Scenes from the Muggle-borns
Flying Lessons; the training field of Hogwarts:
The Hufflepuff first-years stood, curiously studying the brooms laid out in neat rows. Some of them blinked at the overcast sky arching overhead, wondering how high they were expected to fly. One, a Muggle-born young wizard named Jamal, had produced half of a jam sandwich from beneath his robes and was sharing it with his classmate, Brian, another overwhelmed Muggle-born he had met waiting on the platform for the Hogwarts Express. They quickly finished their snack as their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, grey hair and yellow eyes like a hawk.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."
Jamal glanced down at his broom. It was old, and some twigs stuck out at odd angles. Jamal thought it was terrific.
"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!"'
"UP!" everyone shouted. Jamal's broom wobbled up into his hand presently, but it was one of the few that did. Brian's had simply rolled over on the ground, and some hadn't moved at all. Brian looked down at his broom with furrowed brow, hand (still sticky with jam) extended uncertainly.
"Use the Force, Brian," Jamal intoned in an unsteadily cracking deep voice. Brian and a few others, all Muggle-born, laughed while their classmates and Madame Hooch looked on in bewilderment. Brian's broom jumped into his hand, increasing the laughter and confusion.
"You're my only hope," Brian whispered under his breath, chuckling again to himself.
Rose Marie Cavendish, another first year from a pureblood, ancient family, looked at the two boys, baffled, and then at Madame Hooch, who shrugged cluelessly. "It must be a Muggle thing," Rose Marie thought.
Minyan; Ravenclaw Common Room:
Anthony Goldstein, one of the Ravenclaw prefects, sat in his house's common room, a pile of unfinished notes and scrolls scattered before him. He was clearly distracted, unusual for him, as he was not only very bright, but also a very dedicated and hardworking student. Su Li, a girl in his year, came and stood quietly near him until he noticed her with a guilty start.
"Sorry, what can I do for you, Su Li?"
"I was just wondering," she said softly, being a quiet girl by nature and respecting others' privacy, "what is bothering you? You've been here like this three nights this week. I was wondering if everything is okay. If you don't mind me asking."
He smiled and waved at a chair. "Please, sit."
She sat very upright in her chair, with her hands folded in her lap. She waited patiently, not obligated to fill the silence with chitchat.
"It's stupid," Anthony said at last. "You see, it's about Joanna Levi, the Hufflepuff? She graduated last year."
"I remember her. Were you very close?" Su Li had quite liked the older girl the few times they had met, but she didn't recall seeing her interact particularly with Anthony.
"She was the tenth of us." Anthony lowered his voice slightly, not embarrassed but wanting to speak privately. "The tenth Jew. There weren't any this year, so we're nine now. The Talmud tells us, 'And I shall besanctifiedin the midst of thechildren of Israel.' With ten, we are a minyan, a congregation. We can offer prayers, even without a Rabbi here, and God will hear us. With nine, we are alone. We wait to go home, to go back to our families, before we know God hears us."
Su Li gently touched his hand. She didn't try to offer a solution or ask questions; she just was there for him. For wizards and witches like them, who came from mixed families with magical and Muggle traditions, living in the wizarding world could be hard sometimes. She knew what it was like to be cut off from her community, her extended family, and her traditions.
"If we could just listen to a service, it wouldn't be so bad. But there's no way, not even a radio service, because Muggle wireless doesn't work in the castle."
"Clairaudience," said a voice from under the table. They both startled and looked under the table. Luna Lovegood was there, barefoot, drawing elaborate wards against wrackspurts on the bottom of the table with a charcoal pencil. They had not even known she was there.
"Sorry if that was meant to be private. People forget I exist, you see, so I hear lots of things. Pay no mind." She went back to scribing her wards.
"What do you mean about clairaudience?" Anthony asked, trying to recall what he knew about the spell, a kind of divination rarely taught at school.
