Tzipporah had little trouble convincing Fonzie, a freckly Gryffindor first-year, to agree to tell anyone who asked that she was tutoring him on Friday night. It was commonly known that Alfonzo Jurgen was completely smitten with the bright, black-curled Zippie Stein, and that she felt nothing more than friendship for him, if of a slightly exasperated nature.
“But what are you really doing?” Fonzie had questioned her, after spluttering and blushing his way through a promise that he would do whatever she asked.
“I’m not going on a date with anyone, if that is what you’re getting at, Fonzie.” Tzipporah had rolled her eyes at him, making Fonzie blush even more under his freckles. Honestly, this boy is redder than kashrut wine, Tzipporah had thought. I don’t know what I ever did to make him like me so much.
Millie and Clarice, it seemed, had some ideas as to what Tzipporah had done, and deemed it necessary to share them with her at dinner on Friday evening.
“Obviously it’s because of your glorious curls,” Millie had grinned at her as she sliced up her ham. “Nobody’s got hair like yours.”
“That’s not true, Millie. There are at least four other girls in Gryffindor with curly hair.” Tzipporah spoke calmly, spearing a boiled potato with her fork.
“But yours is the longest, and the prettiest,” said Rosa longingly, scowling at her own frizzy tresses. “I’d give anything for hair like yours.”
Tzipporah chewed her potatoes, deciding not to tell her friends yet again that her hair was hardly the miracle they considered it.
“I think Fonzie must like you because you’re so good at Defense against the Dark Arts,” Clarice slipped in. “He definitely admires your wandwork. I heard him talking to Edward Potter about that alohamora charm you used on Daisy Hinkman’s stuck trunk lid. He kept saying ‘She’s brilliant, she’s brilliant!’”
“But we all learned that charm! Any one of you could have done it,” Tzipporah argued.
“Not me,” said Annika, stirring her mutton stew morosely. “I cannot pronounce so many of the spells. Vot a difficult language English is!”
“You’ll get it soon enough, Annika,” Rosa soothed her. “Your English is already loads bett“”
“Zippie, why don’t you ever eat any meat?” Clarice cut in quietly.
Millie looked confusedly at Clarice. “Where did that come from?”
“I’ve been wondering for a long time, only I kept forgetting to ask. Why don’t you?”
Tzipporah felt her face getting hot. She hadn’t anticipated this kind of confrontation. I didn’t think they’d noticed…
“I…I just…” Tzipporah could think of nothing to say. Her mind was a perfect blank.
“I think I understand,” Millie interjected. “You’re a vegetarian, aren’t you?”
“I “ yes. Yes, I am.” Tzipporah could have sighed with relief at Millie’s assumption. Adonai, I promise I’ll say a prayer for this tonight.
“A vegetarian?” Clarice raised her eyebrows. “Why?”
“I don’t believe in the killing of animals,” replied Tzipporah, continuing the lie. It pained her beyond expression to tell falsehoods to her friends, but her fear would not let her do otherwise. Clarice dropped the subject, and talk resumed about Fonzie, spellwork, and Annika’s abysmal pronunciation. Between Millie and Clarice, how am I ever going to keep my secret? Tzipporah couldn’t help but ask herself.
After dinner Tzipporah bid her friends goodbye in the Great Hall and headed in the direction of the library. Then, just after the portrait of Mildred the Mistaken, she stopped and tapped the wall, which opened up to reveal a secret stone-paneled tunnel that she and Millie had discovered during their first explorations of the castle. Several minutes later Tzipporah emerged in the now deserted Great Hall, only slightly cobwebbier than before. Cautiously she stalked toward the front doors and glided out onto the grounds, which were already shadowed with sunset.
I’m allowed to be out, Tzipporah reminded herself. It’s not even six o’clock, and curfew is at eight thirty. I couldn’t get in trouble even if I was seen. Still, Tzipporah felt like she was doing something wrong by sneaking out alone.
After crossing the ever-darkening grasses Tzipporah settled under a small beech sapling at the edge of the lake, carefully removing the candlesticks, matches, and prayer book from her bag. She steadied the candlesticks between the roots of the beech tree and lit the candles, letting her voice just barely rise over the sound of the waves as she sang the blessing. Then she opened her book and began to pray, losing herself in the familiarity of the Hebrew words and the orange glow of the twin flames.
An hour passed; the candles became two creamy pools of wax, finally hissing into smoke as a faint wind off the water blew them out. Tzipporah sighed and closed her prayer book, wishing more than anything that she could continue to sit by the lake, frozen in that moment forever.
Adonai, forgive me for the lies I’ve had to tell my friends, Tzipporah prayed silently. I can’t think of any other way, but I’m sorry all the same because it is a sin.
Unwillingly her thoughts turned to her mother as she watched the gentle rippling of the lake water; before her mother’s death she and Tzipporah had always gone to watch the boats on the canal just as the sun set. L’shena Tovah, Mameleh. If only you were here to celebrate with me. But it makes sense that you went on. Millie said only cowards stay behind as ghosts, and you were never afraid. I wonder if you ever sat under this beech tree when you were at Hogwarts. I wonder who will sit under it after me…
Stars littered the sky by the time Tzipporah stood to leave. But as she began her walk back up to the castle, she caught sight of a strange movement at the corner of her eye.
Someone was flying out on the quidditch pitch. It was now too dark for Tzipporah to tell who it was, and she felt sure that the flier would not recognize her either. Still, she thought it might be best to hurry up to bed, just in case.
From his height on his broomstick, Edward Potter couldn’t help noticing the figure making its way from the lake to the front doors. By the light of the ascending moon he could see long, bouncing black curls. Tzipporah Stein, he recognized at once, and grinned. Friend of my sworn enemy Millie MacDougal, crush of little Fonzie Jurgen…I wonder what she’s doing? Curious, Edward had half a mind to fly down and ask her. But he could see the girl was trying for secrecy, so he resisted the urge. Next time I see her out here I’ll ask her, he decided. Then, with a wild whoop, he turned a triple loop in the air, his mind already back on the quidditch tryouts he was practicing for. Little did he know that “next time” would be sooner than he expected.