Chapter 119

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Friday 27/9/92

Dear Spencer

It's sad that your mum can't be happy, or that she can't be happy in a way that you recognise. I don't think that Petunia or Vernon are ever happy either, never happy in general I mean not just unhappy together but I'm sure that they both think that they are when I'm not around. I'm not sure that I believe it, if it wasn't me they'd be looking for something or someone else to despise and look down on to make them feel better about themselves. Your mum truly loves you and I'm sure when she's feeling clear headed she's proud of you and glad that you're in college living your dreams and she's pleased when you spend time together. That's a sort of happiness and you said she enjoyed lecturing before she became too ill so she probably still enjoys it even if it only happens because she is confused.

I'm glad that you're enjoying your classes, what are you learning now? You haven't talked about it lately other than to say you got your first choices.

I'm also happy that you've found a way to be an effective TA for your students. I don't mind you using me for that at all, just glad I could help. Do you enjoy it? Do you think you could enjoy lecturing once you get over the nervousness? I'm sure that you could be great at it if you wanted to be. You always make everything you're learning sound so interesting even when it's beyond my understanding, and your mother loves it, if it weren't for the Schizophrenia, I think you'd be a lot alike, or perhaps I should say some of your stories of your mum on her good days she sounds a lot like you so you are actually a lot alike other than your mum being a grown up and being sick and you being healthy and younger. I wish you had had a chance to know her before she became unwell.

Hagrid told us that the idiot Lockhart was only hired to teach DADA because he was the only person who applied for the job, he said people think that the position is jinxed, I asked what it meant. Hagrid didn't reply and acted like he shouldn't have told us as if he'd been asked to keep it quiet but nobody in their right mind would actually trust Hagrid to keep a secret, if he really wasn't allowed to say something they would have spelled him not to be able to. Ron told me that his brothers told him that we'd have a different Defence Against the Dark Arts professor every year because something always happens to make them quit or prevents them from coming back. He said the older kids take bets each year on what's going to happen to them. I don't think that Hagrid is being superstitious I think he meant that someone has somehow cast an enchantment or something to make them leave. I wonder why Dumbledore hasn't done something about it?

I looked it up and he's right, in the last twenty years there have been twenty different Defence Against the Dark Arts Professors. Quirrell was the only one to actually be murdered but several were injured or contracted illnesses that prevented them from returning and two died of supposedly natural causes, only about 60% even finished the year other years the other professors had to cover the class. Not all of the professors left for bad reasons though a couple got married and one fell pregnant and transferred to teaching Arithmancy because they didn't want to put their baby at risk with a miscast spell.

Draco Malfoy has bought his way into the position of Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team by getting his father to promise to buy the entire team a Nimbus 2001 the newest and most expensive Quidditch brooms on the market if he made the team. I hate to say it because I'd love to see the arrogant toerag crash and burn, but I kind of hope he's at least semi decent, last year's Slytherin Seeker was the best out of the other three Seekers and the other two will be playing again this year. I like to win but it's more fun if I have to work at it and there's a real chance of losing on skill not just bad luck or because I have the faster broom.

Ron took it as a personal insult that Malfoy's on the team and the chasers were really annoyed about the new brooms which is fair enough it's hard to play against someone who can go faster than you. That makes me feel kind of guilty, I had the fastest broom last year, maybe that's why I found it so easy to beat the other seekers and I'm not such a great player as everyone says.

Draco and Hermione also got into an argument about it, which is totally stupid because she doesn't even like Quidditch, she accused him of buying his way onto the team, insinuating that he didn't have the talent to be there, and he called her a foul name which made Ron hex him in her defence to throw up slugs every time he tried to talk. I don't know for sure but I think it was accidental magic because he didn't use an incantation just told Malfoy to eat slugs and it started. Apparently, Madam Pomfrey couldn't stop it either. Ron said he'd never done it before, but he was just so angry.

Ron and I got detention for fighting, it was totally unfair since we certainly didn't start the fight and I had nothing to do with it, but I would say it was almost worth it to see that prissy little brat spewing slugs but Lockhart took my detention and I spent four hours addressing his fan mail while he went on and on about how wonderful he is. I would rather scrub toilets, at least they cant brag about themselves constantly.

I must admit that I tried to replicate Ron's 'Eat Slugs' spell. It doesn't work for me any better than it did for Hermione, perhaps because I can't concentrate on it hard enough for laughing at the thought of the results. It was just so funny to see prim and proper Malfoy with his perfectly pressed uniform and his tie always perfectly straight and his hair lacquered back with every strand in place, on his knees in the mud belching these great ugly slugs the size of a mouse. Probably just as well I can't keep casting it as Ron and I would be blamed if it kept recurring.

Funny thing is that Hermione is now annoyed at Ron about it. Not about the slugs themselves she thought it served Malfoy right, but about it being a non spell aspect. I don't think she's ever come across a spell Ron could do that she couldn't do just as easily or easier. In fact, I don't think she's ever noticed me do anything she couldn't replicate with her wand either, or realised that I'm not using an actual wand.

With magical travel being nearly instantaneous there's no reason I couldn't attend a single class at Scoil Draiocht a couple of times a week if they didn't clash with my Hogwarts timetable but it would have to be with my head of house or the headmaster's permission to leave Hogwarts, which I can't ask for because I don't want him questioning why I'm taking correspondence classes in muggle subjects from the Irish school of magic instead of the high school in Little Whinging.

Your friend always

Harry

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

Please stay safe everyone.