I'm not as think as you drunk I am.

Dear Ginny,

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for all the angry words I've written to you over the last few days. I'm sorry for all the hurtful things I've heaped on you and also on Ron. Though to be fair, I'm still a little miffed about having my letters to you intercepted by him and then having him write that letter back to me.

But I'm sorry for the way I've treated you Ginny. I don't think it's very fair of me to heap abuse on you for how you chose to open up to me when I have such a hard time opening up myself. Maybe I should raid my uncle's liquor cabinet as well, it might do wonders for my ability to express my emotions. However, I'd like to try and do it sober first, just to see if I have the courage and intelligence to do it right the first time.

Not that I'm saying you don't have courage. You do. Just because I don't agree with your methods for letter writing, it took a lot of courage to write it at all, let alone send it. And it takes even more courage to care for someone who's behaved so badly over the last year. Then again, I didn't exactly get the best end of the deal on things.

I was very angry at a lot of people Ginny. You were right. I was angry at Dumbledore for not keeping me up to date on what was happening in the Wizarding world as well as for making me stay at the Dursleys. I was angry at Sirius for not seeing more of him. I was angry at Ron and Hermione for not telling me what was going on in the world or keeping me up to date with what they were doing.

But most of all I was angry at myself. For being responsible for all of it. For being responsible for everything that's happened since I was born. I was angry for my parents having to go into hiding, as well as for being killed. I was angry at having to grow up with the Dursleys and for Sirius having to spend so much time in Azkaban.

I'm angry because I could have put a stop to all this two years ago if I had let Sirius and Remus kill Wormtail in the Shrieking Shack but I stopped them. I stopped them because I didn't think my father wouldn't want them to become murderers. My father! Isn't that funny? My father who I've never met, who I can't remember and don't know practically anything about other then he was my father and was married to my mother.

This isn't self pity Ginny. That's a cold hard fact. Maybe I'm not totally responsible, but when you look at it all, I'm always the one at the center of everything. There's no denying it and there's no changing it. There are things I could have changed and things I couldn't have changed. But either way, I'm at the center of it all. It's not conceit that's making me say that, it's the truth. How many books are there out there written about Neville Longbottom, the boy who's parents were tortured into insanity? You see the difference?

I'm so angry Ginny. This is all I am. And I'm afraid that this is all I will ever be. I'm the Boy Who Lived and nothing else. I'm scared that everyone I care about is going to be tortured and killed right in front of me. I'm frightened Sirius was just the beginning. Next Voldemort is going to kill Ron and Hermione and your parents and your brothers and you. He's going to kill Moody and Tonks, he's going to kill Remus and McGonagall and Dumbledore and then I really will be alone.

You're right about Ron and Hermione by the way. I reckon in another twenty years or so, they'll finally screw up the courage to tell each other how they feel. I wish they would realize how happy they could be together. They do deserve to be happy, even if it does send me back to being alone again.

Did I ever tell you how relieved I was when you were dating that Conner bloke? I was you know. I know this is going to sound like I'm an insensitive prat but I was glad you were able to work past that crush you had on me. Or so I thought. I guess we both worked through our crushes last year. Looking back on it, I realize it wasn't going to work out. Cho was still mourning Cedric, and I suppose I was as well. And lets face it, describing your first kiss as being 'wet' isn't going to mark me as any great romantic genius or anything never mind the fact that the one date we actually went on I practically dragged her off to meet Hermione and Rita Skeeter for that interview that Luna's father ran in the Quibbler. I'm sure that made a tremendous impression on Cho.

Don't you think it's funny that your boyfriend broke it off with you and ran off with my girlfriend? I was just writing that last paragraph when that thought ran through my head and I couldn't help but let out a laugh.

Can I ask you a really personal question Ginny? And please tell me if it's none of my business. When were coming back from school last month, were you serious about Dean? Or were you just ragging on Ron? I guess I'm just curious as all. I'd like to think if nothing else from this last year has changed, it's the fact that you and I can be friends. We can be friends can't we?

I know from your first letter, you said you loved me. I know you'd like it if I said I accept your love and loved you back. And I suppose on a certain level I do. But I can't say it the way you want to hear it Ginny. Not now. Not with everything that's happened. That's a place I can't let myself go to just yet. I'm sorry. The last thing I want to do is hurt someone I care about, and I do care about you Ginny. Believe me when I say that. Maybe one day I can. Maybe one day I will. But right now I don't think I have the strength to think about things like that. Let alone the courage. I couldn't bear to be the reason Voldemort decided to target you. I couldn't bear to think about it if he were to kill you because I tried to be with you.

It's what I said before Ginny. I'm alone. I'm all alone in a crowded room and it feels like I'm suffocating because I know there's so much I don't know. I'm alone because of all the people in my life that say they care about me and I suppose they do. But how do I react to that when they start dying one or two at a time? How do I react when even the people I care about, and who care about me, start seeing me as some kind of salvation?

I am their salvation you know? Not just because of what happened when I was a baby either. It's because of what's going to happen next. It's what Voldemort wanted in the Department of Mysteries. You see, around the time I was born, Professor Trelawney made a prophecy. Yes, yes, I know, Ron and I are constantly making jokes about Divination and Hermione thinks she's just a big fraud, but she has made accurate prophecies. She made one the day I found out the truth about Sirius being my godfather. So I'm inclined to believe this one is true as well.

