Disclaimer: I still do not own anything
Chapter 2: Letter
Harry was reading quietly in the garden, sitting in the grass with his back against the tool shed. The oppressing heat of the late afternoon had not deterred Dudley from going to the park to play soccer with his friends, but Harry considered basking in the sun to be a much more appropriate way to spend the day.
When he had begun displaying his preference for direct sunlight, Dudley had nicknamed him 'Lizard', but Harry had learnt long ago not to care much about what was said of him and the intended insult glided over him like water on duck feathers. Besides, the glorious searing light was a delight and realizing that he did not get sunburns was an added bonus that he had rubbed in his cousin's raw and reddened face quite a few times this summer.
He might be miserable in winter, but in summer… in summer, he was a god.
The flapping of powerful wings got him out of his daydream. He opened his eyes to find an owl perched on top of the fence, staring at it with the fix intensity that only an eyelid-less bird could muster.
He blinked.
The owl hooted softly and glided to a halt next to his thigh where it cocked his head to the side – still staring unblinkingly at him – and extended a leg in his direction. The fowl's talons looked decidedly sharp enough to tear his legs into tiny bloody bits, but it was the letter carefully rolled and tied around the leg that caught his attention.
He pondered for a while at the bird's impressive balance. The owl hooted again, this time in a rather imperious manner.
"Is… that for me?" Harry asked, feeling a bit silly talking to a bird.
The owl accomplished a magnificent eye roll and hopped on his thigh, still raising his leg with the letter to him.
"I… I'm going to consider that a 'yes', if you don't mind," he said and reached cautiously for the letter.
It was easily unfastened, and he found himself ogling a strange animal-themed emblem pressed in the wax, consisting of a lion, a crow, a snake and a badger. The owl hooted with approbation when it could finally put its leg down, and then flew back to the fence, where it eyed him with a haughty air as if daring him to open the letter.
Harry shrugged and did just that. There were two sheets of paper – although it was not paper but something quite a lot sturdier that looked terribly like very thin leather – inside the envelope. Strange. The text, though, was even stranger:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
As mentioned in the letter, the second sheet consisted of a detailed list of, well, school supplies, he supposed they were.
He looked back at the owl that was still staring at him, an odd glint of laughter in its yellow eyes.
"Is this a prank?" he asked no one in particular – although if pressed, he would admit to be expecting some sort of reaction from the owl.
Said owl kept staring at him, the hint of amusement turning to certain hilarity.
He had no idea how he knew the bird was inwardly laughing. Refusing to ponder about the difficult questions it raised – the main one being what kind of sense of humor an owl had – Harry cautiously reread the letter.
Uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia had always been adamant that magic did not exist. They could be wrong, of course – they did not know everything he could do with fire, after all, and his aura of friendliness had never been noticed – or they could have been lying. In fact, now that he looked back on it, they had been extremely insistent on the matter of magic not being real, which lent some credence to the second theory. However, apart from Dudley, his relatives tended to not bother lying, so Harry had some trouble believing that they would have hidden something that big. Also, when asked, the teachers at school and other children had always seemed to be of the same opinion: magic did not exist, but it might be nice if it did.
Harry had yet to encounter hard evidence to disprove this claim, and, as awesome as going to a magic school sounded, he found himself wondering if this letter was not an elaborate prank of some sort – although, he doubted that a prankster would go through the troubles of training an owl to deliver correspondence, or even manage to convince one to fly during the day.
Well, he decided with a firm nod of his head, if this was a trick, he was going to fall for it and deal with the prankster later. After all, anyone creative and dedicated enough to come up with this idea deserved their laugh.
He turned back to the grey owl on his thigh, which was still staring at him with a look of aloof jadedness.
"I'm sorry," he asked the bird, "but it says here that I'm supposed to send back an owl. That means a letter, right?"
The grey fowl kept staring in a very noncommittal way that Harry chose to interpret as a yes. Or a shrug, really; there was only so much one could do to interpret the expressions of a bird.
"I see," he said with a shrug of his own. "Can you wait for me to write my reply? I don't know any owl well enough to ask them to carry my letter."
Would it be rude to ask a random bird? For all he knew, owls were sentient creatures. Thankfully, before he could ponder more on the question, the grey fowl hooted once, hopped away from his thigh and flew to the roof of the shed where it began stroking its feathers with an uninterested mannerism.
"I'll take that as a yes," Harry declared, still rolling with it. "Thank you for waiting." He scrambled to his feet. "I'll be back in a few minutes, don't go, alright?"
The owl simply rolled its eyes again and Harry scurried inside looking frantically for a pen and a sheet of paper. When he eventually found them, he bolted back to the garden and was immensely relieved to see the owl still perched on the roof of the tool shed.
