JKR owns HP

To Guest: I am implying that the Zellers were childless for a little over twenty years of marriage before Shoshana was born and that Baila Rochel died in childbirth. Does that clear things up?

To Yitzchak Moshe: See note to Chapter 8.

Note: In Hebrew, the name Dov rhymes with grove, means "bear," and is exclusively male.

Disclaimers: For the kosher status of asparagus, CYLOR. Opinions expressed are those of the characters, unless otherwise noted. The October weather patterns depicted in this chapter are probably unrealistic for the Scottish Highlands, but I'm lazy like that.

These are the names of the children of Yisrael who came down to Egypt… (Exodus 1:1)

Dear Yehuda,

How are you settling in? I'm sorry we didn't write back with your last letter, but things were a bit hectic here without Mummy. Saba Reuven is still in the hospital, but he's doing much better. We hope he will be well enough to fly in time for the bar mitzvah! Savta sends her best.

There was some more family news—Brochie had lost her first tooth, Eliyohu had drawn some more pictures for him to hang in his room—and then in the last paragraph, an answer that wasn't really an answer.

Please don't worry about what the letter said or didn't say—it was written for your teachers, not for you. Everyone has a job to do in this world. Your job is to learn to control what Hashem gave you,to try your best, to make a kiddush Hashem and to shteig. Our job is to be your parents, and your parents stand up for you, as best as they can.

We love you, Yehuda.

Tatty and Mummy

He stood still in the hallway outside the library, his breath stuck in his throat. There was something about seeing those words—we love you, Yehuda—written out, and knowing that his father had put the tip of the pen to the paper and written that, thinking of him…

He jolted himself to awareness. How long had he been staring at the letter, when he had a job to do? He folded the letter and pushed open the door of the library.

So who was the last one who you told? Is he still here, at Hogwarts?

The last one? You're going back some fifty years, now. And who says it was a he?

When you didn't know the answer to a question, the only thing to do was find a book that did. He approached Madam Pince's desk and cleared his throat softly. "Do you know where I can find a list of the people who were at Hogwarts fifty years ago?"

"Fifty years ago?" Madam Pince squinted at him suspiciously. "Why? For a particular student?"

"No," he said, then reconsidered. "Well, yes. But I don't know who. I just know that they were here fifty years ago."

Madam Pince was not listening. Her shoulders had relaxed the second he had said "no." She walked away into the labyrinth of bookshelves, and he hurried after her. "Here," she said finally. "Try the Daily Prophet archives." And she was gone.

He tilted his head up to see rows and rows of matching leather-bound spines, looking rather like a Shas, each stamped with gold letters: The Daily Prophet, followed by months and years. That was a newspaper; some of the other students took it at the breakfast table, he remembered, delivered by subscription owls who they had to pay or risk getting pecked.

All right, then. Fifty years ago—ninety-one minus fifty meant the other Jewish student had come to Hogwarts in 1941, or maybe 1942, if the Sorting Hat had meant exactly fifty years ago. His fingers skimmed the spines until he found September-October 1941. He pulled it off the shelf, along with the next five for good measure, and found a seat in the corner furthest from the door, where no one would see him.

NOTT REPUDIATES SACRED 28!

The headline punched him in the face, all-capitals gibberish. Repudiate, that was a new word. The article, in smaller letters, explained: Cantankerus Nott has denied publishing the notorious "Pure-Blood Directory." Ah, it meant to deny. He moved down the paper, scanning the pages excitedly, glossing over the historical things—he could always read them later—and instructing his eyes to light on any Jewish names, any telltale –stein or –witz, with the precision of picking the onions out of an omelet, mentally cataloguing each surname as it passed. There was a Spencer-Moon in the Ministry, who had succeeded a Fawley and was rather better-liked. At the back, in the society pages, there was a marriage announcement for Abraxas Malfoy and Flavia Selwyn, Slytherin '34 (Draco's grandparents, perhaps?) and another for Duncan Inverness, Gryffindor '36, and Edna Breckenridge, Ravenclaw '37, and then that was the end of that week's Daily Prophet. No Jews. He moaned softly and let his head fall onto the pile. There was nothing Jewish about any of it.

