Correspondence

Witchcraft. Which could only mean Lily.

Afterwards, of course, she was tremendously embarrassed; naturally the noise set curtains to twitching and tongues to wagging and in the weeks that followed she faced raised eyebrows in the post office queue, and heard behind her the faint susurration of gossip passed avidly from one smiling acquaintance to the next. Nevertheless, when she saw Harry Potter sleeping so peacefully on her front door step, Petunia Dursley dropped the bottle in her hand, sank to her nylon-covered knees and screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

* * *

Dear Petulant Pet,

If you only knew how miserable I am here, you would write. I'm sorry. I really truly am sorrier than anyone ever was. I miss you. I miss Mum and Dad too, but you most of all.

So it turns out that my Big Secret isn't anything so very special after all. In fact, most of them are miles ahead of me already. It's all very strange.

I swear that I never knew about this secret world until the letter came. You've got to stop this. I PROMISE, Pet, if I'd known about all this Hogwarts stuff I'd have told you straight away. I just thought it was our secret. I didn't know. Cross my heart and hope to die.

(I still can't believe Mum and Dad know all about it now - thank God they haven't figured out about the broccoli thing, or homework, or the self-signing permission slips...they *haven't* figured that out yet, have they?)

Please write, Pet. You wouldn't believe how lonely it is here. Nearly everyone in Gryffindor comes from a wizard family and I keep making the stupidest mistakes just because I'm from the real world. There are people here who have never heard of telephones, or the Post Office. It's weird. Every time somebody mentions some stupid wizard thing that *everybody* knows (which seems to be about every five minutes) I just feel like a complete idiot - house elves and dragons and vampires and flu networks (still not quite figured that one out yet and I do hate having to ask). Honestly, it's like I've fallen through the looking glass. It should all be wonderful, and some of it is wonderful, like the bedrooms and the food (oh, I *wish* you could come down to dinner in the Great Hall) and having my own magic wand. (I cannot believe that I have a magic wand. I can't believe that there *are* magic wands. It seems like everything that we ever thought was make believe is secretly real. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that there really is an Easter Bunny and a Father Christmas. And probably a tooth fairy too.) And even the paintings are like nothing on earth - they actually talk to you. And there are ghosts. Real ghosts.

I mean, a lot of it IS exciting, but - I wish you were here too.

One of the Slytherins called me a 'Mud Blood' yesterday. I could tell it meant something really bad from the way everyone reacted. They wouldn't tell me what it meant. Two of the Gryffindor boys went for him, though. They looked furious.

It isn't that they're all horrible here. I mean, it's only been a few days. They seem nice, a lot of them. But it's just so *different*. I never imagined I'd wind up at a boarding school - all jolly hockey sticks and midnight feasts and that kind of thing. Only here it's Quidditch sticks, apparently. If you use sticks in Quidditch.

I feel like a fraud. I keep expecting someone to tell me it's all been a big mistake, and could I please give them the wand back and leave quietly. Every morning so far I've woken up and pinched myself. Hard. But it keeps on being real. It's just that the rules of real aren't the same any more.

They're going to teach us to fly on broomsticks tomorrow. Hope I'm a better driver than mum. (Driver? Rider? Pilot? I have no idea what the right word is, although it's probably in one of the text books. Guess that's because I'm a Mud Blood.)

I miss you. Please write to me, Pet. I know you're mad, but I swear on my life I didn't do it on purpose. Really and truly, I didn't know this would happen when I turned eleven. I miss you every day.

Love

Lily.

P.S. - I'm sending this by owl. Which you'll know, if you're reading this. Please write back. All you need to do is give the letter to the owl and tell it to bring it to Lily Evans at Hogwarts. I'm not quite sure where Hogwarts is, but I *think* it's in Scotland. I think. But the owl will know.

P.P.S. - I've been asking around, and it seems like magic quite often runs in families. Maybe you'll turn out to be magical too? I hope so.

P. P. P. S - Please write. I love you.

* * *

Vernon, the picture of startled suburban normality, appeared in the hallway almost at once, clutching a forgotten slab of buttered toast in one plump hand. Marmalade dripped unnoticed onto the carpet while he gaped at the sight of his indomitable wife shuddering and caterwauling and tugging at her hair like - like - here Vernon's imagination, never one of his stronger points, rebelled. Like some blasted *foreign* woman, for heaven's sakes. Luckily he had the presence of mind to bundle her back into the building and whisk the basket up from the front step and out of the way of prying eyes. His face flushing an unbecoming shade of beetroot, he slammed the door on the outside world, tugged a now ominously silent Petunia to her feet and wondered what on earth all this might mean.

As he carried the basket into the kitchen, Vernon Dursley felt decidedly nervous. Unbidden, the memory of all those ludicrously dressed people who had so irritated him yesterday came hurrying back to his mind. Perhaps he should have told Petunia - after all, it was quite a coincidence that they should all have been talking about a Harry Potter. But that was ridiculous. This was probably some sort of practical joke. One of those television programmes where they pulled some sort of silly stunt and filmed you secretly. Any moment now a camera crew would probably spring out of the kitchen cupboards and it would be all jolly peals of laughter and slaps on the back and a minor celebrity sitting in their kitchen with a cuppa and a chocolate digestive.

Vernon reflected with some pride that there would be no need to bleep out any expletives in the hypothetical tape, and he was just wondering whether the cameras had caught his best side when he caught Petunia's eye and something told him that he was living in cloud cuckoo land. There would be no C-List celebrity in the Dursleys' kitchen dunking his or her biscuit in a cup of tea this fine morning.

He looked down at the blinking baby and scowled. It waved a chubby pink hand at him solemnly. Its forehead, Vernon noticed, was covered with a very nasty red weal. For a horrified moment Mr Dursley tried to imagine the conversation with the Social Services in which he tried to explain that anyone might drop a milk bottle on a child's head if they innocently opened their front door to find a nasty little baby staring unexpectedly up at them. A moment later he realised that the wound wasn't bleeding - indeed, that it was already well on its way to becoming a scar. So that, at least, was no fault of theirs.

Little Dudley, who did not take kindly to being ignored, had set up his own weak wailing and whimpering as soon as his mother's scream split the morning air. In the few seconds that he had been left alone in his high chair, he had contrived to push the bowl of Frosties onto the floor and was now beating an impassioned and erratic tattoo on the table with his spoon. His small face was quite as purple as his father's. Petunia plucked him silently out of his chair and held him in her arms, jogging him up and down while he squalled and squirmed and pulled her hair. She gazed at the dark haired baby in its ridiculous basket and her thin lips tightened into a very narrow line. Vernon had never seen her look so pale.

There was a note in the basket. Petunia looked at it, and then stared at her husband pointedly. With trembling and butter-smeared fingers he reached out and plucked the creamy velum from the covers. It was sealed with *wax*, of all the stagey and ridiculous gestures, rather than being tucked safely into a nice, normal envelope.

Vernon had a very bad feeling about this.