Chapter 19: Letters

Dear Ron,

I promised I would write to you this summer, so here I am, writing to you. My summer's not terribly interesting yet. Mum and Dad are working, so I've begun doing my homework for school. They're planning on taking a couple of weeks off of work later in the summer to spend some time with me, but for now I'm on my own I suppose.

As for you, I suggest you begin your homework soon, because I know you're planning on leaving it until the last minute and I can assure you that would be a bad idea. It's really not all that much, just a couple of essays. I would also suggest that you try reading some of the books on the booklist when it arrives, as it is always good to be prepared.

I hope I hear back from you soon.

Love from, Hermione

I folded up the letter and inserted it into an envelope. Now that I wasn't at Hogwarts anymore, I would have to take the letters down to the post office to mail them through the muggle system. It would be my first time testing out wizard mail via muggle mail, and I was quite excited to see how quickly the mail would be delivered.

I pulled out a second roll of parchment to draft a letter to Harry.

Dear Harry,

I hope you're doing alright. After unofficially meeting your uncle at King's Cross, I can understand your trepidation in returning to their house this summer. I know you said you were going to threaten your cousin back at the station, and I just hope you have the sense not to take anything too far.

I'm alright here. I've begun working on my homework, and I urge you to do the same as the summer is sure to pass faster than you would think. I told Ron to as well, and though I'm sure he's ignoring my suggestion, I hope you won't.

I hope to hear back from you soon.

Love from, Hermione

With that letter finished, I checked the time and noted that my parents would be home soon. I decided I would hold onto the letters and mail them tomorrow after my parents went to work. Instead, I set to clearing all evidence of wizardry out of my room and shoved it into the closet.

Things had been better this visit, ever since I started avoiding any mention of magic. My parents had stopped avoiding me so much, and we were getting along the way we used to, before Professor McGonagall had changed our lives.

It was hard, having to watch what I said all the time. But it was worth it.

I heard the door slam shut and immediately hurried down the stairs to greet my parents.

"How was work?" I inquired.

"Busy day today," Dad said. "Three kids have to come back for fillings, and I had a root canal this afternoon."

"Sounds like fun," I said. Whenever Mum and Dad told me about the horrific things they had to do to people's teeth, I thanked my lucky stars that they'd instilled good oral hygiene in me from a young age. While my teeth were quite crooked, they were healthy and white.

"Did you have a nice day, sweetie?" Mum asked.

I nodded. "I wrote a couple of letters to my friends," I informed them. "And I did a bit of homework."

"Are you still working on your history assignment?" Mum asked.

"No, I finished that one yesterday," I replied. "Now I'm working on… biology."

I'd taken the liberty of changing the names of my classes for my parents' benefit. History of magic was now just history. Potions had become chemistry, while transfiguration had become physics. I decided that herbology was as close as I was going to get to biology, as it was plant-based, so I decided to go with that. Mum and Dad were much more comfortable thinking of my classes in scientific instead of magical terms.

"Sounds like you're having a productive summer," Mum said. "Come into the kitchen, I'm going to get started on dinner."

Obediently, I followed Mum into the kitchen and took a seat on one of the bar stools by the island while she started chopping things.

"So, have I told you about my friend Hagrid yet?" I asked conversationally.

Mum shook her head. "I think I would have remembered a friend named Hagrid," she replied.

"Well Hagrid's just his last name," I informed her, launching into a heavily edited explanation of who Hagrid was and some of the adventures we'd had with him this year. As I talked, Mum listened and occasionally threw in a comment here or there. It was so nice, being able to talk to Mum like this again. I'd missed it over the past year.

Dear Hermione,

You must be crazy! Why are you already working on homework? We have two months before we have to go back to school, that's plenty of time. And I'm not planning on reading the textbooks, no matter how much better prepared you think I'll be, so don't suggest it again. I'll read them when the chapters are assigned.

It's good to know you'll have a couple weeks to spend just with your parents. Are you going to do anything special? I talked to Dad, and he said you and Harry are more than welcome to come stay at the Burrow with my family for the second half of the summer. I've already written to Harry, and I'm sure he'll accept seeing as he's staying with those horrible relatives. I know you want to spend time with your parents, but maybe once they're back at work you'll consider visiting?

Ginny's absolutely obsessed with Harry. Ever since Mum and Dad agreed to let me invite you two to the Burrow she's been asking if he's coming almost every hour. She follows me around the house now, always asking about him. She's so annoying.

Ron

I rolled my eyes as I came to the end of the letter. Ron had to be exaggerating. There was no way Ginny was inquiring with him every hour. And of course, she'd be excited, Harry was famous after all. He would be quite the novelty.

I pulled out a spare bit of my own parchment to draft a response.

Dear Ron,

Thank you for the invitation to stay with your family, but as I have so little time here with my parents, I think I will have to respectfully decline. I've barely even seen them and soon it'll be September and we'll be on the train again. I'm sure Harry will be excited to come see you, so you won't be alone all summer.

