Chapter 9
21 July 1991 Saturday
It's a Saturday and I have no chores to do. UV is off playing golf with some clients, the Dud is off with Piers again, and AP told me to tidy up my new room and throw out any trash, and she told me if I found anything in here that could be considered school supplies I might as well keep them. And she told me I have all weekend to do it and she'll be checking Sunday evening before dinner to make sure the room is presentable.
I wonder if they think the wizards will be checking up on me? The letter was addressed to me in the cupboard under the stairs, but they never saw it. Strange.
Anyway, I reread my journal last night. I need to rethink a lot of what I know. Did Death Eaters burn down my grandparents Evans' house? Was my dad the kind of jerk that he was because he was upper-class? I was still left on a doorstep with nothing but a note and not having been seen by a doctor. Why?
Nothing I knew about my mum seems to have changed, just I add in that she was a witch, and apparently a really smart and talented one and something she did is why I'm not dead too.
Which leads to this whole Boy-Who-Lived business. I think they ought to be honoring my mother, not me. But my mother is one of those people that the BNP types think shouldn't have magic, while I'm the last son of the Potters (have to look up what that means), so I guess it's politically easier to have me be the hero, even if I was a toddler at the time and it's completely ridiculous.
It's disturbing that the BNP types are so important in the wizarding world. Out here, they're a bunch of repulsive loonies. Scary repulsive loonies, but nobody anyone has to take seriously when they're not actually rioting. In there, it looks like they're close to running things. I think I may stick with my plan to join the army when I come of age. At least there discrimination is illegal.
I'll wait until I go to school and learn something before making up my mind, though. And now I am going to bag up some trash.
21 July again, after dinner
I got to eat at the table again. I like roast chicken. Mushy peas are nasty, though.
I tossed out bags and bags of broken stuff and dusted and wiped down shelves. I found some art supplies and a couple of really nice Biros, as well as a silver fountain pen still in its case. I brought that down to AP as soon as I found it cos it looked valuable. AP just took it and stood and held it for a long time and stared into space and then finally set it down and said that I never gave it to her, she never saw it, and get back to work. I think this is the second most beautiful thing I own, right after Hedwig. (I put it away in my school bag.)
The room is almost presentable now. AP picked up some bedding for me at a charity shop, so I have two sets of sheets and a duvet, and she also got me a little table lamp. Big pink roses aren't my favorite, but it lights up, so I'm not complaining.
So now I want to get down various stuff I noticed in Diagon Alley, while I can still remember. It seemed really busy to me, but the professor said this was nothing, next month at this time it would be packed with kids and parents. I asked if this was the only place to school shopping and she said that showed good thinking and no it isn't, but it is the most popular and a lot of people like to go here to meet up with friends and to see who else they run into.
I kept my eye out for other kids my age, and kids in general, while we were out and about. There was a beautiful black girl at the bookstore who the professor greeted as Miss Jones. She was definitely older, and the professor said she'd be one of the Slytherin prefects this year. There was a boy who looked like my age at Madame Malkin's. His father, whom the professor greeted as Lord Nott, looked like the picture for the dictionary definition of "austere", all in grey with a few touches of white (most people in the alley were much more colorful). The father left, after telling the son to behave, but Madame Malkin kept me so busy that all we could do was nod at each other. There was a pair of Asian girls who looked to be my age just coming out of Madame Malkin's the second time we went there, and I saw an Oriental girl in the distance at the bookstore. There were lots of kids in Gambol and Japes, but that's the problem - there were so many it was hard to pick out anyone in particular.
It was interesting, though. The BNP doesn't like people to be not white and they definitely don't like Asians. The wizards don't seem to care about color, just who your grandparents are, which is something you can't tell by looking at someone. I wondered about that, but it seems like most of the kids from the old families know each other or at least know of each other, and a lot of them are related, at least distantly. The professor said my paternal grandmother was a Black, and the Blacks are related to everyone, so I should find I have a fair number of distant relations at school. There aren't any Blacks left, but Grandmother's mother was a Bulstrode and there's a Bulstrode girl in my class. She told me to look at the family trees in my book, because on the train a lot of kids will be playing "wizarding geography" to figure out their connections to each other. I think I'm looking forward to that part. All I had for family before was AP, UV, and the Dud.
She also told me about the houses. Griffindors are brave, but not known for their intelligence or subtlety. Hufflepuffs are loyal and hardworking and reliable, but unkind people refer to them as the House of Leftovers. Ravenclaws are intellectual and good students, but not always the most practical. Slytherins are cunning and ambitious, but the house has a bad reputation because Voldemort came from it, and a lot of his known followers as well. She told me that this was unfair, though, as there were Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws among the Deatheaters, and some of them very highly placed. "No Griffindors?" I asked, but she said that while she didn't know any Griffindor Deatheaters, over half of Grindelwald's British followers were Griffindors, and no house gets a free pass on being light or dark.
She also told me that houses tend to run in families and everyone would say that their house was best. My parents were both Griffindors, but my mother almost ended up in Ravenclaw, and her best friend was in Slytherin and she had a couple of girlfriends in Hufflepuff as well. (My father only associated with Griffindors.). I pressed her on which house she thought was best, and she told me that she was the Head of House for Griffindor, so she was obviously biased.
I'm pondering the houses. Slytherin and Griffindor both seem a bit polarizing. Ravenclaw could be good, but I like practical. Hufflepuff could be good. I know how to work hard, I like the idea of loyalty, and Professor Sprout sounds nice. If I'm a Hufflepuff, people will think I'm a duffer, if I'm a Griffindor, nobody in Slytherin will like me, if I'm a Slytherin, nobody in Griffindor will like me, and if I'm a Ravenclaw I will probably want to punch my housemates in the head. No clear winner or loser. I guess I'll just wait and see.