"Right? Do you think I've got a, a wizard great-grandparent I look just like, or something? Looked like he'd seen a ghost - " pause. "Wait, are ghosts a real thing?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Anyway, yeah, Madam Malkin's, right on. I will reluctantly accept thrift, Mum and Dad didn't give me that much money."

"...He's used to seeing children of the people who've passed through his doors.  That's not it.  He hasn't seen you, but he knew you.  ...Erm.  Is my theory for how he got spooked.  Not an explanation of anything else, mind.  ...Professor McGonagall, do magical books have any enchantments that would prevent the utilization of a mundane copy machine upon them?  I believe my mother will not object to my borrowing her old books more permanently, but - I will admit that I haven't actually checked, yet, whether they're all the same editions.  One of those things that you mean to get around to, except that oh, reading a chapter won't cause any harm since I have it out, and then you wake up thirteen hours later with your face in a book and a frustrating crick in your neck and you forgot to actually mark the list.

"Also it might well come in handy to have copies of diagrams on their own sheets to reference, the non-animate ones at least."

Aww. Baby Ravenclaws are such a way. 

"Anti-copying enchantments will prevent the use of copying charms, but if you were to take it into your head to copy the entire text by quill I shouldn't think it would stop you any more than it stops you taking notes, and a Muggle machine is more the latter than the former." Considering pause. "If I recall correctly, and I usually do, all of your required textbooks should be the same as your mother's with the exception of the Standard Books of Spells, which are typically revised for new editions every five years, and Bagshot's new A History of Magic, which replaced Binns' Modern Magical History in the curriculum in 1955."

This had been about two hundred years after its original publication, but more to the point, about two years after Eileen Prince graduated.

"I see.  Thank you, Professor."  Her voice has been surprisingly soft this whole time.  "...Have they hired a new professor to go with the new History textbook?"

Oh, she should probably explain that.  She leans towards Lily and mutters "Professor Binns, who taught history when Eileen went there, is a ghost.  They aren't very...proactive about adapting to changing circumstances, or so I'm told."

As a professional who is formally representing Hogwarts at this time, Minerva McGonagall certainly has no opinions whatsoever on the suitability of Cuthbert Binns for his long-held post. "They have not."

"...Of course they haven't."  She shakes her head.  "Well, at least the class will be easy."

"Speak for yourself, I don't know any magical history, this is going to be like moving to the States and having to learn all their individual county mayors or whatever. Ooooooh," Lily is now looking at the myriad brightly colored outfits in the window of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.

"I'll share The Notes."  Ah; they've arrived.  What are these?

By 'all occasions,' whoever designed this storefront display apparently meant 'all occasions upon which it would be reasonable to wear at least three different colors, four different fabrics, and five or more garish accessories, plus hat, and no, they needn't or possibly shouldn't match.'

The height of fashion, it seems, as far as wizards are concerned, is layers: to array yourself in multiple articles of clothing, each somewhere between 'robe', 'tunic', and 'dress' in form factor, which vary in hem length (ankle to knee) and sleeve length (wrist to shoulder) and material (linens, silks, velvets, wools, weirder things...), so that multiple layer colors are visible. Then, of course, your outfit is not complete until you add on capes, scarves, wide belts, wand holsters, ostentatious jewelry, etcetera, etcetera. (After all, if you can't solve 'too much clothes' with a cooling charm, what kind of adult wizard are you?) 

"...Who even wears these gaudily bloated tripping hazards?"

"Probably mostly people who have room for at most one source of fun in their life and couldn't think of anything better? I however am capable of containing SEVERAL kinds of fun." She skips delightedly into the shop and points at a riotous array of jewel tones on a mannequin (which poses enthusiastically). "Good morning! We need measuring for uniforms and also I want that."

That is very cute of her.

Ophelia, contrariwise to wizarding fashion, has dressed herself in sober blues and blacks, with the silvered buckle of a belt stolen from her - sperm donor, she calls him, because that man is no father to her - after he was particularly quick to drink his latest earnings and pawnings away as perhaps the one accent to a piece that does, at least, include a white button-up shirt, as well as a navy-blue blazer - perhaps slightly too big even considering that wizards were fans of longcoats - that she'd sewn new buttons to since the old ones were missing.  She was honestly just glad she'd found a skirt that wasn't going to be absurdly short on her once she hit her first growth spurts in a couple years.  And her boots; she was really glad to have boots that would last, in a size that would fit her going forwards.

(She'd stuffed some spare socks in them for now.)

She'd also tried sewing herself a tie, because she at least sort of knew how they went together, but she hadn't been satisfied with the results, so her neck only bore the questionable adornment of a purse-strap - brown, fitted to a white purse in what was probably a crime against fashion somewhere, but she'd only gotten such a deal as to afford it beyond her daily clothes because the small not-quite-a-clutch handbag's strap was missing when it came into the store.  It was the perfect shape to carry books in, though, especially if she could work an Expanding Charm into it someday.

But that was a distraction from the present; she had shopping to do.

"...Lily - Keep in mind that what you spend on clothes, you can't spend on books and widgets and things.  And you'll grow out of clothes.  ...Probably; I can't imagine there's...quite that much power in the fitting enchantments?  ...but, yes, clothes.  I'm going to want to buy from the secondhand uniforms, and - I was wondering, actually, if you were able to lay the same sort of enchantments on other items - I have a few Muggle things that it would rather help to have spelled for - durability, and suchlike, though I didn't bring most of them with me today."

Well yeah but when you grow out of clothes your parents just buy you more.

