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A/N: Harry has now received the letters in chapter 108 and 110 from Dobby, this is the continuation of his letter in 109 which he is still unable to send at the start of the chapter.
…Since I wrote the other stuff something bad has happened. This was totally not my fault at all and I didn't go looking for trouble. A house elf came to the house while Vernon was entertaining clients for his company, and he, the elf, used magic to dump a cake on Vernon and Petunia's dinner guests and for some reason I got a warning letter for the magic it used so my relatives found out that I'm not allowed to do magic at home. Vernon lost "the biggest deal of his career" that he was trying to make because of it and he's furious. He beat me unconscious again and when I woke up I was locked in my room and he put bars on the windows so Hedwig was locked in with me which was really hard on her because while she likes the odd bit of bacon or cooked meat or fish or owl treat from Eyelops, she really needs raw food most of the time to stay healthy and I didn't have any for her.
It must have really been a big deal because he's never brought people home for dinner like this before and he was angry that he hadn't been able to organise it earlier in the summer before I came home, he told Petunia he expected to get enough of a bonus or pay rise to buy a vacation home in Majorca. I must admit after the way he treated me I hope he won't be able to smooth things over and come to a deal now. Still it might have been easier to disappear from Majorca, if they'd taken me with them, or from wherever they'd parked me instead.
Don't worry, I'm fine. I managed to heal myself in spite of the wards, either I hadn't been here long enough for them to affect me enough to stop me doing magic or using the fake wand all year has made my magic grow stronger. It's starting to get more difficult but I've been able to conjure water to drink and vanish rubbish and other nasty stuff so I don't have to live with the smell but I can't undo the new locks Vernon put on the outside of my door, I think that's more because I picture them clearly enough. I also have plenty to eat for the time being, both Mrs Finnigan and Mrs Thomas sent me home with a full hamper of food and Mrs Finnegan snuck in a few basic healing potions as well. If I eat sensibly and don't overeat because I'm bored then it will last until I go back to school. It's very lucky that I've been at the Thomas' and the Finnegans instead of being locked up here all summer because Petunia isn't feeding me at all since Vernon and Dudley beat me up, and not all that much before that either though I was able to sneak things while I was cooking, and if it wasn't for the fact that I'd hidden the food from Mrs Thomas and Mrs Finnegan under my bed I would've starved.
One good thing about Dumbledore's stupid interest in me, I know that if I don't arrive at the opening feast, he will send someone to fetch me. In fact, I think he would probably be pleased to have to play the hero and rescue me from the Dursleys'. Not that it will make me trust him since I believe it's his fault I'm here in the first place but I don't think he realises that I know that, or that I'm smart enough to know that he's only going to collect me for his own gain somehow or because there would be too much fuss and an investigation if I don't turn up on the train on the first of September. Dobby, the elf that caused all the trouble with the cake and the warning about magic, said that he came to warn me not to go back to Hogwarts. He said something really bad is going to happen there this year. I told him that I can't stay here and the only way I'm not going back to Hogwarts is if I get accepted into another magical school but I cannot get any school to accept me without my magical guardian's permission and my Hogwarts transcripts. I didn't tell him what school I want to go to because I cannot trust him since he won't tell me which family he works for or what the actual threat at Hogwarts will be so I could try to prevent it. Dobby had also been stealing my magical mail from my friends so I would think that I didn't have any friends at Hogwarts and not want to go back there, which is why I didn't get any letters from Hermione, (or Dean or Seamus since I left Ireland) and even Ron wrote a couple of times over the summer too which surprised me since I didn't think he was the letter writing type, he also stole the letters I've written to them so they all think that I haven't bothered to write. Luckily I sent my school application by nonmagical mail so I got the replies the same way addressed to Dean's or Seamus's place, and thanks to our ability to email this summer it didn't affect most of our correspondence over the summer but there were two letters from you in the pile I got back from him. The letter's that you'd sent via Mrs Thomas so I think they've been intercepted after she's given them to a post owl. I'm glad I managed to put my other letter to you directly in the mailbox on the way to the shops for Petunia or you'd be even more worried than you're going to be now if I don't get out of here soon.
