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// Chapter 3 
// Story: On the Implications of Parallel Worlds 
// by computerneek 
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It took Hagrid a good two hours to get to the Leaky Cauldron.  The two girls had willingly hopped into the sidecar on his motorcycle, once he mentioned how far it was- then he’d flown most of the way, having made his takeoff and landing outside of either city…  and under cover of the invisibility charm Dumbledore had given the bike.  They seemed to be fascinated, briefly, with the motorcycle itself- Twilight especially.  Lyra had said something about books to keep her from poking at it.
When he finally parked his motorcycle near the Leaky Cauldron, the two had started chatting about something he couldn’t understand in the slightest.  “Alright, we gotta walk now,” he announced, as he dismounted.
“Got it,” the girls chorused, hopping out of the sidecar- one with a backflip, the other with an eye roll.
“What?” Lyra asked Twilight.  “It’s not like there’s any rules against it.”
Hagrid sighed.  “C’mon,” he instructed, leading them out of the alley and down the street towards the Leaky Cauldron.
The two girls continued chatting on the way- though this time, it seemed Twilight was asking Lyra questions about stuff on the street, rather than the two discussing something obscure.
“Ahh, here we are,” Hagrid finally states.  “The Leaky Cauldron.  It’s a famous place.”
“...  Huh,” Lyra muttered, looking at it.  “Never woulda-!”  She broke off, making a quick step to snatch Twilight by the arm before she could wander too far away.  “Twilight, stop!  We can come back for that later!”
Twilight turned to Lyra.  “But-!”
“Sorry, Twilight, but we don’t have any money they’ll accept- and your royal status means nothing here.  We won’t be able to get any of them right now.  All you’ll manage to do is annoy the shopkeepers.”
Twilight glowered at her, but relented.
“Besides,” Lyra muttered.  “That’s a standard- er,” she glanced briefly at Hagrid, “muggle bookstore.  It won’t have anything on magic in it- and I’m sure there’s one of those where we’re going.”
Hagrid heaved a sigh, and guided the girls wordlessly into the pub.  He could already feel the burn in his legs from chasing one or both of them away from the Forbidden Forest throughout the coming year.
Tom, the barkeeper, looked up as he entered.  “Ahh, Hagrid!”  Then he paused, glancing down at the girls.  “Business again?”
Hagrid nodded tiredly.  “Yeah.  Got me getting ‘em all this year, an’ there’s quite a few, too.”
Meanwhile, Twilight was examining something in midair that nobody else could see, and Lyra was scoping out the pub- and waving cheerfully at anyone that looked at her long enough, including Tom.
Tom smiled back at Lyra.  “Well,” he muttered, looking back up at Hagrid.  “It sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you.  Good luck!”
Hagrid nodded again, and ushered the two girls across the pub, towards Diagon Alley.
“...  To the backyard of a pub?” Twilight asked, once they emerged into the courtyard.
Hagrid didn’t smile, took a deep breath, and spoke.  “Alright, remember:  Two up, three across.”  He tapped the brick with his umbrella.
Lyra burst out laughing.
Hagrid looked at her funny.
Twilight, after watching the portal open, also looked at Lyra- while pulling her through, after Hagrid.  “What’s so funny?”
Lyra stifled her laughter, grinning like a loon.  “It’s a gate in the backyard,” she stated simply.
Twilight stared at her for a few seconds, evidently thinking hard about something…  then she spoke.  “I don’t get it.”
“It’s a Gate in the backyard,” Lyra repeated, emphasizing the word and only barely containing her giggles.
Twilight blinked, then her eyes went wide, and she let out a burst of laughter herself.
Hagrid took a deep breath, and let it out.  “Welcome to Diagon Alley.”
The two girls stopped laughing immediately, looking straight into each other’s eyes.
“Diagon,” Lyra began.
“Alley,” Twilight finished.
“Diagonally!” they declared together.
“Wonder if there’s a place called Dragonally,” Lyra mused, drawing an amused snort from Twilight.  Then she shrugged.  “We could probably reach it, if we opened a gate in Spike’s backyard.”
Twilight let out a snort of laughter.
“Anyways,” Lyra muttered, looking back up at Hagrid, who was staring uncomprehendingly at them, “Lead the way?  Our supplies won’t buy themselves, usually.”
“Usually?” Hagrid asked, blinking.
Lyra nodded.  “Yeah.  I’ve known a few spellsmiths to experiment with self-purchasing supplies.  None successful, though, that I’m aware of- but it’s still theoretically possible, and we don’t know what you might have in this world.  None of our scouts have found any of your spellsmiths- but that might be because our Gate-in-the-backyard came out in the muggle world.”
Hagrid stared for another couple seconds, before looking quickly away.  “Oh.  Uhh…  This way.”  He led them towards Gringotts.  The girls fell in behind him and, after a few seconds, started chatting animatedly again.  They kept pointing at various buildings, signs, and so on, around the Alley- and discussing everything in terms that sounded like utter gibberish to him.
Finally, he spotted Gringotts up ahead- and announced it, gesturing slightly.  “Gringotts.”
Lyra responded instantly, looking forwards at it.  “Wow, fancy.”
Twilight answered her.  “Very fancy.  That’s something on the level of most of the Canterlot nobles.”
