Prologue
Dear Harry,
If you're reading this letter, then Remus and I are probably dead. I suppose you could consider this as a will of sorts. Well, I do hope we died in battle and not of suicide though – I'll get to that in a minute. Most importantly, it has never been and will never be your fault that we died, even if we died for you. Especially if we died for you. We did it because we want to. We died so that you may live, not so that you can mope around Grimmauld Place.
There, there, do cheer up Harry.
We never meant for you to find out like this. Well, we never meant for you to find out at all, but I suppose that would have been too lucky for us.
After all that secrecy, I'd better give you an explanation as to why, then.
The truth is, we would have been dead anyway. You know that we've been on a "suicide mission" for the past two years, and you probably assumed that was the cause of our deaths. Well, that assumption is correct.
Harry, we had been planning the mission since the three of us got together. Before you start cursing us, please understand that we never intended it to be a suicide mission in the first place. It was only Sirius' untimely demise that completely changed its parameters.
I suppose it doesn't hurt to tell you now that our "suicide mission" was never endorsed by Dumbledore.
To put it quite simply, it was supposed to be an infiltration mission. Snape as a spy was too obvious, and we feared that our grudge aside, Voldemort might not be as free with information to a known double-agent as, say, an Inner Circle Death Eater. The Mad-Eye imposter inspired us greatly. If he could fool even Dumbledore, why could we not fool Voldemort? The plan was brilliant, or so we thought.
Sirius had volunteered to go, with me as backup since the two of us had the most free time. Maybe "free time" isn't the right word. We were used to being in the thick of battle, in the centre of attraction, in front of Voldemort. Dumbledore might have felt cooping Sirius up in Grimmauld Place was keeping him safe, but to Sirius it was like locking him up in Azkaban all over again, unable to do anything.
Maybe you'd say that we should trust Dumbledore to set things right. But, see, that's the root of the problem. The war shouldn't rest solely on one person's shoulders. It should be a group of people who fight for a cause they believe in. When Voldemort's return was finally endorsed by the Ministry of Magic, most of the wizarding population expected you, Harry, you to kill him while they sit at home twiddling their thumbs. Not because of overwhelming evidence that you can, but because of one single incident over a decade ago.
Can you see how stupid that is? Dumbledore is only human after all, just like you, just like us, so if all of us just wait for him to issue us orders we're not going to move forward. Sure, we might succeed in the end, but by that time the war would have taken an immense toll on everyone. Thousands more might have died. You might have died.
That was our driving force. To the rest of those sheep in the wizarding world, the Boy-Who-Lived would be heralded as a hero who selflessly gave his life, or whatever rubbish they can come up with. But to us, to the ones who had promised James to keep his son Harry safe, it would have been devastating.
Hence we decided to strike before Voldemort does, and our aim was the centre of his stronghold.
Sirius was going to impersonate either Rodolphus or Rabastan Lestrange, since any inconsistencies in their behaviour could be explained away as prolonged exposure to Dementors. The mission comprised of two parts: find out Voldemort's targets, and the names of the Death Eaters.
Then we ran into a spot of trouble. You know, regarding undercover missions, the deeper you're in the harder it is to communicate. Sirius might have found all the information we could ever need, but it makes no difference if the information couldn't reach us. Besides, we do know that Voldemort has a habit of using Legilimency periodically on all his Death Eaters, just in case they were lying to him.
It was a book in the Black Family Library that solved both problems in one go. I'm not sure how many of you would have heard of Legilimency bonds, but they were quite popular during Grindelwald's rise to power, and later labelled as Dark Magic due to widespread misuse. I suppose Hermione would have read all about them, no?
It was supposed to be simple. We formed the bonds with each other, allowing instant communication anywhere and adding the Occlumency shields of three people to one.
Unfortunately, Sirius' death changed everything. We knew we did not have much longer left before we succumbed to insanity, but we were determined that at least one of us would live to see Voldemort die. You know, we had originally wanted to scrap the mission altogether, until Snape defected and Dumbledore died. It was imperative by then that we have another informant in the Inner Circle.
Tonks, that is the real reason why Remus kept turning you down. It wasn't because of his age, or his furry little problem, or any of the other ridiculous reasons he had come up with. He only wanted to save you the heartbreak you have to go through when he dies. Although, we have to applaud your persistence and courage. He said yes in the end, didn't he?
When we rescued you from the Dursleys, it was by pure luck that I managed a one-on-one fight with Bellatrix. I seized that chance. We kept her unconscious and under the Fidelius Charm in the basement of Remus' cottage while I took her place. In order to pass off as Bellatrix even under close scrutiny, we used an array of potions together with another piece of Dark Magic: possession.
Being possessed is not something I would suggest you try unless you have nothing left to lose. The only good thing about this is that since I was the one who initiated it, in theory I would win in if I ever needed to fight for control of the body. The truth is, I barely managed to stop Bellatrix from torturing Hermione in time. Half the time I was Bellatrix, I took on her appearance with a semi-permanent charm and her methodology was a great influence on my actions.
Attached is a list of all the Death Eaters and the raids they participated in, that I know of at this moment. I hope someone can make good use of it.
Harry, we're sorry we haven't been there for you for most of your life. We're never going to see you graduate, or get married, or have children, but please understand that we did what we felt was necessary. We did what we could with the hope that with our efforts, you can graduate, or get married, or have children in the first place.
You know, Sirius' last regret was that your only memory of James was an arrogant bully. We want to rectify that. It's true that your father had acted like a bully towards Snape during much of his school life, but please know that Snape wasn't just a helpless victim either. You once told us you didn't understand why Lily ever married James, and we didn't tell you then, but the one moment that changed Lily's view of James was when Snape lost his head and fired a dark curse towards her, and James stepped in front of it.
If you lift this letter up from the box you found it in, you'll see a row of bottles. We've put a few of our memories in there, memories of not just your parents at school, but also of the Marauders during the First War. Now that we're all gone, I think it's befitting that we should lift the veil of mystery on the hooded figures worshipped by the wizarding community.
In addition, I feel that it would right a wrong. Molly, I know you and Sirius have never seen eye-to-eye, and you had much to say about his rashness even after his death. I'd like you to see one of these memories, and maybe understand that just because Sirius didn't act like the godfather you thought he should be, that doesn't mean he didn't love Harry as much as you do.
Harry, live a good life. Be happy. We don't want to see you until you're older than Dumbledore was.
With all our love,
Arriella Magurall
P.S.: If it helps, we named ourselves after our eye colour. I'm "Jet" Jettica, Remus is "Amber" short for Ambierce, James is Hazel, or Hallenzel, Lily is "Jade" Jadine and Sirius is "Grey" Greyan. Yes, I know most of our full names don't make sense, but we had to pretend it was short for something that won't link back to us, so that our loved ones wouldn't be targeted in retaliation.
Author's Note: And here's the promised sequel! For now, I'll be taking requests for memories – which school memory do you most want to see? Drop a review and I'll try to fulfill your request!