Chapter Text
July 11, 1992
The house was almost completely dark.
Few houses in the modern age are truly dark at night. Small electric lights provide at least faint illumination in kitchens. Nightlights glow in strategic places so people don’t trip and face-plant into a toilet or down the stairs. However, among those houses in Little Whinging that were almost but not completely dark, only one was a secret.
Harry Potter was hunched under his blankets in a way that made his back and neck ache. A flashlight taped to the shoulder of his tatty pajama shirt allowed him to see the heavy book spread across his lap. Its pages were covered with small, neat letters and moving pictures drawn in black ink. Its title, though unreadable because the book was open, was Moste Potente Potions. Harry had pilfered it from the Potter family library the previous summer and only now decided his Potions knowledge was advanced enough to start studying from the large and questionably legal tome. He was only twenty-three pages in and had already filled half a notebook with scribbled calculations, notes, questions, connections, and references to other potions, books, or his own experiences.
His battered old digital watch beeped at 1am. Harry made a face—he was halfway through the study of a potion that could temporarily increase physical strength at great cost later. He wasn’t sure what the cost was since that was covered in the second half of that section. But Aunt Petunia would want him up at seven to make breakfast, and he’d scheduled a minimum of six hours of sleep a night, so bedtime it was.
Harry clicked off the flashlight and threw the covers off his head. The book was held closed in a way that looked casual and was not and also managed to completely obscure the title from anyone watching, even though Harry’s window shades were drawn and his door closed. Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had warned Harry that he’d have watchers on the Dursley home over the summer. Harry didn’t know if his watcher was wizard, Muggle, Squib, or house-elf. Of the four he was just hoping it wasn’t a house-elf; if it was, the thing could be watching his every waking moment and never be seen, which meant he’d had to restrict himself to absolutely zero wandless magic over the summer. His wandless magic was a secret from all but his closest friends and Harry wanted to keep it that way. Hidden advantages were always good. But it was starting to drive him spare. Being without his wand was bad enough, but he’d been relying on his abilities to move, ignite, freeze, illuminate, or warm things with his mind for years and suddenly being without either form of magic was giving him withdrawal.
Harry smiled grimly and lifted the loose floorboard in the corner of his room, where he stored a few things. Currently the cavity held three books, the flashlight, a notebook, and a ballpoint pen. He’d been completely isolated for nearly four weeks already, since school let out in the middle of June, and he’d torn through his school assignments in the first two. Since then he’d been reading and studying from the other books in his school trunk. Of course, the school trunk was locked away in the cupboard under the stairs where Harry used to live and he wasn’t supposed to be accessing any of his things. Little did the Dursleys know Harry could unlock the cupboard. For the sake of a potential house-elf watcher, he’d stolen a few of Aunt Petunia’s hairpins and pretended to pick the cupboard lock whenever he needed to get into his trunk. He was getting pretty good at actually picking the lock, with his hands and not his magic, in the process.
The Dursleys were easier to deal with than they ever had been before. Dudley was terrified of Harry’s magic and ran off if Harry started glaring and mumbling gibberish. Aunt Petunia seemed to have settled on a truce wherein he did his chores and hid in his room when he wasn’t doing chores, and in exchange she let him alone other than barking orders and commands to “hurry up, boy.” Uncle Vernon regarded him with a mix of disgust, contempt, and fear. The fear part probably came from Harry letting his friend Theo cast a Dancing Charm on Uncle Vernon in the middle of King’s Cross.
Well. Harry had thought Theo was his friend, until Theo completely cut him off over the summer. Harry had sent out multiple letters with Alekta, his Taiga falcon, but she returned empty-handed each time. (Empty-clawed? Empty-taloned?)
Just like tonight, in fact. Alekta swooped in the open window and landed on Harry’s bedpost. He fed her an owl treat and held her for a moment. The fierce bird nibbled his ear and then butted her beak against his cheekbone in a rare expression of affection, albeit a slightly painful one.
“I know, girl,” he said softly. “No letters to deliver. I’m sorry. But none of them wrote me back.”
It hurt more than he wanted to admit. He’d thought he’d gotten close enough to several people at Hogwarts last year for them to write. Neville, George, Fred, Pansy, Justin, Hermione, Daphne, Anthony, Lisa, Sue—not to mention his two closest friends and fellow Slytherins, Theo and Blaise. He’d thought Hermione and the Ravenclaws for sure would write if for no other reason than to go over the summer assignments. But he’d had zero contact with the wizarding world for nearly four weeks.
