July 31 was coming up soon. His birthday, again.
Harry nervously watched the window. According to Petunia, her letter showed up around when she turned eleven, sometime in July. She still seemed positive that he was a wizard. After meeting a few, Harry was even LESS sure than before.
Young boys and girls with colored threads didn't know what he was talking about. The adults kept laughing him off, or told him to keep it down if others were near. Even when he spied on them, they never did much with their threads like he did.
But he had learned what he could. He now could read, speak, and understand many languages. He had found the section of his mind world where his own language was stored and had expanded it with memories of dictionaries and conversations he overheard in various languages. He had even found a couple of languages he didn't remember that he thought may have come from the scar daemon, one that talked to snakes and one that told how to communicate with something called a "Dementor".
He had a feeling that the definitions and methods of talking to the Dementors was behind in the metal room, in the locked part. The language itself felt so sick that he had moved it into the metal room just on principle. Anything that oily shouldn't be just laying around his mind.
He had learned a LOT about cooking. Even took some classes on it, since the Dursley's really loved his cooking they encouraged it.
But as far as his magic was concerned, he had only increased the number and thickness of his green threads. Jim had made some progress in Snail Quarter, they could now control several ropes and sorted most of Harry's memories for him. He only had to show up each night and verify everything went where he wanted it, and they only rarely made mistakes... well, as long as the memory was not about birds. They could be surprisingly biased for and against various avian memories.
Apparently Jim thought geese were evil.
Still, he had practiced his skills over the last couple of years. Recycling took almost no thought thanks to practice, and Harry had gone back and practice the flame creation he had stumbled upon way back when. He had played with the ropes, rapid rotating more and more ropes in various patterns. In the process he had created many types of flames, although they were all the same bright green as his eyes.
The basic ones didn't create heat, only light. He could actually do it across his whole body by simply rubbing two ropes through each limb.
The most complex one was four sets of two ropes, each one spiraling around each other clockwise while the pairs rubbed counter-clockwise. It had created a green beam that cut a hole through a tree and almost hit a house.
Aunty was not happy with that one. Most fire experimentation stopped after that.
He had seen other people with light blue cores like Aunty. Like hers, their body had tightly coiled the blue into a small ball, with some sort of covering around it. Well, hers USED to be like that. He had managed to free four threads for her, and she had learned how to actually pull and push stuff around. She really couldn't do it for long though before she got tired and had to take breaks.
She still hugged him once in a while for that though.
His eyes drifted to the window again. He knew that if he WAS going to get the letter, it should show up today, or some time soon. School wasn't that long away.
After a few failures at finding contacts in the magical world, they had decided to wait. They didn't want to risk using his real name, in case Voldemort had any followers looking to finish the job he failed at, and apparently most wizards and witches were scared of spilling the secret of magic to random children... which Harry understood, really.
So he and "D" (as he liked calling Dudley) had gone to school and learned. After a few classes Harry had to stop reviewing course materials while sleeping or else he got too far ahead, so he began setting up study groups with classmates. It helped him and D make new friends, since D had always been self conscious and Harry was the "new kid".
He would take "new kid" over "freak" any day.
For any celebration (or reason) he always tried to convince the family to go to a zoo. Most of the times the one that was closest, although for last year they had gone to the London Zoo. Harry had gained so many good memories that some of his memory clouds were chained together by sub-categories.
Jim thought the new design would help keep the training troops from being sunburned... although with no sun, Harry had never really bought that argument. Each cloud was a bit unstable, and if any duck touched one it would fill the sky as each cloud cascaded into the others... and Harry felt that Jim just liked stacking them up again like blocks.
Still, it kept the troops happy. There were worse reasons to do things.
Bloody owl, show up! Not like there was even a scheduled time for random creatures to visit houses in the first place. They had even celebrated his eleventh birthday earlier this month so they would have free time if they needed to do something with the letter.
Dudley was kind of having fun. Harry very rarely lost his cool, and he was squirming like a toddler who had to go potty. He would feel better though if the owl never showed. Having an older brother was awesome. Oh they knew they were cousins, but he was taller and stuck up for Dudley all the time. He had helped him make new friends who didn't keep asking him to do things like borrow money or whatever, and told the meaner and older boys to go away.
He wrinkled his nose. Harry still was too nice to girls though. They had cooties, he had heard it from someone, so it was probably true. He honestly didn't have a very strong theory of what exactly cooties WERE, but he knew girls had them and they were not supposed to be good.
Dudley knew Harry had checked him and saw he didn't have the right threads. It had bothered him for a few months, but Harry had helped him get used to the idea. Of course it didn't hurt that Harry had rebuilt his bedroom to look like outer-space and had helped him get more muscles... although that had felt weird. Like bending his arm the wrong way without the pain. They had to do that during the summer break so no one would freak out about how much he had change, and Mom got really huffy about us not asking first. Well, either that or body part replacement. Parents, honestly.
