More than Penpals

by raspberry dreams

Harry and Spencer meet as children (timelines adapted to make Spencer two years older than Harry). Even though they only spend three weeks together, having the support of a friend, even one he can only communicate with by letter, transforms Harry's attitudes to life and those around him and may even help save his life and win a war.

91. Chapter 91

Chapter91

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Criminal Minds or any of their characters. I do however own this story, I wrote it and I do NOTgive permission for anyone to post it anywhere else. If you want to share it post a link.

A/N: I have changed the dates of letters and emails from Chapter 83 onwards to make this chapter earlier in the summer because I had too much to fit in before September 1st.

To: Spencer Reid

From: Harry Potter

Saturday 11/7/92 6:04pm (GMT)

We're at Seamus' place now and his mum is a witch, though his father is nonmagical and as you can tell from the fact that I'm sending you this letter late at night, they live in a mostly nonmagical home with normal technology, so I can access email here too, as you can tell. The Finnnegans are happy for me to use their computer every night after we finish cleaning up after dinner and our chores so it will be an hour or so later than when we were at Dean's. I asked her about the electronics because Hogwarts told us they wouldn't work around magic and she says that the magic she and the kids do doesn't seem to affect the electronics in the house so long as they don't cast spells directly at the TV or computer so she's not sure why a computer wouldn't work at Hogwarts if they wired it for electricity, but she doesn't have a way to make one work without electricity. She also hasn't ruled out the possibility that Hogwarts has deliberately set wards to stop radio's and battery operated electronics from working. She suggested that it may have been done as a way to keep the wizard raised ignorant about the benefits of the muggle world, to help the pureblood minority maintain their sense of superiority, and that the school she went to had no problems with radios and cassette players, they even had a television room.

I asked her about what you said about the hideout seeming to be protected and she said that the only magic that can keep a house or place safe from pests and intruders like that would be wards but they are very complicated high level advanced magic, not all witches and wizards are even capable of casting them. I don't think I could have done it with accidental magic. Mrs Finnegan had never heard of anyone being able to cast long lasting accidental magic, she said that it normally wears off in an hour or so no matter what you've done. So perhaps there was a wizard in that room in the past that cast the charms, perhaps when the building was actually in use, or maybe if someone did come to investigate the accidental magic I cast there the first time they would have seen me there alone and might have cast some basic wards to try to keep me safe. Though if they cared enough to do that, I don't know why they wouldn't have taken me in and tried to find out why I was out on the streets alone at night at that age. Still I know British wizards don't seem to do anything the sensible way so maybe American wizards are the same and it didn't occur to them that a nine year old kid on his own needed more than just a few wards to give him a safe place to sleep whether they were magical or not.

Apparently, there are lots of different wards available, and the wards on the Dursleys were definitely deliberately set to harm me like the goblins inferred they were. One of Mrs Finnegan's sisters who was there when we arrived is a ward caster and when I asked her about the wards on the Dursleys, she could see no positive reason for casting wards like that except to harm me, there was no protective benefits for having them that way. Wards like that are normally used on prison cells and patients whose magic has fractured and is violently out of control, not kids who are just trying to protect themselves. The wards here on the farm protect the family and guests on the farm, the buildings the animals without taking any magic from anyone to do all that.

You were right, I did like the ferry ride and it was great to be able to walk around out in the fresh air and watch the water rush by after the hours cooped up in the train. Mr Finnegan met us and we had fish and chips fresh off the docks and walked along the shore of the inlet a bit before getting in the car. The Finnegans live within about twenty minutes walk from a small town Glendalough in County Wicklow just over an hour's drive south of Dublin. It's very pretty and rural. A bit like Hogwarts though nowhere near as cold. There's a ruined castle here too, but Seamus assures me that this one is genuinely fallen into ruins and not just warded to look like that to people without magic like Hogwarts is. He said that it's also genuinely haunted but I think he's having us on. What sort of ghost would want to hang around a bunch of old rocks by themselves, haunting nonmagical people who can't even see him?

To: Harry Potter

From: Spencer Reid

Saturday 7/11/92 10:15am (PST)

Hi Harry

I'm glad that the Finnegans are okay with you using their computer to email me so we can be available at the same time to 'talk'. What are they like, are they nice people? It was nice of them to let their son stay with his friends and then have friends over to stay. I would have thought that they'd want him home as soon as possible after his first year at boarding school. It must have been hard for Mrs Thomas to let Dean go to Ireland too, when they have so little time with him during the school year. They care a lot about their sons' happiness.

