Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl. Arrival in London
DISCLAIMER: Daria is the creation of Glen Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling, Wizarding World, and Warner Brothers. I own neither franchise. The author states that he is writing for his own amusement and neither expects nor deserves any sort of financial compensation for this work of fiction.
Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl*Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl*Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl
Martha Haddaway clenched the folds of her mid-calf skirt as the taxi pulled over to the concourse for international arrivals. Even now, she still felt like she was in a new, frightening, and dangerous world, despite her having spent the last several weeks learning the byways of Muggle transport and even making several trips to both Heathrow and Gatwick airports to familiarize herself with these new surroundings.
A few weeks ago she had agreed to work for Arcturus Black and escort an American Muggle-born girl and her two Muggle parents from Heathrow to their hotel and thence to Diagon Alley. But even as she'd grown accustomed to Muggle trains, busses, and taxi-cabs, airports still made her very uncomfortable. That there were numerous large machines dependent on their wings and their loud, noisy engines flying through the air without so much as a trace of magic still struck part of her as profoundly disturbing and wrong, even though she'd actually flown aboard one while she had been lovers with Jeremy Dickinson. As if to emphasize the point, a huge, brightly-painted passenger jet roared overhead; its sheer size and the road of its engines making her feel very small and weak. It was awe-inspiring and more than a little terrifying. She fought back an urge to apparate away.
"The fare, Ma'am," said the taxi cab driver.
"Oh," she said, and dug into her purse to extract the Muggle money she'd need to pay the driver. She shuffled through her pound notes and paid him above and beyond the fare glowing on the taxi's meter.
"Sorry," she said.
The cab driver looked mollified. She must have given him enough for a satisfactory tip.
She opened the cab door and began to step out of the rear seat.
"Your sign, Ma'am," said the cab driver. She barely remembered the sign she'd brought with her.
"Oh," she said. "Thank you."
She took her sign and her handbag and stepped away from the cab and passed through a sliding glass door. She stepped inside and found herself amid bewildering crowds of people.
She felt a bit ridiculous holding a sign that said "Morgendorffers" on it. She worried that she'd shortly find herself having to fend off a family of German-speaking Muggles and having to tell them that they weren't the people she was waiting for. She chided herself. Even with German or Austrian Muggles crowding the airport terminal, Morgendorffer wasn't that common a surname.
She heard them before she actually saw them. There were a lot of bewildered and confused-looking Muggles here, but not all that many of them talked with American accents. ""They're supposed to send someone here to meet us and then take us into London," said a tense and distracted adult American male voice. "Now where could they be?"
"Over here, Dad," said the auburn-haired girl who was with him. She noticed them, then: a tall, clean-shaven man with short brown hair, a square face, and a perpetually-worried face. The girl was much shorter, with an oval face, auburn hair, and eyeglasses. Martha recognized her from the photos.
"Hello," said the woman. "I'm Martha Haddaway. You must be Mr. Morgendorffer and this must be Miss Daria Morgendorffer."
"Pleased to meet you," said the tall brown-haired man. "I'm Jake Morgendorffer and this is my daughter Daria."
"Hi, I'm Daria Morgendorffer," said the girl, and nodded.
"Well, welcome to Britain," said Martha.
Both Jake and Daria said thanks.
"Excuse me," said Martha, "but is Madam Morgendorffer with you?"
"No, Helen is back in Texas," said Jake. "The judge trying a case she's working on wouldn't let her off, so we went on ahead. I hope she can catch up in a couple of days."
"Do you have luggage?" asked Martha.
Both Morgendorffers had luggage. The girl had more luggage than her father did. Of course, he was likely to return home to Texas in a couple of days while she was going to spend an entire school year at Hogwarts.
"Well, let's get a cab and take you into the city," said Martha.
A sliding door opened in front of her and she stepped outside. The Morgendorffers, father and daughter followed her. The horizon had turned orange; the sun was about to rise. She hailed a cab and all three of them got in for the drive to the city.
Neither Daria not Jake chose to do much sight-seeing. Martha did try to make small talk.
"Is this your first trip to Britain?" she asked.
"No, Helen and I came here in the summer of 1978, shortly after she graduated from law school," Jake replied.
Martha looked at Daria and wondered if the girl had been conceived here. It seemed likely.
"Was it a long flight?" she asked. She'd learned this was a good conversation opener for Muggles who traveled internationally.
"It was," said Jake. "It took us three hours to get from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to JFK in New York, then five and a half hours from there to here."
Martha thought of flying on a broom for five hours, then remembered that Muggle passenger jets flew much faster and sighed with relief that she wouldn't have to be up in the air that long.
