Mum wasn’t keen on telling the whole story. Later that day, both sat in the living room with mum nursing a mug of hot-something while Taylor sipped her mug of hot-cocoa.
“Your father,” mum started in a small voice. “died fighting in a war against an evil wizard.”
War? What war was mum talking about? Taylor didn’t remember any recent war happening, but now also didn’t seem to be the correct time to ask more questions. She’d wait until mum’s mood shifted to ask about the war.
Taylor had known her father’s death hadn’t been some accident even if mum never talked about it. The freedom fighter or rebel part was the interesting bit, but in the end, it didn’t make much of a difference. She’d never known the man, even resented him a little for making her mother sad. There were no pictures of her dad in the house. Mum didn’t talk about him or his family. Taylor had no real attachment to him, unlike her mother; he was just someone that died years ago.
“He was a wizard. Disowned by his family for marrying a muggle.”
There was a hint of distaste when mum said the word. A long stretch of silence followed. Taylor thought mum was going to say more, but she picked up the strange key, then placed it on Taylor’s hand.
“Don’t lose it,” she said. “Non-magicals like me can’t wander in magical Britain because of the notice-me-not magic, and magicals are an insular people. It’s one of the reasons we had no contact with that side of your father’s life.”
The situation was a lot more complicated than that, Taylor later realised. Without magic, mum wasn’t able to reach the correct places or people to even get news about dad or what happened to him. Nor his will or inheritance or anything. They survived by mum selling a few of dad’s old stuff and coins they had at hand for initial cash to open her own business.
“But enough of that,” mum said after a big sip of her beverage. “Have you considered if you want to join the school? Don’t let me muddy your decision. Your father was always fond of the place and friends he made there, even after the war broke out…”
Taylor was intrigued by the opportunity, but also knew that leaving for a boarding school was difficult. “Won’t you be alone?”
Mum smiled and pulled Taylor into a bear hug. “Don’t you mind that, sweetie. If you feel homesick, you can always write to me. Everyday if need be.”
Dart. Mum never missed anything.
“I want to go,” Taylor admitted after stealthily wiping a few tears away.
“We’ll have to visit Diagon Alley and retrieve money from your Gringotts vault. We should be able to buy everything in your list there.”
“Diagon Alley?”
Mum pinched Taylor’s cheeks, smiling a pleased smile. “We’ll go there this weekend. You’ll love the magic.”
Magic was wicked cool.
It started with a grubby little pub that would be easy to miss if not for the many bugs inside. Bugs Taylor had never felt or seen before.
Even before Taylor had fully processed what she was feeling, her superpower brushed against something wrong inside the pub, wrong in the best possible way. Spiders unlike any she had ever felt, their webs humming with a faint resonance that made her teeth ache pleasantly. They were bigger than they should have been, tucked into rafters and corners. The mosquitoes were worse in the best way: some bloodsuckers almost an inch long. Then there were things she had no name for: small, quick, winged, vaguely humanoid in a way that made her power do a double take. Bugs were not supposed to have faces. Some flitted with chaotic energy, crashing into walls and rebounding without apparent concern. Others, smaller and meaner, hovered with something like intent.
“You’ll have to lead me there,” mum said after a while observing the street. “Your dad told me once there’s magic that keeps non-magicals away.”
Wrenching her attention from the new bugs, she paid attention to the pub. It was dark and shabby, wedged between a bookshop and a record store on a busy London street. Her mum couldn’t see it. Taylor hadn’t believed it at first. The Leaky Cauldron even had one of those wooden plaques outside with the name exposed to elements, but a few minutes of observation was enough to clear things.
None of the non-magicals looked in the pub’s direction. The only ones who did, and entered or left the place, were those weirdly dressed in strange clothing in strange colors and styles, like the deputy headmistress. Taylor was starting to believe that dressing unfashionably was a requirement to be a magical person; there was no reason otherwise to wear pointy witch hats like the fantasy stories.
Holding her mum’s hand, Taylor dragged both into the pub.
Inside, it was dingy and low-ceilinged, full of old wooden furniture and the smell of something cooking, crowded with magic people in various states of eccentricity, nursing drinks, eating meals, or just talking. The barman was ancient and toothless and greeted both as soon as they entered.
“Annie, it’s been years! It’s a shame what happened to Danny. Those were dark times.”
“Tom,” mum said, inclining her head, but her voice was dry and formal.
Tom’s eyes moved from mum to Taylor. Her skin crawled at the attention.
“It’s time for the squirt to go to Hogwarts?”
That drew attention from the pub’s patrons, but one good look and interest vanished.
“Yes.” Mum said in a tight voice. “I’ll need you to open the passage for us, if that isn’t a problem.”
“None whatsoever,” Tom said and walked from behind the bar. “Follow.”
Mum did so, pulling Taylor by the hand. It was good that she did, because Taylor was mostly lost to the world at this point. There were so many new bugs to feel and see.
“Now, pay attention,” Tom said, pulling up a stick from his coat. “You need to hit the proper bricks to open the wall.” He tapped a few stone bricks in sequence. The bricks quivered and wiggled. In the middle of the wall a small hole appeared, it grew and grew, into an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.
