Instead of heading out the door, Professor Odoaker walked over to the fireplace that was adorned with various framed photographs.
“Aren’t we going to go get school supplies?” Dieter asked, bewildered.
Odoaker said, “Of course we are.” He seemed to be enjoying himself as he beckoned Dieter and his mother to stand by the fireplace with him. “Please do not be alarmed,” he cautioned.
He aimed his wand into the empty fireplace and said, “Incendio.” Instantly, there was a roaring fire, fuelled by absolutely nothing. A wall of warm air shot out, messing up Mutti’s hair which she had spent the last five minutes combing.
Dieter had absolutely no idea what lighting a magic fire was supposed to accomplish, but it was exciting all the same.
Professor Odoaker reached into his crimson robes and extracted a small sack about the size of a clenched fist. He untied the top to reveal a brilliant green powder “ he took a pinch and threw it into the flames, and the most curious thing happened.
The fire turned green. Mutti gasped.
“Wow, Professor!” Dieter said excitedly. He suddenly wanted some of that powder, so he could light his cooking fires green on Deutsches Jungvolk campouts. He could imagine the stunned, possibly jealous expressions on his friends’ faces…
“W-why is the fire green?” Frau Heydrich asked nervously.
“This… is Floo Powder,” Odoaker explained, showing them the little sack. He tied it shut, returned it to his pockets, and continued, “It creates a magical passageway of sorts, linking magical fireplaces to each other. Now, as this is a Muggle household, I’ve only obtained a temporary Floo licence for it today. You can pay to have your house fully connected to the network, but I don’t see any real point.”
A passageway? Dieter had no idea how the fire in the fireplace could be used as a form of transportation. “How does it work?” he asked.
As if gripped by some insane impulse, Professor Odoaker ducked his head and walked straight into the emerald flames. “Like this,” he demonstrated as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
The expected screams of pain and the smell of burning flesh and wool (or whatever his cloak was made of) never materialised. The green flames seemingly had no effect on Professor Odoaker whatsoever “ he leaned over and stuck his head out of the opening. “Please, come in. We’re not going anywhere if you stay in the sitting room.”
“But, how are we going to fit?” Frau Heydrich asked, hoping that she could avoid such a bizarre ordeal.
“Don’t worry. It’s quite spacious, actually “ I used an internal enlargement spell.”
Ignoring every reasonable part of his brain that told him otherwise, Dieter took a tentative step into the fireplace. The menacing green flames licked his foot, but there was no burning pain “ it was actually quite relaxing, like taking a warm bath, but with all of his clothes on and without the water.
With no harm befalling his foot, he ducked fully into the fireplace. He was surprised that it was just the right size to fit three standing people inside. A few seconds later, Mutti arrived, muttering about just how unfathomably weird everything was.
“Now what do we do?” Dieter asked.
“You simply say where you want to go. However, since you have absolutely no idea where that happens to be, I will do the honours. Please hold on to me.”
Dieter grabbed Odoaker’s hand, and he felt his mother seize the other one.
“Ready? Good.” Professor Odoaker took a deep breath and said in a loud, clear voice, “Gellert Grindelwald Platz!”
Like a worm plucked out of the earth by a bird, the Professor was irresistibly sucked upward through the chimney. Dieter hardly had any time to react before he was yanked upwards too. Behind him, Mutti let loose a surprised squeak.
The human chain shot through a long tunnel of different chimneys. Through the swirling green flames, Dieter caught some glimpses of rooms through the fireplace openings that flew by.
Then they landed “ Mutti first and Professor Odoaker last. Dieter couldn’t figure out how they had been travelling up but had arrived travelling down without any change of direction or orientation.
Well, it’s magic! That was the only explanation.
Dieter’s mother staggered out first. She patted the soot off her dress the best she could and muttered darkly to herself about having to do some washing and ironing.
Once out of the fireplace (which was now devoid of green flames), Dieter took in his surroundings.
He was in a small room, and it was a very unremarkable one. The walls were bare brick and the floor was of stone, and there was absolutely no furniture of any kind, save for a vase in a corner filled with Floo Powder. There were no windows to speak of, and the only way out was through a thick wooden door at the other end of the room.
“Is everyone all right?” the Professor asked.
