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God, hear the voice of Yehuda, and bring him to his people (Deuteronomy 33:7)

Walking into the Great Hall was a shock. The walls were draped with green leaves and red berries and wreaths of the sort you saw hanging in the goyish neighborhoods, and there were huge pine trees in every corner of the room, towering over the tables and sparkling with ice and candles. He thought of the little tin menorah he had stood on the windowsill, and felt a pang of jealousy.

When there were only two days left, he counted out ten white shirts and packed them carefully into his trunk. Pajamas. His Kitzur and Gemara. "You're going home for Christmas, Goldstein?" Terry asked.

"For the winter break," he said, irritated. "I don't do…X-mas." He couldn't make the word come out of his mouth.

"But everyone celebrates Christmas," Kevin said.

"He's Jewish, you muppet!"

"It's Christmas," Terry said, with an air of great wisdom. "Like Christianity."

Distantly, he heard them begin to squabble over whether or not he did, in fact, celebrate Christmas, and if other people-that-weren't-Christians didn't either. Funny, how they could know so much and so little at the same time. He folded trousers and pairs of socks in silence.

"I've got to pack up too," Stephen remembered. Kevin wrestled with a trunk, while Michael shoveled T-shirts and jeans and Chocolate Frogs into a big rucksack. They were leaving Monday afternoon, right after Potions.

Monday morning, he could scarcely breathe. He ate his scrambled eggs and toast and walked with Michael to Charms, where Professor Flitwick announced that they would be practicing Incendio, hands-on this time, since they seemed to have trouble grasping it. Hands drew wands around the room.

"Not all at once!" Flitwick said reproachfully. "One eleven-year-old trying to summon fire is quite enough! We'll start with you, Boot—up you go."

One at a time, they came to the front of the room and jabbed the wand out, trying to replicate the diagram in the textbook. Terry, Mandy, and finally Michael managed to produce a yellowish glow from the tip of the wand that flared briefly before dying.

"No, no, no, no!" Flitwick reached across the desk to hold Michael's hand. "You've got to move i-i-in and ou-ou-out, not around. Fire, not light! Try again."

Yehuda flipped backward in the textbook to the Lumos diagram. Flitwick was right. The motions were very similar. It would be easy to confuse them. So engrossed was he that he almost didn't hear Flitwick clear his throat. "Goldstein?"

Michael nudged him. Startled, he shut the textbook and stood up. At the front of the room, he faced Flitwick, flung the wand out while tracing in-out with the tip, picturing fire, and said, "Incendio."

Nothing happened, as usual. How could you do so many things at once?

At lunchtime, he avoided the sparkly pine trees by running to the dormitory to finish packing. His heart beat fast. Just Potions, and then they would line up in the Great Hall for the boats to take them back to the train. As he joined the swarm of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws heading to the dungeon, he was so excited he couldn't concentrate.

Professor Snape did not seem to notice the excitement. "Settle down. Where's your cauldron, Macmillan, Finch-Fletchley? Two points from Hufflepuff. All of you, turn to Chapter Four and start preparing Forgetfulness Potion."

Yehuda fetched Lethe River water from the back while Michael turned up the flame, counting twenty seconds under his breath. Yehuda added the valerian and, squinting at the board, stirred three times clockwise. Snape moved between the desks, his shadow passing over Michael and Yehuda on his way to Morag. "Your theatrics are unnecessary, MacDougal—a simple pass over the surface of the cauldron will do."

While they waited for the potion to brew, Snape lectured disinterestedly on the properties of Lethe River water and memory loss as though nobody was bobbing up and down with their eyes on their watches rather than the professor. Forty minutes, Yehuda thought. Thirty-five minutes. He got out the mortar and pestle for stage two.

"Add two measures of Standard Ingredient," Snape said, "then four mistletoe berries."

A wave of giggles swept the classroom.

Yehuda looked around, confused. He dropped four mistletoe berries into the mortar while Michael snickered beside him. "What's so funny?"

Michael blushed. "Mistletoe. Er, how crushed is 'medium-fine powder'?"

He eyed Michael suspiciously. "Not powder, but not chunks. Like in Swelling Solutions."

They added two pinches, stirred counterclockwise five times—ten minutes—and by the time Yehuda got up to the wand-pass over the surface he was so eager to leave that he waved too close and made the solution bright orange instead of the coppery bronze in Magical Drafts and Potions.

Snape took five points from Ravenclaw for his error, then awarded five for Su Li's perfect execution. "Dismissed."

Yehuda was out the door before the echo died away.

Once again, he davened mincha on the train, remembering with a little smile how he had leaned against his trunk to ask the rabbi which way to turn.

This time, the prayer was relaxed. He had time for every bracha, there were no eyes on his back. When he closed the siddur and sat back down, Michael didn't even look up. The sun was beginning its descent. Michael propped open his own book, and the only sound heard in the compartment was content chewing and pages turning.

Michael shut the textbook just as a familiar rattling filled the corridor. The door opened and the grandmotherly woman with the cart looked in. "Anything off the—will it be fruit, then?" And she winked at Yehuda.

He laughed. "Thank you."

Michael requested Chocolate Frogs, and Yehuda ate his peach in tranquil silence, alternating between the words of the Kitzur and the brownish winter countryside speeding past. The sun was beginning a slow descent by the time Yehuda reached the end of the se'if. He had just turned the last page when there was laughter in the corridor, and the door opened once more.

"Oh, hello," said Terry.

Through the open door, Yehuda could see Cedric Diggory talking to some other fourth-years. "What do you want?"

Terry looked offended. "To say hello. What are you reading, there?"

Yehuda shut the Kitzur, holding it under the table. "Nothing. You've said hello, all right?"

Cedric Diggory leaned against the doorway. "There's no need to be rude, Goldstein."

Not him, too. He felt trapped, remembering Cedric Diggory inviting Terry to—what was it called—the Christian davening thing. What did they want with him?

"Got any plans for holidays?" Terry asked, sliding himself in beside Michael. "My family and I are decorating our church, doing the play, and you?"

"Leave him alone, Boot," Michael said without looking up.

"He only wants to know what you're doing over holidays," Diggory said, with an air of great wisdom. "It's high time you three learned to get along."

Yehuda sat stiffly with his face turned toward the window, grassy hills tumbling by unseen. There was no holiday, there wasn't, he was only going home. He mustn't allow himself to think of it as X-mas break. "Nothing. I'm going home and seeing my family, all right?" It was almost dark out now. Were they back yet?

In answer to his unspoken question, the train slowed abruptly. Diggory pitched forward, grabbing Yehuda's seat for balance. He flinched.

The motion was not lost on Diggory. "Come on, Terry, we'd better get your things, we'll be there soon. Have a happy holiday, you two."

The door shut behind them.

"Well, that's got rid of them," Michael said. He stood up. "He's right. We are getting close."

Yehuda kissed the Kitzur and put it in his schoolbag beside the siddur, and then they were pulling into Kings Cross, his heart beating fast, jumping down from the train, waving a hurried goodbye to Michael as the crowd buffeted them apart, squeezing up beside the barrier with the knowledge that behind it was home.

"We can't all go running through at the same time!" Hilliard said, pulling him back by the shoulder. He strained forward, desperate to see his family—all right, only his father, but still—he was back in London, he was home, he was ten steps away! The instant Dean Thomas disappeared through the barrier, he threw off the restraining hand and ran. There was a confused blur for a moment before he found himself in the train station, between platforms nine and ten, among the milling business suits. He ducked out of the way as Roger Davies walked through solid brick wall—amazingly, none of the Muggles so much as blinked—and turned, searching the crowd for a black hat and beard, for his father.

And there he was.

"Yehuda!"