But when had anything at Hogwarts ever been? Had he really expected to see "Meir Goldstein" or "Chaya Kizelnik" jump out at him? No, this was going to take time. A lot of careful reading, a lot of taking books down and re-shelving them. It would have to be his project.

A project—his project. A big, long project to work at over the year. A smile spread across his face as he opened the next volume.

It was perfectly reasonable, that there were no Jewish surnames in the paper. If the last Jewish person had come fifty years ago, they would have been eleven years old in 1941, and unlikely to make the news. There were a few mentions of the school—a broomstick company named Ellerby & Spudmore had released something called the Tinderblast, and Hogwarts had made an order—and mentions of people being announced as Head Boy and Head Girl. It might be years before they did something remarkable enough to get into the paper.

In spite of this, he drank in page after page with fascination. It was a glimpse of the world behind Diagon Alley, the real wizards, all the names that floated around Hogwarts. First the Malfoys; then in one paper's society pages, he found a marriage announcement for a Septimus Weasley, Gryffindor '34, and Cedrella Black, Slytherin '35. (He supposed Black could be a Jewish name, not that the Daily Prophet would find it notable: in 1942 his mother's parents had been in Dachau and Auschwitz, and his father's newly-arrived refugees, but no matter how hard he looked all he could find was one tiny news article in the corner of the third page about Muggles continuing to kill each other in Transylvania.) When he got to Basil Brown, Hufflepuff '38, and Dove Montgomery, Slytherin '38, he stopped short—he couldn't tell which was the boy and which the girl. (There were a lot of odd names at Hogwarts, even by goyish standards. He had seen basil in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and he'd heard of girls being called Rose or Daisy and there was a Gryffindor called Lavender, but Basil, that was one for the books.) Montgomery wasn't a Jewish last name, but Dove! Whoever heard of a goy called Dove? It had to be. He smoothed the sheet of parchment and added the names beneath the Blacks'.

He turned to the next article: St. Mungo's announces new apprentice Healers. He scanned for a surname, and there was one—a Smethwyck, who was quoted as looking forward to broadening his knowledge of charms-based remedies. Smethwyck, who was voted president of Hogwarts' Potions Club in his fifth year—

"What are you looking at?" Michael asked.

He shut the newspaper hurriedly. "Just—things." Somehow he did not want Michael to know what he was doing in the library—or worse, Terry. They would feel like they weren't enough for him, that even someone from fifty years ago would be a better friend just because they were Jewish, and it was worse because it was true. He tucked the parchment into his hand as he left. Repudiate meant to deny. Cedrella Black, Dove Montgomery—it was a place to start.

The moon waned; Tishrei was coming. After he explained what he needed to Michael, they spent late afternoons outside on the grass with Ferric, sending him back and forth with increasingly heavy objects gripped in his talons—a raw egg, an apple, a textbook, a broomstick—until he was mostly confident in the owl's ability to deliver his arba minim. He expressed this in his next letter to Rabbi Zeller, and the next morning at breakfast Ferric swooped in with a cloud of birds and dropped into his lap a lemon and a bundle of asparagus, tied together with twine.

"What," Michael said, "is that?"

He could only laugh helplessly, spluttering an inarticulate explanation between his giggles. He had never had asparagus before, but it looked sort of like broccoli, so he boiled it in water and sprinkled salt on top, like his mother would, and ate it with salmon for lunch.

If only Rosh Hashanah had been a Tuesday or Wednesday, he thought wistfully: then he could go to Professor Flitwick after class, as though it were an afterthought. Instead, he had to come down special, to present himself for approval like Yom Tov was a shirt he could change.

He went through Rosh Hashanah in his head as he packed: Shabbos shoes, a shirt for Monday, a shirt for Tuesday, his machzor. He threw in the tikkun too; maybe someone would listen to his leining and make sure all his practicing was being done correctly. It felt like he should make some sort of announcement to the others, so they wouldn't think he was sneaking off, but perhaps that would seem show-offy. He shouldered his overnight bag and quietly went downstairs to meet Professor Snape.

But when he knocked on the door this time, that Lubavitch bloke reacted instantaneously: he grabbed his wrist, yanked him into the house, and shut the door in Snape's face. Zalman, that was his name, Zalman Bronstein, and Yehuda could only gape at him, stunned.

