[Chapter Size: 1700 Words.]
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With the introduction of the telephone, the Muggle world's communication system, Harry once again got in touch with the wizarding world.
During their communication over the past two days, when Harry and the others mentioned that he couldn't receive letters, a new possibility crossed Harry's mind: Could someone be intercepting his letters?
Ron casually suggested this, and no one paid much attention afterward, except for Harry.
"Yes, if I can't receive letters from others, and others can't receive my letters, it's possible that someone is intercepting them. But who would do something like that?"
Harry became momentarily lost in thought.
He really didn't believe this had been done by Voldemort's old followers, the Death Eaters.
Not to mention that Voldemort had been defeated over ten years ago, and many of his old subordinates were still out there. Even if a few remained, and were die-hard fans, they couldn't be stupid enough to intercept letters.
That would only expose them easily, and it would be pointless.
Harry believed there was absolutely nothing in the letters exchanged between him and his friends that would attract the attention of Voldemort or his followers.
Moreover, since he was protected by blood magic, he should be invisible to any dark witches or wizards who might have ill intentions toward him. They wouldn't be able to find Privet Drive. How could they intercept the letters if they can't even find the place?
On the afternoon of the second day after Harry had asked Hermione and Ron to communicate with the Ministry of Magic, while Harry and Dudley were playing video games in the living room, a red envelope flew in through the open window.
Under the surprised gaze of Harry and Dudley, the letter twisted and folded, taking the shape of a face.
The envelope-turned-face spoke in a slightly rough but not unpleasant female voice:
"Hello, dear Mr. Harry Potter.
We received a notification from Mrs. Hermione Granger and Mr. Ron Weasley regarding an investigation into the failure, and we would like to report our preliminary findings.
We have checked the communication network in your neighborhood and found no abnormalities. However, during our investigation, we discovered that many of your letters, both incoming and outgoing, have disappeared without any explanation.
We are investigating this matter further and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
We will locate and resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and compensate you in accordance with the relevant regulations.
We will contact you once the issue is resolved or there is any further progress.
Best regards, Cranis Buckle, Communications Administration, Department of Magical Transportation, Ministry of Magic."
"Cool!" Dudley, who had also listened to the letter, commented excitedly, "Your Ministry of Magic seems better than the British Parliament. Several streetlights in our neighborhood are broken. It's been almost two months, and no one has come to fix them."
"It's not that much better," Harry replied, somewhat dissatisfied, pouting. "After all that talk, it still means it can't be resolved for now. It's like putting up a sign saying 'We can't solve this, so just wait.' What the heck!"
Perhaps influenced by Ron and his twin brothers, Harry had a very common impression of the Ministry of Magic, despite the fact that Ron's father and his twin brothers worked at the Ministry.
Not long ago, Harry discovered that Ron's father was the current head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Artifacts. However, as a law enforcer, he was obsessed with various Muggle items.
Enforce the law, break the law. And things like that, they say it's very, very common at the Ministry of Magic.
Dudley said, "Ah." He didn't know what the Ministry of Magic was, but thought all similar official organizations must be alike, so he didn't say much.
In truth, Harry didn't know what the Ministry of Magic was like. He only knew about it from the impressions of his classmates.
But this time, he might gain a new understanding through the Ministry of Magic's efficiency.
However, a day passed...
Two days passed...
Three days passed...
There was no further response from the Ministry of Magic, and Harry didn't know whether they were that efficient or if they hadn't found the cause of the problem. But no matter the situation, this gave Harry a negative impression of the Ministry's level of competence.
It was the weekend of the sixth week of summer vacation.
By Monday, Harry would have spent a thousand hours on Privet Drive. According to a previous agreement, he would stay at Ron's house for a while, and if convenient, he could visit other classmates, such as the Patil sisters.
Mrs. Molly Weasley sent a formal invitation by post.
But the invitation letter was somewhat of a joke.
Mrs. Weasley clearly didn't know how many stamps to use, and Hermione was probably not around at the time. So the envelope was filled with over thirty stamps of different denominations.
