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Spencer read through Harry's letter frowning. The only positive thing about it was that Harry believed him. The other information in the letter was more alarming. Someone had done something to Harry's mind to make him want to stay with the Dursleys or at least to make him want to stay there while he was there and return there from school. Or had they only strengthened the compulsion that was already there. It had never made a lot of sense to Spencer why Harry had been so resistant to the idea of leaving or reporting his relatives to child protection or the police before this. Of course, there was the possibility that he had tried both, and everyone had been made to forget it like this time but Harry had argued with him every time he'd encouraged him to seek help. Had that also been because someone was messing with his free will and when they realised Harry had left anyway they'd made the desire to stay much stronger.
Thursday 11/15/90
Dear Harry,
Please do not do anything too hasty. You know I want you to be out of that house before they hurt you again and I understand that having made up your mind to leave you want to be gone as soon as possible, but I'm worried that they'll be watching you closely for a while after last time.
One of the other things that worries me about what happened the night you ran away is that they healed you. Don't get me wrong I am very glad that you were healed. But whoever is doing this didn't come to the Dursleys and heal you when you were first injured, as far as we know they didn't question your disappearance for the time you were locked in the cupboard with what sounded to me from your description like it might have been a punctured lung. You very nearly died, it's almost a miracle that you didn't and they didn't do anything until you tried to run away. If you haven't tried you would have been left locked in the cupboard at risk of developing sepsis or half a dozen other complications. If they were watching you closely enough to return you to the Dursleys the day you ran away then why didn't they step in to heal you when you were first injured. Surely if there is some way of tracking a person's location there should also be a way of telling when they've been mortally injured. I'm afraid that it's possible they only healed you so that they could make you forget the assault, there would've been no point making you forget trying to leave the Dursleys or the assault, if you woke up the next morning still beaten black and blue with a punctured lung and a badly injured knee. You wouldn't remember the details but you'd still have known that Vernon or Dudley had done it, and you'd still have tried to leave again, even without me telling you about the letter that you'd written to me.
If I were you, I would wait a month or two or better yet until after the weather starts to warm up. If you get far enough away then you could make up a name and get yourself found living on the streets by the police, claim that your parents have recently been killed. You'd be better off in one of the smaller rural cities than in London. Use a simple, really common name like John Brown or Robert Jones, not John Smith that would be suspicious but a name too common for them to chase down every potential parent in the area.
I wish that you could come here and I would love to have you, even if you did have to go into foster care near here we could see each other regularly but I cannot see how you will manage to get here without money and someone to travel with. They do not let children travel on their own on planes. The airlines have a service to accompany a child but a guardian needs to deliver the child to the accompanying attendant and then an adult must take custody of them at the other end. I could possibly arrange for one of my mentors to help me pick you up from the airport if one of your friends at the restaurant could put you onto the plane. The biggest problem is that it costs money, you'd need to pay for the second seat for the attendant and possibly an extra payment as well.
Do you think you could steal enough money from the Dursleys to pay for two seats?
I'm also hesitant to encourage you to involve your friends at the restaurant. Whoever is altering your family and teacher's memories hasn't affected them yet. I think whoever it is might not know about the food they give you or the time that you spend there and I wouldn't want them to be affected if this attempt to escape doesn't work. It is possible that your neighbors distrust and dislike has been caused by the person trying to keep you at the Dursleys to prevent any of them from helping you, and the restaurant has been missed since it's on the other side of your school and they don't realise you're traveling that far from home. If whoever is doing this widens their net you would find it nearly impossible to find someone else willing to help.
The second issue is of course if you want to stay in this area then you'd have to turn yourself into Pasadena child protection and if they put your picture in the paper asking for relatives to come forward, which they probably would, then the mentor that helped me collect you from the airport might see it, and tell the authorities. I don't know how to get around that problem unless you learn how to make memories disappear but I wouldn't like to risk harming someone like that just because they were trying to help us.
More than anything I wish that I had talked you into going to child protection when the Dursleys kicked you out of that hotel room. We could've waited until they'd gone back to England if it'd have made you feel safer but I got the feeling that whoever is watching you or however they were keeping track of what happened wasn't happening while you were here. It might have been your best opportunity to get away safely and I'm sorry that we didn't realise that.
I'm sorry that I can't find a way to bring you here safely.
Your friend
Spencer
Harry sighed as he finished reading the letter, again in the safety of the staff loo at the restaurant. Spencer was right, as much as he wanted to leave it might be dangerous to run away again. He needed to take his time and plan carefully, he also needed to keep a careful look out for anyone who might be watching him and write down the people he saw in the street behaving oddly or paying him too much attention. But he also mustn't be seen writing things down otherwise next time they took his memories they'd take his notebook too.
Most of all he needed to protect Spencer, he didn't want someone messing around with Spencer's amazing memory just because of their friendship. He had to protect him somehow. Maybe he should stop writing to him in case someone was keeping a closer watch on him than they had before.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.