If it wasn’t for Alekta and his trunk, Harry might have started to think he’d hallucinated it all.
He sighed and put Alekta back in her cage. She chittered with irritation but didn’t fight. This was their routine now—he “picked” the lock on her cage once the Dursleys went to sleep, let her out to hunt and stretch her wings. He locked her back in her cage before he went to sleep if she was back by then, or immediately upon waking up if not, because technically she wasn’t supposed to be let out at all.
Harry climbed into bed, tugged up the covers, rolled over, and reflexively felt under the pillow for a wand that wasn’t there. He scowled into the dark. It had been four weeks and he still hadn’t adjusted to being wandless again, but it was too dangerous to keep either his holly wand from Ollivander’s or the ash wand he’d stolen from the Potter family vault a year ago in his room. If his relatives found his books, he could replace them. If Uncle Vernon snapped either of his wands, Harry didn’t think he should be held responsible for whatever happened to the man afterwards. But that wouldn’t bring the wand back. So the wands stayed in his trunk’s secret compartment behind multiple layers of physical and enchanted security.
He fell asleep in a foul mood, as had been his practice for some time now.
July 12, 1992
“Now, as we all know, today is a very important day.”
Yes, we know, the stupid dinner party. Uncle Vernon had been going on about it for weeks—almost since Harry had come back. (He refused to think come home. That implied that Number 4, Privet Drive was or ever had been in any way other than physical living space a home for him.)
“This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career.”
Harry wanted so very badly to screw it up as much as he could, but he knew he needed to not pick fights with the Dursleys. His deal with Dumbledore had been three weeks. It was verging on four and there’d been no sign of anyone coming to get him. Harry was starting to worry he’d be stuck here until September first rolled around again, and getting increasingly angry with the Headmaster every day.
He tuned out as Uncle Vernon began going over the schedule. At least until Uncle Vernon turned viciously on him. “And you, boy?”
Harry didn’t know what point in the schedule they were at and didn’t care. “I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I don’t exist,” he said tonelessly.
“Exactly.”
Harry went back to frying the bacon.
“And you, boy?”
“I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not here.” Merlin, I wish I were anywhere but here. Except maybe Azkaban. Maybe.
After that, the conversation was too simpering and obnoxious for even Harry to ignore.
“Precisely. Now, we should aim to get in a few good compliments at dinner. Petunia, ideas?”
“Vernon tells me you’re a wonderful golfer, Mr. Mason… Do tell me where you bought your dress, Mrs. Mason…”
“Perfect… Dudley?”
Dudley stopped inhaling his food and making disgusting noises long enough to think. It looked like hard work and resulted in: “How about—we had to write an essay in school on our personal heroes, Mr. Mason, and I wrote about you.”
Harry thanked Merlin for his time in Slytherin House and the daily exercises in self control it required, because without that practice he’d probably have burst out laughing at Dudley’s words and definitely have done so when Aunt Petunia burst into tears and threw herself at her massive son.
“Oh, they’ll love him!”
“And you, boy?”
Harry repeated himself for the umpteenth time. “I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not there.”
“Too right, you will,” Uncle Vernon said, whacking the table. “The Masons don’t know anything about you and it’s going to stay that way…”
Harry tuned him out again.
He’d hoped to escape to his room after breakfast, but Aunt Petunia snagged him by the collar and set him a list of chores. By seven o’clock, Harry had cleaned the windows, washed the car, mowed the lawn, trimmed the flower beds, pruned and watered the roses, and repainted the garden bench. All he got out of it was exhaustion, sunburn on his neck, and a cold turkey sandwich and a glass of water before Aunt Petunia chased him upstairs.
I wonder how the bloody Boy Who Lived would’ve done, Harry thought savagely as he climbed the staircase. He’d tried to convince Dumbledore that it was Jules’ turn to do something for keeping up the blood wards around the Dursley home. But noooo, that was too complicated, because Jules had his training and his interviews and his galas to go to, and it just wouldn’t do to be moving a wizarding child on and off a Muggle property every day for three weeks—
Harry thought Jules could definitely use the self-control that came with living at the Dursleys. He also rather thought that something would definitely get set on fire if not outright blown up if Jules had to spend any length of time here. Either option would be for the best, really. But bloody Dumbledore.
