Chapter 177

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of JK Rowling's or Criminal Minds fabulous characters. I do however own this story; I wrote it and I do NOTgive permission for anyone to post it anywhere else. If you want to share it post a link.

A/N: just a reminder since I've had some comments about it lately, Harry and Spencer are deliberately mixing up Superman and Batman as a way of telling the other that they wrote the letter and believe the contents to be true and written without duress.

To:

From:

Dear Spencer,

I'm glad your weekend went well and that your mum wasn't upset by the change in her routine. It was good that you went home to see her just in case. Did you get to know Daniel better while staying with him? Do you like him?

Classes are going well, and Patrick has settled into our room, he's a decent roommate and much tidier than Seamus and Dean but he doesn't get upset when their mess intrudes on his space. He's getting along better with Dean and Seamus than they thought he would. Just because he loves history doesn't mean it's all he wants to talk about and we've had some good conversations about football and quidditch and stuff. Patrick saw me with the Spanish tapes on repeat when I went to bed. He thinks it's a great idea and borrowed the French tapes from the library to do the same. He said that his grandmother was French and he always wanted to learn her language but his Mum insisted that he take Latin to help him understand his spells better and he couldn't fit both into his schedule.

Surprisingly I'm at the top of my class in Potions preparation. Dean and Seamus are doing well in it too. The professor was surprised that we wanted to do the class again since potions is taught at Hogwarts. He kept us back the other day and asked about it, I almost think that he was hoping to talk us into dropping the class. I don't think that he believed our description of the way Snape teaches Potions until he read a couple of our essays about stuff we hadn't learned her last summer compared to the stuff we'd learned here. He also confirmed something that I'd believed all along, that Snape's been grading my essays down. Professor Wright said that even compared to the marks he was giving Seamus and Dean which were also lower than he would've given them, my essays were a full grade lower again than he thought they deserved.

I asked the professors at Scoil Draiocht and the bookshop owners and at the trunk shop and everywhere else I could think of in Ireland about international magical transport and about magical tents. They were more friendly about it than the shop owners on Diagon Alley but none of them had much information to give me about travel other than that I have to apply for a portkey through the Ministry of Magic, which I don't think I could do without Dumbledore knowing or being told where I've gone. I'm sure there's an illegal way to get a portkey but there's no proof in the portkey of where it goes until you arrive there, it could be a prison cell a couple of blocks away or somewhere in the middle of an ocean or into an active volcano, I doubt that I could trust anyone willing to sell one to a thirteen-year-old without a parent with them. It would be even worse than renting a room off someone, nobody would notice you'd gone, since you were planning on leaving and nobody who noticed you hadn't arrived at your destination would know who sold you the portkey, they could send you absolutely anywhere and you might never be found. No wonder the ministry regulates them so strictly.

I stocked up on books, I got all of the standard books for the Hogwarts and Scoil Draiocht curriculum magical and nonmagical for the next two years and a heap of other things that my professors and Mr Blott recommended for additional reading. I have almost filled the bookshelf, compartment of my trunk, so that I have enough to teach myself everything I need to know for the next year or two until I can find another magical shopping district. Did you read anything good at Daniel's that you'd recommend I read?

I also found out some things that make just hiding here in Britain somewhere inadvisable. The thing is if I'm not enrolled in a magical school, or with a registered magical tutor the Ministry of Magic will take away my rights to use a wand. That itself, wouldn't matter much to me of course but without wand rights or training they would bind my magic so I couldn't lose control and hurt myself or those around me. Worse for this, my attendance at Scoil Draiocht doesn't count because I'm not enrolled in any wand based subjects and the school will not let me enrol in them. So, I can't go to a nonmagical school during the year and come back here to learn magic. They were apologetic when I asked about it but even if I could get my magical guardian's permission, me transferring from Hogwarts would attract too much attention to the school. They don't want me here without the extra security of the time dilation wards preventing anyone and anything from coming or going except for a small window of time each day, and they're worried about my magic getting away from me and causing an injury while we're stuck in the time dilation wards or being too much stronger that the students who didn't get a Hogwarts letter and it causing resentment.

The headmaster explained to me that they bind people's magic if they refuse to attend a magical school because it's dangerous to leave witches and wizards half trained. That if I wasn't using magic regularly and learning to control it better it would get more difficult to control as I got older and it matured. I don't know if I agree with that at all but I know it wouldn't apply to me because I use magic all the time without it being tracked or noticed by nonmagical people around me because I can use magic without a wand, and I haven't noticed a problem with controlling my magic since I began using it deliberately as much as I could. Hermione and the others never mentioned that they had a problem towards the end of the summer as their magic grew either. Seamus and Dean both said that they found the spells easier in the first week back at Hogwarts when we're revising some of the stuff we did the year before but Neville, Ron and Hermione never mentioned that either so it might be because of the extra growth of the time dilation, or because they can use their wands at school over the summer, or possibly because they were using more magic than they usually did during the month at Scoil Draiocht because of the time dilation wards, and the amount they were asked to do at Hogwarts was now less than they were used to. I believe it wouldn't be a problem for most teenagers who leave Hogwarts, even if they didn't want to stay in the magical world because of the bigotry and isolationism, most of them would be motivated to keep practicing magic and learning to control it.

Batman's supersonic speed can be used for everything he does so he can read about 100 times faster than even you can. So, with the right books, he could become an expert on anything within a few hours.

Your Friend Always

Harry

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.