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To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Saturday 7/23/92 10:00am (PST)
I ran into some other students from my senior year today. Not the football team or anyone else who used to actually bully me thank goodness but they were still there, watching or keeping their heads down, glad that it was me and not them. I don't exactly blame them for that but I didn't want to see them again either. They tried to make awkward conversation and I did too. I didn't want to run away and let them think that I was afraid of them because I wasn't. But their presence brought up memories I'd rather forget. I bet they were all there the day I was tied to the goal posts and not one of them stood up and said that it was wrong. I didn't think that I deserved special treatment for being younger than everyone else at the time but now looking at how concerned Caltech and my housemates have been how they put in the effort to make sure I was safe, I realise that I did deserve to be protected as a kid. I'm sure that none of them would have let the football team pick on any other eleven year old like they picked on me. Under Caltech's code of honour, condoning bullying or watching it happen without intervening is just as much of a breach of trust as bullying someone yourself. I hadn't realised how much that makes me feel safe. The pranks at school can get pretty vicious at times but they're never directed at an individual specifically, or it's not supposed to be and when it is it's because the whole house agrees that they deserve it for their behaviour or attitudes.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Saturday 23/7/92 6:04pm (GMT)
I'm sorry you had to run into them and felt that you needed try to make nice. You should have told them to go to hell. I know that you would never leave a kid five years younger than you to be hurt to protect yourself. I do blame them for not helping you! I hope you weren't the only one feeling bad about meeting again. They deserve to feel ashamed of themselves, they don't deserve to have you trying to make them feel okay about what happened, what they did. And you don't deserve having all those feelings dredged up again. I understand how you feel. It's like the thought of having to see my classmates from Little Whinging primary, not Dudleys' gang I could happily curse them silly if I was allowed to use magic over the summer but the other kids who watched and laughed at me because it was the safest thing for them to do. At least I'm the same age as they are. I'd want to curse them too but I don't think my conscience would let me, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't tell them to shove off and stop pretending if they tried to be my friends now.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Saturday 7/23/92 10:08am (PST)
Thank you.
Thank you for supporting me.
Thank you for believing that I'm better than them.
Thanks for making me feel better about hating them, or at least wishing I never had to see any of them ever again. Thanks for understanding that.
I really did feel better after reading your reply and your right I don't owe them anything and I don't need to keep up a front to try to pretend that what happened didn't harm me. If I run into them again I'll tell them that I don't want to be friendly and the best way they could make amends for what they did is to stay away and not remind me of it.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Sunday 29/7/92 11:01am (GMT)(7pm 2nd day time dilation)
Dean and I are spending our day off at school to give Seamus some time alone with his family and this is only the second day of the time dilation and I can already understand why so few people do it in spite of the extra time to rest and relax. Seamus' parents were grateful though so I guess it's worth it. They'll be more likely to have us stay again next summer if I need to. Seamus and I should have offered to go out on our own one day when the Thomas' both had the day off but we ddint think of it. There's not much to do here outside of classes and reading in the library and the extra time seems to make you more aware that you're trapped inside the school wards. I know I told you I planned to spend the days sleeping but I tried and while I took a nap the first day and have slept later than I can on school days or at the Finnegans, not having to get up and help with the farm chores I wasn't able to spend most or even half of the day sleeping. I've caught up on my sleep and slept as much as I can to try to make up for the next thirty days of school, I also brought my broom with me and have spent a fair bit of time flying but it's just not the same not being able to be outside, the indoor gym is a bit limited for space and there aren't enough people with brooms for even a pick-up game of quidditch though we sometimes manage a game of two on two or three on three with a quaffle after classes on the nights we stay here.
