1930, Cobh, Ireland
It had all started with a damned letter. Fiona, corpulent, raven-haired and matriarch of the Walsh family, had been training her owls in the barn when one of them arrived with the mail. All her children were in the house and their excited screams had alerted her to the event. Once again, and for the sixth time in a row, a letter from the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Hogwarts, was arriving in the mailbox to state that one of Tadgh and Fiona Walsh's children had been admitted.
Bernard stood at the top of the kitchen stairs, hidden in the shadows, with his striped pyjamas and a wooden train carriage under his arm, listening intently to the argument taking place at the table.
"What will they do with our babes there, eh? Dress them in the same clothes and force them to stay away from their families for a year. That's unacceptable."
"Tadgh, try to understand. This is the sixth letter we've received. They accept all of them, and when Bernie and Seán show any signs of magic, I'm sure they will receive theirs as well. It's a huge opportunity…"
He heard sighs and pots and pans, the sound of the newspaper being opened, the creak of the cupboard door and liquid being poured.
"Are we going to fight every time one turns eleven?" His mother said in a tired tone.
"No child of mine will go to Hogwarts. And that's my final word, Fiona."
"Well, I'm not finished!"
"The Kenmare Kestrel are playing this Sunday."
"Cornelia deserves a proper school, more friends her age to open her mind and explore new possibilities. Just like our other nine children. Stop reading the paper!"
"It's too dangerous! Don't you understand?"
Arms wrapped around him from behind, and he was about to scream if it weren't for a hand that prevented him from doing so. He kicked with his bare feet for his older sister to release him from her grip, but was unsuccessful.
"For an eight-year-old, you have a lot of strength." Walsh's second oldest daughter whispered to him. "Come on, you must learn not to meddle." Muireann carried her little brother up the stairs to the alcove, where the beds of the 3 younger brothers Brian, Bernard and the youngest Seán were located.
"Let go of me, you filthy slug!" whined Bernard as he stuck the toy train in her back. Seán came out from under his sheets to find out what was going on and immediately sat up to go to his brother's side. "We didn't read anything today..." reproached Bernard to his sister shyly once he set him down on his mattress.
"That! You said you'd help us with Grumble the Grubby Goat today!" Seán pointed out as he tried to pry the wooden train out of Bernard's hands. Muireann sighed.
"I know what I said but look at everything that's happened... Pa and Paddy are so busy in the workshop they've even asked me to come along, I've spent the morning polishing broomsticks, I'm still learning how to apparate and Ma's asked me to take 3 of her owls to Cork... and Imogen was supposed to do that but she's nowhere to be found." Bernie and Seán listened to her intently. They both looked at each other with a knowing smile.
"We know where Imogen is..." sang Bernard with amused eyes. His sister watched them as they laughed together. "She's down at the river with O'Carroll's nephew." He confessed to her in a whisper.
"The Muggle who sells eggs at the market?" They both nodded. "And how did you little monsters know that?" They both laughed and hid together under the covers, kicking and pawing to keep their sister from uncovering them.
"We've seen them, haven't we Brian?" Muireann noticed him for the first time and went over to tuck him in. He turned with a grunt and a shy "yes."
"You know perfectly well that you can't leave the grounds of the house except to..."
"To go to classes!" Completed Bernard, "but it's just that we saw them there, but Imogen didn't walk us home! She went to the other side of the woods..."
The brothers' smiles faded as they saw their sister's worried face. Without a word, she went about blowing out the candles and carried Seán to his mattress and then tucked him in. "Don't let them find out that you've biked back alone from Marlogue." She chortled once everything was dark. "Good night."
"Good night, Muireann!" the three brothers repeated at the same time.
As soon as the door closed behind his sister's skirt, Bernard darted for the small window that let in a shaft of moonlight. He hung as best he could on his forearms to inspect the driveway to the house. Imogen had not yet arrived.
"Bernie! You're going to get caught!" Whispered Seán.
"Yeah, because of you! Don't talk!"
He climbed down from the window and tiptoed over to the door, sticking his ear against it. Way clear.
