Dear Mom and Dad,
Life in Hogwarts School is not only entertaining, but it also a place where I learn lessons and life experience. I’m learning there is far more to life than just living it. To illustrate, learning about magic at Hogwarts has made me realize how much of what we think we know in the muggle world (that’s what they call the non-magic world) is not the only reality. To understand life, we really need to experience friendship, love, and the difference between doing good and doing evil.

In just my short time here at Hogwarts, I have already made some great friends in Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. What I’m learning from them is that friendship means cooperation between people, and it is not something you can just get out of a book. The value of friendship is so much more than just having someone to say hi to in the hallways, it means having someone to lean on when you need help or someone to have fun with after classes. I agree that friendship can be a double-edged weapon depending on how you use it and most importantly how you choose it. I would like to guarantee you that I am choosing my friendships carefully. It is not that it is an easy decision to make to choose who your friend is in a school like Hogwarts where there are so many different personalities, and sometimes the people you make friends with can get you into trouble without meaning to. But I guess that’s the difference between good friends and poor ones – the good ones only get you into trouble on accident and usually only when they’re trying to help other people. Please don’t worry about the troll incident, Harry and Ron came just in time.

Friendship includes love, and I am learning more about that, too. There are competitions at the school, the most important one being quidditch (a game involving flying around on broomsticks and several enchanted game balls). Through these competitions, we are learning to love our houses like an extended family. We are learning to treat each other with love within our houses and to help each other out, even if we’re not the best of friends. There is a difference in the love I have for my house and the love I have for my friends. There’s even a difference in the love I feel for my friends. I’m not sure how to describe that difference yet, but I know I prefer to be around Harry who makes me feel good about myself more than Ron who teases me about everything.

One of the most important lessons I am learning here is the difference between good and evil. Like everywhere, there are good and evil things in and around Hogwarts. Most of the people at the school seem good and kind, but there are a few that I am not so sure about. Professor Snape, for example, seems to be always suspicious of things and he’s mean-spirited. He has his favorite students, Draco Malfoy being one of the worst. In fact, the entire Slytherin House seems a bit shady to me.

I am really loving being here at Hogwarts. You know I have a lot of ambitions, hopes and desires. I never dreamed coming here that I would learn more about friendship, love, and the difference between good and evil more than I would learn about magic, or that I would learn those things from something other than a book. Don’t worry, I am studying hard and paying attention in my classes, but I am learning that there are important things outside of the pages, too.

Yours truly,
Hermione Granger