Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

Emma had been to Diagon Alley. She admitted this while folding my equipment list, as calmly as if we were discussing a road behind the supermarket. I had spent weeks trying to discover where a wizard bought potion ingredients, and she had apparently been withholding an entire shopping district.

‘Your grandfather took Ken when his Hogwarts letter came,’ she said. The list disappeared into her handbag before I could inspect it again. ‘I went with them, though I couldn’t tell you which shops are still there.’

‘You could have mentioned the street. I’d have settled for knowing there was a street.’

‘You weren’t supposed to know about magic until your birthday,’ Emma reminded me. ‘And knowing where it is doesn’t mean I can buy everything on that list. Hogwarts has arranged for somebody to meet us on Thursday.’

That dealt with my plan to leave immediately. She could get us into London, but neither of us knew enough to choose all the supplies, and I couldn’t reasonably argue otherwise after my difficulties with Dad’s notes. We would wait for the person from Hogwarts. I tried to look as though two days was a sensible amount of time to spend knowing that a hidden magical street existed without visiting it.

Training helped. Running gave the anticipation somewhere to go, and the exercises I remembered were familiar even when my present body couldn’t manage what I expected of it. I was tall and healthy for eleven, and nearly two years of regular work had made a difference. That didn’t stop an awkward set of press-ups reminding me that I was, in fact, eleven.

I wasn’t expecting to settle a dispute with Voldemort by punching him. Being stronger and steadier had simply never made a bad situation worse, whereas waiting around had done very little for my mood. On Thursday I cut the run short, showered and checked the equipment list again before going to my desk.

One prepared Force Pulse slip seemed a reasonable precaution for visiting an unfamiliar part of London. I had almost got it into my pocket when Emma appeared in the doorway, ready to leave. Her attention went straight to the paper.

‘You can put that back,’ she said. ‘We’re going shopping, Oswald. What are you expecting to happen?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I thought I’d bring it.’ I held the strip by its edge, aware that the most recent thing she had seen it do involved broken glass. ‘I wasn’t planning to use it on a shopkeeper.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it. Leave it here anyway.’

I returned it to the drawer and locked it. Whatever dangers awaited us in wizarding London, I would have to face them without the household’s most controversial piece of stationery. Emma checked that I had the ordinary things I was supposed to carry, and we finally left.

During the drive she described the Alley as she remembered it. There had been robes in the windows, owls and a shop with cauldrons outside; a bank run by goblins had made a more lasting impression than any of the prices. I tried fitting these details into a London street and kept producing something that ought to cause a traffic accident.

‘Ordinary people walk straight past the entrance,’ she explained as we parked. ‘Your grandfather had to show me. Even then, it was difficult to keep looking at it.’

‘So you remember where we’re going, but you might not be able to see it?’ I got out and surveyed the perfectly ordinary shops around us. ‘That’s going to make asking for directions interesting.’

Emma led the way along the pavement. The traffic was busy, and people streamed past us with shopping bags, briefcases and no apparent interest in magical owls. I watched the shopfronts, determined not to miss the entrance, which nearly ensured that I did.

There was a narrow pub between the other buildings. My gaze slipped across its dark windows and settled on the next shop before something about the gap bothered me enough to look back. Once I concentrated, I couldn’t understand how I had overlooked it. The frontage was so shabby that it ought to have stood out all by itself.

I deliberately looked away and tried again. There it was, accompanied by the same unhelpful urge to pay attention to something else. Calling it invisible wouldn’t describe what I was seeing, or failing to see. Knowing where to look made the second attempt easier, although I didn’t know how the enchantment managed the trick.

‘I think I’ve found it,’ I said. I stopped beside Emma and pointed towards the old sign. ‘The pub, between those shops.’

Her eyes passed over the entrance. She frowned, followed my finger again and moved closer, looking increasingly annoyed with something she couldn’t quite locate. ‘I know this is the right place. Your grandfather brought us along here.’

I read the sign while she searched: the Leaky Cauldron. A scrap of remembered story stirred at the name, confirming that I probably wasn’t about to lead my guardian into an ordinary pub on the strength of its poor maintenance. I had expected a more impressive first sight of the magical world. Even its secret entrance looked as though the secret might be a failed building inspection.

‘There it is,’ Emma said. ‘I think I can—’ Two pedestrians passed between us and the door, and she lost it again.

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I took her hand and guided her across. The doorway stayed where I could see it, and once we were through, she no longer seemed to have any difficulty looking around. Judging by the smell of ale and damp clothing, the pub had spent considerably more effort discouraging outside attention than encouraging customers to linger.

Robed patrons occupied the dark tables beneath a layer of smoke. I tried to make out what they were eating, then decided that lunch could wait until we reached the Alley. Emma was inspecting the room with a very different expression.

‘Ken was only a child the last time I came here,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect to be back with his son.’

I followed her gaze across the tables. Dad might have stood where I was standing, impatient to buy his first wand while Emma tried to keep him from doing something foolish. I wondered whether the pub had looked this old then. It seemed unfair to blame all of it on the intervening years.

‘Let’s find the person from Hogwarts,’ I said. ‘If we have to wait, I’d rather do it somewhere I can see what I’m stepping in.’

