It's the same shop! - was: Mapping Diagon Alley

[Wendy Moncur]

> I am unsure of the exact location of Ollivanders - 
> it may be a shop or two out. 
> I need to go back to the DA tour to be sure.

Ollivanders and Flourish & Blotts are in the same shop!
In the extra disc from CoS, the Diagon Alley Tour shows a shop with a 
black door and a bay window either side. You can go inside. It is 
Flourish & Blotts. Note the position of staircases, and the general 
layout of the store. This shop is right across from a dark magenta 
coloured apothecary. (This tour is the easiest way to see the shop, 
because it is fairly empty of people, and you can control what you 
look at)
Now go to Philosopher's stone (the movie) and run the scene where 
Harry and Hagrid are in Diagon Alley - as they walk down the street. 
At exactly the point where Hagrid points out Gringotts, behind his 
head you see the sign on Ollivanders shop.
Later, Harry goes into Ollivanders. Notice the layout - the position 
of the staircase, and the fact you can see the same apothecary 
through the windows across the street.
Now play the Chamber of Secrets scene in Flourish & Blotts - the same 
shop. You can see the same apothecary across the street. 

Okay, maybe from a filming point of view they only built one shop 
which can hold the number of actors/crew required for the bookstore 
scene in CoS, so they re-dressed Ollivanders, but surely when they 
originally built the set, they would have known there were scenes in 
later movies that required such large spaces in other shops.

>From purely a fantasy point of view though, it does work - it IS 
magic after all. If you want to go to Ollivanders, you get 
Ollivanders, if you want Flourish & Blotts, you get Flourish and 
Blotts. Similar to platform 9 & 3/4 - sometimes you get the platform, 
sometimes you get a barrier. 
So I guess the magic-powers-that-be know that Harry is 11 years old, 
about to go to Hogwarts and therefore needs a wand, so it gives him 
Ollivanders. Later, he doesn't need a wand, so he gets the bookstore. 
Just a theory.  

It does make it hard to draw a map though. :)

Change of topic: Say, did anyone else notice: in PS when Harry and 
Hagrid approach the Leaky Cauldron from Muggle London, the sign 
outside slowly changes from plain black to a "Leaky Cauldron" sign 
they can read.


"the_crafty_turtle"