Chapter 7
Hedwig Delivers to Hermione
7:30 p.m., Thursday, 25th July
Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey
Snape and Harry entered the Dursleys' house and went straight upstairs to Harry's bedroom. Snape unloaded from his pockets many teeny-tiny shopping bags, both Muggle and from Diagon Alley; Snape then enlarged these shopping bags to normal size. When the enlarging was done, nobody could see the top bedsheet on Harry's bed, because of all the clothing, books and other things (such as an empty owl cage) laying atop the bed.
Harry thanked Snape for his help, then walked Snape downstairs to the front door.
Snape gave Aunt Petunia a long look but said nothing. Then Snape opened the front door and walked out.
Immediately Uncle Vernon waddled up to Harry and demanded, "You bought freaky things today, boy. Where did you get the money?"
Harry replied coolly, "From the Tooth Fairy. We magicals stick together."
Harry walked upstairs then, whilst expecting an attack from behind. None came.
Once Harry was back in his bedroom, he used Haroldus's wand to magically lock his door. Then Harry had the happy problem of putting his new purchases away. Most of his purchases went into his super-secure trunk.
Once everything was put where it should be, Harry quietly said, "Greyclay." Pop—the Potter Manor head house-elf appeared.
Harry told Greyclay to bring the Invisibility Cloak from Potter Manor. Then Harry stored the Invisibility Cloak in his super-duper student trunk.
After Harry put away the Invisibility Cloak, he looked at his snowy owl and said, "Hedwig, let's give you something to do."
Harry started a message to Hermione.
7:30 p.m., at Hogwarts SOW&W
The headmaster let Snape walk through the front gate of the castle.
The headmaster let Snape walk across the courtyard and enter the Great Hall.
The headmaster let Snape walk through the corridor to the professors' quarters and enter his own apartment.
Snape had asked Swotty, a Hogwarts house-elf, to bring him dinner in his sitting room. Pop—a tray of hot food appeared. Snape was bringing his first forkful of food to his mouth when pop, Wrinkly the head Hogwarts house-elf appeared. "Professor Snapey," said Wrinkly, "Beardy headmaster wants you to come to his office immediately."
Snape sighed, and put a Stasis Charm on his tray of food.
Then Snape performed a small act of rebellion: Rather than go through the floo and appear in the headmaster's office instantly, Snape told Wrinkly, "I shall walk to his office. I've been standing most of the day and my legs are stiff."
Wrinkly nodded and popped himself gone.
"Ah, Severus," the headmaster greeted Snape genially, "did you discover that Harry is much more than James Potter's son?"
Snape spotted the attempted manipulation: Harry Potter is James Potter's son. You hate James, so be sure to hate Harry.
Snape replied, "The boy is not Potter's son at all, except for his hair. After the boy learnt that his father had been a bully at Hogwarts, the boy asked no more questions about James Potter."
"Harry didn't want to know about his father? I find this hard to believe."
"I made it clear that I was not the person whom the boy should ask about James Potter. Now, the boy's mother, on the other hand—Lily wrote seven diaries, one for each year at Hogwarts. Potter has read the first diary, which apparently goes into detail about Lily's first year, and he has read part of her second year."
Dumbledore looked ill. "Harry is reading about his mother's entire life at Hogwarts?"
Snape thought, Ha! You cannot very well use information control to manipulate the boy when he has a trusted source of facts and opinions that you cannot stop, can you, headmaster?
Then the headmaster added with fake cheer, "Hopefully Lily wrote nothing but good things about me."
"She probably did," Snape replied. Not that this will help you when it comes to her son.
The headmaster now leant forwards and adopted a businesslike air. "So tell me about today's shopping trip to Diagon Alley with Harry."
Snape said, "Before we went to Diagon Alley, I took Potter to Little Whinging Shopping Centre—"
"A Muggle shop?"
"A group of Muggle shops. Potter desperately needed new Muggle clothes before he entered Diagon Alley—the only clothes that Potter owned till this morning were his fat cousin's castoffs."
The headmaster looked disbelieving.
Snape continued, "I was not about to let the wizards in Diagon Alley take their first look at Lily's son with him looking like a nine-year-old child vagabond."
"Severus, I'm sure Harry was exaggerating about his clothes. Playing on your sympathies. I'm sure he had nice clothes in his wardrobe before you two bought more."
"How would you know, Albus?" Snape's disrespect was meant to shock the bearded one. "You have not been to that house once in ten years—why do you think Potter hates you so much?"
"Hates is a strong word, Severus. Surely Harry's feelings for me aren't so bad."
"Potter wrote in his letter to Minerva, 'I hate Albus Dumbledore, even though I've never met him.' Did you miss that part?"
The headmaster waved this away. "I took that sentence as showing a child being overdramatic."
