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To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Monday 7/18/92 10:00pm (PST)
I thought about what you wrote about magical food while I was cooking last night and I wished that I had access to magical ingredients or even better a magical way to fix my mistakes when cooking. As you can probably gather from that, dinner was a disaster, I let it overcook while I was dealing with Mom's delusions. Is there a spell to unburn or uncook food?
Rebagging or rebranding products to hide the origin of them is illegal in our world, but of course from what you've said, your pureblood witches and wizards wouldn't care about breaking nonmagical laws and you might be right for some products but as you say, the food tastes better and your experiences of nonmagical cooking are your own and the chefs at the restaurant which both should be better than average so it probably isn't magical cooking methods so it has to be the ingredients being less over-refined and the lack of artificial chemicals and additives in your food supply. Though spells that automatically adjust cooking times and temperatures so everything is cooked perfectly might have an impact on many people's cooking skills.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Tuesday 19/7/92 6:11pm (GMT)
I hadn't thought that I might have been magically influenced not to want to learn, if I am it's something that had to have happened right at the end of the year, perhaps specifically to stop me going to summer school or learning more about the nonmagical world or learning things that aren't available to a lower level student at Hogwarts, but I took myself to the infirmary and asked and the mediwitch said that she couldn't find any compulsions on me. She listened to me describe my life before Hogwarts and suggested that it could be that I've just got out of the habit of sitting and reading but that from what I've said I've always been used to doing more physical work or exercise than I'm doing now and reading in my spare time, even at Hogwarts the classrooms are spread out enough that we need to rush from one to the next breaking up the amount of ti. She suggested that I try running a couple of miles in the morning and seeing if that helps me to settle down to less active pursuits for the rest of the day. She also thought that we're a little bit too paranoid to automatically assume that any change in my behaviour comes from an external magical influence (well that I'm paranoid, I didn't mention you). I turned around and told her about what happened when I tried to leave the Dursleys and how my friends at Hogwarts seemed to forget arguments we'd had. I told her about trying to learn occlumency and she is going to try to find someone to come and test my mental shields.
You might be right about the quality of magical books but the textbooks we're using for our literature class are all nonmagical books. They're a little easier to read than the ones you recommend to me though, more about kids and kids issues which I don't really relate that well with, I wish I could have gone up a level in English as well they're reading 'The Hobbit', 'To kill a Mockingbird' and 'Sense and Sensibility' instead of 'The secret Diary of Adrian Mole', 'Are you there God it's me Margaret' and 'Tomorrow When the War Began'. They weren't bad reads but my life has just not been normal enough for anything but a vague sense of envy when I read about happy families, or even average unhappy families where the main character is fretting about their parent's lack of understanding. I can't remember ever being that naïve, and part of me can't help but see the main characters as being too self-conscious and self-centred. To be honest I do still like the thought of you sending me books, you seem to have a knack of knowing what I will enjoy and what will spark my interest or imagination.
PS: I've never heard of a spell to unburn or uncook food. Mrs Finnegan was insulted when I asked and said she'd never needed to look for one.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Tuesday 7/19/92 10:20pm (PST)
I am glad that I seem to be wrong about your frustration with reading and studying being magically induced. I know you don't totally trust the mediwitch but I think you should give it a try and if her advice works then I think you can believe her about this at least. I hadn't thought about how much more exercise and activity you normally do but it makes sense, you've always been much more active than me.
I'm glad you like the books I send you. The truth is that I don't like reading about kids with normal happy families either. Like you said, I just can't relate to them, when I was younger they made me angry that the kids didn't appreciate their families and more like a freak than anything, now it makes me a little melancholy that I would never have what they take for granted, so I understand why you cant relate to those books either, your childhood was even further from that normal happy family experience than mine.
