Missing mail
It’s the evening before Harry’s twelfth birthday, but for the first time in his life Harry isn’t insisting on going to bed really early so that morning will appear to come faster and he isn’t feeling the least bit excited either. In fact — there’s no better word to describe it — Harry is sitting at his desk sulking to himself.
Both his dads have come to check on him at least twice since he excused himself from the dinner table, leaving his barely touched meal, to shut himself inside his room and… well, sulk… But Harry simply shook his head when Remus offered to make him a cup of hot chocolate and sullenly declined when Sirius asked him if he wanted to head outside and practise his flying for an hour before bed.
He has a fairly good reason for sulking though. Despite promising Harry that he would write him every other day during the summer, Draco has yet to send him a single letter. In fact, Harry hasn’t received any mail at all, all summer. Not one single letter, from any of his new friends.
His dads have tried to console him, saying that a lot of people go abroad during the summer and that’s probably the reason it’s taking the owls such a long time to deliver the letters. But in the past couple of days, Harry has started noticing the desperate glances the two men have shared and he knows that they don’t even buy that themselves anymore.
A gentle rapping on his door brings Harry out of his thoughts and he glances over his shoulder at Remus who is standing in the open doorway, holding a steaming mug of chocolate and watching him with worried eyes. Harry sighs. He really doesn’t want to worry his dads, but he just can’t shake off this hopeless feeling that’s weighing him down, that gets heavier and heavier with every day.
”How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Remus murmurs.
”I’m fine”, Harry says dully. ”Just tired…”
”I made you some chocolate —”
”I already told you that I don’t want any!” Harry snaps, then immediately feels guilty and sighs again. ”Sorry…”
”May I come in?” Remus asks gently.
Harry shrugs and turns back to the window in front of his desk. It’s pitch black outside, so he can only really see himself and the room behind him reflected in the glass. Remus steps over the threshold and approaches him silently, putting the mug of chocolate down on the desk without a word and stroking Harry over the head and neck. It makes Harry feel a little better, but he flinches and shakes his daddy’s hand off anyway.
”Listen, why don’t I contact the Malfoys and see if we can arrange to meet up with them in Diagon Alley —?”
”I’m too old for arranged play dates, daddy!” Harry snaps.
”It wouldn’t be a play date”, Remus assures him. ”I’ll just check with them at what time they were thinking of heading over there and see if they’d like some company, that’s all. We can offer to take Draco out for ice cream at Fortescue’s and the two of you can catch up!”
That’s exactly like a play date, Harry thinks and stifles a sigh, but he doesn’t say anything because the truth is he’s missed Draco so much all summer that he doesn’t even care anymore.
”I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation —”
”Daddy”, Harry cuts in. ”I’m really tired, I just want to go to bed, okay?”
”Yes, of course”, Remus mumbles.
His hand hovers hesitantly over Harry’s head for a second, but then falls away without touching him and Harry feels his heart pinch with regret.
Remus leaves the room again and silently slides the door shut after him. Harry turns around and stares at the closed door, feeling even worse than he’d done before.
He grabs the hot chocolate and takes a sip, but almost immediately spits it out again as a small house-elf appears out of thin air on top of his unmade bed. The elf’s ears are large and bat-shaped, his bright green eyes staring unblinkingly at Harry are big and round like tennis balls.
”W-who are you?” Harry asks apprehensively. ”And what are you doing in my bedroom?”
”My name is Dobby, Sir… Dobby the house-elf”, the small creature says in a high-pitched squeaky voice and immediately jumps down from the bed and gives Harry a bow so low that his tiny, pencil-shaped nose brushes the carpet. ”It is an honour to meet mister Harry Potter, Sir…”
”Er — thanks, I guess”, Harry mutters. ”What — what are you doing in my room, though?”
”I has come to tell you, Sir… It is difficult, Sir… I is wondering where to begin…”
”Well, why don’t you sit down —?” Harry says politely and points at the bed, but a part of him wonders whether he shouldn’t call his dads.
To his utter bafflement, the elf bursts into tears, sobbing uncontrollably, ”Sit down!” he wails. ”Never… never ever…”
”I- I’m s-sorry!” Harry gasps. ”I didn’t mean to offend you —!”
”Offend?” Dobby shrieks. ”Harry Potter offend Dobby? Oh no — I has never before been asked to sit down by a wizard — like an equal —!”
”Oh — right”, Harry mutters. ”Well, I don’t mind if you have a seat… Hey, do your family know you’re here?”
Dobby shudders violently.
