Ten Letters

Ten letters written—but not sent—during wartime. Set during the events of Deathly Hallows.

Rated T/M. Brief mention of violence. Everything belongs to JK Rowling; it's her world, and we're all just playing in it.

1. Percy Weasley

Percy Weasley writes his letter in the bathroom of his flatshare, crumpled up against the white porcelain rim of the bathtub. His handwriting is neat and even, each printed block letter perfectly formed. There and again the points of the letters bleed, little pools at the end of y and N and m where he's lost himself in thought and forgotten to pick up the quill.

Dear Penny,

If I were a different sort of man—a better sort of man, I'd say—I would have tried to help you. The in the Ministry were the first to go, and you, Penelope Clearwater, recently promoted to assistant for the Head of the Goblin Liaison office, without a single witch or wizard in your family tree…

Your form crossed my desk once, twice, three times, on its way through the usual bureaucratic channels: people made appeals on your behalf. You wrote your mother was a midwife, and your father a school headmaster, and you were born and raised in a place called Cheltenham, which I remember you telling me about.

In our seventh year defense against the dark arts class, you were the first person to produce a Patronus.

It's a sparrow, I remember.

You tried the spell once, twice, three times, and then it was there: milky white and perfect, in front of all of us. You earned twenty points for Ravenclaw. You made it look so easy. I wonder what your memory was. It must have been happy. It must have been so tremendously happy. I hope you still have it. I hope you get to keep it.

I'd give you all of mine if I knew how.

—Percy

2. Andromeda Tonks

Andromeda writes hers standing up at the kitchen counter. She writes in neat, perfectly formed, cursive, each letter linking up seamlessly with the next. Tonks, laying on the sofa in the living room, asks what she's writing; Andromeda tells her she's writing out the shopping list.

Ted,

You could come back. We could find a good place to hide you. We could try the charm again. I can make a good Polyjuice potion, and maybe Dora could help you with a good disguise. There's space in the attic—nobody would know you were there, with the right enchantments. You'd be hidden. You'd be safe. You'd get to meet the new baby in the spring. You wouldn't have to keep running. You'd never have to run again.

A.

3. Demelza Robins

When Demelza writes her letter, she hides in the second floor bathroom, with only hideous Moaning Myrtle for company. Her handwriting is small and skinny, the letters smushed up against each other. She's left-handed, so as she writes she unintentionally blurs everything that came before.

Dear Julia,

Everyone knows we barely passed the blood tests. The professors know it, too. They know Dad's a Muggle and Mum's only like a quarter magic on account of Gran being a halfblood. Apparently nobody in the school's got worse blood than we do. Or that's what they tell me, the Slytherins, and some of the pureblood Ravenclaws too, in whispers and notes and messages on the bathroom mirror.

The Ravenclaws are the worst ones, actually, because they're smart enough to not get caught with it. The Carrows don't suspect them because they're not Gryffindors, and McGonagall and the rest don't suspect them because they're not Slytherins.

What I mean is, the other day when I was coming back from Astronomy, I was walking by myself, and one of the Ravenclaw chasers, Bradley his name is, cornered me. Pushed me up against the wall, put one hand on my mouth and the other up my robes. I started thrashing and he said something awful about how nobody'd ever touch filth like me and wasn't I lucky he was paying attention to me? Finally I got my arm free, socked him in the jaw, then ran like mad back to Gryffindor Tower.

I haven't seen him since but it's only a matter of time. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. I don't think I want to come back after Christmas except then they'd win.

Your sister, Demelza

4. Hestia Jones

Hestia writes from a Muggle café in Derby. Her coffee, untouched for nearly two hours, has gone cold. Since a quill would be too conspicuous, she writes in ballpoint pen, but it feels funny in her fingers and makes her penmanship go pear-shaped.

