Chapter 104
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To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Friday 17/8/92 6:05pm (GMT)
You're right I would rather be told the truth no matter how dreadful it is than live in ignorance because someone thinks that I don't need to know or can't handle it. In the end the vow I used didn't even ask them to act in my best interests at all just to be completely honest and not to actively try to harm me. Apparently, it was enough for the magic to accept them as being protected by the house of Potter and I was able to give them the amulets. Mr and Mrs Thomas agreed that Dean could make the vow, which was just as well because I think he would have vowed it without their permission if they refused. Mr and Mrs Finnegan were relieved when they witnessed the vows made and realised that they shouldn't put Seamus in any danger, I haven't actually spoken to them about my concerns of what my enemy might do if they find themselves unable to manipulate my friends, I hate to say it but I think that the best defence for that still will be the old fallback of trying to hide our friendship so whoever it is doesn't see the need to try to manipulate them and find out that they can't be manipulated. If you're sure you really want to do this, I will call you on Sunday at ten o'clock your time. I'll check my email before ringing you so if your mum is having a bad day and you think that it would be better for me to ring a different day try to email and let me know. Once you've said your vow, I will send you the amulet. The runes professor at school showed me how to store magic in the amulet and I charged it fully and the protections should last about five years unless the protections need to actually be used and you will know if it's protecting you because it will get hot to let you know there's someone close by that cannot be trusted. So, in five years or after you feel it protect you, you will have to send it back to me to be recharged, there is a few spare amulets in my vault so if you need to use it at a time I can access email and Gringotts in Diagon Alley let me know and I'll send one to you straight away so you are protected again quicker. It won't protect you from physical harm or illnesses but it will guarantee that no witch or wizard can mess with your memories, thoughts or personality or make you do things against your will short of using the imperious curse which there is no real defence for and it will make it harder for someone to use that against you too.
You wrote about paying extra staff to supervise us students out of class time and I realised that they do have people who do that here at Scoil Draiocht there are a couple of dorm heads one who works from the end of classes until about ten o'clock at night and the other who you can go to if you have an emergency during the night and is awake in the early morning to make sure we all get up and have breakfast before we start classes. But they don't have anyone like that at Hogwarts. I hadn't really noticed but they should shouldn't they. Seventeen year olds might be legally adults in our world but they're studying for NEWTs and they aren't actually responsible for the younger kids. There's usually someone around who will break up fights and stop rowdy hijinks in the common room but more because it's annoying them than for our safety and the prefects supervise the compulsory study times for the younger years and patrol for the hour or two after curfew and then one of the professors does an hour after this and the professors take turns to supervise the older years going to Hogsmeade on the weekend per term that they're allowed to go. I suppose that they also have some magical way to know when they're needed somewhere in the castle but they do their patrols on top of a full schedule of classes for all years, that's fourteen different classes and usually 3 hours every week for each class and about two or three hundred essays to mark most weeks. They also eat all their meals with us in the great hall so I suppose that's some sort of supervision too. They will come and break up fights during dinner if they notice them, which really only means the fights during different houses internal house fights don't often happen in the great hall but they wouldn't be noticed unless spells are fired or punches thrown, but nobody takes any notice of who hasn't come to meals or if they only eat desserts for lunch and dinner like one of the second years does or don't really eat anything at all like one of the Hufflepuff girls. If I can notice when I don't even sit at her table it seems impossible that they haven't noticed looking down on us from high table. It seems an awful lot of extra work on top of teaching classes and marking assignments. Snape also makes all the potions (medicines) for the school infirmary, no wonder he's always in such a bad mood, especially if he's having to brew birth control and nutrient potions to put in all the desserts or pumpkin juice for the whole school as well and McGonagall does some administration stuff as well as all the student letters and most of the muggleborn visits over the summer.
I'm not going to be able to write much over the next couple of days, end of year exams will all happen on Friday and I want to do as well as I can. We were told this morning that some of the exam papers would be made with the anti-cheating charmed parchment but that they won't tell us which ones or how many, and that if we are caught cheating on an exam we will get an automatic fail on all the exams that don't have the anti-cheating spells on them as well as the exam you're caught cheating on. It's a great deterrent and motivator, since we got told that most people are studying twice as hard as they were before.
After exams I will set up a time to talk to you on the phone, if I can't find a way to get myself to California to see you. I would like you to help me with the wording of the vows, don't worry about not knowing enough about magical vows. I'm going to run our ideas past Mrs Finnegan and Mrs Donahue before I ask anyone to make a vow. I just want to have a decent start so I don't look like a total idiot.
