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A usual holiday like muggles do it
This vacation should going to be a very special and different event. But of course I didn´t know that at the beginning of my holidays. I was just looking forward to two weeks recovery with my parents and my best friend Flora who was going to spend her time with us.
My parents had rent a small house for this time. Our destination was called "green idyll" and it really looked like such idyll at first sight. 12 small brick coloured houses created a little village. Except of one, they all looked as if they were identical and all of a piece. A dark tiled roof was on top of this small friendly-looking house with their very clean windows. If they got tired, it was possible to close the green shutters to protect the interior against the curious glances of the caretaker´s family. This family lived in the 12th, slightly larger house.
Once our car had arrived at the drive, the door swung open and the manager stood, with his hands put on his hips, at his front door. Immediately he came to us and started to tell my father: How was the journey? No traffic jam? That was a close shave because one can never know at this time of the year. And while my father was smiling kindly, nodding, saying a ´yes´ or ´no´ from time to time unloading our suitcases, the caretaker´s wife stepped out of the background and welcomed my mum with a similar torrent of words: That´s your daughter? How attractive. We have two children. One daughter and one son. James has won the reading competition in school just before the holidays and Tiffany is going to dance the leading role in the play "Nutcracker prince" next week...
Slightly annoyed, we pulled our suitcases in the direction of House number 5, which should be ours in the next time. We were followed by the caretaker-couple who were scrutinizing us with curious glances. I was very thankful that Flora and me let our owls with Flora´s parents. But that was one of my father´s conditions: "If I´m going on holiday with two witches voluntarily, I won´ t at least tolerate any piece of your magical equipment including animals. I want a totally ordinary holiday!" I thought it should simply going to be a holiday like muggles do it. But I didn´t say anything because my parents would not understand this term at all.
The only things we were allowed to take with us were a few books, which we turned with magic into books like muggles are reading. If two 14 years old girls were reading Black Beauty or Hanni and Nanni, who would be suspicious?
"We´ll get a new teacher in Herbology next year. Called Flowersprint or something like that. We want to make a good impression on her. Besides she expects us to have read Bandalons Herbology book 1 to 4 entirely." With this objection, even my dad had to give in. But this security was necessary because of the caretaker. We didn´t want to get the ministry of magic onto us because of rashness.
If my mum finally hadn´t been resolute and shifted them out of the door, giving them the clue that we wanted to have a rest, they even would have followed us into our house and would have stayed when we were unpacking our suitcases. "That´s that," she said contently and my dad only replied: "I knew that there needed to be a catch about the cheap prize of the house."
I was stowing my things away when Flora suddenly screamed. I ran alarmed to her into the kitchen. There was my friend, a genuine witch, sitting fascinated in front of the mixer and pushed the button again and again in order to jump backwards when the small knifes turned around very fast.
"Flora, that´s just a mixer," I reassured her. To demonstrate it, I inserted two Bananas of our travel provisions for the journey, added half litre milk and served her a banana shakes a few minutes later.
" It´s a simple kitchen utensil! I thought your mark in Muggle Studies was an O!" I made fun of her, "Don´t you let old Friedlich see that. She´ll think, you are from another world."
"Yeah, something like that," Flora smiled and emptied her shake.
Half an hour later, we sneaked out of the house in the opposite direction of the street. Nearby, somewhere behind the trees, there had to be a swimming lake and we wanted to discover it without our caretaker. My parents decided to relax a bit instead. That is why we left alone.
The weather wasn´t that good this day. A few thick clouds were already hiding the sun and a cold wind was blowing. Therefore, we only took off our shoes and socks in order to dangle our feet from the landing stage into the water. We hardly had sat down, when a younger boy and a girl at our age were approaching us.
"In the lake, there are monsters that bite off strangers´ feet!" the boy called exactly when they came onto the landing stage.
"Yeah, and a lot of Merpeople, who´ll pull us down," Flora laughed. I poked her in the ribs to shut her up, but the girl misunderstood my behaviour.
