The farmer’s market was . . . dazzling.

That probably wasn’t the correct word to use, but it came the closest to what Harry meant. There were people crowding everywhere he looked, seemingly all talking at the tops of their voices and gesturing wildly. The stalls were little islands in the middle of the flood of people. Fruits over there, vegetables this way, a stall filled with jam jars – surely there couldn’t be that many types of jam! – over here, a meat stall just to his left, another one somewhere else, judging by the yelling someone was doing about various cuts of meat on offer, freshly baked bread – ooh, cake! – just ahead of them.

In trying to keep up with Snape, look everywhere at once, avoid all the people standing around, and ensure that he wasn’t so close to Snape that he bumped into the man when he suddenly stopped, it was a wonder that Harry managed to remain standing on his feet.

“Potter!” he heard Snape bark, and discovered that Snape had actually stopped at a stall, and he’d continued on past the professor.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, breathlessly, arriving back at Snape’s side.

“Hmm, too polite to be your son,” said the elderly woman behind the stall, peering intently at Harry. He shrank back slightly, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

“Heaven forbid,” Snape said, shuddering. He was examining the stall’s offering . . . which turned out to be cheese, when Harry turned his attention to it. “He’s one of my students.”

“Ah.” The old lady raised her eyebrows, but if she was curious about why a teacher would have a student with him now, or why he’d brought his student to this market, she didn’t ask. Instead, she gave a quick glance at the block of cheese that Snape was looking at. “100 grams, seven pounds,” she said.

Snape instantly straightened up, his face taking on a vaguely offended look. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he sneered. “I didn’t realise that you were not the proprietor of this stall. Where may I find them?”

The old lady threw her head back and cackled as Harry stared at them both in confusion. “It’s good cheese, well worth it,” she said, finally.

“It is not worth highway robbery,” Snape disagreed. He folded his arms and stared intently at the woman. “One pound.”

“Day release from Bedlam, is it?” the old lady asked, tilting her head to one side. Snape snorted, a sound that Harry thought was almost a huff of laughter, one that he couldn’t help. “Six pounds.”

Harry’s gaze moved back and forth as Snape and the old lady continued to barter. He was quite surprised that Snape would do something like that – he would have thought that just declaring what he’d pay, and then standing straight and immovable, would have been more the professor’s style.

“Done!” the elderly woman said, finally, cackling again.

“Done,” Snape agreed, nodding and handing over the amount they’d finally agreed on. The stall proprietor leaned over and picked up the cheese Snape had been haggling over, smoothly cutting a large chunk from it and wrapping it in a paper that gleamed like wax. She handed the package to Snape with a smile, and he inclined his head as he took it. “Come along, Potter,” he said, and was striding off before Harry even had a chance to realise that he was going.

He caught up with the professor at the jam stall – which turned out to be selling marmalade and honey, too – and then trailed after him as he visited the bread stall, the meat van, and finally the fruit and vegetable stalls.

“—rition point,” Harry suddenly heard Snape say, and he blinked. Had Snape just said apparition point? To a Muggle?

“Ten pounds for the fruit, and two sickles for the other,” the stall holder said, and Harry realised with a shock that she had to be a witch.

Snape handed over the relevant money, took the bag with the fruit in it, and then turned to lay a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Come along, Harry,” he said, and began edging them around the corner of the stall. “I’m afraid we have to apparate again.”

“Hang on a minute! Is that really Harry—?” the lady behind the stall began, but with a grimace of disgust, Snape had already gripped Harry’s shoulder tightly, and then they were spinning and stretching before being spat out somewhere else.

With the part of his mind that wasn’t trying to convince his body that his stomach was perfectly fine just where it was, Harry was grateful that Snape had removed them before the witch started gushing over The Boy Who Lived. Finally controlling the dry-heaves, Harry looked up.

They were in yet another alley, although this one was at least cleaner than the previous one had been. There was something spray-painted on the wall at the end of the alley. It looked like a very slender firework, just about to explode, but when Snape approached the wall, Harry realised it was a wand giving out sparks. Surprised, he watched Snape tap the sparks with his own wand, and the wall melted away into a door.

