Diagon Alley
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Diagon Alley is the the commercial center of the Wizard World. If it can be bought above the counter in the Wizard World, chances are it can be found there. If it cannot, then there's every good chance that it can be found on Knockturn Alley, Diagon's seedier neighbor.
Very few people actually live on Diagon, except those who own shops, or rent space above them. There are a very small handful of houses remaining intact in the alley, from a time over a hundred years in its past when it was a residential area as well, but they are primarily owned by shop owners or rented to people who work on Diagon.
History
Diagon Alley has been the site of both the 2003 Christmas Eve Attack on Diagon Alley and the Final Battle at Diagon Alley.
Geography
Diagon Alley is located in London, England, accessible thru the Leaky Cauldron pub. The entirety of the Alley, and the connected Knockturn Alley is located such that muggles cannot perceive it at all, unless they are inside of it. Although the beginning of the alley, nearest the Leaky Cauldron, is stable, and mappable, the majority of Diagon is a jumble of shifting side streets which cannot be accurately mapped owing to their tendency to move.
Locations of Interest
There are many shops and dining establishments in Diagon Alley such as:
The Leaky Cauldron
- Main article: The Leaky Cauldron
The Leaky Cauldron is a restaurant from which the alley can be accessed by those who need to get into it. The courtyard immediately in front of the archway which forms when the bricks are tapped in order in the alleyway behind the Leaky Cauldron, on the Diagon Alley side, is also the location of the designated apparation bay for the alley, the only public Apparation Bay on the alley, although there are no charms preventing it from occuring elsewhere, if caught one will find themselves ticketed by the Department of Magical Transportation.
The pub also serves as a way of entering onto Diagon Alley from the Muggle London either for Muggle-borns and their Muggle parents (both of whom, until the first letter from Hogwarts, have no magical knowledge or means of entering). The rear of The Leaky Cauldron opens onto a courtyard where a brick is tapped (found by counting three up and two across) three times.
Eeylops Owl Emporium
Eeylops Owl Emporium sells owls and supplies such as owl treats. The inside is dark and full of a low, soft hooting, rustling and the flickering of wings. Among the types of owls sold are Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy.
Slug and Jiggers Apothecary
The Apothecary sells potions and potion ingredients, and for some reason, likely owing to it's inventory, always smells of a mixture of bad eggs and rotten cabbage. The inside includes barrels of slimy stuff on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots and bright powders on the shelves; and bundles of feathers, strings of fangs and snarled claws hanging from the ceiling.
Some of the ingredients available are silvered unicorn horns and beetle eyes. They also sell sell scales, and phials for use in measuring and storing their wares.
A Touch of Crowe's Magic
- Main article: A Touch of Crowe's Magic
Shop owned by Carmilla Crowe, sells pre-charmed goods, and most notably, the MagiJournals which have become one of the most popular methods of correspondance for young witches and wizards since it's invention in 2005.
The Crowe's Nest
- Main article: The Crowe's Nest
The Crowe's Nest is a restaurant owned by Carmilla Crowe, and operated by Nica Firenze, designed to provide a comfortable location for Muggle-born students to take their parents to eat in the Wizard world while shopping for school supplies. The restaurant sits atop a magically protected bunker which provided shelter for many denizens of Diagon Alley during the Final Battle at Diagon Alley, and for Hogwarts Students arriving via floo during the 2002 Student Attack on Hogwarts and via portal during the 2004 Disappearance of Hogwarts durring which time the Nest also dissappeared, sucked via that very portal into the same alternate dimension Hogwarts was transported to.
Quality Quidditch Supplies
Quality Quidditch Supplies once broomsticks and Quidditch-related items. The store windows often draw young customers to gaze longingly at the merchandise, but the windows have been boarded over, and the shop closed since the horrible events of the Final Battle at Diagon Alley.
Dwyre's Delightful Den
- Main article: Dwyre's Delightful Den
This cafe, run and owned by Turlach Dwyre, is a haven for those looking to keep in touch with the old ways of the Wizard world. Somewhat like like the inverse of the Crowe's Nest, this establishment provides an environment comfortable for those growing increasingly dissatisfied with the amount of muggle influence on the Wizard world. While the shop does not discriminate against blood, Muggle attire is discouraged, and no Muggle elements are used in decor or operation of the shop.
