Chapter Five: Nightmares Abroad
My seventeenth year, my third year of magic studies at Songsmith, when the Daily Prophet (yes, we got that in America, too) announced the Triwizard Cup and showed the pictures of the four contestants, I started having nightmares.I would dream of myself as a child walking down the street holding hands with a young woman, when suddenly there was a bang, a crash, and a bright purple light. I would wake up screaming at least three times each night, each scream louder than the one previous, waking the school with my cries.I spent months waking the entire student body with my shrieks.Even when they placed Jakkin and me in a magically sound-proof room, I still awoke trembling and sobbing, and broughtmost of the school with me.None of the Magisters or Magistras could do anything for me, although Magister Westing put forth the theory that someone had enacted a powerful Memory Charm on me, which the Daily Prophet pictures were starting to erode.
Magistra Archon pelted Professor Dumbledore with messenger pigeons for months on end, but she received no reply. She was just about to go see him herself, in late July, when she finally received an owl from him. The note simply said that he and the staff of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries in London would be able to help me, and that I should come at once. No explanation of why he waited so long to answer, no forthcoming justification for why he ignored the problem and simply sent the solution, no reason for sending the pigeons back empty-beaked, just an urgent epistle that I should come to England immediately.
Cat and Try helped me pack, although admittedly everything could have been stuffed into my schoolbag with its endless insides. We cried together and promised to write every week. Magistra Whitehawk was to be my chaperone to England, as she had some personal business to conduct there in any case. We wore Muggle clothing because we had to take Muggle transit. I did not ask her what she had to do in England, so we had a very silent trip. Upon arrival in London, she took us to a tiny corner bar, with a very dirty sign. The Leaky Cauldron, as it was called, and we wove our way through the noisy common room. The bartender caught Magistra Archon's eye, but she shook her head and forged our way out the back door.
Once out back, she drew her wand and tapped a complicated sequence on the bricks. The bricks melted away into a tall archway, and we stepped through. Once inside, she said "Welcome to Diagon Alley" in a rather hushed voice. I tried to look everywhere at once; there were so many interesting things to see. She cut a straight course to the white, lopsided building which bore the legend "Gringotts" over the front doors. Once inside, she stepped to a counter and whispered to the little creature behind it, which called to another creature and told us to follow it. We went on a rollercoaster ride through the bowels of the building.
The cart stopped, and the creature called "Vault Six Hundred and Twenty-Two" as we stepped out. Magistra Whitehawk handed the creature a key, and it opened the door. I gazed, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, at the mountain of treasure behind the door, as Magistra said that it was all in my name. The little creature (Magistra later told me he was called a goblin) handed me a small bag to gather some money into, and we went back up to the street.
Magistra took me to the Wand Shop, clucking over the fact that I didn't have one already. Mr. Ollivanders almost fainted when he saw me, commenting "I thought I'd seen the last one of you when your brother came in four, almost five years ago" in a creaky, quiet voice. I didn't have a chance to ask him what he meant, for he was almost immediately handing me wands to try out. Holly and unicorn tailhair, beech and dragon heartstring, mahogany and phoenix wingfeather, ash and unicorn manehair, willow and phoenix tailfeather, the list of endless combinations went on for what seemed like hours. Finally the right one flew into my hand with what almost sounded like a sigh of relief mingled with frustration, a slender beauty at ten inches long made of rosewood with a core of dragon heartstring. I paid him eight Galleons for it and we left.
