"You are welcome, Harry," the goblin replied formally. "It was a pleasure to do business with you."
"And you as well," Harry responded before walking out of the office and through the hallway to the main chamber of the bank. He exited the bank and headed immediately toward the second-hand robe shop. Sirius had explained to Harry that the eyewear store was just across the street from it.
As he walked through the door of the shop, a middle aged witch greeted him cheerfully from behind the counter. "Can I help you, young man?"
"Yes" Harry replied. "I'm looking for contact lenses to replace these glasses." Harry momentarily lifted the glasses off of his face.
"Ah, now that I can do. Can I see your glasses for a moment, please?" the witch asked politely. Harry passed his glasses to the woman. "My, my, my. Your eyes are magnificent. You certainly shouldn't be hiding them behind these glasses. Normally I'd offer lenses to change your eye color, but with those startling eyes, you'll want the clear variety. I'll just be a moment. Here you go, dear." She handed Harry back his glasses and slipped into the back room.
Harry slipped his glasses back on with his cheeks flaming up from the woman's comments. Ever since his third year he had been especially proud of his green eyes because they were the only physical trait that people associated with his mother.
He looked around the shop and found several racks full of glasses. Some were normal looking, others had various dials all over them like the omnioculars he had used at the Quidditch World Cup. There was also a rack with magical eyes, much like the one Moody had, displayed.
After a couple minutes the witch returned. "All right, I've got you a nice pair of clear contacts that I matched to the prescription of your glasses, and I've got a pair of our automatically correcting lenses that will sense your needs and adjust to them. Would you like to try them out?"
"Yes, please," Harry replied holding his hand out. She handed him both boxes explaining which was which as she did so. He tried on the ones matched to his glasses, and, as expected, found his vision returned to normal. He carefully took the lenses out and tried the other pair.
The difference between the two was surprising to Harry, although it really shouldn't have been. The Dursleys hadn't taken Harry to an eye doctor since the school forced them to buy glasses for him when he first started attending. His prescription had probably changed since then, but the Dursleys would never bother to take Harry in to check. He could see much more clearly with these lenses than he could ever remember seeing.
Harry quickly made the decision to get the automatically adjusting ones without any color. But he thought that changing his eye color might help his disguise some, so he decided to ask for some brown colored lenses as well. The woman complied after a nominal complaint about hiding his natural eye color and ran into the back room to grab the additional pair of lenses.
When she reemerged Harry handed her back the clear pair that he was not buying. She rung up the two pairs he wanted and said "The clear contacts are 45 galleons, and the brown ones are 50, which brings your total to 95 galleons."
"95 galleons," Harry repeated while holding his money pouch. He reached inside and emptied the 95 gold coins that had magically appeared onto the counter. Harry took off his glasses and put on his new brown pair of lenses. "Thank you for your help," Harry told the store clerk with a grin.
"Any time," the woman replied as the door swung shut behind Harry.
Harry checked out his reflection in the glass of the store's window. He was pleased to see that he hardly recognized himself and was confident that nobody would figure out who he really was in this disguise. He made his first stop the magical storage shop. Before he began buying everything else, he needed a place to put everything. His current trunk was big and bulky and already filled to capacity. Harry remembered Moody's trunk with its 7 compartments from his fourth year at school and decided he wanted something similar.
Harry entered the store and began looking at the trunks on display. There were only a few trunks there, and they were pretty basic. There was a single compartment trunk with double the space of a normal trunk, one with quadruple the normal space, and a couple three compartment trunks with various added dimensions to each compartment. It was not what Harry was hoping for.
He approached the man behind the counter. "Excuse me, sir."
"Yes, what can I help you with, boy?" the man replied gruffly.
Harry did not like to be called boy, especially in the tone of voice the man used. It reminded him too much of his Uncle Vernon, but he tried not to let it bother him. "I was wondering if those were the only trunks you had in stock or if you had more of a selection to choose from," Harry answered, maintaining a polite tone.
"Course we got more. We only keep the most basic out in the front. The rest are in the back. What'd you have in mind?"
"I don't know what's available. What's the top model you have?"
The man eyed Harry suspiciously for a moment before finally ordering "Follow me." He led Harry through a door in the back to find a warehouse much larger than the building it was housed in. 'Magical storage indeed' Harry thought to himself. They were soon in the section holding all the magical trunks. The man led Harry up to one trunk in particular.
"This is the top of the line. It has seven compartments total. The first three compartments have six times the storage capacity of a regular trunk. The fourth compartment also has six times the regular space, but it is done up with shelves. It's generally used as a bookshelf. That leaves three other compartments, which are actually rooms. Two of the rooms are five meters long, four meters wide and three meters tall. The last room is eight square meters, and again three meters tall," the man explained in a superior tone.
Harry nodded approvingly. "That would definitely do it," he muttered to himself, then more loudly asked, "How much does it cost?"
The man gave a toothy grin. 'This is where the game ends,' he thought to himself. "More than a kid like you can afford," he sneered, sweeping his hand toward Harry. "Now why don't you stop wasting my time and either make a purchase or move on to another store?"
Harry dropped his polite front and stood up straight and tall as he retorted. "Now listen here, sir . I don't know what kind of a shop you're running here, but where I come from it's customary for you to actually try to sell the merchandise instead of chasing your customers away. Now you can either give me a price and an apology, or I can turn around and find myself another shop to do my business at. Your choice."
The man looked unsure of how to proceed for a moment before adopting an apologetic visage. "I'm terribly sorry sir. I don't know what came over me. The base trunk costs 1000 galleons. Normally it would be an extra 10 galleons to key you into it, but I'll wave the charge for you. I'll key you in as the master, and you'll be able to add and remove others at will. Only someone keyed in can open the trunk on their own, but you can take people in without actually keying them in if you'd like."
"You said that was just for the base trunk," Harry commented. "What else can be added onto it."
....
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