Chapter 136

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Sunday 12/12/92

Dear Spencer

I don't know how much more of being public enemy number one I can take, and it's only been less than a week but it shows no sign of getting better. Half the school isn't talking to me just glaring and obviously whispering behind my back and I've had to dodge a few tripping jinxes in the hallways and of course none of the professors will do anything even if they see it happen and I'm sure at least one professor other than Snape saw me jinxed yesterday. If things haven't changed by the end of the school year, then I'm not coming back here. I wish I could leave the castle for the term break and investigate other magical schools. There must be a way I can persuade the school in America to take me without an official transcript. I'd even happily return to muggle school if I didn't have to live with the Dursleys to do it. I've thought about going to the police and trying to press charges against them or declaring myself an abandoned child and asking to be put into foster care, but if Dumbledore has been interfering to stop my claims of abuse or my teacher's concerns from being properly investigated then he would probably stop this and return me to the Dursleys again. He might even obliviate my memories of trying to run away so if I end up at the Dursleys again and being happy about living there and returning to Hogwarts could you send me copies of these letters talking about my plans for the summer to remind me if I start talking like that, just in case. Hopefully he won't know about you and interfere with my mail.

I'll admit to being glad that Colin and his camera aren't around to record my misery, it's the only good thing about this whole debacle, and Justin was being a prat since the duelling club but he wasn't any worse than a lot of the others. If they really wanted to target people to do me a favour I would have thought they'd attack Malfoy but he's a pureblood. (Ron would be an even better target but I don't think anyone other than Seamus and Dean and maybe Neville actually see how annoying I find his insistence that he's my best mate normally and how bloody insulting he's being still insisting he's my best mate in the dorms when he's avoiding hanging out with me in public.) Malfoy's the person most people think I find most annoying, I've even heard him referred to as my enemy which considering all the other people that seem to be working against me is ridiculous. At most he's a schoolyard rival, and secretly I find the little git and the way he makes Ron blow up kind of funny when he's not insulting my mother.

Hopefully, if whoever's doing it is trying to target people who annoy me they'll realise that I think the twins are funny and not target them. Of course I haven't seen much evidence that Dumbledore, Voldemort or Professor Idiot have much of a sense of humour if it's one of them.

It's strange that the association with Slytherin led everyone to believe that muggleborns were being targeted after a single attack when I believe it could easily have been that Colin was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was probably the only person out after curfew in that part of the castle, since it's not near any of the common rooms. It's more credible since Justin is a muggleborn as well but two data points are never enough to extrapolate a pattern. Slytherin was said to favour purebloods, but he was one of the four founders so he must have approved of muggleborns being invited to the school, since it was the four of them that set up the way to identify and find them. That and if whoever is doing this is targeting muggleborns it means that they know the students well enough to recognise who's who even in the dim lights that are left on after curfew. If Dumbledore's right and this magic is beyond a student, that really only leaves the professors.

The problem is that unless something happens to prove I'm not the evil git attacking the students, I won't be able to go to Seamus or Dean's this summer, Seamus won't have me and I doubt that he would go to Dean's if I'm invited too and he's Dean's best friend, I don't want to cause problems in their relationship with each other and I can't blame Dean for choosing to have him over instead of me. He hasn't said anything yet but I can see how it will be. I doubt that I'll be invited to Ron's over the summer either and even if I am it will only be for a couple of weeks, though I'm not sure I'd want to go in any case unless the Dursleys are the only alternative. He's not turned against me the way Seamus and the rest of the school have but he's still only being friendly when we're alone or alone with Hermione, the rest of the time he tries to avoid me or be near me in a way that won't look to anyone else that he'd hanging out with me unless we're out pranking or breaking rules. Hermione is just the same as always though and that's more of a comfort than I ever thought her nagging could be. She's still trying hard to get me to help with the potion which is kind of strange, she usually doesn't like sharing tasks with people. She won't invite me to stay with her over the summer without the Headmaster's permission though. Neville has been supportive when he can too though he's too shy to say much to stop them from bullying me he's taken Ron's seat next to me sometimes so I'm not next to the centre aisle where the Slytherins will whisper horrid things, and Ron sits in his old seat on the other side of Hermione. It's very brave of him to do this for me when he hates conflict so much and lacks self confidence in his ability to defend himself. I feel guilty that until know he was the dorm mate I spent the least time with. I'm going to try to find a place to hide somewhere until I can go to Scoil Draiocht. It will be summer so maybe I'll buy a tent and sleeping bag and camp out, hike around England or Ireland.

If it wasn't for you and my correspondence with Ruby and Patrick I think I'd just lose it completely and walk out the front door with no plan at all other than getting as far away from here as I could. I haven't told Ruby or Patrick that I'm a parseltongue or what's been going on at Hogwarts. I feel a bit guilty about that now that I know how they're probably going to react, like I'm borrowing their friendship under false pretences and that one day they're going to hear about it and my secrecy will make them think I was trying to manipulate them or something and cause our friendship to all come crashing down. Dean's trying to be supportive but I can see that my presence is making his life more difficult so I feel guilty about that too.

