chapter 5

I was awaken by the pain of my stomach growling. I completely forgot to eat something yesterday due to my excitement and exhaustion at the end of the day yesterday.

Changing, I happily exited the tavern. I decided it best to eat in a restaurant somewhere in diagon alley as I remembered the bar food was described as horrid, that could be just be the hog's head inn rumor, but I don't really feel like take chance with my food though.

Entering the diagon alley, I look around more intently this time as I'm not with the professor putting me on a schedule.

Looking for any restaurant in the area, I find myself in front of an apothecary. As to how I know it's an apothecary, the shop actually has the comically simple name "apothecary" which I find odd as the wizards seemed to love putting there name in front of what the shop is.

Looking at my overly skinny body, I knew just regular food won't get me in working order as fast as I want. Entering the shop, I decided to get myself some nutrition potions to get my body fully health before I start school.

Upon entering I was welcomed by strong smells that I can't describe and shelves filled with strange potion ingredients, like dragon livers, and unicorn horns. The shop also has barrels of slimy substances on the floor, jars of herbs and dried roots on the walls, and bundles of feathers and fangs hanging from the ceiling.

'I'm not sure how long it'll take for me to not be amazed with this world I find myself in.' I thought to myself at I looked around the shop

"Hello there, is there anything I can help you find" I heard a cheerfully voice ask behind me.

Turning around, I find a rather young blonde women. She looked so happy that I'm pretty sure she is lighting up the room with her bright aura alone.

I gave myself a quick pinch in the arm to be sure I'm not hallucinating, seeing as she is the the only normal dressed wizard with natural hair I've seen so far.

As the room stayed the same and the overly giddy witch is still in front of me I've confirmed I wasn't in an illusive state, I gave myself a reassured nod and answered he question.

"Ah yes, I am looking for nutrition potions, enough to get me in shape. As you can see I'm practically skeleton skinny here." I said with a light chuckle hoping she doesn't ask about why I'm so malnourished

"Hm, come this way please. I'm going to take a quick diagnosis of you body to see what you need." She said this time with a professional tone, as I'm sure she is trying to keep herself from asking personal questions.

Going in the back, I stood on a pedestal as she examined my body. She was frowning practically the entire time but I ignored it.

At the end of the check up, she wrote on a board and exited the room while telling me to get dressed.

It was sometime before she returned, maybe an hour or 2. While thinking of what she could be doing, the back door swung open revealing the blonde with a large crate.

"Your body is severely malnourished. I won't ask for the details but it will take time for you to get back into fighting shape. This crate holds 60 potions, that you'll need to take twice a day for the next month. Please take one now before you leave and return at the end of the month so I can make sure everything went as is expected."

I was thankful she didn't ask for details and just described the prescription to me.

"Thank you Ma'am, I'll be sure to come back at the end of the month." I said while taking a potion and downing it.

I could feel the potion at work as a warmth spread throughout my body, my nonexistent muscles tingled, and my mind felt clearer.

"You'll need to take another with your dinner tonight, repeat this dosage schedule and do light walking and exercise for an even spread of the potion." She said with a smile seeing that the potion was doing its job.

I nodded and gave another thanks for the potions, before leaving I asked for the crate to be deliver to room 3 at the leaky cauldron as I still had to get myself breakfast and explore a bit.

Walking around the area, I find myself in front of a small café Hestias Hearth. A sweet aroma came from the café that captivated me to enter, I'm not completely sure if it was my hunger that entranced me or the skills of the cook.

Entering the café, I'm greeted with a cozy atmosphere and homely feeling that makes you want to let go of all your worries and relax. Oddly enough the café was empty, except for one old man sitting in the corner reading a book.

"This café's name is quite fitting" I said aloud dawning a small smile, feeling completely relaxed.

"That very kind of you to say, I've put a lot of effort to produce this atmosphere. Though, I can't say I get young people like you often" said a nice voice.

The voice came from a older women with long blue. She's wearing a pointed witch hat, a blue robe, and large round glasses. She carried a warm feeling about her that felt like Autumn.

