By: CNJ
PG-13
5: Muggle New York City
Harry:
It had been so long since
I'd been on the tube, but now here I was back on it with my classmates
and American counterparts. Only it's called a subway here in the
States. Somehow we managed to hear each other talk and laugh over
the rattling whoosh of the train as it sped through the stations on the
way to the New York Harbor. It also felt a bit odd being back in
the muggle world and dressed in muggle clothing again. Even more
odd was seeing some of my classmates in muggle clothing, the ones who'd
spent all their lives in the wizard/witch world.
"This is my first time in
the muggle...this world..." Crystal Garcia told us.
"It does feel a bit odd,"
I agreed. We had to be careful to avoid certain phrases here in the
muggle world since the magical world is largely hidden from most muggles.
Once we arrived, we milled off and Professors McGonagall and Waltrane led
us to a patch of grass, explaining that this was Battery Park where many
incoming immigrants met their friends and family. Walking out
to the bay, there in the distance was a tall statue of a woman holding
a torch.
"Wow..." several of us gasped.
"Eighteen eighty-six she
went up," Ms. Waltrane told us. "Between eighteen eighty-six and
nineteen twenty, she welcomed over twenty million immigrants to this country."
I wondered how many of these immigrants were wizards or witches.
We caught a ferry over to the Statue and once we got there, we gaped at
how large it towered over us. There are buildings both in London
and New York that are hundreds of stories taller than the Statue of Liberty,
but somehow this Statue seemed much more significant, imposing, and...majestic.
Ms. Liberty, as she's commonly called, had a very serious, yet warm expression
on her coarse-featured face and her right hand held up a torch, which Ms.
Waltrane told us was lit at night. Her left hand held a tablet.
Her spiked crown held seven spikes and even the hair looked real with bangs
and all.
"Wicked..." Ron gasped,
his jaw hanging open as he stared up at Ms. Liberty's head.
"She was an immigrant herself,"
Hermione told us.
"What?" Ron and Cheria looked
puzzled as we entered the base of the Statue.
"She was a gift from France,"
Hermione explained. I nodded, remembered reading something about
that. Only small groups at a time can go up to the top of the Statue,
so we had to rotate by groups of ten. Bit by bit, we managed.
It was really incredible to actually climb the steep steps and see all
the folds in her robe.
"Awwwwesome..." I heard
someone whisper. I gathered that awesome was an American counterpart
word for wicked. Being so long, we had to stop at several
landings to rest and catch our breath. A few kids were able to sprint
to the top, but not me. By the time we got to the top, I was sweating
and all of us were panting. But the sight was truly breathtaking.
You could see a good chunk of New York City from these small windows.
"Hey, look, they started
work on the new World Trade Center!" Nora Sanchez pointed out.
Sure enough, new buildings were in the work where the old ones had been
destroyed by killers much like death eaters, only they were muggle, so
they didn't use magical means, thank Merlin. Like in the magical
world, there are people like the death eaters who kill without conscience,
then disappear, only I've heard them called terrorists in the muggle world.
This happened nearly four years ago at the beginning of our fourth year
and from what our American counterparts told us on the way down, both muggle
and magical America had been deeply affected, especially New York.
Once all of us had a chance to see the immigrant museum and go up to the
top of the Statue, Ms. Waltrane had us line up by a closet door.
"What's in there?" Ben asked.
"You'll see..." she smiled
at us, then led us in. At first, the closet seemed very small, but
as we entered, Ms. Waltrane chanted a spell softy and the closet seemed
to grow until it accommodated all of us, then Ms. Waltrane tapped the wall
on the opposite end. The wall parted to another museum. We
headed in.
"This is the magical part
of the immigrant experience," Ms Waltrane told us. "As most of you
know, several million of the immigrants who came to America were also witches
and wizards and they too struggled to make a new life here in America.
Some lived as muggles, but most sought the magical world here. Feel
free to look around explore for an hour, then our next stop is Ellis Island."
We fanned out, peering around. There were hundreds of moving pictures
of the newly immigrated witches and wizards starting new lives from scratch
in a new country. My throat tightened as I watched several
pictures of immigrants struggling in poor paying-factory work and living
in squalid conditions, struggling to learn a new language. There
are no magical ways to learn a new language and magical immigrants' lives
were not much easier than muggle immigrants' lives. Some of them
couldn't find any work in the magical community and had to accept work
in the muggle world, which made it all the harder on them.