He stared at the blank sheet for a while, wondering where to start exactly. He was still not entirely convinced that this was not going to land him in a heap of trouble, but if he was going to bother replying, he was going to reply with style.
"Should I address her as Deputy Headmistress of Mrs. McGonagall?" he asked the owl and received a long stare for only answer.
He settled for combining both to avoid offending her.
He then made a few drafts but ended up crumpling all of them. How did one go about politely asking for proof that magic existed?
In the end, he begged the owl be more patient and ran off to find a dictionary. He did not want to come across as an ignorant child – even though that was mostly what he was at that point – and was rather confident that the little voice at the back of his mind was right when it claimed that proper wording was important if he wanted to get a clear answer to his request. He came back from the house juggling between a very heavy thesaurus and a plate with a few morsels of bacon for the patient bird, who seemed rather pleased with the attention.
When he finally felt his letter was adequately worded – and it had taken at least one hour and a half – he placed it in an envelope and held it to the owl.
Ω
Minerva McGonagall was sitting in her office, sifting through school paperwork, when a large grey owl landed on her desk. The fowl dropped the letter it had been holding in its beak and shot her what could only be described as a haughty stare.
The Deputy Headmistress raised an eyebrow and stared right back with the Scottish aplomb that teaching magical teenagers for decades had refined to the perfect balance.
The grey fowl gave up on the staring contest and took off from the desk, scattering the neat piles of documents to the ground, while startlingly leaving the delivered letter untouched. Minerva restrained the urge to roll her eyes at the school owl's antics – that had been on purpose – and waved her wand at the papers spread all over the floor.
Once her desk had returned to its tidy condition, she turned her attention to the very muggle-looking envelope and smiled softly. She had sent the acceptation letters only the morning before and, while a few purebloods had already sent their reply, it was quite rare to hear back so soon from most muggle-raised half-blood children.
Her gaze dropped back to the pile of letters that were specifically intended for this year's batch of muggleborns. The next two weeks of her schedule were cleared to allow for her visits to the muggle families. She did not look forward to having to explain about the Wizarding World a dozen times over – and having to prove that, yes magic existed to skeptical parents – but it was her duty to do so and she took it extremely seriously.
Besides, she always found some measure of enjoyment whenever she guided starry-eyed eleven years old through Diagon Alley for the first time. On that fond remembrance, she opened the letter and let her gaze quickly skim over the still eminently childish writing – although she could tell that efforts had been made – to look at the signature.
She sputtered in shock.
Then she went back to the beginning and went through the actual content of the letter. It read as such:
Dear Mrs. Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,
I was very surprised to receive your letter. I never knew that wizards even actually existed. My aunt and uncle have always been very clear that magic is only children's tale. I am not sure who to believe: them, or this strange letter that your owl delivered me. I have no idea how you trained an owl to fly during the day, so, if it's a prank, it's very well done.
But if it's not, and if I have really been accepted into your school to learn magic, then I, personally, accept the offer, but I am going to have some problems to convince my aunt and uncle to let me learn magic if they believe it doesn't exist.
Also, I don't know where to find such things as a wand, a cauldron or dragon hide gloves (are they made of real dragons?). I don't believe the libraries around my home will have any of the books mentioned in your list. And, I'm pretty sure I don't have enough money to afford it all and I don't think my aunt and uncle will agree to pay for it.
Would it be possible to schedule a meeting with you (or any other member of the faculty) to explain the situation to my family and help me find my school supplies?
I would be truly grateful for your help.
Sincerely yours,
Harry Potter
PS: Your owl is very pretty. What's his or her name? I gave him/her bacon, is that alright?
She mentally smacked herself for her oversight. Young Potter was not a muggleborn by his lineage, but, for all intents and purpose, he should be prepared as one during his first steps in the magical world.
She thought about going to Albus with the matter – as he had been the one to insist that growing up with his relatives would be more beneficial to the child than whatever foster family who would have happily adopted the 'Savior of the Wizarding World' – but she eventually decided not to bother him with it.
She had a conveniently almost free afternoon in just a few days – right after her scheduled meeting with a certain Miss Granger, in fact – so she would start with the young witch and follow with Potter from there.
That seemed like a reasonable plan. She quickly penned her answer to the child and, before she could even place the envelope on her "to send" pile, a hoot from her opened window informed her that the large grey owl had returned and was staring at her with an imperious air.
She chuckled and beckoned the intimidating bird over.
"I don't suppose you intend to become Mr. Potter's entitled mail-carrier?" she asked with a half-sarcastic, half-amused tone.
The owl rolled its eyes and snatched the envelope from her hand before storming away in a flurry of grey feathers and newly scattered papers.
Minerva McGonagall frowned. More chaos from the darned bird.
She really hoped that grey owl was not an omen of the school year to come.
Ω
More story ! Pretty short chapters so far. Hope you're enjoying. Don't hesitate to comment!