Harry lay on his bed in his recently acquired room staring up at the ceiling with a grin on his face so big it was starting to hurt a bit. He didn't think he'd be getting rid of it anytime soon, even if he'd wanted to. How could he have ever thought today had gone torturously slow? It had flown by really; trying and failing to keep his mind on studying, losing a couple games of chess, lunch he had barely even picked at, a game of Quidditch and poof! Hedwig was back.
And really, how could he have doubted for a moment what was going to happen? Ever since Dobby had appeared in his bedroom his life had gotten better and better and now he was soaring so high he was looking down on the moon. 'Had it really not even been a week yet?' Harry thought to himself.
The image of what the little elf's life had probably been like during this time had the grin begin to slide off his face. He'd have to send a letter to Lichfield and see how the hunt for Dobby was going. It was Thursday, and if he hadn't been so distracted he would've realized he hadn't heard a word from the old man since he'd left Gringotts on Saturday.
Harry knew Lichfield would sort it all out. He didn't seem the type to let a little thing like not knowing anything about the people he was trying to find stand in his way of getting the job done. Still, giving the gnarled old wizard a poke in the side wouldn't hurt.
These thoughts were way too serious for Harry at the moment so he reread the letter that had given him the smile in the first place. It didn't take long, there was only one word: YES!
That had his smile back in place.
A short, quick knock! was all the warning he had before the door opened and a streak of red hair stormed in. Harry reflexively balled his hand around the tiny scrap of parchment as Ron came up short in mid-stampede when he saw the desk unoccupied.
"Harry, you in here?" his friend asked.
"Yeah," Harry answered, sitting up on the bed behind Ron and drawing his attention to him.
The voice of Mrs. Weasley chided from somewhere below them, "I insist you open this door and tell me what's going on! I'll blast the door-!"
"Why, what's going on?" Harry asked as he shut the door to block out the noise.
"I should be asking you that," his friend declared as if some great crime had been committed against him. "What is going on?"
"Oh, the game!" Harry exclaimed, his brain finally catching up. "How'd we do?"
"Lost spectacularly. Thanks for noticing we're supposed to be playing," Ron said sarcastically. "What've you been doing in here that'd have you throw your brain out the window when it comes to Quidditch?"
"Well-," Harry said, moving to flatten his unruly mop of hair with his closed fist before quickly changing direction to covertly stuff the note between him and the mattress, hoping his friend took the movement as some sort of shrug. "I've just got a lot of stuff on my mind," he said evasively. "You know I can't tell you everything that's going on."
"So it's just a bunch of stuff with Gringotts then?" Ron said uncertainly. "And what's with all the studying? You're supposed to be on my side against those bookish people."
"That's part of it," Harry evaded again. Since he had vaguely mentioned the issues in his letters it wasn't precisely a lie. It was just a part of what he was doing that was so small it was about the size of an atom. If Ron thought it was bigger than that- "And there's nothing wrong with being one of those bookish people, Ron," he said defensively, hoping he could find a way to angle the conversation away from their other best friend. "There's a lot to learn."
"And we've got plenty of time," his friend pressed.
"You have plenty of time," Harry said. "But for me it's different. If you want to know something you can just ask your mum and dad, or your brothers, but for me it's just me."
"You could ask them too," Ron said stubbornly.
"Yeah, but I can't rely on them forever-," Harry tried to explain.
"Well, why not?" his friend cut in. "What's wrong with my family?"
"Nothing, Ron, they're great," Harry said honestly. "But they're not mine. I'm not going to have your mum and dad looking over my shoulder my whole life just in case I have a question. If I'm going to do something then I'm going to have to figure out how to do it on my own."
"You've got me," Ron said.
"Now, sure," Harry explained. "What about in ten years when you're off looking after Norbert with Charlie, or in Egypt with Bill? We'll still be friends, but you could be off selling broomsticks in Timbuctoo for all we know. Who am I going to ask then?"
The stubborn look on Ron's face faded as he thought about what Harry said.
"I hadn't thought about that," he admitted as he moved to sit down on the edge of the desk.
Butterflies formed in Harry's stomach and started fluttering around as he remembered he had stashed Hermione's letters in the desk drawer directly below where Ron sat.
"Imagine what it'd be like if you suddenly had to go and live in the muggle world," Harry suggested, continuing to talk to keep his attention away from the letters.
"You mean like if I were a Squib?" Ron asked, perplexed.
"A what?"
"A Squib; a person with magical parents who can't do magic," Ron explained. "I told you mum's cousin was an accountant or something, didn't I?"
"Oh," Harry said, at a loss for words. "I just thought he liked math." He shook himself out of that reverie. "Okay, say you're a Squib and you have to go live in the muggle world. But when you get there you realize that you don't know anything . Not how they dress, what they eat, how they move about, not how the lights work-"
"Isn't that all done with ecklestricity?" Ron asked, looking somewhat scared.
"E-lec- tris -i-tee," Harry corrected him. "And no, there's a bunch of different stuff they use. You could use electricity to power a stove to help you cook, or it could use a fire in there that's powered by gas, which is not to be confused with gasoline - which muggles use in their car to make it go, which is also called gas, or petrol. And then there's diesel for the really big trucks, which they also call lorries-"
"That's just confusing," Ron said dumbfoundedly. "Are you making that up?"
"Nope," Harry replied. "Every bit of it's true. And that's just the beginning. I haven't even mentioned what school is like, what subjects there are, different jobs you can get once you graduate - how are you going to make money if you don't know what you're good at?"
"Blimey," Ron said, looking in horror at the future. "I'm gonna be hopeless. I don't know any of that stuff."
"You're gonna be fine, Ron," Harry chuckled. "You're a wizard, remember? You're not going to live there."
"Wha-? Oh, right," Ron blushed. "How'd you ever learn all that?"
Harry shrugged. "I grew up there and you pick it up as you go. You probably know more about the magical world than I'll learn in seven years at Hogwarts, and you've got your family to fall back on."
"I never thought of it like that," Ron admitted, shaking his head. "Maybe you do have a lot to learn." Suddenly he scoffed at something. "Fred and George had this ridiculous idea-"
"-Well, they are Fred and George," Harry said.
"Yeah, but this one was really far out there," he explained. "They thought you might be up here writing to some girl."
Harry could have groaned. After all his hard work confusing Ron he was going to be exposed by Fred and George because now there was something they could pick on him about there was no way they were going to let up on the idea. They'd tried to have a go at him the first few days he was here by coming in and fainting on his bed whenever he looked at them, at least until he had turned it around and asked them if he should leave so they could have the room. Harry didn't know how he was going to get out of this one.
'If they're going to pick on you,' the Harold part of him said. 'They might as well pick on you for something you've done rather than something they think you've done .' It had been the first time the Harold part had said anything since it had told him to ask Hermione out a few days ago, and that had worked out well so far.
'Yeah,' the Harry part of him agreed. 'If you hide it now they'll make fun of you for the idea and then make fun of you some more when the truth comes out .' He would just have to grit his teeth and do it.
"Actually, Ron," he said embarrassed. "I kinda have."
.....
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