As for your homework, I'll stop telling you to do it, but if you leave it until the last minute, you'll regret it. I am not going to let you copy my essays and I am not going to write your essays for you, so I certainly hope you know what you're doing.

Hermione

I really did appreciate Ron inviting me to stay at the Burrow, and if things with my parents had still been like they were over Christmas, I'd have said yes in a heartbeat. But I was finally getting back to the relationship we'd had before, and I didn't want to mess it up by leaving so soon after getting home for the summer. I would have plenty of time to spend with Harry and Ron once we got back to school.

It was a few days before Ron owled me back. When the owl finally came, I thought it was from Harry at first and ripped the envelope open excitedly. But then I saw it was from Ron, which was good, except that it meant I still didn't know if my letter had reached Harry.

Dear Hermione,

Have you heard from Harry at all? It's been a week since I owled him about staying at the Burrow and he hasn't replied. I've sent him a second letter, in case the first one got lost, but Errol returned without the letter, so I can only assume Harry received it and didn't answer.

I don't need your help to write my essays, I can write them perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much. I'll have you know that I've already finished with the Charms essay.

I understand that you want to spend time with your parents. I explained to Mum and Dad and they understand as well. Maybe you can stay with us another year. We'll have to go to Diagon Alley once our booklists come, maybe we can meet there and spend some time? If not, then there's the entire year at Hogwarts.

Ron

I frowned. Harry hadn't responded to Ron either. I'd thought at first that maybe I just had his address wrong, but the fact that he wasn't replying to either of us was highly suspicious.

Dear Ron,

Harry hasn't replied to my letter either. It's a little strange, I think. I'll write to him again as soon as I've finished this letter.

Congratulations on finishing your Charms essay. I've already done Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology and History of Magic. It's too bad we didn't get any homework for Defense Against the Dark Arts though, but I suppose since Harry killed Quirrell at the end of the year and everything, he didn't really have a chance to assign anything.

Thanks for understanding that I want to spend time with my parents. It's just that I see them so rarely, I don't want to lose any time with them.

I'd love to meet up in Diagon Alley! I'll have to see what my parents say about it first though. I guess they'll have to take me at some point though, as I'll need to purchase supplies for next year, as well as the new textbooks, once the list comes out. I'll let you know when I know more.

Love, Hermione

I put the letter to Ron aside, and focused on the letter to Harry before worrying about anything else.

Dear Harry,

Why haven't you responded to my letter? I've been in correspondence with Ron and according to him; you've been ignoring his owls as well. What's going on? Is everything all right?

I do hope at least that you're working on your homework, the summer's not going to last that long.

I've decided not to go to the Burrow, but Ron and I thought maybe we could all meet up in Diagon Alley to buy our books? Even if you don't want to go to the Burrow, it would be nice to see you before September.

Please reply to me and to Ron. Ron seems worried, and I know I certainly am.

Hermione

Once that letter was done, I decided to head down to the post office right away to get them mailed. I didn't want to waste any time.

As I walked down the street, I thought about Ron's offer to meet up in Diagon Alley. I would have to convince my parents to take me, which I knew was going to be a challenge. I was a little reluctant to even ask, seeing how good the summer had been going so far, but I also realized that I didn't have a choice. Like I'd written in my letter to Ron, I had to go at some point, whether my parents liked it or not.

I felt my stomach start to tie itself up in knots as I started imagining the conversation, I would have to have with them someday soon. I could only hope that it didn't set us all back. We'd made so much progress.

Dear Hermione,

Harry still hasn't responded, and Errol keeps coming back from Harry's empty-beaked. I'm not so sure anymore that he's ignoring us. I think something must be wrong at home, maybe it's his uncle. Harry wouldn't ignore us on purpose, I'm sure of it.

How could you be upset that there's no Defense homework? That's cause for celebration! Less homework means… less homework. Who wants more homework? That's crazy. Also, how could you already have written four essays? What are you even doing with your time? You must be sitting in your room writing all day long. We're not in school, Hermione; you need to have some fun now and then.

Let me know if Harry owls you,

Ron

Before writing Ron back, I drafted a third letter to Harry. Before, his not writing us back was only suspicious, but with Ron's latest letter, I was worried. And after the stories Harry had told us about his relatives, Ron was right. Something could be very wrong.

Dear Harry,

What's going on? You haven't sent a single letter to Ron or me all summer. We're worried about you. Whatever it is your relatives are doing, can't you sneak one of us a letter to explain? We're worried, Harry, we want to know what's going on.

Love from, Hermione

With that letter written, I drafted a response to Ron.

Dear Ron,

I think there's something seriously wrong with Harry. Do you think we should do something? Maybe send an owl to Professor Dumbledore?

