Chapter Thirteen: Letters To A Ghost

Jamie Jimmy James,

Happy October! Looking forward to Halloween?

That was my attempt at a normal greeting. Good, yes?

I was going through my gran's attic (again) and I found this old shoebox absolutely crammed with letters between my dad and Sirius. They talk about your granddad a bit, too—you should read them sometime. At the very bottom are a few letters they wrote to each other after they got together…and then under those are some that they wrote after Sirius was proved innocent…and then under those (yes, somehow all of these managed to fit in a shoebox) are three letters my dad wrote to Sirius after he had died.

Naturally, I read all of them. The after-Sirius-died ones were even worse than the journal entries. I was actually close to crying a couple times (and by CLOSE I mean I WAS). How's that for unmanly eh, eh?

I don't know what to do, James. I really, really don't. Are there like guidelines for this or something? A helpful book on what to do in this situation. HAS THIS SITUATION EVEN EXISTED BEFORE?

Help me. Help me, please,

Teddy

Teddy,

First of all, you are a nonce. Second of all, I always look forward to Halloween because it's an excellent time to cause all sorts of mayhem and blame it on holiday spirit. People don't take too fondly to that around Christmas so—'tis the season!

Send me the letters your dad wrote after Sirius died. I'm bloody invested now, and if we're ever going to…I don't know, at least process this; I want to read everything you do. We can sort through the rest on Christmas, all right?

My mum told me, last summer, that you and me—all of us born after Voldemort—have to deal with things that no one else had to before. She said that people in her generation, people like my parents and people like your parents, were either raised with Voldemort in power or in a world that was still reeling from the fear of him. But you and me—Albus, Lily, Rosie, Hugo, Victoire, Fred, everyone—we are the first to live in a world where Voldemort is truly gone and never coming back. And our parents were all so involved in the war against him that of course we are kind of drawn into it. Bugger, it's hard to say what I want to. You do understand what I'm getting at though, right?

We'll get through this. YOU'LL get through this.

Send me those letters,

James

My Ever Optimistic Jamie,

I think I know what you're trying to say. And it's true—damn it, it really is. But at the same time I just can't…I don't know. Look at it that way, you know? It's too complex to put in the black and white of we have different and new things to deal with because we were born after You Know Who.

Bugger. I can't even write it out coherently, either. Here are the letters. Read them. Send them back. Have I mentioned how grateful I am that you are invested in this? I think my head would explode if I had no one to talk to about this. EXPLODE.

I don't know if I want to 'get through this', as you say. How is that fair? How can this be my dad's life—but it's only something I struggle with for a bit before getting over and moving on. That's not fair. That's not bloody right.

I warned you,

Teddy

Sirius,

It's been three days. I don't know what to do I barely know who I am. I thought the worse had happened when you were arrested, when I thought it was you who had sent Voldemort to Lily and James and killed Peter. I thought that was the worse. I thought that I didn't know myself then—but all of that pales to now.

I used to take comfort from the fact that you still lived, even if it was in Azkaban. Even though, at the time, I thought you had destroyed everything. Still I would catch myself thinking, in those dark times where one is not quite asleep but not awake either, that I was glad you were still alive. That at least you were alive. The fact that you continued to breathe, your heart continued to beat, that your eyes opened and closed and blood beat through your veins—I took comfort in all of that.

Isn't that just truly pathetic? I could not let you go, not truly hate you, yet I still believed you a murderer and a betrayer and I could not see any other option.

I truly do not know how to keep living. I know you would consider this pathetic as well. I know that if our roles were reversed you would have been able to live, would have been able to smile, would have been able to face each morning without wishing never to wake up. I wish that it were true, that you were here to be strong and I was the dead one. I wish I could have seen Bellatrix fire that curse at you in enough time that I could have pushed you out of the way, taken the curse into my own chest, my own heart and blood and bones.

I relive the moment a thousand times a day. It is my constant companion, now that you are gone.

Remus

Sirius,

When I saw you fall through that veil I didn't know what to do—I was frozen. And then I wanted to start screaming but before I could Harry was screaming. He was shouting for you, Sirius, and I felt his calls singing through my blood—he shouted what every fiber of my being was screaming. We called for you, Sirius, one out loud and one silently. But you did not come.

I held him back, tried to calm him. 'He's gone', I said. I think I was trying to convince both of us that if we lifted that black veil you would not be there.

'He's gone', I told Harry. I told myself, too. It felt like I was being ripped apart but I couldn't, not yet, not when Harry was still there.

Is it fair that the sacrifice of James and Lily, of you, all rest on his shoulders? Perhaps not. But he is the spitting image of James. His eyes are Lily's eyes. And he, like I, know the pain of loving you and losing you. I want to protect him. I want to protect him and I want to protect the lives that have fallen before him—he is, truly, my last tie to James and Lily and you.

The knowledge that James, Lily, and you would want me to look out for him was the only thing that stopped me from laying down my wand in the Ministry and letting the Death Eaters take me—I wanted to follow you, at that moment, more than anything else.

But I live. For Harry, now. And with the knowledge that I will see Bellatrix Lestrange dead one day. I want to be the one to do it, but as long as she is dead I do not care. I know that you were always the more vengeful one but, in your place, I suppose I shall have to do.

Remus

Sirius,

I know that I didn't save you. Did I have a chance? I'm not sure. I go over the moment a thousand times, trying to figure out a way I could have saved you.

I know I didn't save you. But that doesn't stop me from wondering if there will ever be a way to save myself, now.

I highly doubt it.

Remus

Teddy,

Don't you see? You saved him.

Dammit, Teddy, you can't just take all this misery onto your shoulders and think that trying to process it or heal or anything is like an insult to your dad's memory. His last journal entry was saying that he wanted YOU to grow up in a world where you could LOVE FREELY not grow up in a world where you couldn't move on from the pain in his life.

Your dad wanted to die when Sirius died, right? But he kept on going, he kept on fighting, because he knew it was what Sirius would have wanted. So what do you think your dad wants you to do—wants us to do? That's what is important, Teddy, not whether or not it's 'fair' for you to try and move past all of this.

We have a Hogsmeade weekend November 3rd. I…well; I have kind of a crazy idea. Meet me at the Shack on the 3rd and I'll tell you then.

It's a good idea,

James

Jamie,

You are like an emotional drill sergeant or something. It's kind of annoying and kind of wonderful.

I'll be there,

Teddy