Chapter 73

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Monday 3/16/92

Dear Harry

You did the right thing telling Professor McGonagall about Hagrid having a dragon egg, from some of the stories in the books you've sent me a dragon fire is capable of burning down a stone building and almost impossible to put out or to fully heal the damage done by it. A school full of curious teenagers is no place to be trying to raise a baby dragon without any of the safety protocols to protect the students. I wonder that Dragon eggs are so easily come by, I wouldn't have thought that the mother dragon would willingly part with one and stealing an egg from one sounds insanely dangerous, you would think that the eggs would be incredibly valuable to collectors even if they don't have any use in potions. Your friend Hagrid sounds a little more simpleminded in your last letter than your earlier stories of him suggested. I can't imagine why Professor McGonagall hasn't done anything about it before it hatched though. I would've thought that it would've been kinder not to let Hagrid get attached to a baby dragon since there is no way he could keep it safely unless he left the school and went with it somewhere they keep dragons, like a wildlife park or something. I'm not ashamed to admit that what you said about the dragon being as smart as a Velociraptor gave me a nightmare last night because everything in the books says they are just as vicious and deadly. If that dragon stays where it is then nobody in your school is safe.

What you said about Ron's wand makes a lot of sense, there's no reason to make a fake wand look old unless they deliberately want to look poorer than they are, and the only reason I can think of for doing that was if a lot of their income was illegally obtained. But even then most thieves aren't smart enough or are too confident in their ability not to be caught to go that far with hiding expenditures. It might explain what happened at Christmas though, insisting that they're poor and sending the children to school with all second hand supplies, encouraging them to complain and draw attention to the fact they can't have new things to hide the money and then being able to afford an expensive holiday to Romania.

Neville not having a new wand is more curious but you said he lives with his grandmother, the wand could've been one of his parents' and he wants to use it for sentimental reasons or the money could be tied up so only the head of house could access it and Neville won't be able to until he's an adult, or entailed into another branch of the family. I know that's very old fashioned and not done in the regular world these days but who knows what is still in practice in the wizarding world.

But you know if Dean's muggleborn and Ron and Neville both have old family wands that only leaves you and Seamus as possibly having a fake wand in your dorm. So, it might be more rare than you hypothesised to have a fake wand. After all, nobody ever even hinted at you that it was done, you just decided after hearing that using a wand would stop accidental bursts of magic. What about the girls in Gryffindor, the only one you've really told me about is Hermione. I know you don't hang out with them because you think they're giggly and silly about the-boy-who- lived nonsense but are they purebloods? Are they good at magic? What about the students in the other houses, are any of them using an obviously old or second hand wand?

I think that it's possible that teenagers stop doing accidental magic because they bond to their wands and stop believing that they can because that's what everyone tells them will happen. It's also possibly that wands do make using magic so much easier that it does reduce the amount that a person's magic grows. After all you were using so much magic at first that you had to take a nap after using it and that wouldn't be practical at school. Remember that it took weeks to learn a single new use for your power and months for the power to build up again to the point it came out uncontrollably. Though needing time to nap or at least not do much of anything for hours would be a reasonable reason for why you apparently don't have time to learn English math chemistry biology physics geography politics history languages drama music art physical education and a heap of other things you should all be learning.

I wouldn't try to post me a disposable camera airmail. All airlines X-ray their packages and I think that would destroy the pictures. I think you could send it sea-mail though and write on it that it contains film. See if that would work.

I'm glad you're spending time with other friends than Ron and Hermione, remember that just because you have no reason to think that your other friends have been influenced by whoever is keeping an eye on you before now it doesn't mean that they won't be in the future. If they suddenly start avoiding you don't be hurt until you've managed to calmly ask them what's going on. If the powers that be want you to be friends with Ron that badly, they might try to drive away the others if you seen to be closer to them or Ron starts to object too loudly. I don't want to stop you from trusting them but I also don't want you to take it personally if they are influenced into staying away from you. I guess there's a fine line between being able to spend enough time with them to develop a genuine friendship and keeping that friendship away from the attention of whoever's watching you so their memories aren't interfered with.

Your friend always

Spencer

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