Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Criminal Minds or any of their characters. I do however own this story, I wrote it and I do NOTgive permission for anyone to post it anywhere else. If you want to share it post a link.
Spencer had no luck trying to find news from the officials in little whinging. He anxiously checked his mailbox a couple of times a day looking for a letter from Harry. He was preparing to write to the restaurant where he used to send Harry's letters asking if they knew anything about where Harry had been taken and if he'd recovered or was still in the hospital after being injured by his uncle.
Finally, there was a letter and he hurried up to his room to read it in safety, some habits died hard in spite of the lack of bullying in the dorms he still didn't want to risk his relationship with Harry becoming known. People wouldn't understand.
Thursday 25/10/90
Dear Spencer
Sorry I haven't written but I've had the flu, to be honest I don't know that it was actually the real influenza but I certainly felt horrible and I had a high fever and couldn't do anything. Petunia even threw some paracetamol in with me when she locked me in with a bucket and told me to stay there till I wasn't infectious. Actually, I don't remember that clearly but that's what she always says so I suppose she said it. She definitely left me locked up without checking on me for days. Sometimes I wonder if they want me to choke on my own vomit and die, and then I wonder how they're going to explain a three or four day old body if I do. It's a bit morbid I know but
I'm starting to feel better but Petunia has obviously forgiven Vernon and is making all his favourite foods to make it up to him for her earlier reaction. I still don't know what it was he did but since I got well enough to want to eat again all she's cooked is fried food and it's making my stomach squirm just smelling it, so I've been living of fruit and plain toast. I'm going to try to get to the restaurant tomorrow for something decent.
Friday 26/10/90
I just got your last letter and I have to admit that I don't know what you're talking about. Why are you so proud of me and why did you think I'd been hurt or might not I be able to get your letters from the restaurant anymore? Or that I would be living somewhere else?
Did something happen that I don't remember? Or did you perhaps have a very vivid dream about something? I've had some weird dreams lately but I read that that can be normal with a fever. I dreamed of running away and of being hurt by a monster and being unable to move. I don't think that I could have sleepwalked and written you a letter about my dream while I was still asleep.
As far as I can remember nothing exciting has happened here since I wrote a few weeks ago. I had a week off sick with the flu and I'm okay now but I still feel a little lacking in energy. Both regular energy and my power stuff. I feel like I used it too much and it's much slower to build back up than it has been in a long time, though I can't remember using it. I can't unlock the door or repair things anymore and if I try to make light it's really feeble and wears me out. I thought that it was a side effect of being sick and I've been avoiding using it hoping that it will get better with some rest, but if I sent you a letter telling you something else, I don't remember what happened. Please tell me what's going on. I'm really worried now.
I can't have got you sick via letter, could I? And given you fever dreams? I was feeling okay for a couple of weeks after I wrote to you last. I didn't get sick until after I got your letter. We couldn't have had the same dream could we? That's crazy!
Your friend
Harry.
Spencer opened the letter and read it though at first in shock and then later with resignation. He believed harry straight away and was fairly sure that he hadn't been sleepwalking and writing letters in his sleep. He got out the letter that started this all and read it though again looking for clues whether it was genuine. He believed that Harry had been telling the truth and had been injured and tried to go to the police for help. He believed that someone had interfered with Harry's memories. Harry had told him that he thought it had happened before they met, when everyone seemed to forget the times he'd done something unexplainable. He believed it but now he had to find a way to prove it to Harry. It was definitely in Harry's handwriting there was no doubt about that though the end was messier than his letters usually were. And there were a couple of brown stains on the paper and envelope. He'd worried at the time that they were blood, which would indicate he had really been injured not sleepwalking. There had to be a way to test for blood which did not involve taking to the police and asking them to do it.
Spencer quickly looked up the chemicals they used to test for blood at crime scenes. Phenolphthalein powder, sodium hydroxide, distilled water, zinc, and 70% ethanol, he could get all those things in the lab. He jotted down the instructions and went off to talk to his faculty advisor, who indulged him and allowed him to conduct an experiment testing for blood. He had to bleed a little for the control samples but once he'd checked that it worked consistently, he tested all the stains on the letter and they all came back positive for blood.
He sighed. It was true. Harry had escaped from the abuse and on his way to the police to ask for help and somehow had been made to forget being badly injured by his uncle and was returned to the house. He should have known that if someone was allowing that level of abuse to happen to Harry and had somehow set up that house to weaken his powers so he couldn't protect himself, that they'd insist on him staying there. The only surprise was how far they'd gone to achieve it, but maybe he shouldn't be surprised at that either. If they were capable of taking away Harry's memories there was no telling how many times they'd done this in the past. He thought for a moment how to get Harry to believe the horrible truth then realised the only way was for Harry to tell himself in his own writing. He found Harry's previous letter and took to the library to make a copy.
Thank heavens Harry had been able to get that letter to him the night he left the Dursleys and that he hadn't waited for Harry to contact him again before writing or he might never have realised that Harry had no memories of the incident, and they might have almost lost touch due to the increased gap between letters.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.