Timocleia Gwilym
First Year
Gryffindor
Disasters in Hogsmeade; What Happened to the Mail
I learned some new English words today. I looked them up in my Welsh-English dictionary. But they were really important so studied them and studied them so I know them. I learned ‘disaster,’ I learned ‘catastrophe,’ and I learned ‘reporter.’ The Welsh word for ‘disaster’ is ‘trychineb.’ It is also the word for ‘catastrophe,’ so maybe ‘disaster’ and ‘catastrophe’ are the same thing, but I am not sure.
The other word I learned was ‘reporter.’ The Welsh word for ‘reporter is ‘gohebydd.’ This is someone who writes what they see for a newspaper, because what they saw needs to be said to others, because it is important. And maybe it is dangerous. Today I became a reporter. Because what I saw today needs to be written. And it needs to be said to people.
Today was our trip to Hogsmeade. Hogwarts students have been going to Hogsmeade on weekends for many years. Probably since there was a Hogwarts. So for a thousand years and more. We go because it is fun. We go because we can go to places like the Three Broomsticks and get butterbeer and muffins. Or we can go to Honeydukes and get sweets, or maybe even go check on our mail. Today I wanted to check on the mail and go to the Three Broomsticks. So I did these things. But they did not go as I thought they would go.
For two weeks, some students have been missing their mail. I found out that my grandparents had sent two packages through the Owl Post that did not come. I found out because I sent my own owl, Wobble, who is very brave and a good flyer now, to Caermynydd with a letter, and they sent him right back. It is not all the owls that are stopping, and it is not even all the Owl Post Owls who are stopping. It is only those owls that come for some of us. So today, I went to the Owl Post Office with my friends Dawn, Jericho, Izzy, Foster and Caelan, and others too, like Leilani, Lottie and Noelle. When we got there, I asked about why the owls were not coming, and the mean old woman who works there said that she did not want goblins getting their mail. And she thought that all of the kids who were not getting their mail were goblins. I suppose she meant part-Goblins, not actual Goblins, because we do not have Goblin students at Hogwarts.
This of course made us all mad, but the mean old woman sent her owls after us. They flew at us and tried to hit us. So we left. Another woman was there too, and she was a part-Goblin too. The mean old woman yelled at her too and told her to leave too.
The Owl Post Office is keeping the mail of people the woman who works there thinks are part-Goblin. It is that simple. She will not let us have our things. When an Auror was asked about it, she said she can do nothing about it. But maybe if we send owls to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, then maybe they can do something. Maybe we should send owls to the Minister of Magic. Because the Owl Post is not supposed to do this. They need to deliver their packages and letters, because that is what Wixen use them for. I sent my owl, Wobble, back to Caermynydd with a letter to my grandparents, telling them not to use the Owl Post anymore. And I think we should all write our relations and tell them the same thing.
After my disaster at the Owl Post Office, more students, including Aloy and Caitlin, tried to talk to the mean old woman in the Owl Post Office too. But they were also made to run away. The old woman’s owls pooped on them, too.
Unfortunately, that was only the first disaster of the day. Two more happened. The next disaster happened at the Three Broomsticks. The nice part-Goblin woman I met at the Owl Post had gone in, and we all went in too, but I wanted to to talk to her because I have never met anyone like me before. She is the first. So I did that, but then the mean old woman who runs the Three Broomsticks started yelling for us to get out, saying she does not allow Goblins in the pub. At first, I was confused, because I did not see any Goblins in the pub. But she did not mean actual Goblins. She meant me. And the other woman. There was a lot of yelling and crashing. And so I left the Three Broomsticks. I do not want to go back there. She is mean and a pub is not supposed to be a place where people are mean. It is meant to be a place where people can go to have some butterbeer and muffins and things. Not all the students of Hogwarts are welcome there.
The last disaster was something I do not understand all the way. It was something I saw from inside a store. A man attacked Astrid Stangeland, a Ravenclaw First-Year. He sounded crazy. And he was talking about someone named Gvozdic, who might have been a Headmaster somewhere. Maybe a school called Durmstrang? But he is now in jail. Many people got mad at this man, and the Aurors got him. He hurt Astrid, but Healer Phoenix was able to heal her very nicely. So she is okay now.
Usually trips to Hogsmeade are very nice. Today’s trip was not. It was a disaster. It was a catastrophe. It was a trychineb. What the Owl Post is doing should not be allowed, and it must be stopped. We should owl the Minister of Magic to tell him about it. He can do something. With the Three Broomsticks now being not welcoming for all Hogwarts students, maybe it is time for us all to go somewhere else when we go to Hogsmeade. There is a tea shop which is nice. Maybe they can replace the Three Broomsticks. Hateful people do not deserve our Galleons.
Hopefully the next Hogsmeade trip will be better. I do not know if I will go. But if I do go, I will be very careful. We all learned today that the adult world can be full of hate and danger. But it does not have to be. We can be better than that. We ARE better than that.
