A Letter for Hogwarts

For the days between his letter arriving and his next day cleaning with Mrs. Figg, Harry kept his head down and just followed the Dursleys' orders. Though it still made him crazy enough to want to scream, he just kept repeating to himself that it wouldn't be for long.

One month plus one week, then he'd be away for the school year. It may as well be an eternity distant.

He grew used to the veil partitioning his memory, practiced thinking about things related to what was hidden there without drawing it open. If he found out about the Watcher, if the wizard was able to see into his soul as Nagini had implied, he didn't want to risk being unprepared. He practiced while cooking, practiced while running from Dudley, practiced while lying in bed waiting for sleep. It helped take his mind off the limitations of his existence at present.

The morning of his chance to write his reply, Harry woke to the sound of Aunt Petunia banging on his cupboard, unlatching the slide bolts and shrilly ordering him to hurry up with breakfast. He cooked the meal, collected the mail and brought it to his uncle, cleared up after the meal, and allowed Dudley to almost catch him as they ran around the yard. Finally Dudley's friends cornered him, and he was unable to escape their practice for hitting people, but then they let him go to get dressed for work.

He changed from his dirty stained too-large outfit to his cleaner stained too-large outfit. The school owl sat on the fence by Number Four waiting, as it had for the days since its initial delivery of Harry's letter despite Aunt Petunia's attempts to scare it away.

Harry supposed it must hunt during the night, because he had not seen it move beyond tilting its head around and hopping in place or picking at its foot or feathers.

He would have a reply for it to take back soon. He silently begged it to wait just a few hours longer as he hurried past it toward Mrs. Figg's.

He had considered long and hard how to explain his state of affairs to the school. They clearly had little idea of what his life was like, if they thought he would be able to just go out to the train station. Without his aunt or uncle driving him there, or someone from the school picking him up, he'd never manage.

Professor Quirrell was magically prevented from entering Privet Drive, but Harry hoped that, if worst came to worst, he could convince him to meet somewhere like the park, and from there they could go to the train station together. At that point, he would be safe from his relatives' retaliation whatever they thought of him running off with a strange man.

He went straight to the writing desk.

Professor McGonagall,

My aunt and uncle will not be interested in allowing me to attend any sort of school except the local muggle high school. I hope you don't require their consent as I would very much prefer to go to Hogwarts. But I will need help getting my school things, and probably a ride to the train station for start of term too.

Please tell me if there's anything else I need to do to be ready.

Thank you,

Harry Potter

There. That should do it. Harry had considered putting in an apology for causing them trouble, or offering to pay for their time, but thought that might seem too desperate. If he was as rich and famous as Quirrell had indicated, they would probably be happy to accommodate him. And if not, he was sure the professor would be able to help him.

He had decided to be brief and professional about the whole affair, there was no point blathering on about his whole life story. He wanted to attend, needed help arranging things, that was all there was to say.

He folded the letter, slid it into an envelope, and wrote 'Professor McGonagall, Hogwarts School' on the front, tucked it into his pocket. The only advantage to wearing Dudley's oversized castoff clothing was the excess of pocket space.

Only once that was taken care of did he open Quirrell's reply. He gave a satisfactory overview of the classes Harry had inquired after, then explained that ghosts were wizards whose spirit refused to die along with their bodies. But without a physical mutable form, they would be stuck as the same version of themselves as they had been at the moment of their death, unable to really learn or change beyond their immediate context. It was a state to be avoided if possible, as being without a body left you also incapable of magic.

Quirrell didn't see how they could have a culture, though he noted that it was considered impolite to bring up that they were dead. Sometimes they didn't realize they had died, other times they just chose to ignore it, and neither type wanted the truth shoved in their incorporeal faces.

Harry was feeling anxious now, wondering if he should have said more in his letter to McGonagall, so his reply to Quirrell was long and full of his concerns about the future.

Would Hogwarts be willing to go to so much trouble just to get one student to attend? Was Harry really that important? Would they need his aunt and uncle to consent? Would he ever be able to get a wand if he wasn't allowed to attend the school? What would happen to him if he didn't get taught? Would his power keep getting stronger?

He signed his name at the bottom, stared at the rambling for a moment, considered throwing it out, then folded it determinedly and stuffed it in an envelope.