“Remember, boy—one sound—” Uncle Vernon hissed up at him, just as the doorbell rang.
Harry was already wearing his Soundless Shoes, a Christmas gift last year from Theo. He nodded with exaggerated patience, walked into his room, softly shut the door, and turned to collapse on his bed.
Only, there was already someone sitting on it.
Harry jumped violently, going for a wand that wasn’t there, but then he registered that it was a house-elf and it was just sitting there.
The creature slipped off the bed and bowed. This was not something the Potter house-elves had ever done. Harry was confused.
“Hello,” he said cautiously. “Has—has your master sent you?”
“No,” elf said, looking upset. “No, Dobby is—Dobby is being here alone, sir—oh!” It lunged and started beating its head savagely on the wall, muttering “Bad Dobby, bad Dobby, very bad Dobby, you is acting without permission—”
Harry grabbed it around the waist and sat down, holding the elf in his arms. As a test, he used a little bit of wandless magic to help him immobilize it, just to see if elf magic could detect the use of wandless magic. He was also listening very closely. The voices downstairs didn’t seem to have faltered. Thank Merlin.
“Dobby, is it?” he said, and the elf stilled, shivering, and nodded.
“May—may Dobby be put down, sir?” it squeaked.
“If you promise me to be quiet.”
Dobby nodded.
Harry let him down and scooted back, crossing his legs, so they were about the same height. “Okay, er—this is really not a good time for me to have a house-elf in my room. Can you drop off a letter, or leave a message, or—”
“No, sir. Dobby is having no messages, sir, or letters. But Dobby—Dob—”
The elf made a lunge for the wall again. Harry barely caught the back of the pillowcase it was wearing—honestly, the Potter house-elves all had soft cotton towels worn like togas with simple shoulder pins, whoever’s elf this was a nasty piece of work—and hauled him back to the middle of the room.
“If I make noise, my relatives will be furious,” he hissed, glaring at the elf. “So sit down and be quiet, okay?”
Dobby sniffled and nodded. “Dobby is sorry, sir. But Dobby should not be here.”
“Why were you banging your head on the wall?”
“Dobby is being a bad house-elf, sir.” The elf’s ears twitched, and Harry tightened his grip on the front of its tunic. “Dobby needs to punish himself for leaving his Master. Dobby is not supposed to leave the Manor. Dobby is going to have to shut his ears in the oven door for this.”
So he’s a pureblood family elf, if they have a capital-M Manor. Almost definitely. “Won’t your masters notice you punish yourself and ask why?”
“Dobby doubts it, sir. The Masters lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds him to do punishments.”
“Well, they sound like absolutely charming people. You’re certain you can’t tell me what wizarding family treats you like this? It’s not legal, technically—”
Dobby dissolved into loud wails. “Dobby has heard of the Boy Who Lived’s kindness, sir, but not of his brother, oh no, Hadrian Potter is being too kind, sir, Hadrian Potter is too kind to Dobby…”
“Merlin, would you shut up?” Harry hissed, as the downstairs conversation faltered slightly.
Dobby closed his mouth abruptly. He looked hurt. Against his better judgment, Harry felt bad for the poor thing. It wasn’t Dobby’s fault his masters were awful and had apparently conditioned him to engage in regular self-harm as punishment for wrong thoughts. The idea of not being mentally capable of breaking the rules without repercussions he was compelled to perform on himself regardless of getting caught or not made Harry almost physically ill. “Look. Sorry. It’s been… a long few weeks. Can you tell me why you’re here?”
“Dobby must warn you, sir,” Dobby said, eyes growing wide and owl-like. “Dobby cannot allow Harry Potter or Jules Potter to go to Hogwarts!”
Harry blinked. It took a few seconds to find his voice. “…why not?”
Dobby frowned. “Hadrian Potter is not angry with Dobby?”
“Why would I be angry?”
“Dobby has already been to warn Julian Potter, sir. Julian Potter grew very angry when Dobby tried to tell him to not go to Hogwarts, sir. Julian Potter refused and Dobby had to take his things.”
“His… things?”
“His school things, sir. Dobby is punishing himself very badly for that, sir, but Dobby had to do it. If Julian Potter does not have his homework, he will not be able to return!”