He crept out into the hallway and managed to make his way down to the second floor, avoiding the rotten step. Before he could continue down to spy on his parents again, he heard a groan coming from one of the doors. He waited, unmoving, for fear of being discovered for the second time that night, but there was no one in the hallway.
He approached the door with a green ribbon on the knob and heard someone sniffle.
"Lili?" he mumbled as he turned the knob. Cornelia and Jane, two of the middle sisters, shared a tiny room that only held two small beds. Jane used her numerous storybooks as a small table to support a candle that barely lit the room. While she was reading, Cornelia was bursting into desperate tears.
Forgetting his mission of espionage, Bernard rushed to his older sister's bed to succor her. "Lili, what's wrong?" he asked as he sat up, crossing his legs.
Holding her handkerchief tightly, Cornelia managed to calm herself so she could talk. "Pa won't let me go to Scotland." The three siblings heard the door creak again and held their breath.
Seán's little head popped up with a remorseful expression. He closed the door and climbed onto Jane's bed with difficulty. "Pa says we all have to study at Marlogue. That they won't teach us useful things at school."
"And what would he know? If he's never been to school..." Jane pointed, pushing her blonde curls away from her face.
"That's what I told him, but he got mad and now he's yelling with Mam downstairs. And then I told him that I want to be an alchemist when I grow up, like Aunt Arabella, and that they don't teach me alchemy in the forest, that I have to go to school."
"What is Al-che-mis, Lili?" asked Bernard, pronouncing the word for the first time.
"It's a person who studies ancient magic and properties of the elements." She recited the definition from memory. "And they teach it to you in school."
Bernard looked at his sister with wide eyes, wondering if, perhaps, in a few years his father would forget that he didn't like school and he would have the opportunity to go to that place his sister talked so much about but which none of the people in that house had ever seen with their own eyes.
"And what's it like?" Seán asked in a whisper. Cornelia's face lit up for an instant, but she brought her eyes to the door nervously. She climbed off the bed and ducked under it, dragging her white nightgown along the wooden planks. From under the mattress, she pulled out a crumpled sheet of parchment which she unfolded once she had climbed back into bed.
It was a pencil drawing of a castle with two smiling people in front of it.
"It's a huge castle, very very old, it has ghosts and creatures from all over the world!"
"Like dragons?" Seán moved closer to inspect the drawing, treating it as an accurate blueprint of the place she was describing.
"Yes. And sea monsters, too." Jane gasped at her sister's description.
"That's why Pa doesn't want us to go; it looks dangerous..."
"Well, when the letter comes to you, you tell him you don't want to go, so he'll love you more..." her sister attacked.
Bernard tugged at her nightgown to get her attention.
"Maybe we can change his mind if he sees how much you want to go." Cornelia shook her head, eyes filling with tears again.
"He wouldn't even let Imogen go, and she's the oldest of us all..." pointed out Jane.
"Nor Paddy... and he's very smart." Seán whispered.
Bernard was thoughtful; Cornelia was very good and very clever, (not as smart as Muireann, but that was because Ann was so much older), she always left him her pencils, and gave him part of her breakfast if he was hungry. She always taught him the words she learned in her Circle in the woods, even if they were for grown-ups, and she never tattled when she saw him up on the roof of Mom's barn.
If any child in the Walsh family deserved to go to Hogwarts School, it was Cornelia.
"Come on!" said Bernie, jumping out of bed.
"No! It's no use. Besides, in the letter it said I need... a lot of very expensive things, and also a wand, and of that we don't have."
"Let's send a letter to Aunt Arabella! I'm sure she has things you can use." Bernard insisted. "Wait here!"
Not caring that it was nighttime, and he was supposed to be in bed, Bernard ran upstairs holding onto his pyjama pants, reached the alcove, and dropped to his knees in front of the window with a resounding thud. He ignored Brian complaining about the noise and carefully lifted the wooden board in front of him. He rummaged through the dust, fumbling with a jar, his nail with a weird symbol on it, a piece of candy he was saving for a special occasion, and finally his little cloth bag.