“Come on, Potter,” Snape sighed, turning back to see where he’d got to. “This is the entrance to the magical section of town.”

“Yessir,” Harry agreed, and stumbled after the professor.

Severus watched from the corner of his eye as Potter entered the magical district. The boy’s eyes were darting everywhere, trying to take in everything. Not that anything here is as flashy as Diagon Alley, Severus sneered to himself. Diagon Alley, and even Hogsmeade to a degree, was geared towards the buyers, the tourists. Aside from those two places, most other magical sections of cities or towns were just like the regular Muggle sections, filled mostly with small shops and a few flats or even townhouses dotted here and there. Most witches and wizards didn’t bother finding out where a place’s magical sector was unless they actually lived in that place, or somewhere nearby.

“What is this place, sir?” Potter asked, eventually, trailing behind Severus as he made his way to a herb shop. “It’s name, I mean.”

“It does not have an official name,” Severus informed him, pausing to study a set of glassware in a shop window. “Only Diagon and Knockturn Alley and Hogsmeade are considered important enough to name them. Every other town or city or village that has its own magical sector just calls the area ‘Magic Street’ if they call it anything.”

Potter was silent for a moment, and Severus could see him reflected in the glass of the window, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. “Hogsmeade, sir?” he finally asked.

Ah, of course the boy wouldn’t know about Hogsmeade yet, Severus realised. First-years were usually too busy dealing with new classes and finding their way around the castle to bother listening to any tales the upper years might spread. “It is a wizarding village,” he explained, turning away from the shop window. One of the glass jars had bubbles in it – it might look pretty, but the first touch of a hot potion, or indeed, a hot anything, would cause it to shatter in a very explosive matter. “Hogwarts is on its outskirts. Some few people do live there, but it is mostly shops. We do have Hogsmeade weekends, but only third-years and up are allowed to visit, provided their guardians have signed their permission slips, of course.”

Hmm, he hadn’t thought of that. If Albus didn’t come up with someone to be the brat’s legal guardian, officially, then when the time came, Potter would not be allowed to leave the castle.

Then again, considering the escapades Potter had gotten up to this past year, no doubt he’d manage to find a way around that.

Potter was silent the rest of the way to the shop Severus wanted to visit, although he couldn’t tell if that was because the boy was thinking about Hogsmeade or just too busy taking in the sights of Berwick’s Magic Street. Once they reached the shop, he held a swift debate with himself about the advisability of leaving Potter outside to wait for him.

No, he eventually decided. Just because there’s nobody here now, doesn’t mean someone couldn’t apparate in and take him. And Albus would kill him if he let the Boy-Who-Lived get kidnapped, in broad daylight, in a quiet place like Berwick.

“Come along, Potter,” he sighed, resignedly. “Don’t touch anything!”

The inside of the shop was cool and quiet. A soft breeze that didn’t seem to come from any particular point carried traces of rosemary and lavender. Although the shop itself was quite large, it was crammed with shelves that overflowed with greenery. Severus had visited this place too many times to count, and so it wasn’t long before he was striding through the shop towards the counter at the back, somehow managing to avoid even brushing any of the other herbs and grasses.

Potter, it seemed, had had the good sense to remain by the door. He was staring out of the shop window at something across the road when Severus joined him. In fact, he was so intent on whatever he was watching that he jumped when Severus brushed past him when reaching for the door.

“Um, sir?” the boy started as they turned to head back in the direction of Magic Street’s entrance. “Could we just—?”

“Just what?” Severus asked, with an exasperated sigh, but when there was no response, he turned and discovered that Potter hadn’t even waited for permission, and had his nose pressed against the window of the shop opposite the herb shop. “Potter, what are you doing?” Severus growled, stalking back towards his wayward charge.

“Look, sir!” Potter tapped a finger on the glass. “It looks like the ones—”

Severus didn’t even hear the rest of the sentence, for he had taken one look at the black, winged, skeletal horse figurine, and strode into the shop.