As I told you Mom had a bit of an episode last night but she's fine again this morning, she took her tablets and she seems content, she's not quite in the here and now but she was happy lecturing in the kitchen while I made breakfast and I convinced her to eat before she sits down to correct her essays. Heaven only knows where she gets them all. I think one of her friends at the university printed her out some copies. I hope they're not actually expecting rational corrections and grading from Mom, but if they are I feel sorry for their students. Her grading is pretty fair unless they're writing about a different work than she thinks she's set as the discussion texts. I would ask her friend but if I knew for sure she was actually grading work I'd feel obligated to try to fix it and once I go back to Caltech I wont have time.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Wednesday 20/7/92 6:11pm (GMT)
I ran two mile every 'morning' yesterday after seeing the mediwitch and first thing each 'morning' here, it seemed an easy distance and I've been in the library since breakfast without feeling as restless so it has helped. Dean thinks I'm mad getting up early to run but it's nice and quiet in the 'early morning', it has become a bit more difficult as the time compression goes on when some of our mornings don't necessarily occur in the real morning and the day has warmed up and running around the track soon gets boring, I'm looking forward to the nights we spend at Seamus' place when I can go out running out on the country roads in the cool of a real early morning, though it was difficult this morning to squeeze my run in between helping with the milking and before I came to school, I don't think that I want to try getting up early enough to run before milking.
Dean's finally starting to settle into school better, I think it would have happened a while ago if he wasn't so determined to be loyal to Seamus. The students here look down on people they don't think have magic but unlike at Hogwarts they still embrace nonmagical things like television, movies, books and games and he's found a group of boys to play football with. (Nonmagical football, what you'd call soccer). It's actually a better idea than trying to play quidditch in the gym, we're discouraged from flying out of doors because the time compression wards, or the wards that protect the actual time compression wards, would knock you off your broom if you come too close to them. Seamus and I have joined in a few times but Seamus is still angry with them a lot of the time and I don't want to leave him alone to go off and play. I don't think that Dean would play if Seamus was alone either. Of course, I don't think either of them find hanging out with me very interesting if we 're not playing football or flying either. I've been taking advantage of their library to write to you and to read up on things you talk about, which is something I really miss being able to do at Hogwarts, they even called me Hermione the second the other day (not in a bad way, they really don't know Hermione's insistence that she always knows best like I do) but they try not to leave me on my own too often. By the way, that's not a hint that I don't want you to tell me about what you're learning, I do want to know you always make subjects you're interested in sound so fascinating, just that it's been good to finally go back and look up all the things I wanted to know more about at the time.
Thanks for your words about my parents. They did help but I just want to know more about them. I wish I could meet their friends, someone who really knew them as people, but nobody has even told me who their friends were. The professors at Hogwarts must have known them, most of them have been teaching at school that long, but nobody has said anything to me about them.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Wednesday 7/20/92 10:18pm (PST)
I'm glad that running seems to help and that you're enjoying it. I can't think of many things I wouldn't rather do than exercise, particularly running round and around a track but then again I don't need it to help me concentrate. Perhaps though if you get bored with that on your 'mornings' at school, you could find some other forms of exercise, or someone to run with. You can't be the only person at the school who wants to exercise every day.
I'm glad Dean is starting to enjoy school, his loyalty to his friend and to you is a good sign for them continuing to be your genuine friends if you do need to return to Hogwarts and for trying to keep your secrets if you don't. At least they will have each other and there is no reason to believe that Dumbledore or anyone else will have a reason to spilt up their friendship.
