relief and a slight embarrassment. It was weird to Kaylee that everyone got to keep their wands in Britain, even if they were underage, but she figured that she would have to get used to it.

As for her Americanness, Kaylee didn’t need to question how the girl had guessed; her accent and appearance were dead giveaways. Still, she confirmed it verbally as she followed the girl who was guiding her to the back of the pub. “I am,” she said. “Hawaiian, actually. My brother, sister, and I just got here yesterday,” she explained, then added, “I'm Kaylee, by the way.”

@pemberly

[Deleted]

”I’m Pemberly. I would say welcome to England, Kaylee, but I’ve only been here a week.” Ugh, so many Ws in a sentence, one of them always ended up sounding like a V instead. ”Durmstrang transfer,” they added by way of clarification, because their accent didn't give much of a hint, though they doubted Kaylee had confused them with an Ilvermorny transfer, given she was from the school.

The courtyard with a bin was so positively British that even after a week they hadn't gotten over it. Pem rolled their eyes and pulled their wand from their sleeve. ”Three up and two across,” they recited as much for their own benefit as Kaylee's, counting out the bricks and tapping the one she’d counted to twice.

kaylee māhealani mahi'ai

[kaylee māhealani mahi'ai]

Kaylee realized then that Pemberly's accent wasn't a British accent, not by the way she said the letter “w” as more of a “v” sound. Russian, maybe? It sounded something like that, and Pemberly mentioned that she had only been in Britain for a week. “Durmstrang transfer,” Pemberly said, and there was the explanation that Kaylee had been trying to piece together in her own head.

A week of being here was a week longer than she had been, Kaylee thought, and it was actually really cool that Pemberly was from Durmstrang; it meant that she was both new to her and new to Hogwarts like her.

Where Pemberly led her was exactly where nobody would expect for an entrance to Diagon Alley to be, which was probably why it had been put there and not somewhere with a giant sign to announce that Diagon Alley happened to be that way. Kaylee caught Pemberly rolling her eyes at it, though she couldn't exactly disagree.

Pemberly removed her wand from the inside of her sleeve. “Three up and two across,” she instructed aloud, before tapping a pattern into the bricks with the tip of her wand.

“Three up and two across,” Kaylee repeated, watching Pemberly to memorize the sequence.

Gradually, the bricks began to pull away, revealing the cobblestoned shopping street. Kaylee, who had no idea where to go from there, looked to Pemberly. “Have you found anything cool to do here yet?” she wondered. She would have to figure out where she and her siblings needed to go to buy everything that they needed for school, but doing that would probably be a pretty boring way to make friends.

@pemberly

[Deleted]

Kaylee accepted their explanation easily as she followed them into the courtyard. She repeated the instruction for how to get in, and they both watched as the wall span into itself to form the large brick archway that was the entrance to Diagon Alley.

Pemberly stepped through the archway before it decided to close - they hadn't figured out how long it took, and it didn't seem like the right time to find out now. Then they were happy enough to try to answer the American girl's question about what was cool to do there.

"There's an ice cream parlour that's pretty good - Fortescue's. Flourish and Blott's is the bookshop, if you're into that. Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes is pretty cool - it's a joke shop, but they have some other kinds of things too. Uh, there's a sweet shop and a toy shop and a cafe that seems pretty good for people watching on one of the cross streets. Just don't go down Knockturn Alley - that's one of the other cross streets. I don't know why exactly, that's just what my dad told me." Pemberly didn't really know what Kaylee would find interesting, but those were the highlights of their explorations thus far, and the crucial boundary.

kaylee māhealani mahi'ai

[kaylee māhealani mahi'ai]

Pemberly had no shortage of suggestions of what to do. Kaylee knew that she was probably capitalizing on the other girl's already having explored, but it was worth knowing what there was in the area. There was an ice cream parlor; that had been the first of Pemberly's suggestions. There was also a bookstore, and Kaylee assumed that that was where she and her siblings would need to go for their textbooks, too. Pemberly also mentioned a joke shop, although it sounded as though they had some other products. There was also a place to buy sweets, and someplace to buy toys. Although the three of them who were in Britain were a little too old for toys, their two younger brothers back at home would probably like a present from London. (Kaylee didn't dare consider the joke shop as an option, knowing that she would probably get a Howler from her parents if her youngest siblings went wild.)

“Just don't go down Knockturn Alley—that's one of the other cross streets. I don't know why exactly, that's just what my dad told me.”