"James won´t fall for something like that. But you should be more polite. We are the children of your caretaker!," the girl said cockily. She had to be Tiffany.
"Exactly, otherwise you will have to leave soon!"
"Then you will starve during the winter. We pay for our holidays here!," Flora replied quick-wittedly. We would have started to argue, but exactly then an old woman appeared on the shores. She looked at us for a while, muttered something and disappeared again.
"That is an old witch. She´s living in house No.7. Every summer. But during the winter she suddenly is somewhere else," James whispered and Tiffany looked as if she was really frightened.
"And how do you know that?" I replied (first,) intentionally, to keep Flora from answering thoughtlessly.
"Just look at her. Old, hunchbacked, with a wart and an old black cat. It has to belong to her; always sneaking around. I once threw stones at her and then I suddenly fell into the lake."
"Well, then you should take pay attention to your feet," Flora laughed. James left in a huff. First Tiffany hesitated, but eventually she followed him.
"Do you think she really is a witch?," Flora asked me.
"I don´t think so. What should a witch do at such a place like this? And it´s not allowed to use magic when muggles are around. She would no longer be here if she had done that, would she?"
But I was curious, too. That´s why we headed back, coincidentally passing house No. 7. From the outside, it just looked like all the others.
"We could just knock and say hello," Flora suggested when we were approaching the veranda. Suddenly, the door flung open and the old woman stood in front of us: "What are you sniffing around like that? Get yourselves gone, you nosy children!," she screamed in anger.
"We only wanted to say hello," I replied angrily. Did she really think she could scare us like that?
The next moment, an egg crashed into the door of the witch´s house. The old woman cried out loudly and James, who was just a few meters behind us, ran away. "Stay here, you little monster. I´m going to get you anyway!," she yelled in a shrill voice. We deemed it best to leave, before she could start to think that we had something to do about it.
The table was already set for dinner, and while we were eating, we told my parents everything.
"Quite spoilt kids," my mum shook her head angrily. "No matter who the old lady is, they should not behave like that. But what do we expect with these parents."
The evening ended quietly and we went to bed quickly. The next three days, we avoided meeting the old woman as well as James and his spoilt sister. It was annoying enough to run into Mr. and Mrs. Friedlich on every corner.
During the fourth night the full moon was brightly shining in the sky when it happened. Flora and me were still lying awake in our beds. From my bunk bed, I was able to look down to the track outside the window. The wind was rocking the treetops and I was slowly falling asleep, when a movement behind a tree made me jump. A dark veiled person was creeping around out there.
"Flora," I whispered. She was still awake, too. "There´s someone outside!"
Flora went quickly to the window and looked outside. Both of us were observing the creature sneaking around. There was something fascinating about it. Suddenly, something began to glow. It was glowing brightly. A muggle would have mistaken it for a glow-worm, but I didn´t have to say anything. I saw it in the way Flora looked at me: We both knew it was a wand that was glowing.
"Very well, then!," Flora whispered.
"Why don´t we go outside and have a look?," I asked. But I didn´t feel well with this thought. Flora also had her doubts: "Better we don´t do it. Anyway, we´re not allowed to use magic. Who knows what that old woman is doing out there. But we´ll have a look tomorrow morning."
The alarm clock hardly had started ringing when I already was wide-awake. And I didn´t need to wake Flora up as well. Just before breakfast, we left the house and headed to the trees. I had my Sneakoscope, which Flora gave me for Christmas, inside my pocket. That was one of the things I had smuggled into my suitcase. If the old woman was around, I wanted to be sure that there was no danger coming from her. We examined the spot behind the trees thoroughly. First, we didn´t notice anything. Then, Flora yelled triumphantly. There seemed to be drawn a deeply cut line into the loose ground in front of her. We followed it. As soon as we had circled half of the camp, we gave up. Our stomachs were growling. Besides, my mum cried for us.
"What do you think that means?," I asked my friend, who was a witch. But she had no clue, either. Only when we were eating breakfast, suddenly everything fell to place for her.
