JKR owns HP
Note: By popular request, Hebrew, Aramaic, and/or Yiddish translations will be appended to each chapter. You're welcome.
To the reviewer who suggested (none too politely) that devout students are unrealistically overprivileged at Hogwarts, consider the case of Remus Lupin. An administration that built a shack in a nearby village, connected it to the schoolgrounds via tunnel, and planted a guard tree over the entrance, all to accommodate a potentially dangerous student, would almost certainly consent to allowing an eleven-year-old to visit a local chapel. Hogwarts purposes to offer a magical education to every wizarding child. The fact that "nearly 10%" of the first years are devout reflects nothing more than the demographic makeup of the UK, Muggle-born or pureblood status aside. As J.K. Rowling spent seven books emphasizing, blood status is irrelevant to character, magical ability, or, indeed, religion.
Disclaimers: Opinions expressed are those of the characters, and not the author. Never drop a lit match on the floor. For the kosher status of broccoli, CYLOR.
…Ask your father, and he will teach you; your elders, and they will tell you (Deuteronomy 32:7)
Rabbi Zeller had told him to prepare ten questions each week. Something told him that wasn't going to be a problem. He had ten questions by dinner on the second day.
Each morning he woke up early, made his bed, and pulled the curtains shut around him to daven. He went down to the common room for Shemone Esrei, his Complete ArtScroll Siddur clutched in sweaty hands, only to find older Ravenclaws reading at the tables and he wasn't going to stand at the window swaying back and forth in front of them. He scurried back to the dormitories with another question.
4. Can I daven Shemone Esrei sitting on my bed?
Each morning he sat at the breakfast table and self-consciously moved eggs and kippers around his plate with a fork, stopping only to drink the fresh-squeezed orange juice that was the only thing he could be sure was kosher. There were bowls of grapes, too, which enabled him to leave breakfast with a full stomach.
Robert Hilliard handed out class schedules at breakfast. He looked it over, already wistful for the Gemara and Kitzur Shulchan Aruch tucked into the nightstand in his dormitory. His schedule had Charms and a double class of Potions and something called Herbology, along with a class labeled "DADA" which he hoped was an abbreviation. Also, there seemed to be a class at midnight on Tuesdays. How odd.
In the corridor, Michael suddenly stopped and gripped his arm. "Did you see him?" he whispered. "Did you see his scar?"
"What are you talking about?" Yehuda turned. All he saw was the backs of two first-years going into a classroom.
"That was Harry Potter!"
"Who?"
"Harry Potter, you know—oh, I forgot, you don't. Never mind, I'll tell you later."
Charms was taught by a very tiny, very squeaky, very old man. He was Professor Flitwick and Robert Hilliard had said he was their head of house. Michael glanced sideways at him as Yehuda took out a notebook and pen. His eyes narrowed; he looked as though he were deciding whether or not to say something. But then the professor called, "Anthony Goldstein!" and Yehuda blurted "Here," a second too late, and Michael looked away and said nothing.
Magic was complicated, there were things you had to say and things to have in mind—almost like brachos!—and you had to move your wand a certain way. They drew tables and practiced the different kinds of wand movements, careful not to say anything as they did in case they accidentally made something happen. Yehuda wondered where, under all the prohibitions of tamim tihyeh and telling the future and manipulating nature, would something like Wingardium Leviosa fall.
5. Am I allowed to levitate things?
Professor McGonagall taught a subject called Transfiguration. She started off her lesson by turning her desk into a pig, though they had to learn a lot before they ever reached that level. She looked annoyed at the sight of Yehuda taking notes. He didn't understand why. Everyone in the room was taking notes. What was he doing wrong?
Then together with the Slytherin house, they trooped outside to a greenhouse with their One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, where a grandmotherly woman introduced herself as Professor Sprout. Notes were not necessary, she assured them, they would discuss their findings at the end of class and they could write it down then. Yehuda was relieved, because a lot of the Slytherins and even Michael had been looking at him funny as he wrote, and maybe they didn't take notes here at all. It turned out there were lots of plants on the Hogwarts grounds that he had never heard of, that probably shouldn't even have existed, like a mint plant whose leaves could stop you from bleeding and a willow tree that attacked you if you got too close.