"Baruch Hashem; I was davening that you'd come back. I was telling my wife, how could we have let you walk out of here on Purim with that man, there was something weird about him and we were mamesh kicking ourselves, but baruch Hashem everything will be fine—Yehuda, right?"

"Er…yes?" The grip on his wrist felt like a trap. He pulled away gently, and Zalman let him go. "Everything will be okay, you don't have to worry. I'll call the police and we'll get this all sorted out."

"No!" he said. Zalmanraised an eyebrow. He tried to calm himself. "No, that's all right. Really, I'm fine. Everything's all right. My parents know I'm here, and I went home for the summer and I write letters to my rav and everything. It's just that I go to school near here, and they let me come for some of the Yamim Tovim. That man, he's my teacher. It's really all right. I promise."

"What school?" Zalman said skeptically. "We're in the middle of Yehupitzville."

A yeshiva in America—but that was an obvious lie, from where he stood. He opened his mouth and shut it again, aware of the ticking seconds, and finally settled on the truth. "I'm not allowed to say."

Now the concern was mixed with amusement. "MI6 recruits ten-year-olds?"

"I'm twelve," he said indignantly. It was only five minutes later, as he raised his hand to knock on the door of the room where he would be sleeping, that he realized he hadn't contradicted the part where Zalman thought he was MI6. That might be funny.

"Come in!"

He was surprised to see Gavriel there, all dressed for Yom Tov; he'd thought for something as important as Rosh Hashanah there would be maybe a few jeans-wearing not-frum people from the village, nobody real. "You're a mashgiach, aren't you? They make you work on Rosh Hashanah?"

"Of course not."

"So why are you here for Yom Tov?"

He knew it was the wrong thing to say, because Gavriel turned away, his face in the shadows. "I like it better here," he said curtly. The next words sputtered out of him like a burst water valve. "There's enough people at home. It doesn't matter if I show up there, but if I stay here, it's one more toward a minyan. And here no one looks at me like I'm a dropout who couldn't make it in yeshiva, they need me." He sighed, deflated, dropping onto the bed, his head slumped forward into his hands. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said all that. You're just a kid."

Was he a kid?

"I suppose I am," he said slowly. "But, you know. I'm here, too."

He had been concentrating so hard on keeping the secret that it had never occurred to him that they might have something in common, and when after the makeshift Maariv he timidly asked if anyone could help him practice, Gavriel pulled up a chair and opened the tikkun and said, "Nu, where're you holding?" easily, not like an older brother, but like a friend.

Professor Snape came back exactly one and a half minutes after Havdalah, and waited on the doorstep in stony silence as Mrs. Bronstein scrambled to pack up a bag of food for Yehuda. Yehuda stood in the doorway of the kitchen, pretending not to hear Gavriel whispering in the makeshift shul behind him. "Zalman. You're letting him leave again? Did you talk to him?"

"He swore up and down that everything was fine," Zalman whispered. "Says he's MI6."

Yehuda stifled a laugh; he'd said no such thing, but it kept the secret and made him feel somewhat important. He made his goodbyes and allowed himself to be dragged out into the cold, yanked into a speeding whirlwind, and deposited painfully onto his knees on the stone floor of the entrance hall. Snape stalked off without so much as a goodbye, not that he had expected one, and he hurried upstairs to the dormitory ("What can you put in a barrel to make it lighter?"), dizzy with the whiplash of it. One minute he had been davening Maariv with Zalman and Gavriel as the girls waited in the kitchen, and the next, he was coming into his room to see Terry kneel and cross himself while Stephen came out of the bath without a shirt. The door clicked shut behind him.

"Yehuda!" Terry said, scrambling to his feet. "Why didn't you tell us you were going?"

He let his bag fall with a thunk, then remembered the machzorim inside and hauled it up onto his bed. "What did I miss?"

Sometimes it felt like he'd spent more time at Hogwarts making up classes than he did sitting in them: they had begun learning the theories of Memory Charms on the Friday before he'd left, and he now owed Professor Flitwick a two-foot essay on the ethical regulations of non-emergency Memory Charms, and Professor Snape a list of the uses of flobberworm mucus in Potions. In Transfiguration they were going to start on rabbits, which meant he had to copy over and memorize all the formulas, and ask Professor McGonagall for a rat to practice on. At least Lockhart had spent his class ranking his favorite hairstyles, which Yehuda did not bother to make up. Exams or no exams, no one was going to make him treat hairstyles like it was important.

