The next day, after a nice nap during History of Magic (caused by a droning monotone from a teacher who didn't care and was at least thirty years out of date—probably more, actually; Harry couldn't see the man making much of an effort to stay informed when he was alive), as well as a short chat with one of the Hufflepuffs at the end of class, followed by his first Charms class, it was lunch time.
Hedwig had, quite unfortunately, not come during breakfast, but he had gotten a form letter from a different owl informing him that she would arrive at the owlery by lunch and be identifiable by a red band tied around her left talon.
So when lunch finally came Harry completely ignored the mass of food waiting in the Great Hall (he knew from experience that missing a few meals was completely manageable) and instead went straight for the owlery.
He hoped they'd picked the right one. He'd written to Eeylops that he'd like a fully grown and very intelligent female snowy owl, but Hagrid had never said if she'd been the only one like that in the store. So he was almost wary by the time he actually made it to the room full of wings.
The owls were hooting and calling to each other, which made it a bit hard to concentrate, and it was impossible for him to see the entirety of the room from any angle; beams of various sizes crisscrossed at every height, which, while it gave ample room for the owls to settle in and even build nests in whatever way they liked, did make it quite difficult to see most of the owls except a select few school-own ones, who sat on a specially painted purple beam for easy recognition.
So it took him a bit of shuffling to find her.
But it was her.
Winged Companion Goal Completed (reobtained Hedwig) 150 XP Awarded.
She sat towards the back of the owlery, on one of the beams that were about the height of Harry's current chest, and the red ribbon that had been tied on her left leg was almost useless as an identifier. He knew her by sight.
"Hedwig!" He shouted, rushing up to her. He immediately removed the ribbon and began carefully rub her head the way he knew she liked. She hadn't known him, of course, but that was okay. He'd make sure she was happy, and that this time she wouldn't have to go out in a blaze of glory at all.
After what Harry deemed to be a sufficient amount of petting (Hedwig wanted a bit more, his stomach a bit less), Harry quickly scribbled out a quick note for her to deliver first. He'd write the others during study hall, and hopefully have them sent out by bed.
For now, though, there was only fifteen minutes of lunch left, and he had to pick up his Herbology and Potions apparati too.
He should have asked one of the boys to make him a sandwich.
Transfiguration and Herbology passed much as it had the last time. None of his classes would actually be performing spells until the next week at the earliest, so most of the classes were just long drawn out lectures on theory and essay presentation and what you were expected to do and how you were expected to behave, which didn't exactly make attending the classes the most interesting thing in the world, but what could you do?
Regardless, Harry ended up in his dorm room by the beginning of study hall. Their first two papers—Potions and DADA—were due tomorrow, so the group had decided to split up for the first half of the two hours before dinner, then reconvene and edit each other's work. Harry had, quite selfishly, picked studying in their dorm room first, which allowed him to work on everything but his essays with no one realizing. The rest of the boys, and the girls too, he supposed, were spread between the library and common room, although Joshua had left to study with his brother in one of the many empty rooms of the castle.
It didn't take long for Harry to situate himself on his bed, and he had just inked his quill when Hedwig flew in from his window for the first time.
He grinned, "Hey girl, what have you got for me?"
Hedwig precked and presented the hastily tied parchment on her leg.
It was from Hagrid, who was perfectly happy to see Harry tonight, just as he'd hoped. He smiled, then fed Hedwig a bit of an orange he'd had left from his short lunch. Then he got started writing the next two letters he wanted her to deliver.
The first went as follows:
To the editor of the Daily Prophet:
My name is Harry James Potter. I am currently a first year at Hogwarts, and up until July 24th of this year, had no contact with the magical world whatsoever. This was, as I understand it, done for my safety, however it has led to some issues I have recently been made aware of.
One such, that this letter intends to address, is that many witches and wizards have apparently written to me over the past ten years, but I have gotten none of the correspondence. So, I have addressed you to ask if it were possible for the Daily Prophet to publish my deepest and sincerest apologies for leaving all the mail unanswered, as well as an encouragement not to send me any more: while I appreciate your gratitude, from what I have been told it seems to have been more my parent's doing than my own, and I would like their sacrifice, rather than mine, to be the one that is recognized.
On another note, and I know this is a lot to ask, but I was curious if you had a recommendation as to what to do about all the books that have been written about me. Many are lies, but have proclaimed themselves as the truth, and it worries me that so many of my fellow countrymen are being lied to. It has been explained to me that you are an upstanding organization, so I hope that you may have some recommendation for me as to how to pursue this. If you do not have the time, please do not worry. I have already contacted the government to see what laws there are surrounding it.