All in all, he decided as they left the greenhouse, it wasn't so bad. Besides for being strange, the classes weren't terribly difficult; there were terms to memorize, but he was always good at memorizing. And if there was fruit, the meals were all right. But surely Rabbi Zeller would answer and let him know that he could eat the food. Right?
As it was, he was so hungry that the first thing he saw upon walking into the Great Hall were the bowls of apples on every table. Lunch.
Michael loaded up a plate with baked potatoes and cheese and broccoli. Yehuda wondered if he could eat the broccoli, but he could smell from a mile away that it was cooked, probably in a treif pot, so he grabbed an apple and sat down next to Michael's plate. Someone sat down, clearing his throat.
"Hi, Michael," he said, but the boy sliding in next to him was not Michael.
"Yehuda Goldstein, right? I'm Terry Boot." The boy stuck out his hand.
"I know," Yehuda said stiffly. He edged away as imperceptibly as he could without being insulting. Professor McGonagall said he went to Mass, and Mass was a Christian church-davening-lehavdil sort of thing, wasn't it? That meant Terry was a Christian.
Terry dropped his hand awkwardly. "How are you settling in? I know you're always with that Michael Corner—he wasn't at that accommodations meeting after the welcome feast. Is he also religious? Like you and me?"
The thought had never occurred to him. Where was Michael, anyway? "I don't know. I didn't ask him."
"You should, shouldn't you? Us people of faith ought to stick together. We've got a lot in common; I mean, we both believe in the Old Testament, anyway—Jews do, don't you?"
"Mmm-hmm," Yehuda said, trying to look knowledgeable. He had never heard of any testament, old or new, but felt that now would be a bad time to confess it. He made a mental note to ask the rabbi: 6. What is the old testament? Why did this fellow think they were best mates, and where in the world had Michael disappeared to?
"—ought to be friends, don't you think?"
"Yes, of course," he said automatically, spotting Michael at last, weaving his way back between tables. "You're in Michael's seat, if you don't mind."
"We've got Potions next," Michael said. He ignored Terry, dropping onto the bench and consulting his schedule. He tugged the sleeve of the curly-haired girl beside him. "Excuse me. Where would I find the Potions classroom?"
"Potions?" A boy further down overheard him. "The firsties have got Potions next, Marcus! Maybe we ought to warn them what they're in for."
"Professor Snaaaaape!" Marcus growled. "Beware the giver of detentions, taker of points, enemy of Gryffindor, terror of the dungeon!"
"The dungeon?" Yehuda gaped.
"Marcus!" The curly-haired girl giggled. "It's just a cellar. I don't know why it's called the dungeons."
Yehuda took another bite of his apple. He looked at Michael's baked potato, and his stomach grumbled.
The dungeons may have been only a cellar, but they were certainly as creepy as any dungeon, low-ceilinged and cold, the only light from the torches lining the walls. Yehuda took out his textbook, notebook, and pen, and laid them flat on the desk beside his cauldron. Once again, Michael frowned, looking at Yehuda as though he had done something terribly inappropriate. This time, however, Terry and Kevin and even some of the Hufflepuffs were staring at him.
"What?"
"Silence."
Professor Snape had arrived. There was a tiny, fearful flurry of activity while they all scurried to their desks.
"You are here to master the delicate art of potionmaking." The professor's voice was a low, dangerous purr, barely above a whisper. "Some of you may doubt that there is magic involved here at all. Potionmaking is precise and subtle, with none of the incantations and explosions endemic to your other subjects. I expect none of you to understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the subtle power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. I can teach you to stir glory in a cauldron and to brew death in a vial, if you aren't as dunderheaded as the usual crop—Abbott, Hannah."
"Here," spluttered a Hufflepuff girl, almost falling out of her chair.
