Walking in King’s Cross station, anxious and lost, I was feeling just like Harry. What more, I was also searching for Platform 9 3/4. Like our boy wizard, I felt too embarrassed and too adult to ask for directions. And so I walked. And suddenly chanced upon it. A plain notice on a plain stone wall between platform 9 and platform 10 and a broken trolley stuck underneath. A muggle tribute to the wizarding world.
London’s full of such wizardry. And like in Harry Potter’s world, it is all right there in front of you. You just have to ‘look’ to find it.
If you think like J K Rowling (or try to), London is a buzzing town where magic lurks — beneath its cobbled streets, between its famous theatres and amidst its ordinariness.
If you walk in touristy, theatreland Leicester Square, you might wonder where all this magic is. But walk where the tourists won’t  and you will find Cecil Court, a narrow road crammed with shops with names like ‘Witch’s Ball’, ‘Pleasures of Past            Times’ and ‘Esoteric Centre’.
Theirs is a world not very unlike ‘Ollivanders Wand Makers’ and ‘Madame Malkin’s Robes’ in Diagon Alley. The shops are usually in two levels.
Go down the curvy banisters to find dusty shelves full of unheard-of books, antiquarian prints, cigarette cards, postcards from yore (some from the times of the British Raj), stuffed owls and tarot readers wrapped in shawls...
Hard to get
A little further down is Brydges Place. No, you won’t find it at first glance. It is a road that is only around 55 inches wide and ten yards long. (Yes, I actually measured it!) But it is a legitimate road alright, between two tall buildings with its own signboard and lampposts!
This mysterious lane also has a hush hush pub that has no name and only a discreet announcement on its black wooden door with a gilt-edged knocker — ‘Private: Only members allowed’. Who is to say this is not the entrance to Leaky Cauldron?
If Leicester Square has Diagon Alley and Leaky Cauldron, Camden lock in North London is Knockturn Alley come to life. Camden Lock has druids, goths and wiccans freely moving around, shopping for devilish black-toned make-up, jewellery made from claws and beaks and er..red liquid-filled crystal decanters.
Sudden snarling fights break out right on the road in this rather dingy, dirty area of London. When I went deep inside the catacombs of Camden, there was an African drums class going on next to a shop that was selling coats only for seven-footers. No exaggeration this.
This was the precise moment, with the drums playing rhythmically in the background, when I began to believe that real-life Hagrids exist!
Then there are secret areas in the ‘City of London’ that seem to be a straight lift from the books. (Or is it the other way round?)
Popularly known as ‘One Square Mile’, ‘City of London’ is the core of London that has survived from the Middle Ages and today is a financial and legal hub. It is home to the Royal Courts of Justice, leading financial organisations, famous banks and has two enclaves within it - the Inner Temple and Middle Temple.
The ‘City’ has a coat of arms, strikingly similar to the Hogwarts crest, with the motto: Domine Dirige Nos (Lord, Guide us). If He indeed guides you, you will find the bizarrely quiet courtyard within the Inner Temple.
No entry!
Surrounded by stone structures with a gargoyle or two jumping at you, (one building even had a stately Pegasus peering down) that are home to London’s best legal minds, this courtyard is eerie and feels forbidden — as forbidden as the Forbidden Forest.
It also has a weeping (does it become whomping in the night?) willow, bending tragically over a stone slab that may well be a grave...
If this gives you goosebumps, better head to Kew Gardens where you can have several herbology lessons. There are twisted roots that resemble the screechy Mandrakes in the ‘Herbarium’ and the ‘Palm House’ looks quite capable of housing bowtruckles, magical fungi and plants oozing with Bubotuber pus!
Magic, they say, is all round us and I went looking for it. I am glad I found some. Who knows what you may find if you care to look...