Have I told you about house elves? House elves are funny little creatures about three feet tall with extremely thin arms and legs, with green skin, very wide faces, heads much bigger than their bodies literally a bit wider than they are across the shoulders and huge eyes and ears, they have long fingers and toes but nowhere near as long or talon like as the goblins and speak in broken English referring to themselves always in the third person, though most of the time they don't speak to witches and wizards other than their masters. They're a race of elves that serve a magical house, usually an old pureblood family. I don't know how you get one. They don't wear clothes but tunics made from pillowcases or teatowels. The Finnigans don't have an elf and I don't think that the Weasleys do either, I've heard Ron complaining about having to do chores around the house, but I expect that Neville's family probably does. Both the schools had house elves though the ones at Hogwarts work really hard not to be seen by the students. I didn't really notice them at all until I saw the elves at Scoil Draiocht and remembered getting glimpses of elves at Hogwarts. The elves at Scoil Draiocht don't mind if you see them but we were told that they're not allowed to take orders or requests from us and it would hurt them to have to tell us 'no' so we would be punished if we're caught asking them to do anything for us, I think that the elves at Hogwarts must have similar rules and have probably been told not to be seen as well. They seem really uncomfortable if you try to talk to them so Dean and I soon learned to ignore them which sounds rude but really is what they preferred. They are honestly much happier with us ignoring them though I do try to say thank you when I put my clean clothes away or find that my muddy boots had been cleaned one day at school. I just say it out loud so I hope they hear me but they don't need to respond so hopefully it doesn't upset them.
I hate to say that I sort of took them for granted until I met Dobby, they were sort of just there and trying not to be noticed, I wonder if they have a form of notice-me-not charm on themselves because even when I saw them working at Scoil Draiocht, I didn't really pay any attention to them, I certainly couldn't have identified any of them from the others, and it isn't like me not to notice and be grateful for work that's done for me or not to make sure the people working that hard are okay and well treated. I'll have to ask a bit more about them because Dobby seems obsessed with serving his family. He has to follow his masters' orders, even if he orders the elf to deliberately hurt or damage themselves. He even spoke about intending to hurt himself because he thinks he's done something they'd punish him for, even if they don't know about it. He cannot tell me who he works for and punished himself for even trying to agree with something bad I said about them, apparently he can't tell me why he's worried about my going back to Hogwarts he's been sworn to secrecy but nobody thought to tell him to stay away from me or not to try to persuade me not to go back to school. I get the impression that it's not just a threat against me but something that will put the whole school in danger. The thing with the elves seems like slavery to me but I guess I don't know all the facts. Elves have powerful magic so I doubt a family could keep one against their will. So Dobby must have a reason for staying with his abusive family, I would have helped him to get away from them if he'd asked but I didn't know how to offer without him making more noise and fuss when I was trying to keep his presence a secret. Of course that was before he tried to get me into trouble with Vernon and Petunia and the Ministry of Magic.
