Chapter 7
"So, it has finally come," I breathed out quietly, staring with some disbelief at the envelope of fine parchment, bearing not only my exact address but also a wax seal and the Hogwarts crest... The lion, serpent, badger, and raven looked almost alive as they gazed up at me from the envelope, practically urging me to break the seal and get to the letter inside.
"Hey, Harry! What've you got there?" Dudley Dursley kicked me under the table as discreetly as possible from our parents, somehow having managed to spot me slipping one envelope out of the general stack of mail.
"I'll show you later," I smirked conspiratorially, knowing full well how persistent my cousin could be whenever something interesting was involved. "Tonight, at our spot," I whispered, adding to the intrigue while very pointedly glancing at Vernon and Petunia sorting through the post.
"Got it." To Dudley, that kind of secrecy from relatives meant a great deal, because it was primarily associated with something truly exciting. A trip to the river, a showdown with boys from the neighboring school, or building our own base in the nearby ravine... All of it had to remain forever hidden from the Dursleys, who were far too protective of "Dudders."
My cousin understood that all too well and had learned to rein in his temper and obvious spoiled behavior whenever something came up that absolutely could not, under any circumstances, be seen by Aunt Petunia... And this letter from Hogwarts was definitely something she had better not see.
Even though I had long since taken control of my magical outbursts and was doing everything I could to shield my relatives from my magical experiments... now and then something magical still ended up catching Vernon's eye, or Aunt Petunia's. And every single time, that contact between my guardians and the magical side of the world turned into a major scandal.
Rarely, but with perfect aim, the Dursleys consistently reminded me of how little they wanted anything "abnormal" in their house...
"Ugh. And if it weren't for my ability to draw ordinary people's attention away from me, there would have been several times more fights with my relatives... and our relationship would have been much worse," I grimaced, not entirely understanding where such deep hatred of magic in the Dursleys could have come from.
There had to be something deeply personal behind it... I simply could not explain it any other way, given the fact that they only started treating me normally after a month or two without any magical nonsense in the house. Fortunately, lately I had finally gotten good enough at hiding my experiments from my guardians that they had even taken me to the zoo without incident.
Not the worst way to break up gray everyday life and the very rare meetings with my only wizard acquaintance... I also managed to test my ability to talk to snakes in practice. Until then, I had never really had the chance, and it was not exactly easy to run into a snake within city limits. There were hardly any around London at all.
So yes, I was only able to evaluate yet another of my magical abilities relatively recently, and in the end I was left with very mixed feelings. After all, the ability to speak Parseltongue indirectly confirmed the presence of a Horcrux in the scar on my forehead that was famous across the magical world, didn't it?
"All right, it doesn't really matter... I'd rather think about that once I have access to at least some of the information I need," I forced the darker thoughts away, glancing with a bit of hope toward the envelope hidden under my shirt.
Oh, words could not express how hard it was for me to finish breakfast normally in the company of relatives who despised and feared magic. My hands were itching to tear open the envelope and confirm with my own eyes that it was exactly what I had spent so many years thinking about... My long-awaited pass not only into the magical world, but into the best school of witchcraft and wizardry in the British Isles.
I had waited for this letter too long, and feared it too much, to feel even remotely calm now... Besides, there was a faint trace of magic clinging to the envelope. Almost unnoticeable against the background of my own magic spread throughout the house. Even Milo, my personal Kneazle, whose nature had once been confirmed by Krusho Zhelov, felt several times stronger magically than the letter sent to me.
And yet there was definitely some magic on the envelope! Which was both encouraging and a little alarming... Back in the day, Krusho had given me an entire lecture on just how dangerous ordinary correspondence could be in the magical world. Sending an enemy some magically poisonous nastiness along with a letter was common practice for certain lunatics and defenders of old traditions.
"Ahem... Easy, Harry. Nobody's going to send you a curse along with a school invitation," I quietly calmed my increasingly frayed nerves as I began carefully examining the very presentable envelope in my cupboard.
For a moment, I even considered running to Uncle Vernon's garage to grab a pair of work gloves. In case, somehow, they might protect me from some magical nastiness... But in practice, I did not go through with it, strongly doubting that ordinary gloves would save me from hostile magic. In that respect, it seemed much safer to rely on my own magic, which had already gone into "full combat readiness," responding to my emotions and fear.