Petunia was more than slightly nervous herself. She didn't want to let her Harrykins go away to that school, not like Lily did. What if he never came back? Or got hurt? Would she even get to see him if he did? She tried to not think at all and went back to cleaning the living-room again. She knew it was already sparkling, but at least it kept her mind busy. Every once in a while she would rub Harry's hair and watch him try and fix it again, just to make sure he was still there.
Vernon was reading the Daily Mail upside-down, but no one was willing to tell him. He never found it easy to show emotions, but he didn't want to let this boy go after only this short time. The kid seemed to radiate peacefulness, like a hug. Watching him smile made the room feel brighter. Out of everyone there, Vernon was the only one actively NOT looking at the windows.
They heard someone walking up to the door, but Harry didn't look. He heard Jim, it was a non-magical, apparently the postal man... wait. He looked at Petunia. "That is the post man. Any chance they would send it by regular mail?"
Petunia paused... theirs had been by owl, but it didn't mean they REQUIRED it to be by owl, right? As she went and collected the mail, Harry stood suddenly and followed. At her raised eyebrow he shrugged, "After the mailman left, a creature with brown threads landed on our mailbox. Seems too close to be a coincidence."
She didn't question him, by now everyone was used to Harry knowing what was happening around his home. They had even went out back and found a stone in the backyard that he said everything was tied into, and she had no real idea of how it worked. He had seemed happy repairing the stone, saying things like how much clearer everything was, but she couldn't tell heads nor tails of it.
As she reached the door she saw the mail, and as she picked it up she checked outside. An owl was there, maybe waiting for a response? She closed the door and handed the letter labeled "Mr. Harry Potter, the cupboard under the stairs" to the green-eyed boy beside her.
His eyes quickly memorized the letter, and he handed back. He walked into the other room and sat in a chair, going still.
Petunia knew he was going to heavily review it in his mind, but she wasn't that adapt at getting to her mind world. Walking in the other room, she sat and read the letter.
It seemed Hogwart's Headmaster was important, or at least had a lot of titles. The letter itself was distressingly vague. It told when it needed a reply and when school started, but that was it. Well, this wouldn't do at all. She pulled out some paper and a pen from a drawer and began writing as Vernon looked over the two pages.
Dear Mrs. McGonagall. We received your letter hopefully promptly today, on July 24th. However, no one in my family has gone to Hogwarts except my Sister, Lily Potter (Lily Evans at the time). We need a lot more details... Where do we go to get his supplies, where do we get that money they use, how do we get him to school, and so forth. We would also like a better method of communication, such as a non-magical mailing address or non-magical phone number, some way we can contact our nephew while is so far away.
Harry has many personal questions he would probably like answering as well, questions involving a certain dark wizard and his parents. Until he remembered that horrible night, I didn't even know what had happened to my own Sister! We have spent the last two years trying to contact anyone in the magical world to get guidance on the best way to raise a magical child, but have found no one willing to talk to us.
Please send someone to help us prepare our charge for a new world. If we can not be assured that he will be cared for properly, then we would rather not send him alone to who knows where.
Please respond soon;
Petunia Dursley (Formally Evans).
She looked over and handed the letter to Harry, who had stood next to her half way through the letter. He added some script at the bottom.
Dear Mr. Dumbledore, Mrs. McGonagall, Or whom it may concern;
I am not entirely sure why I was abandoned with people who could not care for my unique condition, but I have a working theory. Needless to say, a face to face meeting is a necessity, as I have already gained some experience of the darker side of your world and very little of the less evil variety.
If you or your associates are unaware, my parents were murdered by a dark creature of a man named Voldemort, who...
Harry sighed and marked used a thread to erase the last sentence. It was probably not safe to trust a bird of all things with this kind of information. Bending back over the letter, he tried again.
I have a list of needs that must be fulfilled for me to consider joining Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Top of this list is a guide to help us on our journey. The lack of information in your introductory letter is both disturbing and feels disrespectful, considering how much you know of my local situation (As shown by the address).
Please respond;
Harry James Potter.
A quick signature and Petunia read it over. After she nodded, he walked to the front door as she began explaining to Vernon and Dudley what had happened and what they were doing at the moment. He walked down the mailbox, and looked closely at the owl.
Who just happened to be looking closely at him.
Creepy.
Harry took a breath. "Are you a mail delivery owl, one capable of delivering a response to an acceptance letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft an Wizardry?"
The owl looked for a second, then bobbed its head.
Harry shrugged. "Good enough for me." Not like they had any other options really, it was owl way or the high way honestly. He saw some string on the owls leg and tied the letter back on, with the new label on the outside directing it to "Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts". Almost instantly the owl took off and flew in a straight line away.
He sighed. Hopefully he had actually responded instead of assaulting random wildlife. He turned back to the house, ready to start the whole waiting process again. The wizarding world may have separated from the non-magical one, but clearly mail delay had made it across the gap just fine.