“—that you . . . have . . . Sir?” Harry blinked, then blinked again and peered harder through the glass he was pressed against. He shot a quick glance to the side, and then focused on the interior of the shop again. He hadn’t even heard Snape move. He’d also never seen the professor move that fast unless it was to stop a cauldron from exploding, or to give a Gryffindor detention.

Realising that one of the shop people was making their way towards the window display, Harry pulled his head back, hoping he hadn’t left any smudges on the glass. The old man who was reaching in for the black horse figurine spotted Harry, and scowled alarmingly at him. When Harry didn’t move, the thick, white bushy brows lowered even further, almost obscuring the man’s eyes, and he made a small, curt gesture with the hand that wasn’t touching the horse.

A jolt of tingling sensation sparked over Harry’s hands where he’d still had his fingertips pressed to the glass for balance, and he let out a yelp and jumped backwards, shaking his hands.

Voices suddenly sounded from inside the shop. Loud voices. Harry had been checking his fingers for burns, but now he looked up. Snape was standing beside the old man, arguing vehemently, although he was standing stiffly, his arms folded across his chest. The old man had let the figurine go, and was waving his hands wildly as he shouted back at Snape.

Snape shook his head, then unfolded his arms to point a long finger at Harry through the window, before turning that finger to poke the old man in the shoulder, several times. The old man turned his head to look at Harry, and his mouth fell open in what looked like horrified realisation.

Snape told him I’m the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry realised, his shoulders slumping. Merlin, he hated that stupid title!

Apparently, though, it was of great use to Snape – how ironic, when he was going on about my fame not helping me, now he’s using it to help him – because the old man was reaching for the horse figurine again, all the fight seemingly gone out of him.

Ten minutes later, Snape was striding back out of the shop, looking exceedingly smug, even for him. “Come along, Potter. Don’t dawdle,” he drawled as he passed Harry and headed back towards the entrance wall they’d come in through.

Groaning, Harry scurried to catch up. If they were done here, that meant apparating home – no, not home – again. He really wished there was a better way to travel. Seriously, they were wizards. Couldn’t they come up with a way to travel that wasn’t nausea inducing?

It was with some surprise, therefore, that Harry realised that Snape wasn’t stopping on the other side of the gateway to Magic Street. Instead, the professor was moving towards the alley entrance.

“Um, sir?” Harry asked, tentatively, not at all sure that Snape would appreciate his questioning him. “Where are we going?”

“You wanted notepads, did you not?” Snape paused, and turned his head to examine Harry from the corner of his eye. “Have you changed your mind?” The corner of his mouth curled up in a sneer.

“Er, no, sir,” stammered Harry. He’d thought Snape had changed his mind about allowing it. But when he followed Snape out of the alley – after Snape had checked to make sure that no Muggles saw them, since how would they explain coming out of an alley nobody had seen them enter? – he discovered they were headed for a large shop that was on a main road. WH Smiths? he thought to himself. We’re going to WH Smiths?

On second thought, that actually made sense. Snape had been familiar with the . . . the Muggleness of the farmer’s market, so he obviously knew some things; but Harry had been expecting the professor to patronise the smaller shops.

Do smaller shops even have stationary stuff? Harry wondered, as he followed Snape into the store.

It probably would have taken Harry an hour of wandering around to find what he was after, but either Snape had been in here before, or he was just that observant, as after a second’s pause, he was heading straight for the aisle with the notepads. Picking up a handful, he then strode back past Harry towards the tills at the front.

“Sir, really, I don’t think I need that many,” Harry hissed at him, fruitlessly trying to get close enough to tug some of the notepads from Snape’s hands.

“Nonsense, Potter,” Snape said, placing the notepads down in front of the cashier. “Anything you don’t use this summer can be used once you’re back at school. Since you will be continuing to draft out your essays there, won’t you.” And he raised an eyebrow at Harry.

Harry’s mouth fell open. What! There is no way I’ll be doing an essay more than once when I’m back at Hogwarts without Snape breathing down my neck. That’s Hermione’s job!

Before Harry could stutter out anything – and ignoring the cashier who was trying, mostly successfully, to stifle her giggles – Snape had scooped up the bag and was off again out of the store, leaving Harry to shake his head and then run to catch up.