Dieter nodded. “That was… fun! And really weird too!”
“More like ‘terrifying’,” Mutti suggested. “And now my best dress is all messed up!”
“Don’t worry. That can be easily fixed.” Professor Odoaker waved his wand and said some spell, and Mutti’s clothes straightened themselves out and became spotlessly clean. He then walked over to the door, and Dieter and Mutti followed. “Ready?” he asked.
They both answered, “Yes.”
Professor Odoaker told hold of the wrought iron handle and opened the thick door with a flourish. “Welcome… to Gellert Grindelwald Platz!”
Without invitation, Dieter hurried through the door and outside into the brilliant sunshine. “Wow,” he uttered. It was the only thing he could say, and that simple word was quite appropriate.
Dieter was in a magnificent town square, far larger and grander than Adolf Hitler Platz back home. The square was packed with a multitude of people in colourful robes and cloaks, carrying bags or leading small children by the hand. “Mutti, Mutti! I want to get a broomstick! I want one now!” one nearby child whined, earning him a scolding.
Surrounding the square on all sides were shops of various shapes and sizes “ there were tall and skinny medieval half-timber buildings, and large and imposing modern ones of marble and granite. Spaced here and there were snow-covered trees, and in the centre of the square was a large fountain with a statue, whose features were obscured by a sheet of water cascading from the top. Dieter’s curiosity moved him closer to get a better look.
There was a marble pedestal with an inscription in a language Dieter didn’t understand; it looked like Latin. On top of the pedestal was a statue was of an armoured knight or king of some kind, whose visor was up to reveal a bearded face. He was mounted on the back of a winged lion with the head and front talons of an eagle “ a griffin. From the tip of the rider’s wand, which he held aloft like a sword, flowed the water that splashed back into the coin-littered pool below.
“Would you like to try to throw a coin into the griffin’s mouth?” Professor Odoaker asked “ Dieter had been so absorbed in the scenery that he almost forgot he was with the Durmstrang Professor and his mother. “It’s good luck if you get it in.”
Dieter said he didn’t have any money, but Mutti solved that problem by giving him a Reichspfennig. “Make a wish,” she said.
The problem was, he couldn’t think of what to wish. Would he rather have a Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter plane or his own Zeppelin? Or how about a Panzerkampfwagen II tank? Oh, the agony of choice!
In the end, Dieter wished for all of them. Before throwing the little coin, he suddenly noticed how small the griffin’s open mouth was. Without feeling too confident, he threw.
The Pfennig bounced off the griffin’s head and plopped into the water.
“Well, don’t feel too bad,” Professor Odoaker said sympathetically. “I’ve never met anyone who’s made it on their first try. But, we ought to be going “ we should go to the bank first to convert your Muggle money, so if you will follow me…”
The bank looked like a smaller version of the Reichstag, complete with tall windows and a granite portico with Große Greif-Bank inscribed on the frieze. Hung in-between the front columns were a series of tall red banners, each adorned with the triangular symbol with the inscribed circle and line. Behind the banners were a pair of towering doors of sculpted bronze, and standing by the opening were two exceedingly short individuals with pointed ears.
“Don’t be alarmed. They’re only goblins,” Professor Odoaker said, noticing Dieter and Mutti’s surprised expressions.
Both of the goblins flanking the entrance held long, thin, flexible golden rods. Clearly bored, they scanned the party with their instruments. “Have a nice day-wait!” one of the goblins suddenly yelped “ his golden rod was making a ping!ping!ping!ping! sound. “There is a Squib in this group!”
Odoaker faced the goblin and said sternly, “Frau Heydrich is my personal guest. Now, return to your business and do not bother us again.”
“My a-apologies, sir,” the goblin stammered, while trying to make himself look as small and insignificant as possible.
Once inside the bank’s marble halls and out of earshot of the goblin, Mutti asked Professor Odoaker, “The little man called me a ‘Squib’ “ what does that mean?”
The Professor paused for a moment before replying delicately, “It’s… just another word for ‘Muggle,’ a non-magical person.”
Mutti frowned, and Dieter could figure out why. The word ‘Muggle’ sounded rather harmless and cuddly even, but ‘Squib’ just had a harsh tone that Dieter couldn’t quite describe.