”Oh no, sir, no… Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir —”
”Right”, Harry says awkwardly, feeling a stab of pity as the elf pulls on his ears. ”So why are you here, then?”
”I has come to warn Harry Potter, sir…”
”Warn me?”
”Yes, sir… Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry this year!”
”W-what?” Harry stammers. ”What do you mean? I have to go back —”
”No, no, no!” The house-elf squeals and shakes his head so wildly that his ear flap back and forth. ”Harry Potter must stay where he is safe! He is too great, too good, to lose! And if Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts this year, he will be in mortal peril… There is a plot, Harry Potter, sir… a plot to make most terrible things happen…”
”What terrible things?” Harry frowns. ”Who’s plotting them, and how come you know about it?”
The house-elf makes a choking noise, then immediately runs over to the wall and starts banging his head madly against the doorframe.
Harry hurries over and grabs him roughly by the arms and pulls him away from the wall, or any hard surface on which he can hurt himself.
”Harry?” Sirius muffled voice calls up from the kitchen. ”What are you doing?”
”Stop it!” Harry hisses. ”Stop it, all right, I understand — you can’t say — but why are you warning me? Has it got anything to do with You-Know-Who —?”
The house-elf shakes his head firmly, his ears flapping again.
”Look”, Harry says. ”I can’t just stay away from Hogwarts, I have to go!”
Once again the house-elf makes a choking sound, but Harry firmly holds onto his when he tries to grab the lamp off of Harry’s nightstand, probably to bash it against his head or something…
”Stop it!” Harry says firmly. ”I appreciate you trying to warn me, but I have to go to Hogwarts. I miss my friends —”
”Harry?” Sirius calls, a little closer this time, probably from the bottom of the staircase.
”Friends who don’t even write to Harry Potter?” Dobby cuts in and looks triumphant for a second, but when Harry’s frown deepens suspisciously, the elf’s ears immediately begin to droop and he wrings his hands anxiously.
”How do you know my friends haven’t been writing to me?” Harry demands.
”Now, Harry Potter mustn’t be angry with Dobby, but… Dobby had hoped that if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him then… he might not want to go back to school, sir…”
”You’ve been stealing my mail?” Harry says through gritted teeth. ”Give me my letters right now!”
”Harry, are you all right? Who are you talking to?” Sirius calls from the hallway and raps gently on the the door.
”Harry Potter can have his letters, if he gives Dobby his word that he won’t go back to —”
”No! Give me my letters now! Dad!DAD —!”
The door immediately flies open and Sirius tumble inside, staring around the room in alarm — ”What, what? What is it?” — but Harry’s hand is suddenly clutching thin air; Dobby the house-elf has Disapparated… Harry jumps up and swears loudly.
”Harry?” Sirius says. ”What —?”
”A bloody house-elf has stolen all my letters! All summer!”
”A house-elf —?”
”He was just here — in my room, saying I can’t go back to school — and he has my letters, dad!”
”Harry, calm down…” Sirius says firmly and grabs him by the shoulders and steers him over to the bed and gently pushes him to sit on the edge, then crouches in front of him. ”Tell me slowly, from the beginning, what happened…”
Remus appears in the doorway, looking frazzled, ”What happened?”
”Harry says there was a house-elf in his room”, Sirius says, then looks at Harry again. ”It wasn’t Kreacher, was it?”
”No, his name was — ehm — Dotty or something — Daddy, he has been stealing my mail!”
”What?”
”He has all my letters! And he wouldn’t give them back!”
”But that’s ridiculous —”
”He said he hoped I wouldn’t want to go back to school if I thought my friends had forgotten me over the summer!”
”Why didn’t he want you to go back to school?” Remus frowns and sits down on the bed next to Harry, putting a comforting hand on his back.
”He said there’s some plot to make terrible things happen at Hogwarts this year. But it didn’t have anything to do with You-Know-Who, at least…”
Remus and Sirius look at each other.
”Should we contact Mad-Eye?” Remus says, but Sirius shakes his head.
”He’s retired. Some young witch replaced him last year… We could make a formal complaint, but… There’s not much to go on —”
”Not much to go on?” Harry whines.
”Well… You know there are no official records of house-elves and their names, since they belong to the same wizarding family all their lives… I could ask around, see if anyone’s heard of a house-elf named — what was it, Dotty? — Yeah, but unless we happen to know the family he serves, it’s unlikely we’ll find him — I’ll ask around, though!” Sirius adds firmly as Harry’s face falls.
