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To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Tuesday 7/31/92 9:50am (PST)
Happy Birthday Harry!
I hope that Mrs Thomas received my present in time for Dean to pack it when you left the Thomas's or to send it along to Dean already so you get it today, and that they didn't cave and give it to you early, but I'm sure Mrs Thomas will forward it on to you next time Dean writes to his mom and dad if you didn't. I brought you a couple of novels I enjoyed when I was younger. They're intended for fourteen to sixteen year olds but I know you read above your age range and these are more interesting than books for readers your age, many of which you've already read on my recommendation before you started Hogwarts. They're not inappropriate other than perhaps in the level of violence which after what happened at school I know that you don't need to be overprotected from and in my opinion violence is easier to read about than sex before you're ready for it. Some of them are some of the better novels you might study in school here in America and the others are just well written and interesting. If you're interested, I can send the essay topics that go with the school books but don't feel that you have to write the essays unless you want to. I just want you to enjoy them, and I know that sometimes having prompts to look at more than one point of view can be interesting.
I have also sent you a set of cassette tapes for learning Spanish which you should get in the next couple of days, I got the beginner set and the next one up because I wasn't sure how far you'd managed to get on your own but there are several other more advanced sets available here, when you're ready for them let me know and I'll buy them for you.
Harry, I couldn't walk up five flights of stairs let alone ten, I don't think that I ever could have done it so what happens to children who aren't fit enough when they start school to get up to bed? I'm not exaggerating Harry. I tried it today and I only got up four flights before I was puffing so much that I had to stop and rest. It has motivated me to exercise more, I know I used to be fitter than this before Caltech, because I got plenty of exercise trying to avoid the bullies but now I spend so much time studying and working in the labs and the only exercise I get is walking between the dorms and my classes. I'm quite disappointed in myself.
I quite like the idea of a code word or phrase and I'm a bit ashamed of myself for how enthralling I find it, it's very secret agent or spy craft stuff and I'm supposed to be more sensible and grown up than that. I'm almost a post graduate student. I think that the phrase should be something nonmagical so whoever it is doesn't understand it and something that twelve year old boys would normally argue with their friends about. I admit that stumped me for a moment because I never was a normal twelve year old and you live almost entirely in the wizarding world and your only real contact with the nonmagical world are at wizarding school with you. Then I overheard a couple of kids on the bus arguing about the best comic movie hero, one said superman and the other likes batman. So I thought our code should be that argument, then if something is wrong we could say we like X-men or Deadpool or Hellboy. If we read a comment about anyone other than Superman and Batman and we know not to trust anything in the letter is genuine. I thought about expanding the code so Deadpool meant you thought it was Dumbledore, Hellboy for Voldemort and X-men for a new or unknown enemy but I realised if we were fighting off a compulsion we might not be able to easily choose which character we included in the argument. The problem with this is that anyone who got a hold of one of our letters to copy the writing would also read about the argument and might include it.
To: Spencer Reid
From: Harry Potter
Tuesday 31/7/92 6:01pm (GMT)
Thanks for the good wishes, the Spanish tapes and the books, they arrived today. You didn't have to send me so many books but they all look really interesting. I know they're second hand but with the postage it still must have been expensive and I know you don't have much money to spare. Especially after buying me the learn to speak Spanish sets. I've seen that same brand in the Little Whinging library for Italian and they're the best.
It's nice to have people to celebrate my Birthday with. Mrs Thomas made me a cake the night before we left London because she said her family wanted to celebrate my birthday with me, and Seamus must have told his mum it was my birthday today because Mrs Finnegan made me a cake as well. It's funny, Mrs Thomas is the better cook for meals but Mrs Finnegan is the better baker, or maybe I only thought that because the cake she made was chocolate and Mrs Thomas made a sponge cake with strawberry jam and cream. To be fair sponge is a lot harder to make, you really can't go wrong with chocolate cake.
Your present must have arrived while I was at the Thomas' because Dean gave it to me this morning. The books look really interesting and I would like to have the essay questions to think about while I read them. I think I will try to read some of the books first and try to guess or deduce what topics they would set essays to make us think about.
Dean and Seamus went in together and bought me a book on jinxes and curses. The spells look interesting but they're aimed more at pranks and schoolyard fights than proper battles. I guess it makes sense, Dean and Seamus weren't involved in what happened in the forest or at the end of the year. They are just normal wizarding school boys. Part of me is glad that they had a normal safe year at Hogwarts, but it just reminds me how little we really have in common. They're both great guys and I have a lot of fun hanging out with them but when things go wrong again, I hope I can protect them. At least I think I'd have better luck talking them out of taking stupid risks than I did Ron and Hermione last year, at least they have some survival instincts and they're not Dumbledore worshippers.
Speaking of, I haven't heard from Ron, Hermione or Neville. I would have thought that if they were going to contact me at all this summer it would have been today. Maybe the owls will take longer to get to Ireland and I'll get something tomorrow. I don't care that much if I don't since I doubt Ron or Hermione's friendship is genuine, but it seems odd that Mrs Weasley made such a fuss about me not receiving Christmas presents from my relatives that we thought she had an ulterior motive, and now they think that I'm stuck at the Dursleys where I won't get to celebrate at all, they ignored my birthday completely. Maybe she realised that she was too over the top last time and I didn't react the way she had hoped, or maybe she realised that I don't really see Ron as a friend or whatever she was trying to do won't work. Ron's not observant enough to tell her to back off a bit but perhaps if she was acting under Dumbledore's orders and he realised that I was freaked out by it he would've told her. But that would mean someone else in the Weasley family is also spying on me to have told him that unless he had a way to see what happened in the dorm on Christmas morning.