Yehuda watched Professor Snape, his stomach squirming. Snape was not an especially tall or frightening-looking man, but he dressed entirely in black, and his voice was hushed, deadly as night in the eerie windowless dungeon. His hair was long, his eyes black, and he looked darkly disinterested in the proceedings of his own class. "Boot, Terry—Corner, Michael—Cornfoot, Stephen—" he barely paused for the quavering Here's— "Entwhistle, Kevin—Finch-Fletchley, Justin—"
"Here—"
"Goldstein." The professor's eyes flicked up from the list, his voice silky. "Yehuda."
He jerked in his seat. "H-here."
Snape scrutinized him with half-shrouded eyes, or, to be more precise, scrutinized the upper half of his hairline, where rested a black embroidered velvet yarmulke. Yehuda fought the urge to adjust it under the heat of the professor's glare. He looked away, shoulders trembling, but Snape continued smoothly. "Hopkins, Wayne—Jones, Megan—Li, Su—" Breath returned to Yehuda's lungs as Snape rattled down the class list. "—Turpin, Lisa. We will begin with something simple enough for any of you. Open your books to page twelve."
They learned to make a potion to cure boils. The professor distributed a pile of snake fangs and a real, actual mortar and pestle to each desk. He and Michael took turns crushing them into powder while Professor Snape barked at Smith to let Macmillan grind his own fangs. Most of the class was devoted to Snape lecturing on poison antidotes and something called the Draught of Living Death while they waited for the potion to brew. Yehuda took notes faster and more frantically than he had ever had in Torah Temima, but out of the corner of his eye he saw that everyone else looked just as agitated. Afterward, they added shriveled little horned slugs to the cauldrons, causing several girls to shriek and firmly cementing Yehuda's belief that he would never, ever be able to eat anything in Hogwarts. He scribbled a note in the margin of his notebook, reminding him to ask the rabbi.
7. Can I eat a bezoar?
Snape's cloak brushed the edge of his desk. He looked up, his heart in his throat, but the professor only looked down at them with narrowed eyes and said, "Take your cauldron off the fire before you add the quills, Corner. Boot, you should be stirring clockwise."
He heard a gasp behind him. A Hufflepuff boy was wide-eyed in the pink steam suddenly shimmering from the surface of his cauldron and he bolted to his feet, knocking it over. Hannah Abbott yelped as the potion splashed her robes, and Finch-Fletchley actually stood on his chair to avoid the spreading puddle. Snape's mouth thinned into a hard line as he whirled to face the offender.
"If you read the instructions, you'd know that steam was the final sign that the potion was made correctly. Yes, Hopkins, you heard me—correctly. A point from Hufflepuff for your spinelessness. Evanesco." The puddle vanished. Yehuda's hand flew to his mouth. Snape's eyes narrowed in his direction. "Dismissed," he said lazily. "Goldstein, stay."
He looked up in alarm. What had he done to cross this strange grim man, and on the first day? People cast him sympathetic looks as they filed out. Marcus had been right, Professor Snape was not someone whose bad side you wanted to be on. Snape collapsed his cauldron, placed jars of eerily colored liquids back on the shelves. Yehuda thought he saw a shrunken human head. He moved forward cautiously, but Professor Snape did not look at him. The door swung shut behind Michael.
Snape drew his wand.
Yehuda stepped back so fast he tripped over his own heels.
"Listen, Goldstein." The professor spoke very quietly. "You are a Muggle-born. Pathetically ignorant of wizarding customs. This is not acceptable in our world."
Yehuda followed the line of Snape's outstretched arm, the pointed wand. His notebook and pen rose from the desk and floated toward him.
"Sir?" Now he was utterly confused. "What do I write with, then? I mean—what do wizards write with?"
"Are you completely oblivious, Goldstein?" the professor demanded. "Get a quill. Get some parchment. Buy it off your classmates if you must."
"Uh—thank you, sir?"
Snape appeared not to hear this. "Now get out of my sight."
He did.
