Diagon alley was especially bustling today for some strange reason and as I looked around that reason became fairly obvious. Most of the Hogwarts students were getting their school supplies today. There was an abundance of young people in the street going about their shopping with the muggleborn among them being more obvious than those born into wizarding families. The most obvious even amongst these wizarding children however had to be the group of six red heads in less than stellar apparel and similar enough appearances.-
'That must be the Weasleys. Judging from the ages they have and the lack of supplies being carried by Ginny I'm definitely be going to Hogwarts the same year as Harry and the other two from the golden trio.' I thought with a sudden sense of pressure.
I had of course assumed I would be there during cannon but as to when during cannon that was still up in the air. I had no idea if this world was identical to the story in the books or if canon was moved up a year or down a year. Expecting things to be precisely the same was a foolish idea as everyone knew about the butterfly effect in my previous life.-
Assuming my mere presence wouldn't shatter cannon into a thousand pieces was a fools notion. That said I had no intention of getting involved directly. I didn't make any move to approach the Weasleys and simply went my own way to get my objectives done. My first stop was naturally a carpet shop that sold enchanted carpets. Flying carpet were not included in that as they were illegal to sell or use in the british magical side of things.-
I was fairly certain that was because it would cut into the profits of broom sellers and thus the ministry had banned them here. A ridiculous thing really but expecting better from the corrupt and/or incompetent ministry was a foolish thing. Not saying the whole thing was without purpose but the fact remained it wasn't a pure and clean organization by any means. Still I wasn't after anything like a flying carpet and settled for a fuzzy thick white wool carpet with a warming enchantment to keep your feet warm in those cold mornings. The shop keeper was more than happy to have the rug moved into my room in Toms pub and installed for a little extra.-
My next stop was a sports shop that sold practice targets, brooms, and other quidditch equipment as well as my true goal here, dueling dummies. These things were specially enchanted to take serious punishment from spells before standing back up for more. The more advanced ones even had the ability to use simple spells themselves like Protego or Flipendo. I merely bought a simple one for taking a beating so I could practice more combat oriented spells without damaging Toms stuff.-
Even better was that the shop keeper had special shield orbs that could protect the room itself if placed in all four corners. They apparently worked by creating a barrier spell that covered the walls and windows between them. The ceiling was still a concern but not as much since I didn't plan on practicing the more wide area offensive magics I remembered from the books like Bombarda or Confringo. Those would have to wait until I got to the castle and squirrelled away in the room of requirement. Look anyone who has ever even considered the idea of going to Hogwarts as a student in my past life could tell you that the room of requirement was a HEAVILY underutilized asset in the books.-
For those not in the know somehow the Room of requirement or ROR for short is a special room in the castle of Hogwarts on the seventh floor directly across from a tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy trying to teach Trolls ballet. This room is both invisible and undetectable normally without a door at all unless a very specific thing is done. You must pace in front of the wall three times while repeating your need in your head or out loud each time.-
Done right and a door will magically appear on the previously blank wall that when opened takes you to a single room that fulfills whatever need you had. In the story the room was used to hide things, to practice magic, or even to relieve oneself in the middle of the night if Dumbledore is to be believed. Regardless this was a massive waste agreed upon by the vast majority of Potter fans as the room had so much potential that was never explored. I FULLY intended to exploit the bloody hell out of the room. Specified book searching, magical practice, brewing illegal or highly controlled potions, rituals, the works really.-
Not to mention the room of hidden things configuration that held an unknowable amount of potentially valuable or dangerous items just waiting for me to take them for my own, oh and we can't forget the diadem of Ravenclaw. That lovely little piece of headwear that housed a fragment of Voldemorts soul was a ripe target for my system shop. Now that I knew it was possible to trade for conceptual things thanks to Whitebeard I could absolutely sell just the soul fragment in the diadem to the shop giving me the diadem itself that had the ability to boost ones mind.-
In theory this would ruin cannon since the diadem was slated for destruction to make the mad wizard mortal again but so long as his soul fragment was gone the same end was achieved so nothing REALLY changes. As an added bonus I'd get a treasure valued at ten million system coins in the process for absolutely no personal cost, now that's quite the steal! Anyways with the practice equipment secured and sent back to the pub I headed for my final stop, Eeylops owl and beast emporium.-
I needed living targets to hone my conquerors haki as right now it was a wide area sort of spiritual attack and not focused. This didn't mean it wasn't very good or anything, just that like all haki users I needed practice with it. My target was not going to be anything expensive or even that I would care about traumatizing like an owl, I wanted some rats.