"The hard work paid off ma'am. This entire place give me a feeling of relaxing in a pumpkin patch or maybe sitting outside looking at a sunset, if that makes any sense." I said with praise as I sat at one of the open booths

"What can I start you with today? From our menu I must recommend our breakfast meal that include eggs, sausage, pancakes, toast, tomatoes, hashed potatoes, a nice slice of pumpkin pie, and any choice of beverage." She said with a kind smile

"That sounds fantastic ma'am, and I'll take some pumpkin juice please, I've heard great things about it and have been curious to give it a try."

Not long after a ordered, the meal came out smelling amazing. With my first bite of pancakes I'd bet money that it was imbued with magic, as it had me hallucinating that I was dancing on pancake mountains.

I scarfed down the food in record time, I was surprised to see it was gone so fast. Getting to the pumpkin juice, I was mildly disappointed that all it tasted like was pumpkin spice apple cider but it was still delicious in the end.

"Thank you for the meal ma'am it was truly delicious, you've got yourself a regular while I'm not in school." I said while placing the money on the counter in front of her.

"I appreciate you patronage, I hope to see you again" she said as she waved me off.

With a full stomach and energized thanks to the potion I had earlier I was ready to hit the shop I was dying to visit, The second-hand bookshop!

The used book store must be have a plethora of books with notes from exceptional witches and wizard throughout time. The best example of this would have to be Severus Snape, he noted down his genius in potion and even his own spell creations in his advance potion making book that Harry got his hands on in his 6th year. Hopefully there are similarly brilliant wizards that left their notes in their old books.

After taking a few wrong turns and finally asking a man for direction, I found my way to the second-hand book store.

Inside was pretty run down and dusty, but the store was filled with a large variety of book filling every wall and table in the store. I must say I'm far more excited seeing all these books than I was when I opened my gringotts vault.

The first book I grabbed was a first year magic theory book. I was curious on how others thought how magic worked, and was instantly disappointed with the book just having drawing in it.

I looked around the store for around an hour before I finally found a book with something surprisingly interesting, the first thing I noticed was the name Tom Riddle. I would thought Dumbledore confiscated everything related to him, but I'm guessing he sold them for some money during his schooling, after all he was an orphan. I excitedly decided to look through the store to purchase anything he previously owned, As Ollivander will say to Harry in the near future, "He did great things, terrible, yes, but great.".

I would be idiotic to not search for the young Tom's knowledge if its readily available to me. It took my about 5 hours to search their stock of school curriculum books to only find his sets up to the third year.

"I'm sure there are more but I'm unfortunately out of time, Luckily I still have about 3 month until the semester starts to keep up the search." I said on my walk back to my room with my new stock of book previously owned by Tom Riddle

Returning to the leaky cauldron with a little more pep in my step I waved to Tom as I passed the bar to my room, where I plan to study up all night. Until I return to the library to do some more digging.

I started with magic theory as I'm still a magic novice and have no understanding of what magic is in the first place. All the theory I was reading was interesting but the addition of Tom's own experience with magic was more so.

As an 11 year old boy he went into the concept of magic output. He found that if he added strong emotion and create a clear image in his head of what he wanted the spell to do then they would grow in strength and precision.

Through the magic theory book and Tom's add ons, I've learned that all wizards and witch's take magic from the surrounding atmosphere having it pumped through their body like the heart does to blood. The determination on how much you can draw on is determined by innate talent and body stamina. Tom was absurdly talented, had great learning ability and grew at an astronomical rate, he also preformed a ridiculous amount of rituals on himself making him a great conductor for magic but in return lost all his emotion other than anger and his sadistic lust for power.

There are other wizards and witches that have no talent in the magic arts but excel in other areas, such as how Neville Longbottom having little to no ability to comprehend spells but had uncanny capabilities in Herbology and would have probably excelled in potions if he didn't fear Snape so much.

I gained a lot of knowledge from just a year 1 theory book, though Tom was a genocidal maniac I can't deny that the man was brilliant even in his first year of studies.

I spent the rest of the night reading through the books trying to understand everything I could, to fall asleep late into the night with my face in book.