The Letters
I hate waiting. It’s a pretty well known fact about me amongst my friends, so they tend not to make me. The universe either didn’t get the memo, or is being mean on purpose. It has been forever since I got here and the letter still hasn’t come! My New birthday isn’t that far away anymore. Didn’t it come not long after Dudley got his stupid stick? Well he got that last week, so it better come fast.
Speaking of the stick, he whacked me with it.
“I'm sorry. What did you say?” I asked, because Dudley only hit when you didn’t respond the first time he said something.
“Pass the salt.”
“Oh, right.”
I’d been allowed to eat at the table this whole week, so far. I still had to make the breakfast of course, but I got to join them afterwards. I lost the ‘privilege’ if I did any accidental magic though. Who knew Harry was so powerful and accidentally making your clothes fit better was so easy? Sometimes I’d rather not sit with them, but saying so would mean I’d never get to again.
The mail flap was heard.
“Go get the mail, Dudley,” Vernon said.
“Make Harry do it,” Dudley said.
“Go get the mail Harry,” Vernon said.
“Yes sir,” I said.
As I did every time I was told to get the mail, I carefully combed through for my letter. I still hadn’t quite decided if I wanted to keep them hidden, or get the bigger room.
Bill, bill, postcard, bill, parchment.
*Wait!*
*Finally! The letter has arrived! Now begins the changes I’ve been wanting to make!*
But I still needed to decide which option.
“Hurry up, boy!”
*I’ll flip the letter, if it lands seal side up, I’ll keep it hidden.*
I threw it up, it spun in the air, ink, seal, ink, seal, it looked like it was going to land seal side up, but it landed on the edge, before falling to the ink side up.
*Welp, I guess I’ll wait until my birthday to make a real change.*
I walked back into the dinning room, and gave the letters to Vernon.
“Sorry, I saw an odd bird outside the window. It was rather pretty.”
Vernon scoffed. “Of course,”
I tried to stay focused on my toast as he looked through the stack.
“Hmm,” he said. “Marge is I’ll.”
“Oh dear,” Petunia said from the kitchen. “We’ll have to send her a get well soon card.”
Another envelope was moved aside, and Vernon’s face fell.
“Pat?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Could you come look at this?”
I tried not to laugh at his pale expression, nor the matching one Petunia had when she saw the letter. Luckily no one noticed as I almost failed.
“Is this,” Vernon started.
“It’s just like the one she got.”
“What is it?” I asked, hoping my pretend ignorance was convincing. I leaned over to ‘get a better look.’ “Is that addressed to me?”
“No!” Vernon said, yanking it away from my eyes.
“Let me see!” Dudley said, holding out his hand expectantly.
“No,” Vernon said. “Your mum and I need to have a chat, you and Harry go do something else for a bit.”
“But I want to see the letter,” Dudley said.
“Shouldn’t I get to see it?” I asked. “It is addressed to me, I saw it. Even had my cupboard on it.”
“I said go.” Vernon said sternly.
“Yes, sir.” I said. Leaving the room, hanging my head, mostly to hide the smirk.
Dudley hit Vernon with his stick.
“I want to read it!”
“No, Dudley.” Petunia said. “We need to talk, and we don’t want you in here during it.”
“But I --” Dudley began, but Vernon grabbed him by the neck and pushed him out into the hall, then shut the door.
Dudley looked at me, then put his eye to the keyhole.
I decided to see if they said anything different and laid on the ground with my ear to the crack.
_____________________________________________________
“What do we do, Pat?” Vernon said. “They’re clearly watching us, seeing as they had his cupboard on the address.”
“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do.”
“Perhaps if we just do nothing they’ll leave us alone.”
“I don’t think that will work, Vern.”
“Oh, we can’t know for sure Pat. These people are strange, they don’t think like you and me.”
“A compromise then? We don’t respond but we move the boy.”
“Move him where? There’s no space.”
“The guest bedroom?”
“No, we can’t let him ruin the sheets.”
“Then Dudley’s second.”
Dudley gasped above me.
“No, we can’t do that!”
“It’s either one or the other, Vern. The boy is special to them. If they're watching us, they might be angry.”
It’s definitely different not from the books, and the movies didn’t really say anything about it. I heard Vernon pacing, so I decided to go to the cupboard. Soon I heard him come out, chew out Dudley for listening in, and come to my cupboard.
“Harry?” he said. “Your aunt and I have decided we’re going to move you into Dudley’s second bedroom.”
“Why?” I asked, just to play the roll.
“You’re getting a tad big for the cupboard, so we think it’s about time.”
“What about the letter?”
“We’ve burnt it. It was misaddressed to you.”
“Shouldn’t you have returned it to the sender with a note saying ‘wrong address’?”
“There was none, so we burned it.”
“Oh,” I said. “I feel bad for whoever it was meant for, now they won’t get their letter.”
