Owl Post
Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.
"Don't we know it," Fred interrupted Draco after a single sentence, causing the Slytherin to glare at him. Harry was also glaring at Fred.
"Unusual is an understatement," George added with a grin. Harry threw a pillow at him which he dodged easily.
For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework.
"That's definitely unusual," stated Fred.
"He's got a point there," Ron agreed.
"It's not like I actually wanted to do it. Kind of. I wanted the ability to do it, so Snape didn't have an extra excuse to give me detention," Harry told them.
"Like he needs an excuse," Ron snorted.
"Professor Snape," Molly corrected at the same time.
Unfortunately, he was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. He also happened to be a wizard.
The twins gave identical gasps of fake shock. Percy slapped them both lightly on the back of their heads.
"Enough you two," he said in exasperation, but his tone was fond, and they both grinned at him.
"Never," declared Fred.
"Tis our solemn duty –"
"- to keep the mood light," they said rapidly, one after the other. Sirius, Tonks and Charlie all chuckled.
It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open against the pillow.
"Ugh!" Ron groaned. "Of all the subjects."
"Bad idea to do that so late. It'll put you to sleep," Fred told Harry.
"I didn't have a choice," he shrugged. "And I'm used to not getting much sleep." They all frowned at that.
Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay on witch burnings in the 14th century. The quill paused at the top of a likely-looking paragraph. Harry read a passage from the book detailing how true witches and wizards weren't caught by the muggle burnings as they performed a simple flame-freezing charm.
"Yes, the burnings were pointless because the only people they managed to catch and murder were their own kind who were actually innocent, or muggleborn children who had no control over their magic so couldn't hide it," Bill scowled.
Harry put his quill between his teeth and reached underneath his pillow for his ink bottle and a roll of parchment. Slowly and very carefully he unscrewed the ink bottle, dipped his quill into it, and began to write, pausing every now and then to listen, because if any of the Dursleys heard the scratching of his quill on their way to the bathroom, he'd probably find himself locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the summer.
Sirius snarled.
"That's impressive dedication to your homework, but maybe you should prioritize a bit. Leave History of Magic till last as Binns is the least likely to give you detention for not doing it. Or you can do it on the train," Tonks suggested.
"Yeah. Ones like Potions and Transfiguration should be first and there wasn't one for Defence that year," Fred ticked off the subjects.
"I'd done some of my others before doing History," Harry told them. "And I ended up redoing a lot once I left the Dursleys."
The Dursley family of number four, Privet Drive, was the reason that Harry never enjoyed his summer holidays. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and their son, Dudley, were Harry's only living relatives. They were Muggles, and they had a very medieval attitude toward magic.
A few people shuddered at how accurate that was.
Harry's dead parents, who had been a witch and wizard themselves, were never mentioned under the Dursleys' roof.
Everyone scowled angrily.
For years, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had hoped that if they kept Harry as downtrodden as possible, they would be able to squash the magic out of him.
Most of the adults flinched and muttered angrily under their breath at that.
"I hate those people," Sirius snarled, spitting the word 'people' like it was the worst insult he could think of.
To their fury, they had been unsuccessful.
"They should be grateful they were unsuccessful, or the wrath of the entire wizarding world would fall on their heads," Emmeline muttered.
"It still might," Bill said grimly.
"And they would deserve it, for even attempting such a thing and all of the abuse and neglect they put him through," Charlie scowled.
These days they lived in terror of anyone finding out that Harry had spent most of the last two years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The most they could do, however, was to lock away Harry's spellbooks, wand, cauldron, and broomstick at the start of the summer break, and forbid him to talk to the neighbours.
"Honestly, those neighbours didn't notice anything was wrong in over ten years, I doubt they are worth talking to," Fred muttered angrily.
"Even the woman who was supposed to be keeping an eye on him," George added, glaring at Dumbledore.
This separation from his spellbooks had been a real problem, because his teachers at Hogwarts had given him a lot of holiday work, including Snape who would love an excuse to give him detention.
Sirius threw Snape a dirty look which he ignored.
Harry had therefore seized his chance in the first week of the holidays when Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley had gone out into the front garden to admire Uncle Vernon's new company car in very loud voices, so that the rest of the street would notice it too.
"Of course they did," Ted rolled his eyes.
"The rest of the street do the same thing," Harry shrugged.
"It's still sad and stupid," said George. Several people nodded.
While they were busy, Harry had crept downstairs, picked the lock on the cupboard under the stairs, grabbed some of his books, and hidden them in his bedroom.