Leaving everything in its place, he clutched the pouch and stopped dead in his tracks.
Even from the alcove, he could hear his father roaring in the kitchen.
Imogen had arrived home.
In the blink of an eye, the whole family was awake and attentive to what was about to happen. Bernard and Brian went downstairs to join their siblings on the second floor, and sat next to Seán, peering through the bars. Cornelia and Jane watched from above. From there, they saw Muireann, Adeline and Collin watch from the second-floor staircase and they all heeded Paddy, who from the hallway leading to the kitchen, pointed his finger at them to keep quiet.
"And what's that supposed to mean, Imogen?"
"Well, what I told you, Ma, that we're getting married."
Bernard's eyes widened, and he covered his mouth with the palm of his hand.
"And what are you going to live on? He hasn't got a job and neither have you."
"He does have a job!" the older daughter defended herself, "And I'll work with him. His parents have already told him the farm will be his."
Fiona sighed. Bernard could picture her looking up at the sky as she always did when she got upset, and his father as red as a tomato.
"The last thing we need now is for you to run off with the first lad you meet because you don't want to work in the workshop!" His father accused.
"Nobody wants to work in the workshop!" his daughter shouted as her mother tried to calm her down. "What do you think? That Patrick would rather cut broom hairs instead of being in the harbour, which is what he likes?"
"Leave your brother out of this, Imogen, we're talking about you going off with a boy we don't know to a family we don't know." Stated her mother in a serious tone.
"It's Finn O'Carroll, Mum."
"A Muggle!" shouted her father, growing increasingly angry, "You are minimally aware, kid, of how dangerous that is? The blood supremacist groups, the attacks everywhere..."
"That maniac is behind bars. He won't do..."
"He's free, Imogen!" her father blurted out, to suddenly lower his voice and whisper loudly, "and there's an anti-Muggle group here in Cobh! We saw them hanging around the store. So don't tell me you're going to put yourself in danger just for that lad, because I will not allow it."
What was said next in that kitchen, Bernard didn't get to hear. He saw his sister's jet hair rush past Paddy, only to return with the same rage, heard the shouts of his parents calling for her to come back and the kitchen door opening and closing loudly.
And in that stony silence left behind by Imogen, Bernard wondered if that had been the last time he would see his sister.
Gradually, the whole family dispersed after the heated event in the kitchen and each Walsh sibling disappeared into their rooms. All except Bernard, who remained glued to the banister and stroking his little cloth bag.
This was their chance. They couldn't say no.
He slipped downstairs, knowing that only his mother was in the kitchen making tea, as his father had gone after Imogen in a fit of rage. He plucked up his courage and stepped out of the darkness of the hallway so that the light from the kitchen would let him see.
Fiona was sitting, nursing a steaming cup, and was startled to see him.
"Bernie. You should go to bed." She said seriously, with no room for argument. Instead of replying, Bernard boldly approached with an outstretched arm, handing her the cloth sachet. "And what is this?" she sighed exhaustedly.
Four sickles fell into her palm.
"Mam...it's for Cornelia to go to school, so she can have a wand." He said in a whisper.
Seeing that her mother didn't respond, he began to sway back and forth on his feet. "And… and for books too, if that's enough. She wants to be al-che-mis, like Aunt Arabella, and see water dragons and... and... and... more things."
His mother's eyes glazed over, and Bernard wondered if he should sell his wooden train, perhaps for parts, so he would earn more.
"Oh, my sweet boy." She held out her arms for him to come closer and wrapped him in a warm but tight embrace. And as he caught his breath and shook off his mother's grip, something wet touched his nose.
It wasn't her tears, they couldn't be that cold. Fiona looked up and then at her second youngest son, who, from one moment to the next and driven by the upsetting feelings of that night, had caused fine snowflakes to fall on them. "Oh, Mo stoirín." She sighed and crushed him in her arms again.
Bernard, not quite understanding what was going on, let himself be protected in that embrace, thinking about whether perhaps he should save a lot more for when his own letter arrived.