When I was four years old I believed in fairies, princesses, and I definitely believed in princes. When I was around seven or eight though I realized what every child has to realize at one point, that the things that I had hoped would come and save me from an evil witch or come in the middle of the night while I was fast asleep and sprinkle their fairy dust on me so I could fly just like them, did not exist.
But, I was different. About two years after I had given up hope on all of those things my parents told me something that I would never forget.
"Hermione, you're a wizard."
I obviously thought that they were just kidding because that was absurd! I mean me, Hermione Granger! Just a little girl growing up in England was actually a real life wizard!
"Ha-ha, very funny. May I go back to my room now?" I asked them, I was quite mad actually. It was a week before my eleventh birthday and I thought that they were going to tell me about a trip we were going on to celebrate.
"No you may not. Get ready ready because we are going out," my father had said. Finally, I'm actually going to know what it is that they wanted to tell me!
X
"Whoa," is all that I could stutter out because I was speechless at the sight before me. It was… amazing.
I cannot tell you how we got there because I had fallen asleep on the way here which is rather strange because I rarely fall asleep while in the car. That is, if we were even in the car. Now that I try to recall it, I cannot remember anything after when I walked out of my house into the summer air that had the slightest taste of fall, heading out, or at least thinking I was, to my car.
This place, it was full of people walking around in fashions that I had never dared to dream up. They were dressed head to toe in robes of all colors, even the boys were dressed in this odd type of clothing. And some of them looked as though they were carrying some sort of stick in their hand, but this was no stick. Because I had turned around at one point and saw someone use his thing to pick up something from the ground without even bending over. Some of the other ones were walking around with cats' right behind them, but what is most absurd of all is the people who were walking around with owls! Live owls, they must have been crazy!
Oh, and the shops. The shops were full of the most interesting things. There was one that resembled a pet store, nut on the inside it had animals hat almost looked… magical. It was different than anything I had ever seen before, and something that I hope to see sometime again.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley," my mother had said after she could tell that I looked like I was almost done soaking everything into my system.
"What- what is it?" I am still in complete, utter shock. No matter what I look like on the outside, the inside of me is shaking because of all of the strange things that are going on all around me.
"It's where we are going to buy your school supplies," my father explains to me as he tried to push me along.
"Wait, you're confusing me. We have never shopped here before for my school supplies," I question as I try to walk as slow as possible trying to make a mental picture of all of the shops that we are passing because I don't know how long it will be before I come back here again, if I ever come back here.
"This year is different, honey, " my mother says while walking into a store that looked like it sold those strange stick things. "This year you're going to a different school. This year you're going to Hogwarts."
"What? Why? I love my school and I have never even heard of Hog- whatever, I don't even know anyone who goes there!"
"Hogwarts, my dear, is a school for the magical," the store owner, or at least I think that's what he is, said to me. "Now, let's find you a wan, shall we?" He says going deeper and deeper into the isles that seemed to never end so it got especially hard to hear the last art of what he was saying to me.
"A what?" I ask going to roam around the store myself, but I didn't get very far because the man was shortly back and I didn't want him to think I was snooping around his store.
"A wand dear," the owner says returning with three boxes. "Now, don't go trying to find one that you think looks pretty, is nice, or one that you think you want, because it is the wand that chooses you. Based on what I can tell about you, I have found three wands that I think might be your match. Let's start, shall we?" he a he pulls a thick, extremely short 'wand' out of a dark grey box. "Now, just take this like so… yes, you've got it. Now don't move a muscle," he tells me while he goes to set up a foldable, small table and sets a large, dark green vase on top of it. "Okay, just point it at this vase and whatever you do, be careful, give it force but not too much force or else there could be big trouble," he says right before he backed away from the table as fast as he possibly could.
"Okay, I'll do my best," is all I can say because I'm so nervous as to what will happen next. And I should have been, when I shot the so called 'wand' it shot straight up into the air with something that resembled green smoke.
"Okay, well, let's try the second one," the shop owner said a little worried. "Once more now," this time he gave me a very long and thin wand.
"Whoa, is the only word I can utter out of my mouth because right before my eyes the green vase broke and shattered into a million pieces.
"Oh goodie! No need for the third wand even," the shop owner said gleefully heading back to the front desk. "I'll just go and ring this up for you," he shouted over his shoulder sounding very pleased to have made a sale.
"Did- did I do that?" I asked my mother in awe of the broken vase before my feet. Just sitting there, on the ground, smashed. With no finger prints on it whatsoever.
"Yes, my darling, yes you did," she tells me while giving my left shoulder a squeeze. I can hear the happiness in her voice.
X
"So, Hermione, what do you think of being a witch?"
"What did you say?" I had to ask my parents to repeat themselves because I got distracted by a bright, red headed boy who had smiled at me. He had a rather large family who all shared that unique hair color; I couldn't help but smile back at him.
"Your father asked you what you thought about being magical."
"Well, the only term I could use for such a thing is that it really is… magical."