Dear Megan,

So I'm trapped here in Derby with the awful Muggles, the Dursleys! Supposed to keep tabs on them to make sure everything's all right, but you can't let them know you're even in the vicinity because they shriek bloody murder about not wanting to be seen with our lot. Our lot! I suppose it's our lot that got them into this mess, but who did they think was going to get them out of it? This assignment's going to be the death of me, I swear.

That was a joke. Did you think I knew how to make those? Well, I do. It's just been a while.

Sometimes, on days like this, I think I'd just pop up to Hogwarts and take you home. Sometimes I think I never should have even sent you. Sometimes I think we should have taken this whole bloody year off and travel around the world. Pet giraffes in Kenya and go backpacking in New Zealand. I've always wanted to see Salem in America and you've always wanted to go see the ruins in ancient Greece. Sometimes I think we should've gone and done all those things we say we'll do eventually, before we run out of time.

Sometimes I think we're already running out of time.

It's so fleeting, and there's never enough of it.

I miss you. Take good care of yourself.

All my love, Mum

5. Oliver Wood

Oliver Wood writes his letter at the breakfast table, after his flatmates have already left for the day. The crusts of his morning toast languish on the plate. Dirty dishes threaten to spill out of the sink. He writes in a mixture of cursive script and regular print, and not in straight lines, either—instead the whole letter tilts downward.

Dear Alicia,

Every so often my owl brings my own letters back to me. Letters I've written to people I know—but my owl can't reach them. Do you remember Penelope Clearwater? She was in my year, and I sort of knew her. We talked about Quidditch a lot, and she dated Percy. I never kept in touch with her or anything, but we sent Christmas cards.

Except this year, the card I sent to her got returned to me.

I was thinking it over, and then I remembered how she'd been petrified by that basilisk. My sixth year, your fourth. Enemies of the heir beware, and all I could think about was how they couldn't possibly cancel Quidditch.

Well, they could and they did and now they've cancelled the whole damn league.

Whenever I send you letters I worry they'll come back to me the same way.

I'd go mad if they did.

Yours, Oliver

6. Dean Thomas

Dean Thomas writes from outside Shell Cottage in Cornwall, wrapped up in a windbreaker he's borrowed from Bill Weasley. Nearby, Luna Lovegood conjures up butterflies and canaries from the end of her new wand. "Who're you writing to?" she calls. Dean shrugs. His handwriting is average, but along the sides of the parchment he's drawn pictures: the field where the Snatchers caught him; Shell Cottage and the nearby ocean; Luna, Ollivander, and Dobby.

Seamus,

If I could trust this letter would get to you, and wouldn't be intercepted, you'd never, not in a million years, believe what happened: Harry's here!

Let me back up. I'd been on the run with a couple other Muggleborns and a goblin or two, but we were found and I just nearly escaped. I didn't get too far, though, maybe a day or two later and the Snatchers caught me. Awful people, looking to turn in truants or Muggleborns for some Galleons. But after they found me the next people they came after were Harry and Ron and Hermione. Harry, Ron, and Hermione! Can you believe it?

We got taken to the Malfoys—yes, the Malfoys, but only their basement. Luna Lovegood was already there. And Mr. Ollivander, who made our wands! The whole story gets crazier and crazier. The Malfoys left me alone, mostly, went after Hermione. She screamed something terrible—

It was a house-elf who saved us. Don't know how or why he knew where any of us were. But he took us to one of Ron's cousin's places, out in Cornwall. Except he didn't make it, died soon after, saved my life and I barely got to thank him. You never do, I guess.

They're planning something, Harry and Ron and Hermione. You know how they got in school, putting their heads together, like. I don't know what it is, but it'll be big.

In the meantime, it's nice, this place. Never thought I'd say that about anywhere that wasn't Hogwarts or London, but it's true. Miss West Ham football, though, and everything else.

