Chapter 2: Mail
It was the next day that Harry received the first replies to his mail inquiries.
Harry,
Me and Parvati both received our letters together. I never wrote to you, but Parvati did. It would make sense that you've got some sort of magical mail charm because, well, you're famous!
Best wishes,
Lavender
Harry,
I'm glad you sent that letter, I had sent many invitation for football matches to all of our roommates. The other ones always replied even if it was to reject the invitation. I heard you are stuck at Diagon Alley now because of ministry orders. I hope in easter break we can go to one match.
Kind regards,
Dean
Our youngest seeker,
I'm glad you wrote, but I just expected you didn't reply to my letters because of your abusive relatives. Don't be shocked I know about that. I interact with you all the time and some comments made by the Weasley twins make me think. I hope you solve the mystery of your mail soon.
Take care,
Oliver Wood
Harry was calmer after those letters, that some of the people he knew didn't really hate him on secret because he didn't reply to some letters. He was worried about the rest, but the more important ones in his eyes were out of the way. He replied the letters he already received.
The young wizard wondered about the next course of action he had to take, and the main one should be checking about a famous mail charm. He set way to the Post Office in Diagon Alley.
Harry entered the post office and the clerk waved him, "Harry Potter! We were expecting you! We expected you to come here when you returned to the wizarding world! You have almost twelve years of mail accumulated here!"
Harry asked, "I didn't know that I had to come here! Do you know something about the mail charm?"
"Yeah! It was applied to you by Albus Dumbledore and maintained by us. Albus sent a letter past year to key Ron, Fred, and George Weasley and a girl named Hermione Granger. But we needed your presence in order to sort your mail to your preferences. We have screened it and classified it in many categories, fan mail, invitations, hate mail, and mail of private citizens that can't be considered fanmail but also isn't hate mail."
"Is there a way to mass produce an automated response to the fan mail? That exists now, mostly apologizing?"
"Of course, take the quick notes quill and the copy quill out there, the service will be ten knuts for letter."
Harry wrote the apology and paid for a thousand copies. Then he approached the clerk requesting, "Every mail from a Hogwarts student that doesn't have harmful substances should be re-sent to me."
"Of course! That seems reasonable!"
"And I want all of my invitations."
The clerk handed Harry a box with all of the invitations that were still valid.
"Thank you!"
Harry returned to his room in the Leaky Cauldron and started to check the invitations. One invitation was for a charity quidditch match, Harry had to reject it because he was stuck in Diagon Alley. Other invitations were for tryouts for basically every quidditch team in the wizarding UK with the obvious exception of Holyhead Harpies, Harry decided to check them later. Another batch of invitations was from the rest of the families of the Council of the Seventy, he first dismissed the invitations from the Grengrasses and the Notts because they always antagonized him at school, then he dismissed the Hufflepuff ones like Abbot, Bones, MacMillan, and Smith, because of the heir of Slytherin business. Harry accepted the invitation of the Boot family for a dinner in a fancy restaurant in Diagon Alley in one week.
It was during that when it came to his mind that the only thing needed to send a letter, was a person's name. He still didn't trust Aster, she knew too much for being a muggle, even if she dated a wizard. But what she said in her letter and what he saw in Gringotts made a lot of noise on his head. He took a quill and another piece of parchment and started to write a letter to Sirius Black. Harry was still amazed by the fact that the only thing someone needs to send a letter in the magical world, is a name. Then he thought that his owl was a little unique and he would be questioned if he sent a letter to Sirius Black. He went to Eeylops Owl Emporium and bought a small energetic scops owl and used it to send the letter to Sirius. Harry would then gift the owl to Ginny or another person that needed one.
Another owl arrived delivering a flock of letters for Harry. Parvati, Seamus, Angelina, and Katie, didn't blame him and told him they sent him letters before. Alicia didn't send letters, but she didn't blame him because of the mail charm, and understood him. Fay just called him an attention seeker and a creep.
It was after that, that he saw Neville with his grandmother Augusta, arriving to the Leaky cauldron, Harry went to greet Neville, "Neville, good to see you!"
Augusta asked Neville, "Is that Harry Potter?" Neville nodded. She looked at Harry and asked, "I heard that you didn't know about many things from high society. We thought that you committed some faux pas in purpose, but now I know that it was different."
Harry talked, "Mrs. Longbottom, I thought that the fact that I was raised by my muggle aunt was common knowledge. My best friend Ron made a comment like that when we met."
Mrs. Longbottom explained, "You must understand that many thought that it was a ruse by Dumbledore. That you were being groomed as Dumbledore's successor in his ideas. Some people even call you Dumbledore's heir."
Harry replied, "I only really talked to Dumbledore like three times, and two times were because of the weird incidents that have happened at school."
Augusta crossed her arms, "I've heard about those. That he gave you a big number of points at the end of your first year. And last year, you and the youngest Weasley boy got awards for special services at the school. Can you elaborate on those incidents?"