"See, teaching him to pick locks was a good thing," Fred told his mother triumphantly. She pursed her lips but didn't disagree which spoke volumes.
As long as he didn't leave spots of ink on the sheets, the Dursleys need never know that he was studying magic by night.
"They don't make you do the laundry?" Charlie wondered.
"Only sometimes, but normally Aunt Petunia does that," Harry told him.
"So, it's just the higher-risk chores, like cooking, they made you do," Remus frowned.
"That and the fact that Aunt Petunia can't cook very well."
Harry was particularly keen to avoid trouble with his aunt and uncle at the moment, as they were already in an especially bad mood with him, because of a telephone call from Ron. Ron, who had never used a phone before.
"Oh dear," Bill winced.
"What did you do?" Ted wondered, looking amused.
"I think I wasn't supposed to shout," Ron admitted.
"No. You don't need to shout with a phone. They can hear you just as well as on a floo call," Ted told him. Ron grimaced, remembering the call.
Most unluckily, it had been Uncle Vernon who had answered the call.
Everyone winced.
Harry, who happened to be in the room at the time, froze as he heard Ron's voice answer. He shouted that he wanted to talk to Harry Potter so loudly Vernon jumped and held the receiver a foot away from his ear.
A few people chuckled.
Veron shouted back, asking who was speaking.
"That won't help. Now Ron will think he's using the phone correctly," Percy shook his head.
"Yeah," Ron agreed. He hadn't known he did anything wrong as Vernon had replied in kind the whole time. Until he spoke to his dad who suggested not shouting. Hermione had said the same thing, so he had assumed that was correct.
Ron continued the shouting match, saying he was a friend of Harry's from school.
"That's not going to go down well," Remus sighed. "He'll know he's talking to a wizard."
"Honestly, it was over as soon as he said he was a friend of Harry's," Kingsley pointed out.
"Probably," Harry agreed with a sigh.
Uncle Vernon's small eyes swivelled around to Harry, who was rooted to the spot.
Sirius' eyes narrowed. "Did they take it out on you?" He asked Harry. Several people looked over at him, waiting for the answer and worried about what they might hear.
"It could have been worse. He shouted a lot, but nothing unusual there," Harry shrugged.
Vernon shouted back that there was no Harry Potter there and never to contact them again. He threw the receiver back onto the phone as if dropping a poisonous spider. A terrible fight followed.
"Just yelling," Harry said quickly before anyone could ask. He skipped the missed meals and being locked in his room. That was pretty usual after all.
Vernon screamed at Harry for giving their number to people like him. Ron obviously realized that he'd gotten Harry into trouble, because he hadn't called again.
"To be fair, it was fairly obvious your uncle wasn't exactly thrilled," George pointed out.
Harry's other best friend from Hogwarts, Hermione Granger, hadn't been in touch either. Harry suspected that Ron had warned Hermione not to call, which was a pity, because Hermion knew perfectly well how to use a telephone, and would probably have had enough sense not to say that she went to Hogwarts.
"Why would I know not to say that?" Hermione frowned. "I mean, I know now, but you never really said much about your relatives before. Not anything I thought was serious anyway. I didn't know they hated witches and wizards that much."
"And again, Hermione would have at least said she was your friend which would mean Vernon would know she's a witch. It's not like Harry would have other muggle friends thanks to Dudley and his gang," Tonks pointed out unhappily.
"Yeah. It's probably a good job you didn't call," Harry sighed.
This meant Harry had had no word from any of his wizarding friends for five long weeks, and this summer was turning out to be almost as bad as the last one. Although, one improvement was that he had been allowed to let Hedwig out at night after swearing that he wouldn't use her to send letters to any of his friends.
"That's good at least," Charlie said.
"I'm glad Hedwig wasn't locked up for another summer," Luna stated. Harry smiled at her.
"Me too." And not only because Hedwig had gone all the way to France just to get his present from Hermione.
Uncle Vernon had given in because of the racket Hedwig made if she was locked in her cage all the time.
"At this point who cares why he does something. At least it was positive for Harry," Bill sighed.
Harry finished writing about Wendelin the Weird and paused to listen again. The silence in the dark house was broken only by the distant, grunting snores of Dudley. Harry's eyes were itching with tiredness, and he decided to finish the essay the next night. He replaced the top of the ink bottle; pulled an old pillowcase from under his bed; put the flashlight, A History of Magic, his essay, quill, and ink inside it; got out of bed; and hid the lot under a loose floorboard under his bed.
