Adventures of Harriet Potter

Owl Post

Harriet Potter was a highly unusual girl in many ways. For one thing, she hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, she really wanted to do her homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And she also happened to be a witch. It was nearly midnight, and she was lying on her stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over her head like a tent, a torch in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open against the pillow. Harriet moved the tip of her eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as she looked for something that would help her write her essay, "Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss." The quill paused at the top of a likely-looking paragraph. Harriet pushed her round glasses up the bridge of her nose, moved her torch closer to the book, suppressed a wince from the ache in her nethers, and read:

Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises.

Harriet put her quill between her teeth and reached underneath her pillow for her ink bottle and a roll of parchment. Slowly and very carefully she unscrewed the ink bottle, dipped her quill into it, and began to write, pausing every now and then to listen, because if any of the Dursleys heard the scratching of her quill on their way to the bathroom, she'd probably find herself locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the summer. And violated more frequently than she already was by her Uncle Vernon. Her nethers throbbed from when he'd taken her a few days ago for the weekly (because she was female) punishment he used to disguise what he was actually doing to her. So far her Contraceptive Potion had held out against the onslaught of seed he regularly shot into her young body, but she was nearing the last of her supply and had no hope of brewing more until she got back to Hogwarts. An inevitability she was dreading.
The Dursley family of number four, Privet Drive, was the reason that Harriet never enjoyed his summer holidays. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and their son, Dudley, were Harriet's only living relatives. They were Muggles, and they had a very medieval attitude toward magic — not to mention Uncle Vernon's attitude towards women. Harriet's dead parents, who had been a witch and wizard themselves, were never mentioned under the Dursleys' roof. For years, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had hoped that if they kept Harriet as downtrodden as possible, they would be able to squash the magic out of her. To their fury, they had been unsuccessful. These days they lived in terror of anyone finding out that Harriet 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 Harriet's spellbooks, wand, cauldron, and broomstick at the start of the summer break, and forbid her to talk to the neighbors. Which Uncle Vernon had already forbidden because of him punishing her for her gender.
This separation from her spellbooks had been a real problem for Harriet, because her teachers at Hogwarts had given her a lot of holiday work. One of the essays, a particularly nasty one about shrinking potions, was for Harriet's least favorite teacher, Professor Snape, who would be delighted to have an excuse to give Harriet detention for a month. Harriet had therefore seized her chance in the first week of the holidays. While 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), Harriet had crept downstairs, picked the lock on the cupboard under the stairs, grabbed some of her books, and hidden them in her bedroom. As long as she didn't leave spots of ink on the sheets, the Dursleys need never know that she was studying magic by night.
Harriet was particularly keen to avoid trouble with her aunt and uncle at the moment, as they were already in an especially bad mood with her, all because she'd received a telephone call from a fellow wizard one week into the school vacation. Ron Weasley, who was one of Harriet's best friends at Hogwarts, came from a whole family of wizards. This meant that he knew a lot of things Harriet didn't, but had never used a telephone before. Most unluckily, it had been Uncle Vernon who had answered the call.
"Vernon Dursley speaking." Harriet, who happened to be in the room at the time, froze as she heard Ron's voice answer. "HELLO? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I — WANT — TO — TALK — TO — HARRIET — POTTER!" Ron was yelling so loudly that Uncle Vernon jumped and held the receiver a foot away from his ear, staring at it with an expression of mingled fury and alarm. "WHO IS THIS?" he roared in the direction of the mouthpiece. "WHO ARE YOU?" Harriet started trembling. "RON — WEASLEY!" Ron bellowed back, as though he and Uncle Vernon were speaking from opposite ends of a football pitch. "I'M — A — FRIEND — OF — HARRIET'S — FROM — SCHOOL —" Uncle Vernon's small eyes swiveled around to Harriet, who was rooted to the spot, her stomach feeling like it had hit the floor. "THERE IS NO HARRIET POTTER HERE!" he roared, now holding the receiver at arm's length, as though frightened it might explode. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT SCHOOL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! NEVER CONTACT ME AGAIN! DON'T YOU COME NEAR MY FAMILY!"
And he threw the receiver back onto the telephone as if dropping a poisonous spider. The fight that had followed had been one of the worst ever. "HOW DARE YOU GIVE THIS NUMBER TO PEOPLE LIKE — PEOPLE LIKE YOU!" Uncle Vernon had roared, spraying Harriet with spit before seizing her by her arms. She knew it would be better not to scream and beg but she still did, even as he thrust himself into her violently. She had walked with a limp for a few days afterwards, only relieved she was on Contraceptive Potion. She didn't know how she would react to learning she was pregnant with her uncle's baby at twelve to thirteen years old, she knew she wasn't ready for the challenges such a life changing event.