Harry recounted, "First year, we caught wind of a plot involving someone trying to steal the philosopher's stone that was being guarded at Hogwarts. Second year, we found the chamber of secrets and defeated the monster there."
Augusta astonished, asked, "There was a monster. What was it?"
"A basilisk."
Augusta yelled violently, "WHAT! How did you kill it?"
"With the help of Fawkes, the sorting hat, and the sword of Gryffindor."
Augusta brought her hand to her face in a pensive motion, "It looks like he is trying to groom you, but in a very indirect way. I respect Albus Dumbledore in many ways, but I don't like this. I'm friends with some members of the Wizengamot, and I'm a regent of one of the houses of the seventy. If you need some political advice, or a political favor, feel free to write to us," Augusta walked with Neville to the courtyard of the Diagon Alley entrance.
Another round of questions came to Harry's head. Neville's grandmother's declarations that many people believed that Harry was being groomed by Dumbledore as some sort of successor may explain why most people at school quickly turned on him when something happened. They had bigger expectations of him. He decided to send more letters to the Gryffindors he had sent letters to, with the exception of Fay, asking them about where they thought he was before he returned to the wizarding world.
After sending that round of letters, he decided to return to the Post Office in order to ask for the fan mail. He realized that he had to do a management of expectations for all the new students that come to Hogwarts.
Harry started to check the letters, and look for the letters from kids younger than him, prioritizing the letters that were coming from the ones that were going to start Hogwarts soon. He identified some of the targets; Astoria Greengrass, this one surprised Harry because of how her sister Daphne was; Vicky Frobisher, a girl that loved quidditch; Richie Coote, a superfan of the Falmouth Falcons that asked him about his favorite quidditch team; Romilda Vane, a fangirl that had the expectation of him being a hero of fairy tale; there were many others like that, many of them named Harry or Harriet. Harry answered all of them to the best of his ability, giving them personalized answers.
Looking to find more information about everything. He decided to talk to Tom, "Tom, I just found out that some people think that I am being groomed by Dumbledore to be his successor."
"I know that. I was one of the ones that believed that. It was this summer when you came here, that it came to my head that Dumbledore wasn't lying when he told you were living with your mother's muggle sister. That was also the time that I found out that your mother was muggleborn."
Harry yelled motioning his hands, "Wait a sec, that wasn't common knowledge?"
Tom handed Harry a glass of butterbeer, "Many people wouldn't believe that a lord of a pureblood family would sully their bloodline directly with a muggleborn witch. Some people just thought she was from a foreign wizarding family, many people thought she was American, or she was a half-blood with a witch mother."
"So, there are some people that think that I was raised in America?"
"Only the ones that are from mixed families think that."
"What made you think that Dumbledore was grooming me as his successor?"
"Mostly the fact that the big guy Hagrid put the spotlight on you the first time you visited this place. Hagrid is well known as one of the most loyal followers of Dumbledore."
"Thank you for answering my questions."
Harry then went to the rest of the shops in Diagon Alley. Ollivander had it clear that he was raised by muggles and his mother was muggleborn. Madam Malkin thought his mother was a half-blood and that he was raised by Dumbledore. Florean Fortescue knew that Harry was raised by muggles and his mother was muggleborn. He continued in every shop that was owned by humans, the magical menagerie, flourish & Blott's, the post office, quality quidditch supplies, and the rest. The results were that only a quarter of the people believed that he was raised by muggles; and only around a third of the people that believed otherwise, knew that his mum was muggleborn.
Everything brought another important question, his fame. He understood that Hagrid had loose lips about his lightning scar. He knew that he is named the boy-who-lived because he was the one that survived Voldemort's attack that day. But the main question he had was why was he the one that was given the credit of destroying Voldemort. Someone would believe that his parents did something and defeated him at the expense of their own lives, that would be the most rational conclusion. Then something came to his mind, the Weasleys were considered one of the more muggle friendly families and they are considered a shame in the ministry because of their pro-muggle views. That's even considering that Mr. Weasley tended to talk about the muggles as if they were animals. Wizarding society sees muggles as beneath them. Giving credit to Harry's parents would be giving credit to a muggleborn witch, and many people wouldn't like to have a mudblood as a savior, even if they aren't openly blood purists. Harry was starting to suspect that many people agreed with Voldemort, but not with his methods. It looks like Voldemort wasn't the only problem or the biggest one.
Every answer to the questions Harry had, opened many more.
Hedwig returned with some replies from his Gryffindor acquaintances. Most of the quidditch team members believed that Harry was raised elsewhere, and only found out about his reality because of the Weasleys. Dean being muggleborn, believed the official, and real, story of Harry living as a muggle. Lavender and Parvati only started to believe Harry lived with muggles when they started Hogwarts and saw him. Seamus still didn't believe Harry lived with muggles.
Harry pondering about the public perception of him and his mother, laid on his bed and fell asleep.