"Tatty!"

He hugged his father, and they stood for a moment, just looking at each other.

"It's lovely to have you back," his father said finally. He took Yehuda's trolley. "Shall we go to the car?"

Yehuda trotted alongside him as they wended their way out of the station. He had so much to say, but he didn't know where to begin. In the parking lot, he shoved the trunk into the car and got in behind his father.

"How was your trip?"

"It was good," he said. "Not as long as the way there. I sat with my friend—oh, I made a friend, Tatty, his name's Michael and he's from Durham—and I bought some fruit from the cart and I reviewed the whole se'if. Can we learn together today?"

His father smiled. "We'll find some time."

He looked at the clock, and his forehead creased in confusion. King's Cross wasn't that far from Golders Green. "Why aren't we going home?" he asked, as his father turned yet again, this time onto Devonshire instead of continuing straight toward their house.

"I told Sholom I was going to Heathrow," his father said. "That's half an hour away."

"Oh…" His heart sank. The lie, again. He quickly scrambled out of his black robes, un-knotted his Ravenclaw tie, scrunched the two into a ball and stuffed them into the trunk. In only a white shirt and black pants, he looked like any other Yesodey boy.

They traveled the final blocks in silence. His heart beat fast as he saw the familiar houses pass, and by the time they parked, he couldn't stand to wait. He threw open the door and ran up the steps, knocking on the door, whipped around to help his father with the trunk, turned back around to see his mother.

"Mummy!"

"Yehuda! Come in, come in." As he let go his trunk and looked around the front hall, familiar but unfamiliar, his mother folded her arms and rested them across her belly. With a shock, he realized that she was expecting a baby, and with a jolt of horror, that he had entirely forgotten that. Esti's mouth dropped. "Yehuda!"

"Yehuda's here!" Adina shrieked. She flung herself against him.

He looked at his father over her shoulder. "Didn't you tell them I was coming?"

Slowly, his father shook his head. He was not sure what he thought, but his mother broke the silence. "Let's have dinner, then!"

It was chicken stir-fry and rice, after months of vegetables. Brochie tantrumed that there were spots in the rice, Sholom propped open a sefer on the table, and his father told both of them to stop it at once. The doorbell rang, and everyone ignored it. It was good to be back.

The doorbell rang again.

"Someone get the door!" Esti yelled.

He got up, smiling as he opened it, because it was like nothing had changed at all—"Good afternoon, Bubby!"

"Yehuda! What are you doing here? I thought you were in yeshiva in America."

"Holiday," he explained helplessly, looking toward the kitchen. "Mummy? Bubby's here—"

"Chaya?" Bubby called, advancing into the front hall. "Yehuda is home?"

His mother put a hand on his shoulder. "His yeshiva is on holiday. He just got in this morning."

"I didn't know they give winter holiday in America," Bubby said disapprovingly. "When Meir was in school, he had a day off for Chanukah and that was it."

"I'm sure it's only a legal thing," his mother said reassuringly. "I'm on holiday, too, you know."

"But you work in a bank, you're not in yeshiva," Sholom muttered.

"Leave Yehuda alone," said his father. "He just got back, he's probably exhausted."

Yehuda faked a yawn, remembering he was supposed to have just flown in from America, and it was a different time there, wasn't it? He couldn't remember. They didn't teach geography at Hogwarts. Mummy served dinner and everyone sat down. Bubby did, too.

"Thought about names for the baby?" Bubby asked. "You know the Elter Zeide Yossel was niftar four years ago, and he has no name yet. You could call him Yossi. Yosef is such a lovely name, it's such a pity Brocha Esther and Freidy both had girls. You'll think about it, won't you?"

"Well, we've been thinking—" Mummy began.

"In any case Eliyohu was from your side," Bubby said, "so now it's Meir's turn."

"Actually, it's no one's turn," Esti pointed out. "Sholom, Adina, and Eliyohu are from Mummy's side, and Yehuda, me, and Brochie are from Tatty's."