”Well, at least now we know what’s happened to Draco’s letter, don’t we…” Remus says with a smile and rubs circles on Harry’s back. ”Let’s floo the Malfoys tomorrow morning and explain everything, and then we can arrange that outing in Diagon Alley as well.”
”Can’t we floo them now?” Harry begs hopefully.
”No, it’s too late, Harry — No, really — Don’t give me that look. It’s not courteous to floo call after ten o’clock, especially on a weekday. I will call them after breakfast tomorrow.”
”Fine…” Harry relents.
He crawls under the cover, thinking the sooner he goes to sleep, the sooner it will be morning. Remus gets to his feet and tucks him in before sitting back down again, his hand resting on top of Harry’s heart through the cover.
”Last night as an eleven-year-old”, Sirius says and grins.
Oh, right, I almost forgot, Harry thinks. I can’t believe I almost forgot my own birthday!
”Yeah, I can’t believe how big you’ve got…” Remus says.
”You say that every year”, Harry says with a small smile.
”Yeah, well, you do keeping growing every year… Despite what your dad says!”
Sirius laughs. Remus pulls his hand away from Harry’s chest, but before he’s had a chance to stand up, Harry reaches out and catches his wrist. Remus sinks back down and gives Harry a knowing smile, then gently strokes his head.
”Sleep tight, Harry…” Remus says and leans forward to kiss him on the forehead.
”Good night…” Harry mumbles.
His dads walk out of the room and make sure to leave the door slightly ajar, so that the dim hallway light spills in. Harry isn’t exactly afraid of the dark, but ever since his run-in with Voldemort at the end of the school year, his nightmares have started up again.
When he was really young, he would dream of green light and a woman screaming… As he got older and his dads told him about Voldemort, he started dreaming of this faceless shadow shouting Avada Kedavra in a cold voice… After that Remus got him a Dreamcatcher and at the age of seven, Harry actually believed him when he said it would catch any nightmares before they could trickle into his sleeping head and eventually the nightmares stopped.
But ever since Harry got back from his first year at Hogwarts, the nightmares started again and now, the shadow has a face… And glowing red eyes… And unfortunately, Harry is too big to believe in muggle superstitions like Dreamcatchers. But the hallway light helps a little, at least until he falls asleep.
Harry wakes up with a start, his fringe glued to his forehead by a sticky layer of cold sweat. He can hear his dads’ muffled voices on the other side of the door, but the nightmare lingers in the corner of his still foggy mind, a cold voice hissing, seize him, seize him, kill him…
The door slides open and Harry hears an intake of breath, but no-one starts singing Happy Birthday to you… He fumbles around after his glasses on top the nightstand and has just pushed them onto his face when Remus hurriedly sits down on the side of the bed and wipes his wet fringe away to feel his forehead.
” ’m fine”, Harry mumbles, even as he shivers and shakes.
”Oh Harry…” Remus murmurs and gathers him into his warm arms.
Sirius gingerly puts the cake down on top of the dresser, then licks some frosting off his hands before he crouches down next to the bed. Harry realises Remus must have stopped the levitation charm on the cake when he saw the state Harry was in and left Sirius to catch it when he rushed over to the bed to make sure Harry was alright. It doesn’t look ruined though, Harry sees. The frosting has some finger-shaped indentations, that’s all.
”I’m fine, daddy”, Harry says again and his voice doesn’t tremble this time.
Remus sits back, but continues to stroke Harry’s head gently, ”Did you have another nightmare?”
”I… I don’t remember…” Harry lies and looks down.
”Okay”, Sirius says swiftly and stands up. ”Ready, Moony? One, two, three, four —”
Harry grins as both his dads begin singing at the top of their voices. Remus can actually carry a tune and knows the melody, but Sirius seems to go for loud rather than accurate and his voice breaks on the high notes, but it doesn’t seem to faze him one bit and it makes Harry laugh.
”Merlin, you get worse every year…” Remus mumbles with a fond look at Sirius who merely shrugs carelessly and then beams at Harry.
”Go on, runt… Open your presents!”
With the nightmare now completely forgotten, Harry lights up even further and scrambles over to the foot of the bed where a small pile of presents have been stacked. He eagerly looks through them all, reading the labels of every single one before deciding which to open first. His spirits sink somewhat when he realises that there isn’t a present from Draco, but he forces the thought to the back of his mind and tears into a small, badly wrapped bundle with Ron’s spikey handwriting on the label.
