Chapter 84

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To: Spencer Reid email

From: Harry Potter

Monday 29/6/92 11:35

Dear Spencer

Staying with Dean is a lot of fun, they live in an apartment so it is pretty crowded in Dean's small room for me and Seamus. His Mum is as nice as her letters made her sound and his stepdad accepts Dean as part of the family as much as his sisters. Meeting them made me even more glad that the Dursleys didn't have more children, they're good kids but they follow Dean around everywhere and he looks after them a lot while his parents are working. They're jealous of me and Seamus and can get annoying after a while but I'm trying to be patient with them. I know they missed Dean a lot while he was away at school and it's kind of sweet that they want his attention now even if it is a bit annoying.

When Dean's not babysitting, we spend a lot of time outside in the park and the mall. Dean's a popular guy, he has a lot of friends that were glad to see him back home for the summer and it has been nice to meet them and to have the freedom to hang out in the arcade playing games without being bullied. It's strange, after a year at the castle I find electric lights too harsh and artificial and the constant sounds of traffic and the TV and radio are loud and annoying.

Dean and Seamus though are great, they understood when I wanted some time to myself without asking a million questions like Hermione or dragging me away to play chess like Ron would.

And Dean helped me and Seamus both set up email accounts. I think he knows I wanted it to talk to you but he didn't ask, just set up the accounts and he and Dean went to help his mum make lunch so I could write my emails in private, they said it's my turn to help with the dishes. Maybe they wanted privacy from me as well. I don't mind that, they are best friends after all and it was good of them to include me in their summer holidays.

Neither Ron nor Hermione know that I'm here and I hope I can keep it that way. I can't trust either of them not to tell someone, Hermione because she believes in following orders and she knows that I was told to stay at the Dursleys and Ron because he tends to blurt out secrets when he loses his temper, and I think he'd be jealous that I was spending time with someone other than him though I don't know why. It isn't as if he doesn't have reason to know I don't like him and I honestly don't think he really likes me or Hermione much either most of the time.

Dean's mum has insisted that we spend at least an hour a day completing our summer homework before we leave the house, at this rate we will be finished by the time we go to Seamus' place. It's interesting to study with Dean and Seamus, and I get a lot done, but it doesn't feel like we're working hard. Once we finish our essays we pass them around and read each other's and make suggestions to improve them. It's nice to be able to help and be helped at the same time rather than being lectured to. Dean and Seamus tend to make suggestions and corrections on a separate piece of paper so we don't have to rewrite the essays unless we want to. I think they've noticed that I'm not because the last essay they read had a lot of joke suggestions for it. I don't mean to sound so negative and I am grateful for Hermione's help and she has become a little less condescending when she tries to help us since becoming our friend but she makes me feel stupid in a way you never did though I'm sure she's nowhere near as brilliant as you are. And Ron just tries not to study at all until the very last minute and then whines for Hermione to do the work for him. They've had some arguments about it but she ends up doing most of it. And then she resents it, problem is that it seems that she resents me too when I never even asked her to look over and correct my essays, and she does it with ink on the actual essay so even if I didn't want to make the changes she demands I'd have to write it out again. I would like to study with Seamus and Dean more next year but they refuse to study with Hermione and it would hurt her if I studied with them all the time instead and she did get a lot better once we had that talk after she got over her huff about me refusing to help move that baby dragon. Outside of lessons, Mrs Thomas is a lovely lady even though she's often tired from working she's always interested to hear her children talk to her about their day or their thoughts and stuff.

I guess I forgot to tell you some stuff about what happened the night Professor Quirrell went after the stone. I told you that we tried to tell Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick. We went to McGonagall first and when she refused to listen to us, I lost my temper a bit and told her off about not ever doing anything to help us and then punishing us for trying to sort problems out on our own. I mentioned the letter I sent her and she said she never received it. I don't know whether someone intercepted it or she was made to forget it, anyway she listened after that and was getting up to gather a group of professors to check on the stone when I saw her eyes cloud over and she sat back down as if nothing was wrong. Ron and Hermione wanted to go after the stone themselves then and there but I insisted that we try to ask Professor Flitwick for help. He's clearly only part human and I hoped that would mean he was resistant to whatever was affecting Professor McGonagall, unfortunately he wasn't. I was watching closely and the same thing happened. Hermione noticed but didn't know what it meant and I don't know why none of the others noticed it seemed obvious to me but they haven't grown up in a household where they have to notice small changes in expression like we have. So, there was no help available from the professors, it would've been a waste of time to try again. We also broke into Dumbledore's office and tried to call for outside help from the magical police, called Aurors, but unfortunately the floo required a password. The floo is the only way to send an instant message to someone, you throw some magical powder into the fireplace and when the flames turn green you can either step into the fire and call the address where you want to go or call the address and stick your head in the fire to talk to someone like a telephone. Terribly inconvenient, to kneel with your head in the fire but I would have been happy to try it to get help. Neville said the Aurors have a message spell but the only other way to communicate in the wizarding world is to send an owl and I regret that I didn't now but at the time I didn't think it would be fast enough to do any good. It wouldn't have helped with Voldemort at the time but at least it would have other people knowing what is going on in the school.