Around him, the other boys were putting out their lamps, getting into bed, except him. Michael was shuffling through his nightstand. "Here's yesterday's Potions, and this is McGonagall's. If you're really going to make a protest out of Defense, well, that's on you. Oi, Terry, give him your Charms notes."

"Where're yours?"

"Didn't take any," Michael said, yawning. He flopped back against his pillows. "I know the ethical regulations of non-emergency Memory Charms in my sleep. My father does them all the time. Think Flitwick would let him come in to demonstrate?"

"Go to sleep," Stephen said. He pulled his curtains shut. "Good night."

"'Night." Kevin's voice was muffled.

Terry gave him the notes, and then he too pulled the blankets over his head. Yehuda sighed and looked down at the stack of pages. Gmar chasima tova to me, he thought. There was no clock in the dormitory rooms, which was probably for the best. It was many minutes later when he finally set the pages on the nightstand and curled up on the bed, not bothering to unpack or even to put on pajamas.

At home, this time of year, he would be helping to build the sukkah. He wasn't bar mitzvah yet, but Rabbi Zeller had told him to try. And that meant he had to knock on an office door again. Explain a holiday again. Terry could be annoying, but at least he'd heard of the Torah, even if he called it a bible.

If there was anything worse than sitting in front of Professor Flitwick's desk, it was shrinking into the corner of the staff room while the professors, one after another, debated the problem that was his seven-day hut.

"We can't put him on the Astronomy Tower," Professor Sinistra objected. "He'd be a distraction to the class, and he'd never get any sleep. Isn't there a balcony anywhere?"

Not any open ones, he wanted to say. The stone jutted out on top of all of them, every single one. He had come prepared, to ask for yet another strange thing—he'd scouted out the building, pushing open every door, walking down hallways and moving staircases until his ankles hurt. Outdoors, Yehuda thought, outdoors, outdoors, somebody say outdoors.

There was a lot of embarrassing go-round as they all tried to rearrange their routines for him—Madam Hooch even offered the Quidditch pitch, and was roundly dismissed—before Professor McGonagall suggested the back of Hagrid's yard, where there was open-air space and he could be in sight of Hagrid's cabin.

"That's practically in the forest," said the dark-haired girl teacher. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Hagrid's heart is in the right place," Professor Flitwick said. "Yehuda will be in good hands."

Yehuda sat quietly, his own hands folded in his lap. Michael and Terry had never even stepped inside Dumbledore's office, he thought. People always talked about Harry Potter, who had somehow stopped Voldemort when he was a baby, but he, Yehuda, had nothing special, no great mystery or talent, to justify all the time they had to spend talking about him.

"D'ye do this often?" Hagrid asked, hammering in the final nail.

Yehuda didn't answer. His shoulders ached with the effort of holding the corners together, the sweat and strain a muscle memory of home. No Sholom to brace against, no Esti to bring him water—Hagrid had offered, looking sideways at a pink flowery umbrella, to give the construction a little help, but he had said no, unsure if that counted as really building it. His Kitzur lay on the ground next to them, not quite in the dirt: he had put one of Terry's Lockhart books underneath, and his father's worksheet held the place. But as he looked at the makeshift structure, he didn't bother to open it: the walls were certainly more than seven tefachim wide, and it was taller than him, so that was all right.

Hagrid reached for his umbrella, leaning against the cottage. "Could do with summat to keep yeh dry, jus' in case."

"No, don't!" he said quickly. If the covering is so thick that a heavy rain couldn't get in, the structure is essentially a house, and is invalid. "Just leave it. It's…not allowed."

"Huh?" Hagrid scratched his head. "Well, all righ'then."

Yehuda gathered armfuls of leafy branches and stood on tiptoe, his heart pounding with excitement. When he had finished placing each bit of schach, he stood at a distance to admire it. It was a real sukkah, like in a picture, wood and green. He ducked inside, stooping to grab the stack of books. Around him, the four wooden walls smelled like fresh grass and forest, and sunlight filtered in through the branches overhead. He plopped himself down onto the squashy purple sleeping bag Professor Flitwick had conjured for him, and opened his notebook.