You're right about the risks involved in pretending to be my own father, but even then I think that I'd be safer than I was at Hogwarts this year. I want to see you.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Friday 8/17/92 10:08am (PST)
Of course I still want to make the vow, silly. It won't change our letters in any way so why wouldn't I make it. I never want to harm you and I agree that facing bad news as soon as possible is always the best way of doing things. I have never lied to you, there's be no point writing if we weren't booth honest about our thoughts and feelings. I'm looking forward to talking to you and hearing your voice, and having a more accurate voice in my head when I read your letters. I'm sure it's changed a lot since I last saw you, mine probably has too, though it changed a while ago and I don't notice it anymore. I can be at home at any time you need me to be, but it will be better for Mom if you telephone during the day at a time we would normally get calls. As I'm sure I've told you in the past the telephone can be a trigger for Mom so I will try to have one of her friends take her shopping if she's having a good day or to sit with her and sedate her if necessary if she's not well enough to go out and it looks like the phone is starting to trigger an episode. Don't feel guilty if it does. I'm the one who agreed to have you call the house and you're calling so you can give me the amulet to protect me. Mom having episodes and needing to be sedated isn't as rare as I try to make it sound, it happens nearly every week now, Aunt Ethel said that it's more often when I'm not home but I'm not sure whether that's because they're quicker to sedate her rather than trying to let it go until she starts being a danger to herself or to those looking after her. Maybe they're right and it is better to sedate her than to let her work herself into a state of anxiety but she hates it. Hates being sedated and hates the feeling of waking up from sedation. Of course, it's also easier for them because if she's having a bad day they can call each other to come and help. It's only this summer that I've been strong enough to be able to force her to the ground and hold her still to inject the sedative. I hate having to be so rough with her but I'm finally starting to understand that I should not put up with her hurting me, even if it is only because the injuries will upset her for longer afterwards than being sedated will. This is one practical use for my love of magic tricks, to be able to hide the needle up my sleeve until I am in a position to use it without her seeing so I don't have to use force most of the time.
Anti-cheating spells sound like a great idea, I wish that they'd been available when I was at high school, of course they'd be more use for assignments than for exams. Unfortunately, even if such a thing was available in the nonmagical world I very much doubt most of my high school teachers would have been interested in using it. They had to have been aware that several of the football team were bullying/threatening other people into doing their work for them and no effort was ever made to stop them. In fact, I think pressure was put on any new teacher who tried to force the team to do their own work and maintain their grades honestly in order to play, to let it go. I was cynical about football being more important to the teachers than if the majority of their class was actually learning the things they would need in life but of course the false grades also bring up the schools GPA average and the other schools probably did it too so the school has to cheat not to fall even further behind than they really are. I don't know why though. It isn't like parents will move from one district to another for a school that they can see is equally underfunded just because they have a sightly better pass rate for their mediocre students.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Saturday 18/8/92 6:03pm (GMT)
Dean and Seamus made their vows today and officially became my vassals, it doesn't seem to have changed thing between us at all, they were still able to play a prank on me and to make me do my share of the chores this evening which is good. I think they were deliberately trying to push the boundaries to see what has changed. We did it at Gringotts so Dean's parents could be there, though they're getting used to magical travel and have met us at the Finnegans a few times to talk this over. Mrs Finnegan still isn't totally happy with the idea though she was happy enough for Seamus to make the vow we agreed on and to receive my protection. She has instructed Seamus to keep the amulet invisible and not to tell anyone at all about it or the vow. Seamus was equally unhappy when she tried to tell him that the vow means he has to put more effort into learning Occlumency properly. Personally, I'm happy that they've hidden the amulets, it might keep them a bit safer though I would guess there's ways to see things that are hidden like that or to see the magic if you're looking for it.
Seamus' dad and Mr and Mrs Thomas don't seem so worried about people knowing about the vassal thing they're just grateful that I've found a way to protect their sons. In fact, Mrs Thomas was so happy that the wording of the vow didn't mention servitude in any way that she offered to make the oath as well and I accepted and gave her an amulet, I had her make a slightly different oath though to protect you and our communications as well as me. That she wouldn't tell anyone about our correspondence and would pass on everything we sent without altering it in any way and would try to let both of us know if someone was trying to interfere with our letters. She was happy to make those vows and the oath worked for her, Mrs Finnegan and my goblin account manager both warned me that she might have a trace of magic, enough to be considered a squib though the wizarding world normally only considers those with magical parents squibs not those with magical ancestors a few generations back. Anyway, they warned me that just because it worked for Mrs Thomas didn't mean it would necessarily work for you too, especially over the phone. I understand that they just don't want me to get my hopes up too much and be crushed with disappointment but I wish they'd stop putting doubts in my head.
MY voice has changed a lot this summer, Dean and Seamus' voices have too, I'm a little concerned that it's going to be obvious we've grown up more than the two and a half months since we finished at Hogwarts, especially with how tall Dean has grown, his parents were shocked when they saw him, and then if they were suspicious about the three of us that means they'd be suspicious that we'd done whatever we did to grow up more, together. Then I remind myself that people really do only see what they want to see and nobody is going to look at us and think that we've grown too much because we've been in a time dilation ward. I bet your voice has changed just as much as mine has though I probably won't notice so much because I don't remember it so clearly. Do you sound like a grown up yet? Or is your voice still all high one minute and low the next like mine?
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
Stay safe everyone.