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The righteous thrive like a date palm and grow as the cedars of Lebanon; rooted in the Lord's house, they will blossom in the courtyard of our God (Psalm 92:12-13)
Yehuda and his father emerged from the Charing Cross underground station and set about trying to find an invisible street named Diagon Alley. There would be an invisible pub between a bookstore and a record shop, McGonagall had said, and they'd need to ask someone to let them in. It all felt like something out of a spy novel.
A very frustrating spy novel. It was a rainy weekday in May, the streets dotted with people who have nowhere else to be on a Tuesday midday. After twenty minutes walking up and down the length of Charing Cross Road, Yehuda's feet ached, and there was no invisible pub to be found. His father double-checked the scribbled notes from their last meeting with the headmistress.
"Should be right here," he muttered. "Funny sort of name, the Leaky Cauldron."
"It's named Leaky Cauldron?" Yehuda looked up. "But that's right here!" He pointed across the street at a bookstore.
"That's a bookstore," his father said patiently.
"No, look—it says The Leaky Cauldron!" He grabbed his father's hand and darted into the street.
"Yehuda!" At the last second, his father pulled him back onto the curb. But as his hand touched his son's, something changed in his field of vision. He saw the pub, clear and solid as a real building, as though he had simply overlooked a storefront sandwiched between two others that had been adjacent just moments before. He dropped Yehuda's hand and squinted. If he hadn't just seen it with his own eyes, he'd never have known it was there. It was oddly like staring at something out of the corner of your eye, though he was looking directly at it.
"Tatty?" Yehuda's hand wormed its way into his, and the building was plain as day once again.
He shook his head, unbelieving. "Sorry. Let's go."
Yehuda had never been inside a pub before. There was one a few blocks from his school, but they always just lowered their heads and walked faster as they passed, because it was full of goyim getting drunk, that's what his rebbi always said. A bell tinkled as they entered, but as Yehuda's eyes cleared he saw that there were no drunk goyim inside. It was, in fact, completely empty but for an old man behind the counter, wiping it down with a rag.
"Afternoon," the old man said, bobbing his head at them.
Yehuda's father cleared his throat. "Ahh…we're looking for a Di-a-gon Alley." He pronounced the words gingerly, as though they might bite him.
"Diagon Alley, hey?" The bartender moved around the counter to squint at them suspiciously. "This look like an alley to you?"
"N-no, but—"
"How'd you find this place, anyway?"
Yehuda found his voice. "Please, sir, Ms. McGonagall told us to come here and ask how to get to Diagon Alley. I need to buy supplies for…school."
"Ah, Minerva sent you, did she?" This seemed to placate the man. "Well, I can't just send anyone off into Diagon Alley. Lemme see your Hogwarts letter."
His father fumbled for the papers and presented the invitation with its deep red seal. The man studied it solemnly for a full minute. "Right, then. Come along."
Yehuda's heart started to pound with excitement as they wended between tables and bar stools to a nondescript door at the back of the pub. But there was no invisible street outside, only a tiny cement yard surrounded by a brick wall, with dingy grass forcing its way out of cracked concrete. A dented garbage bin in the corner was swarming with flies.
Yehuda glanced at his father. For the thousandth time he wondered if it was all a huge, elaborate joke.
The old man faced the brick wall. "Well, before you go, can I get you a drink?"
"No, thank you," said his father automatically. "Unless you're kosher?"
"What's that?" The old man cupped a hand to his ear. "Never mind then, let's be off." He drew a thin wooden stick from his sleeve and tapped on one of the bricks, halfway up the wall.
Yehuda's first thought was this was nutters, it was all nutters. But there was a groan, and the sound of shifting earth, and the bricks began to slide: left, right, up, down, tucking away behind each other into empty space, and a window blossomed in the brick wall, growing to frame a narrow cobblestone street lined with stores, zigzagging away into the distance.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley," the old man said proudly.
Yehuda's father's mouth hung open, speechless. "But…how…?"
"Oh, you'll need to change money first thing," the old man announced, watching their shock with satisfaction. "Ask someone for Gringotts Bank—we don't use the pound sterling here. You'll want Flourish and Blotts last, so you aren't lugging around a pile of books all day. And don't bother with Twillfit & Tatting's, Madam Malkin'll get you exactly the same thing for half the price."
"How is this here?" Yehuda finally burst out. "It's the back of a street, how does it even make sense?"
"Magic, my boy," the old man said. He knuckled Yehuda's yarmulke playfully. "It's a different kind of sense."
There were so many new things, his head swiveled back and forth desperately trying to see everything. His father clung to the supplies list like a rope of sanity in a whirlpool of crazy—which spoke wonders about the levels of craziness in Diagon Alley, since the supplies list itself was fairly bizarre.
Gringotts first, where tiny gnarled men exchanged two hundred pounds for them. They spoke in accented English and there was something about them that made Yehuda feel unsafe, in the presence of a caged wild animal. His father weighed the sack of wizard money in his hand and then pulled out a gold coin about the diameter of Eliyohu's yarmulke. He gave a bemused smile, and shrugged.
"Reckon it's real gold?" Yehuda asked.
"Do not imply that Gringotts uses adulterated materials," snapped the tiny man behind the counter.
Yehuda flinched. "S-sorry, I just…"
"Do you have any further business here?" He spat the word business as though it were poisonous.
His father stepped to the side, shielding Yehuda from the man's sight. "No, we're finished, thank you." He took Yehuda's hand and half-dragged him across the marble floors and back outside.
They went to buy a wand next, because it seemed important. He had been dreading this, his first step over the border and into real kishuf, but his father didn't flinch as he steered him through the doorway. Boxes were stacked against the walls, rather like a shoe store, if the shoe store was dimly lit, extremely tiny, and covered in dust.
