Ari quickly settled into a routine at home. He davened shacharis at shul every morning, learned with his father for an hour, did some of his Hogwarts homework, and spent the afternoons playing ball with his friends until mincha.

Ari never enjoyed writing essays. His mother was one of the weirdoes who wrote for fun. She often had poems published in magazines and wrote all sorts of silly stories for Ari's personal use. Ari admitted that some writing was fun; he started writing poems for his mother's birthday every year when he was ten, and he enjoyed writing about his own experiences. The essays from school were different though. Witch burnings were an interesting topic, Ari had to admit, and while he did feel it was pointless, it wasn't for the same reasons Binns thought it was. Ari felt that it was cruel to kill people and purposely killing people who could help you is stupid. That's not what Binns wanted his essay to be about. Snape's essay wasn't any better. Ari enjoyed potions. He didn't really like to measure out ingredients, but he liked to experiment, something Snape didn't approve of. Writing a whole essay about one potion is boring. Ari wanted to write about what would happen if he would add various other ingredients to it, but for some reason, Snape got upset when Ari did things like that.

Michael was once again sending Ari constant letters. Ari got to read about Michael's summer holiday. He was doing some traveling with his family.

Terry also wrote about his family travels. Somehow, Ari didn't think either of them would be interested in the few weeks he spent in Liverpool. When Terry suggested that Ari and Michael meet him in Diagon Alley for school shopping, Ari agreed.

Dean and Ari kept up a regular correspondence about football. Dean always included funny pictures.

Ari also got his letter about the following school year, along with a Hogsmeade permission slip. He wondered if Hogsmeade visits were on Shabbos or Sunday.

One morning, Tatti mentioned that he heard on the muggle news that Sirius Black escaped jail. He explained to Ari that Black was one of the four bullies that bothered Snape. Ari wasn't too bothered by the news, but Michael and Terry both wrote to say how weird it is for someone to escape Azkaban.

A week before school started, Ari met Michael and Terry at Diagon Alley. Tatti complained that Ari shouldn't be hanging out with his not Jewish friends when he doesn't have to, but Mommy explained that it's important for Ari to have friends in school and it's not a good idea to snub them.

Michael and Terry both wanted ice cream. Ari sat and watched as they ate their treif ice cream, wishing Diagon Alley had some kosher stores. They bought their books next, and were relieved to see that all three of them were taking the same electives. They stopped off at Magical Menagerie just to look, and Michael and Terry had a good time making fun of Ari for being scared to of a crazy orange cat that was loose in the store. It wasn't until Ari commented that he has no reason to with them again, that Terry and Michael showed some signs of feeling guilty. They asked about the closest kosher restaurant and had their parents escort them there for dinner. Of course, five miles of traveling through muggle London was always entertaining.

Ari didn't see his friends again until the next week when they boarded the Hogwarts Express. Unfortunately, the journey was less pleasant than usual thanks to a dementor. Ari gasped as all the happiness was sucked out of the compartment, but luckily, the dementor didn't stay long.

"What was that?" Michael gasped.

'"I don't know," Terry said, "But whatever it is, I hope we never see it again."

After a while, the rumor reached their compartment that the creature on the train was a dementor and that Potter fainted. Ari never felt so relieved when they finally reached Hogwarts.

During the feast, Dumbledore mentioned that dementors were guarding the school against Sirius Black. Ari wondered how anyone could possibly think one crazy wizard was worse than an army of dementors.

Ari enjoyed his new classes immensely. They were the type of classes he liked best, with no foolish wand waving, to quote Professor Snape.

During the first Arithmancy class, they were told to calculate the number of their name. Ari asked if he should use his legal name, Anthony, his proper Hebrew name, Aryeh Tuvia, or his nickname, Ari. He was told to use his legal name, but decided to use all three to see if there's a difference.

Ari was the easiest to figure out. His character number was seven, his heart number was three, and his social number was four.

Next, Ari decided to figure out Anthony. After finding out whether y is a consonant or vowel, Ari realized that the only number that changed was the heart number, which changed to a nine.

Aryeh Tuvia was the last computation Ari did. This time, he got the numbers one, three and seven.

Ari decided to find out what each of them mean before deciding which one suits him best. Character wise, Ari was either a seven or a one depending on his name. There was no doubt that seven described Ari to a tee. He was bright and serious and interested in the mysterious. He decided that one doesn't describe him, and wondered about the grandfather he was named after who was also named Aryeh Tuvia Goldstein. He definitely worked with others to save as many Jews as possible during the holocaust. It didn't look like one was a good description of him.

Ari checked his heart numbers next. He had two votes for a three and one for a nine. The three sort of hinted to his sports obsession, while the nine was somewhat troubling. Ari wasn't planning on being a loner his whole life. He decided that his name is definitely not Anthony.

For social, Ari was either a four or a seven. Since seven was already his character number, Ari didn't have to look up what it meant. Ari thought the over practical was a good description of him.

Professor Vector was impressed that Ari figured out three names in the time most people figured out one. Ari explained about the Jewish concept of gematria and how he was used to doing these calculations using the Hebrew alphabet. He quickly decided that Arithmancy was his favorite class.

Runes was more challenging, but also enjoyable. Ari had to work hard and frequently look in his dictionary, but he liked the feeling of learning something different. It wasn't as good as gemara, but Ari figured that over time, he'll master it the same way. Overall, he didn't regret his two choices for electives.