Chapter Text
Dear Theíos,
Well, I’m all moved in with Sirius, like I planned. I’m not sure if I can say exactly where we’re living, because of the Fidelius Dumbledore put on the place, but since it’s the Order headquarters, I suppose you’ll probably visit at some point over the summer. In any case, Sirius is miserable because it’s the house where he grew up, but of his properties, it was the only one with suited for a headquarters. I guess I shouldn’t write down the specifics in case this letter gets intercepted. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it’s where he grew up either. I don’t really understand how the Fidelius works, honestly.
Sorry to ramble. Anyway, right after school got out, Professor McGonagall took me to see my caseworker at the Ministry, and we transferred my guardianship over to Sirius. I know the Professor doesn’t approve, because she still thinks I’d be safer with the Urquharts, but I don’t think she’s angry with me over it or anything.
We did make one last visit to the Urquharts so I could say goodbye and thank them for fostering me for so long. The little kids cried, even Laina, who I thought hated me! Do you remember the day you visited last summer, when she told you that she was going to come to Hogwarts and be a Slytherin too? She was so serious about it. It was adorable.
I was worried that Catherine would be upset at me for changing my summer plans at the last minute, but as it turned out, she’d secretly applied to Mastery programs this past year. She’d all but decided to turn them down and stay in Britain, I think, but when Professor McGonagall told her I’d be leaving, she decided to accept after all. So, starting in September, she’ll be studying history at the School of Magic in Salerno, Italy, the same place where Professor D’Onofrio got his Mastery!
In truth, I’m relieved that she’s leaving the country. I probably shouldn’t give details, because it’s related to the Urquhart family’s private rituals, but let’s just say there were reasons to think that Catherine might not have been safe if she’d stayed. And with the Dark Lord back and another war starting, I guess she finally decided it was better not to take the risk. So, in the end, I’m glad I chose not to go back and stay with them for another summer.
Speaking of, I’m not intending to see the Grangers at all this summer. Or, I mean, they might come here, if Dumbledore lets us add them to the secret, but I won’t be visiting their house. It’s not safe for them. I think Hermione understands. Actually, I probably won’t even visit my wizarding friends this summer, at least not for more than a few hours at a time. Sirius and Remus and McGonagall and Dumbledore all think I should stay inside the Fidelius as much as I can.
Which reminds me, where will you be living this summer? Are you still busy doing something for Dumbledore? I thought I might hear from you, but I guess you’re safe enough at Hogwarts, but you can’t go back to your house now that your cover is blown, can you? Unless you and the Headmaster have put a bunch of protections on it or something, like here.
I thought maybe you’d be at the first Order meeting they had here just this past weekend, but you weren’t there, and no one said why, so I thought I’d write to you and find out. Probably you’re still busy. Probably someone would have told me if you were dead, but
There’s a lot of work to be done here with cleaning the house up. Sirius has a house elf, but he’s awful. Or, that’s not entirely fair, but he’s very House of Black, if you know what I mean. He and Sirius hate each other, and he doesn’t approve of Remus either, because of the werewolf thing, so when I first got here, he was refusing to clean or cook, and the place was a disaster, because Powers forbid Sirius clean up after himself, and Remus is hardly here, always going off on Order business like you?.
But then I talked to Mrs. Tonks. He won’t listen to her either, even though Sirius re-inherited her, because she’s a “blood traitor,” but she gave me tips as to what to say, and I sat Kreacher (the elf, I mean) down and had a whole talk about how ashamed his family would be if they saw the state the house had fallen into. Anyway, now he cooks and cleans, though we made a deal that he can be as rude as he likes and pretend Sirius doesn’t exist.
Still, though, there’s a lot of creepy old stuff and cursed objects and doxies and boggarts and stuff hiding all over. Kreacher deals with as much of it as he can, but sometimes we have to help, or else he needs us to say which stuff is okay to leave out and which stuff he needs to take to the attic, where he’s hoarding the worst of it.