From what Mrs Finnegan said about wards I can't help but think that you or someone somehow did cast protective wards on the hideout in spite of the fact she said it wasn't possible to do it with accidental magic. You've been doing things with wandless magic that you've been told is impossible for years now. Maybe the wards were there before I met you, because I always felt safe there even when I didn't feel safe anywhere else, though that feeling got stronger after you stayed there so you're accidental magic reactivated or strengthened the wards. But that definitely means that whoever set the wards at the Dursleys is definitely your enemy and the fact that Dumbledore insisted that you go back there makes him the most likely suspect, though his refusal to listen to you about your treatment there and the fact you never told him about what the wards were doing still makes it possible that he's just an egotistical fool who can't admit that he was ever wrong about anything. What I don't understand though is why whoever it was tried to weaken your magic and yet they healed you when you were nearly fatally injured. It would have been just as easy for him to make your injuries just a little worse and lock you in. With the new wards you wouldn't have been able to escape again or to heal yourself. You would have died and nobody would suspect that he had anything to do with it, for some reason he wanted you to live. Or perhaps wanted you to survive, is a better term since they didn't want you to grow healthy and strong. They took a big risk though, that Vernon wouldn't lose his temper and try to beat you to death again while they'd blocked your magic to the point that it couldn't protect you or try to keep you alive long enough to get out of the house and get help. Is there a way that Vernon and Dudley could have been spelled not to want to beat you that badly again?

What Mrs Finnegan said also confirms that you should never go back to the Dursleys' house, in fact you should never even set foot in that neighbourhood since the wards were extended to include all the way to your elementary school. You need to find another place to stay. Can you stay with Seamus or Dean for the rest of the summer?

To: Spencer Reid

From: Harry Potter

Saturday 11/7/92 6:21pm (GMT)

Seamus' house is very different from Dean's even though it's still mostly non-magical. It's an old farmhouse on land which his Dad's family have farmed for hundreds of years. Mr Finnegan says the house was built in the fourteenth century, and evidently people were smaller then because Mr Finnegan's hair brushes the top of the doors if he doesn't duck his head, and he isn't particularly tall for an adult. We're sleeping in the hayloft because Seamus' room is too small for the three of us and his mum says she doesn't want to put up with our noise. Seamus says there's such a thing as expansion charms and silencing charms but I don't know why she didn't want to do that. Maybe the house is too old and fragile, or they take too much magic to cast, or might affect the electrical wiring, but Dean said he thought Mrs Finnegan doesn't want to trust us to spend too much time with Meaghan, or perhaps she doesn't want to seem too controlling. Seamus' mum didn't go to Hogwarts and he said she was really excited that Seamus got an invitation to attend. Meaghan is Seamus' little sister, she doesn't try to follow Seamus around and spends most of her time with her schoolfriends, Seamus says she's a witch but I haven't seen her do any magic. She's ten but she won't be eleven until October so she doesn't go to Hogwarts next year if she gets a letter which Seamus said they don't know if she will or not, he thinks she will. I think that Mrs Finnegan would rather she stays home and goes to the Irish school for magic, even though it only goes up to OWLs. The Irish school is only about twenty minutes walk from here so it seems really odd that Seamus came to Hogwarts instead of going there.

Seamus mum is very strict about things like being on time for meals and completing your chores on time. On the other hand his Dad is very laid back and if Seamus had plans to meet friends and asked him to he will help with the chores his mum wouldn't let him out of. Like I said we're out in the hayloft and unless there are wards I don't know about, nobody tells us when to stop mucking about and go to bed or even checks that we're in the loft and not out roaming around the farm or sneaking into town. Still Seamus warned us that his Dad will get us up really early to help with the milking so by the end of the day we will want to go to bed at a sensible hour and his mum won't need to worry about nagging us.

It's peaceful at Seamus's in spite of being busy with chores, and I'm almost regretting that I don't get to spend the next month with them instead of at school. I've learned how to feed the chickens collect the eggs and milk a cow. I've also learned the incantations and wand movement for the spells to milk the cows but we can't use magic over the summer away from school. The milking spell isn't very efficient anyway but Seamus' Uncle Johnny, his mum's brother who is a wizard and has his own farm nearby, said that wizards mostly use the milking spell on wild beasts where it isn't safe to milk them manually and he still milks the cows the muggle way because you get more milk and it's better for the cows. There's also a spell to force hens to lay eggs but Seamus said his dad and his uncle would both take a strap to him for animal cruelty if he tried it on them. Seamus' mum has also shown us a lot of housekeeping spells for cleaning and laundry and cooking. Witches seem to like using magic for everything even when it isn't the most efficient or effective but mostly I can see it could be a great help. She spells the potatoes to peel themselves while she prepares the meat and other veg and then the dishes to do themselves while she packs away the leftovers and cleans the table. Other spells are like that too she casts the spell to do the bulk of the work but still has to do the small things to finish it up properly by hand. She's explained the spells to us and showed us the book she learned them in. I was interested but Dean and Seamus weren't much, they like magic to be cool and showy and loud. Or against the rules in some way. Seamus spent most of last year trying to turn water into rum. I haven't the heart to tell him I think that I can actually do it. Or at least I can turn water into the whisky that Vernon likes to drink, except that they don't get as mean when they're drinking the whisky I made. Vernon and Marge never noticed the difference in any case.