"Oh, wow, look at this beautiful
poem!" Hermione whispered. I came over to the end of the hallway
and saw the plaque which had a lovely poem written by a muggle by the name
of Emma Lazarus. It was about giving America their tired, poor and
things like that and ended with send those, the homeless tempest tossed
to me.
"God, it's lovely," I whispered,
touched. How lost so many of these immigrants must have felt!
Yet most of them struggled against great odds and made a good life here.
Ms. Waltrane then gathered us up to head to Ellis Island, which was another
ferry ride away. The air here was really salty since it was right
on the water and even my mouth tasted a bit salty. Ellis Island was
a big red brick building and once we got in, it seemed even bigger.
"It was up these great steps
and into the big room with the dividers that the immigrants came into to
be processed," Ms. Waltrane told us. The place was getting crowded
now that it was around noon. We walked up the stairs and saw the
long dividers where the immigrants stood in line.
"Keep in mind," Ms. Waltrane
told us softly, so that the muggles didn't hear. "Many of the magical
immigrants had to keep brooms and other magical supplies hidden, since
no immigrant wanted to be thought of as odd." So it was doubly hard
on witches and wizards, I thought, my heart squeezing in sympathy.
We looked around at the displays and at the strange-looking muggle bags
and luggage. They'd come from so many different countries!
Once we were done, we were ready to eat, so we headed back to Liberty Island
by ferry and ate a picnic lunch on the grass by the Statue.
"My great-grandparents immigrated
from Germany," a girl said softy. I think she was Marcia Wellsburg.
"They were witch and wizard and they always suspected one of the inspectors
was a wizard since my great-granddad has a broom he'd shrunk. The
inspector didn't question him on it and later once they were admitted,
told them how to get to the magical world here."
"They were lucky," Kathy
Mines told her. "So many had to find it on their own by trial and
error. Magical inspectors were few from what I'd read on Ellis Island."
"I wonder what our lives
would be like if our ancestors immigrated here?" Ron wondered out loud.
"We might not have met each
other," Cheria's eyes widened.
"Harry and I would say we
were Irish-American," Hermione put in. It's true. Hermione
and I both have long-ago ancestors who came to England from Ireland fleeing
the potato famine in the eighteen-forties. My great-aunt Miranda
tells me that that's how the Potters met some of the Gryffindor family
once they got to England.
"I could say I was Jewish,
even though no one in my family practices it," Ron added. Some of
the Weasley ancestors from the eighteen-hundreds were Jewish.
Once we were finished eating, we slowly stood. Ron then grinned and
pulled a shrunken version of his broom out of his pocket.
"Hey, don't let the muggles
see that," I whispered.
"I won't." Ron charmed
the broom to normal size. "Have your broom? Race you around
the Statue." I pulled out my small version.
"But how will...?"
I started. Ron enlarged mine too. "Ron, someone will see us..."
I worried.
"Not if we go invisible!"
Putting on an invisibility charm he'd carried with him on both of us, he
took off. I grinned, then climbed on my broom for a trip around Ms.
Liberty myself. After all, no one could see us now and it was a great
chance to see Ms. Liberty's great face up close. She looked huge
this close and I had to struggle to keep my broom straight as I swerved
around her and to the back. I was behind Ron and tried to surge ahead,
but my broom spun suddenly and the next thing I knew, I was headed straight
toward Ms. Liberty's back! I managed to swerve the broom at the last
minute, rolled off and landed painfully on my arse. My Firebolt clattered
beside me.
"I woooon!" Ron crowed,
coming down to the grass with a triumphant whoop. I sat up, my face
twisting in pain. "Are you all right?"
"Trying to be..."
"Boys, what is going on?!"
McGonagall exclaimed, coming up to us. Whoops. Uh-oh.
The invisibility charm faded now. McGonagall hastily shrunk our brooms
and ordered us to put them away.
"Sorry, Professor..." Ron
gave a sheepish grin.
"Whoops..." was all I could
think of to say as I blushed, then shakily stood, clutching my arse, which
still throbbed.
