Disclaimer - i do not own Homeland. That pleasure belongs to Showtime. No copyright infringement or money making scheme intended. This is purely for reading enjoyment.

A/N There is also a very big shout out to Harry Potter in this chapter. Includes a quote from Goblet of Fire. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. It is here solely for its awesomeness and no copyright infringement or money making scheme intended by its inclusion.

Dana,

We are strange creatures, human beings. We spend all our time wishing for something, then we get it and take it for granted. We don't see what is right in front of us. It dawns on us, usually too late. This is kind of like that. I heard you mocking the Harry Potter books to Chris and, because there was so much going on elsewhere, it didn't register. Nor did the fact you said you hadn't read the books. It's something I should have picked up on.

So they are rubbish now and you haven't read them because they're rubbish? You can't know something is rubbish if you've never read it, can you? We both know that's a lie though.

It was a normal Saturday night and you had again managed to twist my arm into reading extra chapters. Your mum always said you had me wrapped around your pinkie. These weren't happy chapters though and hugs were required, as we read about Harry's suffering, Cedric and Dumbledore's speech. You cried yourself to sleep in my arms that night. You loved those books and we read the first four together, silly voices and all. It's funny, well ok it's not funny, but it is the strangest thing, there was a point in captivity where the words CONSTANT VIGILANCE suddenly sprang to mind and I couldn't help but laugh.

That was our thing, reading those books. I know you had looked forward to book 5 coming out. I was looking forward to reading it with you when I got home. If you were to re-read them now, you would see them differently than you did as a 7/8 year old, maybe even apprecciate them more than you did then. You wont pick them up though will you? Is it too hard because it wouldn't be the same, your not the same and I'm not the same? The magic has gone. Are we squibs now? Is the Harry Potter series to remain unfinished for Dana Brody forever? Something you enjoyed was suddenly taken away because I wasn't there, a part of your childhood destroyed. Maybe you held off hoping I would be home soon, I'd be like Sirius Black. Saddly, I think I'm probably Wormtail.

Is it that you were afraid that enjoying them without me would be like giving up on me? You couldn't enjoy them anymore and so you chose to hate instead, getting angry with those who could.

The thing is Dana the Harry Potter books will be popular for generations, so what happens when your own kids want to read them. Will you deny them because it hurts you too much? I like to think I was a good dad before the shit hit the fan, so listen to that man because he's speaking to you now. Don't make that mistake.

What was it Dumbledore said about Cedric?

""Remember Cedric. remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happend to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

Do one thing for me and for yourself. Pick up those books again, take back that part of your childhood that was stolen from you...and when you cry at the end of Goblet of Fire your kid will think you're just trying to make them feel better about crying.

The end of Goblet of Fire is when Harry lost his innocence, I guess you share that with him. So read the last 3, because you never know, you might both share a happy ending too.