Chapter 118

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Thursday 9/19/92

Dear Harry

It's a pity that the school elf wouldn't talk to you, I have so many things I want to know about them. I think the biggest questions I would like you to ask them is what they get out of working for someone, and why they are so subservient. They obviously have powerful magic of their own, they don't need a witch or wizard to help them. Why don't they have their own hidden enclave like wizards or the goblins? I think you're right about Dobby following orders, though it seems a strange way to try to stop you from coming back to school. I think it might have been one of your classmates, it's almost childish compared to what an adult might do.

Your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher does sound awful but at least you can understand him properly unlike last year's stuttering professor. I'm afraid I'm not much better when it comes to speaking in front of a whole class of students. I blush and stammer and mumble and repeat what I'm saying and otherwise make a fool of myself. I console myself that at least I'm not evil though and I am actively trying to impart the information I need to. And I'm available afterwards for students to ask questions not that I can always make things much clearer. I find I don't mind being a TA too much, at least when I'm helping people understand other lecturers. I do well helping one on one or even in a small group but I hate the times I have to take over and finish a class, thankfully I haven't had to take a whole class on my own yet. I've found a trick to it, I try to pretend that I'm explaining things to you and that seems to help settle my mind and make sure I'm using simple enough explanations without talking down to them and not going off on too many tangents. I hope you don't mind.

I'm not surprised that none of your classmates can get the spells in your professor's books to work for you. If they were enough of an achievement to write a book about then they obviously aren't the sort of spells a twelve year old should be able to cast. He shouldn't be trying to teach them to anyone but the top level students. Is he seriously teaching the exact same thing to every level? That's almost criminally lazy. He's either setting at least three quarters of the school up for failure or he's letting down the senior students by teaching so far below the level they need. Hermione having a crush on a teacher seems fairly normal to me, she's always looked up to all the professors more than they deserve. As for Ron objecting, well starting fights with the object of your affections could be a childish defence measure to hide his feelings, he could have a crush on her.

I know you think the spells your new professor is claiming to have invented are fake and you might be right. I would have thought that to be able to invent a new spell you'd have to be very good at casting regular spells to be able to see how you want to direct the magic differently. I think that the way you cast before starting Hogwarts could be very much like what he's describing in his books, you make the magic do what you want it to do. You just lack the knowledge to translate that magic into a spell other people could use.

But whether your professor is actually able to perform those spells or not the language of the spells isn't evidence that the spells are fake. It doesn't make sense for all spells to have to be in Latin. I'm sure the Chinese and Japanese or African countries don't use Latin spells. And you managed to make spells work for you without using Latin before you started at Hogwarts. Perhaps Hogwarts tries to teach you that spells need to be in Latin so you don't cast one accidentally if you're holding your wand while talking or thinking. Or for those like you who are capable of casting wandlessly.

I'm sorry that Ginny and the photographer boy are making you uncomfortable. I'm surprised that a teacher hasn't stepped in to stop the boy taking, or even having in his possession, photographs of unwilling subjects. They would here, particularly when the subjects are children in case they're currently in hiding from an abusive or drug affected parent or one of their parent has had their parental rights removed and posting the photos could put the child at risk. Is there a way for you to magically call for all the photos of you and destroy them? It won't stop him from taking more, but if you keep doing it he should get the message.

I'm glad you're keeping up with your muggle education, I can see their point if the school isn't huge trying to fit in a student with an unusual timetable would be difficult. You're right though, nothing can quite make up for missing the class discussions if the teacher's any good. The only advice I can give you is to start immediately and try to be a week ahead of the schedule to allow for posting assignments and in case something happens with Hogwarts that prevents you from being able to work on the correspondence subjects for a few days. Sitting in on what you can of those subjects over the summer also sounds like a great idea, I'm a little surprised they didn't have some magical way to record the actual classes so you could watch them, it wouldn't be interactive of course but it would help. Could there be a way for you to sit in on the class from where you are some sort of interactive magic, though I suppose if there was, then they wouldn't need to have an actual school at all, let alone a boarding school.

My classes are going well, the ones I'm taking as a student I mean, you are right of course even if this is not exactly what I want to end up doing for a career it is all interesting at this level and the knowledge will probably help me find something I'd want to do eventually. At least I don't have any mandatory physical education or fine arts classes that I have to do this year so I could pick all subjects I'm interested in. it's great to have Ethan back to share classes with though he laughs at my attempts to cook for myself in our tiny kitchen corner with a single hotplate. He's started showing me some of his mother's traditional recipes.

Aunt Ethel said that Mom is doing well but she wouldn't come to the phone to talk to me herself which means she is having some level of delusional thinking. Still hopefully 'doing well' at least means eating and sleeping on a regular schedule and taking her medications and being generally calm and content, rather than just not creating too much trouble for my Aunt Ethel and her other carers. I want Mom to be happy but so much of the time she isn't capable of it even when the medications seem to be working well. I don't know if there's anything that I could do about that.

Your friend always

Spencer

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

Please stay safe everyone.