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Harry Potter sat beside Hagrid and tried not to watch the people watching him. Several had already come over to shake his hand, apparently delighted by something he couldn’t remember doing. Hagrid had enjoyed every introduction. Harry was beginning to wish that being a wizard came with a less noticeable name.

Only days ago, he had been trying to get hold of a letter his uncle didn’t want him to read. More letters had followed, until Uncle Vernon took the family away from the house altogether. Then Hagrid had arrived at the hut on Harry’s eleventh birthday and explained what the Dursleys had been hiding for his whole life.

His parents had been wizards. Voldemort had murdered them, rather than a car crash killing them as Harry had always been told. The scar on his forehead came from the same attack, though somehow Harry had survived and Voldemort had vanished. Remembering Aunt Petunia repeat the old lie made him angry all over again.

Hogwarts offered something he had scarcely dared to wish for: somewhere else to go. He could learn about the world his parents had belonged to, away from the Dursleys and the cupboard. Hagrid had even given Dudley a pig’s tail after the business with Harry’s birthday cake. It was a small addition to a much larger change in his life, but Harry remained grateful for it.

Now they were in London, and the dark, odd-smelling pub hadn’t matched anything he had imagined on the journey. He hoped the rest of the magical street would be different. For the moment Hagrid seemed quite content to wait.

‘Hogwarts asked me ter meet another first-year,’ he explained when Harry asked. ‘His guardian’s a Muggle. She’ll need a hand gettin’ his things.’

‘Do you know them?’ Harry asked. It would be easier if the other boy was also new to this, rather than another person who expected him to understand why everyone knew his name.

‘Knew his parents,’ Hagrid said, more quietly. ‘Good people. Fought in the war, too.’

Harry looked down at his hands. There were so many people Hagrid had known, so many things he might be able to tell him about his parents. He was considering another question when a boy’s voice interrupted from across the room, asking whether somebody played basketball.

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The bartender pointed us across the pub before Emma had finished asking for Hogwarts. I followed his hand and found an enormous man sitting in a chair that appeared to have accepted a deeply unsuitable job. His hair and beard obscured much of his face; the rest of him took up enough space to make the other customers look like an unconvincing attempt at perspective.

‘Do you play basketball?’ I asked. The question escaped before I could replace it with a greeting, bringing both him and the thin boy beside him round to look at me.

‘Basket-what?’ the man said. He examined me with the wary interest I probably deserved. ‘Who’re you, then?’

‘Oswald. Sorry, it’s a game with a ball and a high basket.’ I abandoned the explanation before offering to measure his reach. Playing basketball had been one of the pleasures I remembered from my old life, and apparently I had retained the ability to embarrass myself about it.

Emma reached us before I could try again. ‘He sometimes speaks before the rest of us can stop him,’ she said. ‘We’re here to meet somebody from Hogwarts. Are you Mr Hagrid?’

‘Rubeus Hagrid,’ he said. ‘An’ you are?’

‘Emma. I recognised you from a photograph Ken and Mary had.’ She rested a hand on my shoulder, placing me squarely in the introduction. ‘This is their son. Oswald Mercer.’

Hagrid got up so quickly that I almost stepped back. Standing made him considerably more impressive, but the change in his expression distracted me from his height. He looked from Emma to me, searching my face for something familiar.

‘Ken an’ Mary’s boy,’ he said. ‘Knew who I was meetin’, but—blimey, yeh’ve got his look.’

He offered his hand, and mine nearly disappeared inside it. I had seen people become careful or sad at the mention of my parents, but Hagrid seemed pleased as well, which made it harder to know what to say. I let him finish shaking my hand while I tried to think of something better than another remark about his size.

‘Knew ’em well,’ he told me. ‘Your dad was clever. Too clever sometimes, if yeh asked him. Mary could make him behave when nobody else could.’ He reached into a pocket for a large cloth and wiped his eyes. ‘Good people, both of ’em.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. Emma’s hand was still on my shoulder, and I was glad of it. Reading Dad’s complaints in a notebook had been one thing; hearing someone remember him aloud made the space where he ought to be feel suddenly larger.

Hagrid put the cloth away and cleared his throat. ‘Meant ter be one o’ the professors here today,’ he said. ‘Stomach trouble, so they asked me ter help with the new students who needed it. Glad they asked me ter take Ken’s son for his things.’

‘I hope the professor didn’t eat here,’ I said. The thin boy beside Hagrid laughed before I could decide whether I should have kept that observation to myself as well.

Hagrid frowned at us, then seemed to remember an introduction still needed doing. ‘Harry, come an’ meet Oswald,’ he said. ‘Your dad an’ his fought alongside each other.’

The name reached me before I properly studied the boy. He had round glasses, untidy black hair and a thin face, with a scar partly hidden near his hairline. Put together, those details caught more firmly in my uncertain memories than Hermione’s name had. I was looking at Harry Potter.

For some reason I had imagined him sturdier. Fragments of a story had supplied a hero, and my mind had added shoulders to fit. The boy getting to his feet looked smaller than me, uncertain about the attention and as new to this strange place as I was.

I had stared long enough for him to notice. Hagrid’s last words stayed with me while I tried to put the recognition aside: our fathers had fought together. Whatever I remembered about the name Harry Potter, I hadn’t yet met the person it belonged to. He was coming towards me now, and I needed to give him something better than another stare.