Dear Rabbi Zeller,

I know that l'chatchila you shouldn't make a sukkah in a way that rain can't get in, but could I put a spell on the schach that makes the rain bounce off it?

"Yehuda?" Bonk-bonk. Bonk-bonk.The knocks made the door bounce. "Yehuda, are you in there?"

He flipped the notebook closed. "Come in!"

Michael's head peeked between the door and the frame. His eyes widened as he took in the plywood and greenery. "Whoa. It's almost like you're camping, isn't it?"

"You can come in all the way if you want," he said, amused.

"All of us?"

He tried not to stare as Michael opened the door as far as it would go and ushered in Stephen, Mandy, and Kevin, filling up the sukkah. The five of them jostled against each other and the paneled walls. Kevin's elbow was in the doorway.

"Are you really going to sleep out here?" Mandy asked incredulously. "It's so close to the forest. What if you get eaten by a werewolf?"

"Hagrid's patch has got Anti-Intruder Jinxes all around," he said. "I'll be all right. And I'm going to cast Colloportus before I go to bed, so if you were planning to sneak out and visit me at night, you won't be able to get in." (Michael sniggered into the palm of his hand; Mandy glared at him and snapped, "Shut it, you know what he meant." He looked from one to the other confusedly, and in lieu of understanding opted to keep talking.) "I hope I get up on time, though, without the morning bell."

"You could ask Hagrid to wake you up," Stephen suggested. "But you don't come to class on your holidays anyway, right?"

"That's right. Except—" Chol Hamoed was too confusing to explain, it was a holiday, it wasn't a holiday, he had to say something else. "I hope it doesn't rain."

"Would be a shame, we've got the pitch booked for Quidditch practice," Michael said. "D'you want to go and watch with me?"

When they left for lunch a few minutes later, squeezing through the door to scramble back up to the castle, Yehuda made a mental note to add to his letter: 2. Can I go watch a Quidditch game on Shabbos or Yom Tov?

Over the next few days, Ferric began to glare when Yehuda approached, because every time it was another job, carrying back and forth his letters, Rabbi Zeller's responses, and once a photocopied page from the Mishnah Berurah. Rabbi Zeller wanted him to explain how to make rain bounce off the schach, so he could understand the halachic implications of the sh'ayla, as well as what Quidditch was. He couldn't answer that one, since he couldn't make heads or tails of the game even with Michael's commentary, but he found rain-repelling charms in the common room library, in the indices of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3 and The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4.

There's two spells you could use, he wrote, feeling quite grown up. #1 - Imperturbable: it makes things jump out of the way. They have a bus that it makes buildings jump out of the way so it never gets in an accident, or you can put it on a window so no one can throw rocks at it. #2 - Impervius: it only works on rain or fog. It makes water not stick to things. They put it on glasses when it rains, so they don't get wet…in the end the discussion was just theoretical—it stayed miraculously dry the entire week—but no more theoretical than the guardian of a pen using it as an ice pick and being held liable for the damage.

The first night was odd—leaving the common room in his pajamas and dressing gown, his candles burning out of sight in the dormitory. The new prefect, a fifth-year boy called Sherwood, marched at his side like an honor guard, carrying Yehuda's clothes for tomorrow under one arm, his wand illuminating the path in front of them.

When they got in sight of Hagrid's backyard, he paused. There was his little sukkah, standing in the shadow of the great stone castle. The sight brought a strange, choking lump to his throat.

"Well, here we are."

Sherwood sounded uncertain, like he couldn't believe Professor Flitwick had been serious. Yehuda placed his pile of clothing neatly in the corner—that would be his nightstand—and crawled awkwardly into the purple sleeping bag under the prefect's watchful gaze. The ground was soft and spongy under him.

When Sherwood finally left, after Yehuda reassured him a thousand times that he would be all right, he rolled over and stared at the stars through the dark leaves overhead. Tonight, in Golders Green, his father and Sholom would be sleeping in the sukkah too, and if he closed his eyes he could imagine that he was there with them.

