A year in the life of Harry Potter
Chapter 17: August, 13
A/N:
Wanneer gaat de volgende trein naar Amsterdam Centraal vertrekken = When does the next train to Amsterdam Centraal leave
In vijftien minuten op platform 1b = In fifteen minutes on platform 1b
Bedankt = Thanks
The next morning after breakfast they went to Amsterdam again. As soon as they arrived at the central train station they made their way to the Anne Frank Huis*. They had to wait in the queue for half-an-hour, but finally they could enter.
"I never really knew about that diary of hers," Harry muttered under his breath as they entered the first room. Quotations from her diary were written on the wall.
"You've got to read it," Quentin told him. "It's totally fantastic."
The next room also had quotations on the wall, and in the third room there were television screens on the wall. In front of them stood poles with phone receivers and buttons on which the names of different languages stood. Quentin took one of them and pressed the button labeled English. Severus and Lucy did the same. Harry, not knowing what else to do, did what they did. Through the receiver he listened to a woman telling the story of Anne Frank, why she and her family went into hiding and what happened.
Next came a corridor leading to the back of the house, and then another room. There were glass boxes on top of tables showing varies artefacts from the people in hiding and their helpers.
Then there was a staircase leading to the second floor. There were more rooms, more things on show, more quotations on the walls. And then they came to the room with the book case.
"Wow," Harry whispered, entering the Annexe. "The room is quite big though," he objected, seeing Otto, Edith and Margot Frank's bedroom.
"Yes, but with furniture it's all a lot smaller," Quentin breathed. She moved on to Anne Frank and Fritz Pfeffer's bedroom and Harry followed her. Then came a small bathroom, a "leg-breaking" staircase. On the last floor there was the kitchen/Mr. and Mrs. van Pels's bedroom and Peter van Pels's bedroom. There was a latter leading up to the attic but there was a piece of glass over it so that you couldn't go up.
"And to think that they lived in here for a bit over two years," Harry said as they went into the new-looking corridor leading away from the Annexe. They came to a white room with even more television screens showing different things, e.g. an interview with Hannah Goslar (one of Anne's friends) and one with Otto Frank. The last room had glass boxes in it showing things like Anne's original diary, many versions of the book The Diary of a Young Girl with different book covers and in many, many different languages, etc. etc. Then there was a metal staircase leading downstairs again. There was the Anne Frank House Cafe, the Museum Bookshop and computer screens on which you could learn more about the people in hiding and their helpers, 263 Prinsengracht, the holocaust and other things.
"Wow," Harry said after they met Severus and Lucy again and exited the house. "Wow."
"Now let us go to the Van Gogh Museum!" Quentin said. "I want to make a photograph."
Harry gave her an irritated look.
"You'll see it when we arrive there," Severus smirked, already knowing what his daughter wanted.
Three quarters of an hour later they arrived there, and Harry understood instantly. On a shield on the building of the Van Gogh Museum stood: Paulus Potterstraat 7.
"Now stand under it and I make a photo," Quentin ordered. She managede to do it so that only the word Potterstraat was on the photograph, along with Harry waving at the camera. Little did he know that later when the photograph was development it'd be moving.
* I described how it is nowadays and how much I remember from when I went there for I don't have any idea how different it was in 1991, and the same is with Leuwenhorst