“Was he… done with the assignments?”
“Oh no, sir,” Dobby said. “Dobby is taking his books and quills and ink and notes from his trunk, sir. Julian Potter’s assignments weren’t started yet, but when he goes to do them he will find them gone.”
Dobby clearly didn’t understand how school worked, but Harry wasn’t going to correct him.
Harry thought quickly. He wasn’t about to stay away from Hogwarts. It was his home, and it was where he belonged, far more than here in the Muggle world. Neither was he going to tell Dobby this. The elf was clearly not above going to extremes, if misguided extremes, to keep Jules and Harry out of Hogwarts.
“Okay, so why can’t we go to Hogwarts? And why are you warning us?”
“Hadrian and Julian Potter must stay where it is safe,” Dobby said. “There is plotting. There is danger coming to Hogwarts. Julian Potter is too great, too good, to lose, and Hadrian Potter is his brother, the Potter twins will be in mortal danger if they returns to Hogwarts!”
“Why us?” Harry said suspiciously. “Does this have anything to do with Voldemort?”
Dobby let out a wail. “No, no! Hadrian Potter must not be speaking his name!”
Harry clamped a hand over the elf’s mouth. Definitely conversation downstairs had paused this time but then it started back up and he breathed a sigh of relief. “If you make another noise like that I’ll find your master and tell them you were here,” he hissed.
The elf nodded, wide-eyed.
“What’s the plot? What’s the danger? Is it involved with the Dark Lord?”
“Not—not the Dark Lord, sir—”
Dobby’s eyes were wide, like he was trying to give Harry a clue, but what it could be Harry had no idea. “Did the Dark Lord have a brother?”
“No…”
“Then I can’t see who’d have a better shot of causing danger, and I’ve already survived the Dark Lord meddling in Hogwarts once,” Harry said firmly. “Besides, there’s Dumbledore. You know Dumbledore, right?”
“Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had, sir.” Doubtful, but okay. “Dobby knows it, sir. Dobby has heard Dumbledore’s powers rival those of the Dark Lord at the height of his strength. But, sir… There are powers Dumbledore doesn’t… powers no decent wizard…”
And with a sudden lurch, he tore away from Harry’s grip, leaped onto the desk, and started beating himself about the head with it, producing earsplitting yelps.
Conversation downstairs ceased.
“Enough!” Harry hissed. “Into the closet!” He grabbed Dobby’s pillowcase, slung the elf into his closet—there was Uncle Vernon’s pounding feet, and then his voice “Dudley must’ve left his television on again, the little tyke—he shut the closet door and hurled himself onto his bed—
Uncle Vernon slammed the door open and stopped short, breathing heavily and glaring. “What—the—devil—are—you—doing?” he growled. “You’ve just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke… one more sound out of you and I’ll lock you up for good!”
He turned to go.
Harry let the tension bleed out of his body. Uncle Vernon hadn’t hit him at all this summer but he couldn’t train himself out of the reflex.
When he was loose enough to stand, he hauled open the closet and pulled Dobby out. “Are you sure it’s safer here with him than at Hogwarts?” he asked innocently.
Dobby looked uncertain, but then he nodded. “Dobby is sure, sir.”
Harry made a show of slumping unhappily onto his bed. “Okay… okay, I guess I’d rather not die…”
“Dobby is grateful, sir. Here is Hadrian Potter’s post,” Dobby said, producing a pile of letters and packages much too large to have been stored inside his towel.
Harry’s rage flared to life again, spreading icily through his veins. “You’ve been stealing my post?” he said, voice dropping slightly. His hands fisted and he sat on them.
Dobby looked nervous. “Hadrian Potter mustn’t be angry, sir. Dobby did it for the best reason.”
It took several deep breaths before Harry was calm enough to speak without shouting. The package was large. He recognized Blaise’s elegant hand, Theo’s slanting academic scrawl, Daphne and Pansy’s neat, proper writing, and even what he thought was Hermione or Neville’s print. There were a couple of packages as well.
His friends hadn’t abandoned him.
“I suppose you took my outgoing letters as well,” he said.
Dobby produced another bundle, his ears drooping farther. Harry still felt bad for him but now he was mostly furious. Here he’d been getting more and more pissed—if this had gone on the whole summer, if he hadn’t found out the truth—Harry wasn’t sure what having a brief taste of friendship, only to have it yanked away, would’ve done to him after he’d only just started learning how to trust people.
