Author's Note: For the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season Two/Round Six, as Captain for the Caerphilly Catapults (writing for Chaser 3), writing a letter to a teacher/student. Prompts: old, city, willing. Also, for the If You Dare Challenge, prompt 260. Midlife Crisis.
~Hannah
Dear Professor Slughorn
(In which a teacher's teacher is a student. A letter from Lily to Slughorn in the summer of 1981.)
Dear Professor Slughorn,
Don't think I don't know why you've gone into hiding. Are you really in danger? Or are you just scared? That's something I know but I think you'll have to answer for yourself. You can only ever answer things for yourself, after all.
But I'll give you my input, whether you want it or not. You have to ask yourself not what you're hiding from, but why? Is it because you simply don't want to face it, or is it to save lives? I think once you've answered that you'll be able to establish your own guilt level. At least, I hope that you will.
If you want to look at the positives of facing things, think of your freedom. There is so much to experience in the world; do you really want to shut it all out? Don't you want to taste all the candies in Honeyduke's and hear the laughter of children and feel the first snow and see the lights in others' windows?
Don't tell me you don't. I don't believe that.
Still not convinced? Let me tell you something else, professor.
You're not getting any younger.
Do you still think that you're a child with an excuse for anything, with your whole life ahead of you to do things? You're not. You're an adult, for Merlin's sake, and you have to act like it. Maybe you think that you don't have to answer to anyone, but you do have to answer to yourself - and this letter.
Is this how you want to spend the rest of your days? Alone? In fear? No one wants to be alone and afraid. So again, don't tell me that you do.
I am not alone. I couldn't stand to be. But I even have reasons - do you? Do you have no reason to be all alone, yet choose to shut everyone out? Are you going to turn your house into a little city, with a population of one?
You could choose a better place, you know. You're not even just hiding, you're choosing not to live. You are choosing to simply exist, and living and existing are two very different things.
Why live amongst people you look down on? (And I know you do.) Why don't you live with the Wizarding world, in a place with friends?
Are you really not there for a practical reason?
In the past, I might have accepted your answer to be "yes". As a student I wanted to think that professors were perfect; as a child I wanted to think that parents were perfect. Everyone did. But now I know better - and I hope you do, too. In fact, I know you do. Don't you dare deny it.
Is it just that you're not willing to face everything? Is that it? Just because you don't have to doesn't mean you can't. It doesn't mean you shouldn't. Hiding is always an option. But not a good one - only one for dire circumstances.
Otherwise, I would be on your doorstep at this moment. I might be on a lot of people's doorsteps, actually, because you are among the many who are afraid. But you can't live in fear, professor.
As I write this letter I'm thinking of the little joys of life that we're both missing. The laughter of the children, the chill of the first snow - what I've said before. Do you have a reason to be missing out on them?
You might think I'm a hypocrite for asking that and all these questions. Maybe you have questions for me. That is the nature of people - to question others. I have reasons, I have James and the baby, but this letter is not about me.
This letter is about you.
And even though you don't have this letter yet, I can feel you denying that. Things just don't apply to you, do they? The rules aren't for you; the lectures aren't for you. You could never possibly do anything wrong.
Well, that's all inside your head.
I'm telling you that they do apply, that they are for you, that you can and have done things wrong.
And that's true for everyone - but today we're talking about you. Because things can't just be generalities all the time.
So I want you to think. I don't want you to spend your thinking time replying to this letter - I am not seeking your answers for me. I am seeking your answers for you. And if you want to share them with me, then fine, but I care more about making you think than about you responding.
You are answering to you, not to me.
I'm just the one putting the questions out there.
If we meet again, I hope that you, much like James, have made some changes. And you can call me pushy, you can call me whatever you like - if you can truly live with yourself.
And if you can't, maybe you'll see a bit more of the world.
Love,
Lily Evans