Bubby glared.

"Esti," Mummy said quietly. "Don't interrupt Bubby."

"I'm not interrupting!" Esti drew herself up to her full height. With her nostrils flared, she looked just like Professor McGonagall. "I'm just trying to be in the conversation! How do you expect me to ever tell you anything if every time I open my mouth someone tells me to be quiet?"

An awkward silence greeted this announcement. He wondered if Esti had always been so aggressive and he just didn't remember, but judging from Mummy's fidgeting and Sholom's embarrassed duck of the head, it was a recent development. They ate dinner and Tatty made forcedly cheerful conversation with Bubby. Sholom muttered that he was going to ma'ariv.

When they had bentched, he followed Tatty out to shul, and stopped short as he recognized the familiar stooped posture in the third row. Rabbi Zeller, humming over a sefer as he waited for davening to start. He walked quietly up the aisle and loitered nervously behind the rabbi, trying to decide if it was all right to tap him on the shoulder.

He didn't need to. The rabbi looked up, and his face broke into a broad grin. "Yehuda Goldstein!" Rabbi Zeller shook his hand and slapped him on the back, like a grownup. "Shalom aleichem! What brings you around?"

"I've got a holiday," he explained for what felt like the thousandth time. "It's for winter—"

"Nittel holiday?" The rabbi laughed, and Yehuda laughed too. "Lovely to have you back. We'll talk later," he said quickly, as the ba'al tefila began Ma'ariv.

Yehuda slipped into his seat beside Sholom and opened the siddur. The murmur of fifty people's quiet prayer rippled through the shul. "Baruch…atah…Hashem…oheiv amo…Yisrael…" He lifted his right hand and covered his eyes, and said it as loud as he dared, so that his vocal cords could hear it—so it was real. "Shema Yisrael," he said—not a whisper, not a mumbled hidden prayer, but a declaration aloud—"Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad."

He was the first to finish Shemone Esrei. This perturbed him. Beside him, Sholom looked assiduously into the siddur, his eyebrows furrowed together and his mouth moving slowly, every syllable distinct. He davened so slowly. A twinge of guilt poked at Yehuda—when had his own davening gotten so quick? When he was embarrassed of it? When he had to run to class?

Even when he was finally home, he could not escape his differentness. He walked home silently and and fell asleep with his trunk standing guard over him, reminding him that he was on holiday, that he was only a guest here.

The week was boring. Friday morning, Esti, Sholom, Adina, and Brochie were at school, his father was at the kollel, and Eliyohu was at the babysitter. His mother sat at the kitchen table, sipping a coffee and paging through a stack of papers from the bank.

"I thought you were on holiday," he said.

"I am. But I don't want to fall behind over maternity leave. And I thought I'd relax." She smiled wryly. "But I'm having my coffee at nine instead of six, and Shabbos is already made, so I suppose it's a holiday."

He ate breakfast beside his mother in companionable silence. There were biscuits and bagels and butter (for everyone, not just him).

The minutes felt like hours. He sat cross-legged with the old family album opened on his lap: Mummy holding newborn Adina,Savta's wedding to Saba Reuven, school pictures of a nervous gap-toothed him and a grave Sholom.

When he got to the end, he put his coat on and dragged his bicycle out from under the canvas out back. It took him a few minutes to find his balance, but he rode all the way to Yesodey and back.

He went to his and Sholom and Eliyohu's room and practiced his safrus a little. His wand was in the overnight bag under his bed, but he didn't dare take it out. Professor Flitwick had warned them: now that he was older, able to control the magic better, he wasn't allowed to do magic out of school, especially in front of—what were they called again, his family—Muggles. Do it enough times, Professor Flitwick said, and you could be expelled. No, the wand would stay where it was. He bit his lip and carefully inked a crown above a zayin.

