Dear Lysander,

Happy Ninth Birthday, Little Man.

You've been gone for two and a half years. Some days it seems like yesterday you were here. Some days it seems like a lifetime ago.

I think a lot about when we first met. You were so much smaller than Lorcan that the two of you didn't even look like twins. I really wondered if it was a good idea to get involved with someone who had a sick child. Then you smiled and held your arms out to me. I picked you up and I never looked back.

I always thought it was my role as a father to teach my children about life.

You taught me more about life than I could have ever imagined.

You made me do things I never imagined I would do. When magic couldn't fix you, I turned to muggle medicine. I went to Granger and asked for her help. Her parents were muggle healers, and even if they were teeth healers, surely they would know a muggle heart healer. I spent not just hours, but weeks and months with muggles, who I once thought were inferior to me. I learned they had different ways of doing things than wizards. Some were better, some maybe not, but most were just different. And that was okay.

You taught me that the world was bigger than my family. We met so many other families at the children's hospital, and we formed our own tribe. The ones who knew that any time they came to the hospital, they may be leaving without their child. Malfoys do not care about the masses, do not weep over strangers, and do not display emotion in public. At least not until what we went through with you. I held other parents' hands and cried with them when things turned bad. Then I went in and picked you up, sometimes very carefully if you had tubes and wires on you then, and just held you because you were still here. I lit candles in the chapel for dozens of people. I gave a nurse 200 pounds to send flowers to the funeral of a child whose name I never knew. The child who gave you their heart. I wish I could have done more for that family, for giving us two more years with you.

You taught me there are just some things I can't control. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. You were supposed to get your new heart, and live a long, full, relatively healthy life. Your little body wasn't supposed to reject the heart two years later. In the end, your body was just too weak from all the years of struggling and you just couldn't fight any more. All the money and power and influence of the Malfoy name couldn't save you. All I can do is hope that the doctors learned something from you that may help them save another child one day.

Part of me wishes you were still here, but I wouldn't want you to still be sick and in pain.

You taught me to treasure the little moments. I will forever remember the way you looked at Scorpius as if he was the wisest person in the world, even though he was only two years older than you. I still laugh about the day you got Lorcan to sit in your hospital bed while you sneaked down the hall, as if no one would notice the difference. I will always be thankful that you were the first to hold Summer when she was born. She will probably always be thankful that you were quite vocal in telling your mum that the names Delphinia and Leticia were hideous. We have the picture on the mantle in the bedroom of Christmas right after you got your new heart. You were four and Summer was not quite two, and she was almost as big as you were. It's right next to the picture of you proudly showing off the L shaped scar on your chest.

Superman had an S on his chest. It only made sense that Little Man had an L.

I wish you could have held on just a few weeks longer and met Phoenix. You were so excited about getting another brother. Right after you died, I wished that the baby was going to be a girl so everyone wouldn't expect Nix to take your place. No one else could ever be you. Fortunately, Nix came along with a strong personality and has made his own place in the world. He didn't replace you, but he did make losing you just a little easier to bear.

You're going to have another little sister any day now. We're going to call her AnnaGrace, after two of the nurses at the children's hospital. One of them is the person who taught me this trick. Tying a letter to a helium balloon and letting it go. Wizards talk to portraits. Muggles send letters to heaven.

You taught me to tell people I love them as often as possible, because one day they may not be here to tell them any more.

I never imagined that I could love someone else's child as much as I love you and Lorcan. I dare anyone to tell me that the two of you aren't really "mine."

When the doctor told us about your heart, he explained that it was put together wrong from birth, and the bigger you got, the less it would be able to pump blood as it should. It would be better to give you a whole new heart than to try to take yours apart and put the pieces where they belong. Sometimes I feel like that's what everything we went through has done to me. My heart was all wrong, and then it was broken and the pieces put back together the right way. Except for the piece that's missing. The piece you took to heaven with you.

Before all this, I was jealous and never wanted to share anyone I cared about. Now I'm glad that your other father and Grandma Lovegood are in heaven to take care of you until I get there. I never told your mum, but right after you got your new heart, when I made that business trip, I went to your great grandfather's museum in Dorset, just so I could tell your father's portrait thank you for your being part of my life.

I have to go now. We're going to the hospital and give gifts to the children for your birthday. It was Scorp and Lorcan's idea.

And besides, if this letter gets any heavier, it won't float to heaven.

I love you, Little Man.

Dad Draco