Lyra nodded.  “Yeah.  I hope their Vault is either offsite, or very, very well protected…  or both.”
Hagrid paused.  “Er…  Don’t let them hear you say that.  Very proud creatures, Goblins.”  He gestured towards the door.  “And there’s the first one.”
“Huh,” Lyra muttered, putting her hand to her chin.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something- or someone- quite like that before.”
Twilight stayed silent, so Hagrid continued.  “Wizard’s bank.  Safest place in the world for anything you want to keep safe- except, perhaps, Hogwarts.”
“Must have some pretty impressive security,” Lyra muttered, before looking over at Twilight.  “I wonder how it compares to Celestia’s Vault?”
Twilight snorted.  “Really?  You’re going to compare it against that?”
“What?  I suppose I could compare it to the security of our local bank, but that’s about the same as all the muggle banks- and bank robbers are a thing in this world.”  She ignored Twilight’s alarmed gasp, continuing uninterrupted.  “So, for it to qualify as the ‘safest place in the world’, it simply must be comparable to Celestia’s Vault- which is rather well-known as the ‘safest place in the world’ for anything she wants to keep safe.  Only, until now, neither world has known of each other- so, neither ‘safest in the world’ includes the other, and I’m curious how they compare- which one, if either, can honestly include the other.”  She put her hand to her chin again.  “Then of course, I’m curious how a school could possibly be a safer place than a vault.”
They were plenty close enough to the doors for the guarding goblin to take notice at that point.  Hagrid watched him out of the corner of his eye- but, aside from looking a bit put out at the girl’s final comment (though not at her in particular), he didn’t do anything unusual.  It was fairly well known amongst those in the know- Dumbledore, the heads of house, and himself- that the goblins weren’t exactly impressed with how Hogwarts was harder to penetrate than their bank.  By his understanding, they’d been working to fix that deficiency as quickly as they could- and to their credit, they grew well ahead of their competition, and already enjoyed a monopoly on wizard banking and safekeeping; Dumbledore didn’t exactly offer to store people’s gold at Hogwarts.
Then, they reached the second set of front doors- the silver ones, with the inscription.  Hagrid paused, to let the girls read it.
“Nice poem,” Lyra muttered, and looked towards one of the guards.  “With a nice, strong message, too.”
“Uhh…  What’s it say?” Twilight asked her.  Hagrid blinked, looking down at her.
Lyra looked at Twilight with a strange expression.  “What-?  Didn’t-!  Wait.”  A pause, then she facepalmed.  “We forgot the written component of the translation spell.  Just a sec.”  She put her hands on Twilight’s shoulders, and closed her eyes.
The goblins on either side of the door looked at her.
Hagrid looked as well.  “Ahh…”
“Okay, that should do it,” Lyra announced suddenly, withdrawing her arms.
Twilight looked up at the door.  “Ahh, much better.  Thanks!”
Lyra looked back up at it, and back at Twilight.  “So, why didn’t you tell me earlier?  There were plenty of signs at the park.”
Twilight reached the bottom of the missive on the doors before answering.  “I thought they’d be gibberish to you too.”  She looked down at Lyra.  “Speaking of which, if we forgot the written component, how’d you understand it?”
“Back when I was the only one, I didn’t use spells on the Gate, I used spells directly on me.  And I only used a translation spell for the first three days- a lingual absorption spell on the third one ended the need for such.”
One of the Goblin guards caught Hagrid’s eye and bowed his head gravely, almost apologetically, as Twilight responded.
“Lingual-!?  You got that working?”
Nod.  “Yep, that was when I got it working.  Very painful, though, and takes almost six hours to complete.”  Scowl.  “Speaking of which, we’re going to have to adjust the translation spell on the Gate anyways- make it a host-drawing, self-renewing spell.  That would self-cancel once knowledge of the language involved was acquired, or upon return.”
Twilight scowled too.  “Why don’t you tell me about these things?”
“I was planning to.  After I’d found something from this side to prank you with.”  She grinned.  “Then the owls came, and I didn’t need to.”
Twilight gave Lyra an irritated shove, but the other girl cartwheeled out of the way- which seemed to anger Twilight even more.  “And what about that?  Where did you learn it?”
“Ahh…  Another spell.  This one took over twenty-four hours to complete, though- you mighta noticed when I stayed home ‘sick’ for two days?  Yeah…  that was the gymnastic spell.  I didn’t want to have to rely on my magic if I got into a sticky situation.”  She rubs the back of her head.  “Which, ahh, did happen, once.  Pretty sure it was local law enforcement, and I think they thought I was a runaway.”
“...  Oh,” Twilight muttered irritably.  “So you figured that out too.  Tell me about these things!  Please!”
Lyra shrugged.  “I was planning on telling you about it too.  Once I found something.”  She then promptly dodged a second shove from Twilight, with a well-timed backflip.
“Come on, you two,” Hagrid groaned, giving up on the idea of keeping them out of the forest, so much as reducing their time in the forest.  He’d have to erect a fifty-foot wall to keep Lyra out…  and even then.
The two goblins both gave him relieved looks before they bowed all three of them into the bank proper.  Fortunately for Hagrid, his statement- and the inside of the bank- seemed to have distracted them from their quarrel.