Amelia received an urgent owl from Harry’s account manager. Amelia flooed to Gringotts for the requested meeting.
“Director Bones, thank you for responding so promptly. We have a problem with Harry’s mail.”
Amelia nodded. “Let me guess, there is a vast amount of it.”
Sharpclaw laughed. “Bags and bags of letters, piles of boxes containing cakes, chocolate, and all sorts of confectionery. All these are gifts. Where do these people get the idea that Harry could eat all this?”
Amelia shook her head. “This would be a problem for Harry if it all landed in front of him at Hogwarts.”
“Exactly! What can we do?”
Amelia shook her head again. “Is any of it malicious?”
“One item in a thousand has something unfriendly in it. We are opening the safe letters. They are all fan mail. The people ask for signed photographs as though he is a popular entertainer. There are hundreds of birthday cards. Most of the cards and letters are from children.”
Amelia paused.
“We should do something about this. There will be important things in the mail which we will miss if we throw it all away.”
Amelia paused again.
“Let’s do this. Look through the letters and cards until we find adults who have written to him. At least we know that they can write. Write back to them and ask them if they want a job. Offer to hire them to open and respond to Harry’s fan mail. Keep asking and finding people willing to work a few hours a week answering Harry’s fan mail until we have a crew who can keep up with the flow.”
Sharpclaw wrote on parchment on his desk.
“Will they be paid, or will they be voluntary?”
Amelia sighed. “We should pay them. It will get dull and boring pretty quickly. Harry has the resources from his vault to fund that.”
Sharpclaw nodded. “The basic office worker’s wage for ten people will not make a dent in his funds. We have found gifts sent to him over the years. His vault now has more than when he got control of it. The amount he spent on brooms has been covered with even more coming in.”
Amelia continued. “We can redirect the food, cakes and confectionary to charities and refuges. Harry can’t touch anything fatty and sweet. It would kill him. We shouldn’t tell people not to do it. However, it will eventually get out that there is so much of it that Harry can’t possibly eat it all. That still won’t stop people trying to send him stuff.”
Sharpclaw gave a letter to Amelia. “This is one item that is not fan mail. It is from Nicholas Flamel.”
Amelia smiled. “Brilliant! Harry told me that he had written to him. Pass it on to Harry. We must work with our fan mail crew to get them skilled at picking ordinary mail from fan mail.”
Sharpclaw smiled. “Nicholas Flamel does not do fan mail.”
Amelia laughed.
-ooOOoo-
Mail arrived in the Great Hall. A Gringotts owl landed in front of Harry with a parcel. Harry took the parcel, gave the owl a piece of bacon which it accepted and then flew away. Harry tucked the parcel into an inner pocket in his robes.
Zabini smiled. “Mail from Gringotts Harry, is it good news or bad?”
“My mail is intercepted and checked by Gringotts. It is probably things from my account manager. I will look at it later.”
Tracey smiled. “When there aren’t so many prying eyes, right Harry?”
Harry nodded and finished his small bowl of porridge.
The last week had been stressful. Amelia had insisted that Harry do something to help with his fan mail problem. He had to agree to a photograph of him. Copies of it, autographed by him, would be sent back to fans who asked for an autographed picture. He also had to write a short note about himself each month, which would be copied and included in the fan mail response. It had things like what subjects he enjoyed at Hogwarts and which Quidditch team he supported. The answers were easy. Harry did enjoy Transfiguration and Charms. He didn’t support any Quidditch team as he thought the sport was overly violent and mostly random when working out the winning score. Quidditch didn’t get a mention in his fan mail responses.
The Alliance and the Escort went around the Black Lake walking track on Saturday morning. Most Hogwarts students were sleeping in. Harry and Hermione insisted on a long walk instead. Hermione wanted to arrange running and organized exercise programs for the teams. Firsties and most other students had no exercise at all other than climbing up all those stairs.
Harry walked in step with Hermione. “Hermione, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Harry, I’ve always got time to talk to you.”
“Ah! This might be difficult.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s like this. You obviously love almost all of our lessons, and you like answering every question a teacher asks.”
“That’s right! I know almost all the answers, so why not answer and get Gryffindor more points?”
“Ah! You see, that’s a problem.”
“What is? I won’t sit back and let house points go to another house.”
“Hermione, as a favour to me, could you consider doing that? I mean, let some other people answer questions. Some other Gryffindor might know the answer.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I want you to understand that you deserve your place here. You don’t need to earn points to justify to anyone that you belong here. You belong here in Hogwarts and in the wizarding world.”
Hermione looked ahead. “How did you know that I was afraid of not belonging?”
Harry whispered to himself and then answered.
“A little voice spoke in my ear. That little voice sometimes has useful things to say.”
Harry pouted and spoke again. “Hermione, I had to learn meditation and some magical arts which are very useful to me and are vital for you to learn. These arts are not in our textbooks. You may have heard people mention Occlumency, is that right?”
Hermione shook her head. “No, what is that?”
“Occlumency is the art of keeping your thoughts to yourself. There are other mind arts which come under the heading of Legilimency. Legilimency is the art of reading the thoughts in another person’s mind. Occlumency is the art of keeping Legilimens out of your thoughts.”
Hermione looked horrified. “Is anyone reading my mind?”
Harry shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. You’re only a firstie, so maybe not. You are under my protection, so maybe you are a target.”
Harry looked at Hermione. “I may be rushing this. You need to decide for yourself that you want to learn Occlumency. It will need some changes in the way you think. That is why I want you to consider giving up being so competitive. You need to value yourself more and other people’s opinions of you less. You need to do simple things like write shorter essays.”