When he had finished the entire alef-beis twice, he looked over his homework, but it felt so utterly ridiculous to be working on his Hogwarts things at home. He wandered downstairs again. His mother was on the phone, tapping a pen against a spreadsheet. She put it on hold and smiled at him distractedly. "Hi, Yehuda. You can get a biscuit, but I'm working in here. Try to stay out of the kitchen, all right?"

"But it's boring here. What can I do?"

"I don't know, I…" She trailed off.

"Mummy?"

His mother pushed her snood back. She looked very tired. "Why don't you go learn?"

Five minutes later, he was pulling his coat around him, his breath puffing in the air as he skipped over piles of grey slushy snow and pulled open the door. The shul was empty, and his shoes squeaked against the floor as he walked. Two middle-aged men were learning in the back, murmuring voices. They didn't turn around when he came in. He tipped back his head to look at the shelves of sefarim.

"Goldstein? Is that you?"

He turned around to see Abulafia standing in the doorway, holding a Gemara and a spiral-bound notebook. "Hello," he said awkwardly. "Don't you have school?"

"I'm in Torat Emet, not Yesodey," Abulafia shrugged. "We get a winter holiday. And you?"

"I'm on holiday too," he said.

"So they give winter holiday in America? Huh. I didn't know that. But what do I know about America." Abulafia squinted up at the clock. "Have you seen Snapir while you were here? We were supposed to meet for a chavruta at two."

"No, sorry."

Abulafia pulled out a chair and opened his Gemara, while Yehuda returned to scanning the shelves. "Amar Ravina m'shmei d'Rava, shma mina mid'Rebbi Yehuda, ner Chanuka mitzvah lehanicha b'toch asara," he chanted. "Because if you say that Chanukah candles can be lit over ten tefachim, why would Rabbi Yehuda say that for Chanukah candles you are patur?"

Chanukah candles—he had just been learning that, in the Ravenclaw dorm. Yehuda looked over his shoulder. Abulafia looked small and lonely at a table meant for grownup chavrusas. "Hey," he said. "If Snapir doesn't come, I can learn with you. I'm up to samach-beis too."

"Would you?" Abulafia smiled gratefully. "We're supposed to review it over the holidays because we're skipping the next perek. The rebbi hinted at a test."

He stood on tiptoe to pull a Bava Kama off the shelf, feeling for the first time a pang of jealousy. He had no rebbi, his father could not assign tests.

He picked up where Abulafia had left off. "Leima lei, hava lei l'anucha l'maala migamal v'rachvo—let him say, 'you should have put it too far up for the camel to reach!' Ela, lav shma mina mitzvah lehanicha besoch asara, this should prove you have to put under ten tefachim." He looked up. "Because if you have to put it so low down, the camel guy can't blame you."

"Amri lo, but you could say," Abulafia continued. "L'olam eima lach afilu l'maala mei'asara, mai amrat eibu'i lach l'anucha l'maala m'gamla v'rachva. Even if you're allowed to put it over ten tefachim high and the camel driver says 'you should have put it higher,' keivan d'b'mitzvah ka asik, kulei hai lo atruchuha rabbanan, maybe because he was busy with a mitzvah so the chachamim don't want to make trouble for him. Like making him have to pay the camel driver?"

Yehuda shook his head. "I think it just means he doesn't have to put the candle so high. Amar Rav Kahana, darash Rav Nosson bar Minyumei m'shmei d'Rebbe Tanchum, ner Chanukah shehenicha l'maala m'esrim amah, if the Chanukah candles are over twenty amos high—"

"P'sula k'sukkah uk'mavui," Abulafia finished. "Because if you put it twenty amot high, you don't have pirsum haneis because nobody notices it all the way up there." He shut his Gemara and smiled at Yehuda. "Thanks. That was brilliant."

"It was," Yehuda agreed fervently. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a proper chavrusa.

Being home was like a dream. An oddly familiar dream where you forget that you ever had a different life behind it.

