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Chapter 171
To: hjp1980 .uk
From:
Dear Harry
I'm relieved that your new classmates aren't treating you too badly, but I have to warn you that it's too soon to trust that it will stay that way. When I first started high school, my classmates didn't hate me for the first few days I thought that most of them were even kind of nice and that finally I had classmates with the maturity to appreciate me. In hindsight, I can see that even from the start they were quite condescending and treated me as a bit of an odd novelty rather than being genuinely friendly until I started outperforming them in tests and assignments. That's when the resentment and bullying started, even though the teachers weren't grading on the curve so it wasn't affecting their actual marks. Please don't think that I'm encouraging you not to speak up in class or do your best, I want you to get as much out of your year at Scoil Draiocht as you can. I just don't want you to be blindsided if your new classmates do start to resent you and to be prepared to protect yourself if necessary. At least you've got Rose to hang out with if they start trying to ignore you.
I'm assuming that since so much damage could be done with magic and the time altering wards stop anybody from receiving outside help if they're injured that the professors would crack down quite severely on bullying. Particularly since they seem to be good and conscientious educators in general and even when you were having trouble fitting in with the other students at the start of last summer, you didn't mention any issues with bullying other than being ignored. But keep an eye out don't let yourself be alone with the students who resent you the most and protect your friend Rose as much as you can.
How have your original classmates reacted to you being advanced out of their class. Are you still sharing a dorm with your age group? The one good thing about school for me was that it was only eight hours per day, five days per week but you're there overnight more nights than you spend at the Finnegans. Are you feeling safe in the dorm at night, I guess it helps that Dean and Seamus share a room with you.
I'm glad you're enjoying chemistry, I've always found it fascinating, and still do, the more I learn the more I want to know. Physics is very interesting as well, I considered studying it after mathematics until I became enamored with Engineering. I haven't heard much about environmental science, it wasn't taught in my high school. I am surprised that nobody complains about the way Hogwarts has cut itself so very much from the rest of the world like it does. I would've thought that learning normal subjects would benefit most people, not just the three of you. It certainly sounds like many of your Hogwarts professors would benefit from the training required to teach in the nonmagical world. I'm glad that Scoil Draiocht is better at actual teaching and at teaching people to think for themselves. You've always done a couple of classes more than the rest of your class with your correspondence classes so I'm sure you'll adjust to the load you're doing.
You shouldn't feel bad over what you had to do to keep you safe from the Dursleys. It wouldn't help you for me to say they had it coming but honestly this is the best outcome of another confrontation with them that I could've realistically pictured. I half expected that you would eventually have to kill one or more of them in self-defense, or that you would be permanently injured by them in a way even magic couldn't heal before someone saw fit to rescue you. What you did may have seemed mean spirited but it was an act of desperation to save yourself and not an act of revenge. Doing what you did before you entered the wards on that house again, ended up protecting them from you having to take more drastic action against them in the future as much as it protected you from them, and you did still warn them of potential danger. Put them out of your mind now, you're not going to see them again and it will not be your fault if they are harmed for refusing to take your warning seriously. Hopefully you'll never hear about them either, but if you do somehow hear about them being attacked by wizards, remember that it is not your fault in any way. You didn't choose to live with them, and you'd still be there protecting them if they had accepted you as part of their family the way they should have.
My classes are going well but I'm finding that I miss my housemates a lot more than I thought I would. Even the ones I'm not particularly close to. I miss the noise and the camaraderie of the house when it's full of people, and having friends to meet up for coffee and to discuss assignments. I am still chatting with my engineering friends online in a group email even though most of them have taken the summer off college. Most of them have gone home and are working somewhere or are interning somewhere. Some of their stories sound amusing though the work itself seems basic and repetitive, but I'm fairly sure that none of the companies would want the liability of having an intern my age. That would be one of the downsides of studying engineering, I think that the advanced opportunities would be more likely to be given to people with some real-world experience. I am now old enough to get a job in a supermarket or fast-food restaurant but I must admit that I hate the idea of it, though you made the restaurant that helped you out in Little Whinging sound like a good place to work, I'm sure that's not the normal experience for most student jobs. I'm lucky I earn enough now between my scholarship, my TA position and my visits to the online casino when I have an unexpected expense that I don't need to get a job like that.
I've got to know some of the students in my summer classes a little but a lot of them are there repeating classes they failed last year so they aren't enthusiastic about being here, or they're people who come to college part time and already have a job in a related field and are focused on getting out of here and graduating as soon as possible, not making friends with the college aged students let alone me.
Batman can't be photosynthesizing because he's not producing oxygen and he doesn't need to breath at night time either. He still has his powers during the night too so he must have come way of storing the energy from sunlight.
Your Friend Always
Spencer
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