Finally, yesterday within Hogwarts, within my dorm, an animagus rat was found having had resided within the school's walls for most of, from what I understand, the past five years. Since then neither the teachers nor the aurors have explained much about the situation, and I was hoping you could endeavor to find some more out about it yourself.
Thank you,
Harry James Potter.
Harry knew it wasn't perfect—if he tried a bit harder he could probably have made it sound a little more cohesive, at least—but that was kind of the point. He didn't want it to be perfect; he wanted it to look like something a noticeably more intelligent and level-headed eleven-year-old would write. That said, he did have high hopes it would accomplish his goals.
He figured that speaking out so quickly about his ten year silence (something he'd only learned was such a big deal near the end of first year last time, but had already gotten Neville to explain this time) would help negate any of the negative feelings people had begun to have about him—a sort of preemptive defense against the future character assassinations he knew would come.
Similarly, bringing up the lying books would notify at least some people that he wasn't aware of them, and he hoped that writing both the aurors and the Daily Prophet simultaneously, while telling the latter that he'd wrote the former first, would ensure that he got at least something verging on a good plan out of their responses.
Harry had also made sure to point them in the direction of Pettigrew. From what he remembered last time Dumbledore tended to put up a bit of a moratorium on them reporting events within Hogwarts, but when they became too big to ignore (Slytherin's monster, for example), they would talk about it anyway. He hoped that the story seemed juicy enough for them to bite.
His next letter was sent straight to Amelia Bones, but he'd actually done some more preparation for this—after Binns he'd grabbed Susan's attention and loosely explained his worry about the books, and while she'd said (blushing) that she didn't know how to deal with it, she had recommended he write to her aunt, just as he'd hoped.
So it did not take him as long to figure out how to pen the second letter:
To Madam Bones, Head of the DMLE:
My name is Harry Potter. Your niece, Susan, suggested I write to you, so I hope that's okay. I just had some legal questions, and as far as I can tell I don't have anyone else I can ask.
The first question is about what happened the morning after I arrived at Hogwarts. My dormmate, Ron's, pet ended up being an animagus, and the aurors came and took the person away. I was wondering if there was any way to get an update on the investigation as it continues. I know that that is sometimes hard to do while it is still ongoing (at least in the muggle world), but I'd appreciate knowing when the person gets locked up.
My second question is more about me specifically. As you may or may not know, I was raised entirely in the muggle world in order to keep me out of the public eye. Unfortunately, during that time a number of books about me (such as the series written by Richard Gold-Tolkey) which have told blatant lies about my childhood and claimed them as the truth. Simply put, I was wondering how I should tackle that issue.
I know that asking you may not be the best way to go about that, but I had to ask someone.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Harry Potter
Again, not exactly perfectly written, but that was the point. Perfection was way too much to be expected of an eleven-year-old—and anyway, what he had written wasn't exactly that much worse than what he could have done at seventeen.
Harry, after one last glance through, sealed the letters and sent them off. He then spent the rest of the time until dinner finishing his homework. He really should have paid more attention last time— it would be so nice if he could just rely on his memories of having completed the homework before rather than having to rehash every single paragraph.
Still, it wasn't as if he didn't already have a massive leg up on the rest of his class. The homework which had taken him hours to finish the first time he now managed to get through in half an hour, and most of that was just trying to find the right material to cite.
The rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday went by quickly, especially given that Thursday was the first day where no new classes were introduced. Friday, however, brought Flying class.
And Flying class brought trouble.
The problem came down to selfishness. There was more to it than that, really, but it was hard for Harry to not simply boil down the issue to his desire to fly with his need to keep Neville from being hurt. Neville had been fine, of course, but it had been quite a painful fall and—
"Alright!"
And there was Instructor Hooch. As she had last time, Instructor Hooch went through a series of sharply spoken instructions, slowly bringing every child to the point where they could safely fly. Harry, who had positioned himself beside Neville, couldn't stop glancing at the other boy. (If he didn't catch the Remembrall he wouldn't be able to fly—but the only way he could catch it would be—
Or he could just try to fly well in whatever the class was supposed to be.
Admittedly, Harry had no idea if that would actually work, but it also led to nothing broken, so…
Neville's broom began to shoot up and Harry's own arm shot out, holding the broom steady in time for Instructor Hooch to rush over and get Neville off the broom.
After berating Neville loudly and school budgets under her breath for a few minutes, the class finally got back on track and Harry got to experience his first Flying class.
