Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

The parcel arrived four days before Harry’s birthday. I had expected another letter suggesting where to try next, but the owl deposited a flat package on my desk, accepted its delivery payment and began examining the water I used for my brush. I moved the glass before calling Emma.

The letter inside came from a former Gryffindor whose name McGonagall had supplied. He remembered James Potter and had kept a notebook James left among some school things, intending to return it until the chance was gone. He wanted Harry to have it now.

I read that sentence aloud. Emma took off her glasses and looked at the package for a long moment before asking whether this was what all my letters had been about.

‘I hoped we might find something like this. I didn’t know.’ I set the letter beside the clean paper surrounding the book, remembering the enquiries which had returned with apologies instead of an address.

Hagrid began the chain by recognising people in the photograph I sent. McGonagall helped with an address, and Dumbledore passed on an enquiry when one of my letters came back. I had asked, waited and followed the answers with more questions, unable to tell which would lead somewhere until someone replied.

The sender described the notebook as a diary and identified the writing. I left its inner wrapping closed so that Harry could be the first of us to read what James had written. Curiosity was a poor reason to take that away from him.

McGonagall had forwarded the parcel with a note of her own. She recognised the handwriting and had checked for concealed enchantments before sending it on, as I requested when the search began to look promising. Finding another unfamiliar diary had made me careful about more than the wrapping.

Emma fetched a box to protect the corners. She suggested keeping both letters with it, since Harry would want to know where it came from. I wrote a thank-you before doing anything else, then wrapped the box and put it somewhere I could see whenever I began wondering whether I had chosen well.

Ron and Hermione would miss the day itself. Ron remained in Egypt, and Hermione had gone to France with her parents, with a visit to a relative before returning. Both had written to Harry and separately reminded me of the date, apparently unwilling to leave anything to chance.

Hermione proposed a time to telephone our house. Ron wanted assurances that I would not let Harry spend the afternoon doing homework. I told Emma about the calls, arranged a car with her and asked Harry whether Luna could join us.

He agreed, then asked why I sounded so careful. ‘Because it’s your birthday,’ I told him. ‘I’m attempting to be considerate.’ Harry wanted to know whether that was difficult, making the attempt less rewarding than I had hoped.

On the morning of the thirty-first, I collected Luna from the Leaky Cauldron before we drove to Surrey. Emma stayed home to cook, and the driver she had booked followed the route without needing help from either of us. He declined to join our discussion of how much wrapping a present reasonably required.

Luna kept her carefully tied book flat on her knees. Harry waited beside the pavement with a small bag over his shoulder, grinning when I opened the door. Then he saw her beside me, holding my hand, and paused before getting in.

She wished him a happy birthday. He thanked her, looked at our hands again and turned towards me with an expression which made it clear the first conversation of the journey had been chosen.

‘When you said you were busy, you meant with Luna.’ I admitted that I had sometimes meant exactly that, moving my bag to give him room. Harry climbed in and waited while I found a way of adding the part I should have told him sooner.

‘We’re going out together. I was going to tell you.’ He asked whether I had planned to do so before next term, and I said that had been my ambitious schedule. Luna laughed and moved across so he could settle comfortably.

Once the door was shut, Harry leaned forwards to look at me. ‘You could have said why you couldn’t come that Saturday,’ he pointed out. I agreed; I had not known how to mention it without making it sound like an announcement, and had somehow made that harder by saying nothing.

He observed that I had managed an announcement now. I said the car helped, which failed to make him look severe for more than a moment. Then he congratulated us both, and Luna thanked him while I stopped preparing explanations he no longer needed.

Stolen story; please report.

Harry asked about our day in London. I supplied the shorter account, but Luna added the shop window and my reflected attempt to surprise her. He enjoyed that more than anything I had chosen to include, and asked her which part she had noticed first.

There was no need to introduce them as though they had never met. She had helped at school and spoken for herself; when the subject shifted to the Burrow, they compared places around Ottery St Catchpole while I listened. By the time we reached home, Harry was explaining the gnomes from his side of the garden.

Emma opened the door before I reached for my key. She wished Harry a happy birthday and asked him to confirm that I had not spoiled my lunch. He said he had seen me eat nothing, then weakened his usefulness as a witness by adding that he had not been with me all morning.

