Money

August 20th. Midday.

It had been a few days since River opened his letter and found out he was a Wizard. At first, he thought it was a prank. Or that his Aunt signed him up for some sketchy sweepstakes...again.
River had half a mind to just toss the Hogwarts letter in the trash. Surely there was no such thing as magic or wizards or even a school for wizards. And he definitely was not one of them. For one, he's never done magic a day in his life. Well, yeah, weird stuff did happen to him quite often.
He vividly remembers when he was six, first arriving at his Aunt's after his parents' deaths. He got angry at her dog for biting him when he just wanted to pet it. Then her vase just... exploded. He couldn't explain it. Luckily, the social worker was watching over River when it happened and backed him up in the just-explored story.
But now here he was, standing in the middle of a street. With crazy looking stores. One shop had brooms that kids his age were drooling over. He thought it was odd that boys his age were so excited about sweeping. He definitely wasn't like them; he hated chores.
Another shop sold frogs the size of his head, and owls and cats and animals he'd never even seen before.
He was led to a large white building by an older lady, who noticed the confused looks on River's and his Aunt Jess's faces. Inside River's heart, a leap was given when he saw small men, pointed ears and black eyes. Something called Goblins. He did not like them.
But his aunt was able to convert her Pounds to something called Galleons. Solid gold coins. They had half a mind to just run out with the gold coins. They had to be worth a ton more than the Pounds she paid with.
But curiosity got the best of them, and they managed to get all of the shopping done with just the ten gold coins they had gotten from the bank.
"Blimy..." Aunt Jess said. "I always knew you were a weirdo," she chuckled.
"Thanks..." River rolled his eyes.