So much so that, when the postman delivered the letter, he didn't slide it through the door as usual but knocked purposefully.
According to the postman, he was curious about where the letter had been sent from. But Harry could see in his eyes that he was really wondering what kind of idiot would be associated with another idiot who didn't know how to put stamps on a letter.
Being looked at with such pitying eyes, Harry felt very sad.
The Dursleys were indifferent to Harry's early departure, especially Aunt Petunia, who showed undisguised disgust and disdain when she learned Harry would be visiting a wizarding family.
However, Harry wasn't sure how much of that was real and how much was deliberately staged.
The only person in the family who really didn't want to be separated from Harry was Dudley.
He had heard many of Harry's adventure stories during these holidays, though most of them were made up by Harry, who realized he had the same storytelling skill as Ron.
Dudley was a little reluctant to part with his cousin, who had grown up with him and become so magical. But after Harry promised to give him some interesting magical gadgets that weren't too illegal, Dudley wasn't so reluctant anymore and even looked forward to Harry leaving soon.
One weekend evening, Harry was packing his things.
College robes, clothes, broomsticks, and other odds and ends. He also didn't need to worry about Hedwig, she could fly on her own.
At the start of the holidays, all the correspondence between him and Ron had been sent by Hedwig, who was very familiar with it.
However, when Harry was packing, he strangely noticed that the items he had packed had mysteriously returned to their original positions. He had clearly packed his homework, but now it was spread out on the table again.
"Who?" Harry whispered.
Once or twice, Harry may have thought he remembered wrong, but after several instances, he immediately realized something was wrong. Someone, or something, was in the room causing trouble.
However, after Harry scolded the room, it fell silent, and no one responded. Harry looked around but saw no sign of anyone or anything.
"Not going to leave?" Harry frowned slightly, hesitated for a moment, and then quietly activated his magical senses.
Although Harry was a little hesitant to use his magical senses casually because of the incident with the dark man, he had no choice in the current situation. And in Harry's opinion, anyone who would play such a prank shouldn't be much of a problem.
Once Harry activated his magical senses, he took a quick look and noticed a blurry figure in the corner.
It was a creature with an abnormally large head and a small body. It had a pair of large ears and big green eyes.
There was also a layer of powerful magical flame on the surface of its body.
Harry was a little stunned.
For starters, he hadn't expected it to be a house-elf. Secondly, the magical flame on this little elf was so powerful that it surprised him. It was at least much stronger than the seventh-year students at Hogwarts.
However, there was still a certain distance between it and several of the professors he had met before. But what was strange was that the house-elf's magical flame was slightly yellowish, unlike the bright white of most wizards Harry had seen, and unlike the black flame of Snape and Quirrell.
And there was no soul projection behind the elf.
But now wasn't the time to worry about the elf's strength. Harry flicked his wrist, and his wand jumped out of its bracelet, pointing at the corner where the house-elf was: "Get out!"
However, the house-elf seemed to know that Harry couldn't use magic, or perhaps it knew that Harry didn't know how to cast the Apparition spell or any other magic to remove invisibility, so it had no intention of appearing.
Harry frowned slightly but didn't know how to deal with the situation at first.
But at that moment, a strange idea suddenly popped into Harry's mind.
Following this thought, Harry raised his left hand, spread his fingers, and pointed his palm in the direction where the house-elf was.
Through his magical perception, Harry could clearly see that the pattern of dark magic that had originally covered his left hand trembled a few times like a wave and suddenly opened, forming a massive ring made of countless lights from the dark magic pattern in front of Harry.
Harry gently pushed his left hand forward, and a black ring glowed.
"Boom!"
A faint sound was heard, and the magical flame on the elf's body wavered. Then, the elf, who had originally been like a ghost, revealed its true form.
"How is this possible?" The elf looked at its hands, which were now appearing, in surprise, and then looked at Harry with an incredible expression on its face.
The elf stared at Harry, and Harry stared back at it.
Harry had seen house-elves working at the Leaky Cauldron before, and he had seen several others at Hogwarts.
But the one in front of him was definitely the dirtiest house-elf he had ever seen!
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