Chapter 129

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Wednesday 17/11/92

Dear Spencer

DADA lessons have sunk to a new level of incompetence. After the Cornish Pixies got the better of him and made him look like an idiot in front of all of us Professor Idiot has taken to acting out the stories in his books instead of actually trying to teach us anything, and he always drags me up to be the thing he's defeating or the victim in need of help, whichever is the most embarrassing for me. It seems he likes to humiliate me to make himself feel better. He even tried to give me advice on how to play Quidditch, not real coaching or anything that might help mind just self bragging that he was a better player than I am even though he's never seen me play. Ron said that it was rubbish, that he's sure the idiot never played professionally and that his name isn't on any of the winning team plaques in the trophy room, he had to clean them for detentions recently. Hermione just told us to stop being prats about him and that he was just trying to be helpful. I pointed out to her that if he started giving her advice on how to read or how to study or told her that he could structure an essay so much better than she could without giving her any constructive advice on how to improve that she'd be equally pissed off, but she just huffed at me as if I was being ridiculous.

I don't know whether he would brag about coming from a famous old family or not, all his current bragging has been solely about his own highly embellished accomplishments. He's never mentioned his family or his blood status at all. Maybe he's been disowned from his family, or something, or he isn't the heir to the family and wants to prove that he's as good as the heir is. Of course, most of the school believe that he is a pureblood because of all his books and stories of being able to cast obscure and very high level spells but that is just their prejudice talking, it's more likely he is a half-blood or a muggleborn and is keeping quiet about it because there are a lot of snobs in this society that wouldn't buy his books if they knew he wasn't a pureblood. I do realise that there is no guarantee that the heir of Slytherin would still be a pureblood after 30 generations it is more than possible that they have at some stage married a muggleborn or two, but being associated with an old pureblood line would still be something that matters to the purebloods.

I don't think that wizards have ever heard of genetics, and even if they had the ancestor a thousand years ago wouldn't have known anything about it. The hundreds of descendants also seems unlikely in the wizarding world since at least half my class are only children and many of them are the children of only children as well. The Weasleys are the exception. Purebloods also seem to be less inclined to leave Britain, even for vacation or work (Ron's family being an exception there too with brothers working in Egypt and Romania). The purebloids in my class all seem to be related in some way too, at least third or fourth cousins to just about every other pureblood in the school and on both sides of their families except for students like Cho Chang whose grandparents came from China and the Patil twins who's mother and father's parents are from India. At least that's the way things seem to be now, I guess you can't use that as a reliable indicator of typical behaviour over the last thousand years, if it was then nearly all the purebloods would be descendants of the four founders.

The prank worked a treat though which should give me some comfort when the idiot's trying to humiliate me in class. We made one major miscalculation, we didn't limit the password to only the people without a crush on the idiotic braggart and one of them, or probably more than one tried to remove the picture. Even that turned out even better than we thought though. The picture wasn't damaged and the girls got in trouble for hexing the classroom door. When they tried to explain that they were only trying to remove a picture of Lockhart being eaten by an overly amorous hag, none of the professors could see it. They finally cast a reveallo and noticed the spells on the door but they couldn't see or remove the picture. Dumbledore stood up at dinner and requested that whoever had done it remove it, promising an amnesty from punishment if it was gone by dinner the following day, needless to say we didn't trust that and haven't removed the picture. So now the idiot knows about the picture on his door and why half of every class walks into the room laughing. He's tried to cover it up but we've managed to reveal it again each time so far. I even offered to remove it if he stopped dragging me up to demonstrate every class but he just scoffed at the idea of me being able to do anything he couldn't do. I did feel a bit mean but he keeps dragging me up to humiliate me three times a week, that's worse bullying than sticking up a picture of him being eaten. I think if he could see it he'd be more upset by the fact Dean drew him looking ugly with his hair a mess and a black eye all swollen than the rest of the picture. If I were really bullying him I'd put a whole heap of pictures of him looking messy and beat up and spell them so only he could see them everywhere he went or find a way into his quarters to charm his mirrors to show him growing old, wrinkly and sallow with dirty stringy grey hair.

Hermione's started planning to brew the potion. I was worried that she'd expect me to pay for the expensive ingredients but it's even worse than that. She never even considered ordering them from the apothecary by owl, she's planning to distract Snape while we steal them from him. I refuse to do it, there's no way that I won't be expelled if he catches me in his private ingredient storeroom. Ron's on board with the theft but it feels really wrong, this isn't stealing food to keep from starving or catching a train without a ticket which doesn't cost the train company anything this is stealing expensive potions ingredients just to satisfy our curiosity and Hermione's ambition to brew a super difficult potion. I tried to object but Hermione actually called us chicken, which of course was waving a red flag in front of a bull to Ron, Gryffindors are never 'chicken'. I never would have believed she'd be so eager to break school rules, she doesn't even seem to realise that Ron and I would be breaking the law to steal those things. I don't know what makes Hermione think she could brew that potion. I'm not going to do it. The ingredients would cost about 300 pounds to buy from the apothecary so it wouldn't be simple pilfering.

