Chapter 132

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Monday 11/29/92

Dear Harry

I really want to yell at you about how stupid an idea throwing a firework into someone's potion was. Your whole class was injured and it could have been so much worse! What if the potion wasn't made correctly and the antidote didn't work? Or if the firework itself reacted with the potion unexpectedly? Then to add to the stupidity you deliberately let yourself be hit with the potion splash without knowing exactly what it would do, all to avoid suspicion. You're a seeker, everyone knows your reflexes are quicker than most people I'm sure you could have sold that as the reason you didn't get splashed. And to let Ron put everyone at risk like that to help someone steal from a professor to make a potion you think is too dangerous to even try to make at your age! Couldn't you have tried harder to talk them out of such a stupid plan? This was even worse than being the person stealing the ingredients! Please tell me that they didn't involve poor Neville to deliberately ruin his potion to create the distraction for the distraction. You're lucky Hermione wasn't caught because I'm sure she'd tell Snape or Dumbledore the whole story the minute he asked her to explain her actions and I'm sure she would have implicated you as well as Ron.

Brewing potions in a public restroom even an unpopular one sounds highly risky, I mean sometime sooner or later someone will be in urgent enough need to not want to traipse up or down another flight of stairs, particularly with the risk that the staircase will move and deposit you on the next level a long way from the facilities, and you'll all be caught. Not to mention that bathrooms tend to be in fairly well trafficked hallways if there's only one per level and you and Ron are highly likely to be caught coming and going and Percy is right, people will say all sorts of unsavoury things about boys sneaking into the girls bathrooms. It's all very well for Hermione. Of course, this might be a good thing, it will explain part of your reluctance to help her brew though I do think she needs keeping an eye on, I'm not sure you're knowledgeable enough about potions to be the one doing it. One other risk too is the cauldron far enough away from the toilet that the ghost uses to flood the bathroom that you can guarantee none of the water is going to get into the potion? Is it up high enough that flooding the bathroom isn't going to put out or dampen the fire underneath the cauldron and change the temperature of the potion at the wrong time? And you're right, if it is some creature coming out of it's lair to attack people it's reasonable to assume that the lair is close to the scene of the attacks. You should be avoiding that part of the castle as much as possible not sneaking in there to brew a potion that I'm sure is banned. Or if it isn't it should be! And everyone thinks Hermione is the smart one?

If Snape had got the memory from Ron then he would not only know that he threw the firework but also know about using the firework as a distraction so Hermione could rob him. He may not have been able to use the memory to prove who threw the firework but he could easily have insisted everyone turn out their pockets so he could test them for firework residue or something and caught Hermione with the stollen ingredients. So, he didn't try to look at Ron's or Hermione's memories. It might be that he believes that you would have protected their minds as well since they are supposedly your best friends, or that he knows they are spying for the headmaster and isn't allowed to punish them. Is it possible that they've sworn something like a vassal oath to the headmaster and are also wearing amulets to protect their minds? But no that's possible, maybe even likely but it still doesn't Snape's reaction make sense, even if he wasn't allowed to punish them for no reason or get them expelled, he would be allowed to issue detentions for injuring the whole class and for stealing, unless of course he knew about the plan in advance and had given Hermione permission to take the ingredients. It's a little suspicious that Ron was able to throw something across the room without being seen AND she was able to get into a storeroom she hadn't been in before, find everything she needed quickly enough to get out again before she was missed, also without being seen by a professor and a whole class of students!

The family feud idea does explain Ron's attitude to the Malfoy's and Mr Malfoy's attitude to the Weasleys too, feuds make idiots out of grown men and I can't think of many other reasons for otherwise respectable men to escalate from verbal insults to an outright brawl in a bookshop where I assume both men were sober and not under the influence of a rage potion or anything like that that would rob them of their ability to make sensible decisions. You're right of course that without knowing when in the last 1,000 years the chamber was opened there is no way to know who was there at the time. I would speculate that it must have been fairly recently though for Dumbledore to know about it but before the professor he was talking to and the Healer started working there. How long have the three of them been working at the school. That would be a fairly safe thing to try to research and it would give you a definite timeframe to narrow the suspect list.

I like your latest prank on Professor Idiot, there would be nothing worse for a vain peacock like him than being ignored or unnoticed and doing it once didn't count as bullying. I wonder who is casting it after you did. I can understand wanting a peaceful meal without him bragging and trying to tell everyone else how to do their jobs but leaving him unnoticeable all weekend seems more than a bit cruel and I would call that bullying. Has he been harassing any of the other students apart from you? How difficult should it be for someone to notice that they've had a spell like that cast on them and your colleagues aren't just ignoring you because they don't like you? Perhaps it would be a kindness for someone to tell him but I could understand if you don't want to after what he's putting you through.

One of the professors whose class I assist with is having minor surgery next week and they've asked me to give his lectures. I don't have to write the lecture or make the slides or anything, everything is done all I have to do is read fifty minutes worth of lecture three times a week for two weeks without it sounding too much like I'm just reading someone else's notes. Memorising them will be easy but even when I'm repeating things I've read in the past it tends to sound like I'm reading it aloud. I wish there was an audio recording of him giving the lecture, of course, if there was I could just play it and put up the appropriate slides while I supervise the class listening. I know that I took this class myself a few years ago but my lecturer wasn't anywhere near as good as Professor De Jonge and the students are used to the better quality lectures. Though maybe I should consider it a success if I can give these lectures even as well as Professor Kline did to me, after all he'd had a lot more experience than me even if he wasn't as good as Professor De Jonge.

I really hope that none of my students decide to prank me. Pranks here at Caltech aren't usually too bad, they're not malicious but I really don't think that I could cope with being pranked during my first couple of lectures. Though maybe I would deserve it for encouraging you to prank your professor.

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.