Chapter 89
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A/N Spencer and Harry enjoyed being able to email and used it to have a long conversations with each other almost every day. I will just include the more important parts.
To: Spencer Reid email
From: Harry Potter email
Wednesday 8/7/92 6:03pm (GMT)
Dear Spencer
I have bad news. The headmistress of Ilvermorny can't or won't accept me as a student without transfer paperwork signed by the Headmaster or Deputy Headmistress of my current school. I haven't heard back from Salem Academy yet, but it is a separate school, Ilvermorny is actually in Ontario Canada on an island in the middle of Lake Nipogon not in Massachusetts, though they do take American and international students and is still considered to be one of the premier schools of magic for America, but I expect the Salem headmaster or headmistress probably going to say the same thing, that I need transcripts to be accepted. I've sent a request to McGonagall to send me the transcripts, but I just know that Dumbledore and McGonagall are never going to send them to me, and even if McGonagall does it will mean that Dumbledore will know that I have to go back to the Dursleys to collect the paperwork since I didn't want to tell McGonagall what school to send it to directly. If he's the one behind me being returned to the Dursleys after being beaten half to death he's too invested in manipulating my life to just let me leave. I wrote back to the Headmistress of Ilvermorny and told her that I didn't think that Hogwarts would willingly send my transcripts and that I was willing to start first year again if it meant I could come to her school. I'm waiting to hear back but I didn't want to offer them money from my vault otherwise they might decide to try to force me to hand over my key so they could take the lot.
On a more positive note, swimming lessons are finally starting to go well, I can now swim freestyle from one end of the pool to the other, though Seamus says it still looks more like flailing than swimming, but I still can't float properly, well I can float for as long as I can hold my breath but I float about 15 centimetres underneath the water. Dean and Seamus both think that it's hilarious but I think it's like you said, that it's because I don't have enough body fat. I thought that I was doing better and I've definitely grown and put on weight but obviously not enough. I am getting a tan though and I look healthy. We go to Seamus's at the end of the week and he lives near the coast so he says that he will convince his Dad to take us one day and teach me to swim in the sea. He says that it's very different in the waves. Dean is looking forward to going to the beach too. Dean's also looking forward to going to Seamus's, he says that he loves being home but it will be nice to see all the places that Seamus talks about and not to have to babysit every day. Not that they're bad kids, it's just a big thing to be responsible for their care and safety.
How's your mum this morning. Did your dinner go well last night, whatever it was? Why wouldn't you tell me?
To: Harry Potter email
From: Spencer Reid email
Wednesday 7/8/92 10:09pm (PST)
Dear Harry
If you can't float on the surface of the water it means you're still too underweight to be healthy. I know that you're not used to eating a lot but you need to keep trying to increase your food intake. Otherwise, it will impact your health as you grow older. You probably should see a healer, one that's not working at Hogwarts, since they don't seem to have done anything to fix the problem while you were in the infirmary last year.
I'm sure the principal of a school wouldn't steal from potential students but nor should they be amenable to bribing into accepting students so it's probably still a good thing that you didn't offer money. It is disappointing that they won't accept you without a school transcript but I can't say that I am surprised. I'm sorry I didn't think of that and warn you before this. Did you send them a copy of your end of year report? That might help if you cannot get a transcript. Unfortunately, I doubt that the school would be keen to have a student repeat a year that they do not academically need to. Bored students are usually among the worst troublemakers in a class and if you spent the year reading ahead then you'd only continue the problem for the following year as well.
I am excited about the idea of you being here during the school year, but what will you do over the summer? You probably won't be invited to spend time with your Hogwarts friends and I doubt you'd be invited to spend the summer with your new friends either, they'd expect you to want to go home unless you told them about the abuse which I assume will be a lot less obvious now that you've been away from the Dursleys and eating properly and only doing age appropriate chores for the whole year. I would love to have you here for the summer, or better yet at Caltech if I can spend next summer taking classes. There are much less people in the house during summer semester, you'd still need to hide the fact you were living with me and not just visiting but I'm sure we could manage so long as Ethan doesn't stay for the summer as well, and even if he did I'm sure we could work something out somehow.
