He'd been staring at the shop entrance to the menagerie intermittently throughout this rare visit to Diagon Alley. He'd pass here and stare, and pass there and stare some more. All the while wandlessly conjuring Lexa Cambridge's words of advice. A kneazle. A smart animal. Smarter than an owl. Cunning. Clever and occasionally protective. But what if it was too smart? What if it betrayed him? Or got itself killed. As much as he thought it would be convenient to own an animal, he'd thought it a risky maneuver in previous years. This year would prove to be no different.

Cutty had convinced his visiting father that he thought it a good idea to let him wonder about on his own Not that Cutty found this particularly necessary. It had always seemed to him that his father found it easy to let him go. And that didn't bother him. He'd learnt to work that to his convenience and he'd found himself at the entrance to the one true sacred site: Gringotts Bank.

Still wearing his uniform from the summer curriculum his mother had thought to enroll him in, Cutty moved his way into the grand foyer of the wizarding world's bank his eye drawn upward toward the splendour. Walking briskly, he headed toward the polished wood counters.