"Remote listening, like clairvoyance but for sound, and without the crystal ball. I use it to listen to Muggle radio sometimes. They have such lovely music. A Muggle-born witch I know in Gryffindor has a wireless set in her home that she leaves playing quietly while she's here. We sometimes cast clairaudience and listen to her radio. Because the magic is here, it doesn't interfere with the Muggle science there. I was surprised no one had thought of it, but no one seemed to care when I tried to mention it."
Luna had a loopy, dreamy demeanour, but there was no denying she had been sorted into the right house. Her mind saw solutions unbound by convention and traditional attitudes. Anthony vowed then and there to make sure no one stole her shoes if he could stop it.
Three nights later, as the sun was setting over the walls of Hogwarts, Anthony and eight others met in a classroom Professor Flitwick had offered them. Some of the boys wore a kippah, the traditional skullcap, and all were dressed modestly according to their own practice. Anthony had donned the tallit, a customary 4-cornered prayer shawl that he had transfigured from some cloth one of his fellow prefects had provided. Anthony cast the clairaudience that he had practised with Luna.
There was no sign of any activity for a second, and some of the students were anxious. After a moment, a warm circle of light appeared, floating before them. The other end of the spell connected to a synagogue in Aberdeen, where lived a sympathetic Cantor who's youngest child had been in Slytherin many years before. From the floating disc, warm and comforting, came the sound of prayer:
"Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, Melekh ha'olam,
asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat."
The candles were lit, and Shabbat had begun within the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Anthony Goldstein felt joyful tears on his cheeks and let them fall.
Jurassic Kitten; Transfiguration Class:
"Now, pay careful attention, students." Professor McGonagall's voice and bearing made the statement redundant. She commanded attention from all but the most distractible of students in every Transfiguration class she taught. Today, she had Gryffindor fourth-years under her critical eye.
"Each of you has been given a cat golem," she held up a clay and cord manakin, something like a marionette without strings. "You will have two tasks in front of you for this lesson. First, you will transform your golem into another beast, and second, animate it to move about your table convincingly. This is an example of the overlap between transfiguration and charms. The witch or wizard who masters multiple forms of magic is on the path to truly understanding the power of magic itself."
She stood, raising her palm forward in caution, and said, "A warning, students! This spell will only work with a beast of nature that has existed in the world without magic. No manticores, no dragons. One student, not paying attention to this warning a few years ago, managed to conjure a sphinx that exploded and nearly blinded her entire class. Very well, you may—carefully!—begin!"
Collin Creevy spent almost two minutes staring into space, fixing the image in his mind. He turned to his golem, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth as he focused feverish attention on his clay figure. Before he even began, Ginny Weasley's transfigured clay kitten, now in the shape of a bull, stampeded around the table, stamping its tiny hooves and knocking over parchments with its lowered horns.
Collin waved his wand, quietly chanting the complex series of incantations, deftly reshaping his clay cat into something with two powerful hind legs, a massive thrashing tail, and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. With a hissing roar, it leapt to life, striding across the table to grab Ginny's bull in its mouth, raise it in the air, and snap it cleanly in two with its teeth.
Ginny gasped and cried out, "Professor! Collin's made a… a… a dragon? That's not fair!"
Professor McGonagall clucked her tongue and prepared a shield charm. "Mr. Creevy, what did I warn you about… what exactly is that? What have you made?"
Collin's golem was now posing, raising its head to hiss challenges at the other students and their various creations. It raised a foot, bringing it down on half of Ginny's destroyed bull, and preened triumphantly.
Collin leaned back, a smug grin on his face and a feverish brightness in his eyes,
"T-Rex," he said.
"A… a what?" McGonagall was nonplussed.
"What? Wicked! No way!" Several classmates, all Muggle-borns, were crowding around Collin, punching him on the arm and admiring his fierce golem. "Dude!"
"Life, uh, finds a way," Collin said with a laugh while his professor and many of the so-called pureblood students watched on in total confusion.