On the other side was controlled chaos.
A shop nearby had stacks of cauldrons outside with information signs hanging above them. Down the street, an apothecary displayed the strangest of ingredients. Another shop had hooting owls, cats, rats and even toads. Taylor’s senses expanded, seeing with a thousand new eyes from a thousand different new bugs skittering and scurrying in corners and out of sight and under tables and over roofs and between walls and under the cobblestone.
Inside a bookstore further down the street, a huge gathering of people surrounded a posh looking man smiling with pearly white teeth and signing books. At another, a clothing store, groups of people, one full of red hair and another with almost white blond hair came to blows over spilled school supplies. Deeper inside the alley, a whole section had the most vicious bugs Taylor had ever felt. People in dark robes and darkened hoods scurried about, talking in whispers and behaving like they were up to no good.
Mum's gentle words brought Taylor back to her senses. “Taylor, sweetie?”
Taylor blinked big blue wide-open eyes. “Mum! There’s so many!”
Annette nodded slowly. She had crouched in front of Taylor at some point. Taylor didn’t remember when.
“I know sweetheart, but you’ve got to focus. Can you do that?”
Taylor nodded absentmindedly, throwing a glance the way back. The wall had closed and it was just a normal brick wall. With a supreme effort of will, she pushed the new senses and bugs to the back of her mind. A few steps into the alley, and Taylor had forgotten about the new bugs.
It was one thing to see and feel things with her bugs, another entirely to see it with her own eyes.
The stack of cauldrons (and the sign above it) caught Taylor’s eye first. Then the pet store, then the book store, and the apothecary, and the book store, and the clothing shop, and the book store. Taylor was vaguely aware of her mum gently guiding her through the mass of people.
Down the street, they stopped by a silver marble building that towered over the others. A small man, wearing red and gold armor guarded the door, gesturing to people coming in and out of the building. Like the TARDIS, it was bigger inside than should be possible. That wasn’t even taking into account the deep tunnels leading God knows where.
“We’re here,” mum said, looking at the building.
“Are those…?”
Mum looked at Taylor, then nodded. “Goblins. They can be abrasive, but be polite.”
Into the wizard bank the duo went. Dozens and dozens of goblins sat on high stools scribbling into ledgers, counting and weighing coins, inspecting gems through eyeglasses. There were too many doors leading from this room, many which goblins led people to and from.
Annette and Taylor made for the counter where a goblin had just finished his business with a portly witch.
“Good morning,” mum said with a small nod. “I’d like to withdraw from Taylor’s vault.”
“Do you have the key?”
Mum nodded, and Taylor took the key from her pocket and handed it over to the little man.
The goblin examined it closely. “That seems to be in order. Would you like to visit the vault?”
Taylor looked at her mum expectantly.
“There’s no need,” mum said after a moment. “A hundred galleons withdraw and an accounting of the vault's contents will be enough.”
“Very well,” the goblin said, hopping off the stool. “Follow me.”
He led the way towards one of the many doors. Inside was a room decorated with a table, a few chairs and nothing else.
“Wait here,” said the goblin before leaving them alone.
The next minutes flashed by with Taylor examining everything in her range. Some strange centipedes-like crawlers that ate rocks. A type of worm that melted through stones, gnats and others. She also kept an eye on the goblin, having placed a fly on the back of his clothes to follow him around. He went to what looked like an archive, pulling parchment and reading things, while yelling at other goblins and giving orders.
About ten minutes later, he was back, carrying a parchment sheet and a bag of coins.
“Here you have it.”
Mum took both and nodded to the goblin. “Thank you. Can you tell me what the current value of the coins are?”
“Eighteen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-eight Knuts to a Sickle.”
Mum nodded her head. “Thank you.”
There was silence for a moment with mum staring down the goblin. Taylor imagined sparks flying out of their eyes and meeting into a fearsome battle between both. Sadly, that didn’t happen. The goblin let out a derisive snort, turned around and left the room without another word.
“Goblins.” She heard her mother mutter.
Taylor had, for a brief moment, imagined that she was a daughter of some long forgotten magical noble, now back to claim her fortune and fame. The truth was less grandiose than that. The vault's contents weren’t anything to sneeze at, but it also wasn’t the fortune that stories were made of.
Mum let Taylor see the scribbled parchment. It had taken some effort to understand goblin scrawls, but she managed it in the end.
Nine thousand, two hundred and seventy nine galleons, two thousand, five hundred and three sickles, three hundred and thirty three knuts, already including the bank operational fee. A collection of memorabilia that, according to the goblin’s report (if not exactly in those words), was worth less than dirt and a waste of space.
Taylor peered at the parchment, confused. “Why is it described like that?”
Annette shook her head, rolling her eyes. “Goblins only recognize value if it can be weighed or sold. The items inside the vault were things that had emotional value to us. With the war escalating, your dad didn’t want to lose his precious football card collection.”
Taylor noted her mum’s tactful phrasing regarding goblins. It was a nice tidbit to know for the future.
With the matters at the bank settled, it was time to shop and purchase her school year supplies. Taylor wanted to go buy books first, but her mother had other ideas.
“A wand first, then a trunk.”