What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

So i read a paperback book in 2006 when i was a about ten in school so that age group and it looked fairly new out.

It was about a boy who went to a place where magic was forbidden but he was magic.

Things i remember in particular was that he was somewhat important and when he first went he met someone important and he was playing with a little spark of magic in his pocket and when he went to shake the persons hand it fell onto the floor and disappeared and whoever he was with glared at him but the important dude didn't notice so it was ok.

At some point he decided to go down into the servants quarters and it was in levels so the posher servants were higher up and as he was going down it was described as getting grubbier and no uniform was passed down so he should have realised how much danger he was in but he didnt. He ended up getting rounded up in a big line as the men were searching for a suspected magic user. Some girl pushed in behind him and they bring a hound along sniffing them and she gets caught as a witch. And the boy remembers thinking that it was weird as though she knew he was a wizard and was protecting him but he thought if he knew there was two magic users and he was one of them he'd make sure he was at the end so the first person would be found long before him. Anyway the girl is then released and chased by hounds and i think the boy goes after her to save her and they go through water to escape.

My memory is a bit hazy so some elements are guesses but theyre the main bits i remmeber. Please help thanks!

Christina, does the boy go to a relative's mansion, castle, school, a different country, etc.? Where are his parents and possible siblings?

Is the setting Earth (like Harry Potter) or a fantasy world?

I honestly can't remember, it seems earth like and the characters seem human but not our day etc.

I remember he travelled somewhere i think parts of the world are ok with magic where he went somewhere it wasn't.i think he went to maybe a castle of sorts?

I barely remember the book just that i liked it.
I think its possible they never used the worlds witch and wizard but something else. Not sure though.

Christina is still looking for this.

I can only remember very random bits about this and im slightly worried I'm mixing up two books but i don't think so but please suggest if you think half fits. I read this in 2006 when i was in year 6 UK school so definitely age appropriate.

I remember that a boy who uses magic, not sure if they used terms like wizard or not, went to a place a kingdom or land etc. Where magic is forbidden, like on death level forbidden and he needs to be careful i think he went with an older male guardian.

One plot point i vividly remember is that he's meeting an important dude (maybe the king or some kind of higher up adviser type political kinda dude) and he's playing with a little ball of light on his fingers in his pocket. He goes to shake the dudes hand forgetting and this little crystal light magic thing falls to the floor and his guardian glares at him but noone notices thankfully.

I also remember that hes looking for clues or something and wherever he's staying is like some giant place with lots of levels below for the servants/staff think the levels start going underground and as hes searching on each level, he starts off with clean staff all around in obvious uniforms but the lower he goes the grubbier it gets to a point where the staff aren't even wearing a hat or anything to identify them and the narration/protag basically points out that in hindsight he should have gotten worried he would get mixed up. Anyway he does get rounded up by several guards looking for magic users, they get lined up and some girl pushes in next to him and i think dogs or maybe a witch catcher are sniffing them or testing them somehow and she gets marked as a witch. I think somehow the protag knows that she knew he was a magic user and wanted to get caught to save him and he thinks its weird because he's thinking if he knew there was two users of magic he would have made sure he was at the end so the other person was caught first. So he gets to go free but obviously he's intrigued by this girl and wants to help her so i think the girl essentially is the fox in a hunt and the guards have no doubt they will catch her, this is just a game they do with magic users and shes running away through water and stuff and i think this boy follows her to help but i don't remember what happens after.

Sorry for the super long winded details but i think the only way anyone is going to know is if they have read the book so I'm hoping it will jog someone's memory as i desperately want to find it. I think my reading group at school got bored and refused to finish it but i was loving it!! Thanks in advance.

Could it be The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones?

No i don't think so. I'm fairly sure it was a standalone book and the blurb doesn't ring any bells unfortunately

I hope someone remembers it!