"Well what I was thinking of doing was getting you to your hotel and if we can't check you into your room, we can at least drop off your luggage. We can then go over to Diagon Alley and do some shopping since it's so close to the start of school. How are you set for supplies?"
"I've got most of the under-uniform except for the school tie, but I'm lacking the formal robe, the winter cloak, and the pointed hat. I was only able to get a couple of textbooks and I thought it best to buy my potion-making supplies over here. I also have questions about what sort of telescope I need for my astronomy class."
"Well, Diagon Alley should have everything you'll need," said Martha. "We can go in and start shopping. We can also get you your wand."
"I already have a wand," said Daria. "I got it in Texas just before my birthday back in April. It's also registered with the MACUSA"
"Is it a Jonker or a Wolfe?"" asked Martha.
"It's a Sandoz," Daria replied.
"I never heard of him," said Martha.
"He's a local wandmaker living near Highland, Texas," said Daria. "Dad got it for me for my birthday."
Martha frowned, then said "Well, bring your wand along."
"It's in my suitcase," said Daria.
Traffic slowed as they got into the city.
"We chose a hotel off Charing Cross Road. It's not fancy but it's serviceable," said Martha. "I think you'll like it." Arcturus Black had used agents to make reservations at the hotel months ago. It was a small tourist hotel not far from the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley. While set in the Muggle world, the enterprising wizarding family that owned it realized that there'd be cross traffic from muggle-borns wishing to stay near Diagon Alley as well as with ordinary Muggles with business nearby.
The trip to their hotel within the city seemed to take about as long from Heathrow to the edge of London proper. The cab turned onto Charing Cross, slowed down, turned onto a side street, then parked.
Jake saw the fare and his eyes bulged. "I'll pay the fare," said Martha.
They went inside the hotel and, as Jake expected, their rooms weren't ready. Jake and Daria handed over their bags to the bell-captain, pausing just long enough for Daria to unzip her suitcase, grab her wand as well as the long paper sack she planned to use to cover it in Mundie territory. She zipped up her suitcase and handed it over to the bell-captain.
"Have you had breakfast?" asked Martha.
"Not yet," said Jake. "We're hungry."
"We can eat at the Leaky Cauldron," said Martha. It's a few blocks away and it would be an excellent introduction to the British wizarding world."
They stepped outside and started walking up the street, crossing the street at a pedestrian walk supposedly guarded by a traffic light. They walked past a bookshop, then paused.
"Do you see the entrance?" said Martha.
"Right there," said Daria. I might have Mundie parents but I'm not stone-blind, she thought.
Martha opened the door and Daria stepped inside. Jake glanced about in surprise, wondering where his eldest daughter had gone.
"Let me show you inside, Mr. Morgendorffer," she said, then took him by the hand and through the doorway to the Leaky Cauldron.
Jake allowed her to take him by the hand and lead him into a large taproom with smoke-smudged white plaster walls and lit with a few incandescent lamps. The tap room was crowded this time of day; Jake was too tired from his flight to realize that most of the morning crowd was here to have something to eat and drink before they began shopping at the shops of Diagon Alley and beyond. Memories started coming back to him, a much smaller taproom at an inn he and Helen had stumbled across while they were fleeing a heavy rainstorm well north of London.
Jake looked over the crowd with wonder. A couple of the Cauldron's patrons caught him staring at them, and Jake turned his eyes away in embarrassment. Most of the Cauldron's patrons were dressed in what Jake later learned was considered proper Wizarding wear. Some of it looked like something that men and women might have worn in some bygone century, some of it looked like it came from ordinary children's books about witchcraft and magic. Few of the morning crowd looked like anything Jake would expect to find walking on the sidewalk on the other side of the pub's wall.
Martha seated Jake and Daria at one end of a long wooden table and waved a bar-maid over. "A menu, please!" she said. "I've got a pair of hungry travelers who've just arrived after a long, tiring journey!" A barmaid started towards their table and wafted a trio of menus using wandless magic, making Jake stare in wide-eyed amazement. He took a breath, told himself that he'd seen magic at Los Girasoles back in Highland, picked up the menu and started reading it. He felt his stomach rumble as his eyes ran down the menu. He hadn't realized that he was this hungry.
The Cauldron brought back more memories of his previous trip to Britain. He and Helen had had to watch how much they spent back then, but they'd indulged in Pub breakfasts once or twice. He'd tried Bangers and Mash and liked it. He decided to have them again.
Daria watched her Dad tense up in this new environment, then slowly begin to relax. When she decided that he wasn't going to freak out and run screaming out the door, she picked up her own menu and started reading it. decided on scrambled eggs and bacon, along with orange juice.