One other thing I'm not sure if I told you or not, after Quirrell died and the Voldemort smoke thingy left, Dumbledore was there. I didn't notice him arrive so I don't know if it was a coincidence that he arrived just half a second too late to do anything or if he'd been standing there for a while and chose not to do anything to help me. I'm not even absolutely sure I saw him there at all, the memory is a bit hazy like it might not be real.

I understand your warnings about the Weasleys and I agree completely. I don't know if I can trust Ron, his tendency to blurt things out without thinking when he's angry means I don't think he can be deliberately or knowingly hiding some secret plan from me, but I'm pretty sure his mother has some sort of agenda for me whether it is her own or on Dumbledore's orders I don't know but she almost worships the man as much as Hagrid does. Ron and I aren't on good terms at all so I have no idea why she has invited me to spend part of the summer. Mind you he doesn't really have any other friends it would make sense to invite either. But he also has a house full of siblings. Surely, they don't all get to have friends come and stay, the house would be overrun.

I don't know if it is possible to send spells through the mail like that but if it is I give you my unconditional word that I will never do that to you without telling you and that nothing I send will harm you in any way.

Your friend always

Harry

Harry hit send as Dean had shown him and wondered how long it would be before Spencer replied. He thought about the time lines and realised that it was still 0400 in California and reluctantly shut the computer down.

-o0o-

"Harry, can I talk to you in the kitchen for a moment?" Amala Thomas asked hesitantly as he finished his lunch.

"Sure Mrs Thomas," Harry said, getting up. Dean gave him an odd look.

"What's up? Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry if I did, I'll try to do better," Harry said.

"Relax Harry, you've been the perfect houseguest," Amala said smiling. In fact, it worried her how perfectly Harry behaved. He was always jumping into helping out with the housework and cooking and his cleaning skills wouldn't have been out of place in a top five star hotel. It just wasn't normal for a boy his age.

"I just wanted to know a little more about Spencer. Is she your girlfriend?" Amala asked.

"No, Spencer's not a girl, he's kind of like my big brother. I stayed with him when the Dursleys took me to Las Vegas three years ago," Harry said.

That raised all sorts of alarm bells with Amala. She already had suspicions from his behaviour that Harry had not only been worked like a servant and neglected but also physically abused so to hear that his relatives had left him with a young man frightened her. Consoling herself that it obviously hadn't been a traumatic experience since Harry was so keen on keeping in touch with Spencer but that didn't mean that an eighteen or nineteen year old was an appropriate friend for a child Harry's age.

"How old is Spencer? He must be a lot older than you if he's in college," Amala asked.

Harry grinned and shook his head. "Spencer's a genius, he graduated high school at twelve years old," Harry replied.

"You didn't say how old he is now," Amala reminded him.

"He's fourteen. There's nothing wrong with him being my friend, he's been very good to me. Until this year he was my only real friend. Please don't say you won't forward our letters anymore," Harry begged anxiously.

"Oh Harry of course I'll keep sending on your letters when you go back to school. I just needed to know he wasn't hurting you. There are a lot of dangers out there for a child whose guardians aren't careful enough with them,"

"You mean guardians who don't care what happens to them," Harry said quietly. "It's okay Mrs Thomas I know they've never cared and I've done alright for myself up 'til now. I wish Spencer was older so I could go and live with him but he isn't, and his Mum isn't really well enough to look after him let alone me, Spencer looks after her as best he can with some help from her sister and best friends."

"I know you have, Harry. You've done a marvellous job of bringing yourself up," Amala said hugging him. "But remember that a lot of the time growing up is about knowing which advice to listen to and which advice you should ignore. And I'm afraid I agree with Spencer, no matter how intelligent he is, he isn't old or mature enough to have custody of an eleven year old, even one as self-sufficient as you are."

"I know that Mrs Thomas. But Spencer has always given me good advice, even when I couldn't always follow it," Harry said.

"What advice couldn't you follow?" Amala asked curiously.

"He told me to go to the police and report Vernon the next time he beat me and I tried but the next morning I woke up back at the Dursley, I've been healed, there weren't even any scars, and everyone had forgotten the whole incident. I had no evidence it even happened other than Spencer sending me a photocopy of the letter I sent him on my way to the police station and the fact that even all the old scars around the injuries I told him about had been healed," Harry said very quietly.

