Ernie wasn't the only classmate they ran into on the makeshift streets of Diagon Alley.
A fair number of Hogwarts students had apparently made the same decision to come the week before term started, accompanied by parents who were themselves curious about the state of wizarding Britain's commercial heart.
The result was a reunion of sorts, scattered across the tent city in ones and twos with recognizable faces appearing between unfamiliar walls.
Among the familiar were their dormitory-mate Seamus Finnigan, accompanied by his Irish mother who was examining the Apothecary tent's wares.
And the twins' good friend Lee Jordan, who had apparently come independently and was wandering gathering material for something.
After exchanging greetings with Finlay from Hufflepuff, Harry turned around to look back at something and caught a glimpse, through the moving crowd, of Cho Chang stepping into the owl emporium tent nearby.
She was accompanied by an Asian man, presumably her father, who held the tent flap open for her.
Harry's instincts ran before his thoughts could—he pulled his head down and looked deliberately away, focusing on the middle distance between himself and the Apothecary banner with sudden intense interest.
He found, when he glanced up a moment later, that both Ginny and Hermione were watching him.
Their expressions were identical and showed an assessment of the situation that was not particularly pleasing to anyone involved.
Harry chose not to say anything. The wisest course, he had found, was generally to say nothing at moments like this and wait for the universe to provide a change of subject.
Whatever one might say about the circumstances, Gringotts had always been the grandest building on Diagon Alley. Even when reduced to a tent, it was still the largest structure in the tent city.
The entrance no longer bore the brass plates with their usual warnings to thieves and would-be robbers. In their place, a single notice had been posted in clean, businesslike lettering:
"Due to multiple fractures sustained in the vaults below as a result of the Battle of Diagon Alley, structural repairs are currently underway throughout the lower levels. For the safety of our esteemed customers:
All customers wishing to make withdrawals will have their funds retrieved by Gringotts staff on their behalf. Customers will not be required to access vault levels personally during this period.
Gringotts will continue to safeguard the wealth of our esteemed customers as it always has, without interruption or compromise to security. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation."
Hermione read the notice aloud in a low voice.
"Saves us the trouble, doesn't it?" Ron gave a fearless shrug, like this was the best news he'd received all morning. "I'd rather eat an entire box of bogey-flavoured Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans than ride one of those Gringotts carts again."
"Oh, you're disgusting, Ron!"
Ginny rolled her eyes at him, and turned to join the queue forming inside the entrance.
Whatever one might say, recreating anything resembling the soaring, sombre grandeur of the Gringotts lobby inside a tent was no small feat, and the goblins had clearly applied considerable effort and considerable magic to the attempt. The layout bore a reasonable resemblance to the original. But the space itself felt noticeably cramped.
They shuffled forward in the queue, inching along slowly.
The press of bodies was considerable.
Ginny, pushed flush against Harry's chest by the too many people in a space somewhat too small for them, had gone red from cheek to collarbone.
Harry, for his part, found himself in a situation his mind was not handling with any particular composure.
The soft warmth of her against him. The tendrils of her thick red hair drifting at the edge of his nose, alternately tickling and not, at the mercy of tiny air movements he couldn't predict. The general reality of the situation, which his body was registering more thoroughly than he would have preferred, given the company.
He felt as though he'd been hit with some unfamiliar Dark curse—wave after wave of heat was rushing up to his head, his ability to attend to anything else was significantly compromised.
Even the gentle image of Cho Chang he'd glimpsed moments ago faded into something utterly irrelevant and far away.
"—Speaking of which, Harry—"
Ron, standing just behind him, had noticed absolutely nothing amiss. He was craning his neck toward the counter ahead, where a wizard was in apparently intense negotiation with a goblin over several rubies the deep red of hot coals.
They reached an agreement at last and the goblin produced an elegant wooden box from beneath the counter. It was opened with ceremony to reveal a heaping pile of Galleons that poured noisily across the tabletop.
Ron watched the wizard examining the coins' one by one with an expression of unconcealed, almost yearning envy.
"I've always wondered—how much money did your parents actually leave you?"
Hermione's expression soured. She jabbed a finger into Ron's back.
"That's Harry's private business, Ron. You shouldn't ask questions like that."
"Oh, it's alright, Hermione—" Harry said, somewhat breathlessly, grateful for the distraction of any subject from his current situation.
He cast his mind back to the contents of his vault.
"Honestly, I'm not entirely sure of the exact amount myself, Ron. I've never sat down and counted it. Probably—" he considered. "Tens of thousands of Galleons? Maybe more. I genuinely don't know."
Even Fred and George's eyes flickered briefly with a flash of envy at that.
To accommodate the volume of withdrawals and the absence of customer access to the vault levels, the goblins had moved several large iron-banded chests of Galleons into a back room behind the lobby, operating on a pre-payment ledger system that was rather more efficient than the original cart-and-vault arrangement.
Harry had his money in hand soon—the sum he'd need to see him through the school year.
There was always something deeply satisfying about the weight of a full money pouch. He'd spent two months at Grimmauld Place with hardly anywhere to go and nothing much to spend money on even if he'd had anywhere to go: one trip to the Ministry for the hearing, one visit to St Mungo's to see Mr. Weasley, one brief dash to Diagon Alley.
