When Altair woke the next morning, the clothes Sofia had prepared were already laid out for him.
A crisp white shirt. Brown waistcoat and suit jacket. A decorative gold pocket watch. A newsboy cap with razor blades sewn into the brim, and a pair of gleaming leather shoes.
After breakfast, he got into Jimmy's car.
London was a little over two hours away. Behind them, a handful of gunmen followed in a separate vehicle. Altair was the only young wizard the Shelby family had, and Michael wasn't willing to leave anything to chance.
He'd originally wanted to send dozens of men. Altair had refused. To settle the argument, he'd summoned a skeleton in the middle of the room and had it take down a tree in the manor grounds with a single swing. One clean cut.
The two men had gone quiet after that. In the end they kept only a few of their best, with the justification that Jimmy needed protection too.
The drive was uneventful. No trouble, no surprises.
Altair was standing on Charing Cross Road by half past ten.
Once they reached London, Jimmy's posture relaxed noticeably. He had a mistress in the city. After a few words to Altair, he peeled off with some of his men, leaving the rest to spread out across the surrounding streets and watch from a distance.
Altair walked along the road for a while. The Leaky Cauldron caught his eye quickly enough, sitting wrong against everything around it in that particular way it had, visible and invisible at once depending on who was looking. He didn't go in. He found a bookshop on a corner instead and spent the remaining time there until the hour was nearly right, then drifted back to the roadside.
Professor McGonagall appeared not long after.
Behind her walked a couple and a young witch. Altair's eyes settled on the girl for a moment.
Hermione. Already.
McGonagall spotted him and raised a hand. He walked over.
"I was just telling Mr. Granger that I was certain you would already be here waiting for us."
"I only arrived a short while ago myself. It's very good to see you again, Professor McGonagall."
"This is Mr. Granger, this is his wife, and this is Miss Granger. Like you, she is entering school this year."
Altair gave the three of them a polite nod.
"Hello. A pleasure to meet you all. My name is Altair. Altair Shelby."
"Mr. Shelby, likewise."
Mr. Granger smiled warmly. His wife nodded beside him.
"Professor McGonagall was speaking to us about you just now. She called you a very elegant young gentleman." A small smile. "She wasn't wrong."
Hermione was watching him with the particular attention of someone who has already decided to form an opinion and is currently collecting evidence. There was a trace of pride in it, and genuine curiosity underneath.
"Hello. My name is Hermione."
Altair looked at her properly. Brown hair, refined features, bright eyes. She'd been lovely as a child, and she knew it less than she knew everything else, which was saying something.
He felt the natural pull of goodwill toward her. Nothing more than that, for now.
"Hello, Miss Hermione. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"All right, let us begin. We still have a great deal to do today."
McGonagall moved them along, guiding the group toward the Leaky Cauldron's entrance. Through some quiet working of her magic, Mr. and Mrs. Granger could see it clearly, which was clearly not lost on Mr. Granger.
"I swear I've walked past this place before and never once saw it."
McGonagall led them inside. The pub was reasonably full, and several witches and wizards looked up to greet her as she passed. She returned the greetings briefly and kept moving, steering the group through to the small courtyard at the back.
"Remember this place. Once you have your own wands, you'll be able to come to Diagon Alley on your own."
She looked at Altair and Hermione as she said it, then drew her wand and tapped the brickwork above the rubbish bin. Three across, two up. Three taps.
"Wow!"
The wall folded back into an archway. Diagon Alley opened up beyond it.
"This is Diagon Alley. We'll go to Gringotts first. It is the goblins' bank."
Muggle pounds carried little weight in the wizarding world, and the goblin handling the exchange made that clear without saying it. Five hundred pounds became one hundred Galleons, and the transaction was conducted with the minimum warmth necessary to count as civil.
McGonagall led them back out onto the alley. Mr. and Mrs. Granger moved through it with their heads turning at everything, adults reduced entirely to wonder.
"We'll buy your wands first. I don't imagine either of you would enjoy carrying books, a cauldron, and brass scales from shop to shop for the rest of the afternoon."
She brought them to a small, shabby storefront. The sign above the door had worn down to almost nothing, but the words were still readable.
Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
"Two thousand years of professional wandmaking."
Altair kept the thought to himself and followed McGonagall inside.
The shop was cramped and quiet, a long bench in one corner where McGonagall gestured for the Grangers to sit. The shelves ran floor to ceiling, stacked with narrow boxes. A moment later, an old man with silver-white hair appeared from somewhere behind the counter.
"Oh, Minerva. It has been a long time." His eyes moved over her with something distant in them, half memory. "Fir wood, nine and a half inches, excellent for Transfiguration... I still remember standing beside my father when he sold you that wand. Time passes very quickly."
He came back to himself and looked past McGonagall to where Altair and Hermione stood.
"This year's incoming students. Then let us see which wands choose them."
He stepped around the counter and considered the two of them.
"Which young wizard would like to go first?"
Altair stepped back and gestured toward Hermione.
"Ladies first."
"A splendid young gentleman." Ollivander smiled, then turned his pale eyes on Hermione. "Now then, child. Which hand do you use?"