Dean has spent most of our days off at school so far sketching, (or trying to talk the girls into letting him draw them), a few of the girls were flattered by the idea but most are too impatient to sit still for as long as he wants them to, or too self conscious to let him draw them in shorts and tank tops or swim suits like he would like to, or they're older enough not to be interested in a kid like Dean hanging around and tell him to take a hike. He's tried asking me to lend him my invisibility cloak so he can draw girls without them knowing he's there but I'm reluctant to loan it to him because I think the older girls have warded the area on the roof garden they use to sunbathe in and he'd get caught. Rumour has it they sunbathe topless so as not to get tan lines on their backs. Though the cloak doesn't cast proper shadows there is a little bit of a hint of shade so it's not good outdoors on really sunny days. I don't want my cloak confiscated, it's the only thing I have of my Dad's. He was fine when I said no, he told me he wouldn't have asked if he'd realised how important the cloak was to me. He doesn't have anything from his birth father either but he says it isn't so important to him because his stepfather is so great and he's been around since he was a toddler so that's who he thinks about when he thinks of his dad and he doesn't really miss his birth father who he doesn't know anything about and who from the sound of it didn't treat his mother very well.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Sunday 7/29/92 9:02am (PST)
I'm glad Dean understood about you not loaning him your invisibility cloak. I'd be worried that if he had it, he'd be tempted to try to use it to sneak into the girls' showers to draw then naked. A lot of art classes use nude models, they say that by learning how a person's body moves without their clothing pulling at it and distracting you will improve the way you draw movement, but I don't think you could teach yourself something like that without some guidance or that they'd let an eleven or twelve year old into a class like that unless he has a huge amount of talent, and more than average emotional and mental maturity.
I'd like to see some of Dean's drawings, has he drawn any of you? Or Hedwig? Is she well? You haven't mentioned her lately. I assume she came to Seamus' with you. Do you take her to school? Is she enjoying the holiday break or does she miss you sending letters? Though you're probably still sending some.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Sunday 29/7/92 5:55pm (GMT)(9:15am 5th day of time dilation)
Hedwig is well, she came to school with me when I spent the Sunday here bit she hated being trapped inside the wards so I'm glad she never tried on a school day when I would be too busy to give her the extra attention to keep her distracted from being unable to be out in the sky. I think she really misses having letters to send. I'd offer to lend her to Dean to contact his parents but the Finnegan's let him use the phone once a week and he and Seamus don't really write to anyone from school. Neither am I anymore since nobody is writing back and I'm trying not to go back to Hogwarts next year it isn't worth starting up a correspondence I won't want to continue. Luckily, Hedwig hasn't realised that writing emails to you is virtually like sending letters or she'd be really put out, and she's a nuisance when she's sulking at me. She's really liking being at Seamus' parent's farm because she can fly freely whenever she wants and there's plenty of farmland and even some small woods she can fly in which is good because otherwise I'd feel I was neglecting her being at school twelve hours a day and busy with chores for at least another two. She's taken to flying with me when I run of a morning, she flies loops around me barking at me to try to run faster and keep up with her. Mrs Finnegan says that there's enough witches and wizards in the area that nobody will take much notice of her, but Snowy Owls are a protected species as well so I don't have to worry too much about someone taking a pot shot at her. When we were at Dean's I had to keep her inside during the day because there aren't any owls flying about in London. That's the thing, I love her don't get me wrong and she is beautiful but she wasn't the smartest decision to buy for a student who lives in the muggle world with muggle guardians. Even parents that liked their children would probably have concerns about suddenly sharing their homes with what is essentially a bird of prey, let alone one who stands out as much as a snowy owl does. I know Mrs Thomas was wary of letting his sister's near her and Hedwig's been visiting them all year.
I got the top score in the grade on the physics test, which means I'm paired with the smartest other student which would be great if my partner wasn't pissed off with me about it, she's used to being the top student. She reminds me of Hermione almost desperate to be the best for the sake of being the best, not learning for the love of it. Still she'll definitely do a good job of her share of the assignment and I can't see her being nasty about being paired up so long as I do my half of the work. We don't really have to like each other to work together and she's not as bossy or nagging as Hermione is. The project's on distillation so it's all stuff I've read before but it's fun to actually put it into practice and see it actually happen. When it comes to practicals she's as careful as Hermione in potions, all our pracs turned out exactly as they were supposed to, we just need to write it all up now. Would it have been better to have one experiment go slightly wrong the first time so we could write about how we corrected it?
