garypotterboywizard-blog

[garypotterboywizard-blog]

The Mysterious Hagroots Letter

Gary was eleven when his Hagroots letter arrived.

Well, he was eleven when it arrived — but he was eleven years, 27 days and 6 hours when he was finally able to read it.

On the first day of his letter’s arrival, Gary was engaged in a very unassuming Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. Gary’s aunt and uncle meant well, but as muggles, they didn’t understand the importance of a boy wizard’s eleventh birthday — in fact they didn’t know he was a wizard at all. While he should have been waiting excitedly by the mail slot in anticipation of this triumphant milestone, Gary instead chewed on cardboard pizza, clapping along to outdated animatronic robot musicians while contemplating how old exactly was too old to jump into a ball pit.

When they arrived home that evening, exhausted and slightly queasy from riding a VR rollercoaster three times in a row, Gary was greeted not by a piece of parchment welcoming him to his magical new life, but instead a sticky note from the postman. 

“Sorry we missed you.” Curiously, the note was addressed to him. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Gary never got mail!

Assuming it was merely this month’s issue of Highlight’s magazine, Gary’s aunt and uncle recycled the note and retired to the living room to watch reruns of Jeopardy.

The next day Gary raced home from school, but he was too late.

“Sorry we missed you,” the note read, again. Only this time, it promised to try again the next business day — which was Monday. Three whole days away!

That weekend, Gary thought about the mystery letter a lot. Well to be fair, he actually spent most of Saturday cleaning his bedroom and Sunday visiting his Grandmother (who had a strange fascination with wristwatches). But in between those other things, the letter did cross his mind.

Gary had Math Olympiads after school on Monday, but after that, he checked the spot on the table where his aunt kept the mail.

“Aunt Tulip,” Gary asked, hanging his backpack on its hook on the wall. “Did any mail come for me today?”

“Right, right,” she said, distracted despite the fact that she was making a very basic pot of spaghetti. “We’ve missed it three times now, so we have to pick it up at the post office."

Gary’s uncle was working the late shift that month and had the car in the evenings, so his aunt promised they’d go first thing Saturday.

The week crawled by, even though Gary had a lot of math to practice for his upcoming meet. When Saturday finally arrived, Aunt Tulip, Uncle Vernoff and his cousin P-Diddy piled in the car for a family drive to the local post office. When they arrived, Aunt Tulip gave Gary the mailman’s note, and he carried it delicately in both hands up to the counter.

“I’m here to get my letter,” he said proudly.

The woman took the note from him and stared for a moment, then handed it back with a shake of her head. “No, see this is at your regional post office. This is the district post office. Understand?”

“Yes of course,” Gary said, even though he was eleven and absolutely did not.

The family piled back in the car and drove to their second post office that day just as a man was locking the front doors.

“No,” Gary said desperately through the glass, holding up the note as proof, “my letter is in there.” But the man was very old, and very tired, and genuinely did not care what Gary was saying as he had a very attractive wife waiting for him at home with a delicious pot roast.

On Thursday of the following week, Gary’s uncle fell ill. While unfortunate, it meant Aunt Tulip and Gary could use the car on a rare weeknight. Gary begged Aunt Tulip to drive him back to the regional post office, in exchange for vacuuming the curtains.

“I’m back,” Gary told the old man once they arrived, thrusting the note at him. “I’ve returned for my letter.”

“It’s been over a week,” the man said apologetically after an extended look through the back bins. “See right here, we return the letter to sender if it’s not retrieved in a week.”

“But I did come for it,” Gary insisted, “I was here Saturday but you locked the doors.”

But the man only handed him a cherry-flavored lollipop, pointed to the hours posted on the door, and moved on to the next customer.

“It was probably just some junk mail,” Aunt Tulip said brightly on the way home, turning the radio to smooth jazz. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

But why would someone choose his eleventh birthday to start sending him junk mail? And anyway, it was his junk mail. He felt he at least deserved to read it. Maybe it would be something cool, like an AOL free trial CD ROM. 

By Friday of the following week, Gary had nearly forgotten about the mysterious letter. His team came in a solid eighth out of fifteen in the Math Olympiads, and Gary began working on a model volcano for his science fair project.

When he arrived home, he saw the postman putting a bright blue envelope into the neighbor’s mailbox. 