He gave that to Mrs. Figg to send, then set about cleaning her dining room. This was the least used room in the house, he realized at once, and would require more than one afternoon's cleaning.

By the time he left, he was satisfactorily covered in dust and cobwebs, which would make his aunt pleased if nothing else. He walked home, one hand on the letter in his pocket, the other fiddling nervously with the loose thread that hung off his frayed sleeve.

He arrived at Privet Drive, surprised to find no sign of Dudley or his friends. They must have gone out while he was at Mrs. Figg's. He looked around again, checking for his aunt, but the yard was empty and silent. He brought out the letter, held it up to the school owl. It peered at him, then hopped off the fence and onto his other arm, held out a foot.

"Gotcha!"

Harry screamed. The owl flapped into the air as Harry whirled.

Dudley snatched the letter and grinned triumphantly. "I knew you were up to something," he sneered. "No one's ever that happy to go cleaning."

"Give that back!" Harry demanded, trying to snatch the letter. But his cousin held it away, up out of Harry's reach.

"You were only going to feed it to the owl," Dudley said. "You want it, you'll have to fight me for it."

He held up his other fist in front of his chest, ready.

Harry's momentary courage wilted. But he couldn't let Dudley read the letter, and he really couldn't let him give it to Aunt Petunia. He had no chance of winning a fight. He had to get it back some other way.

He stared at his shoes, slumped in a convincing imitation of defeat.

Dudley laughed. "Now, what would someone like you be writing about?"

Harry glanced up at the school owl, which had resumed its seat on the fence and was watching with a disgruntled expression, its eyes followed the letter as though it wanted to grab it.

Dudley moved to open the letter and Harry seized the opportunity. His cousin was distracted, not ready, and Harry grabbed the letter away. Dudley lunged for it, but Harry had desperation on his side. He twisted the envelope away with a ripping sound that seemed to echo in his ears.

"Take it to Hogwarts!" Harry shouted to the owl, threw the letter as hard as he could into the air just before Dudley tackled him bodily.

He feared for a moment that nothing would happen, that it would fall to the ground and Dudley would grab it instead, but the owl knew its job well. It swooped on the crumpled envelope, winging away with it before Dudley could hope to stop it.

The larger boy was left with less than two inches of paper, but he sat on Harry to prevent him getting up and unfolded it anyway.

"Professor. . . My aunt. . . in allowin. . . except th. . . you don't. . . prefer to g. . . getting my. . . the train s. . . Please tell me. . . do to be ready. . . thank you, Harry Potter."

Dudley waved the paper in Harry's face. "Professor? Be ready? The train? Thank you?" His voice rose to a shout. "Who have you been writing to? What's Hogwarts?"

Harry heard his aunt give a little shriek from inside the house, and a moment later her head popped out of the open bedroom window. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" she yelled.

Dudley waved the paper in the air proudly. "Harry was trying to give an owl a letter, but I got part of it away."

Aunt Petunia fainted, toppling backwards out of view.

Harry's heart sank. He was sure there was enough in the remaining part of the letter for McGonagall to understand his position, but there was obviously enough in this piece to incriminate him. Why had he said 'Hogwarts' out loud? It was obvious that Aunt Petuina had recognized that word particularly. Why hadn't he just said 'McGonagall' or 'the professor' or even just 'here's my reply'?

It was too late now. The secret was out, and he could see no way to slither out of trouble this time.

Dudley locked Harry in his cupboard personally, at Petunia's command the moment she recovered. Harry heard her pacing the house, knew she'd be fluttering her hands with a look of panic on her face. He'd seen it before when she was expecting important guests, it meant she would be snappish and quick to yell.

But he was already locked in - actually locked, which normally was only done overnight - and could envision no way out of this. Uncle Vernon would be furious, he always was when Harry caused his wife trouble, and Harry had never seen her so worked up.

For something like this, even his worst fears seemed too lenient. He tried to stop thinking of what could happen, but his imagination seemed stuck on searching for the worst possible outcomes.

But why would Aunt Petunia recognize the word 'Hogwarts' specifically, he asked himself. Tried to distract his mind, challenged himself to puzzle it out.

She seemed to understand the implications of the owl as well. He remembered thinking once that his relatives knew the truth and hated him for it, thought back to how every mention of magic, every fairy tale or fantasy movie, had been banned from mention within the Dursley household.