Professor Odoaker seemed to have read their minds. “Don’t worry; politeness is a foreign word for goblins. I’ve never met one I’ve liked, but unfortunately, you just have to deal with them.”
He said that last sentence in a whisper, and Dieter suddenly saw why. Goblins didn’t just guard the door. There was a goblin behind each and every one of the handsome wooden counters along the walls, sitting on tall chairs to at a more comfortable height for the towering humans. The one they approached was busy making calculations with an abacus, and the Professor cleared his throat to get his attention.
The little goblin behind the counter looked up from his work. It bore a strong resemblance to a Jew. Its nose was too big for its face, and its little eyes looked like black marbles. It also had long, thin fingers of just the perfect length to wrap around someone’s neck and strangle them with. Dieter felt an involuntary shudder run down his spine.
“What do you want?” the Hebraic goblin asked, irked.
“Frau Heydrich here,” Professor Odoaker announced, indicating Dieter’s mother, “would like to make a currency exchange “ Muggle Reichsmarks to ZZR Griffins.”
“Muggle money? Very well. The exchange rate is three and a quarter Reichsmarks to the Griffin, and the transaction fee is two percent of the total conversion. Declare your amount.”
Mutti reached into her purse, and pulled out her wallet. “How much exactly, does a wand, book, and other school supplies cost altogether?”
Professor Odoaker thought for a moment before hesitantly answering, “Depending on whether you buy your supplies as new versus second-hand, about fifteen Griffins, give or take two or three Griffins higher and lower. I’m sorry, but I’ve never been particularly good at this sort of thing.”
“So, how much would that be in Reichsmarks?” Frau Heydrich asked the goblin.
The creature’s thin fingers slid the beads on the abacus around, and answered, “To give you an idea, fifteen Griffins comes out to forty-nine Reichsmarks and seventy-three Reichspfennig, with the tax included, Madam.”
Mutti did some mental calculations and declared, “I would like to exchange fifty Reichsmarks, then.”
The beads on the abacus slid around some more. “That amounts to fifteen Griffins and one Badger.”
She handed over two twenty-Reichsmark notes and a ten. The goblin accepted them and returned a small stack of gold and silver coins of different sizes, and a bronze coin that looked a little out of place when put next to its lustrous companions. “Two three-Griffin coins and nine one-Griffins for a total of fifteen, plus one Badger. Sign here.”
The goblin slid a piece of parchment across the counter, and provided a bottle of ink and a quill…
Dieter amused himself by examining the wizarding coins “ he paid absolutely no attention to his mother signing complicated paperwork, or agreeing to create a bank account for him.
The Badger was the sole bronze coin, about one and a half centimetres wide. Predictably, it had an image of a Badger on its face, with the value written above and the date minted below. The Griffin had two types of coin “ the silver version was probably some two and a half centimetres wide and worth one Griffin, whereas the gold version was about the same size as the Badger, but worth three times the amount of the silver Griffin. On the back of every coin was the exact same design: that triangular symbol with “Zweites Zaubererreich” at the top and “Für Das Größere Wohl” below it.
“Dieter,” Mutti said, bringing his brain back into the wider world. “You have to sign here.”
Dieter had never written with a quill before, and his signature was far from handsome. The quill felt strange in his hand, and the sharp tip stabbed into the parchment a few times when he pressed too hard.
“What did I just sign?” he asked a few seconds later.
It was his agreement of some sort about his new wizarding bank account, his mother explained. And it had a grand total of five Griffins in it.
“Splendid,” Professor Odoaker announced. “Now that that’s done with, we can move on to the more exciting things. Please follow me.”
They passed the goblins guarding the door (who tactfully avoided scanning them with their golden rods) on their way outside. “I don’t like goblins,” Mutti said flatly. “They’re just too… creepy.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks that way. There are those in the Zaubererreich’s government who want them removed and replaced with honest, hardworking witches and wizards, but I’m not here to talk about politics,” Professor Odoaker said. He reached into his briefcase and gave Frau Heydrich yet another piece of parchment. “Now, here is the list of school supplies Dieter will need in September of next year.”