Of course, if Dobby's heard about a plot to attack Hogwarts at the home of the family he works for them they are not good people. I cannot imagine Neville treating an elf that badly. Hopefully if Dobby really doesn't want me to go back to Hogwarts, then he will find a way to get my transcripts or to get me into another school. What I can't understand is why I got a letter from the Ministry warning me about the penalties of using underage magic for the magic Dobby did when I've been using magic multiple times every day since I got home until the cake incident and I've never been warned before. I've was hesitant to deliberately use any magic at first after that but in the end I had to, I'm still locked up Petunia doesn't always remember to let me out to use the loo I think she forgets I'm here, I didn't receive a letter when my magic healed me, so I started with smalls spells conjuring water and air freshening. I'm okay but I will have to make a decision what to do in a couple of weeks when I run out of food if someone hasn't come for me before then. Part of me just wanted to try to use my magic to find out if it was something Dobby did on purpose to alert the ministry and my magic is still safe to use, or if their monitoring has somehow changed to pick up on all external magic performed in the area, or the wards have been altered to alert the ministry. It's not like I actually want to go back to Hogwarts. I won't stay here if I get expelled though. I'll find a way to leave without being brought back even if it means I can't learn any more magic and have to live entirely in the muggle world. I just wish that I had something to do, I've read all the books I brought back from Ireland and I'm finally making good progress on learning Spanish. Well, there is Dudley's homework but I'll be damned if I do it now, though I suppose I could deliberately do it all wrong and blame the head injury I should have from Dudley kicking me in the head or better yet bleed all over it. I'm not sure I want to do that though in case I need to come back here next summer, but he hasn't given me any of the essays and stuff he did through the year so I can't try to pitch his homework at a similar level or make the same spelling mistakes he typically makes to try to hide that he didn't do this work himself so I was trying to aim for a low pass. He has an awful lot of homework, much more than we did and Dean's friends were all surprised that we had any summer homework at all so I don't know if it's a boarding school thing or whether this is mostly remedial work because he's in danger of failing without someone to do his work for him. I'm glad that I don't have to put the effort into doing it all as well as I can. I've read through his books, he's doing different subjects than the ones I did at Scoil Draiocht over the summer, though the math is pretty similar to the stuff we did in primary school and the science is all stuff I've read before so at least I have learnt something, and I have plenty of paper to write to you. Being able to email has spoiled me though, writing you a letter, particularly this one when I probably won't be able to send it until September isn't any where near as satisfying as it would've been before this summer. I miss being able to hear from you and I'm sorry that my silence is worrying you. I would contact you if I could. I was actually better off in the cupboard, Vernon has put more locks on the outside of my bedroom door and I can't get them open with magic because I haven't seen them and can't picture them in my mind which he couldn't do on the cupboard because it's in the front entry way and someone might have noticed it wasn't normal. I tried before Dobby came. I might be desperate enough to do it, or to pull the pins out of the hinges and get the door to let me out that way, if I run out of food, though I really can't feel much magic in me since I healed myself, the small things are starting to take more effort too so the wards are starting to have an effect again and I'm wondering how long it will take til I'm not able to break myself out. I wonder if eventually I'll barely be able to do any magic at all and if that happens how long it will take to build back up so I can use it.
I'm glad that the family and friends who look after your mum while you're away at college have come back and are willing to help again now that they've had a bit of a break, and that they were more understanding of your need to get a good education. It's good that your mum was pleased to see them too, it must relieve your mind to know she knows they treat her well. I think that they should have apologised to you properly for thinking that looking after your mother should have just been your job, but I'm glad things are better between you now. It will help if you need to talk to them during the year.
I understand you not wanting to bake a cake for guests when the last one didn't work out so well but you really do need to try again before it becomes something your brain tells you that you can't do. I know that it will go better this time, just be careful to preheat the oven to the right temperature and not to open it too much until the time it should be ready. You should have tried back when I could help you go through the recipe and practice it in your head. But I'm sure you will have more success this time.
I miss running, it's funny I never thought I really enjoyed it that much, I was dragging myself out of bed reluctantly to run for the health and fitness benefits and because it seemed to help me concentrate, especially in the time compression when it wasn't really early morning, and now I wake up early and hate that I can't go out and run as the sun comes up. I'm trying to run on the spot to keep up my fitness but I can't do that until later in the day when Vernon has left for work and Dudley has got out of bed around lunch time so he won't snitch on me for waking him up and it's already awfully hot and stuffy in here by then, the lazy git and honestly everything I own now stinks of sweat, as my cleaning charms have become less effective, I'm not sure if that's due to the magical drain or just the sheer amount of sweat I'm trying to get rid of. I've been doing a lot of sit-ups and push-ups because they're quieter and I don't mind them, they do help get rid of the excess energy, but it isn't the same as running outdoors. I shouldn't be complaining, if I hadn't been able to heal myself I'd be grateful for the opportunity to just lie still and not have to move.