Yehuda sneezed.
"Gesundheit." A stooped, white-haired man emerged from the shadows. "Garrick Ollivander. You'll be here for your first wand?"
"Yes sir."
Ollivander shook his hand, his grip surprisingly strong. "And you are?"
"Yeh—Anthony Goldstein." What if they needed to match up his name with the school records, or something?
"Muggle-born, are you?" The man's gaze rested for a moment on a spot just above Yehuda's hairline. "That is, no other wizards in your family."
"Yes sir," he said again. Deliberately, he adjusted his yarmulke and tucked his peyos behind his ears.
"Well, then, let's find a wand for you." Ollivander scanned the rows of boxes. "You see, every wand has a personality, so it may take a few tries until you find the one that chooses you. I use over sixty types of wood, but mainly the same three cores. Now, what hand do you write with, Yeh-Anthony Goldstein?"
"He's right-handed," his father said.
Ollivander pulled a box out of one stack, which promptly tumbled over.
"Cherry wood and phoenix feather, nine inches, quite rigid. Nice and consistent." Ollivander held out his hand. Yehuda hesitated. He sent a sideways look at his father, wrapped his fingers gingerly around the base of the wand, and gave it a tentative wave. It felt exactly like waving around a nine-inch wooden stick.
"No, no, that won't do." Ollivander snatched the wand. "Try this: linden and phoenix feather, excellent for defense, eight inches, reasonably springy."
He waved it. Nothing happened. He hadn't even opened his mouth when Ollivander grabbed the wand and replaced it with another. "Hazel and nymph hair, eight and three-quarter inches, superb at charms work, try it—"
Nothing. Nor with magnolia and dragon heartstring, eleven and one-half inches, swishy. He was beginning to wonder if there was no wand at all for him. Maybe the magic had gone away, and he could be a regular boy again.
"Here, calabash and unicorn hair, fifteen inches, springy. No? Ah, give this a try—cedar and unicorn hair, ten and one-half inches, nice and pliable, go on—"
He knew. He felt a glow in his hands as he took the wand and somehow he knew it was this, and a shower of sparks blossomed from the tip when he waved it. He didn't gasp, wasn't surprised: it felt as though he had known it all along.
"Oh, well done!" Mr. Ollivander cheered. Yehuda glanced up just in time to see his father plant a determinedly proud look on his face. "Cedar, excellent for protective spells. Yes, of course, I should have seen that. The wand chooses the wizard, of course, but cedar…well, obviously. That will be seven Galleons—the big gold ones, yes—and you take good care of that."
He felt different now that he had a wand. He wasn't touching it, it was safe in its thin cardboard box in Tatty's bag, but he could feel the warmth in the center of his chest, the sort of soft completeness he felt watching the Chanukah candles. It was still kishuf (no, no, tamim tihyeh, be whole by guarding your health) but he walked with a new spring in his step.
They bought uniforms, letting the woman measure him and recommend robe styles as he stood awkwardly on the stool. His father nodded obediently to her every suggestion, but stopped short when the woman offered to sell him a package of the white button-down shirts she said were popular among Hogwarts students.
"That's all right, I think we'll pass on that," his father laughed.
"Are you certain? He'll want quite a few, the laundry's only done every two weeks. These are what all the children wear. Do you want him to—stand out?" Her eyes flicked up to his yarmulke.
Yehuda fidgeted, and the seamstress heaved a sigh as she re-pinned the fabric. "No, ma'am," he said. "He just meant I already have a load of white shirts."
They did buy a plain V-neck sweater, the sort that Torah Temima boys would laugh at, but things were different now, it was another school. He'd need a school tie, the woman said, but for some reason he could only order it once he got there, and it would arrive within the week and then he'd look just like the others.
He wasn't sure he wanted to look just like the others.
As the Leaky Cauldron bartender had advised, they stopped off at Flourish and Blott's last. It was easy enough to find his course books, as they were organized by grade level. Eight textbooks, each with a stranger title than the next. Had he not been so tense, he might have been curious as he stacked One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi on top of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1. Reeling slightly under their weight, he staggered in the direction of the counter.
His father was flipping absently through a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. "Glad we've got all this taken care of. We'll have to check Torah Treasures later, see what sefarim to get you—Yehuda?"
He had let out a strangled gasp, and immediately fell silent, but his father noticed.
"Yehuda, you didn't think we were going to send you off without any sefarim, did you?"
His silence confirmed it, but he didn't trust his voice to speak without breaking. "I thought…I thought…"
What had he thought? His throat was too choked to explain, and he did not know the words for what he had felt: that they would send him without sefarim because after the grave discussion in Rabbi Zeller's office, heavy sighs and meaningful looks aimed at the problem that was him, he did not belong to his family anymore, and he was going to a goyish school and that made him a goy.
"Let's buy these and go on home." His father set the pile of books on the counter and thrust a fistful of random coins at the cashier. "I think we've had a long day."
Yehuda walked slowly back into the street, his arms weighed down with the day's purchases. He sat down on a bench, scowling fiercely so no tears would come, and hiccupped miserably as he waited for his father.
"Well, have we got everything?" His father held the supplies list, talking in that falsely cheerful voice they all used when they wanted Brochie to forget whatever she was tantruming about. "Work robes, yes. Pointed hat, yes. Gloves, yes. Winter cloak, yes. Books, we've got them all. Cauldron, vials, telescope and scales?"
Yehuda wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. "And the wand."
"Of course, mustn't forget the wand. Students may bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad," his father read dramatically. They looked at each other. "Would you like an owl or a cat or a toad?"
"No," Yehuda laughed. He stood up, his face clear. He smiled, meeting his father's eyes at last. "Thanks, Ta."