Ron obviously realized that he'd gotten Harriet into trouble, because he hadn't called again. Harriet's other best friend from Hogwarts, Hermione Granger, hadn't been in touch either. Harriet suspected that Ron had warned Hermione not to call, which was a pity, because Hermione, the cleverest witch in Harriet's year besides Harriet herself, had Muggle parents, knew perfectly well how to use a telephone, and would probably have had enough sense not to say that she went to Hogwarts. So Harriet had had no word from any of her wizarding friends for five long weeks, and this summer was turning out to be almost as bad as the last one. There was just one very small improvement — after swearing that she wouldn't use her to send letters to any of her friends, Harriet had been allowed to let her owl, Hedwig, out at night. Uncle Vernon had given in because of the racket Hedwig made if she was locked in her cage all the time.
Harriet 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 her enormous cousin, Dudley. It must be very late, Harriet thought. Her eyes were itching with tiredness, and her privets really did hurt. Perhaps she'd finish this essay tomorrow night. . . . She replaced the top of the ink bottle; pulled an old pillowcase from under her bed; put the torch, A History of Magic, her essay, quill, and ink inside it; got out of bed; and hid the lot under a loose floorboard under her bed. Then she stood up, stretched, and checked the time on the luminous alarm clock on his bedside table.
It was one o'clock in the morning. Harriet's stomach gave a funny jolt. She had been thirteen years old, without realizing it, for a whole hour. Yet another unusual thing about Harriet was how little she looked forward to her birthdays. She had never received a birthday card in her life. The Adult Dursleys had completely ignored her last two birthdays, and she had no reason to suppose they would remember this one. Harriet walked across the dark room, past Hedwig's large, empty cage, to the open window. She leaned on the sill, the cool night air was pleasant on her face after a long time under the blankets. Hedwig had been absent for two nights now. Harriet wasn't worried about her: She'd been gone this long before. But she hoped she'd be back soon — she was the only living creature in this house who didn't flinch at the sight of her, or try planting a child in her underage womb.
Harriet, though still rather small and skinny for her age, had grown a few inches over the last year. Her fiery-red hair, however, was just as it always had been — stubbornly untidy, whatever she did to it. The eyes behind her glasses were bright green, and on her forehead, clearly visible through her hair, was a thin scar, shaped like a bolt of lightning. Of all the unusual things about Harriet, 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 Harriet's parents, because Lily and James Potter had not died in a car crash. They had been murdered, murdered by the most feared Dark wizard for a hundred years, Lord Voldemort. Harriet had escaped from the same attack with nothing more than a scar on her forehead, where Voldemort's curse, instead of killing her, had rebounded upon its originator. Barely alive, Voldemort had fled. . . .
But Harriet had come face-to-face with him at Hogwarts. Remembering their last meeting as she stood at the dark window, Harriet had to admit she was lucky even to have reached her thirteenth birthday. She scanned the starry sky for a sign of Hedwig, perhaps soaring back to her with a dead mouse dangling from her beak, expecting praise. Gazing absently over the rooftops, it was a few seconds before Harriet realized what she was seeing. Silhouetted against the golden moon, and growing larger every moment, was a large, strangely lopsided creature, and it was flapping in Harriet's direction. She stood quite still, watching it sink lower and lower. For a split second she hesitated, her hand on the window latch, wondering whether to slam it shut. But then the bizarre creature soared over one of the street lamps of Privet Drive, and Harriet, realizing what it was, leapt aside.
Through the window soared three owls, two of them holding up the third, which appeared to be unconscious. They landed with a soft flump on Harriet's bed, and the middle owl, which was large and gray, keeled right over and lay motionless. There was a large package tied to its legs. Harriet recognized the unconscious owl at once — his name was Errol, and he belonged to the Weasley family. Harriet 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.
Harriet turned back to the remaining owls. One of them, the large snowy female, was her own Hedwig. She, too, was carrying a parcel and looked extremely pleased with herself. She gave Harriet an affectionate nip with her beak as she removed her burden, then flew across the room to join Errol. Harriet didn't recognize the third owl, a handsome tawny one, but she 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 Harriet relieved this owl of its burden, it ruffled its feathers importantly, stretched its wings, and took off through the window into the night.
Harriet sat down on her bed and grabbed Errol's package, ripped off the brown paper, and discovered a present wrapped in gold, and her first-ever birthday card. Fingers trembling slightly, she 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, because the people in the black-and-white picture were moving. Harriet picked up the clipping, smoothed it out, and read: