30-Aug Just before Midnight
Hi, diary!
I have so much to tell you! It’s really late but I am so excited that I can’t sleep!
So, yesterday mum and dad and I were getting ready to go because Professor Cauldwell set up a trip to a Magizoo for all of the muggleborn families for the year. We were packing for the trip as well as for tomorrow because last night we checked into the Leaky Cauldron. I didn’t know you could get a room at a pub!
But before that, I don’t want to get to far ahead of myself. It was maybe half an hour before we left when the phone rang. Dad answered. I didn’t think anything of it until he told the person who called that if they wanted to see me before I left for school, they had about 15 minutes to visit. I was thankfully already packed. (I had been packed practically since our day at Diagon alley! Which I haven’t told you about yet, either!)
Not two minutes later, there was a persistent knocking on the door. Mum opened the door and someone dashed right into the living room and glomped me! It was Lottie!!
She sobbed into my shoulder and apologized for letting her anger get the best of her and demanded I write every week!
I’m really glad we are friends again even if I can’t tell her much about my new school. We had some milk and cookies while mum and dad packed up the car. She gave me a little present just before she went home. It was a very pretty necklace! She has one that matches. The chain is rose gold and the charms on both of them are teal blue circles with little purple roses in the center. I felt bad that I hadn’t thought to get her anything but she told me that that just means I need to do better for Christmas.
I’m really going to miss her, but it will be better now that I know we are still friends.
After she went home (about ten minutes later than planned), we piled into the car and Dad drove us to London. We were easily able to find the Leaky Cauldron this time since Professor Cauldwell had shown us the other day when we had visited Diagon Alley then. The barkeep was ready and waiting for us when we arrived and immediately summoned a girl to take us to our room. With as cozy and tavern like the pub is, it surprised me just how fancy the room is! There’s a bedroom for mum and dad and a bedroom for me, plus a sitting area. Meals have been included in the cost of the room, so except for lunch yesterday, which we had at the Magizoo, we ate downstairs in the pub.
Today all of us met Professor Cauldwell in the pub for breakfast at 8 in the morning. There were 7 of us and our families, 25 people plus the Professor. Once everyone was downstairs and had eaten, he guided us to the floo and taught everyone how to use it. As he was giving instructions a few people from the Magizoo came through the floo and joined us. We divided into 5 groups of five and one representative from the Magizoo (or one group got Professor Cauldwell, but mum, dad and I were with a boy named Geoff and his dad and the Magizoologist lady who introduced herself as Aster) and then went through the floo with our Guide.
Aster was very helpful when I fell on my face as I attempted to exit the floo. No one else was nearly as klutzy as me. Blah.
Once everyone was through, the four guides gave us a tour of the magizoo. Apparently each of them specialized in a different magizoology field, though I can’t be sure what each of those were.
But that’s not what was so exciting! The creatures were! There were so many creatures to see that I couldn’t hope to remember all of them, but I’ll tell you about a few I remember better than others.
The scariest creature we saw was an acromuntala. Like Aragog? From the Harry Potter books? Yea, the books don’t give the monstrous spider any justice! I might as well been a grain of sand, compared to the acromuntala. I’ve never been afraid of spiders, but I was definitely grateful for the glass walls between that beast and us!
The prettiest creature was the unicorn! There was a whole herd of them! Their coats were pearly white and shimmered in the sun. Aster said we were very lucky to have seen the herd and that it was a good omen for our upcoming school year. I believed her because the herd dashed off seconds after we arrived and hid in the trees of their enclosure.
Finally, my favourite creature to see was the dragon! Another guide, I don’t remember his name, told us that it was a yearling Chinese Fireball and that very soon it was going to be released in a dragon reserve because an adult dragon could not stay at the magizoo. If that huge dragon was only a yearling, I can’t begin to imagine how big an adult dragon could be! He was very beautiful though, with his shiny and bright red-gold scales and brilliantly blue eyes. He seemed to like me because he watched me intently as I passed by him. I hope he liked me as a visitor, not hoping I’d be a snack, though.
Mum just told me I had to turn out the lights in ten minutes, wether or not I think I can sleep.
I didn’t tell you anything about Diagon Alley yet and I don’t have a lot of time, but I want to at least tell you about shopping for my wand. Ollivanders is also a real place! When I asked the girl who was running the shop about Mr. Ollivander from the books, she gave me a small, pensive smile, and informed me that he retired after the war. I suppose the poor man deserved it, especially if what happened to him in the books was what happened to him in real life.
Either way, she started having me test out assorted wands. It was the sixth wand she had me try that fit me. As soon as I took the elegant, mahogany wand into my hand, blue and purple sparks burst from the top. It felt like the wand was excited to meet me! When I said as much, the girl grinned and told me that if o felt that way, then that’s exactly how the wand felt. Then she proceeded to tell me that the core of my new 13 and a half inch mahogany wand was a hair from a unicorn’s mane. The wand itself is sleek and simplistic, but the handle has a few flowers carved into it. Mum says I’ll have to look up what they mean. I think I first need to figure out what they are. I know one is a daisy, but none of the rest were easily recognizable to me.
The girl nodded at me with a knowing smirk and agreed that I should figure out the symbolism of the flowers on my new wand.
Ugh! Mum is yelling at me to turn off the light and go to bed. Sweet dreams, Diary.
(It is nearly midnight, I suppose Mum has a point…)
Tomorrow I get to go to Hogwarts! I can’t wait!
Night, Diary!
Love,
Ava