DIAGON ALLEY
“Hogwarts, dear?” she said, when Harry started to speak. “Got
the lot here — another young man being fitted up just now, in
fact.”
In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was
standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long
black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him,
slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right
length.
“Hello,” said the boy, “Hogwarts, too?”
“Yes,” said Harry.
“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the
street looking at wands,” said the boy. He had a bored, drawling
voice. “Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms.
I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully fa-
ther into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”
Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.
“Have you got your own broom?” the boy went on.
“No,” said Harry.
“Play Quidditch at all?”
“No,” Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch
could be.
“I do — Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for
my House, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you’ll be in
yet?”
“No,” said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.
“Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I
know I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been — imagine be-
ing in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”
77