I'm glad that you're enjoying the time you spent at Dean's even if you don't enjoy babysitting, I don't think that I would either, the only person younger than me I've ever been able to relate to is you. Are you looking forward to going to Seamus' in Ireland? Will you stay there the rest of the summer? Can you either stay there or go back to Deans? Will you have access to the internet at Seamus' house or will you send me his address so we can correspond my mail without the extra delay of going through an intermediary. I will really miss being able to write back and forth immediately like a conversation.
Mom is doing well now with her new doctor, she trusts them and I'm a lot more confident that I can leave again at the start of the term which I had started to worry about while she was having so many extremely bad days because she didn't trust the medication. I must admit that I'm looking forward to going back to classes, though with Mom doing so well lately I have been enjoying spending quality time with her too.
I made the lamb casserole from your cookbook last night, it's the most complicated thing I've ever made but it turned out really great, just as well because I think we'll be eating it for the next three days. I didn't stop to consider that you were cooking for two hippopotamuses when you made the recipe, next time I try something I will halve the ingredients but would that affect the cooking time? I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about it but I wanted to see if I could do it on my own.
To: Spencer Reid email
From: Harry Potter email
Thursday 9/7/92 6:16pm (GMT)
Since I wrote to you last, I have sent an application to every English speaking School of magic and the Italian and French schools since I think I can speak those languages well enough to get by until I learn more. Even if I don't, there's probably a magical way to translate stuff and spells will still be mostly in Latin.
Having all those applications should make it more difficult for someone to find me. They'd have to put in a real effort and at least slow him down, particularly if my new headmaster or headmistress was willing to take my concerns seriously and deny me being there. I've been as honest about why I feel the need to transfer schools as I feel I can be without making the new headmasters think that I'm exaggerating the problems at Hogwarts.
The problem is that all the other schools of magic are probably the same as Ilvermorny and I don't think any of them will take me without transfer paperwork but I figured that asking for a certified copy of the paperwork for half a dozen schools would at least show McGonagall that I was determined to leave without drawing attention to my correspondence with you and putting you at risk. The thing is though that if someone questions when I sent the applications they'll notice that I sent them to Salem and Ilvermorny first, so that America likely the first place they will look for me, therefore I think that I should probably choose a different school. Hopefully McGonagall will send the transfer to me so I can copy it and send it anywhere I want to go.
I took your advice and included a copy of my school report so hopefully one of these schools will consider accepting me without a transcript, I hate to say it but it's likely to be Beauxbatons in the south of France since they're close enough to have felt the threat of Voldemort in the last war and to have heard of the-boy-who-lived. I'm not really happy about using my fame about my parent's deaths to break a rule to be accepted but it would still probably be safer than returning to Hogwarts.
The main attraction of Ilvermorny and Salem is that they're in the same continent as you are. From the book none of the schools sound much different to each other, in fact I found myself wondering whether the author had actually visited all these schools or even spoken to students or staff or whether they'd just collated the information brochures into a book. After I wondered that I read the section on Hogwarts and it seemed much more comprehensive than any other section but the book was published in England so the author probably went to Hogwarts themselves. He certainly used Hogwarts as the ideal, describing how the other schools failed to measure up to the Hogwarts standard but not one single comment about how any of the schools might be better at something or criticism of Hogwarts. So, I can't really judge their merits accurately. Hopefully the places I applied for will send me a brochure on the school so I can get some more accurate information to base my decision.
How is your summer going? Have you finished the work for your correspondence subjects yet? What are you working on now? How is your mum? Have you had any trouble with the kids from high school?