I can't ask Dean or Seamus to let me stay the rest of the summer. They've been amazingly generous to let me stay as long as they have. Neither of them has had any just family time all summer. Mrs Thomas would possibly have agreed but I think that Dean is actually going to stay here for an extra week or two after I leave. Ron talked about inviting me for the last two weeks though I haven't heard from him yet that doesn't mean he's changed his mind. I didn't expect to hear from him much over the summer, he's too lazy to be a good letter writer unless his mother is sitting him down and forcing him to write. That leaves a week or two. I'll stock up on food and I'll be fine. I would ask Neville if I could stay there, but the impression I get is that his Grandmother is very strict and incredibly hung up on proper manners and I'm worried that she would think asking for an invitation to stay would be unpardonably rude. I don't want to get on her bad side or to make things harder for Neville, though I would like to spend some time with him too. It seems wrong to stay with or plan to stay with all three of our other dorm mates and not him.

The Dursleys won't hurt me if they know I'm going to be collected within a fortnight by a witch or wizard who likes me enough to care if I'm covered in bruises. And the wards don't have a permanent effect. They can't do too much damage in two weeks when I lived with them for more than six months after they were strengthened last time.

As for Dumbledore we've known for a while that he doesn't have my best interests in mind and while we don't know his motives, it really doesn't matter too much why not. He is an enemy whether he had anything to do with the new wards at the Dursleys or not. I won't forget that. Nor will I forget that when we needed them, we couldn't count on any of the professors for help because they'd been spelled to ignore us, and there was no absolute proof that it was Voldemort and Quirrell who had messed with their minds to prevent them stopping him getting the stone or Dumbledore wanting us to fight him on our own for some reason. Even with Vernon's violent episodes, I'm not in any more danger in Privet Drive than I am at Hogwarts. (I know you'll tell me that I shouldn't go back to Hogwarts either and I'm working on that, but I can't just leave everything, nobody is going to rent a room to an almost twelve year old kid on their own).

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to have as much time to email you as I had at Dean's and my ability to contact you is going to be a bit erratic over the next month. Mr and Mrs Finnegan have arranged for me to go to summer school in Ireland with Dean and Seamus. I want to keep in touch but it just depends how much homework I have to do each night to complete a whole semester in a month. They told us today after dinner, Mr Finnegan is going to take us shopping for supplies tomorrow so it might be late before I can contact you, and classes start on Monday. They have a one month super intensive program, and we're going to completed a whole semester of English, Humanities, mathematics and science, so I'll still be half a year behind and as intensive as the course is, it is probably not going to be enough subjects to count but it should help if I ever decide to leave Hogwarts and go back to normal schooling. I'm looking forward to the classes but hopefully intensive isn't just a code for masses of homework every night otherwise I'll never have time to talk if Seamus' mum insists I finish it before logging onto the computer.

Seamus is totally disgusted with his Dad for deciding to make him get a nonmagical education

and hopping mad that his Mum agreed with him, and Dean tried to argue but his mother thinks it is a good idea too. I just hope we can all keep up with the workload as well as second year Hogwarts' classes. I should be able to, I had a lot of free time to research spells and things last year, the only problem was making sure nobody noticed. I'm not sure if I want to try to keep this a secret too but it's probably out of my hands, I doubt Dean and Seamus will care who knows about it or understand why I want to keep it secret, and people will see me receive and send papers at the same time as Dean and Seamus, even if I don't sit and work with them. I think that I will want to work with them though, studies are more interesting when they're shared with someone.

To: Harry Potter

From: Spencer Reid

Saturday 7/11/92 10:38pm (PST)

You don't need me to tell you that I'm thrilled that you're going to summer school to keep up your nonmagical education. But the really great thing about going to school this summer is that if they take boarders then now you know about it you could arrange to spend that month there every summer if you don't get into an international school of magic. It would be four weeks that you didn't have to ask anyone to take you in and you will benefit from the classes as well and it would make it possible for you to get a decent job in the muggle world or even to go to university if you wanted to leave the magical world when you finish magical school. It should be easier to get someone to invite you for the remaining weeks of the summer, unless the school actually runs the whole summer and you've only been enrolled for this month? That would be good. I know that spending the entire summer at school might not be everyone's idea of fun but I know you love learning and it would at least be safe, and not have the embarrassment of being in an orphanage or foster care or having to trust that your new guardians will treat you better than the Dursleys and let you return to a boarding school they've never even heard of.

Is it a good school? With motivated teachers that will let you work ahead at your own pace? Is there a decent library for you to follow your own interests?

How angry are Seamus and Dean about being in summer school, have they forgiven their parents for sending them yet? Have they realised that you were happy about catching up on your nonmagical education? I hope they don't resent you for being happy about being at summer school. I used to wish that I had classes to go to over the summer, though I was always happy to get away from my classmates for the summer. No matter how motivated I was to learn everything I could, self study can only go so far, though I am much happier with university level classes than high school classes.

I'm not going to nag you about finding an alternate plan for the rest of the summer today but please keep trying. Maybe you should try asking the owner of the restaurant if you can sleep in his store room for a couple of weeks if you feel that you really need to be in Little Whinging. Or I'm sure that Hermione would be happy for you to visit her. If not then perhaps there's a hotel in Diagon Alley where you could rent a room, though you'd have to stay out of sight to be safe.

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

I wish everyone the best in this time. Please stay safe and keep your distance, stay at home if you can and take care of your mental and emotional health as well.