That had been the full sum of his summer's movements.
He was more than ready to spend some money.
Mrs. Weasley, however, ran into a small dispute internally with her own withdrawal.
"Going by the Hogwarts booklist, you don't need to buy any new books this year—that saves a bit. Oh, but you'll all need new robes—and you'll each need various supplies and sundries for the new year. And Ginny's cauldron is beyond saving, she'll need a new one—"
Mrs. Weasley ticked things off on her fingers.
"I can buy my own cauldron, Mum—" Ginny offered gently. "I haven't spent much of my prize money from the tournament yet—"
"Oh, sweetheart, that money is yours. Use it for something else. Buying your school things is your father's and my responsibility—"
Mrs. Weasley gazed at Ginny with warm affection and reached out to ruffle her daughter's thick red hair.
The scene left Ron visibly and genuinely aggrieved.
While Mrs. Weasley was occupied with her negotiations with the goblin at the counter, Ron twisted around to grumble his feelings to Hermione, who stood with her arms folded and an eyebrow arched in resignation.
"So how come—when I want a broomstick, I have to use my own money and fill out a request in advance so Mum can think it over?"
"It's very simple, you silly boy—"
George appeared from somewhere and performed a flawless impression of Mrs. Weasley's fond maternal smile. He reached over and ruffled Ron's hair with the same tenderness Mrs. Weasley had just shown Ginny.
"Because Mum and Dad's vault does not have enough Galleons in it to fund your every whim."
What did come as a genuine surprise was Hermione withdrawing a full one thousand Galleons from her account.
The sum was considerable enough that managing the physical weight of it required an additional ten-odd Galleons spent on a specially enchanted pouch purchased from a goblin at the counter.
Hermione tested the heft of the bag, adjusted the strap, and seemed satisfied.
"What on earth are you planning to do with that?" Harry stared at her, genuinely curious and genuinely baffled. "Have you been commissioned to refurnish Hogwarts? Are you buying out Flourish and Blotts entire stock of Advanced Transfiguration?"
"Oh, that's my private business now, Harry." Hermione said, with only the smallest trace of apology in her tone.
Their last obligation as a full group was a visit to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
Perhaps sensing that this gang of teenagers had been cooped up indoors at Grimmauld Place for long enough, and that the freedom of a shopping trip needed to actually feel like freedom rather than a supervised excursion, Mrs. Weasley was gracious enough afterward to let them go their separate ways.
She herself headed off with Ginny with cauldron mission prioritized.
Fred and George vanished within approximately three seconds of being granted independence.
Hermione couldn't manufacture much enthusiasm for Ron's broomstick errand. Just as Harry had predicted, the moment she spotted the Flourish and Blotts tent, she disappeared inside it without a backward glance.
"Come on—"
Ron grabbed Harry's arm and hauled him toward the Quidditch Quality Supplies tent.
"We've already wasted so much time—Ernie must be waiting for us!"
In the end, they spent considerably longer in the Quidditch shop than either of them had expected or particularly planned.
Harry needed only a short while to stock up on a few consumables for his broomstick servicing kit, but Ron's agonised deliberation between the Nimbus and Comet ranges was something else entirely—Harry found himself playing adviser alongside Ernie for what felt like an age.
By the time Ron walked out of Quidditch Quality Supplies with a satisfied grin and his very first proper racing broom under his arm, the sun climbed directly over their heads.
Ernie parted ways with them shortly after.
Ron proposed that since no one else in their party was visible and therefore no one would know or object, the two of them should slip into the Leaky Cauldron tent for a round of Butterbeer—a proper toast to his new broom.
Harry had no objections.
They hunted through the maze of tent streets for a while before they found it.
Like most of the shops, the Leaky Cauldron had been rebuilt on its original site—but the passage connecting it through to the Muggle world had been destroyed.
Harry was well acquainted with the Leaky Cauldron's landlord; he'd once spent the better part of a month in the upstairs room.
The tent was a touch brighter than the original pub, and a handful of patrons were indeed inside, though they were mostly parents and children settling in for lunch. The old familiar colour of the Leaky Cauldron's usual crowd was conspicuously absent.
"How's business, Tom?"
Tom stood behind the bar, polishing glasses out of sheer boredom. The shaft of sunlight that followed Harry and Ron through the entrance made him squint against the brightness.
When he made out Harry's face, Tom stepped out from behind the bar at once.
"Ah, Mr Potter." The greeting was warm but the moment pleasantries were done, his expression fell.
"As you can see, business has absolutely collapsed." He gestured toward the food the few patrons had ordered, and looked dejected.
"In times like these, most people aren't keen to linger outside. No one comes in for a proper drink anymore—the ones who do come just grab a bite and hurry off. To be honest, I miss my old pub terribly. But the Ministry says it'll be at least another six months before they give Diagon Alley back to us—"
"That's still pretty fast, all things considered," Ron said. "Think about the Quidditch World Cup stadium—it took hundreds of Ministry workers the better part of six months just to build that one venue, and they weren't clearing rubble first. They must be stretched thin right now."
"The real question is—"
Harry was paying close attention to this point; the matter touched on Professor Watson's situation. He looked at Tom with concern.
"Has the Ministry offered any compensation for your losses?"
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