"I´ve got it. That´s it!" she suddenly cried.
But she was immediately silenced by my kick.
My dad looked suspiciously at us from behind his coffee cup.
"Just a stupid riddle I told Flora. But now she seems to know the answer," I lied.
"A riddle? How funny," my mum said. "I want to guess, too."
"Drat!" I thought. But this time it was Flora, who saved me.
"Quite funny for muggles. That´s why it took so long for me. It´s about a frog and a mixer!" My mum told her to be quiet with a gesture. "Thank you, I do know the riddle. Not while we are eating."
It was no sooner than when we were washing the dishes from breakfast that I could ask Flora about the real solution.
"Blimey, just think about it," she said, "that lady is cheerfully using magic in the presence of muggles, and the ministry doesn´t seek her out immediately? She has drawn some kind of protection hex around the village, to be able to do unhurriedly as she likes. Doubtlessly, no one has noticed anything so far."
"Wow, then she has to be a really powerful witch," I speculated. It took finest arts to make a whole area safe from the ministry of magic.
"Right." Flora nodded. Suddenly, we heard a piercing shriek.
"That was Mrs. Friedlich, I´ll bet you!" We ran straightway to our caretakers´ house. The terrace door was thrown open and Mrs. Friedlich came loudly running to us: "A rat. A huge rat!" She was pale as death and her whole body was shaking.
"Where?" We looked around.
"Inside my kitchen cabinet. Really, it is huge. And my husband is with the kids away. I only have bad luck today, only bad luck!" She started sobbing so heart-rending, that I began to have pity on her.
"What happened to them?" Flora asked apprehensively.
"They´ve got a rash, everywhere. Huge pimples. Our poor daughter can´t even join the ballet performance. The doctors are completely at a loss!"
"I hope it isn´t contagious," it slipped out of Flora´s mouth, which made Mrs Friedlich give her an evil glare.
Therefore, I suggested: "If you want, we´ll take a look at the rat!"
"That would be awesomely kind of you. If I fear anything, it´ll be those rodents.
Me and Flora went into Mrs. Friedlich´s kitchen together. Everything was squeaky-clean.
"That´s not the place where rats usually hide!" I said to Flora. Suddenly, it was clatterling loudly inside the kitchen cabinet.
"Do you have your wand here?" Flora asked me.
"Yes, but I definitely won´t use it to kill a rat!" I answered angrily.
"But against a boggart!" Saying this, she pushed the door open. I saw a giant wasp swarm. At the next moment, I got my wand out of my pocket, and without thinking about it I cried: "Riddikulus!" The swarm began to dissolve into pink bonbons. Then I heard Flora yell the same. The next moment, the bogey vanished into thin air.
"That´s that!" Flora said, grinning. But I suddenly felt ill.
"Flora, do you know what we just did? We will be expelled from Hogwarts!" I slumped onto a chair. Flora´s grin also faded away. But then she said: "Nonsense, I bet the witch´s hex protects every spell. They won´t notice anything!"
"And what if they do? If the hex only protects the old woman or if we´re mistaken?"
"We´ll find that out now!" Flora grabbed a towel and tied it together firmly. She raised her wand again and transformed the knot into a dead rat.
"A spell more or less, that won´t change anything now!" Saying these words, she grabbed the animal by its tail and left the kitchen. I followed her in a state of trance.
Mrs. Friedlich was still standing in front of the house. When she saw the dead animal in Flora´s hand, she uttered a feeble cry and hid her face in her hands.
"Don´t worry, it is stone-dead," Flora assured her. We´ll throw it right into the forest. A few foxes will have enough of it." Mrs. Friedlich just muttered some acknowledgements and carefully went back into the house.
I admired my friend´s calmness. Or wasn´t she aware of that we were in danger to be banned to perform magic forever? There was no danger in delay, when we used our wands in the holidays. Additionally, inside a muggle-house.
"And now?," I asked without a plan.