The whole of Gryffindor knows that I was locked in the hospital wing when the first human petrification occurred. Madam Pomfrey, McGonagall, Dumbledore and Snape saw me there when they brought him in so those four at least know I cannot be the one doing this and the rest of the school should know as well since my injury happened in front of almost the entire school. But not one of them has spoken up in my defence, even when they see me being bullied. I expected that from Snape and Dumbledore but I am disappointed in McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey though I suppose I shouldn't be, they've all worked for Dumbledore for years and they take orders from him, and look what happened last year when we tried to tell McGonagall about the philosopher's stone being in danger from Voldemort. I think Dumbledore wants the entire school to turn on me for some reason, that or he's happy about the attacks on the students, he seems to have a slight smug expression flicker across his face when he thinks nobody is looking. The rest of the school know I was in the hospital wing too, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that it's almost impossible to sneak out of Madam Pomfrey's care.

Colin's clothes weren't turned into stone but they do seem to be sort of frozen stiff and icy cold. The film in his camera was destroyed, completely melted. Hopefully the camera itself is broken as well but I doubt that I'm that lucky and someone would no doubt buy him another one if it is.

You had a good point that their parents would want them cured as soon as possible if it didn't cost an arm and a leg. The Creeveys live in not too far from Dean though I have no intentions of telling Colin that. I think Dean would kill me if Colin started hanging about Dean's neighbourhood with his camera hoping to get a shot of me, and my visit there certainly wouldn't be a secret for long, that is if I am ever invited back. Colin's dad is a milkman and I've heard him talk about a brother and a sister so I don't think they could afford much but Justin has told me he had his name down for Eton which suggests he comes from an old money family, and when I've seen him in muggle clothes they've all been top quality stuff. His parent's could pay, I'm sure. They'd probably want to take Justin out of Hogwarts and send him somewhere safer if they knew exactly what happened, but I'm not sure how the professors are going to cover up the fact that Justin and Colin aren't able to go home for Christmas or write to their families or friends between now and the end of the school year.

The duelling club is where the speaking to the snake thing happened. It didn't start off too bad though inviting the entire school to a duelling club was a recipe for disaster, even a competent professor couldn't have controlled a group that size. As I was afraid of, the club was led by Professor Idiot and I would have walked out as soon as I saw him except that Hermione had us there early and sitting right up the front. I should have known it would be him, this was one of the nights I noticed him easily at dinner. He walked in with Snape and after insulting him, announced that Snape had agreed to help him with a demonstration duel. I would've been scared if Snape was glaring at me like that while pointing his wand at me. Snape blew him clear off the stage and into the wall. Professor Idiot claimed that it was only because he let him and he could've blocked the spell if he wanted to but he didn't cast anything at all. It was almost worth attending at that point just to see that. But of course it got worse from there.

After he got blown into the wall without teaching us anything, he and Snape started pairing up students to practice disarming each other and Snape paired me with Draco Malfoy. It went about the way you'd expect. None of us stuck to the disarming charm which neither of them had actually shown us the wand movements for, and there were lots of minor injuries and several brawls starting by the time Snape stopped us all. Professor Idiot was completely ineffective. Snape called Malfoy and I up for a demonstration duel and Professor Idiot then tried to teach us how to block spells and dropped his wand but still thought that I should have learned how to do it from that without showing me the wand movements or the incantation. (Of course I could have done it, it's one of the spells I taught myself last year but he had no way of knowing that). Snape was whispering in Malfoy's ear and Malfoy conjured or summoned a snake which is so not an approved second year duelling spell. Even if I'd managed to cast the shield to block minor spells it wouldn't have stopped a snake. Professor Idiot then stepped in and tried to get rid of it but he only made it mad and launched it into the crowd. That's when I spoke to it to tell it not to bite Justin. I should have let it bite him, he and his best mate Ernie have been two of the worst about calling me evil and telling everyone that I was encouraging the snake to attack him as if everyone with sense couldn't have seen it stopped threatening him when I spoke to it. You'd think he'd be grateful. Of course it doesn't help that Justin's the student that was petrified a few days later, and I was the one to find him, and just like the bloody cat I was caught there before I could run off and pretend I hadn't seen it, so now even more people believe I'm the one attacking muggleborn students who are alone in the hallways.

You'd think that at least one of the students would remember that my mother was muggleborn and that Hermione is supposedly one of my best friends. I know she's not really a great friend but I don't think anyone other than Dean and Seamus and whoever else Dumbledore is paying to spy on me have realised that and her having muggle parents and growing up in the muggle world has nothing to do with that. You're my best friend and you're a muggle, Dean's muggleborn too and he's a great friend! At least he's not being stupid about it.

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.