As for my study habits, no I am not spending all my time in my room, I just happen to be more responsible than you, and I don't want to be stuck writing my essays on the train. Also, if we don't have any Defense homework, we're going to forget what we've learned. The point of summer homework is so that we don't forget what we learned in the past year.

I'm becoming very worried about Harry. Let me know what you think we should do.

Love, Hermione

"Honey?" Mum appeared in my doorway. "Dinner's ready."

"Coming," I declared, jumping up and leaving the letters on the table. I would mail them tomorrow.

I headed down to dinner and joined Dad at the table while Mum served our plates.

"Anything interesting going on with your friends?" Dad inquired.

I shrugged. "Well Harry still hasn't written either Ron or I back yet," I said.

"I'm sure he's just busy," Dad assured me.

I nodded. I hadn't told Mum or Dad about Harry's situation. To explain would have required going into detail about why Harry's relatives mistreated him like they did, and that would have just opened a kettle of fish I didn't want opened.

"Ron's doing alright though," I added. "He's excited that we didn't get any summer homework from our self-defence class." I was referring, of course, to defence against the dark arts.

"No homework?" Dad frowned. "How will you keep up in the two months you have off without any homework?"

I shrugged. "Well I'll be re-reading my textbook, and once I get the new one, I'll be studying that. Ron on the other hand will probably show up having forgotten everything we learned."

"How could a teacher be so irresponsible as to not assign anything over the summer holidays?" Dad wondered.

"Well…" I hesitated. "Professor Quirrell had a lot going on at the end of the year. He wasn't really in any position to be coming up with homework assignments. In fact, they're going to be replacing him this year."

"I should hope so," Dad affirmed. "A teacher that doesn't set homework is not a very good teacher."

"Yeah," I nodded. "There were a few things that weren't all that great about Professor Quirrell." I thought about the small detail of having He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named latched onto the back of his head and shivered. That particular detail was one I wouldn't be sharing with Mum and Dad.

Dear Hermione,

I'm going to send one last owl to Harry and if he doesn't respond within three days, I'm going to do something. I agree that something must be seriously wrong; I didn't like the look of his uncle back at King's Cross.

I'm not so sure summer homework can have any justification at all, and I don't believe any of your "remembering" business. They give us summer homework to torture us, there's no other explanation.

Percy's being a major git and he won't let me have any fun until at least half my essays are written. I don't know why Mum and Dad had to put him in charge of me while they went to the village today. Fred and George got out of doing their homework somehow, but they won't help me, so they're gits too.

Ginny still won't stop talking about Harry. She keeps pestering me about when he's coming to stay. I wish she wasn't so annoying; be glad you don't have irritating siblings.

Ron

A few days later, before I had responded to the first, Ron sent me a second letter.

Dear Hermione,

Harry hasn't replied, so I've decided it's about time we went to get him. I've got some help, don't worry, and hopefully, he'll be safe and at the Burrow by tomorrow morning.

Wish us luck,

Ron

While I worried about what Ron might do, I also knew that whatever he had planned I wouldn't be able to stop, so I decided I wasn't going to bother trying. I let Ron's owl fly away as usual, as I would be using the muggle post office to mail my return letter later.

My booklist for second year had also arrived today, which meant it was time to schedule a day to visit Diagon Alley. So, sucking up a breath, I headed down to the den, where Mum and Dad were reading, to talk to them about the touchy subject.

"Hey Mum, Dad," I greeted them, hovering in the doorway.

"Hermione, come in," Mum said, gesturing to an empty chair.

Nervously, I entered the room and sat down.

"I have something to ask you both," I said, gathering all my Gryffindor courage.

"Anything Hermione," Dad replied encouragingly.

I sucked in a breath and then expelled it. "Well my booklist for next year was delivered today," I informed them. "So, I'm going to need to go shopping soon. For my books and some other… things."

"I see," Dad said, immediately clamming up. "And I suppose…"

"I'll have to go shopping in Diagon Alley, yes," I agreed. "My friends want to meet up when we go. Ron will be with his family, and I was really hoping… well that maybe you'd both come with me, and then you could meet my friends?"

"I don't know, Hermione," Mum said hesitantly. "Your father and I have a lot going on, I'm not sure we have the time to spend an afternoon doing your… school shopping."

I felt my spirits dropping. "Please?" I begged. "It would really mean a lot to me."

I watched as Mum and Dad exchanged a look and breathed a sigh of relief when they finally agreed. I'd been afraid that I'd have to explain to Harry and Ron why my parents didn't feel the need to accompany their twelve-year-old daughter shopping, but now I didn't need to.

I immediately ran back up to my room and drafted a letter to Harry and Ron both, addressing it to the Burrow, as I figured Harry would be there by the time it arrived. I told them the date my parents had agreed to take me shopping and asked them to meet me. Then I put the letter to the side, determining that I would mail it first thing in the morning, and went to bed in high spirits.