As it turned out, that involved nearly an hour of instructions before they were actually allowed to do more than float. After that, though, they were finally able to fly… in a carefully outlined circle. And any time Harry tried to do something interesting (fly upside down, shoot ahead, go close to the ground, see how high the broom would go…) Instructor Hooch was suddenly right beside him, ordering him to follow instructions.
Which. Was. Boring.
Flying—the rush of air, the slight lightheadedness, the feeling of control, the sheer amount of freedom—it had always been an outlet for Harry. In the air he'd always been able to ignore his problems and just live in the moment, a complete and total abandonment of his normal life which allowed him to actually relax even during times of his life where everything seemed to be going wrong.
Being dropped into a one year old body and made to relive his life?
An excellent reason to fly.
But would Instructor Hooch let him? Of course not! Because that would be "unsafe." So instead he was meant to go around and around in circles for an hour—they weren't even supposed to learn how to make sharp turns until next week!
…it was possible he was making too big a deal of this. After all, plenty of his classmates had already flown, and while there was some complaining (especially amongst the Slytherins), most seemed resigned to the slow pace of the class. In fact, with the exception of himself and Malfoy, not one student was intentionally breaking the rules.
Harry, however reluctantly, slowed to match the speed of Neville.
Maybe he'd get the right to fly next week… or next year.
Neville, on the other hand, looked as if he would have been thrilled to never get that right. His broom had been replaced with a slightly better looking one, but this one still lurched every few seconds—less a defect of the broom, then, and more user error.
Forget his broom—Neville himself looked as if he was about to puke. He was completely drenched in sweat, now, and he was gripping the broom so tightly that his knuckles were completely white.
"You okay?" Harry asked.
"I… I want to get off, Harry. How much longer?" Neville said. His broom jerked again.
"Um…" Harry looked around, before shouting out to Theo Nott, who was flying a few meters in front of them and Harry'd noticed wearing a watch earlier. "Oy, Nott! You got the time?"
Nott glanced at him, but apparently saw no reason to refuse and glanced at his watch. "12:40!" He shouted back.
"Twenty more minutes, Neville, and Hooch'll probably take us down before then, too."
"I don't know if I'm going to make it. I keep on feeling like I'm about to crash, Harry."
"You're doing fine. You've already been going for over an hour!"
"Exactly!" Neville snapped. "What if I'm running out of whatever magic I have?"
"What?" Harry asked.
"I'm almost a squib, Harry, and using a broom takes magic. I'm going to fall any second, and then everyone's going to know!"
"Why don't you think you have any magic?"
"I didn't have any magical accidents as a child. Powerful wizards always have dozens of them, and I had none!"
"Okay, sure, but were you tested or anything? Like, is there a way to measure how much magic someone has?"
"Um, no." Neville said. His broom stopped jerking as he slowed to think, dragging them behind the rest of the group. "I mean, you can have people try to use all of their magic, but that number's been found to vary a lot, so it's not really thought to be that accurate. Or, um, there's also using magitropic plants and things, and putting two wizards on either side and seeing which way they turn, but former Professor Beery did a study on that, and found that the plants only tended to turn to the wizard who was known to be more powerful about four fifths of the time, so you can never be certain."
"Well, sure," Harry said, "but at least it'll give you something. Were you ever tested either way."
Neville's broom jerked. "Yeah, the magitropic plants thing. I've had a couple uncles and aunts who tested me against them, and the plants didn't turn towards me once."
"Can't you do more magic the older you get?"
"Yes," Neville responded, "your reserves grow when you get older, but Harry, they didn't turn towards me once! Which means they must've not known I was magical at all!"
This, Harry realized, was not an argument he was going to win any time soon. Instead he focused on keeping Neville as steady as possible until Instructor Hooch called them down, and used his study hall time to find books on testing magical power.
There was no way he was going to let Neville believe he was so weak for as long as he had the last time, especially given that just that morning he'd really been wondering whether or not a hard fall would really be so bad, just so long as he got to fly.
(Admittedly, there were more reasons than that. But a larger portion of the dilemma than he'd like to admit had been devoted solely to whether or not he'd have to wait a year to experience one of his chief pleasures.)
For now, though, he simply congratulated Neville on having stayed up for the entire time, and tried to keep Ron and Hermione from getting into a fight over whether or not flying was really necessary, and whether or not saying it wasn't was "just plain rude."
Ah, Hogwarts. How Harry'd missed it.
First Impressions Goal Completed (have your professors assume you are good, but unnaturally so, based on your first class with each) (5/8 professors within target range) (1250 XP awarded)
You have leveled up!
Congratulations, you are now level 16.6.