I'm going to send you a pencil drawing Dean did of Hedwig for me, I think he's really captured a lot of her personality in it. I'm sorry that she can't carry letters directly to you so you could get to know her. Dean knows I'm sending it to you, he's going to help me package it up for Seamus' mum or dad to take to the post office for me, and I cast some spells on it that I found in the library here to make it waterproof and crease proof so it wouldn't get ruined in the post, he sends a lot of pictures as presents to friends and family and he stocked up on cylinders for the year since you can't get them at Hogwarts. I taught him the spells and he thinks they're really cool but he can't risk using them to send to muggles who aren't supposed to know about magic without making every effort for the lack of creases to seem normal. You'll need to keep it away from your mum because I think it might freak her out if she tries to rip it up and can't.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Sunday 7/29/92 9:59am (PST)
Congratulations on the top mark in the physics test and good luck with your project. Give your new partner a chance, maybe they're feeling insecure not getting the top grades or maybe someone at home is going to be angry at them for coming second or resents them going to summer school rather than helping out on the family farm or business or something and they're afraid they won't be allowed to come back if they're not the top of their classes. Do you know what school they go to during the year? Or is she one of the students that does work for their family all year and only get to go to school for one month. I don't know how they get away with that with the education department or whatever version of the truancy board that exists in Ireland not to mention child labour laws. She should get over her pique that you beat her marks in the test soon enough and realise that working with someone smart enough to get an outstanding grade on their part of the assignment only improves her own grades. You and your partner don't have to get along well to work together but it would make it easier if you're both at least trying. It would be good for you to make another friend your age who you don't need to dumb yourself down for.
Don't worry about your results, I think at your level it would be better to have a prac go completely right and not have to correct anything or account for unexpected results. After all you had to have the variables approved before you started the experiment. At college level it's always better to have corrections and explanations as long as the prac didn't go wrong because you were being stupid.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Monday 30/7/92 6:04pm (GMT)
Thanks for the advice about the prac, I feel much better now. I couldn't work out how we could make enough of a mistake to get a wrong result without doing something stupid and being marked down for that however well we explained and covered. My prac partner agreed with that argument too. She's a lot nicer now that she can see I'd done the prereading and preparation for the prac and thought about how we could get the best possible mark. She's still upset that I did better on the exam, particularly when she realised that I'm the kid that got moved up from the grade below. I guess you'd know a lot about that sort of resentment. It isn't fair, it's not like we asked to be interested in math and science and be smarter or accidentally learn more than our age level. They could have spent more of their free time reading and learning stuff too.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Monday 7/30/92 10:07am (PST)
Are you still running every morning? I don't think that I could run two mile if I tried, and I wonder if this is the same as the spells, if you run every morning in time compression then you're running ten mile per day? It will definitely have a big effect on your overall fitness if you keep it up. Still if your mediwitch isn't wrong about it being good for you, maybe I should try it. I wouldn't want to run anywhere around here though. I wouldn't want people to think I was running away from bullies or things I didn't have the courage to deal with. And I wouldn't want the people who know Mom to think 'd been urgently summoned home to deal with another incident with her illness or worse, that I was running away from her.
I guess I could start trying to run when I get back to Caltech, but I think I'll probably feel really awkward and I'm not sure where I could run without feeling like people think I'm an idiot. Using the running track would attract too much attention from the jocks and I wouldn't want to embarrass myself in front of my house mates or class mates and the only times none of them are around it wouldn't exactly be safe for me to be out on my own in the dark.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Monday 30/7/92 6:11pm (GMT)
You shouldn't worry about embarrassing yourself running, try to find a park or somewhere you enjoy being and start slowly, perhaps a fast walk or running a few hundred yards or jogging up a flight of stairs as if you're late for a class a couple of times a day. I'm up to three mile most days now and I think I feel better for it. I don't feel like it's too much, which I think I would if it was like the magic. I'm surprised that Hogwarts doesn't have any sort of fitness program even as part of quidditch training. Flying's good for building up strength but not cardiac fitness or endurance. But I guess the ten flights of stairs between the main hall and my bedroom twice a day gave me enough exercise not to notice the lack of it even if I wasn't aware of doing the exercise at the time.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
Wishing every one a happy and safe New Year.