Chapter Text
September of my fifth year, Dad and I walked to King's Cross. For the past four years, we'd taken this trip - just the two of us. Mum's a Muggle (or "mundane," as Dad prefers to say), and my younger sister never showed signs of magic. Emily, the youngest, is already shattering teapots from across the room, but who wants to take an eight-year-old to such a busy place?
"This trunk is unwieldy. Should have gotten a luggage case, like your Mother said."
"Here, let me. And I can't bring a luggage case to school, Dad. I'll look silly."
"No worries on that," he muttered, glancing back. "We look silly enough as it is."
We tried to speak of anything but Hogwarts. I'd never asked Dad what he knew of the death of Cedric Diggory, and more importantly, of the alleged cause of his death. It's hard to speak of these things in general, much less in a house full of Muggles.
"I'll never understand why our people insist on being peculiar."
"Hm?" I asked, struggling with my end of the trunk.
"These silly trunks. And even worse, what's in the trunk. Hats, robes, moving pictures- it's unnecessarily peculiar."
"It's just a boarding school trunk. And what's wrong with hats and robes? It's tradition."
"Tradition," Dad scowled. "Wizards cling to tradition as if they'd cease to be magical without it."
"Perhaps they would."
Dad didn't answer. He spotted a cart for my trunk, and we gratefully loaded it. I sat the cat carrier atop the trunk, suddenly sorry that I'd been swinging the poor cat around with one hand. As I pushed the cart, I wondered where I fit in all of this. I carried a trunk full of tradition- robes and magic books, but also logic primers, history texts, and biblical commentaries. The latter belonged to Grandpa, my Dad's father, known to most as Rabbi Goldstein. Grandpa doesn't find magic very useful, and it makes him frantic that I'll spend years studying it.
We walked through a wall and appeared on the hidden platform. Dad, visibly relaxed, surveyed the crowd. He nodded here and there to a Ministry coworker. For all his disdain for peculiarity, Dad must've seemed strange. Muggle-born, Jewish, upper-level Unspeakable- even better, he had radical politics and a television set.
"Right, have you got everything?"
"I think so."
"You should be certain. Did you make a list?"
"I did, but one can never be certain about anything, can he?"
Dad rolled his eyes. "Do you have your schoolbooks?"
"Of course."
"Did you remember Grandpa's books? He'll be wroth if you go all term without studying."
"Got them. And I borrowed your Spinoza."
"Did you, now." He gave me a wry smile. "You'll have to take your nose out of those books once in a while, now you're a prefect." Dad pulled a shiny piece from his coat.
"My badge!"
"You left it on the dresser. While you were looking for Spinoza, no doubt."
"Of course," I sighed, feeling suddenly put-out. "Dumbledore shouldn't have given me this, really. I don't care for having authority."
A horn blew, and the huge red engine puffed impatiently.
"Look, Anthony. Being prefect is a great honor. Don't let on to the others that you're ambivalent- there's many who want this badge, and they won't show respect if you wear it poorly."
I barely heard his last words over the roaring engine. Dad pulled me into a quick hug, then placed the badge in my hand.
"Bye, Anthony. Good luck."
I turned to go, but he grabbed my hand.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Dad shook his head. I could barely hear him over the noise. "Just be careful."
"WHAT?"
"BE CAREFUL!"
"OF COURSE," I shouted, waving good-bye.
Quickly, I pinned the badge to my sweater. There wouldn't be time to change into robes just yet, with the prefect meeting and all. When I looked up, Dad had gone. I didn't relish the idea of loading my trunk by myself, but I was content to take my time. Boarding the train meant becoming a prefect, and that meant telling my friends that I'd gotten the badge. I had suspicions that Terry Boot and Michael Corner would've liked wearing it.
Thus I boarded the Hogwarts Express that year, worrying only about the badge on my sweater. Somewhere near the back of my mind, I also worried that I wouldn't have time for all my studies. I thought about my cat, alone until the prefect meeting finished. But for the last time that year, I didn't consider the world at large. I didn't think about dark lords and witch-hunts and Muggle-borns. Just myself, and how little I wanted to begin docking House points.