He was almost late to the next class, not that it mattered, because the teacher was apparently a ghost, gliding straight through the wall, skipping attendance, and starting to talk about the importance of learning notable figures of wizarding history in a completely flat and toneless voice that, had he not been eleven years old and on his second day in a completely new school, would have had Yehuda lay down on his desk and falling asleep.
"Got any spare parchment?" he whispered to Michael.
Michael tore his parchment in half and silently passed him one sheet, a quill, then slid his inkwell between them. Yehuda dipped the quill and carefully shook off the excess ink, then printed Yehuda Goldstein in the upper left corner of the parchment. The quill moved smoothly, carving glossy ink into the creamy parchment, and he watched it in slack-jawed fascination. It was beautiful.
Michael nudged him.
Class. Right.
He would get to write like this—this more than writing, almost artistic way—every day but Shabbos, for seven years. He quirked a tiny smile at the thought. But before he returned his attention to someone called Emeric the Evil, he wrote in small letters on the parchment, trying to see how small the letters could be before they bled into each other and made an illegible mess: 8. How do you become a sofer?
At dinner, a hand landed on his shoulder. It was Robert Hilliard. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" Not waiting for an answer, he steered Yehuda away from the table.
Was he in trouble again? The notebook wasn't his fault, nobody had warned him you couldn't use a pen here. He glanced over Robert's shoulder. Meat that he now knew was pork chops popped into existence on platters across the hall, and in spite of himself he thought it smelled good.
"I couldn't help but notice that…" The prefect followed his gaze, looking uncomfortable. "That, well, you haven't been eating. Is—everything all right?"
He bit his lip, trying to find the words.
"Well, I keep kosher," he said. "And Professor McGonagall said they could take care of it but I had to write to my rabbi to ask exactly how and I don't have an answer yet and I don't even know where the kitchen is so it's not like I can check if they're doing it right or go in there and ask for fruit..." He spoke quickly, in a low voice, looking at the floor.
The prefect sounded horrified. "You haven't eaten since Sunday?"
"No! No, I had sandwiches…and some stuff I brought from home. And sometimes they put out fruit at meals." He sneaked a glance at Robert's face. Still horrified.
Before he knew what had hit him, Robert had marched him out of the Great Hall, Michael and Terry's wondering eyes tracking their path, into the corridor, around the grand staircase down a small flight of stone steps to a wide, brightly-lit corridor lined with paintings of food. The biggest, that of a huge silver fruit bowl, took up the entire wall at end of the hallway. Robert pulled him along until they stood right in front of it.
"These are the kitchens, Goldstein. They don't like students being down here—it's not good for the workers." Robert's fingers scrabbled across the painting, and the painted green pear transformed into a doorknob.
"The workers?" Yehuda echoed blankly, as the painting swung open. His first thought was child labor; the room was as huge and loud as a factory, a high stone ceiling and clattering metal all over. Small figures scurried from stovetop to table, frying and stirring, and for every pot on a flame were five more dangling from hooks, heaped on tables. A huge brick fireplace loomed over it all, casting the waist-high chefs in an eerie yellowish light.
"Master Hilliard!"
Yehuda screamed. Robert elbowed him in the ribs. The chefs were the ugliest creatures he had ever seen: bald, with huge winglike ears and eyes the size of tennis balls and knobbly, too-long limbs, and they appeared to be wearing Hogwarts-crested pillowcases. "What can Remmy do for Master Hilliard, sir?"
"This is Anthony Goldstein—McGonagall told you about him, didn't she?"
"Master Goldstein, the special food." The murmur circulated in the small group standing around them. Heads bobbed up and down and big green tennis balls eyeballed Yehuda.
"Right," Robert said. "So…talk to the house-elves. What do you need, Anthony?"
(What did he need? His own separate meat and dairy oven and pots and pans, brand new and unused, but then they would need to be toveled and chalav Yisrael milk and a way to turn on the fire every morning so as to make the food technically bishul Yisrael and food left to cook from Friday afternoon clear through Shabbos morning and why not a properly-shechted cow while he was at it.)
