Chapter 130

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Saturday 11/21/92

Dear Harry

Thank goodness you hadn't broken your ribs instead of your arm! You could have suffocated if Professor Idiot had removed those. I cannot believe that he wasn't sacked for using magic to harm a student like that. He isn't a safe person to have around students and is certainly not teaching them safe and responsible use of their magic! Especially after other people heard you asking him not to do it! That is an assault! I'm sure you were terrified when he pointed his wand at you since none of his spells do what they're supposed to do. I take back everything I said about being careful not to let your pranks cross the line into bullying. Make his hair and teeth fall out since he's so vain about his smile. Curse him with password protected acne or moles and surround him with mirrors so he has to see how hideous he looks, render him mute so he can't keep telling people how wonderful he is. Shove him in a cupboard full of rats or spiders for the day, so he can't teach or hurt anybody else. Start a petition demanding that he is fired for assaulting a student. Complain to the magical police. Make him feel so unwanted that he leaves the school if the headmaster won't sack him.

I hate that you were hurt but I must admit that I'm glad you were safely in the hospital wing and not out roaming the hallways to get turned into stone. I am sorry that you were injured and that the cure was so painful, and I feel guilty for being relieved because there's no reason for me to believe you would've been out after curfew that night. Promise me that you won't sneak out around the school until whoever is doing this is caught. Maybe Dobby actually ended up doing you a favour as badly as he went about it. You're right it's lucky that he didn't protect you to death if he is genuinely trying to protect you, but at least you were safe from whatever attacked Colin last night. Do you think that he knew there'd be an attack and thought putting you in the hospital wing would make you safer?

Could it also be possible that if 'Professor Idiot' is the heir of Slytherin that he's pretending to be incompetent to throw of suspicion and if so, could he also have deliberately made your injury worse to guarantee you would be safely in the hospital wing? Unlike Dobby, his interference didn't risk permanently harming you if he knew the bones could be successfully regrown. You think he singles you out to humiliate you but could he have been protecting you? The problem with that theory is I have no idea why he would protect you and not all of the other students. I cannot even imagine a motive so normally I would say that throws out the whole theory but with the total lack of common sense most adult wizards seem to display he could have half a dozen potential motives that only make sense to him.

Do you think Colin was attacked because he was trying to come and see you? Is he the type of student to be out roaming the corridors at night trying to find secret things to photograph?

If Dumbledore knows what petrified Colin came from the Chamber of Secrets, then he also must know what is doing it. Why isn't he doing anything about it?

You really need to try again to talk to another house elf, you need to know not only if Dobby is following his owner's orders but how to protect yourself from him next time he tries something. If he was following orders to put you out of the game or to help the other team win, then he failed. He would have been punished if that was the order he was given. Was he injured when you saw him? It's a pity you don't have a house elf of your own to ask, and to hopefully protect you from these attacks. Can a house elf be ordered to try to kill someone? He clearly doesn't understand that if that bludger had hit you in the head or knocked you off your broom at 3-400 feet in the air it would have killed you. Hell with Professor Idiot's help a lot of survivable injuries could have turned fatal. I cannot believe that nothing was done about him casting that spell on you without your consent. Even if it had worked perfectly, it was a form of assault and the fact that he must have known there was a high chance the spell wouldn't work only makes it worse. In the muggle world it would be considered aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and he would almost certainly go to prison for it. Especially because you're a minor and he was in a position of authority over you when he assaulted you. With the two of them there that school is definitely not safe for you. Is there any way you could get away at Christmas? Catch the Hogwarts Express back to London and disappear? I know you don't want to spend the next however many years hiding, but Harry, you'd be running for your life here.

Harry stealing something worth 300 pounds is a big deal, you probably wouldn't go to jail for it as a first offence in the nonmagical world but the school would have the right to expel you and Professor Snape would be well within his rights to press criminal charges against you, which in the nonmagical world could stop you working as a teacher or in law enforcement or probably a dozen or so other jobs. Please promise me you will have nothing to do with it.

Is it suspicious that Professor Idiot never mentions his family or blood status? Do you actually know anything about the blood status and families or ancestors of the other professors at Hogwarts? I know that at your age it's easy not to realise that your professors are normal people away from their jobs with husbands/wives, lovers, parents, siblings and potential children as well as personal hobbies and likes and dislikes. The school probably doesn't encourage the professors to share too much of their personal lives with their students. I didn't know much about the private lives of my high school teachers.

I've been thinking about the supposed flaw in your prank and I think what happened with the girls' reactions was unavoidable, if you had only released the password when there were no girls present, then the boys wouldn't understand that the girls couldn't see the picture on the door and without explaining the whole thing to them they wouldn't know not to mention the picture to the girls and someone would eventually believe that they couldn't see it and described it to them, the end result would have been the same as if the girls had been able to see the picture as well in the first place. But you couldn't tell the boys not to talk about it without all of them knowing exactly who the pranksters were and while none of them probably talk about it openly, I'm sure there is at least one boy in your school who also has a crush on or a healthy dose of hero worship for Professor Idiot. The other problem with trying to make sure as many boys as possible heard the password without any of the girls hearing it would be the risk of someone noticing that hearing the password had something to do with more people suddenly being able to see the picture and would have started watching to see how it was done since Professor Snape was obviously not around for them to hear his voice it wouldn't take a genius to realise it had to be a spell or recording that someone was triggering to play and there would be a fairly high risk that someone would have eventually noticed that it was the three of you. The way you did it was actually the best way. At least you weren't detected. I also agree that you shouldn't take it down, it might have been the kind thing to do but there was no way of knowing that nobody had cast some sort of monitoring charm on the picture to tell them who took it down or that Professor idiot hadn't tried to booby trap the picture so that casting a spell on it would cause a magical backlash of some kind in retaliation for the prank.

Mom is well, Aunt Ethel actually managed to take her out to get a haircut and visit the dentist last week, and persuaded her to get rid of a bunch of old clothes and things. Mom's a bit of a packrat when she isn't well she doesn't like to throw anything away. Anyway, she actually spoke to me on the phone for a couple of minutes while they were out before her usual paranoia about technology like that kicked in. It was good to hear from her.

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.