Dear Sherlock:

I'm writing you this letter even though you're dead, because Hermione says I ought to get things out, even if I never actually say them to a real person, and well, let's face it, if you could do that, to me, leaving aside whether it was all a bloody "magic trick" – if you could leave me like that, you weren't ever a real person, were you? Even if you were alive. And besides, she got me this nice journal, and everything.

I was so angry at you.

I still am angry at you.

How could you do it?

You know you're the only good friend I have in this town. Mike's alright, I suppose, and Greg's not a bad bloke – but I'm not close with them.

You dying, no, KILLING yourself – it's like losing a brother. Actually, I think I'm more upset than I would have been if Harry died. God, that's a terrible thing to say, isn't it? But from her it would be, I dunno. More expected, maybe. You – you thrived on pressure. I never thought you would give up on your bloody "game" like that. Even if you were losing. Hermione says you weren't, but then, she can be just as bad as you, sometimes.

As you were.

Fuck.

I still can't think of you as being gone.

I'm still half convinced you'll show up at dinner some night dressed as a bloody waiter or something and be all, 'Hello, John,' like nothing's happened.

You could have asked for help.

You didn't need to kill yourself.

There's always another way.

If you were still alive, and it were anyone else who'd died, I suppose you'd be making fun of me, now, for bothering with this tripe at all. Like the blog, but it's not even anything interesting. The little voice in my head that sounds like you certainly is. Fuck you, getting inside my head. I hate you. I miss you. My limp is back, you bloody tosser. I've applied to work at a clinic near my new flat – you didn't think I'd stay at Baker Street, did you? Too many memories.

So that's another one for your tally – thanks to you I've lost my best mate, and my flat.

I have a new flatmate, Charles. Bleeding tosser. Can't stand him. He's got nothing on you for bad habits, but he's just too cheerful all the time. Hermione says he's going to kill someone someday. Sounds a bit like Donovan about you, actually.

So I'm looking for a new job, so I can get a place of my own. I think you've ruined me for flatmates, you bastard.

I imagine you saying, "My parents were married," with a perfectly straight face – that's exactly what Mycroft said when I called him a bastard for not crying at your funeral. Hermione says he really was upset, even if he didn't look it.

I've just re-read what I've written, and realized I've talked about Hermione a lot. She's been visiting. Miri, too. She's talking, now. I've only seen much of them and Greg, and he's not really the talking sort. More the drinking and complaining about the world sort.

I've been trying to get out more. It's really frustrating, realizing that my life revolved so much around someone who couldn't be arsed to tell me he was thinking about bloody killing himself. Someone who clearly didn't give a shit about me, or thought I was too thick to talk to about this or whatever. I never realized how much time I spent with you until you… left.

I don't think you lied to me about everything. That first night, in the cab – you were too… disappointed, thinking Harry was my brother. And Hermione and Mycroft, they're real. You couldn't fake them, even if you could've faked yourself.

I don't understand why you would say it was all a lie when it wasn't.

I wish you trusted me enough to tell me.

I hate you. But I wish you weren't dead.

JHW

Favorite relative,

Is this a gift or a guilt trip?

SH

…

Can't it be both?

HG

…

Can I write to him?

SH

…

Best not. He doesn't know about Department M, and you're supposed to be working on dismantling a criminal empire, are you not?

HG

…

I'm between cells right now. I presume these are our-eyes-only? If so, tell me how you made them. If not, tell me anyway. It's not as though anyone would believe it. I doubt most people here even speak English.

SH

…

You sound bored.

HG

…

So bored, Granger, you cannot possibly understand. I'm on a chicken bus and the couple next to me has been arguing about a pig for over an hour.

SH

…

Yes, they're charmed. To anyone else, it will look like notes on Darwin's Origin of Species, because that's what was handy when I was making them. It's a linking enchantment, a twinning spell. If you were close enough, it would update in real time. As it is, there can be up to a six-hour delay, based on where you are in the world, proximity to lines of power, etc. I'll copy over the arithmancy when I get home.

HG

…

Thanks.

SH

...

Granger, how do you do it?

…

What?

HG

…

I know what you did in your war, and... after. You have a look sometimes that I've only seen on contract killers, so don't bother trying to deny it. How do you do… what you did, what I'm doing, and stay sane?

SH

…

You don't.

You just try to go mad in a way that will let you function regardless.

You accept the reality of what you're doing – killing people, or driving them mad, or taking their memories and everything that makes them human – and you weigh every option, and you convince yourself over and over that it is necessary, and then that it was necessary. You make the choice enough times in hindsight that it seems inevitable, until you no longer question if you did the right thing. And you still wake up in the night ten years later, hating yourself for killing people whom the world is objectively better off without. You push those feelings away, perfect your mask of normalcy, and only let that side of yourself out when you can't help it, or it's… needed.

…

Psychopath.

…

No, I'm not, and neither are you.

…

Thanks.

…

Don't mention it.

Really.

Ever.

HG