Mutti read the list, then handed it to Dieter:
School supplies
General equipment:
One wand
At least two Durmstrang plain crimson work robes
At least one Durmstrang winter coat
One pair of work gloves (dragon hide is preferred)
Parchment
At least one quill
Ink
Textbooks:
Defensive Magic for Beginners
Das Erste Zaubererreich - A History of Magic Before 1689
Introduction to Transfiguration
Simply Charming - Useful Spells for Beginners
Magical Herbs and Their Care
Potion Making, Year One
Guide to the Stars and Planets
Durmstrang Institute provides the following supplies for each student, and the purchase of personal items is optional:
One pewter cauldron (size 3½)
One measuring scale
One telescope
Students desiring to bring pets must obtain clearance for the animal by 25 August 1939.
~ Theoderich Odoaker
Deputy Rector
“Why do pets need to be cleared by the school first?” Dieter asked curiously.
Professor Odoaker chuckled. “Simple, really. It’s to ensure that no students bring anything dangerous to the castle. The rule has been in place since 1453, ever since that boy brought a dragon to the school.”
“A dragon?” Dieter said, astounded.
“Of course. You’ll hear all about it at Durmstrang “ it’s a great story. Now, I say we go get your uniform first, so if you’ll follow me…”
He led them past a line of strange shops “ an apothecary, an inn, and a place that sold owls and doubled as some sort of post office. Dieter noticed that every building bore the red banner with the triangular emblem, and some had posters that he didn’t have time to read.
Professor Odoaker led them to a claustrophobic shop called The Spinster “ Spinning Since 1234 A.D. Inside were racks upon racks of both colourful and reserved fabrics, and very little space in-between. An old tall, skinny woman with large glasses greeted them: “Hello there, I am Frau Näherin. Are you going to Durmstrang, little boy?”
Little boy? Dieter thought he was of average height for his age. He answered “Yes” nonetheless.
“Good, good, good, good, good…” she muttered to herself. Then she instructed Dieter to stand on the little box in the corner. There were several tall mirrors, and at a certain angle, there appeared to be a million Dieter Heydrichs in the shop. “Let’s start with your work robes. Now, put your arms UP!”
Dieter followed all of the woman’s (he forgot her name) instructions. He stood as still as a statue while the seamstress measured him and draped various lengths of crimson cloth over him. She tut-tutted and fussed, and Dieter found himself getting bored “ impossibly, Mutti was looking on with fascination. What do you expect? Girls… he thought.
The self-levitating scissors and sewing needles were mildly distracting, but overall, it was an extraordinarily dull hour and a half. Apparently, there were some things that magic couldn’t change, and the boredom of clothes shopping was one of them.
Finally, his uniforms were “juuust perfect!” Dieter privately had to admit that he looked rather good, though he would have preferred a much shorter wait. The Durmstrang uniforms had a slightly martial look, and the crimson was the perfect colour to accentuate just that.
Mutti paid for the school uniforms and they next moved on to buy books from Hoffman’s, which was a much more satisfying experience than purchasing his robes. None of the shelves were stocked with any books that would be found in a normal bookshop, not even Mein Kampf - confirmation to Dieter the magical world really was something totally detached from the normal world.
But packed on the shelves (and in towering stacks that seemed to defy gravity) were an unimaginable number of books “ books on broomsticks, cooking potions, omen interpretation, hexes, and countless things that Dieter had never heard of. Though there were no books on tanks or fighter planes, there were some about dragons. Let’s see how much Paul likes dinosaurs after seeing this! Dieter thought.
On that note, he bought one of the dragon books along with his seven heavy textbooks, and the heavy load was divided among the three. He wanted to spend more time in the shop to explore, but his mother insisted that they move on. They stopped by the stationery shop and left with several stacks of parchment and other writing supplies.
“Now, Frau Heydrich, would you like to get the optional Potions and Astronomy supplies, or would the equipment supplied by the school suffice?”
Predictably, she replied that she would rather save her money. Having lived through the years of economic chaos under those fools of Weimar, Mutti knew how to stretch her Marks (or in this case, Griffins) as far as they would go.
“I suppose there’s all you to do now is purchase your wand.”
That, in addition to that fighter plane he failed to wish himself, was what Dieter had been looking forward to the most.