Things are still going well here with the Thomas'. Mrs and Mr Thomas have been amazing taking us in like this for weeks and Dean and Seamus and I are getting along better than ever, I was worried that having me around all the time would start to get on their nerves because we've never hung out very much at Hogwarts but it hasn't. I took your advice and asked Dean if Ron had said anything to try and prevent us from being friends at school and he said he hadn't said anything about me but he made it clear that he didn't want him and Seamus hanging around the two of us when we're together. I told Dean that Ron wasn't my best friend in spite of what he thought, and that I would rather hang around with him and Seamus than Ron or Hermione but I didn't know how to persuade them of that when Ron keeps deciding he's my best friend even when he hasn't been speaking to me for a week sometimes. I mentioned that I thought he either has memory problems or some ulterior motive for wanting to be my friend but I didn't want to bring up the idea that someone else might be using magic to make him stay friends with me. It seems too farfetched to tell people even though with everything that has happened I'm more and more sure that it's true. I haven't heard from Ron or Hermione at all this summer, so I think that the influence may have worn off. This might be a good chance to visit them and see how they really feel about me but I don't want them to know that I'm not trapped at the Dursleys like whoever tries to keep me there wants.
Seamus has been using the internet to write to his Mum and Dad so they definitely have a computer but I don't know whether I will be able to use it to chat with you or whether I will need to go to the public library which would mean we could write back and forth most days but with the time difference both our libraries are highly unlikely to be open at the same time. Still I'm hoping for the best and I did get money converted at Gringotts when we went to buy my own computer if I can get one that fits in my trunk. I'll look for one near Seamus' house if I can't use theirs.
To: Harry Potter email
From: Spencer Reid email
Thursday 7/9/92 10:24pm (PST)
I've been reading up on Genetics, one of the Biology subjects I thought about taking to better understand the risks of me developing schizophrenia. It is an interesting subject but I think that I'm too emotionally invested in the topic to actually take the course. They are making some progress at isolating gene sequences that are present in people with a particular genetic deficit but of course the more simple ones caused by a particular gene without environmental aspects are easier to identify and more research is being put into things like brain cancers, breast cancer, childhood illnesses than into schizophrenia at this time. One thing that they have managed to determine though is that there doesn't seem to be one particular gene that causes schizophrenia in 100% of people who have that gene. There are other things life events, perhaps chemicals in the environment or contaminants in food, particular medications that increase the risks and the end result is probably a result of several of those things. Which means there is no definite test that can tell me whether or not I will one day suffer from schizophrenia, nor is there likely to be one developed anytime soon, but it also means that there is a good chance that I won't, especially if I avoid certain triggers like recreational drugs. I wish there was a way for me to know if Mom tried taking drugs while she was at university but I don't want to ask her. There wasn't the stigma against experimenting with marijuana back then that there is now because they didn't know how bad it could be for you. Mom wouldn't want to admit it to me now even if she did, it would be like telling me that it's her fault she got sick, when I know it wouldn't have been if she didn't know the risks. I wouldn't blame her for doing what all her friends were doing when they all thought it was safe. It's a scary thought though that something we all think is safe could be doing us harm and we won't find out before it's too late.
I finished my correspondence work; it was a bit disappointing. The work was interesting enough but if I was learning it on my own, I wouldn't have had to waste time writing the essays and completing quizzes. There was an online discussion group. Well a group email but it hasn't been used as much as I had hoped. I was glad to be able to finish it and move on to self study.
Will Professor McGonagall know which schools you have applied for if you actually asked her to send you the paperwork so you could forward it to the schools? And why do you need multiple copies of the paperwork, couldn't you take it to the library and photocopy it? Or is it some magic thing?
I don't think that you should waste your money on a computer unless you're sure that it will work inside Hogwarts, but do you know that for certain it won't, and they just want you to think that you can't use electronics because of the bias against things from the nonmagical world, or so they didn't have to go to the expense of wiring the castle for electricity and paying the bill. It would be easy enough to tell everyone that and nobody would try to bring electronics to test it, of course if there really isn't anywhere in the castle that has electricity you will find it impossible to use. I am sure that they will eventually build a computer that runs on batteries, though I don't think that they have yet. They will need to make a more powerful battery first for it to work, and you would still need to find a way to charge the batteries or get more. I'm also not sure how well batteries would live in a highly magical environment, they don't do well near magnets and things which might be why people say electrical things don't work at the school.