The strangeness never wore off. He woke up with the sun, hearing birdsong from a distance. Every morning he went into the Great Hall to collect his bread or fish or grilled vegetables, and brought it back outside to balance the plate on his lap, cross-legged on the grass inside the sukkah. Sometimes Michael joined him, but he ran in and out of the building so often that he finally just left his jacket on over his robes all day, even in class. It looked odd—out of the corner of his eye, it always felt like someone was laughing at him. When he made Havdalah on the last day, alone in the night breeze, he felt no sadness, only a resigned sort of numbness. The spider webs and skeletons had already begun to appear in the corners of the corridors, signaling the end of October. He had overstayed his welcome.

All the next week, Terry seemed a bit shifty, checking the window every few seconds as Yehuda had for Rabbi Zeller's letters. Then one afternoon Yehuda opened the dormitory door, and Terry gasped and flung himself over something, blocking it from view.

"Sorry!" Yehuda blurted. He backed out into the stairwell. "I didn't mean—should I come back later?"

Terry sat up, revealing a white bakery box. "No, you can look." He flipped open the box to reveal a round chocolate cake, the words Happy Birthday Benjamin piped across the top in white cursive. "I thought you were my brother. My parents ordered this for him as a surprise. I'm going to bring it down for the feast tonight."

"Oh," Yehuda said. "Is he twelve already?"

Terry looked slightly embarrassed. "I'll be thirteen in January! It's not like we're the same age. I've got to look out for him, I'm the oldest."

And you're worried because he's in Slytherin, Yehuda thought but did not say. Just yesterday he had sat in the common room practicing his Engorgement Charm as Benjamin had insisted, ever so politely, that Slytherin was not so bad, that if you wrote off people just for being pureblood you'd have to write off their mum, but Terry had remained unconvinced. "That boy Harper called you 'son of a blood traitor' yesterday!"

"Well, yes," Benjamin had said reluctantly, "he can be a git. But Mercy Montgomery's pureblood, too, and she told him to shove off. You see? There's some nice people and some gits in every House."

Then, and now, Yehuda had been inclined to agree. After all, he himself had once thought of Terry as a git, and before coming to Hogwarts, he had been quite afraid of goyim. It turned out that they were just like his class at Torah Temima: some nice people, and some gits. It was an unsettling thought.

Downstairs, they took their seats at the dinner, but it was no ordinary dinner. There were real black bats fluttering spookily in the vaulted ceiling of the Great Hall, completely incongruous with the gold plates and glowing candles, until Yehuda realized that some of that glow was coming from giant carved pumpkins. Sukkos at least had a story from the Torah to give a reason for the strange things he did for it. This, whatever this was, had no rhyme or reason.

"Dumbledore's got a troupe of dancing skeletons," Michael said. "That's what Wayne told me."

Skeletons? No, this holiday would never make sense.

Benjamin slid into the seat opposite Terry. "Leo's got dragon pox," he announced, brandishing a piece of paper. "And Mum and Dad sent me a birthday card."

"Did they?" Terry said nervously, moving closer to Yehuda to disguise the boxed birthday cake between them.

Michael looked up, confusion written over his furrowed brows. "Your Muggle brother? I thought Muggles can't get dragon pox. Isn't it a pure-blood thing?"

Terry curled a hand around the box and spoke too quickly to be casual. "Well, our mother's pure-blood, so I suppose that makes Leo a Squib, technically? He can see moving pictures and everything. And that's just a myth about dragon pox; you just need to have a parent who's pure-blood."

"We both had it in primary school," Benjamin said, jerking a thumb from himself to Terry, "and wasn't that a treat to explain to the teachers."

"Boot!" It was the Slytherin prefect, the Head Girl this time. "What are you doing here? All the first-years should be with their Houses, come on—"

"Oh, well," Benjamin said. "I'll see you later, then, Terry?"

All things considered, Halloween wasn't much of a holiday, Yehuda thought. Nobody seemed to be able to tell him what it celebrated, not that it was very celebratory with all the skeletons and ghastly carved pumpkins. Nobody made a speech that pretended something Christian; Terry didn't even sneak out to church, although he did go over to the Slytherin table mid-meal to present Benjamin's birthday cake. Just food, that was all it was. When Dumbledore dismissed them, it was like any other day: four Houses jostling for the door, half of them drifting up the staircase, and the Slytherins toward the dungeons.