"Not the worst hiding spot," Fred said approvingly. "Especially in that room, not many options."
Then he stood up, stretched, and checked the time on the luminous alarm clock on his bedside table. It was one in the morning and Harry realised he'd been thirteen for a whole hour without realizing.
"Not quite true. You were born at two minutes past three in the morning," Sirius told him with a faint smile, looking lost in memories.
"I was?" Harry blinked.
"Yes. Lily wasn't thrilled. She took it as a sign you were going to be active all night and causing trouble like your dad," Remus chuckled.
"She wasn't wrong," Severus muttered.
Harry smiled over at Remus and Sirius. Every time he learnt something knew about his childhood or his parents, he felt a warmth in his chest, and he always wanted more. He'd learnt more about himself and his family in the last few days than in the last decade and yet there always seemed to be more to learn.
Another unusual thing about Harry was how little he looked forward to his birthdays.
Nobody could really argue with that.
He had never received a birthday card in his life.
"Really? Never? Not even from Weasley and Granger?" Draco wondered.
"No. They didn't know me for my eleventh birthday and Dobby never gave me my mail, so I didn't get any for my twelfth birthday either," Harry explained.
The Dursleys had completely ignored his last two birthdays, and he had no reason to suppose they would remember this one.
Harry grimaced.
Harry walked across the dark room, past Hedwig's large, empty cage, to the open window. He leaned on the sill, the cool night air pleasant on his face after a long time under the blankets. Hedwig had been absent for two nights now. Harry wasn't worried about her as she'd been gone this long before, but he hoped she'd be back soon — she was the only living creature in this house who didn't flinch at the sight of him.
Everyone winced.
Harry, though still rather small and skinny for his age, had grown a few inches over the last year.
"Really? Inches?" Fred teased. "Are you sure?" Harry stuck his tongue out at him.
"He only said a few. That's plausible. Any more than that and we'd know he was lying," Ron put in with a grin. Harry hit him on the arm but that just made him laugh harder. Several other people laughed as well, grateful for something to lighten the ever-darkening mood.
His jet-black hair, however, was stubbornly untidy, whatever he did to it. The eyes behind his glasses were bright green.
"Eyes as green as a fresh-pickled toad," Fred sang gleefully. Ginny and Harry both threw pillows at him for that.
On his forehead, clearly visible through his hair, was a thin scar, shaped like a bolt of lightning. Of all the unusual things about Harry, this scar was the most extraordinary of all. It was not, as the Dursleys had pretended for ten years, a souvenir of the car crash that had killed Harry's parents, because Lily and James Potter had not died in a car crash.
There was an outbreak of angry murmuring at the lies the Dursleys had told Harry.
They had been murdered by Lord Voldemort. Harry had escaped from the same attack with nothing more than a scar on his forehead, where Voldemort's curse, instead of killing him, had rebounded upon its originator. Barely alive, Voldemort had fled.
Bill grimaced.
Harry had come face-to-face with him at Hogwarts.
"Twice in two years, please don't remind me," Sirius groaned.
"I didn't meet him this year," Harry pointed out, trying to sound positive.
"There is that, but you spent the whole year thinking I wanted to kill you," Sirius reminded him, sounding highly put out by that.
"I know better now and that's what's important."
Remembering their last meeting as he stood at the dark window, Harry had to admit he was lucky even to have reached his thirteenth birthday.
"That's uncomfortably true," Remus said.
He scanned the starry sky for a sign of Hedwig, perhaps soaring back to him with a dead mouse dangling from her beak, expecting praise. Gazing absently over the rooftops, it was a few seconds before Harry realized what he was seeing. Silhouetted against the golden moon, and growing larger every moment, was a large, strangely lopsided creature, and it was flapping in Harry's direction.
"What?" Sirius asked worriedly.
"It was nothing to worry about," Harry grinned.
He stood quite still, watching it sink lower and lower. For a split second he hesitated, his hand on the window latch, wondering whether to slam it shut. But then the bizarre creature soared over one of the streetlamps of Privet Drive, and Harry leapt aside, realising it was three owls, with two of them supporting the third.
"Three guesses who the third owl is," Neville grinned.
"And the first two don't count," Fred added, shaking his head.
"You really shouldn't have used Errol of a trip all the way from Egypt," Percy said to Ron.
"You wouldn't let me use Hermes," Ron reminded him.
"Sorry."
They landed with a soft flump on Harry's bed, and the middle owl, which was large and grey, keeled right over and lay motionless.