To: Spencer Reid email
From: Harry Potter email
Thursday 9/7/92 6:08pm (GMT)
I heard from McGonagall. She wrote that she cannot send my transfer paperwork without a request from my guardians. I have written to Petunia explaining that I wanted her to send a letter to Professor McGonagall asking for her to send my transfer forms to me to send on to the schools I've applied for and that if I got into one of them I would never return to their house or make contact with them ever again. I even typed and printed the letter for her, and sent it with my request via normal mail to be sure she reads it. All she has to do is sign it and send it to the school when Hedwig arrives and not throw out Professor McGonagall's reply, if it comes to her instead of directly to me. I hope that the thought of never seeing me again is enough to get her to sign it in spite of the fact I clearly want her to and that she's not petty enough to refuse just because it will keep me at a school it's clear I don't want to go to. I thought about asking her to send it via muggle post to me to send in but I didn't want the Dursleys to know where I am if the letter makes Dumbledore or someone go there looking for me and we will be going to Ireland soon. The problem is that I'm running out of time. I very much doubt that Petunia will send the letter to Hogwarts and Professor McGonagall will reply for her in time for me to collect the transcripts from Surrey before we go to Ireland if she sends to them to Petunia and I'm afraid it might be too late to be accepted for this year by the time we get back. Hopefully McGonagall will send the transcripts directly to me by owl, but if it's Petunia asking for them, I'm not sure what she will do.
I think it is a magic thing that you can't use photocopies of the transcripts, the schools ask for original copies of your school transcript made and signed by a professor. I think that they might have some way of checking that I haven't altered it to make myself look better that they couldn't use with a photocopy.
I'm sorry that you now have all these doubts about your mum's schizophrenia. I don't really understand the subject well enough to offer advice. All I can do is tell you that I believe you will make the right decision about whether to ask your mum about whether she experimented with drugs in college. Remember though that when she's having a good day her first concern is about you. It would break her heart if she thought you would turn on her because her Schizophrenia started because of drugs. But she also worries about you when she can, you need to make sure she understands you're asking because of something you've read, not because you've tried drugs yourself or are thinking about doing it. Especially if she did experiment with the wrong drug and she's afraid that you will give yourself schizophrenia too.
To: Harry Potter email
From: Spencer Reid email
Thursday 7/9/92 10:16pm (PST)
Mom and I had a great day yesterday, the best she's been in ages. We went out shopping to all the second hand bookstores in Vegas and found some great bargains, then we had lunch at Binions, the chicken fried lobster there is probably my favourite dinner food ever. After lunch we drove out into the desert and walked a little and sat in the shade of a bluff and read to each other, eating sandwiches and cake. We got back in time for dinner and cooked together. She showed me how to make one of her favourite dishes. I can't help wishing that tomorrow will be like that too but it would take a miracle for it to last more than a day or two. I thought about asking her about what she did in college but I couldn't bear to risk ruining our day. I guess somethings just aren't worth asking.
I know you're disappointed but I understand why Professor McGonagall wanted your guardians to ask for the transcripts, most children don't have the ability to make decisions to study internationally by themselves and any request they made to transfer would probably be spur of the moment and they'd likely change their minds as soon as they got there and started missing their friends. I know you're not most people and Professor McGonagall should know that too but I am sure that Vernon and Petunia would be more than happy to sign the letter to Professor McGonagall if it means that they don't have to have you live with them anymore. Though I also expect that they missed your help with the cooking and cleaning and house maintenance more than they expected to, so maybe they will want you back for a couple of weeks to do the things they've been putting off.
A/N2: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
A/N3: I wish everyone the best in this time. Please stay safe and keep your distance, stay at home if you can.