"That could only happen with magic. Someone wanted you to stay in my relative's house and be abused?" Harry noticed that Amala looked scared and thought that she was worried someone would come and take their memories of him staying with them. "Nobody from that world except Dean and Seamus know where I am. I'll tell them not to mention me if they write to anyone," he offered.

"Who would want you to be abused?" Amala asked.

"I don't know who did it," Harry admitted. "But I don't know if they want me abused. After it happened Vernon didn't lose his temper and hit me for months. Even Dudley started bullying the other kids in the neighbourhood and left me alone unless his friends were egging him on."

"Vernon is your uncle and Dudley your cousin?" Amala clarified.

"Yeah that's right but they don't want to be related to me any more than I want to be related to them so I try to ignore that fact, actually it's Vernon's wife Petunia that was my Mum's sister, it's just my bad luck that she married such a complete tosser," Harry replied.

Amala chuckled. "So you think that you're safe here?" she asked.

"I think so. I didn't tell anyone I was coming here, but I'm a little disappointed my other friends haven't been in contact. I thought that if they sent me an owl post it would come to me not to the Dursleys just because the sender thought I was there," Harry said.

"Dean said he was surprised that you wanted to spend most of the summer with him and Seamus instead of your best friends," Amala said.

Harry shrugged. "My other friends were warned off inviting me for the summer. Dumbledore wanted me to go back to the Dursleys. He didn't think to warn off Dean or Seamus because he didn't think we were close friends because we don't hang out outside of the dorm but I think that Dean knows me better than anyone else at Hogwarts." Harry didn't tell her that he wasn't sure if Ron or Hermione were true friends or if they were being used, either willingly or unwillingly by someone else to try to control him. He was afraid Mrs Thomas would think that he was crazy and discount what he'd said earlier if he did and it was more important that she believed that someone had taken his memories and returned him to the Dursleys and that it was safer for her if she didn't mention him to any witches or wizards, or try to have him removed from the Dursley's custody. He didn't want to risk his connection to Spencer becoming compromised.

"You think you're being watched at school?" Amala asked.

Harry shrugged, "I don't know who in that world I can trust. Dean comes from outside it so I can trust him, Hermione does too but she has far too much respect for all forms of authority," he replied. "Dumbledore placed me with the Dursleys in the first place and he insisted that I had to go back for the summer when I asked him to find me a new place to live, which makes him the prime suspect in wiping memories and returning me there after I was assaulted by Vernon last year."

"Do you think you're safe at school? Is Dean safe?" Amala asked anxiously.

"Dean's safer than I am but the professors will tell you that I go looking for trouble. I don't think I do, it just seems to come looking for me," Harry said self depreciatingly. "Some of the problem is that there are students at school whose parents supported Voldemort, the Dark wizard who tried to take over the wizarding world who I supposedly stopped when he killed my parents when I was a baby. Some of whom only went to jail because they were able to be rounded up after their master was defeated that night. And then there's the fact he's not as totally dead as he should be and was responsible for most of the trouble I got into last year. I'm his number one enemy, not because I killed him as a baby because I really don't think I could have but because everyone thinks I did. My ongoing survival is an embarrassment to him and a barrier to him taking over the wizarding world because the public seem to have this stupid expectation that I can do the impossible."

"He's going to try to kill you?" Amala asked shocked.

"He tried twice last year and he's still not properly dead so he will come back again," Harry said bluntly.

"Do you think you'd be safer going to school somewhere else?" Amala asked.

"Definitely, but I don't think I'd be allowed to go anywhere else," Harry said despondently. "I think I'd be dragged back and forced to go to Hogwarts."

"But you don't expect them to come and drag you back over the summer? Do you think they know you're not where you're supposed to be?"

"That depends if the person watching my relative's house is from Hogwarts or not," Harry said thoughtfully. "If he's watching again then he or she knows I'm not there but whether they know I'm supposed to be there or not is the question. Even if he does know I don't think he'd think to look here, he'll try to check Ron's Hermione's and Neville's first and I think Neville would write and warn me if someone was looking for me, or at least write to check I was okay since he doesn't know where I am either."

"Okay, I won't worry too much about that then. Maybe I should write myself a note in case you disappear in the night and I forget you were here?" Amala asked.

"It would certainly ease your mind that you might be made to forget but even if it did happen and you read the note you shouldn't try to get in touch with me directly, they might be watching for that to make sure none of you remember and it might not be safe to let them find out their spell removing the memories didn't work," Harry replied thoughtfully.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.