Draw the Veil

VII. Letter from Hogwarts

A week before my eleventh birthday, I went to pick up the post from the hall floor and was surprised to see an envelope with my name on it. Someone had written to me? I thought perhaps it was a birthday card from my Aunt Sandy in Cornwall, but when I turned it over and saw the return address and seal, my stomach jumped.

'Mum! Mum!' I called, feeling a flood of rare excitement wash over me.

'What is it, darling?' she asked, walking into the hall, still holding a wet dinner plate in a tea towel.

'I got a letter!' I cried, waving it around.

'Oh? Who from?' she asked, but she did not wait for my answer. She recognised the envelope. 'Oh. I was expecting this.'

I looked at the return address. 'Hogwarts? That's the wizard school, right? The school I go to when I turn 11?'

My mother sighed. 'Yes. But sweetie, that was before...'

She did not need to finish her sentence. 'I know,' I said impatiently. 'But how will I learn magic if I don't go? How can I ever be a strong and powerful wizard?'

'Listen, I need to talk to your father,' she said. She turned and walked down the hallway to my father's study. She disappeared inside, closing the door behind her.

I knew she was going to talk to him about my letter. She would probably suggest that I should not go away to school. I crept up to the door and put my ear against it.

'Charles,' I heard her saying, 'he got his letter. From Hogwarts.'

'Bloody hell, ' my father muttered. 'Is he 11 already? Where did the time go?'

'He wants to go. How do we explain it to him?'

'Explain what? Let the kid go.'

'What?' my mother cried. 'But Charles...Put the bottle down for two seconds, would you? Charles, he's...well, you know what he is, Charles. He can't go away! We have to watch over him.'

I heard a clink of glass and a splash of liquid being poured. 'Is it healthy for him to stay here with us? What can we teach him? We were never very strong wizards.'

I could almost see my mother's chest puff out and knew what was coming next. 'My family, Charles...my family is made up of great and powerful sorcerers, and you know it. A Miller can teach a child magic, Charles. We fought in the great Goblin Wars of...'

'Oh, shut up about the bloody Goblin Wars already. Your ancestors were good wizards, yes. You, however...How many O.W.L.S. did you get? One, was it?'

My mother sputtered incoherently.

'One,' my father repeated. 'In Herbology. Nancy, don't get me wrong. You're a good woman, a good wife, a good mother. But we can't teach him Defence Against the Dark Arts, and you know it.'

'Dark Arts? He knows those all too well,' my mother retorted.

'Oh, come off it. You know he needs to learn his spells, and you know we're not teachers. Christ, Nancy, you spend all day baking. And me? Well, look at me.' I heard him slam his glass down on the desk. 'At Hogwarts, he'll have real professors, real classrooms. He's not going to get anywhere here. It can't be healthy for him here.'

'You disagree with the way I've raised him?'

'Yes. And no. I agree that he needs to be protected, that the neighbours need to be safe. If it means keeping him inside, so be it. But will he still be here when he's 18, Nancy? And if so, what kind of man will he be then? At some point, we need to let him go. And we need to go on with our own lives. Maybe our days won't revolve around him and his...condition all the time. Maybe we can stop looking over our shoulders and staring at the night sky in fear!'