He’s really rude to Sirius and Remus and most of the Order, but he’s actually kind of nice to me. He said it’s because I remind him of “Miss Cissa,” who I guess is Narcissa Malfoy. Not quite sure how to feel about that, but if it works, it works. It’s hard, though, to remember that he’s not like Cammy or the Urquhart elves. If I’m too friendly with him, he gets upset, and he certainly isn’t going to sit down for a cup of tea with me!
Sorry, I’m rambling again. I guess you don’t care that much about Sirius’s house elf. I just suppose I thought you would be here for the Order meeting, so I could tell you all this in person, but you weren’t, so… I just thought I’d write you. Like last summer.
I don’t really know what you’re doing, since you’re not spying anymore, but whatever it is, I hope it’s going well.
Sincerely,
Mary Elizabeth
Snape,
Seriously? You ran off on some top secret Order mission without even telling me? Or, that’s what Dumbledore told me when my letter came back unopened and I asked him if you were alright. He wouldn’t even tell me where you went!
You’re never going to read this letter, because I don’t know where to send it, so I can tell you that you’re an idiot and a git and I’m really angry with you! I mean, I know you said you’d be “occupied,” and you don’t usually tell me ahead of time what your summer plans are, and I didn’t exactly say to you at the end of term, “Please let me know if you’re going to disappear for weeks to Powers know where,” but that’s because I kind of felt like it went without saying after everything that happened.
And I’m even angrier that I had to find out from Dumbledore. He smiled at me all condescendingly, like I was a little kid who didn’t know anything, and just kept saying not to worry and that you were safe. He was acting like whatever you’re doing is some big secret between you two. But you and I are the ones who keep secrets from Dumbledore, aren’t we? Not the other way around? I’m certain that if he’d asked you, you’d have said he could tell me, but he wasn’t going to believe that.
Yes, yes, I can hear your voice in my head right now. I’ll be burning this letter after I write it. I’m not dumb enough to write down that you and I keep secrets from Dumbledore and then leave it lying around the Order of the Phoenix headquarters, even in my own private bedroom. Not that you have any right to lecture me, you know, after what you’ve done, you arse.
I’m still writing this letter to you, though, even if I’m angry with you. I don’t know why, it’s not like you’re going to read it. Just, I suppose I don’t have anyone else to talk to. Remus is always out on Order business, and Sirius sometimes too, and even when he’s here, I’m still a little jumpy around him after what happened. Even if it’s not his fault. But anyway, even if it weren’t for that, I don’t know that I could really talk to them like I want to.
Maybe I could talk to Blaise, but he’s off in America with his mum visiting Seven—her seventh husband, I mean. Is it bad that I don’t even know his name? Blaise always just calls him Seven, or “The Future Late Mr. Zabini.” He’s pretty terrible sometimes, isn’t he?
And Hermione is pretty busy with her internship with Mrs. Tonks. I’ve seen her for lunch twice, but always with Sirius as a bodyguard, which makes it hard to really talk. And her mum and dad won’t let her come over to Grimmauld because they’re worried it’ll get attacked or something while she’s here. Which I think is a bit paranoid, but she only narrowly avoided them sending her to Beauxbatons, so I guess I should just be glad she’s staying in the country.
Lilian’s in Britain, and I suppose I might be able to visit her for an afternoon or something, but I haven’t. We haven’t really been talking as much since our bad fight in the spring. And the rest of my friends, Luna and Sadie and Aerin and everyone, aren’t really people I confide in or anything. I suppose I could write to Maia or Blaise, but I… I don’t know. They don’t know what I did anything. And I don’t really want to talk to them. I want to talk to you, as stupid as that sounds.
