Sirius Black

Justin's gone.

I'm - I've got Hydra here.

She

Neither of us is in good shape.


FUCK.

Are you in your office, or packing?

I'm .... I'm out on the pitch.

What Draco wanted to tell me - it was about Harry. He said that he'd been worried, wondering where Harry was - what happened to him, that is, after the spell and allowing Riddle to take his body. He'd written a few posts, asked questions, that sort of thing. Trying to work through his guilt, depression, so on. And he said Harry found a way to answer him.

He went through Dolohov, while Dolohov was clinically dead, and Hermione while she was unconscious. Both of them delivered their messages with enough clarity to convince Draco that they were genuinely from Harry. The point of it all was to assure Draco that Harry's in a good place, that his soul's intact, that he's patiently waiting to see us all again.

And - well, it was so obviously a relief to him that it was impossible not to be happy for him. He had his confirmation. It had clearly been weighing on the kid, far too much. So there's that.

I mean to say, if anyone could figure out a way to send a message from beyond the grave, it would be Harry, wouldn't it.

I'm glad Draco found it so comforting. I know he hoped it would be a comfort to me, too. But, personally, I never doubted that Harry would be at peace. He was at peace with his death and his decision to die. Knowing that - it doesn't change anything for me. If anything, it's ... it's worse.

I think my reaction disappointed him.

I'm staying out here a while longer.

To the one who now calls himself Harry Potter:

You belong to me, and always have. This has always been your purpose. This has always been your destiny. Accept it - embrace it.

Come to me and you need never know pain or fear again. Come to me willingly, and you can end this pointless conflict now and forever. Come to me before midnight in two days' time, and no one else need die because of your cowardice. Submit to my will, and understand. It's time, Harry.

Your schoolmates' lives depend on you obeying my command.


MERLIN, that's the most irritating -


Albus. This prophecy. Harry has a ... theory, a conviction, more properly, that it means that to defeat Riddle, he's going to have to give himself up, allow Riddle to perform the ritual that will transfer his soul (what's left of it) into Harry's body.

He's got a host of excuses why we can't stop the bastard any other way, but there's no proof his method will work. If Harry's body were to ... to fail, to decay and die, after Voldemort takes up residence - well. Would that fulfill the prophecy, in your opinion?

What I mean to say is, is self-sacrifice the 'power' Riddle knows not? And is that really what Sybill meant when she said 'Neither can live while the other survives?'

Must Harry die?

Are you still at Malfoy Manor?

How is everything going? You don't want to kill her already, I hope. Well, Draco's probably keeping her calm, I expect.

Sorry I've lost us Laszlo's. And Ellie.

Hey, kiddo.

Just checking on you. I know it was a lot to absorb.

Hope you're coping all right.

I think he'd have been pleased to know that we know, actually. Probably not as pleased to know you've fallen in with dangerous criminals and blood-traitors, but pleased that someone will remember why he died and that he chose to use his death as some kind of strike against Voldemort.

He didn't succeed in what he was attempting. But you finished it for him. I know it was hard for you but you managed, which is all anyone could have asked and more.

And I know he would have liked how fitting and poetic it was that it all turned out as it did. The sodding girl's blouse.

Anyway. If you want to talk more, don't stand on ceremony.

So, er, Charlie mentioned that ... well, he said in passing that you've been feeling loads of pressure and that it's partly what prompted what he called wanting to 'run away from home.'

I mean to say, everyone deserves a holiday now and then and beyond that, I hope if you ever feel as if you need to leave the Ministry or change what you're doing for the Order, you've only to say and we'll make the necessary adjustments. It's useful but not if it means sacrificing your sanity, love.

But the way Charlie said it sounded as if it were something more related to home - that is, to Doughty Conduit and Grimmauld.

And I just .... I wanted to make sure - I mean, ask: It's not something I've done, is it? I mean, I've not made you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome or unappreciated or anything, I hope. And if I have done, or if it's something else - well. I hope you'd tell me (or even tell Remus to tell me) so I can try to stop whatever's the problem. If I can, that is.

Of course, if it's something Remus did, feel free to hex his ears off. I might even help. (If it was Kreacher I'll definitely help!)

I don't mean to sound like I assume that the way you feel is at heart an issue that's all about me, far from it. Just that I know if there's one person who could uncomplicate your life just by not existing, it's me. So naturally I'm going to treat myself as the prime suspect in your unhappiness. If that makes sense. Or at least that I must be guilty until proven innocent.

