A Letter of Explanation

My dearest Albus,

If you're reading this letter, then there is no doubt that I've passed on. Don't grieve for me for we both knew my life was far more fragile than yours though you were far older. I only hope I shall not come back as a ghost to haunt Hogwarts for all eternity. No doubt you would feel obligated to stay faithful. Forever the Gryffindor, Albus. It's what I love about you.

I write this letter not to remind you of our good times together - though they were many - nor to remind you of the bad times - which were far more - but to answer some of the questions that have remained unanswered for thirty years. I can imagine you sitting there in your office, stroking your beard thoughtfully, Fawkes on his perch behind you. Perhaps you are still eating one of those damned lemon drops? Nothing changes, does it? But maybe it does. I know my life did.

I was broken, Albus, shattered, crushed, destroyed and you put me back together. You cherished the broken vessel and turned it back whole. You looked beyond my past, beyond some of the worst years of my life and taught me that I could be happy, that I was deserving of happiness. For that you have my eternal devotion.

Why did I become a Death Eater? You asked me that question all those years ago. I feel I owe you an answer. As they say better late than never. Much like my own service to the Light.

I still remember that mild, balmy autumn evening when I stumbled past the wards of Hogwarts clutching my left arm. Undoubtedly I must have looked a sight, hair stuck over my face, wild-eyed, blood still dripping off my robes. I'm still surprised that you even let me enter Hogwarts much less than escort me - or rather, hold me up - as we walked the long trek to your office. Your eyes were so kind, so understanding as I blurted out my pathetic tale. I was close to hysterics that evening. It had never occurred to me - though I had imagined it countless times - that killing somebody could be so difficult. After all, they were only two words. Two harmless little words but they choked in my throat. Do you know what the Dark Lord does to servants unable to obey? Not torture; that would be too beneath him. He forced me to kill the man with my bare hands. The same hands that you held in your office when you promised me that he couldn't get at me again. That he couldn't ever hurt me again.

That night I could have walked away. I could have walked away from your office with no consequences. A reformed Death Eater, yes, but no spy. Why didn't I? I asked myself that same question over and over again in the following years. I still don't know. Perhaps I loved you even then? Dare I hope the feeling was reciprocated?

All I know is that my love for you burned when all other lights flickered and went out. For all I know, your love for me was the only genuine love I've ever received. Can you blame me for cherishing it?

My Albus, dare I ask you not to hate me after you finish this letter? Hating a dead man is not in good taste.

No doubt you thought I had reasons aplenty for joining the Death Eaters. I am, after all, a pureblood. From a family, though poor, but still fanatically aligned with pureblood causes. I was bullied at Hogwarts. I had no true friends. Nobody who could understand me. My only refuge was my intellect. A poor refuge indeed.

Perhaps you imagined my family forced me to get the Mark. If you did, I regret disabusing you of that notion. After Hogwarts, I travelled to Russia - as far as I could get from my family without leaving Europe. They didn't care. We lost contact slowly, like all families. Don't get me wrong. They didn't hate me. I wasn't one of the abused Slytherins. In fact, they professed to love me greatly. But it didn't matter to me. Their love wasn't enough. The mantra of all teenagers: They didn't understand. This sent me all the way to Leningrad.

Perhaps you imagined Death Eaters coming up to me and offering me a lucrative position in one of their potions laboratories. Again, you would be wrong. I did brew potions for them, but voluntarily. After I had already received the Mark. My experiences with exclusively Russian-created potions was extremely valuable.

Perhaps you imagined me ensnared by the power and charisma exuded by the Dark Lord. Wrong again. I could always see past the pretty words to the rotten core underneath. But I didn't care.

Perhaps you imagined that my miserable years at Hogwarts left me bitter and cynical at the tender age of seventeen so that my only refuge was to join the Dark Side. A pretty story, no doubt, but only half-true.

The Death Eaters didn't recruit me. What would they have done with a poor boy who wasn't even of true British stock? No, I contacted them myself. I begged, pleaded to be allowed to take the Mark. Think about it, Albus.

I was a bitter old man at seventeen. It seemed to me that only I could see past the lies that adorned the entire world. What was the difference in working for a madman or working for the Ministry? Both were flawed vehicles. I just wanted to belong so I chose to be Marked. A permanent reminder.

Do you know what is the worst part of this whole miserable tale of my life? I had no reasons to join with the Dark. It was simply a choice made by an overly-analytical, cynical seventeen old boy who was already teetering at the edge of the abyss. It was so tempting to simply slip and fall in. So I did. I was never caught up in their anti-Mudblood propaganda. I simply didn't care. I was part of a group. I belonged. They needed me. I wasn't simply a son who they paraded around whenever I got an O. I was needed and it was a beautiful, exhilarating and addictive feeling.

I revelled in the feeling of sweeping my cloak around myself and kneeling at my Lord's feet. The feeling of being needed was only overshone by the heady swirl of obedience. Being able to say 'my Lord' was one of the happiest days of my life.

So there you have it, Albus. The whole dark, dirty, unadorned truth. Do you now understand why I refused to tell you all those years ago? You would have looked at me with disappointment. We would have never had these happy years.

I love it how you hold me. I love it how you know just when to reassure me. I love it when you know when my mind flickers back to the two wars and you just know exactly what to do to take my mind off that. I love how you managed to get rid of those feelings of worthlessness that permeated my world for so long. But most of all, I love you Albus.

Without you, I would have dredged up some of my last dredges of Gryffindor courage and killed myself long ago. Or at least spent the past thirty years contemplating that.

Without you, I'm nothing.

Nothing but a dirty, filthy, former Death Eater.

You are my world, Albus.

I only hope you don't hate me too much now. I'm waiting for you.

Your,

Severus