Professor Reynolds is sitting in a corner booth, breakfast and tea in front of her. She waves to Ellie.

Does that mean she's invited to join?

She goes over to take a seat.

The tavern room's a bit noisy - but not the booth. External noise fades out and then cuts off as Ellie sits down.

"Good morning," Professor Reynolds says. "Do you want breakfast?"

"Good morning. Yes please."

Then she can handle ordering - and paying - for Ellie once given an idea of preferences.

"Did you sleep alright?"

"...Yeah."

Nod.

"We can take today as slowly as you'd like - I'd like to take you out to a nicer meal, at some point today, to celebrate your birthday."

"That would be nice."

Smile. "And we can figure out how you want to spend the next month, too - school doesn't start until the beginning of September, and storing everything you want in a hotel room might get awkward, since trunks that're bigger on the inside are expensive..."

"I want one."

Her grin widens. "Well, it can be a birthday present, if nothing else."

Tentative smile.

She lets breakfast mostly pass quietly.

Then - "A trip to the bank alright?"

Nod.

She nods, cleaning up their meal, and leads Ellie out to the alleyway behind the Cauldron. She taps her wand on a few bricks - and they fold apart, revealing a rather colorful and busy street, full of magical people.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley," Professor Reynolds says, leading Ellie through. "It's the major commercial hub of Wizarding Britain." She nods to a stately white building in the distance. "Gringotts Bank is on the other end - where we're headed first. It's run by goblins."

"Are those... magical creatures?" she asks, looking around.

She nods. "Well, magical beings. They're intelligent, with their own culture and government. There's a lot of unease with the wizarding government - but things are mostly peaceful, now."

"Mostly, now?"

"There's been - unrest, historically. Mostly entirely due to the Ministry being jerks. Some due to cultural misunderstandings - which both sides should have figured out how to navigate, by now."

"Goblins considered created items to belong to their creator, fundamentally, and they don't sell things - they'll only lease out items. Wizards tend to ignore the idea of a lease and say anything they paid money for belongs to them, now, even if they signed a contract to the contrary. That usually only causes minor problems, but sometimes it escalates unpleasantly."

"How does that work with running a bank?"

"Decently, actually. Wizards mostly only bother with storing things in Gringotts' vaults - and the goblins consider anything in their vaults to be leased or entrusted to them, not to be something they can rightfully touch. Goblins have an intense honor culture... And actually know how to do math."

"They offer banking services beyond just storage - loans and the like - and I think can interface with muggle banks, but I'm less familiar with all that."

"They like muggleborns more than they like most wizards. Which is convenient - wizards in contact with muggle culture tend to use the actual banking services more, whereas most of the pureblood wizards thinks Gringotts is just a hole in the ground they can hide money in."

"Huh."

"Do I count as a muggleborn?"

"Probably depends on the politics of who you're talking to. Pureblood supremacists would call you a half blood, since your father was a pureblood, and your mother was a muggleborn. And - even among non-supremacists, that's a common framing. Blood and family are considered important, in ways no one's really interested in examining. But, culturally, you're in many ways more of a muggleborn."

"Did you know my parents?"

"Yes," she says. "Not exceptionally well, and your mother better than your father... I was a teacher's assistant when they were in school."