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Chapter 170

To:

From:

Dear Spencer

We started school this morning so five days ago for us, it's great to be back in a place where I am actually learning things, with people who are at least indifferent to me. Even if a lot of them don't seem to like me much, it's more about me jumping a grade or going to Hogwarts, things I've actually done which is much easier to put up with. Most of the friends we made last year are back too, and glad to see us. There's no fancy welcoming feast like Hogwarts, we started with a short assembly then straight into classes. A few people who had to travel the nonmagical way arrived the night before but most of them port keyed in or got dropped off just before classes started on Monday like any other school day. We could have come early to have breakfast and catch up with friends but very few people did that. There seems to be less students this year, there definitely aren't as many first years or senior year students as last summer. I hope that doesn't mean that they're winding down the summer school program. Even if I don't come back, I want Seamus and Dean to have an education in both worlds, and Rose to have a chance to get the education she needs to go to university.

I'm enjoying all my classes, the teachers are all very good, no prejudices or snide remarks putting down students. It helps that we are not divided up into houses and forced to compete against each other for anything except grades. I'm was enrolled in the fast-track 3rd form Chemistry and Biology so I will cover a whole year in the first 2 weeks, the practical experiments are lots of fun though the theory is still all stuff I've read in the Little Whinging Library. Once I talked with the teacher about what I've read over the years he's letting me do 4th form chemistry as well. This is what I thought potions would be like, maybe it actually would be with a decent professor. In August I will start 3rd form Physics and environmental science, they also both look interesting, hopefully they will let me do 4th as well.

The teachers agreed that I could take form 4 math as well as form 3 since I did so well when I was moved up half way through last year and this should be easier. So, I'm in a couple of extra classes with the level above the group I was moved into last year so they're all a fair bit older than me, but they're treating me pretty decently if not exactly being friendly, at least nobody seems to resent me being here. Rose is doing the double load of chemistry too so at least I have someone to sit with in that fourth form class. She was glad I was there to partner up with on pracs. The class is difficult since it assumes the knowledge of the stuff that we're only just beginning to learn in the third-year class but so far my private reading has been enough for me to understand the theory at least and Rose is determined to catch up as quickly as she can.

My schedule is totally packed and I'm wondering whether I've bitten off more than I can chew, especially with trying to teach myself as much Spanish as I can as well. I'm also in Third form history thanks to the correspondence classes, since I decided I wanted to take advantage of being in the class rather than studying it by correspondence next year because the class discussions were so great last summer. So unfortunately, I'm not in class with Patrick though we still got together one afternoon after classes to study together and exchange some history books we'd enjoyed, and the class is living up to my expectations. I have been invited to sit in on the second-year history class though I've already taken it but it's currently running in my only free class time so I don't want to commit to going all the time until I know I can keep up with all my homework without using that hour. I hope that I can go at least sometimes though, because I really feel that I missed a lot by doing that course by correspondence, much more than my English class, thanks to the discussions you and I had about the books and essay themes during the year. Don't worry I didn't use you to cheat, most of the time I sent in the essay before I got your responses to the letters I sent.

It will be too big a risk to keep doing history by correspondence during the year if I do manage to escape going back to Hogwarts. I don't know if anyone last year paid attention to where my correspondence work came from but it isn't worth giving someone the opportunity to find me if they do remember. It's a pity because I really like the syllabus as well as the professor. Perhaps I can ask Seamus or Dean to send me a copy of their syllabus and text books when they get to fourth year History.

Dean and Seamus seem to be enjoying being here too, perhaps not the actual schoolwork but Dean's working a lot harder on all his subjects than he did last year and he's loving his magical art classes and drawing and painting groups. Seamus has joined a debate team which he enjoys so much that he doesn't realise how much extra history and muggle studies he's learning in preparing for his arguments, and enjoys practicing his arguments for historical debates with me. At least neither of them resents spending their summer at school this year. I think that being back at Hogwarts after being here last year opened their eyes up to how muggleborns and half-bloods are discriminated against in that part of the magical world, and how easily they can turn on one of their own with no proof of wrongdoing. We don't see much of Meaghan but she seems to be fitting in well enough and to have made friends among her classmates and roommates. We warned her about how using magic in time dilation is more tiring than using it outside but she said that her professors had already told her that at the start of each class they use their wands. So, I think it just didn't occur to anyone that we hadn't already been told.

I've been researching how to legally become an American citizen if my passport isn't enough and the goblins can't get me a social security number and whatever other proof of citizenship I will need to stay there. I need to talk to the goblins to find out for sure, but I think that I might be better getting the actual documents from your government to be sure I'm entered into every computer data base I need to be. I should have thought about it before we left London, now I need to go back there after the term at Scoil Draiocht finishes, which I suppose isn't that inconvenient since if I'm going to catch the Queen Elizabeth II, then I need to get to Southhampton and I'll have just over a week after classes finish here. I could transfigure all the paperwork I need to apply for a job and things which would've been enough ten or twenty years ago but I cannot use magic to alter computer databases to enter myself into them. I think that the best thing to do would be to apply for citizenship and cast a weak compulsion on the paperwork to make whoever processed it not notice that my application isn't accompanied by parent or guardianship paperwork and approve the application. I don't like the thought of using magic like that after what seems to be happening at Hogwarts but it won't hurt them and I figure that it isn't as if it would actually alter the person's life in anyway. They'll just sign off on my application along with dozens of others that day without actually doing any of the checks that the information is factual, and then totally forget about it, I'll only have influenced their behaviour for a couple of minutes and it isn't like I'm going to use being a citizen to do anything illegal or even morally wrong except leaving a war that I didn't start, didn't get a choice in fighting before now and aren't prepared to fight.

I guess it's silly to hesitate about compelling a complete stranger for a moment or two to approve some paperwork after not feeling bad about what I did to force Vernon to drive me to the station instead of bringing me back inside the wards at Little Whinging.

Batman doesn't need to breathe or eat because he gets his energy from our sun. Do you think that means he photosynthesises like a plant.

Your friend always

Harry

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