“Well, gather up all your things and move it to Dudley’s second room.”
I did exactly as I was told, and sighed a huge breath of relief as soon as I was in there alone. Finally some actual peace.
_____________________________________________________
Just as the books described more and more letters were delivered with every passing day, what I never quite realized was just how exponential it was. Four days later and the Dursleys were roasting marshmallows on a fire made entirely out of my unopened letters. Of course, the chaos expanded until I was shivering on the floor of that old island house, waiting for Hagrid to barge down the door. I hated how much it resembled the movie version, because at least in the books there weren’t relatively large gaps between the door and the doorframe.
I watched Dudley’s watch, as the time slowly approached.
*Was that the sound of rocks falling into the sea?*
Another minute.
*Definitely the crunch of boots on the path. He’s earlier than the books. Odd.*
The steps were right outside the door and --
Bang!
The door fell with a loud thud. I was expecting it and still jumped. Dudley sat up straight saying “Where’s the cannon?” and Vernon and Petunia stood on the stairs, a shotgun in Vernon’s hands.
“Sorry abou’ that,” Hagrid said, stepping through the doorframe. “I don’ know me own strength sometimes.”
“Stop right there!” Vernon shouted. “I am armed, and I will shoot if you don’t stop.”
Hagrid put the door into place, then turned to me and Dudley. “Which one of you’s Harry Potter?”
I laughed. I so wanted to say ‘Don’t you recognize me, Hagrid,’ but instead went with, “That would be me, sir.”
“None of that ‘sir’ business, ya hear me? You call me Rubeus or Hagrid.”
“Yes sir, er Hagrid.”
Hagrid quirked an eyebrow at that, but said nothing more.
“So, Harry, I got yer letter for you, there seemed to be trouble getting it to you.”
“So they were addressed to me,” I said to Vernon.
“What?” Hagrid said angrily.
“I, um,” Vernon stuttered. “I don’t want him going to that school. If he’s going to live under my roof, then we will stomp that magic nonsense out of him.”
“I thought we weren’t allowed to say that word,” I said.
“Dursley, what have you told this boy,” Hagrid growled.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing, because that’s all he needs to know. I won’t pay for him to go to some crazy school to learn magic tricks from a barmy old fool!”
“Don’t you dare insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me!” Hagrid shouted, and poked his umbrella right at Vernon. Vernon’s nose turned into a pig’s and his ears followed, a tail poking out of his pants.
*That was a lot faster, also there wasn’t any whirling of the umbrella over his head.*
Hagrid turned to me and said. “So, you didn’t know you were magic?”
*Ooh! I can give a reason why I know stuff and not have to hide it!*
I laughed. “I did. The dreams told me. How else could I explain what I see?”
“Dreams?” Vernon and Hagrid asked together, a pig snort following Vernons.
“Yeah, they show me what’s gonna happen sometimes, and I can do stuff to avoid them or change them. Like the letter! I knew I’d get in trouble if I asked more.”
“Well, then,” Hagrid said, “You’re one truly blessed by fate.”
“I don’t feel very lucky. I haven’t eaten since the hotel.”
“Oh yeah!” Hagrid said. “I brought you cake!”
Hagrid pulled out a slightly squashed looking chocolate cake with ‘Happy Birthday Harry’ written in blue icing.
“Really?” I ask, before taking it and the fork hagrid pulls out next. “I’ve never gotten a cake before.”
Hagrid again glared at the Dursleys.
“And here’s yer letter,” Hagrid said, handing me the envelope.
“In my last dream, you took me to some weird stores, there was all kinds of stuff! And there was a weird roller coaster type thing.”
“That’d be Diagon Alley and Gringotts.”
“Huh. . . Are these dreams normal for magic people?”
“No, there’s seers, but their fortune telling skills are so vague you can’t do anythin’ to change it, and other forms of divination too. An’ ‘magic people’ as you put it are call’ witches an’ wizards”
“So I’m special?”
“Yep.”
“I can talk to snakes too, is that common?”
“What!?”
“So that’s a no.”
“You’re a parselmouth!?”
“If that means someone who can talk to snakes, yes.”
“Don’t tell anyone tha’, okay?”
“Got it, except the people in my dreams.”
“No, not anyone.”
“So just the people I see with me in my dreams.”
“No, not anyone!”
“In my dreams, I keep it a secret, and then everyone thinks I’m evil when it comes out.”
“Oh.”
“So just the people in my dreams.”
“We’ll see.”
“Okay, final question.”
“What?”
“How common is being Transgender in the witch and wizard community?”
“I’ve never even heard of that.”
“That’s not a good sign.”
“Explain it tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“Good, cause ah’m beat. This has been far too much.”
Hagrid threw his moleskin coat over me and lay on the couch, all its springs squealing and its frame cracking.