After he’s opened the presents from his friends Ron and Seamus, Harry starts on the ones from his dads and happily hugs them as soon as he’s opened the last one.
”There’s another surpise in the kitchen…” Remus says. ”The mail finally arrived…”
Harry’s heart leaps and he quickly scrambles out of bed and runs into the kitchen. On the table, several birthday cards are lined up and he quickly picks them up one by one and turns them over to see who they’re all from. He’s got one each from his housemates Blaise, Adrian and Terence, one from the Weasley family and, surprisingly, from Hermione Granger. But none from Draco. Harry sinks down on his chair at the table and stares at the row of cards.
He can’t believe he got a card from Granger, whom he’s barely spoken three words to all year, but not one from his supposedly best friend… Although, he thinks, I suppose when you save someone from a mountain troll, it’s to be expected that they send you a card for your birthday…
But still, nothing from Draco.
His dads file into the kitchen behind him and start puttering around, finishing cooking breakfast and repairing the cake. Remus is humming under his breath, but stops immediately when he sits down across from Harry and sees the look on his face. Harry quickly gives him a smile, but it’s strained at best.
”What’s wrong?” Remus asks.
”Nothing”, Harry says quickly. ”It’s fine…”
Remus’s frown deepens and he looks down at the row of cards, quickly scanning the names on each. A look of understanding smoothes out the lines in his face.
”It’s fine”, Harry mutters again.
”I’ll floo Malfoy Manor right now”, Remus says. ”We can explain about the missing mail…”
”It’s not even eight o’clock”, Harry says. ”You always say never floo before ten in the morning and after ten at night.”
”Yes, well”, Remus mutters. ”It’s a weekday, so… We might miss them, if we wait until ten, won’t we… I’ll use the fireplace in the sitting room, you start breakfast…”
”Who are these from then?” Sirius asks with slightly more enthusiasm than the situation requires, obviously trying to distract Harry while Remus gets a hold of Draco’s parents.
”Ehm, this one’s from Blaise… These are from Adrian Pucey and Terence Higgs —”
”Pucey and Higgs?” Sirius says. ”Don’t think you’ve mentioned them?”
”Well, they’re older than me, but they’re cool… They’re both on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Well, Terence just graduated, but he was the Seeker — Draco and I are going to try out for the team now, and I really hope I get to be the new Seeker!”
”James was the Seeker on the Gryffindor team”, Sirius says with a grin. ”So it’s in your blood!”
”Yeah”, Harry says with an awkward smile.
It’s not that he isn’t proud of his biological parents, but he feels awkward talking about them. Especially when people call them his parents, or James his father, because it makes it sound like Remus and Sirius aren’t really his parents, his dads, and they are…
Sirius grin softens and he takes a deep breath, glancing at the remaining two cards in the table.
”And these two?”
”Oh, ehm, yeah that’s from Ron’s family — the Weasleys — and that’s from a Gryffindor girl called Hermione Granger —”
”Oh really?” Sirius says with playful leer, and Harry feels his face heat up. ”Getting noticed by the girls already? Girls in other houses even!”
”Dad…” Harry mutters.
”I’m just saying!”
”She doesn’t like me that way”, Harry insists. ”I just saved her from that troll…”
”Oh, it’s her… Well, if she doesn’t like you that way after you saved her from a mountain troll, there’s something amiss —”
”Dad —!” Harry says again, and Sirius barks out a laugh.
”What are we laughing about?” Remus says, coming back into the kitchen.
”Nothing!” Harry says quickly. ”Did you… Did they…”
”I got a hold of Narcissa”, Remus confirms and takes his seat at the table again. ”And according to her, Draco has been wasting away in his room all summer…”
”Why?” Harry gasps. ”What’s happened?”
”Well… Since you haven’t been replying to any of his letters all summer, he’s apparently been rather heartsick”, Remus replies with a smile, but what’s so funny about, Harry really doesn’t see. ”Relax, Harry… I explained everything to Narcissa and she promised to send us an owl as soon as she’d talked to Draco. She also offered to take you and Draco out for the day in Diagon Alley. I said I’d double check with you, but that it sounded like a lovely idea… Sirius, do you think you’ll be able to go to Gringotts today?”
”Yeah, I should have time before work”, the other man nods. ”Do you have Harry’s book list?”
”Yeah, I’ll get it for you before you leave… But I think ten galleons should be more than enough.”
Harry feels about two tons lighter than he did last night and he happily tucks into his breakfast, keenly aware of his dads amused looks, but he doesn’t care. Draco hasn’t forgotten me over the summer after all…