“Dobby, have you been stealing Jules’ post as well?”
“M-maybe, sir…”
“Okay, look—how about this. You give me Jules’ post and his school things. I’ll send him his post with an explanation and I’ll hang on to his school things until after he can’t go back to school, all right? That way you’re not actually stealing from him; he’ll still have his things, just—they’re just loaned to his brother for a while.”
Dobby started wailing again, though thankfully he kept it quiet this time. “Oh, Hadrian Potter is too kind to Dobby, he is so clever, Dobby has not heard stories of Hadrian Potter’s intelligence before, no sir, it is only complaints at home…”
“Er—right,” Harry said, stuffing the bundle of Jules’ textbooks, notebooks, parchment, and ink under his bed. It was far too large to all fit in the floor cavity, especially once Harry jammed the two large packages of post in there. Not that he’d ever tell anyone, but Jules’ pile was larger than his, and it rankled. “I—thanks for the warning, Dobby.”
“Oh, oh—Hadrian Potter is too kind to Dobby, Dobby is never being thanked by wizards…”
For just a second, Harry felt kind of bad for lying to the creature—not bad enough to come clean, but a little.
“Dobby is so sad he must do this, because Hadrian Potter is too kind and clever…”
“Dobby—wait, what?”
The house-elf was gone and down the stairs in a flash.
No no no no no—
Harry jumped up, thanking Merlin and Theo yet again for his spelled shoes, and bolted down the stairs. He still wasn’t used to the feeling of pounding down the wood structure at top speed without making a sound. He jumped the last six steps, landed catlike in the hall, and froze, listening. There was Uncle Vernon’s voice saying something about American plumbers, the clink of knives and forks, no screams, so Dobby hadn’t gone into the living room—which left the kitchen.
Heart thumping, he ran for the kitchen and skidded to a halt just inside the door, where he found Dobby perched on a cabinet pointing a long finger at Aunt Petunia’s prized pudding. Which was hovering up near the ceiling.
“No,” Harry croaked. “Dobby, please—they’ll kill me—”
He’d never needed magic more, never needed wandless magic more—and it was all but useless, because of bloody Dumbledore and his bloody watchers—
“It is for Hadrian Potter’s own good,” Dobby said with a tragic look, and dropped the pudding.
Dobby disappeared.
Harry lunged.
He managed to flip onto his back and slide underneath the pudding. The dish tilted ominously but he managed to stabilize it. A couple of the sugared violets fell off.
Harry let out a huge breath of relief and sat up as slowly and quietly as possible. He’d cracked his head rather hard on the linoleum and it was pounding already, but he ignored it and stood on shaky legs. He poked the sugared violets back onto the pudding, turned it so you couldn’t tell from in front of the fridge that it was not slightly lopsided, wiped the whipped cream residue off the floor with his sleeve, and thought that was the end of it.
Until a hoot and a scream came from the living room.
Oh no.
Harry ran from the kitchen for the stairs. Mrs. Mason fled the living room not two seconds later, shrieking something about birds in the house, ignoring him completely. He heard Mr. Mason bellowing something about how his wife was terrified of birds as he swung around the banister—made it halfway up the staircase before Mr. Mason stormed out, also not noticing Harry—and was in the upstairs hall by the time he heard the first outraged bellow of Boy!
With a sinking feeling of dread, Harry went downstairs.
Uncle Vernon brandished a letter in his face. “You just cost me what may have been the biggest deal of my career, boy,” he hissed. “Read it.”
Harry took the letter and hated that the paper so easily betrayed his shaking hands. The shaking only got worse as he read it through.
“Didn’t tell us you weren’t allowed to use magic outside school,” Uncle Vernon said, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes. “Slipped your mind, I daresay… well I’ve got news for you. You’re never going back! I’m going to lock you up you’ll be expelled!”
July 15, 1992
It was worse than Harry had even feared.
In a rare moment of sense, Uncle Vernon had taken Alekta and put her cage in the cupboard under the stairs with the rest of Harry’s things. Harry listened with his heart in his mouth to the two-hour shouting match over whether or not they’d feed her. Aunt Petunia insisted they had to feed the bird, that they couldn’t starve it if they wanted to sell it reasonably quickly—which made Harry’s limbs go numb with anger; they were going to sell Alekta and Uncle Vernon had threatened to not feed her. He barely managed to hold his tongue when coldly telling Aunt Petunia what Alekta would need from the pet store and only got a little bit of satisfaction out of the disgust on her face at the thought of buying mice.