Mom was better when I got home yesterday, we went out into the dessert and had a picnic lunch and spent the afternoon readding to each other in the shade of a rock formation. It's been a couple of years since we've done this and summer isn't exactly the best time for it but we had a good day. Mom didn't forget that I was her son at all, and she remembered that I'm only home for the summer from Caltech. She asked all sorts of questions and actually listened to the answers. It was everything I'd hoped for when I first came home. We even stopped at a dinner for dinner on the way home. She joked that it wasn't because she was tired of my cooking experiments she was just hungry now and didn't want to wait. I suggested to her that I'd like to spend some time cooking with her learning her favourite dishes and she agreed. I hope she feels well enough tonight to remember and to be safe in the kitchen so we can cook together.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Thursday 21/7/92 6:14pm (GMT)
There is a joint chemistry assessment coming up for my new science class but the teacher has already announced that he will be assigning pairs based on the grades for our physics test so nobody should be disadvantaged by being paired with a less competent person and end up having to do all the work themselves to pass. The top students all looked relieved by that but several others looked sulky about it. Hopefully I'll do well enough to be paired with someone decent.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Thursday 7/21/92 10:16pm (PST)
What's your chemistry project on? Is it pure research or is there an practical component to it? Pairing students together for projects based on grades like that is a great idea. I wish some of my teachers had thought of it. It motivates everyone to do their best on the test to get the best possible pair and means the smart kids are less likely to be bullied into doing the whole assignment and letting the bully have the credit. Hope it works out well for you and you make a new friend out of it. At my school they tended to pair the jocks who needed a passing grade to stay on their teams with the smarter students and then turned a blind eye on the fact that one student ended up doing most if not all of the work, it was always a recipe for abuse and the teachers had to have known what they were setting the nerds of the class up for and like when you did Dudley's homework they should have been smart enough to know all the work was done by only one person, they just didn't care so long as the work was handed in and the sports teams remained competitive.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Friday 22/7/92 6:11pm (GMT)
Did I tell you that Hagrid gave me a photo album with photos of my parents as students, their graduation, their wedding, us as a family when I was a baby. He gave it to me the day we left Hogwarts, said he'd written to my parents' friends and they'd sent him copies of their photos for me. But none of them sent me a letter with the photos to let me know they'd be willing to share the stories behind the pictures or answer questions I had about my parents. There were dozens of friends at their wedding and a group of people at my christening as well. The photo even shows that I have godparents. It was great to see what my parents looked like and that we looked like a happy loving family but it would've been better to be able to contact some of these people that were their friends. There's another baby about the same age as me but a bit older in some of the photos. I thought at first that it was Dudley but he's too thin, chubby but not as chubby as Dudley was even as a baby and much nicer looking, Vernon and Petunia aren't in any of the photo's a different couple are in most of the ones with the other boy. I think it might be Neville, the woman and the man both look a bit like him in different ways, but he's never mentioned that we were friends before my parents were killed. I wonder why he hasn't? Come to think about it he hasn't mentioned his parents at all.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Friday 7/22/92 10:19pm (PST)
I wish you had someone who knew your parents around too. Mind you I'm more interested in you having them around looking out for you for the protective factor than anything they might be able to tell you, you really need an adult who is on your side to look after you. Someone you can keep in contact with without them telling Dumbledore where to find you when you transfer schools. But, you do realise that even your parents' friends aren't guaranteed to tell you the unvarnished truth about your parents. They'd think that there are some things that you're not old enough to understand and they'd want you to think well of them. You'd need to be careful in trying to deduce what your parents were like from what their friends are like too. People change as they get older and not everyone that you're friends with now will grow up to be somebody you would choose to befriend if you met them as an adult and they might also have had some friends like Ron or Hermione who they were magically influenced into being friends with or who were so insistent on being their friends that they didn't see that your parents were putting up with them for some reason rather than having genuinely chosen them as friends. Not to mention that your parents' friends fought and survived a war and the rebuilding of their society after the war since they were in school, experiences like that would change a person greatly. I'm afraid that also means that you won't be able to automatically trust them, you don't know who they're true loyalties have been to since your parents died, and Dumbledore seems to have a lot of influence over just about everyone who opposed Voldemort.
