Three Years Later
Office 623 was an empty concrete box. There were no signs of life, except for the plain envelope in the middle of the floor and a canvas sack in the back left corner. The envelope wasn't flashy and it wasn't trying to hide. It was just waiting for the right person to come along.
Dear reader,
If you're reading this letter, you passed through the ward in the corridor. It doesn't prove that you're special. That you're a good person or a clever person. It only shows that you needed a safe space. You might have come here to hide. Sometimes we all need to hide. But I hope that when you're hiding is done, you find a better use for this box. That you can grow enough to think outside of it, and to take your own path back to the outside world. For a while this room was my purgatory. But I outgrew it, and one day you will too. You may have noticed that this room is devoid of magic. It can be annoying and inconvenient and boring. It will let you think before you cast. Because you can do amazing things with magic. If you care enough to try. There are books in the bag; books of fiction, philosophy, science and magic. Books are always a good place to start. There is also a can of mushroom soup. Enjoy this purgatory or hate it. When it's over, if you think it helped you in any way, pass it on to the next person. I don't own this room. I have no conceivable right to it. But I'm giving it to you anyway. Have fun with it. Or don't. Just use it to live the way you need to live until you can face the world again. It will always be waiting.
There was a secret message hidden in the books. If someone were to crack the code and take the book outside into the light and magic, they would find a second message, one that would be more surprising than any of the other crazy things they had seen when they had stumbled down the secret stairwell they had found in the Ministry of Magic.
That was premium soup. I hope you didn't waste it.
Yours sincerely,
Draco Malfoy.