“Excuse me,” Gary said, suddenly remembering the trials and tribulations of the weeks prior. “You don’t by any chance remember me? You were supposed to deliver my letter.”

The postman smiled, adjusting his hat to sit at a jaunty angle on his head. “I’m supposed to deliver a lot of letters.”

Of course. The postman wouldn’t know what he looked like, just because he'd delivered a letter with his name on it. He’d have to be more specific. “I think it was a very important letter. Or possibly junk mail. I actually don’t know what it was, because it never got to me.”

“Well, unless your name is Gary Potter, I think you’re out of luck, kid.”

Gary perked up. “I am! I am Gary Potter!”

The postman looked skeptical. “But I am delivering the letter to this house,” he pointed at the neighbors, “and you seem to be going there,” he pointed at Gary's house.

Gary pulled out his school ID. “Here, look.”

The postman squinted at his ID card. “Well this doesn’t look anything like a driver’s license. Kid, postmen are sharp. You’ll need to get a better fake ID if you’re trying to fool us.”

Gary was starting to feel frustrated. “I’m eleven. Why would I need a fake ID?”

“To commit mail fraud?”

“It’s my school ID.”

“That is not nationally recognized by the government as a valid form of ID. Sorry "Gary”,” he said with air-quotes, “you’re not going to pull the wool over my eyes.”

Gary stomped all the way home, hands empty. He considered going on a hunger strike, but his Aunt Tulip had made spaghetti again and he did love spaghetti, so he ate it — but he ate it grumpily.

After dinner, the family was just sitting down to watch the new episode of America’s Got Talent when the doorbell rang.

“—seems to have ended up in our mail—” Gary heard voices trickle in from the entryway. “—didn’t mean to open it — sorry about that — prank mail?”

More muffled voices, and then the door slammed shut.

“Mail came for you,” Aunt Tulip said, tossing the bright blue envelop from earlier onto the couch beside Gary. 

Gary was disappointed to see that it wasn’t an AOL CD ROM at all, and did indeed look like some kind of whimsical prank. Probably from one of the kids at school. His friends were a bunch of jokesters.

“Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you’ve been accepted at Hagroots School of Watchcraft and Wizardry.

Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books, snorkel gear and equipment. You can find all this and more at Horizontally, where you can also synchronize your watch (this is mandatory).

Term begins on September 1st at precisely 8:37am and 14 seconds. We await your response via the enclosed self-addressed envelope no later than July 31st. Please use express shipping, first class, and we prefer Fed Ex to USPS. 

Yours sincerely,

Headmaster Billabong Bumblebrew”

Gary laughed heartily, wondering which of his friends sent the silly letter. He couldn’t believe the lengths he’d gone to in order to read it — just to find out the whole thing had been a joke! 

He didn’t notice as the letter slipped down between the cushions of the couch as he went back to America’s Got Talent — he was already missing a ventriloquist on rollerskates, which suddenly felt much more pressing than the pointless joke letter. 

What a good prank. Wizard school. If only. 

[garypotterboywizard-blog]

Gary Potter just turned 11. His Hagroots letter is on its way.

We know you’re brimming with something near vague curiosity at the prospect of learning Gary’s story. Take heed: it is not a thrilling tale. Gary is not someone most would get worked up about. Despite our own confusion as to why we’re putting forth the effort required to tell this story, it is coming. 

However, we often have other, more pressing things we must attend to from time to time, like combing our hair, or finally cleaning out our attics. These are quite dull activities to be sure, but you’d be amazed at what sounds interesting when juxtaposed against something like our dear Gary’s daily antics. We felt it prudent to warn you that such things may delay our project, and to set the expectation early on that sometimes while documenting our findings we just plum fall asleep. 

Let it also be known that we blame Gary not for this arduous work! In this day and age, the wizarding world could use some normalcy. We can’t all speak Parseltongue and vanquish the dark lords in our invisibility cloaks. Sometimes it’s nice to fall back on someone like Gary, who got a respectable number of O.W.L.s, who never got a bad flavoured bean, and whose pet owl lived long enough to die of old age. Gary was not a prefect. Gary was not Head Boy. Gary didn’t even have a date for the Yule Ball, but that didn’t stop him from dancing. Gary is a very average dancer. People respect that.

Gary gives us hope. Gary is a legend. 

Gary did nothing remarkable in his entire life.

This is his story.