"Headmaster, you have an annoying habit. When someone tells you something that goes against your preconception, you never say, 'Well, well. I guess I was wrong.' No, you tell yourself that the other person is lying, or exaggerating, or mistaken or playing a prank. So why am I wasting my time now, and my food getting cold, so to speak? It is obvious that you refuse to hear what I have to say, and what Potter has to say. I am trying to warn you."
"Severus—"
"When I agreed to visit Potter at home, you neglected to tell me that Potter's guardians are Lily's magic-hating sister Petunia and Petunia's magic-hating husband. Yesterday I saw that they starved Potter, and I would swear on my magic that he has poorly-healed broken bones. Their son, who weighs twice what Potter does, is as cruel to Potter as his parents. All three Dursleys treat Potter like, in his words, 'a Caribbean sugar-plantation slave.' "
"Surely, Severus, Harry—"
"And Potter blames you for all his troubles—during our conversation, he mentioned Manchester Magical Academy twice, and Potter told me that he would 'never' attend Hogwarts so long as you were headmaster."
The headmaster smiled. "Yet now Harry has accepted a place in Hogwarts, so obviously you persuaded him. Good job."
Snape shook his head. "I did not persuade him by logical arguments, because all the logical arguments I could make, said that Potter should not attend here. Nor did I bamboozle him inside a cloud of beautiful words." Like you like to do, Albus went unsaid. "Instead, I made oaths to Potter. After I made my oaths, he agreed to come to Hogwarts."
"What oaths?" the headmaster demanded. "What was the wording?"
"That is between him and me. You have no need to know my oaths."
"I insist you tell me, Severus! I am Harry's magical guardian!"
"Truly? I think not. A guardian helps the child whom he is guardian of. You have abandoned the boy to relatives who hate him on principle, then you have given Potter no help at all. The only way I see you doing the work of being Potter's guardian, headmaster, is that you grabbed up the key to his Gringotts trust vault. Which reminds me: Potter has the key now, and he was not at all pleased that you could spend his parents' money for the past ten years."
"Everything I've done concerning Harry, I've done for the Greater Good. Now again, Severus, don't be childish and balky—I insist that you tell me what oaths you made to Harry."
Snape said, "Albus, a bit of advice: Do not tell Potter in the Great Hall, during mealtime, that you left him in a hellhole for ten years 'for the Greater Good.' You will not like Potter's response, which will likely be quoted in full in the Daily Prophet. Now excuse me—I am hungry, and this meeting is pointless."
Snape walked out of the headmaster's office. As he descended the steps, he thought, I wonder how the headmaster would have reacted if I had told him that I told Potter part of the Prophecy?
Fifteen minutes later
8 p.m., at the Granger house
Crawley, West Sussex, England
Emma Granger and her daughter Hermione were in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher. Whilst the clock said it was evening, the sun was still up in July.
Hermione was quite talkative and peppy tonight, even hours after she and Dan had returned from the wizard bookshop. If sugar was not all but banned from the Granger house, Emma would be convinced that Hermione was caught in a sugar rush.
Emma gathered that today Hermione had met a famous wizard boy named Harry Potter, and the two of them now were friends. Hermione had never had a friend before, poor girl.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-tap.
"What's that sound?" Emma asked, looking about the kitchen. She was sure she had never heard this sound before. Was the refrigerator going bad?
Ta-ta-tap.
"It's an owl!" Hermione exclaimed. "An owl is at the kitchen window."
Whilst Hermione ran off to fetch the stepstool, Emma peered through the window that was above the sinks. Sure enough, on the other side of the glass was a fifteen-inch tall, all-white owl. But the owl was not looking at Emma, the owl's face was tracking Hermione as the girl hurried up to the sinks, stepstool in hand.
Hermione had not spoken her plan, and her mother had not guessed the plan till too late. Hermione dropped the stepstool onto the floor next to the sinks, climbed the stepstool and, with her extra height, bent forward, unlocked the window and opened the window. The owl—
"Hermione! Why did you do that? The bird could have diseases!"
—flew to a corner of the kitchen table, then landed so that the owl was facing Emma and Hermione. The white owl stuck one leg out.
The owl was not looking at Emma, she noticed, the owl kept looking at Hermione.
Emma took a few steps towards the bird, moving her hands and arms about in (what Emma hoped was) a threatening manner. "Bad bird! Bad! Go away! Fly out the window!"
The white owl looked only briefly at Emma, and Emma interpreted the owl's look to mean Are you on drugs or what? Then the owl's gaze returned to Hermione, who now was fearlessly approaching the big white owl.
"Hermione, don't! This isn't safe!"
"Mum, I think this is a postal owl." At Emma's blank look, Hermione explained, "An owl that is magical and delivers letters. I think Harry Potter sent it! See, there's a strip of paper wrapped round its leg."