"Whoops and sorry
are right, Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley," McGonagall told us sternly.
"You're very fortunate you weren't hurt and that the bobbies didn't see
you or you two would have a lot of explaining to do. Twenty points
off Gryffindor and don't let me catch either of you pulling that stunt
again." We nodded, then gathered up our things to head back to the
main city.
Professors Waltrane and
McGonagall let us head to Greenwich Village while they headed back to Shankspell
for the day. So we took the tube and went there. In some ways,
Greenwich Village reminded me of Picadilly Circus. But it was also
unique in its own American way. There was this one artist who did
caricatures of people.
"That is an..." I searched
for the American word I'd heard at the Statue. "...ayy-some...picture,"
I told the bloke who was working on it.
"Aysome?" the bloke looked
puzzled, but smiled anyway, figuring it was a compliment.
"Aysome...cool...neat,"
I explained.
"Say, you're not from the
States, are you?" He looked up and pulled down his sunglasses to look at
me.
"I'm visiting from England,"
I told him.
"Figured so. Is aysome
a British slang term?"
"N-no..." I had the feeling
I'd pronounced the word wrong and felt myself blush a bright red. "I thought
it was an American term."
"I think he means awwsome,"
Ben laughed from behind me. The bloke laughed too and I smiled weakly.
Of course. It's pronounced with a aww sound. "And it
really is. Oh, hey, I'd like to buy that one of Bush skidding down
the stairs." Ben bought the picture and the bloke grinned at us.
"So, how would you like
this awwsome pic?" the bloke asked me.
"I guess so..." I fished
out some American muggle bills and handed them to him and bought the picture,
which was a group of office workers huddled by a window grinning out. "Pleasure
meeting you."
"Mine too....thank you." We walked on down the streets.
"You're quite a guy back
home, I bet," Ben grinned.
"Yeah..." I nodded, feeling
some of the flush return to my face. "In a manner of speaking. Especially
when I first started at Hogwarts." Especially since I'd been a bit
of a curiosity in the wake of my parents being killed and me being the
first one to survive Voldemort's curse.
"So, when you first arrived...?"
Ben asked.
"There was this evil wizard
you all heard about when we first came here," I explained a little about
how all of us Gryffindors defeated Voldemort last November in a low voice.
"I'm...I'm one of the few that survived an earlier attack." I cleared my
throat nervously.
"Wow, you were quite a guy!"
Ben grinned. "Or quite a bloke, as you English say."
"Thank you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Do you suppose the American
magical community elects their minister the same way they do in England?"
Hermione asked as we walked along a narrow street by a row of high flat
buildings.
"Maybe they vote like they
do their muggle president," Cheria mused.
"I bet theirs is the President
of Magic," Ron suggested.
"They probably have a House
of Congress that mirrors their..." I felt a sneeze coming up my nose and
struggled with it a minute. "...m-muggle House..." I sneezed. Come
to think of it, my nose was feeling a bit funny now.
"Merlinspell..." the others
told me. It was growing dark, so we headed for the tube and headed
back to Shankspell. One more day, then we'd be heading back home.
By the time we got back, my nose not only felt strange, but my throat felt
like I'd swallowed sandpaper and I had a slight headache. Dinner
was waiting for us, but for some reason, after a few bites of dinner, my
stomach felt queasy, so I excused myself and headed upstairs. I had
the feeling I was getting a cold. Oh, dear, I thought as I sat at
a low night table to write out a letter to my aunt Miranda. I headed
down the hall to borrow one of their owls to send it, then as I entered
the dorm, my nose began to run and my eyes started stinging. I ran
into the bathroom and grabbing tissues, blew my nose and rubbed at my eyes,
my glasses sliding down my nose. Pushing my glasses back up, I grabbed
a lot more tissues because I had the feeling I was going to need them tonight.
Then I went to bed with a book. Even reading the print was hard because
my eyes watered and smarted often and my headache got worse. My gritty
throat turned into a fully-blown sore one. Finally, closing
the book, I blew my nose again, then turned over and went to try
to sleep.
More later! I think it'll be just one or two more chapters, then it'll be complete! Hope you all have enjoyed this exchange trip between American and English witches and wizards!
