Chapter 66

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Monday 13/1/92

Dear Spencer

Christmas was so much fun here, though I would have preferred to spend it with you. Ron woke me up early to open presents and I actually had quite a few. Hogwarts must have a way of knowing that parcels are Christmas presents because your present was amongst the pile I got this morning. I had wondered why Hedwig came back from Mrs Thomas with just a letter for Dean the day before they left for the holidays.

Ron said he'd told his mum that I didn't expect to get presents from my aunt and uncle and Mrs Weasley took this as a reason to send me a present. That was nice of her but at most I expected some home baked treats or something impersonal. She did send fudge and it was really good too but she also knitted me a jumper with a letter H on the front, just the same as the jumpers she knitted for all her own children with their letters on the front.

The embarrassing thing was that with your present and ones from Dean and his mother and from Neville and Seamus and the girls on the Quidditch team and Hagrid and a mysteriously anonymous one, I actually had more presents than Ron. Not that I'm not grateful and I did send most of these people something as well, luckily I found the catalogues from Diagon Alley a while back and managed to owl order a lot of presents, for direct delivery. I couldn't do that with yours because it had to go so early to make it to Las Vegas before Christmas but I'll remember better next year and hopefully find some books that will be more interesting for you.

The coolest present I got was the one without a name on the tag, it's a cloak that makes the wearer invisible but the most amazing thing about it was that it belonged to my Dad. Whoever gave it to me said that Dad had left it with them before they died. Which when you think about it makes it a pretty shoddy present even if it is just about the coolest thing I've ever seen, just giving me something they should have returned to me anyway. And then not to sign their name so I can't contact them and ask them more about my Dad. Maybe they didn't want me to know who'd kept my Dad's cloak all these years. Still, I'm glad they didn't try to return it to me at the Dursleys, Vernon and Petunia would probably have burnt it in front of me, and threatened to throw me in the fire with it too, no doubt. They certainly wouldn't want me to have a magical cloak that lets me hide from them.

We did have a big Christmas feast the night before the other students went home and there's only nine students and a couple of the professors here so I wasn't expecting anything special on Christmas day but we did have a proper Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and magical Christmas Bonbons, with hats and favours which were much better than the silly little toys you get in the nonmagical bonbons. I got a set of chess pieces. I hadn't noticed until you said anything but there's nothing at all religious about our Christmas celebration at school, nor was there really any mention of Father Christmas or Santa Claus. There are lots of decorations, Christmas trees and holly, no mistletoe though. The presents arrived overnight for Christmas morning but they were all from people I know, except the invisibility cloak and I know it didn't come from Santa. Neville did wish me a Blessed Yule rather than Merry Christmas but I didn't pay much attention. I'll have to ask him about it.

I was roaming the hallways in my new cloak when I found a strange magical mirror, it's called the Mirror of Erised, which I'm sure you immediately realised is desire spelled backwards. It shows you what you want the most. Ron saw himself as head boy and winning the quidditch cup but I saw my family, my Mum and Dad and grandparents, aunts and uncles and you were there with me, along with someone that looked like it could've been your mum, smiling and looking fit and well. I wish I knew whether that was what they all really looked like or if the images came from my imagination. I wanted to just sit there and stare at them, memorise every detail but Dumbledore found me and told me that witches and wizards have in the past have sat in front of the mirror until they died of starvation, he's moved it and if I come across it again I promise to stay away from it. He said that the mirror encourages people to dwell on dreams instead of living their lives, and that I will see my family in the next life. So I guess wizards believe in some form of heaven or afterlife even if I'm not sure they believe in religion.

I'm afraid that I'm in Dean's bad books, apparently, I sent his mum more chocolate than he gave her for Christmas. He didn't sound too upset about it though so don't worry, and Mrs Thomas was grateful.

You'll be pleased to know I placed in the top twenty-five percent of my year for the end of term exams, only just which is right about where I planned to be. I was ninth out of the forty of us overall, first in DADA and flying, third in Herbology thanks to the gardening experience I got landscaping the back yard a couple of years ago and fourth in Charms. Ron scored thirty sixth overall, and Hermione was of course first in everything except flying, DADA and Herbology. Neville was first in Herbology and Dean and Seamus were content with being eighteenth and twentieth in the year. Hermione got a ridiculous 137% for Charms by answering all the bonus questions correctly.

Honestly Hermione's more upset about her placings than Ron is, though his mother sent him a howler (an angry letter that screams the words at you in the sender's voice, very humiliating in the middle of breakfast and a bit mean I think, and if it was meant to motivate him to work harder to improve his ranking in the grade then it hasn't worked at all yet and I don't think it will).

I will tell you about my quidditch team mates. I forgot I hadn't already. Our captain and keeper is Oliver Wood, he's a fifth year and totally obsessed with winning the house quidditch cup. We are lucky that Madam Hooch the flying instructor limits how much time we're allowed to spend training or he'd have us out there every morning and every evening. Our beaters are the Weasley twins, Ron's older brothers they're third year but I wouldn't ever ask them to buy me anything from Hogsmeade you for fear that they'd prank it. Then the Chasers are Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinet also in third year and second year Katie Bell. The three girls are best friends and very close, they hang out with Fred and George a lot too. They're all nice but they treat me more like a baby brother than a friend. It's useful if I ever need help with a spell or something but it does get annoying.

I'm glad you enjoyed the novel. You'd be surprised to know I talked about it with Angelina and Alicia and they both liked it because of the lack of pureblood bigotry in the story. They were so pleased that the characters blood status and ancestries weren't mentioned that they didn't even notice the bigotry against muggles, goblins and house elves. I wouldn't be surprised if house elves really are that badly treated in a lot of households. I was shocked to find that there are about a hundred here in the castle. They do all the cooking laundry and cleaning but I've never seen one. Apparently, it's a sign of a good elf not to be seen. I didn't know who was doing those things for me so I've never thanked them or apologised when my quidditch robes were covered in mud or my school robes in something much worse. I feel guilty now but I don't know if they would want me to thank them or if they'd rather I never notice them. I've taken to saying thankyou if I'm alone when I put my clean clothes away or come back to the dorm to find it clean and tidy or new sheets on the bed, but I have no way of knowing whether the elf that did the work will hear me.

I'm glad you had a good holiday with your mum. Are you back at school yet? Do you change subjects in the middle of this year as well? What are you studying now? More Chemistry and more Mathematics or did you decide to try an Engineering subject? How did you go with the dance class, you never mentioned it? Did you enjoy it? Did it help you learn to talk to girls?

Your friend always

Harry

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