Summer 1991

Feige's point of view

I wondered what would happen when Quirrell tries to rob Gringotts. I also wondered if the school will be able to get a competent teacher in one month.

Shlomo and Harry were busy making plans for Harry's birthday. Harry didn't seem to have any preferences for cakes, cookies, or any other snacks.

"I never really had many snacks," he admitted.

Shlomo decided to make a vanilla cake with chocolate icing and his own original recipe for crinkle cookies. Thanks to Yisrael, we usually have chips in the house.

We offered to invite the Dursleys to the party, but Harry refused. He agreed to invite Hagrid, but six people aren't much of a party.

"Don't you want to invite your cousin?" I asked, knowing the answer already.

"No way," Harry responded.

"What time should we call it for?" I asked.

"You don't really have to bother," Harry said. "I never had a birthday party before."

"Ever since Yisrael heard Hagrid tell you that it's an early birthday present, he's been begging for a birthday party," I said. "We can't disappoint him."

"Why does he care about other people's birthdays?" Harry wanted to know.

"He likes cake," I explained. "He will never pass up an opportunity to eat cake."

"So when is the best time for him to eat cake?" Harry asked. "That's when we'll have the party."

"Yisrael thinks the whole day is perfect for cake," I told him. "I happen to think that the morning is better so he has a whole day to burn off the sugar. Not that it makes a difference." I said as an afterthought. "He's still hyper after a day of running around."

"We could make it a breakfast party," Shlomo said, "And the cake will be dessert. We can have waffles with frosting, I can make some pancakes, and my father could make omelets. He makes the best omelets."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "I wonder if Hagrid likes normal foods."

"Why wouldn't he?" Harry asked.

"Hogwarts has all kinds of fancy foods," I explained. "It could be some are just British foods and that's why I never heard of them, or it could be that they're magical foods. They have things like Yorkshire pudding, treacle tart, steak and kidney pie, and pumpkin juice. Being thrown into two new cultures at once makes me not sure which foods are from which cultures."

"Yorkshire pudding is a British food," Harry told me, "But since it's not a breakfast food, Hagrid won't expect it in the morning. Treacle tart is a dessert."

"Do you have a recipe for it?" Shlomo asked. "Maybe I could make it if it's a popular British dessert."

"I could try to find one," I told him. "I'll check upstairs later."

"Steak and kidney pie is a meat pie," Harry continued.

"We're having a dairy breakfast so meat is out, but maybe I could make it for supper one night," Shlomo said.

"It's more of a dinner food anyway," Harry said, "but what do you mean by a dairy breakfast?"

"Jews don't mix dairy with meat," I told him.

"What about bacon?" Harry asked curiously.

"Bacon comes from pig," I told him. "Jews don't eat pig meat."

"Strange," Harry said.

"I suppose we are," I agreed.

"Does it bother you that I don't keep your rules?" Harry asked.

"Of course not," I told him. "You have your heritage and we have ours."

"What else did you say they serve at Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

"Pumpkin juice," I told him.

"I never heard of pumpkin juice," Harry commented.

"I think the magic world has lots of pumpkin foods," I said. "I know they have pumpkin pasties. I'm not sure what else."

"Are you sure it's okay if Hagrid comes?" Harry asked nervously. "I don't want you to do any extra work, but he was the first person who ever gave me a birthday present."

"What's one more person?" I asked. "You saw that Yisrael likes him."

I realized what the problem is at Harry's birthday breakfast. None of my chairs are big enough for Hagrid! He ended up sitting on the counter. I apologized that he can't reach the table from there, but he brushed it off.

That afternoon, I had an unexpected visitor. One of the goblins from Gringotts came to update us on the robbery situation. Quirrell was caught in the attempt thanks to my warning.

"What's going to happen to him?" I asked the goblin.

"He's locked in the vault," the goblin said triumphantly. "He did the imperius curse on one of my colleagues, but since we knew which vault was supposed to be robbed, we had a few extra guards hiding in the surrounding tunnels. The thief thought that if he gets a goblin to open the vault, he would be able to rob it, but we made sure he was the one who touched it instead, so he got sucked inside."

"How long are you keeping him there for?" I asked.

"Until he dies," the goblin said cheerfully.

"But then, you'll never find out who sent him," I realized.

"So you think we should interrogate him and find out?" the goblin asked with a wicked grin. "We just deal with the one who actually broke in. Whoever sent him is allowed to send us some more prisoners."

Rats. There goes the plan for exposing Voldemort now unless I could somehow convince this goblin.

"Thanks for keeping me updated," I said. "How did you find out where I live?"

"I overheard you tell that Hagrid guy that Regina Goldstein is your aunt," the goblin confessed, "so I asked Dirk Creswell at the ministry to get me Regina's address. I went to her first and tried talking to her. She didn't seem to remember the conversation she overheard, but she gave me your address. She may be the victim of a memory spell."

"I appreciate all the effort you put into finding me," I told him.

"We appreciate the tip you gave us," he said.

"What's your name?" I asked curiously. The only goblin I remembered from the books was Griphook, but I knew he took Harry to his vault so I couldn't have been talking to him about the planned burglary last week. Then again, we went to Diagon Alley a week early, so maybe Griphook didn't take Harry to his vault this time.

"Gornuk," he told me.

"According to Regina, the two people she heard plotting the robbery were Voldemort and Quirrell. Did you get both of them?" I asked.

"We only got Quirrell," Gornuk told me. "Voldemort hasn't been seen since he was defeated ten years ago."

"Imagine if the goblins are the ones who captured him," I said. "You could keep him in vault and video tape him going crazy by himself. People would be willing to pay for such a video."

"I don't understand this video concept," Gornuk said. "It must be a muggle term. Besides, that's not the way we do things in Gringotts."

Oh well. At least I tried. As I thanked Gornuk and walked him out, I wondered when Dumbledore would realize that he's missing a professor.