And the new locks on his door were on the outside. Which meant that Harry couldn’t fake pick them while magically picking them. Which meant he was stuck in his room, bars on the window and door unassailable, being fed the bare minimum through a cat flap. Most of the weight he’d managed to gain during the school year was gone. He even tried calling the Potter house-elves, but none of them came, which meant either that only worked in the Manor or James had ordered them to stay away. Harry was left with only his letters and Moste Potente Potions, The Collected Strangest Recorded Potions Experiments, Explained, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three, and Ten Centuries: The Evolving Role of Hogwarts School in the Politics of Wizarding Britain. He resolved that if no one came for him by the time the school year started, he’d magic his way out of here and damn the consequences.
Dear Harry,
Neville tells me you are hoping to get together with all of us this summer. I’d really like to as well. I’ve been going over the summer assignments, of course, and the one for Potions looks quite challenging; I was hoping you and I could talk about that one in particular.
My parents are going on holiday in Paris, and I get to go with them! It’s set for two weeks in mid-July. I’ve heard it can get terribly hot, so don’t be surprised if you see me with a sunburn! I intend to give myself an introductory course in French before we leave, and I’m very excited to practice while I’m there. It’s such a pretty language and quite useful in Europe.
I hope your aunt and uncle aren’t bothering you too much. I caught a glimpse of you and your uncle getting into a car. He’s rather enormous and he did look a bit unpleasant. Perhaps next summer you could give me your phone number so I can contact you like a regular Muggle, if that would help ease their minds.
-Hermione
Harry,
How’ve you been? I mean, I know you don’t like to talk about it, but I’ve noticed you’re not fond of your Muggle relatives. If they’re treating you badly, you can come stay at the Manor anytime. I know Dumbledore said you’d need to wait at the Dursleys for three weeks, but Gran says you’re welcome. If you still want to come, anyway. (She said some other things about your dad, but they weren’t the sort of things I want to write down.)
Let me know if you’d like to come to the Manor and when and we’ll figure out how to get you here. I’ve heard of something called the Knight Bus? I think we’re going on holiday sometime in July, but I’m not sure when or where. If you come before then, Gran says you can tag along join us.
Would you mind writing me to help with the Potions assignment, at least? It looks like bad news. I’ll trade you help with Herbology.
-Neville Longbottom
Harry
My mum’s in a temper about the troll and the mess with Quirrell. Says Dumbledore’s gone off his rocker. I can’t say I disagree, frankly, but not to the point of not wanting to come back to Hogwarts. The point is that when she’s in a temper she does things like take an international Portkey to Tokyo and leave me in our home in London for who knows how long. Which is where I am now, with only the butler to keep an eye on me. It was a good time for a few days, but I’m beginning to get bored. Theo was over the other day. Join us once you’ve finished your stay with the Muggles and we can have some fun. You’ve never seen a magical home aside from Potter Manor, have you?
I think Theo’s father is being worse than usual. He was actually quiet for a half hour on Tuesday before Pansy and I managed to prod him out of it. It was mostly Pansy, if I’m being honest. She could start an argument with a brick. I actually think she might be better than Theo at picking fights, actually, and if you tell either of them I said that I will hex your fingers to your broom in the first Quidditch practice once you make the team.
You being you, I’m sure you’ve got the homework finished. Hermione already wrote back with four pages of anxiety about Transfiguration, Potions, and Defense. I told her that a third of what she said in the Transfiguration section went right over my head and she needs to calm down and stop worrying. Surprisingly, I think she listened. You may have a point about Muggle-borns. I’ve an idea on that front. We ought to talk about it in person, though.
Blaise
Harry,
It’s been a week. Haven’t heard from you yet so I’m assuming the Muggles are being irritating. I will quite happily hex the walrus again. I could probably convince my father to do it, actually. “Pureblood wizarding child being enslaved and starved by a family of idiot Muggles; father can we please?” But then they’d have to clean blood out of your carpets and that’s apparently very difficult without magic. If you need rescue, let me know.