All of the Weasleys sighed in unison.
There was a large package tied to its legs. Harry recognized the unconscious owl at once. It was Errol, the owl belonging to the Weasley family. He dashed to the bed, untied the cords around Errol's legs, took off the parcel, and then carried Errol to Hedwig's cage. Errol opened one bleary eye, gave a feeble hoot of thanks, and began to gulp some water.
"Thank you, Harry," Arthur smiled gratefully.
"It's fine. He recovered pretty quickly."
Harry turned back to the remaining owls. One of them was Hedwig. She, too, was carrying a parcel and looked extremely pleased with herself. She gave Harry an affectionate nip with her beak as he removed her burden, then flew across the room to join Errol.
"Where did she get a parcel from?" Tonks wondered.
"She went to find Hermione in France," Harry said with a grin.
"Wow. That's really impressive. She went off, on her own, to find your friend and get your birthday present?" Emmeline asked. Harry nodded.
Harry didn't recognize the third owl, a handsome tawny one, but he knew at once where it had come from, because in addition to a third package, it was carrying a letter bearing the Hogwarts crest. When Harry relieved this owl of its burden, it ruffled its feathers importantly, stretched its wings, and took off through the window into the night. Harry sat down on his bed and grabbed Errol's package, ripped off the brown paper, and discovered a present wrapped in gold, and his first-ever birthday card.
Ron smiled widely, absurdly pleased it was his card that Harry had opened first, so he'd gotten him his first ever birthday card.
Fingers trembling slightly, he opened the envelope. Two pieces of paper fell out — a letter and a newspaper clipping. The clipping had clearly come out of the wizarding newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry picked up the clipping, smoothed it out, and read the article which was about Mr. Weasley winning the annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw. They would use the money to go to Egypt for a month.
Nobody said anything out loud, but several people were wondering if the money wouldn't have been better spent on other things. Ron hadn't even gotten his own wand in his first year, surely a holiday for a month was just wasteful. Even if they'd gone for half of that, they did deserve a holiday, they would still have plenty of money left over.
Harry scanned the moving photograph, and a grin spread across his face as he saw all nine of the Weasleys waving furiously at him, standing in front of a large pyramid. Right in the middle of the picture was Ron, tall and gangling, with his pet rat, Scabbers, on his shoulder and his arm around his little sister, Ginny.
Ron, the twins, Remus, Sirius and Harry all scowled furiously at the mention of the rat.
Harry couldn't think of anyone who deserved to win a large pile of gold more than the Weasleys, who were very nice and extremely poor.
All the Weasleys grimaced at that.
He picked up Ron's letter and unfolded it. He apologised for the phone call and his dad said he shouldn't have shouted. Bill had been taking them around all the tombs with mutant skeletons in there of muggles who'd broken in and grown extra heads.
"That's sounds pretty cool," Harry said. "I wish I could see that."
"Well, if you ever manage to come for a visit, I'll be happy to show you around. Especially if you do want to go into curse breaking, I can introduce you to some people" Bill offered. Harry smiled gratefully.
"That would be amazing."
"When my name is cleared, we'll take you," Sirius promised. Remus nodded and Harry's smile widened.
He mentioned the prize money, saying most of it had gone on the trip, but he would be getting a new wand.
"I should hope so, seeing as you don't have one," Charlie said.
They would be back a week before the start of term and wondered if there was a chance of meeting Harry in London. He told him not to let the muggles get him down. Then he added that Percy was head boy. Harry glanced back at the photograph. Percy, who was in his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, was looking particularly smug. He had pinned his Head Boy badge to the fez perched jauntily on top of his neat hair.
"You really wore your prefect badge during a holiday?" Tonks scoffed.
"I got it while we were in Egypt," Percy told her. "And I didn't want to leave it lying around because of the twins." Both twins flashed him innocent smirks.
Harry now turned to his present and unwrapped it. Inside was what looked like a miniature glass spinning top. There was another note from Ron beneath it saying it was a Pocket Sneakoscope which was supposed to light up and spin if someone untrustworthy was around.
"Seriously, how is it not spinning in the same house as those people?" Fred wondered.
"Good question, honestly I think that thing was broken," Neville said. "I heard it going off in the dorm a few times." Ron and Harry suddenly exchanged wide-eyed looks.
"I forgot about that," Harry breathed. "Wait, I had it buried in a pair of socks, how did you hear it?" He asked Neville.
"When the dorm was completely silent there was a weird, very slight, whistling noise. I checked it out and found the thing going off," Neville admitted. "Sorry. Seamus helped me look and he went through everyone's stuff."
"It's fine. I just never heard it."
"Seamus went through my stuff?" Ron groaned. "That explains a lot. But the sneakoscope did actually work," he added darkly.
The note continued that Bill said it's rubbish sold for wizard tourists and isn't reliable, because it kept lighting up at dinner last night. But he didn't realize Fred and George had put beetles in his soup.
Bill glared at his brothers.
"Boys!" Molly scolded.
"It was just a joke," Fred defended, but he was laughing.
"You are both disgusting," Charlie said, but he was smirking. It was funny when it wasn't him.
Harry put the Pocket Sneakoscope on his bedside table, where it stood quite still, balanced on its point, reflecting the luminous hands of his clock. He looked at it happily for a few seconds, then picked up the parcel Hedwig had brought. Inside this, too, there was a wrapped present, a card, and a letter, this time from Hermione. Her letter said Hedwig had come all the way to France to collect his birthday present which was good as she hadn't known how to send it. She asked if he'd seen the picture of Ron and said she bet he was learning loads.
Several people snorted at that.
"Ron? Learning on holiday?" Fred scoffed.
"It was an informative trip," Percy put in.
"For you. You like studying. Ron doesn't," George pointed out.
She claimed to be jealous, but she'd been learning about the local history of witchcraft in France which meant she had rewritten her whole History of Magic essay. It was now two rolls of parchment longer than Professor Binns had asked for.
"Really, Granger?" Draco drawled in disgust.
"That is wholly unnecessary," Andromeda agreed. "And, frankly, shows you are unable of prioritizing important information over just putting in everything you deem relevant." Hermione blushed.
She concluded that Ron said he'd been in London in the last week of the holidays and asked if Harry could meet them. If not, she'd see him on the Hogwarts Express. As a P.S. that Percy was Head Boy and Ron didn't seem happy about it.
Percy frowned at that but said nothing.
Harry laughed as he put Hermione's letter aside and picked up her present. It was very heavy. He suspected it would be a large book full of difficult spells.
Hermione frowned. "Why would I get you that? I know you wouldn't like it."
"I couldn't think what else you would get me to be honest," Harry admitted.
His heart gave a huge bound as he ripped back the paper and saw a sleek black leather case, with silver words stamped across it, reading Broomstick Servicing Kit.
All the Quidditch fans whistled delightedly at that.
"That's an awesome present," George grinned at Hermione. "And my birthday is April 1st, for future reference," he added with a smirk.
"George!" Molly scolded but Hermione just laughed.
"Of course it is. I couldn't imagine a better birthday for you." The twins both grinned widely at her.
Harry unzipped the case to look inside. There was a large jar of Fleetwood's High-Finish Handle Polish, a pair of gleaming silver Tail-Twig Clippers, a tiny brass compass to clip on your broom for long journeys, and a Handbook of Do-It-Yourself Broomcare.
"Honestly, that handbook was the only thing that helped me last as long as I did that week," Harry told her. She smiled slightly.
"I'm sorry it couldn't help a day longer."
"It did pretty well, considering."
Apart from his friends, the thing that Harry missed most about Hogwarts was Quidditch. Harry happened to be a very good Quidditch player; he had been the youngest person in a century to be picked for one of the Hogwarts House teams. One of Harry's most prized possessions was his Nimbus Two Thousand racing broom.
Harry sighed at the mention of his broom. No matter how much he loved his Firebolt, it just wasn't quite the same as his very first broom.
Harry put the leather case aside and picked up his last parcel. He recognized the untidy scrawl on the brown paper at once: This was from Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper. He tore off the top layer of paper and glimpsed something green and leathery, but before he could unwrap it properly, the parcel gave a strange quiver, and whatever was inside it snapped loudly — as though it had jaws.
Everyone who had taken Care of Magical Creatures that year, shuddered.
"Those blasted books," Ron groaned.
"They were awful," Neville agreed.
"They were quite informative, once you got them open," said Hermione tentatively.
"Great. I'd rather not have my hand snapped off to get that information," Fred told her.
"Hand snapped off?" Emmeline queried, worriedly.
"The Monster Book of Monsters," Harry told her with a grimace. "If you didn't stroke the spine, it attacked you."
"That sounds exactly like the type of book Hagrid would love," Kingsley muttered.
Harry froze. He knew that Hagrid would never send him anything dangerous on purpose.
"Really?" Amelia asked.
"Of course not. He wouldn't hurt me. He just might not realise what he sent me was dangerous," Harry defended his friend.
"True, but that doesn't make me any happier about it," Sirius said.
However, Hagrid didn't have a normal person's view of what was dangerous. Hagrid had been known to befriend giant spiders, buy vicious, three-headed dogs from men in pubs, and sneak illegal dragon eggs into his cabin.
Several adults shook their heads at exactly how much Hagrid had been allowed to get away with and wondered how there hadn't been any serious consequences yet. Although, it was pure luck his creatures hadn't killed Harry and Ron, so there was that.
Harry poked the parcel nervously. It snapped loudly again.
"Wonderful," Sirius groaned. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
"It could have been worse," Harry told him.
Harry reached for the lamp on his bedside table, gripped it firmly in one hand, and raised it over his head, ready to strike. Then he seized the rest of the wrapping paper in his other hand and pulled. A book fell out.
"A book?" Bill frowned. "A snapping book?"
"A biting book," Ron corrected with distaste.
"At least it was a published book, I doubt the book would give any serious bites," Emmeline said, but she didn't sound entirely certain.
"It was nasty enough," Neville murmured, rubbing his hand in memory.
Harry just had time to register its handsome green cover, emblazoned with the golden title The Monster Book of Monsters, before it flipped onto its edge and scuttled sideways along the bed like some weird crab. The book toppled off the bed with a loud clunk and shuffled rapidly across the room. Harry followed it stealthily. The book was hiding in the dark space under his desk. Praying that the Dursleys were still fast asleep, Harry got down on his hands and knees and reached toward it. It bit him and scuttled past. Harry managed to flatten it. Uncle Vernon gave a loud, sleepy grunt in the room next door.
"He didn't wake up, did he?" Fred wondered anxiously.
"Thankfully, no," Harry said. "They waited until a normal hour of the morning to ruin my birthday," he added under his breath."
Hedwig and Errol watched interestedly as Harry clamped the struggling book tightly in his arms, hurried to his chest of drawers, and pulled out a belt, which he buckled tightly around it. The Monster Book shuddered angrily, but could no longer flap and snap, so Harry threw it down on the bed and reached for Hagrid's card. Hagrid's card wished him a happy birthday and told him the book might come in useful in the coming year and expressing a hope the muggles were treating him right.
"A biting book?" Emmeline raised her eyebrows.
"Care of Magical Creatures textbook. It did contain useful information, it was just annoying having to keep stroking the spine," Hermione told them.
It struck Harry as ominous that Hagrid thought a biting book would come in useful.
"Ominous and yet completely in line with everything we know about him," Charlie grinned.
"I hate that book," Harry groaned.
"We all hated that book," Neville grumbled.
He put Hagrid's card up next to Ron's and Hermione's, grinning more broadly than ever. Now there was only the letter from Hogwarts left. Noticing that it was rather thicker than usual, Harry slit open the envelope, pulled out the first page of parchment within. It was his Hogwarts letter containing the usual platform information and departure time as well as enclosing the permission letter for Hogsmeade.
"Oh no. Those muggles will never sign it," Bill shook his head.
"I was so close," Harry sighed.
Harry pulled out the Hogsmeade permission form and looked at it, no longer grinning.
Everybody sighed at that. They couldn't blame Harry for being depressed at that. It was supposed to be a great moment in a young wizard's life, getting to go Hogsmeade and his awful relatives would deny him that for no reason other than to make him miserable.
"Surely there must be a way around that? For people with guardians like those," Fred wondered.
"It wouldn't have mattered. Sirius escaping meant there would have been no way I'd have been allowed to go, even if they did sign the form," Harry muttered.
"Sorry, pup," Sirius sighed, hugging him.
It would be wonderful to visit Hogsmeade on weekends, but he didn't know how he was going to persuade his relatives to sign the form.
"It so nearly worked," Harry sighed.
"What nearly worked?" Remus wondered.
"You'll see. Not that it mattered in the end."
Looking at the alarm clock he saw it was now two o'clock in the morning. He decided that he'd worry about the Hogsmeade form when he woke up, so got back into bed and reached up to cross off another day on the chart he'd made for himself, counting down the days left until his return to Hogwarts. Then he took off his glasses and lay down, eyes open, facing his three birthday cards. Extremely unusual though he was, at that moment Harry Potter felt just like everyone else — glad, for the first time in his life, that it was his birthday.
"Done," Draco announced with relief.
"Well, that was…a bit depressing but could have been worse for a chapter at the Dursley's," Charlie mused.