But there did not seem to be ovens—only that fireplace.
Only a fireplace? A broad smile crossed his face. "Do you have pans that you only use for potatoes, or only use for broccoli?"
The house-elves looked scandalized. "Hogwarts house-elves would never use a potato pan for something that is not potatoes!" someone shrilled. "Hogwarts house-elves would never use a broccoli pot for something that is not broccoli!"
Yehuda's heart leaped. He stood on tiptoe and whispered into Robert's ear. "Are they joking?"
"They can't lie to you," the prefect whispered back. "They belong to Hogwarts, they're not allowed. It's house-elf magic."
"Perhaps Master Goldstein would like baked potatoes and broccoli?" They loaded a plate with steaming potatoes and broccoli, straight from the fire, and handed it to him. "Anything else Master Goldstein requires, sir?"
He thought fast, to the calendar in his nightstand with two boxes X'ed out. It was Tuesday already. "Do you have two candles? And another one with two wicks?"
Back in the dormitory, his stomach full for the first time in what felt like ages, he davened mincha in the safety of his curtained bed and then turned his attention to the Gemara. The sound of turning pages filled the room, from his bed and from Michael's. Behind the curtains, nobody could tell he was turning the pages right to left, searching daf nun-hey for ten or maybe twelve different ways for sheep to get in trouble, the verdict in each case, and the explanation, so he could fill them all in on his father's sheet. There were so many cases that he drew a chart just to track the Tanna Kama and Rabbi Shimon's opinions on damaging ripe fruits, even though his father's sheets didn't say he had to.
With a smile, he pulled out his notebook and finished off the letter with a flourish.
10. Why does the mishna say the animal broke out at night? Earlier the mishna says that as long as it was locked up properly he's patur, which would imply even by day.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely, Yehuda Goldstein.
He folded the letter carefully and sealed it, then stood up, cracking his stiff back. "Michael? Where can I post this?"
"Owlery," Michael grunted.
"What?"
"Owlery. West Tower. Give it to your owl."
"My owl?" Yehuda said, confused.
Michael looked up at last. "Don't you have one?"
"Why would I have an owl?"
Michael sat up. "I forgot, you don't know. We use owls to send post. It's fast, and they won't give it to anyone but who you ask. Very handy, owls—you ought to get one. You can use the school's, though. They're just not quite as reliable, because they don't know you."
"Oh." He seemed to be saying that with increasing frequency. "West Tower, you said?"
He bundled up and trekked out to a cold, drafty tower, where huge glassless windows opened to the sky and owls of a thousand brown, white and gray colorless shades pecked at their nesting boxes and hooted. The floor was covered in hay. School owls occupied rows of straw-lined cubes under a huge Hogwarts crest, and they each wore a band around their ankles. At least he supposed it was an ankle. Probably there was a book somewhere in the school that would tell him what a bird's ankle was called. He went up to one box, containing a large brown owl with black and grey markings.
"Um, can you take this to—Rabbi Zeller?" he asked nervously. The owl looked at him arrogantly. "I mean, to London. Golders Green. 33 Hallswelle Road?"
The owl hooted and gripped the letter in sharp talons before hopping out onto the ledge.
"Be careful," he said, feeling a little silly. "It's sort of important. I need to get an answer."
The week blurred by with no answer from the rabbi, and then it was Friday afternoon. A few minutes to seven, he tried to explain Shabbos to his roommates: he would light candles, and then he would spend the next twenty-five hours relaxing and doing no work at all. Kevin thought it was bloody brilliant, Michael cleared a spot on the nightstand for the candlesticks, Stephen was absorbed in a book and completely missed the announcement, and Terry said that he was fascinated by these old testament rituals even though the new testament canceled them all out for Christians, and for the thousandth time Yehuda wondered what a testament was.
His siddur instructed him to first daven mincha, then light the candles, then cover his eyes, then say the bracha, and then uncover his eyes to look at the candles. He wondered how his mother remembered all that every week. And the instructions didn't say to wave your hands in a circle before covering your eyes. Maybe boys weren't supposed to do that part?