The wand shop was adjacent to a place that sold brooms, which had a group of young boys and girls looking through the window, noses pressed to the glass. Dieter looked on curiously to see what they were ogling at.
“Look at that new Speer 130 “ your Volksbesen won’t stand a chance against that!” one child teased.
“That’s not true!”
Dieter felt Mutti’s hand on his shoulder; having got his attention, she gestured to Professor Odoaker, who was expectantly waiting by the doorway of Starkerstab’s Fine Wands, est. 1587.
“Sorry,” Dieter muttered, and he went inside.
The shop was very small. There were only a couple spindly chairs and a counter, but the storage room behind it was far larger. There was a corridor of sorts flanked by towering shelves stuffed with boxes and stacks of different woods. The area between the storage room and the counter resembled a carpenter’s workshop, complete with tables with different chisels, lathes, and even a fine layer of sawdust on the floor.
The wandmaker in his little workshop was a stocky man with brown hair and a very straight nose. He looked up and said, “Ah, Guten Tag, Herr Odoaker. Oak, twelve and three quarter inches, slightly bendy, and a core of griffin feather, correct?”
“Right as always,” Professor Odoaker said, totally unsurprised. Dieter couldn’t understand how he could be so blasé about such a display of extraordinary memory.
“But I don’t recognise you, Madam,” the wandmaker said to Mutti. “From whom did you purchase your wand?”
“Er…”
The wandmaker glanced at her dress and handbag, and corrected himself. “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have known. I presume your son is going to Durmstrang?”
Mutti answered yes, and Professor Odoaker introduced her and Dieter to the wandmaker. “Frau and Master Heydrich, this is Herr Starkerstab, maker of the finest wands in all the Zaubererreich… or all of Europe, actually!”
Herr Starkerstab chuckled. “Ah, so I take it that you don’t believe Gregorovich’s claims that his wands are modelled after the famed Deathstick, then?”
“Well, even if his claims are true, his wands still can’t match yours. Gregorovich needs some creativity of his own to be a good wandmaker.”
Dieter joined the conversation. “Gregorovich… that sounds Slavic. Wouldn’t that explain why his wands are worse?”
The wandmaker looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Being a Slav has nothing to do with it. It’s just that he has no imagination.”
Dieter was confused. Herr Starkerstab had just contradicted himself, and his explanation was simply a repetition of what Dieter had said!
Herr Starkerstab noticed the puzzled look on his face and said, “Well, enough arguing about whose wands are better “ besides, we forgot to chastise Ollivander! So, Master Heydrich, which hand is your wand hand?”
“What?” Dieter asked.
“The hand you write with.”
“Oh. I’m right handed.”
“Right,” the wandmaker said. He pulled out a piece of parchment from under a counter, placed it on top, and wrote some notes. “What’s your name, first and last?” he asked.
“Dieter Heydrich; H-E-Y-D-R-I-C-H. Some people spell it wrong, with an ‘i’ instead of a ‘y’.”
“Very well,” he muttered, writing that down. He then took a long, thin something out of a jar, and walked into the patron’s waiting area. “Stand very still and hold your arms out straight.”
Dieter was uncomfortably reminded of the horridly boring ordeal in the The Spinster. But dutifully, he held out his arms to make a ‘t.’
The long, thin, flat thing that Herr Starkerstab had was actually a measuring tape. It levitated into the air and uncoiled itself, looking something like a striped snake that had been flattened by a steamroller. The tape stretched itself out, curled up, and then back again, measuring different lengths of Dieter’s body “ even the distance between his nostrils. Meanwhile, the wandmaker was scratching away with a quill, taking meticulous notes.
“Now, Master Heydrich, I will be needing some of you blood.”
“WHAT?” he said, terrified.
“Don’t worry,” Professor Odoaker said. “He’s not a vampire “ all he needs is a single drop.”
Even so, Dieter didn’t like getting poked with sharp needles. “But… why?”
“It’s quite simple, really. By imparting a piece of yourself into your wand with that drop of blood, you make a deeply personal connection between you and your wand. This way, it is more powerful than ordinary wands when in the caster’s hands, and even more unresponsive in stranger’s hands that it does not trust.”