I took his bag while he looked at the table. Four places were laid, a small wrapped parcel sat beside his plate and the cake waited under a cover on the sideboard. He asked whether it was all for him, speaking more quietly than he had in the car.

‘Most of it,’ Emma told him, moving a chair out. ‘We do intend to eat too.’ His smile returned slowly, and he sat down without quite taking his eyes from the covered cake.

Over lunch he showed us Ron’s gift, a little Sneakoscope which fitted into his palm. He put it back in its box instead of testing it among the dishes, explaining that Ron’s letter claimed it warned of untrustworthy people nearby. Ron had tried it and said it worked, although Harry had yet to discover much for himself.

Hermione’s present needed more space. He took out the broom polish, twig-trimming tools, compass and maintenance booklet as though he had been waiting since dawn for permission to explain them. Luna asked about the compass while I moved my glass away from the expanding demonstration.

I said Wood would approve. ‘He made me promise to look after the school broom over the summer,’ Harry replied, lifting the booklet. ‘I think he’ll inspect it before he asks whether I enjoyed myself.’

The Nimbus 2001 remained one of the team’s brooms, even with permission to practise on it during the holidays. Harry seemed determined to return it in a condition which justified the loan. He showed Luna where the compass would fit and was still describing the tools when Emma collected the last plates.

I fetched the cake. Thirteen candles made a small bright patch between us, and our singing was bad enough for Harry to laugh halfway through it. Then Emma told him to make a wish, and he stopped laughing.

He looked at the candles for several seconds. Luna and I waited without trying to fill the quiet, until he closed his eyes, took a breath and blew them out. Emma congratulated him on getting them all at once.

Harry rubbed quickly at one eye and blamed the smoke. I agreed there had been a terrible amount, although hardly any remained, and passed Emma the knife. By the time she put a slice in front of him, he could thank her without his voice catching.

Luna offered her book first. Inside were accounts by Seekers: interviews, descriptions of matches and passages about training, with sources marked and the pages bound between firm covers. Some older material had come through people her father knew from his work on the Quibbler.

‘Oswald said you might like to play professionally,’ she explained while Harry turned to the contents. ‘I thought you could see what they found difficult as well as what they did well.’ He looked up and asked whether she had made it herself.

She said her father had helped find the material, but she chose what went in. Harry began reading an entry before remembering to thank her. Luna looked pleased by the delay, and left him enough time to finish the passage before Emma handed over her parcel.

It held a scarf and a pair of gloves Emma had knitted. She admitted the weather was wrong for them, but Harry touched the scarf’s edge and said he would use them at school. He folded everything neatly and put it well away from his plate before looking towards my box.

‘This isn’t another broom, is it?’ he asked. I told him that would require something to have gone badly wrong with the wrapping. He thought I was capable of arranging it, and I pushed the box across the table before the guesses improved.

The joke left his face when he found the letters. He read the first lines, looked at me and unfolded the paper around the notebook, taking care with its worn corners. There was nothing bright or expensive about the cover, and he opened it only far enough to see the first page.

He stopped with his hand still beneath it. ‘My dad?’ I nodded, and Harry looked down at the writing again as if it might change before he had time to be certain.

I told him someone James knew at school had kept it. Hagrid had helped me begin looking, McGonagall and Dumbledore had helped the enquiries reach the right people, and the former owner wanted it to come to Harry. The letters explained the rest, including McGonagall’s check before she sent it.

Harry asked whether it was a diary. ‘That’s what he called it,’ I said, keeping my hands on my side of the table. ‘I haven’t read it.’ He turned a page carefully, then closed the book with a finger between the covers.

His other hand rested on the letter. He began asking how I had found it, stopped and looked up again. ‘You went looking for this, for me?’

I explained about the photograph among Ken’s papers. I had thought someone might have kept more than a picture, without knowing that the search would end here. Harry pressed the notebook against his chest, and I realised I had worried about entirely the wrong thing when I wondered whether he would like it.

He thanked me. I reached across the table to squeeze his shoulder and said he was welcome, managing for once to leave the answer alone instead of describing how much trouble it had or had not been.

Emma gathered the wrapping paper, and Luna helped without moving either letter. Harry sat between us with one hand on the old cover. I left him time to look, glad that something of his father’s had finally reached the person who ought to have it.