Monday, April 5, 2021

D - Dumbledore and Diagon Alley

 Ask any Potter fan "D for" and the answer would be "Dumbledore" nine out of ten times.

Dumbledore is a brilliant , powerful , experienced wizard who is the headmaster at Hogwarts school of magic and is an ideal educator. Every school going kid would envision him as dream headmaster.  ( who dreams of headmasters anyways!)  . He is fearless and the only character in the book that calls the main antagonist by his first name while the rest of the world refers to him as You-Know-Who. He is a very inspiring person though fictional. 

Diagon Alley is like the Walmart of the wizarding world . It's a street where there are numerous shops selling books and brooms and owls and cloaks. At the beginning of almost every book, the children have a day out at Diagon Alley excitedly buying what they need for the following year.

Buying new things for a new academic year is fun isn't it ? Freshly smelling new books, notebooks , stationary, calculators , lunch bags , shoes, socks , school bags, water bottle- its shopping fun. Not to mention the joy in wrapping the books in brown paper or transparent wrappers and labelling them . 

I still get very excited when I do this annual exercise for my children.  

I love browsing the store shelves picking the perfect lunchbox and the most elegant looking water bottle.

The first time I got a geometry box or a scientific calculator for that matter - my joy knew no bounds !

This is the situation for mundane Muggle(non magic) objects . What if one were to buy an owl or a broom to fly ?? 

11 comments:

  1. You took me back to those days, when I bought new books for my son and covered them with brown papers and stuck labels!
    A broom to fly? Well, that will help me travel around the world to see places!

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    1. Oh labels ... I remember there were plain ones and those with pretty pics :)

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  2. I agree: Dumbledore! And Dobby, too! I would love to have a Diagon Alley for Muggle ;))
    Quilting Patchwork & Appliqué

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  3. I would love to visit Diagon Alley and Dobby is definitely one of my favorites.

    Joy at www.thejoyousliving.com

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  4. The excitement for back to school shopping exists in the muggle world but it doesn't quite have the same magic as Diagon Alley. We don't even get to pick out a wand (or have a wand pick us). Weekends In Maine

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  5. If only I could buy a magical broom to fly!
    Your post brought back the memories of my childhood. Themed stickers for the books were a huge decision to make. Should it be Tom & Jerry, Barbie, or Bung Bunny?

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  6. Lovely post - I remember the joy of covering my books with coloured sticky plastic, and my first scientific calculator. We were so excited by little things.

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  7. Invisibility cloak (Covid-protected) would be a great item to add to the list of school/life supplies right now.
    Covering my text books with brown paper with precise folds to make the edges sharp is part of childhood nostalgia I cherish.

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  8. This is great. I agree about the invisibility cloak. Also, a brookstick for flying would be nice. It would definitely enhance transportation for me! I could fly over the river! Or... maybe a few art supplies...

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  9. I really struggled with the depiction of Dumbledore in the later films. Richard Harris was perfect - as it was easy to believe in his status of great wizard, while I found Michael Gambon's portrayal entirely too dotty to believe that.

    A-Zing from Fiction Can Be Fun
    Normally found at Debs Despatches

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    1. That was a popular reaction to the replacement. I have heard it so often that I kind of sympathise with the latter

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