The wandmaker made it sound like wands could think and had feelings. Strange…
“I promise you, it won’t hurt…”
Dieter gave in and tentatively held out his hand. Herr Starkerstab aimed his wand at Dieter’s index finger, and there was a small flash of white light. True to his word, there was absolutely no pain at all, but there was a minute cut and a drop of blood balancing on his finger.
With his wand, Starkerstab transferred the drop into a narrow glass vial with a cork at both ends, then pointed his wand at Dieter’s finger and said, “Episkey.” The small cut magically healed itself.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it? Entertain yourselves while I make your wand “ it might take some time…”
Mutti heeded Herr Starkerstab’s advice and talked about the technicalities of Dieter’s Durmstrang education with Professor Odoaker. Dieter, however, stood by the counter to watch the wandmaker do his work.
Herr Starkerstab put the glass vial into a strange brass instrument that looked something like mixture of a coffee maker and an astrolabe. Noticing that he was being watched, he said to Dieter while doing his work, “Wandmakers in the rest of Europe, even wizards like Ollivander, just make a huge selection of random wands and hand them out to those willing to pay for them. But here in the Zaubererreich, each wand is made specifically and personally for each witch or wizard. That is why German wands are the best in the world-interesting, look at that.”
Dieter looked. The coffee-astrolabe device was spewing red steam, and the many arms and dials were pointing to different symbols and numbers. “Interesting…” the wandmaker muttered. “I have an idea of where this is going “ excuse me for a moment.”
Herr Starkerstab hurried back into the storage room, and emerged a minute later with some long, thin boxes marked with designations like Eb-Gf or Ok-Dh. “These are test wands,” he explained. “I use them to narrow down a person’s characteristics to produce the perfect match. We will start with some wands of oak and dragon heartstring…”
He opened the box labelled Ok-Dh and rooted through the wands “ there were short ones and long ones, and thick ones and skinny ones. He found what he was looking for and pulled out some wands of roughly equal size and shape. “I will hand you wands, and you will tell me precisely what you feel for each. You will then wave your wand forcefully and concentrate on creating sparks? Understood?”
The wandmaker already handed Dieter the first wand before he could nod. He took the wand in his hand... and it felt like a piece of wood.
“Well, what do you feel?”
Dieter hesitated. How was he supposed to explain what a stick felt like? “Well… it fits my hand“”
“What I mean is, does it feel warm?”
“Not particularly.”
“So you feel nothing “ please say so in the future with the other wands. Now, give it a good wave and try to make sparks.”
Dieter thought of fireworks and waved the wand around, feeling slightly ridiculous“
Herr Starkerstab snatched the wand out of Dieter’s hand and put it back into the box. He scribbled some notes and gave Dieter another wand, and then another. He didn’t make any sparks, but he thought that one or two of them felt slightly lukewarm in his hand.
“Good; now move on to the oak and griffin feather…”
Dieter waved wand after wand, and nothing happened for what seemed like hours. But he finally managed to produce a single spark, causing Dieter and Mutti (who had evidently stopped talking to Professor Odoaker and was watching) to cheer.
The wandmaker asked Dieter to tell him the wand’s number. He examined the small writing and replied, “Eb-Dh(Nr)-13r.”
“Eb-Dh(Nr)-13r,” Starkerstab muttered as he scribbled down some notes. “We appear to have a match, and now all that needs to be done is make your wand…”
He consulted the coffee astrolabe device and an abacus to make some quick calculations, and went to work. He hurried to the storage room and returned with a dowel of a very dark wood. Dieter watch in fascination and eager anticipation as Herr Starkerstab sawed the dowel to the desired length and clamped both ends to the lathe, which he tapped with his wand to spin the dowel lengthwise.
The wandmaker then pressed a chisel to the rapidly spinning dowel, shaving off thin, curling layers of wood. He moved the chisel up and down the dowel’s length to remove much of the wood, and then switched over to using some sort of file to smoothen it out. He repositioned the clamps and drilled an unimaginably narrow hole down the length of the dowel, starting at the thick end and stopping short of the tip.