I did consider telling a professor if she starts brewing, but who would listen and take me seriously. Even the letter telling McGonagall that Hagrid had a dragon egg last year wasn't enough to get her to go and check on it. I though about asking Dean to write an anonymous note in case we were right about the professors being spelled to ignore me. Of course, I'd be getting myself in trouble too since nobody would believe Ron and Hermione were doing this and I wasn't part of it and remembering how dangerous detention in the forbidden forest in the middle of the night was, it could be jumping from the fry pan into the fire.

It worries me that such a potion exists too, especially since Snape hates me so much and as a potions master is more than capable of brewing the potion. It only lasts for an hour though so if your alibi could state that you never left their sight and never drank anything except water from a clear glass then you couldn't have been using the potion. The problem is knowing for certain that the other person never left your sight every hour, never went to get a book or a jumper without you noticing, or to the loo or anything, or even dropped something on the floor and claimed it rolled under the table, it only takes a second or two to swig a potion.

We had a Quidditch match against Slytherin on the weekend and someone jinxed one of the bludgers to target only me. No matter how hard Fred and George hit it away it turned itself around to come back at me. Bludgers aren't supposed to do that, Fred and George tried to protect me but that left the Slytherin beaters to use the other bludger unopposed. Alicia wanted to have one of the professors examine the bludger but we couldn't do that without forfeiting the game and Oliver refused. It might have been better to forfeit, I was so busy running away from the bludger that I couldn't even try to look for the snitch to end the game so I don't know how Ollie thought we had a hope of winning. I wouldn't have seen the snitch if I didn't stop to look at Malfoy when he taunted me and it was right beside his ear. It distracted me and the bludger broke my elbow but I caught the Snitch, managed to scare the hell out of Malfoy by flying straight at him and won the game in spite of their expensive new brooms. Catching it is supposed to finish the game and turn off the bludgers but it kept coming for me before anyone could stop it and wrestle it back into it's case. This is the second time someone has used me playing quidditch to try to kill me. It's almost enough to make me want to quit the team but flying's my one escape here, and Gryffindor is all fanatical about quidditch, I'd probably end up being constantly hexed in the hallways if I quit and they lose because their new seeker doesn't catch the snitch.

The broken elbow wouldn't have been so bad, Madam Pomfrey can heal broken arms in a few minutes (I could heal it myself easily enough if I wasn't trying not to draw attention to that ability) but someone let Professor Idiot onto the field and he tried to heal it and ended up removing all the bones in my whole arm. I tried to stop him, he did it not only without my approval but after I'd refused to let him and said very clearly that I wanted Madam Pomfrey to heal me. Thank heavens there is a potion to regrow missing bones so my arm was fine by the next morning but it was agony all night and Professor Idiot didn't even get into trouble! Madam Pomfrey told me off for not coming to her to have it fixed!

I thought for sure it was the Slytherins that cursed the bludger to come after me but it turns out it was Dobby, he came to visit me that night in the infirmary and admitted that he was trying to get me hurt enough to be sent home so I would be safe from whatever is planned to happen. So, was he still following orders? Could his owner be one of the Slytherins trying to win the game like I thought and either manipulated Dobby into thinking being hit by the bludger would prevent more serious dangers for me later or has he been ordered to lie to me. Or worse, does this mean there really is something dangerous going to happen. Something so dangerous that being sent home with a permanent injury would be better than staying here? Or is Dobby just totally insane and become obsessed with trying to save me from something he's imagined? He seems to think that when I supposedly defeated Voldemort as a baby, I rescued many house elves from terrible situation with their families. I don't know how that it would have actually had much affect on how families treated their elves and I tried to tell him I didn't defeat him, that it must have been something my parents had done but he wouldn't listen. He also admitted that the opening of the Chamber of Secrets is related to the horrible thing that's going to happen. Of course, then he started belting himself over the head with my water jug and wouldn't say anything else.

While I was in the Hospital wing the professors bought in a student who'd been turned into a statue. It was Colin, frozen stiff with his camera in front of his face as if he was trying to photograph the person attacking him, or blinding them with his flash so he could run and hide. There was no photo of it though, McGonagall said the film had melted. They think he was trying to come dawn and sneak in here to see me. Couldn't he realise that the last thing I want when I'm in the hospital wing in pain having the bones of my arm regrown is a picture of it. If he'd woken me up trying to take my picture I really would have hexed him, or shoved that bloody camera down his perpetually smiling face. Dumbledore said that him being petrified like that means the Chamber of Secrets really has been opened but he wouldn't explain what he meant. I don't think that he knew I was awake and listening, he might have, but if he didn't then he was refusing to explain it to McGonagall and Snape and I would have thought he trusted them more than anyone else in the castle.

This letter and the last couple I wrote are all awfully full of what's happening to me but so many things seem to have happened since I wrote to you last. I really miss being able to email you and have a sort of a conversation. I hope everything is well with you, that you're enjoying your classes and still spending time and making friends with your project group and the new people in your house. I hope your mum is doing okay and her carers are taking good care of her. Please don't feel badly about the cost of your satchel, I wanted you to have one. I would have bought it last year if I'd realised that they weren't all made out of dragonhide.

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.