Letters

little_bird

Story Summary:
A series of letters by different characters...

Chapter 21 - Letters From a Ghost

Posted:
01/02/2009
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Sirius stood on the hard wooden plank covered with a thin, lumpy mattress that served as his bed in his cell in Azkaban. He rose slowly, painfully to his toes and wrapped his hands around the bars set into the slit of a window. He strained to see the bare sliver of sky that was visible to him, deep inside the massive walls of the prison. What he could manage to glimpse was dominated by the full moon, hanging like a ripe peach in the nighttime sky.

Dear Remus,

I'm so sorry... I left you without figuring out a way to care for you. I should have done something, knowing something might have happened to me, and you with no way to support yourself.

Unless you're still tutoring Muggle students in literature. I can't imagine that pays enough.

At least you still have the flat so you can have a roof over your head.

I wasn't thinking about you when I left to find Peter. I wasn't thinking about anything.

I didn't love you enough. If I had, maybe, just maybe, I might have stopped. Then I wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be alone.

*****

Sirius used his jagged thumbnail to scratch another day off on the wall. Today was 31 July 1991. Today, his godson was eleven years old. He wondered if Harry had gotten his letter yet. Had he gone to buy his things? Was he getting an owl? Was he planning to go for his house's Quidditch team his second year?

Dear Harry,

Happy birthday!

I wonder who you're living with. It should have been me...

I wonder if the Weasleys took you in. There would be nothing more Molly would have loved than to add another to her brood. If she's not mothering someone, she's not happy. I can't imagine that they'd put you with your mother's sister. I heard too many stories about her from James.

*****

He stared at the photograph of the newspaper, hungrily gazing at the family waving back at him. It wasn't the Weasleys that pulled him toward the photograph like lodestone. It was the small rodent riding on the youngest boy's shoulder.

Dear Peter...

If I ever get my hands on you, the smallest part of you they'll be able to find won't be a finger.

They'll be lucky to find anything at all, you damned coward.

*****

The large black dog crouched in the empty top row of the stands, his eyes avidly following the game overhead. Harry was magnificent on his broom. Better than even James. The peal of thunder made him cringe. Padfoot didn't care for thunder overmuch. Neither did he like the bolt of lightening that streaked across the dark sky. He put his paws on the seat and howled his displeasure, as another bolt of lightening illuminated his fur.

When Harry came floating down from the sky, Padfoot ran down the ground, keeping a pale eye on his godson from afar.

Dear Prongsie...

You should see Harry fly! He's bloody brilliant! He would have caught the Snitch, too, if those goddamned Dementors hadn't come to the pitch. He should play for England someday. If he does, we'll have a legitimate shot at the World Cup. Can you imagine it, James...? Our Harry, wearing red and blue with the Union Jack, "Potter" and the number seven on the back of his robes.

I think I might have startled him a little. I suppose he wouldn't remember me as Padfoot, would he? Probably not. Lily used to fuss at me for turning into my Animagus form around Harry. Seemed to think I'd give the boy fleas...

*****

As he helped Remus pack up his ever-increasing book collection to make the move to number twelve Grimmauld Place, Sirius' eye fell on a photograph of the four of them on James and Lily's wedding day - James, Lily, Remus, and himself. He picked it up and wiped a fine layer of dust off the frame.

Dear Lily,

I've always said how much Harry resembles James, but last week, I realized where I'd seen that steely resolve under everything else. I've seen it in you too many times to count, but the one time that stands out is the day after Harry was born. Nothing was going to hurt him, not if you could help it...