It’s September the first, and young witches and wizards have converged on King’s Cross Station in London for the journey north to Hogwarts. Me, I’m just working through all the emails I’ve received with suggestions for edits, updates, corrections, and additions to the Lexicon. Unfortunately, there’s no Welcoming Feast awaiting me at the end of the day. On the other hand, I won’t have to travel the whole day on a train with nothing to eat but sweets from the trolley. I mean, seriously, I love Bertie Botts but for a day-long train trip I’d rather have a sandwich or two. Even corned beef. And maybe a nice ripe tomato. Okay, now I’m hungry. (If you enjoy the descriptions of food in Harry Potter like I do, you’ll appreciate the blog “Harry Potter Recipes“).
So another Hogwarts year begins. Let’s see, the defeat of Voldemort was in 1998, which is eleven years ago. The children starting school today will have been born, then, during that final terrifying year of danger and suspicion and war. Harry’s year was similar, having been born in 1980, at the height of Voldemort’s first rise to power. I wonder if the number of students this year is fairly small, just as the number of kids in Harry’s year seems to have been quite small. Ah, the fun of speculating and discussing Harry Potter!