I miss being able to talk to you via computer, and I miss Dean and Seamus, they both gave me email addresses to talk to them on too but they shouldn't be too upset with me, I did explain that I didn't know if I would be able to borrow a computer or get to the library. I still don't find myself missing Ron or Hermione most of the time, though I would be glad they turned up to visit just to get me out of here. It's sad that we're not really friends because Ron is actually my only hope of getting out of here before September if he still wants me to come over for that visit he invited me for before we left Hogwarts but he said two weeks and it's less than that now til school goes back and I haven't heard from him. I'm still not sure I want to stay at the Weasleys, I'm bored and still a little stiff and sore but at least here I'm not being manipulated into doing things and nobody is attempting to cast spells on me to make me want things that I wouldn't want and not want things that are important to me now. Did I tell you that either the strongest Finite cast at myself or a flushing potion along with the running each morning did seem to help me want to read and learn more and concentrate better again. Separate to the improvement from just the running, I mean. I thought that the school mediwitch was right and it was just that I was used to being more active but just before exams I walked in on my dorm mates having a magical duel and got hit with three or four spells, they panicked and instead of dragging me down to the infirmary decided to all hit me with a Finite Incantatum at the same time and shove a flushing potion down my throat. What they were doing with a flushing potion or why they thought it might help reverse the mingled spells I have no idea and none of them would tell me. Anyway since then I've noticed that I'm concentrating more easily and remembering stuff even better and my reading speed has increased. It's still pretty slow compared to yours though. The only explanation is that my dorm mates somehow managed to remove a potion or spell in addition to the ones they'd cast. Maybe someone had been trying to stop me wanting to learn. I think it was cast or fed to me at the end of the term so maybe whoever gave it to me wanted to prevent me learning more things in the nonmagical world or they'd just noticed how many extra books I was reading at school. That or it didn't actually work very well, either I'd almost burned through it or it was cast by someone who wasn't good at it, I hate to say it but if it was someone's first attempt then it was probably Hermione. Ron wouldn't know the spell, and I doubt he'd care that much about my grades and if my enemy wanted me under a spell like that they'd cast it themselves and it probably would've been more effective. So if Hermione did it, it was something she wanted to do herself (kind of convincing proof that we're not real friends if it was her) possibly out of jealousy because I was reading to many magical books, and knowing stuff that nobody else has read is kind of her thing. If it is that I'm going to have to be more careful about visiting the library and borrowing books next year and maybe make myself some flushing potions. They're not hard to make it's just not recommended that you do it more than once a fortnight because it flushes out your entire digestive track and can interfere with the way your bowels work if you do it too often and I don't want to risk that it would cause me more problems than most other people because I've had so many times when I haven't been able to eat enough before we met and you showed me other ways to get food. I asked when I was in the infirmary about healing malnutrition but she didn't have anything she said I'm healthy enough from her scans but she also said that she's a mediwitch not a healer and the tests she uses only diagnose current issues serious enough to need treating right away and that a healer would be able to do a full scan to find past injuries and damage. She said Madam Pomfrey is only a mediwitch too so maybe it isn't her fault that she didn't try to help me more than she has. That makes sense that when I was injured at Quidditch it took a couple of days for her to heal me and I felt more easily tired for a while afterwards but I was hurt much worse the night I tried to run away and I was healed completely with no lingering pain or weakness. But I still would've thought that even a mediwitch would have the ability to know when something is wrong with a person, and when to call in help from a healer. Isn't that part of their jobs? And apparently I'm well nourished now after two full schoolyears of decent meals but the first time I was in the infirmary with Madam Pomfrey was less than three months after starting Hogwarts. I was still very underweight then. I need to find a way not to have to come back to the Dursleys' next summer even if I am still stuck at Hogwarts. Petunia wasn't going to let me out until school started or possibly after that and I don't think that she knew about the food that Mrs Thomas and Mrs Finnegan had sent home with me, and I can't depend on them to feed me again. Three weeks with almost no food wouldn't have killed me but I certainly would have needed medical attention by the time someone came to rescue me on the first of September. (I know that Vernon didn't beat me and Petunia didn't stop feeding me until after the incident with Dobby and the loss of Vernon's contract at work but I could see that once I'd done the more essential chores Vernon was looking for an excuse to beat me and Petunia was happy to go along with it).
