Rachel Goldstein (alchemical) wrote in caged, @ 2013-08-10 14:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 97-08, [ backstory ], [ log ], rachel goldstein |
WHO: Rachel Goldstein, Azriel Avihud, and Tova Avihud
WHAT: Reading the Daily Prophet
WHEN: 3 August 1997
WHERE: Rachel's grandparents' house, Netanya, Israel
RATING: PG
STATUS: Complete
At only 9:30 in the morning, it was already sizzling hot. The backs of Rachel’s thighs could attest to that, as they were sticking to her chair in a most uncomfortable way. With her mouth still half full of labaneh, Rachel asked her grandparents, “Can you please do a temperature charm in here?”
“I’m not speaking to you with your mouth full like that,” Rachel’s Safta replied.
Swallowing the labaneh, Rachel rolled her eyes. “Can you or Saba please do a temperature charm? It’s hot,” she complained.
“It’s not that hot,” her Saba contested without removing his face from the Jerusalem Post. Rachel locked eyes with a handsome, grinning Quidditch player instead, so she didn’t complain.
“You never complained when you were younger,” Safta chimed in.
Accepting defeat, Rachel slumped her cheek into the palm of her hand, swirling around the remaining labaneh with her spoon. Suddenly, an owl zoomed in though the open window and dropped the Daily Prophet down in front of her, nearly knocking her breakfast to the ground. Rachel choked on her tea once she laid eyes on the front page of the Prophet- no grinning Quidditch players in sight. She heard her Safta make a fuss, asking if she was alright, but Rachel ignored her and read on. “Oh my God, what?” Rachel mumbled as she read about the Muggle-born Registration Committee. As she read that Umbridge was heading it, she burst with emphatic revulsion, “Oh my God!” In the background, her grandparents protested her language. She ignored them and flipped furtively to the page the article continued on. “Bloody hell,” Rachel muttered, cursing in English so her grandparents wouldn’t understand.
“What?” they inquired simultaneously.
“Look at this!” she said, showing them the front cover of the Prophet. They stared blankly at the cover, and then at Rachel, her Saba wearing a little smirk. “Oh, right, um, let’s see,” she said and skimmed the article, translating in her head first, and then reading aloud in Hebrew to her grandparents.
Rachel looked up to see two grim, wrinkled faces staring back. Her grandmother shot an anxious look at her husband. After a moment, she was the first to break the silence, “British wizards,” she said with a shake of the head. “Always so fanatical. This would never happen in Israel, would it, Saba?” she asked, smiling reassuringly. He didn’t respond.
“We’re British,” Rachel pointed out with a scowl.
“Well, only half,” her Safta countered.
“Not Dad,” she said.
Safta let out an exasperated sigh. “We never said he thought this way. Don’t be ridiculous, why would we ever think that?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Saba gruffed.
“There are loads of people who would disagree with this,” Rachel said defensively, then looked back down at the article. Her face drooped into a look of sudden uncertainty as she read the article again and thought of some of her classmates. She looked back up to see her grandparents both looking at her with similarly uncertain expressions.
Rachel pushed back out of her chair with a resounding screech. “I have to write Rami,” she said.
“Rachel,” Saba called.
“What, Saba?” she asked.
“Do you need to prove your ancestry?” he asked.
Rachel’s brow furrowed. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know…” she said.
“But the article said all Ministry employees are required to, so Rami and Daniel, they will have to?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess they will,” she said with a frown. “But we are halfblood.”
“When you write to them, tell them to put down that I’m halfblood too,” he said. “And put that in Hebrew, or tell them to get rid of the letter. Or both.”
“Oh, Saba,” Rachel said gently. “Safta is sort of right. They don’t have jurisdiction here. You have nothing to worry about.”
Saba shook his head, “I would be a lot less worried if it was for myself,” he said. “I’m worried for you,” he said. “Tell them to put down that I’m halfblood. They won’t check, not for a foreign relative.”
Rachel's stomach sank as she thought about her grandparents who weren't foreigners. What were they going to do? Rachel nodded, "Alright, I'll tell him," she said.