Harry recalled when Dudley had wanted to go see the rented video of E.T. with his friends, Petunia had ignored his tantrums and flatly refused, instead promised him a whole pie of his own if he dropped the subject and never brought it up again. After all, the poster had a flying bicycle on it, and bicycles did not fly.

Throughout Harry's whole life, anything even close to dealing with magic had been shunted aside from the Dursleys lives. Deliberately so, he now realized. They knew enough about the wizard world to hate it. He had heard from Quirrell about Lord Voldemort's war of conquest, it had ended when Harry was a baby. Perhaps they knew something about that? Thought all wizards were like that?

Harry shook his head. That didn't fit. The way Aunt Petunia looked, it was hatred and fear but not that sort. The personal sort. The look that came from being wronged on a level that Harry knew the depth of full well.

She was the sister to Harry's mother. Had she been the one from whom Harry inherited his magical abilities? Had Petunia felt outshone, perhaps, by her witch sister? Jealousy could be a powerful motivator.

Or it could be Harry's father. A wizard, sweeping Petunia's sister off her feet with his foreign power, perhaps literally charming her away from her family? That would explain the hatred as well.

Harry sighed and leaned back on his lumpy mattress. He didn't have enough information to solve this, the past was too far away, too long ago and too well hidden.

He wondered what Uncle Vernon would do to him when he got home from work. He worried if the crumpled partial letter would be enough. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd written, hadn't seen what part Dudley had torn off.

From the words he'd read off, though, it was plenty incriminating for the Dursleys to justify any restrictions against him. His days of blythely running off to Mrs. Figg's house for his secret correspondences would be over. He hoped he hadn't caused her any trouble. Even if she was a bit loony it was nice having an adult around who wasn't determined to make his life miserable.

And his last letter to Quirrell had been nothing but complaining. Why had he talked about himself so much? He should have been more diligent in making the professor understand Harry's gratitude, that he valued their friendship more than anything he'd ever had.

Now it was too late. He was locked in, and didn't see that he would ever be allowed outside the house again. He'd tricked them, betrayed the tiny trust they'd placed in him, and now they knew he was involved with wizards. For a family that so despised magic, what greater crime could there be?

He knew he'd go mad. Alone in his cupboard, but at least he had snakes to talk to.

He sat bolt upright, his forehead connected firmly with the stair above him. He winced at the pain, shoved it aside along with the the veil on his memory to access his secret ability.

"You all talk to each other, relay messages, right?" he hissed to the current occupants of his cupboard, a pair of greyish-brown snakes with similar patterning who seemed to be having a silent disdainful argument of some kind. They looked up at him, twisted into mirrored upright coils to see him better.

"Yess, we are able to relay messages. Master-not-master is the only wizard to whom we could convey them."

"Tell him I've been caught, that I won't be able to send any more letters. Ask him what I should do."

"It will be conveyed," the snakes replied, nodding their heads in near unison.

"Thanks." He lay back down, rubbing at his head.

He hated his cupboard, his prison, but at least it was the one place that was his. The Dursleys never rearranged his possessions, never more than glanced inside to get him up or call him to work.

Harry pulled his stack of letters from under the mattress. Four from Quirrell, and the Hogwarts official one from McGonagall. He reread them each, slowly, line by line. Committing their already memorized words to heart, even the list of equipment. He lingered on that, knowing it to be the last page, tried to imagine every possible use for each listed item.

He was especially intrigued by the line proclaiming 'First Years are not allowed their own broomsticks.' Quirrell's list of school subjects had included flying, and he'd asked after it. He rotated the final letter from Quirrell to the top of the stack, read it again. Alone of his wizard correspondence, this one he hadn't fully memorized, having only received it a few hours previously.

He was rereading the professor's overview of classes and ghosts for the fifth time when he heard the front door open.

Dudley called from the living room that, "Mum's upstairs with a headache, she was really furious today about something Harry did."

Harry stuffed the letters back under his mattress as fast as he could, lay down on his side and pretended to be asleep as Uncle Vernon's heavy footsteps approached his cupboard door. He changed his mind, sat up with his legs crossed in front of him, tried to look repentant, knew that whatever he did his uncle would find fault with it.

The bolts unlatched, the door was flung open. Harry squinted against the light, used to the dimness.

"What did you do to upset my wife?" he thundered. "How dare you!"