I thought about the code and what if we keep the idea of an argument why Batman is better than Superman and if everything is okay, I'll use the wrong arguments, such as 'Batman can fly' or 'Superman has better gadgets'. Anyone unfamiliar with the comics wouldn't know that's nonsense so it wouldn't stand out and none of the purebloods have even heard of these comics. Dean and Seamus and I aren't into comics either, so we haven't brought any to school and the only comic book Ron and Neville have mentioned is Martin the Mad Muggle. So, if I use the same argument twice in a row or it isn't silly then you know that something is wrong with the letter. But don't automatically assume that I haven't been influenced in some way if I do you use the right arguments and I won't either. I don't know how hard these influences would be to fight off. It's more likely that if the wrong wording is there the letter might not actually be from me at all.
It was quite some time before I could walk all the way up to bed without a break in the common room and I thought I was fairly fit from running away from Dudley and his friends and working in the garden before I started at Hogwarts. It's only our year who have ten flights of stairs because we're given the same dorm room every year and the new first years take the dorm of last years graduating class. It's just luck of the draw that we have the top room six flights up from the common room. Neville used to have trouble walking all that way from the common room to bed and I think he still normally does stop and sit in the common room for a while. He never returns to the dorm to get his books or something he's forgotten which probably contributes to his reputation for forgetfulness. Luckily for him he has a school bag like mine with bottomless and weightless charms on it so he can carry all of his books without any difficulty when he does remember to pack them all up, Seamus also has one of these bags and he and I have just gone halves to buy Dean one for his birthday too. Ron has a similar bag too but it's not as good, I think his mum or dad cast the charms on it for him so he can fit a lot of stuff in it and it's a lot lighter than you'd expect for the amount of stuff he puts in it but not bottomless or weightless, but Ron often doesn't bother carrying around his books anyway. The only person in our year level who doesn't have a bag like this is Hermione, who probably needs it more than the rest of us because of the amount of extra books she owns and borrows from the library but knowing her she probably bought a cheaper bag so she could spend more money on books. Her birthday is in September so if she'd remembered my birthday or proven herself to be a true friend, I might have tried to get the guys in on buying her a bag like that for her birthday in September too. I wish I could buy one for you, you probably need it as much as Hermione but you'd have to be really careful not to let anyone else pick it up or see how many books and things you had in it. Let me know if you think it would be worth the risk. Also they're not backpacks as nonmagical people our age normally carry but more of a leather (or dragonhide but I can get you one that looks like leather) satchel. I'm not sure that you wouldn't think it's a bit girly and I wouldn't want to give you something that you're going to get picked on for using. I'm sending you a photo of mine so you can see what I mean.
To: Harry Potter
From: Spencer Reid
Tuesday 7/31/92 10:09am (PST)
You're right that not receiving a birthday card and gift from Ron or any of the Weasleys' is odd after their previous behaviour. But Mrs Weasley's actions towards you have always been odd. I don't know what to make of them. Perhaps she has been warned off by Dumbledore or whoever else is trying to manipulate your life of perhaps she's just like that overly involved in what she's into at the time and then moving on to her next interest or hobby. Mom would call someone like that flighty. Not hearing from Hermione is also a little odd, though it might be a good sign that she's managed to overcome the compulsion to try to be your friend and is thinking for herself again. Of course, if that's the case it means she really isn't genuinely interested in being you friend which since she doesn't seem to have any other friends is also odd. I guess it's easy to start seeing hints of magical interference in everyday actions if you're paranoid enough and it's hard to tell which suspicions are grounded in fact and which in fear or low self esteem.
Don't about paying me for the language tapes, they weren't that much and you can easily repay me by buying lunch when I come to visit you in your new school. I didn't want to just send those for your birthday as that was something that you'd asked me to get for you and I will benefit from you attending the magical school in Mexico instead of an English or French speaking school. Besides I'd already bought the books over the last couple of months as I found decent copies in the book exchange. I did read them before I sent them to you as well so I gained from buying them as well. I know that's quite impolite for a gift but I thought it would be more beneficial to you if we could discuss them. I admit that I would love a bag like the one you describe, I haven't got the photo yet. I think it would almost be worth risking being picked on a little for a bag that can carry everything I want to put in it. Especially going home to Vegas for the weekend, but the problem with that is that the first thing a bully would do after picking on me about my bag would be to try to take it. I know that they probably come with some sort of antitheft charms to stop other people going through the bag and taking your stuff which would also be great but the lack of weight would attract all the wrong sort of attention and break your statute of secrecy. Could you be in trouble for sending the bag to me if that happens?
As for not being able to go wrong with chocolate cake, I'm afraid you're incorrect. I tried to make one for your birthday. Not to send to you because I was sure that Mrs Finnegan or Mrs Thomas would have made you a cake far better than my poor efforts, but to eat on the day so I could celebrate with you even though we're not together. I'm not sure what I did wrong but the results weren't anything resembling a cake. It still tasted kind of good with ice-cream though and Mom seemed to enjoy it once she got over her suspicion that it was a government plot to control her mind via alien food groups. I can't say I can totally blame her or her schizophrenia for that suspicion though, the texture of it wasn't like anything I've ever eaten in my life.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
Stay safe everyone.