The end of term was a bit chaotic and all—we never got a chance to really talk about Quirrell. Incredible, isn’t it, that he managed to undermine so many teachers’ traps? Definitely more skill than you’d expect from a man who taught Muggle Studies, took a sabbatical in Albania, and came back a stuttering wreck. Personally I think he just went loony, but I’ve heard some other interesting rumors since I came home. We can at least trade the theories to Pansy for good gossip about the upper years, or the incoming firsties.
G and L are having breakdowns about the homework. I’m betting yours is finished. Mine, too. For the sake of my time, lease write our anxious friends and tell them to calm down and not write me five pages a week about their progress; you’ve more pull with them than I do.
See you soon.
Theo
New Business Partner,
Here are some interesting ideas we’ve been working on for a long time. Technically they’re duplicates of our notes. I’ve done my best to go through and translate some of the more arcane bits out of our horrid handwriting, incomprehensible shorthand, or explorations of magic you’ve probably not studied. And won’t ever if you have any sense, because it’s bloody frustrating and we don’t need all three of us getting frustrated and setting pillows on fire when things don’t work.
Go through the notes, see what interests you. Your investment’s already paid for some new ingredients we’re having an excellent time experimenting with. I can already tell you how to create boils in places that are unpleasant on a broom.
Don’t let the Muggles get you down.
Gred
New Business Partner,
Have you decided to back out on our deal? If so we are keeping the money but no hard feelings.
Otherwise: here is another box of duplicates of old notes. We had to do five days of chores to convince Dad to spend an hour with the Geminio Charm since Mum’s bloody draconic about us not using magic at home, even though it’s a wizarding home and the Trace is going off left, right, and center with all the magic she and Dad bandy around. Mind, we don’t exactly follow that rule, but neither of us is good with charms in general. We didn’t want to accidentally set fire to a piece of information we needed.
Mum’s also insisted we send a meat pie. She saw you on the platform last fall and thinks you’re too skinny. It’s layered in Preservation Charms so don’t worry about the age.
Feorge
Harry,
Your uncle looked a right mess but I’m still getting concerned. Write back.
Blaise
Within four days, Harry was sick of the cat flap food, halfway through the immensely dry Ten Centuries, and seriously reconsidering his plan to wait for the end of summer before he magicked himself out. Even the entertainment of reading between the lines of Theo’s and Blaise’s letters had worn off. (Theo was clearly implying some interesting takes on the Quirrell situation coming from his particular family alliances; Blaise was suggesting they use his mum’s home, where the Trace would go ignored as the home of an adult witch, to practice magic over the summer.) Fred and George’s notes were intriguing, but deciphering their handwriting was giving Harry a headache and he didn’t have the resources to find a charm that would translate it into normal script, though he was sure one existed.
He read until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, angling the book and straining his eyes to use diffused streetlight instead of his flashlight to save the batteries, and then he climbed into bed and was asleep almost the second he touched his pillow.
Useless Failed Friendless Freak, the signs read.
Harry was curled up in the back of a big cage scattered with shredded books, bits of broken wood, smashed and scattered jars and containers of ingredients whose names he couldn’t remember, filthy cloaks tossed into corners, a sad pointed hat slumping off to one side. He looked down and found three pieces of a broken stick in his hand held together by a fine gold fiber.
He recognized that stick. He knew it was broken. He knew he’d lost something. He knew that the loss left him with a feeling of panic so strong it threatened to swallow him whole. He just couldn’t remember what it was.
Desperately, he looked up and around—to see if anyone could help him figure it out. And found a crowd of people, pausing on their way by in one direction or another to peer in at him with vague disgust and mild interest. “Could’ve been something,” he heard them hiss. “So much potential.” “Such a pity.” “What a waste.” “He looks just like the other one…”
Harry looked where that person was looking and saw a taller, fitter, healthier, cleaner version of himself standing on a pedestal, waving a stick like Harry’s except whole and unbroken, and fireworks were spraying from the end, and he was smiling, and the people were cheering—
Harry shrank back, because that was—not quite what he’d lost, but close. Similar. Something. Seeing his other self so happy and famous and adored while he was here, pathetic and stinking and left to rot—the panic was swallowing him whole.
He heard a name as if from a very great distance and looked up again. A face blocked his view of his other self. A face pressed close to the bars with a lot more interest than anyone else ever showed. A face whose smile was a white sharp-edged slash against dark skin. A face that was familiar.