ALL NOVEL Easter
Before coming to this world, Ben only had a cursory understanding of Easter. He only knew that it had something to do with eggs and bunnies and Christianity.
After coming to the Wizarding world, Ben now had a completely different understanding of Easter.
Despite what the religions of the world would have you believe, Easter had been celebrated by muggles as well as wizards since the dark ages, possibly even much earlier.
During the Spring Equinox, the day and the night become equal. It is the day of balance and also the beginning of great change. The northern hemisphere of the planet enters spring while the southern part enters fall.
Even muggles can feel the importance of such an event and celebrate it in accordance with their local traditions and folklore be it Holi in India or Norooz in Persia, Shunbun No Hi in Japan or the Druid and Wiccan gathering at Stonehenge.
Wizards have been celebrating the festival too and are still influencing Muggle traditions to this day.
There was the animagus witch Ēostre who was worshipped by Muggles as the goddess of spring and fertility and is depicted as a hare, it is stated that she helped people by ushering the spring faster.
There are even records of her turning a bird into a rabbit, but her transfiguration was not perfect because of the equinox and the rabbit continued to lay eggs.
Then there was that Middle eastern Wizard that stole Ēostre's show by performing the impossible feat of resurrection.
Spring equinox is the day when many Wizards choose to perform any purification ritual and curse breakings as there is a particular change in magic. Many curse-breaking festivals are organised in the wizarding community on this day as well.
Knowing all this amazing and magical history behind Easter, Ben was very excited when he heard that Meave had come to help Thea in setting up a rabbit breeding farm. Hence, he was extremely disappointed to know that these were not the egg-laying kind.
There was some magical blood in them for sure, but they were primarily bred as pets for witches and wizards. Still, there are many dark rituals that involve a hare as a sacrifice and most species can be used to make Aphrodisiacs, so there was a steady demand for quality-bred rabbits and hares.
But Ben was no longer as interested in the hopping fluff-balls, although he had read of a Lucky Rabbit in North America whose paw can be used to make a lucky amulet, which he thought was worth looking into.
---
At first, Ben had planned to make a second exit to the barn out of his secret hideout and expand the size of the place during the holidays, but with his aunt Maeve here; it was proving to be very challenging.
The barn was being used regularly now and even if it wasn't; his family hardly left him to his devices. There were also heaps of parchment that he had to write for homework, Ben was not enjoying this holiday very much.
On the second night home, the second-floor window opened silently and a gust of wind flew out of Ben's room.
The gust of wind flew higher and higher creating a howling wind in its wake. Even [Muffle] could not silence the wind around him, not yet at least.
Ben was pushing the limits of his cranky old broom as he no longer had to worry about the invisibility cloak flying off but he could barely touch 60 miles; which was disappointing as Ben has gone way faster on a motorcycle.
It took about twenty minutes for him to reach Charing Cross road where he found a tall, grumpy-looking fella and nicked a few hairs off of his already thinning head.
'I'm not doing anything shady or creepy, not at all', he thought.
"It's just some hair, not like I'm gonna smell them," he said under his breath; remembering Grandpa Joe from his previous world, who was a big fan of smelling hair.
He mixed a hair in the muddy potion that he had prepared in advance and downed it in one go.
Ben was glad that he did not have to see the flesh wiggle and crawl around in his body as he changed into a balding middle-aged man; just feeling the transformation was enough to nauseate him.
He was already wearing oversized clothes under his oversized robe, but even they felt a little tight.
Ben had to go through all this hassle just because he wanted to visit the Knockturn Alley and come out with all his fingers and toes intact.
---
After about forty-five minutes of wandering around the shady alley with shops and stalls selling very questionable items and creatures, Ben decided to head back.
This batch of poly juice potion was not tested and Ben didn't know how much longer it would last.
He had gotten most of the stuff he wanted, which mostly included potion ingredients and books.
Ben had learned to store items in the [Storage] without summoning the whole smoke cloud with a lot of practice. He was able to directly store small items through the slight amount of mist that he summoned under his robe.
This time he had found a pawn store deeper into the Alley where he sold gold jewellery for quite a large amount of galleons. He had transfigured the [Store] bought gold and silver Jewellery into different designs to avoid trouble like last time.
While conjuring or transfiguring other metals into gold was impossible without a philosopher's stone, moulding its shape was relatively an easy task.
While going back towards Diagon Alley, Ben had a feeling that someone was following him; he had seen that same robed figure too many times during his stay at Knockturn Alley.
'Ah, not this cliche,'
Ben took a sharp turn into a dark alleyway and quickly activated his invisibility. In the middle of his chest, a small see-through triangle formed. It started spreading through his body like a stroke of watercolour on wet paper and soon enveloped his whole figure.
"He's gone," wheezed the hooded figure that entered the alleyway after Ben.
"Disappeared into thin air, did he?" Said another figure that came after him. It seemed that he was in big trouble this time.
"He's gotta be here somewhere, I didn't hear him disapparate," he said in a menacing tone.
"Come out come out little mouse."
"We don't wanna hurt ya, do we Reggie?"
"Not at all Ronnie, we just want to help out a fellow wizard."
"Right, right. It's dangerous walking around with so much gold around these parts."
"Yes, Ronnie's right. Let us handle your burden for ya, brother."
'Ronnie and Reggie? Don't tell me their surnames are Kray,' Ben thought as he was reminded of the Tom Hardy movie.
Ben had time to think about movies as he was sure that these two knock-off thugs won't be able to find him unless he bumped into him.
Casting [Muffle], we quickly backed away from the two as they were waving around their wands.
'Nope, not dealing with this shit. One, I can take a chance, but there's no way I'm fighting two crackheads,' he thought as he kept backing away, keeping his eyes on them.
Until he hit a wall.
"Fuck."
---Dreamscape---
MC is a pussy, I mean a cat of course. Read how he deals with the Kray brothers on Patre@n/DreamyApe.
