The three friends set off down the sparsely populated street toward Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
"It's hard to believe how much this place has changed," Sirius noted as she looked around at the lane around them. Reaplacing the motherly looking, middle-aged witches with trays full of home-made sweets were slimy looking dealers selling sham protection-medallions. Unstead of the young wizards handing out fliers about quidditch tournaments(All proceeds go to St. Mungo's Mentally Unsatable patients with a large picture of Gilderoy Lockhart underneath. No doubt he was the only one who enjoyed their picture being taken for mental wards) were wizened old Ministry officials handing out pamphlets on protecting your homes from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And everywhere you looked were the signs of devasted, boarded up shops, and panic as people hurried about their shopping in packs, never once letting their young ones out of sight.
It was a wonderful feeling to reach the loud, booming oahis of a joke shop full of bright packages, laughter, loud talk, random noise, and flaming red hair, freckles, and magenta robes as Fred and George Weasley aproached.