Daria did some staring herself. The wizards and witches here were so different from the ones in Highland. Back in Highland, most wizards and witches dressed much like their non-magical neighbors and it could sometimes be hard to tell who was with which group. There were exceptions: Marshal Dillon came to mind, Mrs. Benavides, some of the younger ones. Daria didn't think Madam Whitcomb really counted: she was a fortune-teller that catered to Mundies and wizarding folk alike.
"Would you care for tea?" asked the barmaid. She looked much like other barmaids on other side of the wall.
"Tea for me," said Martha.
"I'd like coffee," said Jake.
"And what about you, Miss?" asked the barmaid.
"I'll have tea," said Daria. She wasn't a big tea drinker, but she might need something to wash down her breakfast.
"Have you decided what you want to eat yet?" asked the barmaid.
The trio gave her their orders and the barmaid walked away. She returned not long after with tea and coffee and Jake and Daria began to feel awake again.
-(((O-O)))—
After they'd finished eating and paying for their breakfast, Martha led them towards the back. "You may not believe me," she said, "but this is the entrance to Diagon Alley." Jake watched as Martha tapped several bricks in a clockwise pattern then goggled in amazement as the bricks in the wall began moving, disassembling the solid-looking brick wall behind the Pub and reassembling itself into an archway.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley," said Martha, "our main shopping area and the heart of magical Britain."
Jake and Daria were so wonder-struck that neither of them moved. Martha decided to allow them a few moment to marvel at their first view of the street. After a while, Daria turned away while Jake continued to stare.
"Mr. Morgendorffer," said Martha, "we'd best move before the archway begins to reassemble itself into a wall."
"Oh," said Jake, and stepped forward into Diagon Alley.
Daria felt distracted. Diagon Alley was very distracting. There were so many wonderful things to see and people to stare at. Diagon Alley was like something out of a story book, a cobblestoned street lined old timbered buildings with shops that looked like they'd fit into something out of Dickens. She would have been more than content to walk up and down this street all morning and take in the sights.
The practical part of her brain rose up to spoil her fun. "Like where we would go first?" she asked.
"Madam Malkin's, I think," said Martha. "We need to get you fitted for your robes and winter cloak. It's very close to the start of school and we'll need to step lively."
"This way," said Martha. They passed a bookshop improbably named Flourish and Blotts. Daria made a note to herself to return there later.
The crowd continued to amaze. So did some of the other things: street vendors selling magical charms and candies, hooting owls, a shop selling what looked like all sorts of cauldrons. Daria wondered if they sold the standard number four cauldrons that were on her school supply list.
Their progress was interrupted by a woman about Mrs. Fields' age, her sixth-grade teacher back in Highland. "Martha!" she said. "Good to see you! What are you doing this morning? Are you on the rebound from Renly? Is that your new beau?"
"I'm helping a Muggle-born girl get ready for her first year at Hogwarts," Martha replied. "This is her Da."
"Jake Morgendorffer," said Jake. "How do you do?"
"Sally Rand," said the girl. She looked at Jake in speculation.
"Morgendorffer?" she said. "Are you by any chance related to Eugen Morgendorffer, the chaser for the Leipzig Quidditch team?"
Jake said nothing for a moment. A Quidditch-playing Morgendorffer? He had learned about Quidditch at the Los Girasoles restaurant back in Highland: it was a game witches and wizards played on brooms, however he was pretty sure that his Dad's family hadn't been magical for centuries, if ever.
"I don't think so," he replied. "My Dad was Nathan Morgendorffer, the Marine aviator during World War II, and my cousins went out for track or hockey."
"Oh," said Sally. "Well, a pleasure to meet you anyway."
Meanwhile, Daria had given herself over to people-watching while her Dad was talking to Martha and Martha's friend. She saw a striking blonde woman walk down the street with a handsome young boy who was clearly her son. The woman was not only beautiful but well-groomed and wore what must be seriously chic clothing, at least here in Britain's wizarding world.
"A pair of filthy Muggles," said the boy. "They should be ashamed of themselves. They shouldn't even be allowed to be on the streets."
"There, there, Little Dragon, you'll go to school with next year with children who have Muggle parents. You'll have to endure them."
"Filthy little Mud-blood," said Draco, glancing at Daria. The boy hadn't bothered to keep their voices down. The little girl, presumably the Mud Blooded witch, shot him a cold stare that reminded Narcissa of the looks Cousin Walburga gave out when she saw someone or something she disapproved of.
She was so amused that it took her a moment to realize that the little girl had gray eyes, so much like those of a proper daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
Coincidence, of course, she told herself.
It took Martha a couple of moments to introduce little Daria to her friend Sally, end their conversation, and make their way to Madam Malkin's.
Jake and Daria both saw the sign and followed Martha inside.