Dean

7. Gabrielle Delacour

Gabrielle Delacour writes in the middle of her Beauxbatons arithmancy class, where she's supposed to be taking notes on the magical properties of the number 21, but is instead hunched over her parchment in the back row, scribbling away. Her handwriting is exactly like an eleven year old girl's—round and bubbly—but she turns her accent marks into furious slashes.

Dear Fleur,

I really wish you would write, because you send the best letters and you haven't written me at all since Christmas, and I really wanted to know if you liked the earrings I got for you. I thought they would look nice with your green robes.

I really liked what you got me—the journal. I've been writing it in every day, sometimes in French and sometimes in English when I want to practice. It was nice of you to think of me.

Maman worries about you a lot. Papa too. I don't get the paper here at school but they do, and they've been following what's happening in England since we were there last, and they say it's not good. On our last weekend in Pau they came to visit! They seemed so nervous and sad. They asked if I'd heard from you at all, and I had to say I didn't because I haven't, and it does hurt my feelings a little bit because sometimes your letters are all I have to look forward to. Then Papa took me out for an ice cream and Maman went all around the town square looking for a paper. But maybe if you wrote to me I could write to them and tell them I heard from you. And I would take back what I said about you hurting my feelings.

Hugs and kisses, Gabrielle

8. Seamus Finnigan

Seamus writes from his four-poster in Gryffindor Tower. It's dark, and he writes by wandlight. His handwriting is like chicken scratch; he doesn't press hard on the parchment, so his letters are faint and wispy.

Dean:

Saw your family over Easter holidays. They're all fine. Your little sister gave me a big hug and said she misses you. She's real cute. She also wanted me to tell you that West Ham football's doing savage this year. Still don't know why you'd play a sport where nobody flies, but maybe when you come back we'll finally get to a game…

News from here's mostly the usual, except Ginny's not back. We all figured it was only a matter of time before our numbers started thinning—Luna disappeared after Christmas, probably on account of The Quibbler and that ball of wax. But it's been two, three weeks, since Easter. DA's quieter without her around.

Other news is what happened with Demelza Robins. Lavender found her up on the seventh floor corridor being groped by a Ravenclaw—she was putting up a real fight, managed to make a lot of noise before he hexed her silent, but Lavender came in the nick of time. Thought he'd get a detention or five for that at least, but he just got lectured for consorting with the wrong type and sent on his way. Really rotten, isn't it?

Still, though, it's set people on edge. McGonagall can't even look at the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall, she's so disgusted. I give it two weeks before somebody starts a riot.

SF

9. Hermione Granger

Hermione Granger writes in the bedroom at Shell Cottage, and in a hurry. Her usually neat handwriting has gotten messy, the loops of her g and j big and dramatic. She dots her Is with marks like puncture wounds.

Mum and Dad,

Are you happy in Australia?

Mum, you like it when it snows. Maybe you should've gone to America or Canada where it snows all the time. In the mountains you could go skiing, like we did on holiday in Dijon. That was a good time. I still have one of the pictures from that trip, one where Dad looks absolutely frozen, like an icicle, but Mum's smiling so wide. Perhaps Australia was too warm. I don't know. I'm sorry.

You don't remember you ever had a daughter, but she is here in England about to do something very stupid or very brave, and I'm not sure which, at this point. They look awfully similar these days. So many terrible things have happened and all I want is for them to be put right. I'll let you know if I can manage it. It'll be the first thing I do.

Love from Hermione

10. Dennis Creevey

Many weeks later, Dennis Creevey writes from his family's terraced house in Hatfield, south Yorkshire, in the bedroom he and Colin once shared. His brother's old pictures hang on the wall: some move, some don't. His handwriting looks almost the same as it did when he was in primary school, but smaller and more controlled. Colin had nicer writing. Dennis was a better speller.

Colin, if you're there,

I don't know what happened to your camera. I tried looking everywhere for it, after the battle. Disappeared, broken, or maybe it was nicked.

I'm sorry.

I really wanted you to have it.

—Dennis