Flourish & Blotts
Flourish & Blotts sells a great variety of magic-related books, including textbooks, home hand books, and other books of general magical interest. In the back there is a corner devoted solely to Divination, which includes a small table stacked with titles like Predicting the Unpredictable: Insulate Yourself against Shocks and Broken Balls: When Fortunes Turn Foul. Another small display contains the book Death Omens: What to Do When You Know the Worst is Coming.
There is usually a display of gold-embossed spell books the size of paving slabs in the window, owing to their difficulty to sell if not prominently displayed and heavily pushed as a necessary product.
Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour
Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, opened under the management of Florean Fortescue (founder and shopkeeper), where it sold ice cream, including sundaes, which could be enjoyed at outdoor tables. It was closed in the early years of the Second Dark War, but re-opened under the management of his grandchildren when they came of age in 1998.
Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions
Madam Malkin's is a clothing shop next to the bookstore, Flourish & Blotts. It sells robes and other clothing, once including the standard Hogwarts-required plain black self-sizing work robes, and dress robes. Madam Malkin, a squat witch who wears mauve robes, and her assistants will tailor the robes to fit right in her shop. School robes were taken off the inventory after the closing of Hogwarts and have not been available for purchase since 2007 when the last of the stock was sold.
Raediance Divination Supply
- Main article: Raediance Divination Supply
Located on the Corner of Diagon Alley and Knocturn Alley, across the street from Gringotts Wizard Bank, Raediance Divination Supply sits in a building which had been disused for nearly a decade prior to it's opening in 2005. The shop is a small brick building, with a large front window of many small panes, about 6 inches tall by 4 inches wide thru which is visible a table of Crystal Balls, set in the window, and various crystals hung above them from the ceiling. The front door is to the right of that, nearer the corner of Knocturne than the window. The sign above the window, reads in large silver text on a midnight blue backround, and a Fancy Script “Raediance” and below that, a good deal smaller, but in a plain, easily read sans-serif font “Divination Supply.”
Gringotts Wizard Bank
- Main article: Gringotts Wizard Bank
Gringotts is the only known bank of the western wizarding world and it is operated primarily by goblins. A snowy white building, near the intersection of Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley, Gringotts towers over all neighboring shops. Customers pass through a set of bronze doors and then silver ones before entering the lobby. The main floor is paved with marble and has long counters stretching along its length. Within, wizards and witches keep their money and other valuables in vaults that are protected by very complex and strong security measures. The vaults extend for miles under London and are accessible through rough stone passageways and then by means of magic carts that travel speedily along their tracks. Gringotts also offers Muggle-Wizarding currency exchange.
Magical Menagerie
The Magical Menagerie is a magical creature shop that, besides selling magical creatures, also offers advice on animal care and health. The shop is very cramped, noisy and smelly, due to every inch being covered with cages. Among the creatures in the Magical Menagerie are enormous purple toads, a firecrab, poisonous orange snails, a fat white rabbit that can turn into a silk top hat and back, cats of every colour, ravens, Puffskeins, and a cage of sleek black rats that play skipping games with their tails.
Marketplace
- Main article: Diagon Alley Open Market
The stretch between Ollivander's and the Magical Menagerie where shops were not rebuilt following the Christmas Eve Attack on Diagon Alley has become the official location for persons wishing to set up Stalls in Diagon Alley to do their business. Unofficially it extends into unbuilt lots across the street, however there is no guarantee that that land will not be developed in the future.
Ollivander's Wands
- Main article: Ollivander's Wands
Ollivander's is a fine wands shop which is narrow, though not as shabby as it was before it's rebuilding in the wake of the Christmas Eve Attack on Diagon Alley, Above the front door is a sign which reads "Ollivander's: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC" in freshly painted gold. As before, the only display in the window overlooking Diagon Alley is a single wand lying on a purple cushion in the window.
The Daily Prophet Office
The Daily Prophet office is the office of the famed wizarding newspaper. While the office itself is not located on Diagon Alley, but rather in wizard space not unlike that holding the Office's of the Ministry of Magic, and St. Mungoes Hospital, their mail is delivered to this small office on Diagon Alley. The true offices can also be accessed from that location via a magical lift, as well as from the streets of Muggle London via a lift accessed inside a public toilet by tapping the correct sequence of tiles to the tiles next to the paper towel dispenser.
Egg
- Main article: Egg
The foremost in maternity care in the Wizard World, previously known as Baby Steps: 1,2,3. This is the place to go in the Wizard world of Britain to get pre-natal care, and for those wary of home births, to deliver children. It is currently one of the only destinations other than St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries that the Medicoach will take passengers too, though this is an option only for patients in labor, or experiencing complications with pregnancy.