Anyway, Dumbledore won’t let us add too many people to the Secret. Maybe Maia, when she gets back, but probably not Blaise or Lilian, even though their families are neutral. I get the feeling he just doesn’t trust them. So if I want to see friends, I have to go over to their houses, and then I get worrying about whether it’s safe, and whether I’m putting them in danger just by being there, and it’s easier to just not. Sirius thinks I’m being too paranoid, gets on my case about it sometimes, but I know what you’d say if you were here. And I don’t want another person to get
Never mind. Anyway. I’ve even been skipping the tea parties, now that Aunt Minnie and Catherine can’t tell me what to do. Though that’s partially because all the girls who are already fifteen, which is most of my friends, are having separate parties where they don’t need supervision anymore. Once my birthday comes, I might start going again, at least as long as they’re not, like, at Pansy Parkinson’s house or something.
I do at least get to see a few people my age. Neville Longbottom, mostly. Since Dumbledore still thinks the prophecy was about him, he wants Neville to learn to fight, and he’s somehow talked Madam Longbottom into allowing it. We had to wait until we’d cleared out the worst of the cursed stuff, because Neville is definitely the type of person who’d touch something he wasn’t meant to and get himself killed, but now he comes over a few times a week for lessons. Sometimes with Dumbledore himself, actually, but more often with Sirius and I. A lot of the time, Sirius takes us out to Ancient House and we use the training field there.
Did you ever train out there? Sirius said that Bellatrix designed the fields for training the Death Eater recruits. Funny thought, isn’t it, that we’re now using the Blackheart’s own training grounds for Order stuff.
I don’t know what the Dark Lord and Bellatrix are up to, by the way. I haven’t seen or heard anything of them, and while Sirius sometimes tells me what they talk about in the Order meetings (though not as much as you would), I don’t think they know much else either. Do you know what they’re up to? Is that what you’re doing, tailing them or something, even now that you’re not pretending to be a Death Eater anymore? I hope not. I hope whatever you’re doing, it’s much less dangerous than that. Dark Arts research, maybe, though I don’t know why that would make you go away, or prevent you from writing me.
If you haven’t seen the papers wherever you are, Dumbledore’s been going around telling everyone the Dark Lord is back and making a bunch of people really angry. Fudge, mostly, and others at the Ministry. There have been all these hit pieces against him, and these days I’m not even sure if Fudge or Lady Malfoy is behind any given one.
Anyway, Neville isn’t very good, except at sword-fighting, but he’s getting better. I think all the attention from Dumbledore and Sirius and everyone is helping his confidence. Dumbledore wouldn’t tell Sirius the truth about why he was supposed to train Neville, but he was getting suspicious, so I told him about the prophecy. Or, I mean, he already knew there was a prophecy, but not that Dumbledore thought it was about Neville. He thinks the whole thing is about as silly as I do, but he likes Neville okay, so he doesn’t mind teaching him. Plus, it gives me another person to practice with. Aurors Tonks and Vance sometimes come along with us too and give us lessons, or else do exhibition duels with Sirius and each other for us.
Besides Neville, I also get to see Gin Weasley sometimes, when she joins us for fighting lessons. Except that her mum doesn’t want her learning to fight, so she only comes when it’s just me and Neville and Sirius, and we all lie and tell her mum that Gin and I are doing girly stuff together, drinking tea, braiding each other’s hair, or whatever, while Neville gets his training. Even though she practices less, though, Gin is way better at dueling than Neville. She’s kind of scary, actually, when she really gets into it.
She’s not as good as me, but then, no one my age really is, not after all the time I spent practicing with you and Vance over this past year. Maybe Theo, I guess, but I haven’t seen him. I hope he’s okay, stuck at home with his awful dad all summer. Blaise tried to bring him along to America, but Lord Nott wouldn’t agree to it. With the Dark Lord back and all, I worry about him. I worry about you too.