"Tell Mum and Dad thanks for the cake," Benjamin said. He raised a hand and nodded at them. "Good night Michael, good night Yehuda."

"Did you see those bats?" Michael said excitedly, as they headed for bed. "There ought to have been more ghosts, though, for Hallo—what's going on?"

Where the second-floor corridor should have been was a logjam of people standing wall to wall, blocking them from going any further. Yehuda stood on tiptoe. There were three people standing at the middle—Ron Weasley, he could tell the red hair even from here, so of course the other two were Harry Potter and Hermione Granger—standing stock still, staring at letters—huge, bold letters shining on the wall, reflected in a puddle of water on the stone floor.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.

"Is that a dead cat?" Michael whispered.

Yehuda gasped. Filch's cat hung from the torch bracket, stiff and unmoving. For a moment, a ghastly silence froze the corridor, only the shuffling of feet, and there was no air in his lungs.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware!" It was Draco Malfoy. He shouldered his way through the crowd opposite and pointed smugly at the wall. "You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

Stephen gasped. Yehuda nudged Michael. "What's a mudblood?"

Michael took a deep breath, refusing to meet his gaze. But before he could answer, Filch's elbow hit him in the temple as he batted through the thicket of students. "What's going on here? What's going on?"

Terry gripped Yehuda's arm. "Let's get out of here."

It was too late; the caretaker's eyes fell on the far wall. "My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?" He jabbed a finger at Harry Potter, who quailed and stumbled backward. "You!" he shouted. "You—you've murdered my cat! You killed her! I'll kill you!"

"Argus."

Silence fell. Dumbledore was there, the teachers clustered behind him like a horrified entourage. He seemed to take in the scene in a quick glance, then swept up to the wall and carefully detached the cat from the bracket, cradling her in his arms as gently as he would a baby.

"Come with me, Argus," he said. "You too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger."

Lockhart cleared his throat. "My office is nearest, Headmaster. Just upstairs—please feel free."

"Thank you, Gilderoy."

Yehuda had never heard Dumbledore sound so serious. He moved silently to let the teachers pass, and the crowd was so tight and the teachers were so close that the hems of the headmaster's robes rustled against his shoes, Professor McGonagall and Snape and Lockhart hurrying in his wake.

Glossary

Saba. Grandpa.

Bar mitzvah. The coming of age of a Jewish boy.

Savta. Grandma.

Hashem. God.

Make a kiddush Hashem. Bring honor to God through one's actions.

Shteig. Hit the books.

Tishrei. The first month of the Jewish calendar (roughly September-October).

Arba minim, literally "four species." See Leviticus 23:40.

Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish New Year.

Shabbos. Saturday.

Machzor. Holiday prayerbook.

Tikkun, short for tikkun korim, literally "guide for readers." A study guide for preparing to chant the Torah, with one column's text featuring vowel and cantillation marks, and the other the same words as they appear in the Torah scroll.

Leining. Chanting of the Torah.

Lubavitch. Affiliated with the Chabad Chasidic movement.

Baruch Hashem. Thank God.

Davening. Praying.

Mamesh. Really.

Rav. Rabbi.

Yamim Tovim, plural form of Yom Tov. Holidays.

Yehupitzville. The boondocks.

Frum. Religious.

Mashgiach. Supervisor of commercial kosher food production.

Minyan. Prayer group of ten adult Jewish men.

Maariv. Evening prayers.

Havdalah. The ceremony that marks the end of the Sabbath.

Shul. Synagogue.

Gmar chasima tova, roughly "May you be inscribed for good." A greeting for the days following Rosh Hashanah.

Sukkah. Outdoor plant-roofed hut built for the eponymous holiday of Sukkos.

Kitzur, short for Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. Condensed religious text of Jewish law.

Tefachim. Halachic units of measurement roughly equivalent to handbreadths.

Schach. Plant life used as the sukkah roof.

L'chatchila. Preferred in the first place but not required, similar to ab initio.

Chol Hamoed. Intermediate holiday.

Mishnah Berurah. A halachic reference book.

Halachic. Pertaining to Jewish law.

Sh'ayla. Question.

Goyim. Non-Jews.

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