AN: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to it. This is merely fanfiction. There are no trigger warnings for this chapter.


To my lovely family,

If you are reading this, then I have passed on and the contents of my will have been given out to all of you. I hope you enjoy my gifts to you. While I left this manuscript to Viktor, I am sure that all of you understand that this is for all of you to read. To begin, I would like to apologize for the fact that I was not brave enough to let you all read this manuscript during my lifetime. Many of you have asked over the years, some more explicitly than others, about my relationship with Tom and my silence has certainly caused some bitterness. I am sure that it has seemed like I was guilty and ashamed, and to some degree it was. However, shame has never been my main emotion concerning Tom.

It's never been because I was not willing to talk about it. It's quite the opposite, really. I have so many feelings and thoughts about that both wonderful and awful time in my life that I can't imagine just sitting down and somehow explaining it all. You'd be there for days, and I'd go hoarse even attempting too. Trying to verbalize it on the spot would leave it all jumbled and confused— and writing and organizing this book has been like trying to navigate a labyrinth. I am a logical person rather than emotional, and the depth of my feelings and how they painfully veered is far more difficult to articulate than arithmancy proofs or theoretical runeworking.

I was painfully young during that time and my perspective and feelings on life have changed so much since that time, and I don't think anyone could ever deny that Tom was a master manipulator (and would not care if the object of his interest was not really emotionally ready to be in a relationship with an adult). However, even now, married and with grandchildren, I can't say that I don't love Tom. He was a horrible human being, but he was not a monster. No one more than I saw the most intimate, sensitive, and pained parts of him. I don't feel guilty for still loving him even today, though I also love you, Viktor, and have made my life with you for the past thirty-six wonderful years. My love for Tom has not made my love for you any less, and in the end I chose you over the painful knowledge of what had happened and what could have been with Tom. I hope this manuscript will shed a little light on why, and that your fears of my lack of love for you were unfounded.

This manuscript started out as an explanation for all of you. But, honestly, it has become therapeutic for me. I have been so demonized by the public for having been Tom's lover during the war, and writing it has been like lancing a wound and letting the poison bleed out. So while some of the more violent and sexual scenes are graphic, perhaps uncomfortably so for my family, I felt like it was necessary for my own healing. I hope you understand.

As I am gone, I wish to express now that I love all of you very much. I know that my involvement with Tom and the war has left ripples that have hurt all of us, but all of you have turned out far stronger and better than I could have ever expected. You have been the light of my lives, and all that I endured during the war was worth it in order to see my family be happy and flourish in an almost peaceful world.

Being with Tom made me think a lot about immortality for reasons you will read about later, and here is what I have concluded: even if I am gone, my feelings and memories with you will remain in your thoughts. So know my love will be with all of you forever. As long as you remember and care, I will never be far from you.

All my love,

Hermione Granger, Hermione Riddle, and Hermione Krum