He removed the dowel from the lathe, and opened a small box he had set aside labelled Dh(Nr), and extracted some sort of red, long, thin string, and cut it shorter. Next he took the narrow vial containing the drop of Dieter’s blood, held it horizontally, and uncorked both ends. In a way that reminded Dieter of his mother threading a needle, Herr Starkerstab passed the red strand through the vial, bloodying it evenly along its length.
Herr Starkerstab next put some spell on the strand and carefully inserted it into the dowel, and plugged the tiny hole in the back with an equally tiny piece of dark wood smaller than a toothpick. Lastly, he aimed his own wand at the back of the dowel, said “Reparo,” and presented the newly completed wand to Dieter.
“Here you are, Master Heydrich. A wand of ebony, thirteen inches in length, rigid, and containing a core of dragon heartstring from a Norwegian Ridgeback, imbued with a single drop of your blood charmed to maintain its liquidity and potency until your death. Please try it out.”
Dieter was astounded by the fine piece of craftsmanship he held in his hand - even the plug had been seated so well it was indistinguishable from the rest of the base. The handle was engraved with his name, was about one third of the total length of the wand, and slightly thicker than the shaft that tapered to a blunt point a little less than a centimetre in thickness. The wand was simple and elegant, but best of all, it was his “ it felt unusually warm in his hand, and Dieter had the strangest feeling that the wand was feeling impatient, just itching to prove its worth.
“Well, give it a wave,” the wandmaker urged.
Dieter didn’t need telling twice. He thought of fireworks, and slashed the air with the wand to perform his first act of magic.
There was a shower of brilliant red sparks. Dieter yelled in exultation and whipped the wand through the air again and again, producing jets of orange sparks, and even purple ones. Professor Odoaker and the wandmaker clapped enthusiastically, and Mutti gave Dieter a tight hug and said, “I’m so proud of you, Dieter my wizard boy!” In any other situation, he would have felt embarrassed by such a public display of affection from his mother, but not this time. This time was something else entirely.
The excitement mellowed down after several minutes, and once sobered, Mutti paid three Griffins and two Badgers for the wand. Dieter and his mother profusely thanked Herr Starkerstab for the wonderful wand, and they made their exit with Professor Odoaker.
“So, are we done?” asked his mother. It was starting to get dark.
“Just about,” answered Professor Odoaker. “We just have to get your son registered.”
“Registered?” Dieter asked.
“Now that you have a wand, you are now official part of the wizarding world and will be entered into the archives. Hopefully this won’t take this long, but please follow me.”
So they did. They weaved their way through the crowd (that showed now indication of thinning) and entered the Volkskabinett des Zaubererreich, which bore some resemblance to the bank they had visited earlier, complete with the red banners.
Unlike the bank, the People’s Cabinet of the Wizarding Reich had no goblins. There was a cavernous entrance hall with marble floors and fireplaces built into the walls, where wizards and witches periodically entered and exited in a blaze of green flames. Looking up, Dieter noticed that the domed ceiling was some sort of clock, but with unrecognisable symbols instead of numbers and magically suspended planets instead of hands. Mutti and Dieter followed Professor Odoaker to a desk at the far wall.
Suspended from the ceiling behind was yet another red banner, with the now-familiar triangular symbol in white and framed within a black circle. There were also several posters, one of which read:
All Witches are Sisters
All wizardkind, forward!
For the Greater Good!
Another poster depicted a coffin, labelled “ICW, Statute of 1689.” Below it was the slogan, “For the Reclamation! For the Greater Good!”
That last phrase seems to be cropping up in a lot of places, Dieter thought. Being on all the coins and the posters, he deduced that it must be the wizarding world’s motto. He was about to ask Professor Odoaker what ICW, Statute of 1689 meant, but he didn’t get the chance. Professor Odoaker explained to the receptionist why they were there, and she replied, “First floor, corridor on the left, room 12A. And I need to see your wand and identification.”
Professor Odoaker handed the woman behind the desk his wand and a folded piece of paper from his pocket. The receptionist took the wand and placed it on some sort of scale that hummed for a few seconds and produced a small square of parchment from the base, which the receptionist tore off. She read the little slip and compared it to the Professor’s identification papers.
“Ok-Gf-12¾sf… that’s a match. Thank you, Herr Odoaker,” the receptionist said, returning his wand and identification documents.