Anyway. It's a long-winded way of saying: Whatever's wrong, if anything is wrong, don't keep it to yourself, kiddo.

I know you told me to kip before the Order meets in full this afternoon but I can't.

Do you and Alice know how many are coming? We should really get everyone, if at all possible. There's a lot to discuss.

I'm so glad I went up there. Was there for him. Needed it, poor kid. They brought him to that ritual, made him watch that - made him think the whole time he might be next in the cauldron - and why? Albus said he had a theory but wasn't sure.

There's another thing. Surprised the pants off me - even Albus seemed not to have realised, either. I assumed they'd killed off all the royal family. I think he did, too. But ... that would explain loads about the wards, if they used royal blood to seal the spells.

Merlin. Horcruxes.

I think all we can do for now is focus on what else we can do to shore up our position while they all react to the news that their leader really can't be so easily deposed.

Been thinking about you all day.

You'd hardly recognise the house, especially after using it to hold lessons here at Easter hols. And everything we've had to do to make it safe for Bea. Couple days ago she decided to pull herself up by the curtains in the parlour - you remember the ones Mother loved and Father thought were far too dark for the room - and the bottom of the drape tore away in Bea's hands. Went right back down on her bum, started to sniffle a bit but then looked at the fabric in her hands and stuffed a corner in her mouth instead. (And then spit it out in disgust. With quite a commentary on how it tasted.) Dora kept trying to look stern and busting out laughing instead. I didn't even bother with the looking stern part. I could just imagine how Mother would have shrieked about it. (Well, Kreacher did a fair impression for us, when he saw the uneven rags, anyway.) Makes me wish we'd taken a knife to the bloody things years ago. Father might not even have punished us too harshly, either - he hated those awful drapes, anyway.


Say. If you were our locket, where would you have hidden yourself? I looked on your bookshelves and in your bedside table drawer but I couldn't get much further. Too many ... dust balls. I'm not giving Kreacher the satisfaction of asking about it, either. But she's asked again. It's almost as if it wants to stay lost just so Miss Parkinson can accuse me of not looking hard enough.

She's got some idea she can find you with the lock of hair. Or what's left of you, I guess, to put it more accurately. Not sure that's a clever idea - or well, perhaps it is but I suppose I'm not sure she really wants the answer she might get.


Probably going to get a proper teasing, writing to you like this. At least I'm not including song lyrics and poems, Mordred, you couldn't pay me to be 16 again for all the salamanders in Arabia.

Still. Teasing or not: Three years.

Remus says it was already too late by then, you know. That nothing I could've said those last two years would have made a difference. It's not those two years, though, that were the problem.

I suppose what bothers me the most is that even at the end, when you were like a man drowning, you continually refused to take the hand I offered. So maybe Remus is right and this was always the way it had to be.

But.

The thing is I know that people can change. Opinions evolve. Mac's have done, since he's come to work with the Order. And even bloody Snivellus can't deny that the Lilys and the Hermiones of the world are just as powerful and talented as someone with nine generations of magic to the family name. Merlin, apparently even our cousin Draco sodding Malfoy has come to see the futility of the Protectorate. And you did too, even if you were too fucking proud to say so. Or too frightened.

So .. Why? Why disappear or kill yourself or get yourself killed? Just to end your own suffering? Why when you could have just let me help you? Or is this your final revenge, Goblin, for all the times I wouldn't - play with you or listen to you or do whatever you wanted, for making my escape when I could do, and not ever really checking to see if you wanted to come along?

You know, the dead ironic part is she thinks it's a mark of how strong you were. And she thinks she knows you without ever understanding how smug, how superior, how snide or how much of a bastard you could be. But the thing is that it means she can mourn you and the only anger she feels is toward Voldemort for twisting you and breaking you. Not that I don't feel that, too, but I can't seem to separate it from the other anger. Toward you for taking the coward's solution. Toward me for not being more insistent with you - or persistent, take your pick - about your friends and your choices, about Mother and Father and their stupid games. I mean, yes, Voldemort broke you. But they're the ones who malformed you first.

Circe.

I can't even apologise properly. But that's the problem. I'll never be able to apologise because I'll never be able to fix the damage. I'll never have the chance.

Except by making sure he doesn't get another single one of the Blacks. Or anyone else, if I've anything to do with it.

I swear on James' memory I am going to murder that rotten little toerag of an elf.