... She just barely manages to catch herself before saying this out loud. Her parents do. Ophelia's don't. And she's right, about the amount of money that Lily literally has in her hands right now, since Mr. and Mrs. Evans are not, in fact, here. "Right. Yeah. Widgets and things," she repeats, only slightly mournfully. "Maybe just the green, with my uniforms, then."

Madam Malkin makes a puzzled face at Ophelia. "Well, you're certainly welcome to browse the rack, dear," she says, gesturing expansively. When you're a magical tailor who can manufacture custom-fit clothes with a turnaround time inside an hour, you don't pre-make items; everything in the building that's already assembled is secondhand. "But I make clothes durable the old-fashioned way, much more reliable. If you want enchantments you want to talk to Avalor Twilfit, down the street, he's got all sorts of ideas about that kind of thing."

"Ah, I see.  My apologies; while I don't have no knowledge of how things work...ah, there's a reason I'm visiting with Professor McGonagall, let's put it that way."

She'll just browse uniforms, then.

"I can sew a bit myself, are there - going to be any objections to my taking in a uniform that's big for me now, to save buying another later, Professor?"

"I can't speak for your classmates, of course, whoever they may be," says McGonagall carefully, in a tone suggesting that she is ongoingly very annoyed that she cannot stop eleven-year-olds from being mean to each other in creatively stupid ways while she's not looking directly at them simply by frowning sternly harder, especially the ones who are not under her own formal jurisdiction, "but certainly it is not against the rules."

"I see.  ...Thank you, ma'am, for the warning.  And for caring."

She'll go ahead with buying older student robes, then, and brace for impact later.

...Hogwarts uniforms are really surprisingly simple, when you get down to it.  They're black robes.  There's plenty of black robes to be had.  (Ophelia goes for woolen outer layers; they're fire-retardant.  She also picks up a few sets of black cotton undergarments - somewhat like pajamas - to ameliorate potential scratchiness issues.)

There are not plenty of black hats to be had that Ophelia would feel comfortable wearing for more than five seconds without some sort of alteration beforehand.  Especially when she considers how tall she already is, and how tall she could end up if that pattern continues, the classic pointy witch hat...just doesn't work.

"How...required, is the requirement for a pointy hat, Professor?  I - find that I disprefer at least the classic style."

McGonagall's expression softens, slightly, at the thanks, and she nods in brief, sharp acknowledgement. She's never been enormously good at being kind and supportive to young children, as Elphinstone keeps very gently reminding her while he's offering her increasingly silly amounts of money to come fight a war with MLE instead, but she does want them to feel loved and supported, and who else is going to try, for the ones that don't already know how to be kind to each other? Flitwick, though she loves him, who is constitutionally unable to focus on an interpersonal problem for more than six consecutive seconds if there could instead be an interesting academic question, or possibly an explosion? (Which, to be fair, is an overall strategy that does solve Ravenclaw interpersonal problems a remarkable fraction of the time, but.) Slughorn? 

And the alternative to someone trying is - well - no, we're not thinking about that today.

In any event, whatever House serious little Ophelia Prince turns out to belong to - and Minerva has been surprised before - she'll be a Hogwarts student, so she's Minerva's responsibility, just as surely as tiny ball of sunshine Lily Evans. 

So. Hats.

Minerva, is, of course, currently wearing the absolute most classic and traditional pointy hat that has possibly ever existed. She is tempted to say that of course they are required, but "You'll be expected to wear one for formal occasions," is the real answer. "The dress code does not require it on a daily basis, however, and Headmaster Dumbledore encourages students to be creative with their uniforms within reason."

"I see.  Thank you, Professor.  ...Really, my biggest concern is that it seems quite likely to fall off at the first sharp movement, just from how much hat there is.  ...Perhaps one could improvise a decorative strap of some sort..."

"...hmm, no, choking hazard.  Unless it buckles, but that seems likely to ruin the aesthetics...  Maybe silvered fastenings at the brim...

"...Anyway.  If it is for formal occasions, that's reasonable; I do not expect to be rushing to and fro at such times, and if rushing to and fro becomes necessary, there are presumably larger problems in evidence.  ...Though one supposes it might depend on the space of likely pranks.  Ah well.  If that happens, then it happens."

She will acquire one (1) pointy hat.

"...Might I suggest that we go visit a store that sells trunks first, ma'am?  We will need to carry all this around, and I imagine that this field is one where wizards have handily outdone Muggles."

McGonagall was totally planning to just magically carry all the stuff, which is not difficult (for her), but habits of practicality, rare among wizards, are to be cherished and nurtured. And Diagon Alley, of course, despite all apparent evidence in other media to the contrary, has a luggage store. There is no reason it wouldn't. 

"Certainly, if you intend to obtain your own rather than use your mother's?" she checks, with a very carefully neutral tone that makes no suggestion of one answer being more correct than the other. Children without siblings - or with only one sibling and two magical parents - often do inherit school luggage, as most wizards once they have graduated from boarding school rarely need to move things larger than fit in their pockets or perhaps a medium-sized bag, but it's unclear whether Ophelia has a relationship with her mother such that she'd be among them. She did, after all, come along on this expedition, and so far the only things she's mentioned expecting not to need to purchase have been books, notable in this case for their trait of being plausibly small enough to steal and hide.

And, well - Minerva is certainly not going to judge, if so. If there's anything she understands very personally, it's the ways your relationship with your parents might be less than maximally friendly when your mother is a witch living in a Muggle town, married to a Muggle man, aggressively pretending not to be magic.