Basically it says that a child born in the seventh month to parents who have thrice challenged Voldemort will be the key to his downfall. Apparently there were only two children the prophecy could have applied to. Myself and one other. I know who the other person is, but out of respect for their privacy, I'm not going to say. It just isn't my place to put them at risk by advertising their name Ginny and I hope you understand that. It wouldn't be fair to them to put them through what I've had to deal with all these years. Anyway, the prophecy in a nutshell says that basically for one of us, that's me and Voldemort, for one of us to live, the other one has to die. And while I can die from any number of possibilities, I'm the only one who can kill Voldemort.

That's it Ginny. That's the secret Sirius died for. That's what my parents died for. That's the secret Dumbledore has been keeping all these years. When you strip it all away, it all comes down to me. Just me.

I really wish I could run away. Push everything and everyone away and just keep to myself. After the letters you and Ron wrote to me, I was sorely tempted. It would be easier wouldn't it? To not have to worry about anyone? To not have friends? To not go back to school? To just stay locked up in the cupboard under the stairs my aunt and uncle used to make me live in? If Voldemort can't find me, if he can't reach me, he can't kill me. And he'll be stuck in some kind of perpetual half-life where he wouldn't be able to accomplish anything. But I can't can I? He still has his death eaters, and the dementors. He'd still find a way to get to me.

He'd get to you and your family. He'd get to Hermione's. He'd attack everyone we go to school with and all their families. He'd kill everyone and everything that would stand in his way until there was nothing left except for me in my nice little corner of the world. Nothing left except for myself feeling contently sorry for myself.

Look at what Umbridge was able to do last summer with only two dementors. I hope she's suffering wherever she is. I truly do. I hope one of the centaurs managed to kick her in her head when we left her in the forest. I know it's a cruel thing to say, but god if anyone deserves any cruelty inflicted on them for the choices they've made, it's her.

God, listen to me sob my heart out. I'm beginning to sound like Cho. Wouldn't that be a laugh Ginny? Go from being all angry and unbalanced one year to being all teary eyed and weepy the next?

I really don't want to deal with any of it anymore Ginny. I really don't. It's too much. How am I supposed to deal with something like that? It's too impossible for me to grasp. If Dumbledore can't defeat Voldemort, how am I supposed to? He's given me the what, but he hasn't said a word about the how. This isn't some first task where I just summon my broom from the quidditch pitch, get on it and fly around in the air, this is Voldemort for pity's sake. What do I do Ginny? Merrily walk up to him, hold out my wand and say Avada Kedavra? Am I supposed to ask nicely that he stand still while I annihilate him into oblivion?

If it were honestly that simple then I wouldn't be writing you this letter Ginny. I'd be off on picnic with my parents, celebrating them for being the ones to kill Voldemort. But I'm not doing that so it looks like it's down to me yet again. And I hate it. It's all I can do not to scream. And I can't because if I did that would just give my aunt and uncle another excuse to start shouting. It'd give them another excuse to lock me up, toss me out or just call me a worthless, ungrateful freak. I'm surprised they haven't locked me up with Dudley and then conveniently gone out for supper while he beat me to a pulp. He's actually quite brutal to look at, sort of like Crabbe and Goyle only with the ability to speak.

You guys really are lucky to have such terrific parents. You know that Ginny? I mean ok, so you don't have a lot of money and you all have to make do with second hand items, but still, anyone can see how much love you guys have for each other. I mean, your mom, every year sends all of you presents, she takes the time to knit each of you, and me, a sweater, and cooks up some pies and other treats. And she's always busy doing something or other around the house or what not, but she always seems to know what you guys are up to. I think you guys really under-appreciate how important your mother is. And your dad, never mind that he managed to get us ALL tickets to the Quidditch World Cup, in the top box no less, but he gets excited over the smallest, trivial things, like putting up a tent in the middle of a forest, or enchanting a car so it can fly, or something inconsequential like a rubber duck. A rubber duck? Do you remember when I showed up at the Burrow before your first year at Hogwarts? Your dad didn't even raise a fuss over my being there. He made me feel right at home, like my being there was the most natural thing in the world. Or the way he fought with Lucius Malfoy the day we went for our school supplies. Ok, maybe that isn't the best example in the world. But it's the kind of thing I never grew up with. It's the thing I grew up on the receiving end of.

Despite all the trouble Fred and George cause, they'll always have a home at the Burrow. Because your parents love them. I'll never have a home, not here with my aunt and uncle and not at the Burrow. Don't get me wrong, I adore your family, but they're YOUR family. Not mine. My name is Potter, not Weasley.

It doesn't matter what happens here, my family is dead. My aunt and uncle don't count, they never really have. And don't get me started on Dudley. He's an oaf and a thug and I'd sooner forget he exists.

I don't know what else to say Ginny. I know you and Ron want me at the Burrow for the rest of the summer but maybe it would be for the best if I stayed here. Never mind the risk, I'm not sure I'd be such great company to be around right now. And I don't know if I want to be cheered up or have my mood lightened at all. It's too painful to remember everything, but I'd rather have the pain then the emptiness of knowing I've forgotten everything that's come to pass so far. Yes, I think that's for the best.

Have as pleasant a summer as you can Ginny, hopefully I'll see you on the train come September.

Respectfully,

Harry Potter