Hermione removed the elastic (the rubber band) that was stopping the rolled-up paper from unwinding, then she removed the strip of paper that was surrounding the held-up leg and unrolled the strip of paper. The owl reclaimed its leg for standing on, but made no other moves. All of the owl's attention was on Hermione; Emma continued to be ignored.
Dan walked into the kitchen. "What's all the excitement?" Then Dan must have noticed the open kitchen window and the big white owl on the kitchen table. "I'm guessing that when Harry Potter said 'Look for my owl,' this was what he meant. What does the note say?"
Emma blurted, "This doesn't bother you? Hermione being delivered a message by a bird? Which could be diseased?"
"Emma, I've met the boy. I quite doubt that he would send Hermione a diseased anything. Anyway, Hermione, what did Harry write?"
Hermione commented, "The writing is small."
Then she read aloud, "Dear Hermione, I'm glad I met you earlier today, and I'm glad you want to be my friend.
"I'm conducting an experiment now. I want to see if you receive this, then I receive a message back from you, without us needing to buy stamps and to use Royal Mail.
"I ask that you write me back, then wrap your message round Hedwig's leg, then put the elastic round the message to keep it from falling off her leg. It doesn't matter what you write—'Message received' is good enough.
"Owls are meat-eaters, and it's traditional to tip the owl with meat after you collect its letter. Owls apparently love bacon. But since you probably don't have any bacon lying about except at breakfasttime, do what my mum's family did: When Mum was sending school owls to her parents, my grandparents kept an open tin of chicken chunks in the refrigerator.
"When I send an owl off with a letter, I'll tell the owl either 'Wait for a reply' or "No reply is needed.' If I had told Hedwig 'No reply expected,' she'd have flown out the window as soon as you'd collected the message.
"Hermione, I'm eager to be your friend. How eager? My first-ever owl-mail message, I sent to you. I hope to hear from you soon.
"Harry Potter
"P.S. It doesn't matter whether you're in your house in Crawley, or at Hogwarts or on holiday in Marseille, a postal owl always will find you. Same with me, if you've given Hedwig something to take to me. I love magic."
Hermione then looked up, locked eyes with the white owl, and said, "Please, Hedwig, stay here!"
Seconds later, the Doctors Granger heard the thu-thu-thu-thu-thump of their daughter running up the stairs at flank speed. Less than a minute later, Hermione rushed back into the kitchen with a blank sheet of paper, a pair of scissors and a Biro pen.
Fifteen minutes later
It took Hermione a long time to write a half-page of words, Dan Granger saw. For minutes at a time, his daughter's pen did not move; and during those times of motionlessness by the pen, Hermione was scowling. If Dan had to guess, Hermione was agonising over what to write her new friend.
All the while, the white owl waited, with no signs of impatience.
When Hermione finally huffed, and used the scissors to cut the half of the paper that had writing on it, away from the half of the paper that was blank, Dan asked his daughter, "May I add something?"
Hermione handed her father the pen and the half-page. The upper-right corner of the half-page had a tiny little blank place; Dan wrote there, "Turn over=." On the blank back of the half-page, Dan wrote, "Dear Harry, Dan and Emma Granger invite you to visit our house in Crawley sometime this summer."
After Dan wrote that, he got a hug from his daughter—but this hug was nuclear-powered.
A half-hour later
Harry smiled as he read the owl-mail from Hermione—
.
25th July, 1991
Thank you for using your owl to write to me.
Nothing much is happening in my life till term starts. When your owl came, Mum and I were washing dishes. My mum freaked out when I let Hedwig in our house!
According to the books I've read this year, every magical kid does accidental magic before they receive their Hogwarts letter. What accidental magic have you done? Here's my story.
I was six or seven years old, and I was watching Return to Oz on video, and it was near the end. My parents told me that I had to stop the film and go with them someplace for a short time. (Butcher shop? Greengrocer?) Anyway, I really wanted to stay in the house and see the end of the film, but they said no, no. I was angry, because I'd already proven myself mature enough to be left home alone for short periods (at least I thought so). Dad ejected the tape and turned off the VCR, then he turned off the telly and said, "Come on, Hermione." That's when the telly screen blew up.
Mum claims that when I was four years old, a storybook came off a shelf in my bedroom and floated across the room to my hand, but I don't remember this.
Your friend, Hermione Granger
(In different handwriting) Turn over=
Dear Harry, Dan and Emma Granger invite you to visit our house in Crawley sometime this summer.
.
Harry soon sent back two messages: one to the elder Grangers and one to Hermione. The message to the Doctors Granger said, "My birthday is next Wednesday, the 31st. Would this work as a day for me to come to your house in the evening? I turn eleven then."
Harry gave the three Grangers no hint that he had other events planned for 31st July. Harry's eleventh birthday was when Harry would show Wizarding Britain that "the Boy Who Lived" was not "just Harry." Harry thought, Albus Dumbledore, beware. Your comfortable life is about to turn uncomfortable.