“Knockturn Alley,” Kaylee repeated, contemplating the name. “Like nocturnal,” she considered. Since nocturnality was related to people or things that were active at night instead of during the day—like most—it seemed most logical to her that this other street, Knockturn Alley, was home to those who preferred to be nocturnal. Since Pemberly's father had told her not to go there, Kaylee had a suspicion of the types of people one might find there. Vampires probably weren't out of the question, since they had to avoid sunlight, but Kaylee's thinking was more around the lines of its being a place where those inclined towards the Dark Arts congregated.

“I don't think your dad is wrong,” Kaylee told Pemberly, knowing that her own father—a former Auror—would have advised her similarly. “We probably don't want to go there.”

@pemberly

[Deleted]

Kaylee seemed to be considering all of the aspects of Pemberly’s explanation, which they appreciated. A lot of the time people tuned them out, and that was just frustrating. Especially when they mentioned Knockturn Alley and their father’s admonishment not to go there. Pemberly had just accepted it as sounding a bit dodgy, but Kaylee said it was like nocturnally, and that she thought their dad was right about not going there. Pem couldn’t argue with that logic - it certainly made their instincts make sense. “I never thought of that, but I never really wanted to go there anyway,” they commented, ”and my dad’s English, so he has a bit of experience too.”

”So. That's what we're not going to do. What will we do?” They'd walked far enough into the alley to be out of the way of the entrance, but now that Kaylee knew what there was to do - or at least what Pem thought was important - it was time to decide whether they had a direction, or were just going to meander.

kaylee māhealani mahi'ai

[kaylee māhealani mahi'ai]

In response to her analysis of Knockturn Alley as based on its name and the fact that Pemberly’s father had told her to keep away from it, Pemberly said that she hadn’t thought of that. Still, she added that she hadn’t really cared to go there, regardless. “And my dad’s English,” she explained, “so he has a bit of experience too,”

Kaylee nodded. If Pemberly’s dad was English, he probably had a pretty good idea of where to go and where not to, thereby removing Knockturn Alley from their list of things to see or do.

“So.” Pemberly was resolute. “That’s what we’re not going to do.” That left, naturally, another question: “What will we do?”

It was a little bit too early for them to be trying ice cream already, Kaylee reasoned. The toy store was probably too juvenile for them, but the joke shop seemed as though it would be interesting. If nothing else, it would give her some idea of what to stay away from at Hogwarts if she came across it. Besides, Pemberly said that they had more than just the joke products there, so maybe those would be worth looking into? “Do you want to go to that Wizarding Wheezes place?” she suggested. “If you think that would be fun?”

@pemberly

[Deleted]

Kaylee considered before answering their question, but Pemberly had to admit, they liked her answer. They'd wanted to spend more time at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, because there was just so much to see and it was going to take several visits to take it all in.

"Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes," they confirmed. "I'd like to go back and look some more. It's quite something, and definitely fun. That was the only way they had to describe it. It had to be seen to be understood - joke shop that sold other stuff was the best definition they had, but fun was a pretty close second. "It's just this way. The bright orange one," they added, because it was rather distinctive, and if they got seperated then Kaylee would still be able to find it.

kaylee māhealani mahi'ai

[kaylee māhealani mahi'ai]

“Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes,” Pemberly repeated, and Kaylee knew that the shop must have had some connection to the Weasley family. Even on the other side of the ocean, they weren’t exactly unknown, given the worldwide fame of Dumbledore’s Army, but Kaylee hadn’t heard of any franchises existing in America or anything. Pemberly added that the place was “quite something”, and Kaylee wasn’t sure what to make of it. That Pemberly wanted to go back and look around, though—and that she had also called the store “fun”—was a good sign; it wasn’t interesting for a bad reason, anyway.

Not knowing what to expect from it, Kaylee watched as Pemberly drew her attention to a bright orange storefront just a short distance away from them. It really was orange—like one of those No-Maj traffic cones—not some muted peachy color.

Kaylee began to walk towards the store, trying not to lose sight of Pemberly as she went. Before she knew it, she was at the door to the joke shop, and she moved off towards the side to look at a window display. It was advertising fireworks of some sort, clearly; more particularly, they were the “Explosive Enterprises” product line. “Oh, wow! Have you seen these?!” she asked, still looking at them but assuming that Pemberly wasn’t far behind her. “These would be awesome for the Fourth of July!”

@pemberly