The Professor beckoned the two Heydrichs to follow him to one of the lifts, which they used to go to the first floor. Following the receptionist’s instructions, they went down the corridor on the left and entered room 12A.
Inside the room was a bored man at his desk, leaning back on his chair. He bolted upright to his feet (causing the chair to fall backwards with a loud bang!) when he noticed he had visitors and said, “Hello! Anything I can help you with?”
“Yes, we need to get some identification documents “ new Durmstrang student,” Odoaker explained.
“Of course, of course“I should have known. Please come in,” he said quickly. He set his chair upright again, sat down and said to Dieter, “We’re going to take your picture first, and while your portrait is being developed, we’ll do all of the boring documentation. Jost!”
The head of a thin, bespectacled man appeared through one of the office doorways. “Yes?”
“Identification picture for the boy.”
“Right. Please follow me, young sir,” Jost instructed.
Dieter entered a small studio. There was a stool up against a blue wall, and in the middle of the room was a camera on a tripod. “I’m sure you know what to do,” Jost said. “Just sit straight on that stool and stay still.”
And he did. The cameraman took several pictures, and it was all over in less than a minute. Dieter thanked him and went back to the main room.
His mother was talking to the man behind the desk, who was writing down everything she said about Dieter’s birthday, place of residence, and other vital pieces of information. Another fifteen minutes passed without much incident, until the man went into the back room and returned with a small stack of parchment. “Very good, Jost. That was quick!”
The man placed three identical papers on the desk for Dieter to sign. Again, it was with a quill and a bottle of ink “ Dieter had no idea how long it would take to grow accustomed to such a foreign method of writing. Careful to avoid piercing the parchment like he had earlier that day, he prepared to sign the first document, but he stopped and blinked a few times.
There was the portrait that had been taken of him not too long ago, and it was moving “ The miniature Dieter Eckhard Heydrich in the picture frame was smiling and looked politely puzzled.
“Muggleborn, aren’t you?” the man behind the desk said, reading his expression. “Yes, all pictures in the wizarding world move, so you better get used to it quickly.”
The portrait was on the left side of the document, and the right side listed such essentials as his name, height, hair and eye colour, and even wand type, which was Eb-Dh(Nr)-13r. Dieter wrote his signature for the first copy of the document a bit clumsily, but his penmanship improved on the second and third copies as he got a better feel for writing with a quill.
“And that is all,” the man announced. “We keep one of these copies, and you take the other two. These are completely free of charge, unless you lose them and need more copies “ then they’re five Badgers each.”
“In that case, we’ll make sure not to lose them. Thank you sir,” Mutti said. Not entirely trusting Dieter to handle the two documents, she seized them and tucked them into her handbag.
“And now we go,” Professor Odoaker said. “There are some fireplaces in the Atrium, so we’ll Floo back to your house from there…”
“Thank you, Professor Odoaker for everything you have done for my son. It was very gracious of you to devote your day to us.”
“It was a pleasure.” He shook Dieter’s hand (the Professor had a strong grip) and said, “And it was a pleasure to meet you, Master Heydrich, and I look forward to teaching you at Durmstrang. Now, do you have all of your things?”
Dieter and Mutti checked their bags “ they nodded.
“Good. I’ll light the fire, but do you think you can make it to your home on your own?”
“I’ll do my best,” Dieter resolved.
Professor Odoaker smiled. “Well then, Incendio!”
The fireplace burst into flames. Dieter grabbed a handful of the green Floo powder from the large pot and threw it in. The effect was instantaneous, and the fire turned a vivid green.
Much more confident than he was during the first time, Dieter stepped into the fireplace, holding hands with his mother. He turned to face the Professor and waved; then he shouted, “Number 23, Erdnuss-Straße!”
The view of the Atrium and Odoaker disappeared and were replaced by a swirling mass of flames and rushing bricks. A few exciting seconds later, his feet found solid ground and Dieter and his mother suddenly found themselves sprawled on the sitting room floor, having tumbled out of the fireplace.
“There you are!” Hans’ voice rang. “Where have you been? Father said that you two would be gone for a while but didn’t say where to, but you-you… you just came in through the fireplace! WHAT’S GOING ON?”
Dieter sighed. It was going to be a long night, but at least there would be birthday cake.