I’ve seen the other Weasley kids a couple times. Bill’s in the Order, so he’s around. Charlie is too, but he’s off overseas somewhere still. Prefect Weasley apparently hasn’t joined because he believes the stuff Fudge is saying. But sometimes the younger ones tag along with their parents when they come to the house for meetings, and then I have to entertain them. The twins are upset that Dumbledore won’t let them join, what with them still being in school and all, and they and Gin and Ron like to try to spy on the meetings. Ron is as much of a git as ever, and Neville is never around on meeting days because he and his gran aren’t actually part of the Order, so he can’t distract him.
It’s alright, though. Ron Weasley being a git just doesn’t bother me as much after, well, you know.
I don’t know what else to say. I’m not even sure why I wrote this in the first place. I was just angry with you and wanted to tell you, but you weren’t here, so I thought I’d write it down, and then all this other stuff came out, even though I doubt you’d care about my encounters with various Weasleys even if I were actually going to send this to you.
I guess if you were reading this, you might be interested to know that I’m making progress on my occlumency even without meeting with Blaise. Somehow I’ve developed this… I don’t know what you’d call it. A “construct”? A way of avoiding the dreamwalking. (Which still hasn’t happened with anyone other than my U.E.G., by the way, though the fact that I’ve added my own dreamwalking wards to my bedroom here might have something to do with it. I had to tell Sirius I was a mind-mage, but don’t worry, he’s promised to keep it secret.)
So anyway, the way it works is that when I start to have a U.E.G. dream, I start off in this weird corridor. Not sure how I came up with it, but there are all these doors, and I think they lead to him or something. But I don’t open them. I just turn around and walk the other way, and then I end up back in a normal dream. Pretty neat, isn’t it?
Still, sometimes I almost want to open the doors. If I went through one, into his head, then maybe I could find out what he’s doing. I don’t think anyone knows, even Dumbledore. I get the impression we’re all just kind of sitting around, trying to prepare, waiting for him to make a move. But then I think about what you said, about how he might notice me watching and follow me back to my own mind, and I make myself turn around. See, I’m not always a reckless idiot.
Besides that, I’ve been practicing silent casting here and there. Sirius and the others give me tips sometimes. By the time you come back, maybe I’ll be really good at it, and then I can surprise you.
When are you coming back?
Mary
I wasn’t going to write you again. There’s no point, and after the last one, I felt really stupid and embarrassed, so I burned it and tried to forget about the whole thing. But then I had this dream. Not a Dream this time, no spooky corridors, just about things that already happened. Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night and needed a distraction, and for whatever reason, I felt like writing. So, here we are.
How long are you going to be gone? Dumbledore still won’t say. My birthday is coming up, and it’s stupid, but I’ve been wondering if you’re going to send me a present and pretend it’s not from you again, like you did the past two years, or if you won’t even break your silence for that.
Yes, I know you’re not being silent on purpose, you’re just off on some important mission. Well, to be honest, I don’t care. You’re a bastard, disappearing like this after everything and not even writing to tell me you’re alive. Not that Dumbledore hasn’t told me, but I don’t want to hear it from him.
Sirius is throwing me a birthday party this weekend, only, I think it’s as much for him as it is for me. Maybe more, because between the two of us, he’s definitely much more the party sort.
But anyway, he’s talked me into having it at the cottage in Hogsmeade, because a lot of my friends can’t come to Grimmauld. Even then, Theo won’t be able to come, not with half the Order there. But at least Blaise and Lilian and Daphne and Tori will be there, and Dumbledore won’t be able to say no because it’s not in headquarters.
I bet if you were here, you’d be telling me how stupid I am for leaving the Fidelius and going to the cottage for a party, when everyone knows by now that Sirius has a place there. Well, guess what? I don’t bloody care. If you’re so worried, you can come here and stop me yourself. But you won’t, will you? I can’t even send you this letter, because I don’t know where you are.
Gods, I sound like some lovesick schoolgirl, don’t I? But it’s not about that, you know. I’m not even sure if I fancy you anymore. Or, I don’t know that “fancy” really describes the way I feel about you right now. That word is so small.
