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Harry was in the middle of transfiguration cursing himself for his stupidity and wondering how he was going to manage exchanging his fake wand for his real one without anyone noticing when he realised that the lesson was almost over and he wouldn't need to. Hermione was the only one so far who had succeeded in even partially turning the match they'd been given into a needle and even it looked more like a silver match, none of the others had managed anything except for Seamus who had somehow set his match on fire. He looked critically at his match and thought it might be slightly more cylindrical than it had been but it was still clearly wooden with no sign of a point on the end. He sighed as he packed up his books. It seemed that wands really might be necessary to succeed in transfiguration. They'd taken a lot of notes on stupid things like holding your wand correctly and drawing the correct shapes with it to form the spell and then having to state what you wanted to do in Latin not in English.
He was heartened by the fact the next wanded class was charms the next day and they would be attempting the lumos charm to make light. It had taken Harry quite some time over the summer to make the light appear at the end of the fake wand instead of like a bubble from the palm of his hand but he had already mastered it so leaving his real wand in his trunk he confidently sat down ready for the lesson. He watched the others try before he attempted it and seeing how they struggled attempted to make the weakest light that he could. It was still brighter than anyone else's and Harry frowned when he noticed Hermione's jealous glare. He frowned again the next day in Defence against the Dark Arts when he realised she was less jealous of being beaten to master the impedimentia jinx by one of the Ravenclaws. Was she frowning because she thought he was too dumb to do better than she did. On the other hand he was glad to see that even with his fake wand he was one of the first three or four to master the jinx and it was getting easier to make spells come out the end of it than it had been.
Tuesday 9/10/91
Dear Harry,
I'm so glad that your friend's Mom agreed to forward letters for us. I did include a thankyou note to her but you should too if you haven't already, and please thank Dean for me as well. If you already thanked her please don't take offence at me reminding you. I'm just so grateful for a way to keep in touch. Thank you for my birthday present the books look so interesting I can't wait to be able to find time alone to read them.
Your school sounds more like a fantasy movie than a real place. Even if they disdain the nonmagical world and don't require teaching accreditation for their professors I would expect them to have hired the best possible teachers they could. And surely no matter what world you live in literacy is important, and if a lot of your classmates have been home-schooled up until now it's even more important that they should teach it. If the majority of your class are home-schooled, I would expect a huge variation in literacy levels, mathematical skills and independent thinking. Not every parent is suited to home-school their children. I'm surprised your classes don't start off with an exam to see where everyone is at and whether they need remedial classes to catch up with the rest.
The sorting hat sounds kind of creepy, reading your mind like that. I don't think that I would like it. and I must tell you that I was surprised that it put you in Gryffindor. I'm glad you didn't go into Slytherin since you didn't want to but I would have said that you were a better fit for Ravenclaw or even Hufflepuff than Slytherin or Gryffindor. You're much more interested in learning new things than in proving how brave and rash you can be, and your career interests working for a restaurant or a garden designer prove that you don't mind hard work. Remember how you told me that you didn't think that you could be a superhero because you were more interested in making sure you survived unhurt that you wouldn't risk that to help other people. Unless you've changed a lot since then and there's nothing in your letters that makes me think that you have, then why would the hat put you in Gryffindor? Were you surprised by this too?
You're right that I'm worried about your education. I tried to collect the correspondence materials for you but there's too many textbooks required for me to send it to you even if they would give it to me. I don't think it would be good for your owl to try to carry them, even one at a time. I guess you are going to have to go to summer school if you want to keep up with your nonmagical education. I'm glad that you at least read through the books you ought to have been learning this year. And yes Harry I am going to think that you ought to learn math, science, English, history, geography, health, physical education, even art and drama and music. I'm not saying you shouldn't have gone to Hogwarts but it should be teaching you all these things as well as magic. I'm not going to lecture you about it but I'm not going to change my mind about that either.
And Vampires and Ghosts are real? You haven't helped me try to get over my fear of the dark with that news. What else is real, werewolves, dragons, unicorns, elves, mermaids?"
I read through the beginner text books you sent me. It helped me understand what you are talking about with your different subjects and things. But one thing that I don't understand is why they're only teaching you to do spells with your wand with Latin incantations and specific wand movements when I know you could do a lot of things without all that before you even learned what magic was. As an experiment, have you tried learning a spell without your wand first? Would you get more of the spells without your wand that way? Is it easier to do spells with your wand? Or are wands a way to do spells without getting so tired and hungry afterwards, though you told me that wasn't as bad once you got used to doing small spells in your cupboard.
It still makes me mad to even write that. I'm glad they moved you upstairs but you should have had that room the whole time. Have you worked out who to ask to help you find a new place to live? You're right that what Hagrid did to Dudley wasn't funny, it was one of the worst episodes of bullying there could be using a power the other person didn't have to permanently deform them and make them into the laughing stock of everyone who sees him. Worse than that it was an adult bullying a child as well as a wizard picking on a group of people he sees as being inferior because they didn't have magic. Not to mention that Hagrid didn't even stop to think about what that would mean for you being forced to spend the next month with those people who had obviously already been afraid of magic and disliked you. I'm intensely grateful that Vernon didn't try to beat you to death again for what happened. Or at least I hope he didn't. if you were healed and your memories removed before you could write to me do we really know for sure he didn't try to kill you?
Your Friend Always
Spencer
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.