"Ah, Miss Haddaway!" said Madam Malkin. "Are these the Muggles you told me about last week?"
"Yes,": Martha replied. "This is the girl needing her cloak and robes. We won't be bothering with her Muggle da."
Jake shot the younger witch a look of resentment. Back in Highland he'd heard that some wizards and witches looked down on Mundies. Back in Highland, though, they kept it to themselves. It was more open here.
Madam Malkin turned her attention to Daria. "So you're the young woman we're kitting out," she said. "You're a bit late for your fitting, but better late than never. We'll try to get you your clothing before the train leaves London on the First."
"Well, let's get started," she said. "Follow me."
Daria followed her over to a stool in the corner. There was another girl about her age standing on another stool. She looked like she didn't want to be there and that she resented anything that delayed the end to her current ordeal.
"Stand on the stool, please," said Madam Malkin. Daria got up on the stool.
Madam Malkin pulled out a black robe and handed it to Daria. "Now try this on," she said. Daria shrugged the cloak over her shoulders.
"Very good," said Madam Malkin. She then pulled out a tape measure, which to Daria's amazement began to take both Daria's body measurements and those of the robe she was wearing.
"Madam Malkin, how long is this going to take?" the other girl on the stool said irritably. "That girl should have been in here at least three weeks ago to buy her robes, not now at the last minute."
"Marietta, don't distract Madam Malkin, she's busy," said another woman, a witch that Daria guessed was about Aunt Amy's age.
"Thank you, Madam Edgecombe," said Madam Malkin, who quickly but carefully pinned where the seam lines should be on Daria's robe.
"Now stay put for a moment, Miss-," said Madam Malkin.
"Morgendorffer, Daria Morgendorffer," said Daria.
"Miss Morgendorffer," said Madam Malkin. "Both of you girls settle down. You'll be going to school together so you might as well be friends." Madam Malkin missed the dirty looks Marietta and Daria gave each other while she made the final adjustments on Marietta's robe.
With my luck the auburn-haired Yankee girl will be in my house, Marietta thought grimly.
Mariette Edgecombe was off her stool and out the front door of Madam Malkin's by the time Madam Malkin had finished fitting Daria for her outer robes and cloak. Martha had noticed that Jake had been looking bored and persuaded him to try a cloak on for side. Jake had looked at himself in the mirror, shook his head, then gently handed the cloak back to Martha before Daria and Madam Malkin reached the front counter.
"All measured?" said Marth.
"All measured," Daria replied. She wondered how Quinn would have handled Madam Malkin's.
She probably would have thrown a fit about the black cloaks, she thought with a smirk.
"You mentioned that you also needed some other things for your uniform," said Martha.
"Yes," said Daria. "I've got my, blouses, school jackets, skirts, socks, and school cardigans, but I don't have my school tie."
"We can get those here," Martha said reassuringly. She waved over one of Madam Malkin's assistants, who procured the items and added it to Daria's purchases.
"So how do we pay for this?" asked Daria.
"Your grant program has a line of credit," Martha said reassuringly. Jake was standing behind her and nodded in agreement. "They'll pay for it."
"So when do we pick up my things?" said Daria.
Martha turned to Madam Malkin. "These should be ready Friday afternoon," said Madam Malkin. "If not, come by early on Saturday morning. We'll be open at 7:30 for the students catching the 11:00 train. Now let's get you written up and sent on your way. I need to attend to my other customers."
They left the store, Daria now in possession of her official school tie: solid black, with the Hogwarts crest.
"Where to next?" said Jake.
"I think we ought to buy Daria a cauldron," said Martha. "It will come in handy for storing your things—unless you have one already."
"I have one, but it's back in Highland," said Daria. "I didn't know if it was school standard and decided not to risk it."
"Do you want an owl?" said Martha.
"I like the thought, but I can't take one home," said Daria. "She'd have to spend the summer in Quarantine either going to the States or from the US, and I just can't do that."
"Oh," said Martha. She hadn't though about that, but the girl had, or she'd had the good sense to listen to someone who had.
The Morgendorffers were clearly reaching exhaustion and Martha realized that they'd have to cut the day's shopping short. She still planned to stop by Olivander's, though. She'd not heard of the American wand-maker who'd made the girl's wand and thought the girl could do better.
They continued down the street, passing a store that not only sold the sorts of brass telescopes listed as essential school supplies in Daria's Hogwarts letter, but the more serious telescopes used by Mundie amateur astronomers and star gazers. The window display held a couple of boys' rapt attention. One of them turned around, saw Daria, and his jaw dropped in astonishment.
"I say, Daria, what are you doing here?" he said.
Daria was almost equally surprised.
"Cuthbert?" she said. "Is that you?"
-(((O-O)))—