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 was delighted with the birthday present he'd received. Especially because Harry had gone to the trouble of making it for him and must have paid close attention to all the complaints he'd made about the beginner cookbooks he'd borrowed from the library over the summer and about his failure to learn to cook from them. The amount of effort Harry put into the gift more than made up for it being late, even if the memory of that lonely birthday would haunt him for some time to come.
Tuesday 12/11/90
Dear Harry
Thank you for the cook book, I haven't been home yet to try any of the recipes but it makes perfect sense to me. Most cook books assume that I already know the basics but you've explained everything in plain language and enough detail to make sense to me. It's very thoughtful and it must have taken you quite a while to make it too, especially since you learned to cook so long ago that a lot of the things I need to learn would be pure instinct to you. I will treasure it always. Don't be upset about missing my birthday with being injured and having the memories of that week removed and being worried about what was going on with your powers and whether you were being watched and worrying about it being safe to keep in contact with me and with your friends from the restaurant, I'm not surprised that you lost track of the days and you obviously did not plan to forget or you wouldn't have already be making my gift.
I understand that you are panicking about having your memories taken away but whoever did this doesn't know about the restaurant and they don't know about me. I feel that I am perfectly safe writing to you. If it matters to you, I will stop putting my return address on my letters and start referring to my school as 'my school' or college instead of by it's name, so if your enemies do find out about the restaurant and intercept one of our letters, they won't be able to find me from it. There are hundreds of colleges across America and thousands of high schools. As for your letters to me, once they are in the mailbox there shouldn't be any problem, mailboxes are tamper proof and there are hundreds if not thousands of pieces of mail going from England to America every day.
Harry seriously, try not to worry too much I do think that it's safe to keep writing and your friendship is definitely worth a lot more risk than this. I want to keep writing to you and I do not want you to feel guilty about it. You did your duty in warning me and can't do any more than that. It is entirely my own decision to keep writing. Please don't stop writing to me, your letters are the highlight of my week when I get them.
School is going well and Ethan and I are slowly moving from being friendly to being actual friends. The other students in my house are treating us well and starting to include us more and more, particularly with study groups as exams come closer. It's hard sometime not to think that they're using us to try to improve their grades but so long as nobody is asking me to do their work for them, I can deal with it and treat it as a positive thing.
Classes and Exam prep are also going well and I am hoping for top grades in most of my subjects. The professors are still really interesting to listen to lecture but have started to reign me in when I ask questions of things that won't be covered in the exam for that class. They don't tell me to shut up though, most of them just politely suggest that it isn't on the exam but if I am genuinely curious, they'd be happy to speak to me during their office hours. I've taken a few of them up on it and had some interesting conversations and received book and further class recommendations on things tat interest me.
I hope that you're well and starting to feel like your normal self again. Have you noticed yourself getting stronger again? Are the Dursleys still leaving you alone? Do you still feel like you want to run away? Have you noticed anyone watching you or anyone acting suspiciously? How is school? What are you reading at the moment?
Your friend
Spencer
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