He learned with his father, with Rabbi Zeller, once with Sholom. He did not see Abulafia again after that first Friday. He watched Esti refuse to sweep and stomp to her room and he helped Adina with her maths. He went to shul on Shabbos and met Danziger outside and he sat between his father and Sholom, following along as they leined sticks swallowing snakes and all the makkos.

After davening, he stacked the siddurim and chumashim to take back to the shelf, loving their weight in his arms. One by one, he slotted them back into the bookcase. He was almost done when he felt footsteps behind him.

"Oh, Goldstein's back." The voice was caustic. "America couldn't stand you either?"

He turned around slowly. Meyerson. His stomach lurched. "I…I have winter holiday."

Meyerson snorted. "Of course. They give you X-mas vacation." He gave Yehuda a long, lingering, speculative glance. "It figures."

Flame tore through his veins, bubbling below the surface of his skin, and fire ripped through his palm. He clenched his fists, holding them behind his back. Flames licked at the inside edge of his hand. He gritted his teeth. No magic out of school. No magic out of school.

Meyerson laughed. "Oh, you're going to punch me? Now I'm scared."

"Yehuda? Tatty's waiting for you."

Meyerson backed away. Yehuda had never been so glad to see Sholom. He did not open his fists until two blocks away.

"I found him, he was talking to his friends," Sholom told their father.

"He's not—" Yehuda began, and stopped. He had thought of Michael, and that was wrong. Michael was a goy. They could never be real friends. Danziger was his friend. Sholom was his friend. This was the right place.

He tried to seal in his memory the sound of kiddush, his mother's motions as she lit candles, what it was like to daven with fifty other people and a sefer Torah, having your sister serve you the same food that everyone else got. Chicken and potato kugel, leining and mezuzos.

Remember the good things. Remember that this is where you really should be.

But all too soon, January fifth crept up on him, and he woke up from the dream.

Glossary

Goyish. Non-Jewish.

Menorah. Candelabra.

Kitzur, abbreviation of Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. Book of Jewish law.

Gemara. The Talmud.

X-mas. An expression used by some Jews to avoid the word "Christ."

Davened. Prayed.

Mincha. Afternoon prayers.

Bracha. Blessing.

Siddur. Prayer book.

Se'if, literally "article." Topical subdivision in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

Niftar. Deceased.

He has no name yet. It is customary among Ashkenazi Jews to name babies after deceased relatives.

Ma'ariv. Evening prayers.

Bentched. Said Grace after Meals.

Shul. Synagogue.

Sefer. Book.

Shalom aleichem

Nittel. Christmas.

Ba'al tefila. Prayer leader.

Baruch atah, Hashem, oheiv amo Yisrael. Blessed are you, God, who loves his people Israel.

Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad. Listen Yisrael: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Shemone Esrei, literally "eighteen." Nineteen-blessing prayer central to Jewish liturgy.

Kollel. Institute for full-time Talmud study. (Yes, imamother, that was the reference to kollel. Sorry so anticlimactic. Such is the nature of research.)

Alef-beis. The Hebrew alphabet.

Chavruta, also chavrusa, literally "friend." Paired study session.

Tefachim. Halachic measurement of a handbreadth.

Patur. Exempt.

Samach-beis. Page 62.

Perek. Chapter.

Rebbi. Teacher.

Mitzvah. Commandment.

Chachamim. Sages.

Amos, also amot. Halachic measurement of a cubit.

Pirsum haneis. Advertising of the miracle.

Makkos. The Ten Plagues.

Chumashim. Five Books of Moses.

Goy. Non-Jew.

Kiddush. Blessing over wine.

Sefer Torah. Torah scroll.

Leining. Cantillation.

Mezuzos, literally "doorposts." Text affixed to a doorway. See Deuteronomy 6:9 and 11:20.

Note: Not that kind of "he woke up from the dream." The metaphorical kind. Honestly.