The Outcasts Of Hogwarts

Chapter 2 Shopping and Waiting

It had been about a week when Sarah was about to take Katy to summer school and had come into the living room to find them all watching the TV. Well, Amaris was looking out the window and just listening. Matt had planned to show her all of the films that, in his opinion, were required to have been seen by every teenager. But they had discovered rather quickly that the screen gave her serious headaches. Matt thought this was because, like dogs, her eyes worked too fast for the speed of the TV. This news left Amaris extremely disappointed.

"I hope this isn't all you're planning to do today," Sarah said, "Don't they give you homework to do?"

"We finished it," Matt replied without looking away from the TV despite having seen the film countless times before.

"Already?" Sarah frowned.

"It's not that much work when we all work together," Steffan said. He was only half watching the film with mild confusion, with the rest of his attention on writing in his notebook.

Sarah thought for a moment before coming up with another reason, "Well, you've still been cooped up in here all week and it's wonderful weather outside. You should go somewhere."

"Go out?" Amaris perked up, "and explore the muggle world?"

"Okay," Matt said, only slightly reluctant to turn the TV off, "but where should I take them?"

"Oh, I don't know," Sarah said, "whatever it is you teenagers like to do, go into the city if you want."

And so half an hour later, the four of them were on a bus into the city centre. After some discussion, it had been decided that it would be easiest for Sarah to give all of them a muggle allowance in exchange for their wizard money. This would save the Clarks a trip to Gringotts. Matt wasn't entirely sure where he should take the others, only Kim had an idea of what the muggle world included and none of them knew their way around Manchester.

He started by showing them around things he thought would be interesting: the town hall, the shopping centre, the football stadium. But he soon realised he had his work cut out in keeping track of them all. Kim's height meant that she was easily lost in a crowd, she was more used to all the muggle stuff but she wasn't used to big cities. This wasn't helped by the fast and erratic pace that Amaris set by running off to gawp at every instance of muggle technology. In contrast, Steffan seemed overwhelmed by all the noise and people, though Matt couldn't be sure. But there did seem to be a slight deer in the headlights look about his eyes.

When they all nearly got run over by a taxi, Matt decided it was time for a break. He led them off the main road, down a side street lined with shops. He had discovered that it didn't matter what street it was in this general area. As long as some part of you was looking for it, there would always be a shop with a flaking phone box by the window and a rustic hand carved sign hanging out into the street which read: Knew too Magick.

Steffan eyed the shop warily, "What is this place?"

"It's a muggleborn shop," Matt said with a shrug, "best way to describe it. It's for people who are 'new to magic'."

Amaris tilted her head to one side, "But why is it spelt that way? I thought muggles had schools to teach them things like this."

"We do," Matt said, "It's supposed to be a pun, as in: we also knew magic."

"Hmm," Amaris analysed the sign for a second before saying, "it's not very funny."

"Anyway," Matt said as he walked towards the door, "I thought this would be a good way to ease you into the muggle life."

Pushing the door open, Matt heard the familiar noise of the bell above the door and he breathed in the wonderful mixed smell of old antiques and new magazines. He swept his eyes around the full bowing shelves, looking for anything knew. He took a step towards the rows of cassette tapes when he heard someone call his name.