I've been 'rescued', and taken to the Weasleys. Luckily for me, Ron and the twins brought their Dad's flying car to rescue me because they hadn't heard from me and broke me out of my room by using the car to pull the bars off the window, though I'm not sure how that works when the wheels aren't on the ground to move it along. They got in trouble for taking the car but Mrs Weasley ignored them when they tried to explain how I was being treated, they told her about me being locked in and the bars on the window but you could see in her face that she refused to believe them. Admittedly, I've been eating well so while Ron and the twins were telling the truth that the Dursleys weren't feeding me I don't look like I've been starved, I've even grown more than I normally would in two months thanks to the good meals at Dean's and Seamus's and time compression at school, and thanks to the fact I've only been there two weeks and the amount of calisthenics I've been doing in my room I don't even have the muscle wasting typical of someone who's been locked up for months and I healed all my bruises so there's no real evidence I was being mistreated, but she didn't even try to ask me if it was true or look at the bars from my window which were still in the boot of the car. She just told them off for lying which really annoyed me. Sure maybe they shouldn't have borrowed their father's flying car but they didn't deserve to be called liars, and it made me feel like she was calling me a liar too, though she's always over sweet to me so I'm sure she didn't want me to think she was calling me a liar. The twins weren't as upset about being called a liar as Ron and I were but a large part of their success pranking comes from lying or misleading people.
She didn't hit them for it but they were punished by spending the rest of the morning de-gnoming the garden while I was allowed to go upstairs and have a nap. I didn't though I felt like I needed to help with the punishment. De-gnoming is kind of like weeding and nothing like it at the same time, Gnomes are small creatures that look a bit like a potato with arms and legs and a potato head and you have to pull them out of the ground and throw them as far as you can over the garden fence. I was horrified at first but George assured me that it doesn't hurt them and in fact they kept coming back for more and after a while they stopped swearing at us some of them seemed to be enjoying being flung through the air. I don't know if there were any less Gnomes in the garden at the end of the de-gnoming or not but it seems a colossal waste of time and I think we did more harm to the garden itself than the gnomes being left alone there would have.
Don't worry about me being too trusting, I remember what I said about Dumbledore wanting to rescue me to make me trust him more so I am aware that my anger at the way Molly was treating Ron and the twins was probably influenced by the fact that they saved me from a very miserable last week of the holidays and I am a little suspicious why Ron and the twins suddenly decided to 'steal' their father's flying car 'without permission' and come and visit me in the middle of the night just because I hadn't replied to Ron's letters. Dobby had all the letter's I'd written to him all summer so why try to rescue me now. if I had been locked in that room since we got off the Hogwart's Express without the food Mrs Thomas and Mrs Finnegan sent home with me I'd probably have been beyond saving, if not already dead and buried, weeks ago. Don't get me wrong I'm really glad that they didn't try to find me while I was at Dean's or Seamus' house, or if they did come to Little Whinging and didn't find me then they haven't said anything to anyone about it, but if they did there was no reason that they'd think I'd come back and needed them to try again unless someone tied to the wards told them. I'd also like to know how exactly they found me, I didn't see anything in the car that suggested it had a way of tracking people or finding an address (though maybe if it were magical I wouldn't have recognised it) and the Weasleys live entirely in the magical world I doubt they could have stopped at a petrol station and bought a map, or followed it if they had one, not to mention they'd still need the address for that. I mean the sensible thing to do would be to give an owl a letter and follow it but Dobby had stopped stealing my mail so if they'd done that, I would have received the letter just before they arrived. So if their mother helped them to find me somehow then she had no right to yell at them about how they used that information. If the telling off was for show, it felt absolutely real, I wouldn't want her to be my guardian.
I'm sending this to Mrs Thomas to post so by the time you get it I will have been at the Weasleys' for a while. I'm sorry for worrying you with the delay in hearing from me, but the Weasleys don't interact with the nonmagical world at all and I can't even see a village while flying my broom in the field where it's allowed, so I've no idea where to find the nearest post box. If you sent a letter to the restaurant I haven't received it and have no way of getting it now. I'm sorry but you will need to send me a copy or tell me your news all over again.
Your friend always
Harry
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
Stay safe everyone. Please stay safe.