He struck the match with trembling fingers and lit the candles. Was he allowed to blow it out? Just to be on the safe side, he dropped it and scuffed it out with his shoe before quickly covering his eyes, feeling a bit silly. He cleared his throat. "Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu, melech ha'olam, asher kedeshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbos."
"Amen," said Terry promptly, pronouncing it ay-men instead of ah-mein.
Michael sat cross-legged on the floor, writing Flitwick's essay on wand movements, and Yehuda could hear the waves of noisy chatter from the common room below. At home, he would be walking to shul with Tatty and Sholom. He would stand next to Sholom, bouncing on his heels to the tunes of Kabbalas Shabbos while Sholom looked at him disapprovingly and pointed out the page number. He opened the siddur and whispered Lechu Neranena and Lecha Dodi to himself, the words swelling in his throat, but there was no way he was going to stand up and belt them out from the tips of his toes like he did at home.
Dinner had been hours ago. It was the most un-Shabbosdig Friday night he could have imagined. He lay miserably on his bed, watching the candles until he fell asleep. And then the next thing he knew, he was waking up in his Shabbos shirt with a stiff neck and daylight streaming into the room. Michael was gone, and there was a persistent tap-tap-tapping at the window. He sat up groggily. The candles had long melted into wax lumps all over the candlesticks, his siddur resting forlornly beside them.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
Terry crossed the room in his pajamas and opened the glass. "Yehuda? I think it's for you."
The brown owl swooped through the window, wings fluttering and batting in Yehuda's face. He yelled and flung out a hand, shoving the owl to a perch on the wardrobe. It looked at him balefully and pecked at its feathers, holding out the letter. He caught his breath, now fully awake.
"I can't open post on Shabbos," he muttered, looking sideways at Terry.
Terry detached the letter and flung it at Yehuda, stroking the owl's feathers with the other hand. It hooted in thanks and flew back out the window.
Yehuda stared at the letter, lying innocently on the blue sheets, as he swung his legs off the side of the bed. He would change his clothes, he would look over the parsha, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But he would have to remember that for after Havdalah—for next week's questions, for starting all over again. He began the letter in his mind.
Dear Rabbi Zeller,
1. Can I take post from an owl on Shabbos?
Glossary
Daven. Pray.
Shemone Esrei, literally "eighteen." The nineteen main blessings of daily Jewish prayer. (Preferably said without interruption, standing up, and facing, if known, in the direction of Jerusalem.)
Siddur. Prayer book.
Kosher. In accordance with Jewish dietary laws.
Gemara. The Talmud.
Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. Condensed religious text of Jewish law.
Brachos. Blessings.
Treif. Non-kosher.
Hashem, literally "the name." God.
Lehavdil. To distinguish between two topics are not religiously equivalent.
Sofer. Scribe. (Many Jewish ritual items and texts must be handwritten by quill on parchment according to specific requirements, thus making this a viable career option.)
Toveled. Immersed in a natural water source.
Chalav Yisrael. Milking supervised by a Jew.
Bishul Yisrael. Food cooked by a Jew.
Shechted. Slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law.
Mincha. Afternoon prayers.
Daf nun-hey. Page 55, in Talmudic page numbering.
Tanna Kama. Refers to the first opinion in a mishna when the name of the sage has not been previously mentioned.
Bracha. Blessing.
Baruch Atah, Hashem Elokeinu, melech ha'olam, asher kedeshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbos. Blessed are you, the Lord our God, king of the world, who has sanctified us with his instructions and commanded us to light the flame of Shabbos. (Blessing recited when lighting candles just before Shabbos.)
Shul. Synagogue.
Kabbalas Shabbos. Quasi-poetic prayers for the onset of Shabbos. (Lechu Neranena and Lecha Dodi are two of them.)
Shabbosdig. Shabbos-like.
Parsha. Weekly Torah portion.
Note: A healthy fast to all.