The Leaky Cauldron

[Lily Evans]

...That's in London.

[Miela]

[Anything in italics is ‘said’ in Japanese]

Having safely touched down from Sanshi at some back way alley, Miela had crossed the street had waited outside the suspicious little shop called “The Leaky Cauldron”. Wondering if the name of the shop was a pun (as leaky cauldrons weren’t any good at all,), she had, like clockwork placed herself in a corner to observe the shop. After observing for a while, she realized that while most people tend to just walk pass the shop like it didn’t exist, there were however, some men and women who had entered the shop like it was the most natural thing in the world. Taking her chance when a male wearing a long skirt who was being followed by another man behind who exclaimed in exasperation, “Archie! You can’t possibly walk around wearing that in the middle of London! The Muggles are going to get suspicious!” into the shop in their shadows, she stood in a dark corner near the door, once again observing her surroundings.

”Sanshi, look for the back entrance, the one that leads to Diagon Alley”

As Miela stood waiting for Sanshi to return from her scouting, she continued to observe the small shop. It was dark and dingy, with a faint smell of stale beer hanging in the air.

Sanshi returned within seconds, and related to Miela that there was a stone alley way at the back of the shop like Professor McGonagall said. Miela nodded thanks, and started to sneak he way across the bar to the back entrance.

“Dumbledore said you might be dropping by.”

Miela froze in mid-step, her body tensed up, weapon in hand, ready to strike and leave whenever deemed necessary.

“Keep that knife before you hurt yourself gal, I ain’t mean no harm. Dumbledore just asked me to look out for you when you arrive and to pass this to you.”

Miela stood up slowly, careful to keep eye contact with the bartender that had spoken. As she slowly approached the bar, she saw a beautiful golden pouch on the counter, and as she picked it up, she realized that the emblem stitched onto the pouch was of the Hyakki’s clan. It felt heavy in her hand. Flipping it over, she gasped out loudly, and dropped the pouch to the ground, for on the other side of the pouch, hand-stitched onto a beautiful aquamarine fabric, was the Ningyo clans’ emblem, the clan she was born into, which was destroyed by the Hyakki clan when she was only a baby. [If this is confusing, then reading my profile would clear it up!]

Fast as lightening, before anyone could comprehend what happened, Miela jumped over the counter, pulled a dagger up to the bartender’s neck and dragged him into the darkness behind the counter and whispered harshly into his ear “Who are you, and who told you to give that to me? And you better tell me the truth before I slice your throat open, and leave you here.”

The bartender was trying to tug the arm around his waist and neck free, but did not succeed, gave up and said, “Like I told you gal, Dumbledore asked me to pass that to you when you arrive, and you can ask anyone around here, I am old Tom and I have been here ever since the beginning of time.”

“That’s impossible, how did you notice me then? Nobody should have noticed me.”

“Eh, look here gal, you don’t own a dark bar filled with drunks just waiting for someone to pickpocket them without picking up a thing or two. Dumbledore had given this pouch to me two weeks ago, and had told me about your ‘ability’ to hide in shadows, so I keep an eye out, but heck gal, you are good, I have to take both my eyes off ole Barney at the bar just before I can spot you. Now would you let me go before Barney steals all my drinks?”

Miela looked over to the end of the counter, and sure enough, there was a old man leaning over the bar and refilling his cup while looking around to see if Tom was back. Looking down, Miela saw that Tom was looking at her with amusement and decided that he wasn’t going to harm her, let go of him.

“EY BARNEY! Take your filthy hands off before I hex you outta here. And it’s going into your tab!”

Miela walked out after Tom, still suspicious, and picked up the pouch off the bar top.

“Oh yea, Dumbledore told me that you should open the pouch and see what is inside.” Tom said, while keeping an eye on Barney, who was muttering to himself about “selfish old bugger who won’t understand the hardships…”.

Opening the pouch and turning it over, out slid a large key, encrusted with yellow diamonds on one side, and blue diamonds on the other. Miela flipped the pouch over, hoping to find a note or directions as to what the key opens when Tom suddenly spoke up.

“Looks like a key to a vault in Gringotts.”

“Gringotts? What is it?”

“Oh it’s just down the street in Diagon Alley, it’s like a, what Muggles call it, a place where you put stuff and you have those polizemen to watch your stuff for you? A bank? Yea, a bank, except in this case, it’s goblins guarding the place instead of Muggles.”

Miela nodded. She understood that like every where else, she would need money to survive in the world. Nodding thanks to Tom and hoping that Professor Dumbledore had left some money for her in the bank so she could by school supplies, she walked out to the back door and faced a stone wall. Like how Professor McGonagall had taught her, she counted three bricks up and two across and tapped on it. Stepping back, Miela stared in amazement as the brick walls parted and suddenly the entrance to Diagon Alley stretched in front of her.

Taking a deep breath, Miela took her first step into Diagon Alley…