As for Neville, if the photo is of him, he was a baby when your parents died. Unless he has a copy of the picture that he sees frequently and has been told about the people in it, he wouldn't remember visiting you, just like you don't remember him or living with your parents. Maybe his parents haven't told him. Didn't you say that he lives with his grandmother so maybe his parents died not long after yours and his grandmother didn't know the two of you used to be friends. Or maybe he just feels awkward making a claim like that on you since you're so famous in that world and you said that you feel annoyed when Ron proclaims to everyone that he's your best friend. Maybe Neville has noticed that and doesn't want you to think he's like Ron.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Friday 22/7/92 6:11pm (GMT)
Thanks for the warning about my parent's friends. I know that even if I managed to find a friend of my parents, I'd have no real reason to trust them. They'd have to have a great explanation why I haven't met them before this. If they really cared about me then where have they been for the last ten years? Particularly my mother's friends who must have at least known enough about Petunia to know that she hated magic and would resent having me dumped on her doorstep like I was. Dad's friends might have been less likely to know what Petunia and Vernon were like but Dad grew up in the wizarding world, surely their inbred distrust of the nonmagical world wouldn't allow them to be perfectly happy leaving me in it without at least checking on me? Why didn't any of them care what had happened to me? Maybe whoever put up those wards at the Dursleys also added wards that kept other people away but I was at Hogwarts for a whole year, people could have tried to write to me.
I want to hate them all for abandoning me but then I remember what happened when we tried to get help from McGonagall and Flitwick at the end of the year. It might have been Voldemort but it could just as easily have been Dumbledore that spelled them to ignore our request for help. In fact, the whole situation with them and the stone could just have been an unintentional side effect of someone having spelled them to ignore me if I asked for help about my living conditions with the Dursleys making the spell a bit too broad, and if that's the case then it probably was Dumbledore unless he's been spelled by someone too which is kind of hard to believe. Everyone has so much faith that Dumbledore is a great wizard and a good man that it would be easy for him to get the drop on anyone to cast a compulsion. But if he's as powerful as people say he'd be hard to compel by anyone weaker than he is. Voldemort probably could have done it if he had full access to his powers but I don't know if he did stuck in the back of Professor Quirrell's head like that.
I think I'd like to ask Neville about the photo. He's a good guy and I'd like to have been better friends with him. It's a pity that it wouldn't be safe for him to know where I was going to school. If he knows about us being friends then maybe his parents told him about my parents too but I don't want to ask him that until I know why he doesn't live with them. I don't want to upset him if they turned out to be killed in the war too. Besides it wouldn't be fair to write to him and pump him for information, get his hopes up that we can be forever friends when I plan on dropping the friendship when I leave the country. Even if it is for his own safety that I'm not going to tell him where I'm going. I will send him a goodbye letter though, it's only fair, Seamus and Dean have known all summer that I'm trying to transfer schools.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Friday 7/22/92 10:19pm (PST)
What you said about compulsions is truly frightening, if they're so easy to cast and hold people under it means that you cannot really trust a single person that even maybe might have been in contact with whoever is casting the compulsions, and since you have no proof who that is or what their real motivations are that means everyone. Though I would think after being so close all summer you would notice if Dean or Seamus started acting differently unless the compulsions were very slowly and subtly applied. The problem is that if compulsion spells are so easy and your average wizards are so lacking in the ability to even think about basic ethics, then even if you manage to get away from whoever is spelling your current friends successfully it doesn't mean that someone else in your new school or your future workplace or town isn't compelling anyone to do what they want.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Friday 22/7/92 6:11pm (GMT)
I can trust you! At the moment there's nobody who knows enough about our friendship to try to compel you to betray me and even if they find out most wizards or witches wouldn't be able to find you. They don't know enough about the nonmagical world.
I also trust that your mind is strong enough and smart enough to recognise the compulsions and fight them off at least far enough to let me know you've been compromised. Perhaps we should set up a code to let each other know that we think we're fine and everything in our letter is the truth as we know it and not intended to mislead or manipulate. I know if the compulsions were strong enough it might make us give the other the code anyway but at least it gives us a weapon to try to fight it, and it would at least let you know whether it was me writing to you and not someone who'd managed to find out about our letters and your address and used magic to let their handwriting look like mine.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
Stay safe everyone.