"I'm sorry, Uncle Vernon," Harry said, looking away. The truth that he was the one being wronged, that this was all so unfair and absurd wanted to burst out of him, but now of all times he had to keep his tongue in check. Angry words are not careful words, he reminded himself.

"Sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry that you upset her, or sorry about what you did?"

Harry couldn't answer, his throat was already thick with tears. He was afraid, and he was angry, and he was afraid of what he could do because he was angry, and he didn't care, but he was so tired of this.

His uncle's face was puffed up and crimson, and he didn't even know the whole story yet. Harry had never seen him so angry.

"He tried to give a letter to an owl," Dudley said helpfully. Harry wanted to slap his smirking mouth so badly.

Vernon's face turned a shade deeper, almost purple. "YOU WHAT?" he roared. "AN OWL? A LETTER? HAVE YOU GONE MAD?"

"Vernon, he's been talking to them." Petunia's voice was faint, as though she was terrified or else on the verge of tears. She held out the strip of Harry's letter in a trembling hand. "I think he was planning to run away."

Vernon's fists were clenched, his face no longer enough to contain his fury. "How did you do it?" he asked, jabbing a finger toward Harry's face. "How did you manage this. . . this. . ." He shook the torn letter under Harry's nose.

Harry really was crying now, unable to stop himself. He couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to.

"It was that old crazy Mrs. Figg," Dudley said, proud to contribute to the conversation. "Harry seemed awful happy to go clean for her, so I got suspicious. I waited for him to come back, and that's when I caught him with that letter."

"Where's the rest of it?" Vernon asked, his voice going flat and dark.

"The owl took it," Dudley said.

"To. . . that place," Petunia added faintly.

Vernon turned his glare on Harry, his voice leaving no room for compromise. "You will not be going anywhere with anyone, you understand me boy? We agreed to take you in, with one purpose. You will grow up to be normal. You hear me?"

Harry had taken enough. Two months ago, he would have nodded meekly and accepted his punishment. But now, he knew he had options. He knew that this didn't have to be his future. He knew that he could dare more.

"I am going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Harry yelled, sitting up on his knees so his head brushed the top of the cupboard, staring Uncle Vernon right in the eyes. Angry. Defiant. "I am a wizard, and nothing any muggles say about it will change that fact."

He felt so calm, suddenly, as though his angry outburst had spent all his aggression. He could almost see magic, could feel the true power within him. He said the first thing that came to mind.

"Lumos," Harry whispered.

And a dazzling light blazed out from a spot just in front of his chest. Vernon winced and backed away a step. Dudley gasped and flinched. Petunia swooned.

"I am a wizard," Harry repeated, his voice confident as the flare of light began to fade. "I am leaving now. Don't try to follow me."

He grabbed his stack of letters, jumped out of the cupboard, and sprinted for the door.

Vernon recovered from his shock, jumped at Harry with a roar. Harry's heart was racing as he just managed to dodge his uncle's attempt to grab him. He nearly tripped over his too-long pant leg, stumbled, recovered. Vernon lunged again, but Harry had years of experience running and dodging from Dudley's training.

He threw the door open and raced down the drive. He couldn't believe what he'd done, but he was committed now. Harry turned the corner and sprinted for Mrs. Figg's house, the only place he could think where he might be safe.

He shoved the front door open, ran through, slammed it closed behind him. He couldn't seem to catch his breath, and he felt worn out somehow in a way he never had before. His forehead throbbed, both the dull ache from where he bumped it and the sharp pain through his scar that came and went seemingly without reason. It was stronger today, much stronger.

"Who's there?" Mrs. Figg demanded in a slightly wavering voice from her bedroom.

"It's me, Harry," he replied, panting for breath. He reached up to lock the door, and only then noticed it was already bolted for the night. Except the bolt was just gone, like the bars from his door. "I may have ruined your lock. I'm sorry about that."

"Oh, dear boy, what's the matter?"

She was wearing a nightgown covered in cartoon cats as she emerged into the hall, which somehow made her look less mad than usual.

Harry couldn't think what to say, so he just stood and waited as she came over. She gently wrapped her arms around him, and he was suddenly sobbing. All the fear, all the stress, all the worry and hope and truth and lies, it was just too much for him to hold in any longer.

She didn't seem to know what to say either.

Harry didn't care.

She silently held him, and he cried wordlessly.

He didn't need words. He just someone to be there for him.