Hermione laughed. “What do you mean? Why should I write shorter essays?”
“Our teachers are setting two tests with essays. The first test is to see if you can find the correct facts. The next test is to see if you can precisely present the answer without using more words than they requested. They want you to be able to express yourself concisely. If you keep your essays to the set length, you will earn even more points than you do now with your over-long work.”
Hermione looked surprised. “Oh! I never thought of that.”
Harry nodded. “You must keep a more organized mind to do that. Learning Occlumency will do that for you.”
“You’ve sold it to me. When do we start.”
“Neville, Susan, and Hannah have the introductory textbook. Get a copy from them and work through it. There is nothing in the library. Also, it is not taught at Hogwarts.”
Hermione was surprised again. “Why not?”
“The Ministry wants to pick and choose a tiny number of trustworthy people to learn the mind arts. If you have absolute trust in magical authority figures, that is fine. If you accept that those magical authority figures put me in Azkaban for nearly ten years, you might have a problem with that.”
-ooOOoo-
“Nice! So now I’m a little voice in your ear. I’ll have you know that I’m a big loud voice. I’m in the business of keeping you alive and well, Mr Potter.
Also, that was a very neat sales job for your Occlumency class. They will all need to speed up the pace.”
“Yes, Tom. I know that I owe you a lot. Keep up the good work.”
-ooOOoo-
Harry returned to his room and opened his mail. There were monthly account statements from Sharpclaw which showed even more galleons flowing into his vaults. There was also a letter from Nicholas Flamel.
From: Nicholas Flamel,
Alchemist
To: Harry J. Potter,
Slytherin House,
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Friday, September 20, 1991
Dear Harry,
Thank you for your letter about ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’.
Let me congratulate you for correctly discerning that what is now in Hogwarts Castle is a harmless copy of one of my stones.
I have some comments about your first letter. I say first because I hope to receive more from you.
The key phrases you gave me are taken from ancient studies into elemental magic and alchemy. There is no greater significance about them.
What is significant is the exact order in which they are listed.
The order and arrangement of the words are the same as I gave to Tom Marvolo Riddle in 1951.
This arrangement was to identify him if he chose to write to me. I am assuming that you obtained this password arrangement from him.
I am intrigued. Tom was supposed to be dead for the last ten years. I never believed that, as I suspect he used necromantic magic to prevent his complete crossing into the Underworld.
I will let you tell me more if you want to.
I will give you an explanation. In 1951 Tom Riddle came to me and asked me to take him as an apprentice. He knew that Albus Dumbledore was my apprentice, and he wanted to learn the same ancient secrets of magic that I gave Albus.
I did not take Tom as my apprentice.
I tutored other wizards but gave them ways to open their minds to new explanations of the universe's workings. Learning ancient magic is of limited use because the universe has moved on, and ancient magic no longer works as it used to.
My conversations with Tom showed me that he never understood this.
I mentioned that Tom, or I should say ‘Lord Voldemort’, used necromancy to anchor himself in the living realm. He thinks that these anchors are indestructible. The happy truth is that the universe has moved on, and his soul anchors can be destroyed.
If you know anything of these matters, don’t put them in writing. Letters and other such things can be intercepted and stolen.
When I told him I would not help him, Voldemort tried using Legilimency on me. I stunned him and banished him from my presence. He was still young and had not risen to the full height of his power. Even so, he was too powerful for me to capture and hold him.
I am also not an all-powerful mage. I am a student of magic who has gained a few insights into how things work.
Now, about Albus, he is a powerful wizard. He is also blinkered and convinced that he and he alone has the right solution to every problem. He asked me to send him my Philosopher’s Stone so that he could protect it.
I will never in a million years give anything valuable to Albus Dumbledore to protect.
You may also deduce that I have more than one stone, and Albus doesn’t know that.
The Stone will attract Voldemort. The actual Stone might be corrupted to give Voldemort a corporeal form.
I can only guess Albus has some crazy scheme to trap Voldemort’s surviving soul.
You are a student in Dumbledore’s school. Try to work with him and stay out of his bad books. He might declare you a ‘Dark Lord’ if he can't control you.
Sincerely
Nicholas Flamel
P.S. I have charmed this letter so that only you can read it. Albus or Voldemort might be able to break the charm, so be careful.
P.P.S. Director Bones has asked me to send this letter again, as the original was intercepted and probably destroyed.
-ooOOoo-
Amelia informed Harry of the progress of investigations into his early life. The sad news was that there was no news. The report from the Head Unspeakable about the powerful binding of Harry’s magic was never shown to Amelia, and she had no authority to demand it from the Minister for Magic. Amelia and Harry agreed that this report's secrecy proved someone goofed badly. That person was most likely Albus Dumbledore. He applied the bindings to Harry’s magic without checking that Harry’s natural magical power was enough to break the bindings. This was the cause of the destructive outburst of uncontrolled magic that killed the Dursleys.
Harry and Amelia had to keep that investigation in the back of their mind and carry on.
Halloween arrived, and the feast began in the Great Hall. Neville reported to the Alliance that Ronald Weasley had rudely rejected Hermione’s attempt to help him in Charms. Hermione could have been upset by Ronald's rude remarks, but Neville took Hermione by her arm, told her to ignore the prat, and escorted her for the rest of the afternoon. Hermione, Neville, the Alliance, and the Escort enjoyed the feast while Ronald glared at them.
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