Chapter 2 – The Letter

Over the next three days Harry was virtually ignored by the Dursley’s. This was both a good and a bad thing. Having nothing but study to keep his mind occupied (or the near compulsory cleaning that Aunt Petunia made him do) was wearing thin. But also not being bothered by his annoying relatives was a sort of relief. Though sadly he didn’t even have Hedwig now, as she had yet to return.

As he sat at his desk staring at his transfiguration textbook, he glanced up at the window. Across the horizon, just visible over the tops of the houses opposite, was a dark bank of storm clouds. The occasional flash of lightening could be glimpsed lancing down towards the ground and the distant rumble of thunder made Harry’s insides light, like he had swallowed butterflies. The symbolism was not lost on him. A storm was indeed on the horizon.

He could feel it deep down.

Suddenly there was a fluttering at the window. Harry drew his attention away from the horizon and the storm to see Hedwig trying to hold level with the window as the growing wind outside tried to blow her off course. Harry smiled as he opened the window allowing Hedwig to dive inside and circle the room before coming to a smooth landing atop her cage. Harry emptied a glass of water from the corner of his desk into the water bowl in the cage and ran his hand over the smooth downy feathers that ringed Hedwig’s neck. She affectionately nipped at his fingers before waving a leg at him and hooting softly. Harry frowned, but soon that frown turned into a smile as he saw that secured to the leg by a thin piece of twine was a small envelope. A letter.

Carefully undoing the knot, Harry peeled open the envelope and pulled out the piece of parchment within. It was so tightly folded that, as he began to open it out, it just seemed to keep expanding in size. It used to be a common rule that you could never fold a piece of paper in half more than seven times. But this one kept on unfolding till it was the size of a poster and Harry had to lay it on his bed, which it covered most of.

The writing on the ‘letter’ ranged from huge to tiny, and there seemed to be no logic to it at all. Words like fligiwump and trewyhipot stared at him with no meaning. Harry shook his head in confusion. “Where did you get this from?” he asked Hedwig who only gave a soft hoot and swooped down to the foot of the bed and pecked at the bottom right hand corner. Harry looked carefully at the scrawl in that corner and he nearly whooped with joy. For there, discernable in the tangle of writing was a set of signatures that he could read. Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Mr and Mrs Weasley and Sirius.

Now he knew who the massive letter was from, all he had to do was figure out how to read it.

An idea flitted through his head and gave him pause. Could it be magically encoded? He wondered. Glancing over his shoulder, Harry eyed his wand. If he tried to use magic on the parchment, would he be in trouble with the ministry?

Making up his mind that Dumbledore would never get Harry into trouble, he retrieved his wand and tapped Dumbledore’s signature.

Some of the words of the parchment glowed a soft orange and began to rearrange themselves in the middle. Letter by letter, word by word, he read off the message.

Dear Harry,

I apologise for not contacting you sooner, but as I am sure you can imagine I have been very busy over the past few weeks. I know that by reading this letter, you have had to use magic, which is technically a breach of the law, but the ministry of magic has more important things to worry about right now and I have been able to arrange for you to use this one spell without repercussions.

I do not wish to alarm you, but I personally delivered your Hogwarts letter for next year to The Burrow so that it could not be traced.

I will not say much more except that I hope you are feeling well, and to tell you that I have been able to get some of your friends to add their own words to the letter. I dare say that you may want to read Mr and Mrs Weasley’s message next. They have some good news for you.

I will see you soon Harry

Albus Dumbledore

Harry finished reading the letter, then read it again to properly absorb its meaning. It was likely that Dumbledore had diverted his now overdue Hogwarts letter to stop Voldemort tracking it. Strangely, this idea did not scare him as much as he thought it might. In truth, it was more of a relief that all his friends were still alive and writing to him.

Tapping Mr and Mrs Weasley’s signatures next, the words glowed again and shifted around. Some of the unused letters around the edge of the parchment floated into the middle, while some in the middle returned to the edge. Harry watched in awe as an entirely new letter arose from the tangled muddle.

Dear Harry

I wish we could have contacted you sooner, but Dumbledore said that it could be dangerous with you-know-who on the rise again. I’m not sure what changed his mind, but he sent me an owl with this letter to pass it on to Ron and Hermione. I see that Sirius has already made his entry. I hope he brings you good news.’

Harry smiled. He bet that when Mrs Weasley had actually seen Sirius’s signature she doubted whether to pass it on. She was still dubious over his innocence on the charge of murder he had been imprisoned with 14 years ago.

Harry read the rest of the letter with a smile on his face because, as he had no memories of being cared for by a mother, it was nice to read a lot of fussing about his well-being. There was one sentence that sent his heart skipping though. It was just words, but to him it represented the end of the summer. He must be one of the few children in the entire world that longs for the end of the holidays and a start to school… Well, he was sure Hermione wanted that too, after all, she loved schoolwork.

‘Dumbledore, Arthur and I have spoken and agreed that you should come and stay with us for the last two weeks of the holidays.

Excitedly, Harry once again read the letter just to see if he hadn’t imagined those words. He hadn’t. He was, once again, heading to the Burrow.

He was torn next which message to read. Ron’s, Hermione’s or Sirus’s. After a moments pause, he tapped his godfathers signature and watched as again, the letters on the page reformed into a new message. For Sirrus’s own safety, the message was very short. He was still the most wanted man in the wizarding world, and the muggle police also were on the look out for him, so sending much detail was very risky. But Harry cherished every word as he read it several times, telling him that he should be careful, and that Hedwig would know where to find him should he need to talk, but only to send her in an emergency as she was too easy to notice being pure white and all, and that he now had access to a fireplace so he could talk to Harry directly if he really needed to (Probably Professor Lupin’s Harry reasoned).

Ron’s letter was filled with talk about Fred and George who were making inroads to setting up their joke shop, and that they had started work on something they were calling ‘Potter’s Potion’, and that they had tested it on an unsuspecting Ginny. Apparently it turned her into a Harry look-a-like for half an hour (except that they couldn’t get her hair to change colour).

Harry chuckled to himself at what Mrs Weasley would have made of that incident. Ron also went into more detail, saying that he would be accompanying his dad to pick up Harry in three days time. This gave Harry another moments pause. The last two times a Weasley had come to his home, all hell had broken loose. The first time Ron, Fred and George had busted him out of imprisonment from his room while the second time, Mr Weasley, Fred, George and Ron had all used Floo powder to burst through the fireplace leaving the living room covered in soot. Not only that, but Fred and George had given Dudley a ton-tongue toffee, turning his tongue into a huge foot long slimy thing. There was no mention of how they would be coming this time. But Harry doubted that it would be by Floo powder. Not again.

Hermione’s letter was not what Harry had expected at all. When she wrote to him, it was normally in the same way she talked to him. Caring, but bossy and slightly showy. This time, there was something different. Harry reread the letter concentrating on what was different. She talked about school, about the fact that she had done more study over the summer and learnt several new and difficult spells. About how she had gone to Diagon alley to purchase some more books to read and that she too would be going back to the Burrow for the last two weeks of the holidays.

Harry shook his head. He knew something was different about the letter. He could feel it. Yet as he read it a third time, nothing came to his notice. He reread all the letters several more times before carefully folding the huge piece of parchment back up and tucking it into the trunk at the bottom of the bed among his other wizarding possessions.

Falling back onto his bed to stare at the ceiling, his mind no longer needing to be distracted by transfiguration or potions, he thought about all he had to do now was survive the next three days and he would be back at the Burrow and, more importantly, away from the Dursley’s for another year.

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