What I'm Looking For...

My dad and I sat at a small round table in the Leaky Cauldron. Everyone had settled down a bit; but Harry Potter was still the main topic of conversation. I looked at my dad; in his hand he had some sort of drink, I don’t know what it was called but it looked dark, thick and horrible.

“Dad, who is Harry Potter? I mean why is he so famous, why did everyone want to talk to him?” I looked at him in anticipation.

“Well years ago, when you were a baby; when Harry was a baby, something terrible happened. There was a person called...” My dad looked around and put his head closer to mine before whispering “there was a person called Voldemort” He paused and looked around again.

“Why did you whisper his name?” I asked, confused.

“People normally call him ‘You-Know-Who’. People are still scared to say his name. He was a wizard that went bad, as bad as you can go. Maybe even worse. This wizard started looking for followers; maybe about twenty years ago now. He got them too; some were scared of him, others just wanted a bit of his power.

“They were dark days; you never knew who you could trust and you wouldn’t get friendly with a strange witch or wizard. He was taking over, terrible things happened. Of course some stood up to him, but he’d kill them; horribly.

“His parents were head boy and girl when they were at Hogwarts. He was a great wizard and she was a great witch. The only thing was ‘You-Know-Who’ never tried to get them on his side. Maybe he wanted to persuade them, or he just wanted them out of the way. All anyone knows is that he turned up to the village they were living in; on Halloween about ten years ago. Harry was just a year old when he came into their house and killed the Potter’s. The real mystery is, he tried to kill Harry too, I suppose wanting to make a clean job of it all. But he couldn’t kill him; that’s how he got the scar on his forehead; it’s a mark only a evil curse can leave behind. That’s why he’s famous; no one else has ever lived after he decided to kill them. Harry Potter is the boy that lived. You-Know-Who was destroyed; he’s dead.”

I sat there, taking in all the information I’d just been feed. The boy I’d just met... was a, a hero? If I’d been told this a week ago I wouldn’t have believed it was real, probably just an over active imagination that lead to a story told by one of my friends...

I blinked away a few tears and shook my head; clearing my thoughts.

“Are you done with that? Let’s go” I said, wanting to get a change of scenery; out of this small, dark bar. My dad and I stood up and he led me to the same room, where, ten minutes before, Hagrid and Harry had gone into.

Once inside I discovered that it wasn’t a room at all; it was a small, walled of courtyard, with nothing more than a dustbin and some weeds. My dad pulled a long, thin stick out of his pocket; his wand. It was made out of beautiful, cedar wood with small spirals and engravings on it.

He tapped the wall three times with his wand. The brick it’d touched quivered, wriggling, in the middle a small hole appeared. It grew wider and wider, and a second later they were facing a large archway that led on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.

“Welcome to Diagon Alley”