Thanks, i hope so too! I remember every 6 months or so and it drives me mad for a month trying to remember more details hahs

This sounds a lot like Jinx but I believe Jinx was published in 2013.
Jinx travelled to a place where magic was forbidden.
He also could "talk" to trees.

possibly Mister Monday by Garth Nix? The section about going down levels with the servants seems to me to have been present in one of that series, tho maybe not the first.

Unfortunately definitely not jinx as I've just read that recently.

Garth Nix sounds like a really familar name though i didn't think my book was a series and the blurb doesn't sound familiar. I'm going to give it a read though so fingers crossed, desperate to read this again!

Thank you for the suggestions!

It does kinda sound like the Chrestomanci series.

Not Witch Week, and I know you eliminated Christopher Chant, but did you definitely rule out all the others? They can all be read as stand alones.

Sorry i never get notifications for this section of gr unless I check my email which i rarely do haha. I've read all the chresto blurbs and none of them nor the covers ring a bell but I've always half wanted to read them anyway so I'm going to read through them all along with the garth nix suggestion and fingers crossed i get a pleasant surprise!

I should just read the first 20 pages of every suggestion really because i remember this very specific bit about a magic sparkle he's tossing between his fingers in his pocket and it says something about it falling through the crack in the floor like a diamond or something and I'm super positive it happened very early on and I'll know it instantly but everything i try to Google about it comes up empty since it's not really important plot haha.

Something else that may be relevant i think it came in a school book bundle where we got several copied to read as a group (may have been scholastic, maybe just a random local library bundle) I'm fairly sure it came alongside two other books which i found a few years ago "maphead" & "the secret of platform 13" both of which were apparently released 1994 which may be a coincidence but i suspect likely this book was also published a lot earlier than I read it.

What country were you in at the time?

It doesn't look like it could have been a Scholastic bundle because MapHead was never released by them. It was released by Walker in the UK and Australia and Candlewick in the US.

The Secret of Platform 13 is more popular and has had more editions, but as far as I can tell, it has been released by Scholastic, Macmillan, Puffin, and Dutton.

Ahh thanks for clearing that up, i tried to find out if maphead was released by scholastic but couldn't find any info but knew secrets was. I was in the UK, i don't remember what the book boxes were for exactly but I'm fairly sure they were loans.

Christina, I copied book details to the topic header. Feel free to edit it.

Does the story start in the modern real world and then the boy is somehow transported to this fantasy world?

Who and where are his parents?

Are there fantasy creatures like dragons or elves?

Thank you i was trying to do that but kept getting an error.
I don't remember anything about a modern world which doesn't rule it out as I'm sure they travelled from somewhere but i don't think so. I believe he was with an older male character (who lectured him about how important not revealing his magic was and then frowned when he dropped that spark of magj) i remember him as more of a wizard mentor/employer type figure but i feel like it could plausibly have been his father. Any other mention of his parents i don't remember.
I don't remember any fantasy creatures either. Animal wise i only remember probably dogs being included in the hunt.

I just can't stop thinking of Chrestomanci, lol.

Conrad's Fate does mention uniforms and the MC having a magic cork in his waistcoat pocket several times. But I couldn't find the exact scene you described.

I've been going through the Wikipedia for children's books released by year reading the plots. I've done 1980-2007 though admittedly didn't click on quite a few that didn't sound likely but no luck, presumably it's quite incomplete.

Haha i really do appreciate your help! Unfortunately the more i read about chresto I really don't think it's fits, the blurb of conrad especially doesn't ring any bells to me. I went through all the Wikipedia kids books entries from 1980 - 2007 though i did skip a lot with titles that were obviously not it and i read i think all of the chresto plot synopsis none of them felt similar, I'm fairly positive he didn't have a magic cork. I can't remember his actual powers but i think in terms of the pocket but he could just summon a little spark of magic and was playing with it like we'd play with a fidget cube or something. I wish I could remember something more useful. Every book I've tried to find from childhood has been one or two really dumb obscure scenes and never the actual plot of the book i managed to find secrets of platform 13 purely because i remembered the name of the gump which is verrrry lucky because the other memories were stuff like them eating fish and chips lol