"Now, we go to see the nice lady in house No. 7. I´m definitely tired of magic against muggles. The boggart would have never hidden in the Friedlich´s kitchen cabinet by itself. It´s too bright in there and it´s disturbed too often. Somebody put it in there. And I already know who it was!"
And that is why we were standing in front of house No. 7 just a few minutes later. Flora knocked firmly. A few minutes later, the old woman looked out of the door.
"What do you want?" she said harshly.
"Talk to you. Privately. It is better if nobody notices that!"
The old woman gazed sharply at us for a moment. Then, suddenly, a smile flickered over her face. "Very well, then. I just knew this would happen. Come on in, Hogwarts-students!"
I was a bit uneasy about it, but as Flora entered the house without hesitating, I followed her. What if the old woman transformed us into some creatures? Even the ministry of magic couldn´t find us out here. The house didn´t look like a muggle-house at all. On every wall, there were hanging pictures of witches and wizards, magical creatures and animals, who were walking across some meadows or nodding to us. There was a photo of our beloved headmaster, too.
"Would you like something to drink?" she asked and implied to sit down on the sofa.
I shook my head, but sat down like a good girl.
"Ah, very good. Who´s your teacher in Defence against the Dark Arts? Lesson 3: Never drink something from potential enemies. It could be poisoned!" The old woman smirked. Flora looked at me questioningly. "What does the Sneakoscope in your pocket say? Friend or foe?" She looked at me insistently. Actually, the little thing in my pocket lay quite still. No danger! Or was there?
"Apparently, it just works as bad as the ministry´s control over your use of magic in the presence of muggles," I replied. I just didn´t know where my courage was coming from.
Again, the old woman only smirked: "Ah, I see, you have revealed my little secret!"
She poured herself a cup of tea.
"The secret, and the boggart in the Friedlich family´s kitchen cabinet!," Flora replied.
"And how did you get rid of him? Riddikulus? Good pupils!" The old woman´s face showed a satisfied expression.
"Why are you doing this?" I was stunned by the old woman´s callousness. But now, she frowned.
"Really, do you still ask that? You´ve seen them yourselves, those pests of kids. I don´t have anything against muggles, oh no. But the way they behave, that really is the limit. The rash was a little revenge for the rotten eggs. If they do consider me to be a witch, they will take the damage. It´s the same every summer: I come here to collect some magical herbs that unfortunately only grow in this area, and immediately those ferrets are bullying me. I found the boggart on the attic. Even at my age, one wants to play a trick. That´s how that old frump Friedlich calls the impertinence of her spoilt kids!"
"So it was all about your revenge? That´s what the protection hex was for? The whole fuss?" Flora now looked as shocked as me.
"The little hex saved your necks. Without it, you could just turn your backs on your beloved Hogwarts!," she stated. "If you hadn´t brought the boggart to the Friedlich family, we wouldn´t have had to save them from what seemed to be a rat," I barked back.
"Well, that´s good to know, next time I just take an actual rat and put it into her bathroom." For a moment, it was silent.
Then, Flora stood up: "You are completely nuts! But anyway, we can´t put a finger on you, because then they would find out about our spell." She suddenly fell silent and pulled me up.
"And that´s how one hand washes the other!" Again, the old woman was smiling to herself.
"I feel sorry for you," I noticed. "Judging from how strong your hex is, you must be a really powerful witch. But instead of using this to your advantage, you are satisfied if you scare some muggle-kids. Oh, and while we´re at it: It would be nice if the pimples weren´t contagious."
"Oh, young lady, don´t worry. They will be gone by afternoon, just in time after the ballet performance. And concerning everything else, I already have new perspectives for the future. We will meet again, soon," she said, before she let us go out the door.
"Should that be a threat?," I asked Flora, when we had left the house behind a bit.
Suddenly, Flora turned pale.
"Everything all right?," I asked anxiously. She only shook her head.
"No, nothing is. Didn´t you read it?"
"What?" Frightened, I looked at her. A message from Askaban?
"The letter on the table. To Mrs. Bernadette Flowersprint! The old woman is our new teacher for herbology!"
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