So it was in that slightly keyed-up, tense state of mind that I finally opened the long-awaited letter from Hogwarts... There was nothing particularly shocking or extraordinary in it. The introduction of the headmaster, with all his grand titles listed out, looked a little ridiculous, and the list of school supplies differed somewhat from the one the wizard I knew had described.
But overall, there was nothing especially remarkable in the letter. The only important part was the note that on the thirty-first of this month, a representative of the school would come to me and help with the shopping... And with that, the letter more or less ended. The faint magical trace on the parchment gave a subtle little flare, like a heated needle running across my already overstrained nerves, and that was all. The magic in the letter was definitely not directed at me.
"It seems... there was some kind of notification spell on the letter, one that only triggers after a young wizard has honestly read the entire thing from beginning to end," I concluded through some instinctive hunch, not really knowing whether that was true or whether I was just imagining too much.
...Well, whatever the case, after reading the letter I suffered no visible harm. That calmed me enough to spend the rest of the day following my usual routine. Though by evening, I had to fulfill my promise to Dudley and show him the already opened and read Hogwarts letter.
"This is all nonsense... Where are you even supposed to buy all this occult rubbish? And anyway, magic doesn't exist," the perfect son of his parents delivered his firm and very clear verdict, somewhat disappointed by the secret I had revealed to him.
"Well, maybe someone really is playing a not very funny prank on me... But don't tell Aunt Petunia anything just yet. Let's wait until my birthday and then see what happens," I asked my cousin, while still noticing in his eyes a bright spark of curiosity and anticipation. Like any child, Dudley desperately wanted to believe in magic, even if my cousin would never admit that to himself.
"As you say... If all this rubbish does turn out to be real... I'll let you take our cat. You can turn that little bastard into some kind of magical stuffed thing," the pudgy boy offered gravely, still somewhat resentful toward Milo because, instead of being a gift for Dudley's birthday, the cat had only rewarded him with another batch of deep scratches on his hands. The marks from the claws still had not healed, much to my cousin's irritation.
"Do you think that kind of thing exists? I mean, magical stuffed animals?" I glanced at Dudley with interest, wanting to steer the conversation a little to the side... but also simply wanting to talk about magic with someone. My cousin was hardly the ideal conversation partner, especially on this subject, but Krusho had not visited me in over a month and there was no telling when he would show up next... So in a land without fish, even a crayfish counts.
Especially since my cousin's imagination turned out to be surprisingly lively and varied... In the less than a week left before my birthday, that little devil told me every horror story imaginable about magic. Listening to him, you would think he was the foremost authority on all things mystical and enchanted. And that despite the fact that only recently, this same boy had sworn to me that magic did not exist.
"Strange, though... In the films, if I remember right, Harry Potter's house was flooded with letters for days before Hagrid personally showed up for the boy... Is that another bit of movie nonsense, or did I personally prevent all that madness just by reading the very first letter that arrived for me?" I noticed yet another odd difference from the films I knew... But I still did not rush to relax.
If, on the thirty-first, His Highness Hagrid does indeed come to visit us, a man so tall that the only thing in the house higher than him would be the ceiling... well, I am already a little worried for my relatives. Aunt and Uncle are no saints, of course. But I still do not wish them any serious harm... Hagrid, on the other hand, if the films and my memories of him are anything to go by, is quite a piece of work.
"I wonder if I'd have enough strength to hit him with a magical outburst if it came to that. I can toss Dudley around with my magic easily enough, but would that be enough for a full-grown half-giant?" I asked myself not entirely reasonable questions, trying to calm the anxiety gnawing at my mind in this rather questionable way.
It did not work especially well. And the closer the fateful date came, the harder it became to fight off the nerves. On the night of the thirtieth going into the thirty-first, it was practically a miracle that I managed to fall asleep at all, after lying in bed until nearly two in the morning. Because of that, I reacted very sluggishly to Aunt Petunia's slightly panicked and hysterical voice when she tried to wake me even earlier than usual...
"Could Hagrid really have shown up and already scared half my immediate family to death? Not good, ugh. I need to get up," I tried to rise from my bed through sleep and yawning, already hearing someone arguing in lowered voices outside the door of my beloved cupboard.