Chapter 4: A Magical Education

For the rest of the Summer, my parents seemed different. I was ecstatic to be closer to the wizarding world than I'd ever been. I spent every spare moment reading though my new schoolbooks. My favourites were: 1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi and Magical Drafts and Potions. I loved the idea of being able to make magical things from nature by combining them into something tangible. (Having said that, I was still itching to try out some of the spells in the Standard Book, but my parents were adamant that I wait until I was at school to use my wand.)

But despite my increased enthusiasm, Mum and Dad seemed to have lost their own excitement about my entry into magical life. I would sometimes catch them exchanging concerned glances across the table, and they seemed to be going to bed later and later as the weeks went on. If I hadn't been so enraptured by my window into Hogwarts, I would probably have asked them what was wrong. I don't know what they would have said.

Finally, the evening before we were due to travel to London so I could catch the Hogwarts Express to start term, my parents came up to my room under the pretence of helping me double-check my packing.

"Excited," my Dad asked, wearing a grin that seemed somehow forced.

"Do you need to ask?" I replied, beaming genuinely back to him. "I've come up with a name for my owl." My dad had indeed bought me a tawny owl to be my Hogwarts pet. I couldn't wait to send and receive letters with him. "Athelas." It was a healing plant I'd found in Herbs and Fungi.

"That's a great name," said Mum, giving the owl a gentle stroke as he shifted on his perch. He was eyeing his cage cautiously as if he already knew he would have to be shut in it for the majority of the next day.

"What is it you wanted to talk to me about?" I asked after a long silence. My parents tried to look taken aback, but they must have known that I'd seen through their ruse straight away.

"We want to tell you something important," Dad began. "One last thing you'll need to know before you go to school."

"Okay," I said simply. Then a thought struck me and I asked: "is it about Lord Voldemort? I saw his name in that Daily Prophet article."

"Yes, it's about Voldemort," replied Mum. I nodded, and listened as they told me the story of the first and second wizarding wars. How Tom Riddle, once a schoolboy at Hogwarts himself, fell into the Dark Arts and became the most powerful evil Wizard in history. How he was weakened when he failed to kill Harry Potter, the legendary auror, but was able to return in various forms while Potter was at school. How Potter, his friends and mentors were able to defeat Voldemort and his followers in the battle of Hogwarts. By the end of the explanation, I was left awed and astonished.

"I don't know what to say," I said.

Dad smiled. "You don't need to say anything. But most of the other kids will know that story, so we wanted you to be up to speed. But you don't need to worry. Your Mum and I were teenagers when Voldemort was at his height of power the first time. Hogwarts is the safest place in the magical world: it took Voldemort and his followers years to figure out how to infiltrate it, and even then, it's protected by some of the most powerful witches and wizards alive."

In my shock at the scale of the story, I hadn't even been thinking of my own safety, so this statement worried rather than comforted me. I thanked my parents for telling me, and they got up to leave, telling me I should get some sleep.

"Big day tomorrow," Mum's smile seemed real for the first time in weeks.

"Before we go though," Dad began, and Mum's smile quavered as she shot him a worried glance. "There's one more thing. Voldemort used many artefacts to try and gain as much power as possible. One of them was a very powerful wand made of Elder... and thestral hair."

I didn't follow straight away. Dad continued: "it's still nothing to worry about, but we've spoken to some friends and... well... they've never heard of a wand other than that one having a thestral-hair core."

"Well," I said, "from what Master Ollivander said, there are a lot of unusual cores that Mr. Ollivander never used. Maybe that's why. It's just not traditional." I couldn't see why this was so important. My Mum nodded supportively, and eventually, so did my Dad.

"Yeah," he said. "Nothing to worry about."


I was up bright and early the next morning, and was stood by the fireplace in the kitchen well before my parents. We would be travelling by floo powder to the DA museum in Grimmauld Place, before making our way to King's Cross Station on foot. I clasped my ticket for the Hogwarts Express firmly in my hand, excited and nervous for what lay ahead. Looking around at the house that had become my home so recently, I said a silent goodbye as yet more unknown experiences awaited me.

"Off we go then," Dad said briskly, as if he had been waiting for me this whole time. "You excited?"

"Just a little bit," I joked, before stepping into the green flames and heading for London.