Since you aren’t ever going to read this, I’ll explain what I mean. What I mean is, I want to see you. You know why? Because almost every night, I wake up like this after dreaming about that night. I dream about the graveyard, and Barty Crouch Jr., and the Blackheart, and the Dark Lord. And your office. I’m tied to a gravestone while someone cuts me, or I’m standing and my legs are trembling and the Blackheart is putting my wand in my hand, or I’m on the floor of your office and you’re screaming and I can’t make him stop hurting you.
And then I wake up, but I don’t, not really. Not entirely. Or, what I mean is, part of me is still there. Like I never left that graveyard, or the dungeons, and everything that’s happened since has just been like a dream or something. I walk around during the day and nothing feels real and everyone looks like a puppet. I flinch and nearly scream whenever anyone comes up behind me. Sirius looks at me and I see Crouch looking out through his eyes. I look at the Order members and my friends and I think “What if they’re just a Death Eater in disguise? What if they want to hurt me?”
When I wake up like this, I go out to the roof. I’m on the third floor here, in the master bedroom and there’s this little patch of roof outside my window that looks over the back garden, and beyond it, the neighborhood. I sit out here and I look up at the stars and I think about where you are. And I think that, of all the people in the world, you’re the only one who might understand what I’m feeling and the mad things I think sometimes. But you can’t, because you aren’t here, because you left. Without a word.
But if I could just see you, it feels like, then I’d know that it was over. That night, I mean. Because I saved you. I killed You wouldn’t want me to write it, I know, even if I’m just going to burn this right after. But we survived, both of us, and I feel like if I saw you, I’d finally know that.
It’s funny. That was always your rule, wasn’t it? Survive. You said that’s the only rule of fighting, to do whatever you have to do in order to survive, and then you can deal with the consequences after. Well, I did it. But I wish I had known enough then to ask you what happens next. What happens when you survive, but you feel almost like maybe you didn’t. When you wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of the way a boy smiled at you in the last second he was alive.
Did you know that? I never told you, but I guess you saw it in my memories along with the rest of it. The way Viktor smiled, right before he died. Like we’d gotten away, and he was so relieved that everything was going to be okay. But it wasn’t. And I just keep wondering, did he know he was being killed? Or was it instant? Did he just stop existing, still thinking that we’d made it to safety?
I hope he didn’t know. Even if that’s still kind of horrible, when you think about it. But none of the books say whether the Killing Curse hurts. I guess no one’s been in a position to say. Well, except me, but I don’t remember. The point is, I don’t like to think that Viktor hurt when he died. I’d rather believe that his last thought was a happy one, even if it wasn’t real.
We talked about this before, didn’t we? Last Mabon, gods, it seems like so much longer ago than it really was. After that vision I had of what he did to my grandmother. I asked you then what you did when you had seen something horrible and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I asked how you coped with it, and you said, “Poorly.” I’m laughing a little now, even though it’s not really funny.
But then you gave me a real answer. Well, it was the same answer, really, as the answer to “What is the first rule of fighting?” The answer was, you don’t have to cope with it, you just have to survive. No matter how many nightmares you have, or the way you flinch whenever people come close, it’s all in your head. It’s not going to kill you. So you just keep going no matter what. And then maybe someday you can find a better answer than that, as long as you’re not dead.
I guess I don’t need you here to tell me that, but I still wish you were. I wish I could hear you say it one more time, because honestly it’s kind of a shit answer, so just remembering it doesn’t help. What would help, I think, would just be knowing that you understood why I was asking the question, even if you couldn’t answer it for me. That you think about that night too, and that I’m not all alone with all of it. That maybe we can help each other, or at least I don’t know. I just think it would help.
Then you’d pour me a cup of coffee, probably, and we’d just sit there and drink it, and neither of us would say anything because we wouldn’t have any answers, but it would be a little better anyway.
But we can’t, because you’re not here.