That afternoon, a reader's letter bearing no real name
was delivered to the Daily Prophet's editorial office by an exhausted owl.
The envelope said only: To the author of "The People Between Two Worlds."
The letter was written on an ordinary sheet of parchment, in clear but slightly shaky handwriting.
Kufi opened it himself.
It was not a long letter.
"Mr. Weasley's article made me cry. Not out of anger, but because someone had finally said it."
"I graduated from Hogwarts in 1984. Ravenclaw, Muggle-born.
Two years ago, I lost my job when the records office cut staff. I tried finding work in the Muggle world, and the interviewer asked whether I could type on a computer.
I said I could write beautiful italic script with a quill. He thought I was joking."
"I worked as a records clerk in the wizarding world for nine years.
No promotions, no raises.
A former colleague of mine-a child of a pure-blood family-started five years after I did. He is now our department's deputy director."
"Mr. Weasley said this was not a matter of dignity, but of survival. He was right.
But he left out one thing-for Muggle-born wizards like us, this problem began long ago.
It did not begin today.
It began the day we stepped through the gates of Hogwarts."
"Seven years of magical education uprooted us from the Muggle world.
But it never told us how to go back if the wizarding world ultimately refused to accept us."
It was signed: "Someone lost between two worlds."
After work, Simon Phillips returned to his attic room in Diagon Alley.
The room was cold, and damp seeped from the stone walls.
He did not light the fireplace. He simply sat beside the window and took that old mobile phone from his