He sighed as he exited the back of the Leaky Cauldron to find the Alley very busy, despite the snowy conditions. He shivered and cast a warming charm over himself to stave off the cold and began making his way down the alley towards his first destination; Quality Quidditch Supplies.
He entered the shop and immediately spotted what he'd come in for; a professional level beaters bat for Sirius and some new gloves for James
He managed to pay for the items and leave in a timely manner and avoid being hampered down in a large queue, much to his relief.
He then made his way to Flourish and Blott's to procure the books he had planned to get for Remus and again seemed to have very little trouble in entering and exiting the store within ten minutes; clearly books were not high on the agenda of the day for most people.
The apothecary turned out to be a little busier than he had anticipated but the only real issue had been the size of the shop. It was not equipped to handle such a high volume of customers that had somehow managed to squeeze inside. Nonetheless, he managed to obtain what he wanted without too much trouble.
With only two more stops to make he entered a small jewellery store and purchased a simple white gold band complete with a few emeralds embedded into the metal for Dorea. He planned on adding several protection charms to it so she would be much safer should she ever be attacked, something that he worried about, He was aware that she was a capable witch but he also knew how ruthless Voldemort's supporters were and how dangerous the times they lived in were.
He exited the store and immediately reapplied his warming charm and frowned as it had very little effect. He was certain that he had cast the spell correctly but cast it once more to make sure, but to no avail.
"Shit" he cursed in realisation as he began scanning the sky and the crowd that were clearly not aware of what was happening, though they had apparently noticed the sudden drop in temperature.
At the first sign of the Dementors the members of the public began panicking and running in the opposite direction of which the creatures were approaching from.
Within the crowd Harry spotted a young blonde girl who had seemingly froze in place simply staring at the approaching horde, too scared to even move. He fought his way through the mob and managed to reach the girl as the first of the Dementors entered the alley. He pulled her to him tightly with one arm as he raised his wand with the other.
"Expecto Patronum" he roared.
Prongs erupted from his wand, as big and bright as ever and immediately charged towards the beasts, fighting them back and sending them screeching from where they had come from, but they were not done yet.
Another horde attempted to get past the stag as did another after they failed, but to no avail the blonde wrapped in Harry's arm shivering through the whole ordeal.
When he was sure they had left he ended the spell and cast a warming charm on the still trembling girl.
"Are you ok?" he asked worriedly. The girl just nodded as she buried her head further into his chest.
"Are your parents with you?" he asked further. The girl shook her head.
"My father was supposed to come with me but he didn't" she answered.
Harry shook his head.
It was certainly far too dangerous for a young girl to be out here unsupervised, as he just found out.
"Why did you come alone?" he questioned her. "You do know how dangerous it is right now don't you?".
The girl nodded once more.
"I came to get my sister's Christmas present" she explained, pointing to a small heap of broken glass on the ground in front of them. "Andi really likes unicorns and I saved all of my Hogsmeade money to get it for her" she added sadly.
Harry frowned at the name and gently extracted the girl from his torso only to be faced with a young Narcissa Black.
"You're Harry Potter" she exclaimed. "Bella told me that you have green eyes, that's how to tell you apart" she finished knowingly.
"I am" Harry confirmed with a smile, feeling very surprised by a polite Narcissa, who had always been cold and aloof in all of his experiences with her as a grown woman.
He knelt down and tapped the remains of the glass with his wand, turning it back into a very striking ornament of a unicorn.
"Here" he said, offering her the figure.
"It doesn't work anymore" Narcissa sighed sadly. "It's supposed to move". "It's enchanted" Harry stated knowing that enchantments could not be fixed with a simple reparo charm.
Narcissa nodded.
"Where did you buy it?" he asked.
Narcissa pointed to a shop a short walk away and Harry took her by the hand and led her to it.
"Are they gone?" the shopkeeper inquired nervously as they entered.
"They are" Harry confirmed. "This young lady here dropped her unicorn in the commotion, is it possible to fix?" he questioned the man hopefully.
The man took the figurine and inspected it, frowning when he had finished.
"It can be done but I will have to redo all of the enchantments and I do not have anymore in stock" he explained. Harry nodded.
"How long will it take?" he asked.
"An hour or two" the man shrugged. "And it will cost 40 Galleons.
"Ok do it and we will come back and collect it" Harry agreed and handed the man the required amount of gold. "How about we go and get some ice cream and some chocolate?" he offered the girl. "It will make you feel better".
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