Dear Percy,

By the time you're reading this I'll have left.

You have probably just walked through the door holding Lucy with one arm and Molly clutching your leg like a limpet on a rock – devilishly hard to tear – oh how they adore you.

You probably kept your perfectly calm composure as your stomach dropped like an endless vacuum as you noticed the gap on the coat stand (or perhaps I am being completely over dramatic).

You probably ushered the girls upstairs into one of their rooms, perhaps (as you watched Molly quickly become engrossed in her colouring pencils and trains that whirred in endless circles around Lucy's chair with the quidditch figurines that fly above her as she laughs with amazement) your usual smile was tinged with a sense of worry.

You would have made your way to the kitchen, tidying up the house on your way (maybe you picked the shoes up from the floor and straightened the door mat) and put the kettle on; gazing out upon the nearly manicured lawn like a perfect whimsical housewife – a picture of domesticity. Then you would have seen this letter, the small envelope filling up the empty table.

I'm sorry.

You probably won't see me again -- I handed in my notice a month ago on the quiet and my last day was yesterday, only my boss knew, I will never be gracing the halls of that ministry again, finally escaping from the weight of its memories. Tomorrow I'm going abroad (permanently) with a man called Ulises.

Don't blame yourself – it's all me.

At the end of this letter is an envelope with the address of a solicitor on. Inside are the divorce papers. I don't want anything; I'm not going to prise the girls from you. I've signed my bit; you need to sign yours and then send it off to my solicitors.

I know I owe you an explanation.

I met Ulises just over a year ago, we'd bumped into each other in Diagon alley, I quickly put the man with a leather jacket, shaggy black hair and a thick European accent behind me, but we carried on running into each other, and well, one thing led to another and I realised for the first time in a while I was in love (the type where it fills like you're brimming with sunshine and you feel utterly content).

I felt dreadful for going behind back for so long. I know I've been terribly selfish.

You've done nothing wrong – I was just bored.

I was craving something more, feeling trapped inside my life. It's a bit stupid really considering you did most of the housework, no, you did everything. Life was no longer exciting - it was the monotonous routine that was like nails on a blackboard for me.

Before I met him, I often became locked in childhood memories of that time before the war. They were trapped in snow globes; I would wallow for hours as these scenes resurfaced bringing with them a plethora of feelings that felt foreign to me. As the snow glistened in the capsules my mind had created, I could taste sunlight, innocence and happiness. But they never lasted. After a brief period of time the snow gently fell, disappearing from reach. Occasionally the light would catch on a lone, drifting spec and it would mock me, reminding me of what I was lacking.

I never told you as I thought it was stupid – you've suffered so much more than me - my problems seemed insignificant in comparison. You've never really told me everything about your childhood, but I remember listening to a conversation you were having with Oliver when we were newly married. You were both marvelling at ever making it this far, at first I ignored it as I thought you were taking about relationships, but then you went on to say: 'I can never quite forget the fear I had when I was a child when we went in hiding. I'd just lost my uncles, who at the time seemed invincible, somehow beyond the laws of nature. I'd catch fragments of whispered conversations about who'd recently been killed. There was always that worry that my parents would never come or worse that we all would die.' And that was that. We never really talked about that type of thing – and I think that was the problem. No matter what was going on in your lives you and Oliver are always friends. I was jealous of that. I was your wife, carrying your child, but still, I couldn't replicate that deep rooted bond of comprehension and openness between two completely mismatched friends; a burly athlete and a nerd.

We properly met when we were working at the ministry when it had fallen. For me it was a time of great fear, I kept my head down and continued my paper pushing job. I was shell, broken by the cruel world around me and so very lonely.

You seemed the opposite of me. Perfectly collected, not a hair out of place, had a bureaucratic air but you weren't like the others – you were kind and considerate.

I used you to banish my loneliness, at the time I never really thought about what you were going through but now I realise we must have both being using each other as a grounding tool but most importantly as a way to forget.

I never thought it would last. Your gentle pragmatism was the opposite or what I craved. But we were so broken after the war, I clung to you to remind me that I was still alive.

And then we fell into a steady routine; I would carry on diligently working at my monotonous job and then we'd meet on the same days and do the same things, yet I still felt we were strangers. In retrospect I should have left you then.

We didn't love each other – we were just masquerading as normal people just as everyone else. I felt bored – my life unfulfilled.

You're a clever man Percy, I'm sure you knew what I did, but you never said anything. I desperately wanted change so I came off the potion. In a messed-up way, I think I secretly hoped you would leave me when you found out. But you didn't.

I became pregnant, you forced a smile and did the honourable thing of marrying me. Always so bloody selfless. It was never in your plans – having a child at twenty-two but you just went with it thinking that's what I wanted. And from then on, your feelings were trivial – the children always came first. Why couldn't you have been selfish?

I sound like such a bitch, but I was jealous of Molly – my own daughter – a helpless baby merely a few months old. Because God, the way you looked at her, that pure unadulterated love; your adoration of her was unrivalled. I wanted someone to look at me like that. I wanted that love. I know now it was unreasonable to expect that. I didn't love you in that way – I sometimes even wondered if I loved you at all. I know it was unreasonable to expect that, in many ways I was unhinged then, because my God you were a perfect father, and in many ways, you should have been the perfect husband – you would have done anything to make me and the baby happy. You know there were moments when I thought you weren't happy, no, you couldn't be happy - I had ensnared you into this life yet never did you show it.

But how I craved that attention. Now it sounds counterintuitive, but I purposefully fell pregnant again. I wanted to rip apart, dilute and quash your feelings for Molly, even if I couldn't be on the receiving end of it at least it would be stretched thin, there would be something else for you to love. Oh, how wrong I was. Your love for Molly did not diminish as Lucy came, if anything it augmented and expanded, and of course your love for Lucy matched it.

I don't think I was meant to be a mother – I don't know if I have the capacity for it. My dreams are full of children's cries that haunt me, whatever I do they do not stop, their tempo and volume increasing until they surround me, ever growing they engulf me - my descent into madness begins. I have to remind myself that this belongs in the domain of dreams, contained within the very darkest crevices of my mind. Yet, when I look at the children there is a certain amount of emptiness and dread that accompanies it. I'd wake up from these dreams to an empty bed, I would walk downstairs and their you were on the sofa with Lucy on your chest and Molly curled by your side. You would always look up and ask if you could get me anything, as you moved the girls would cling to you tighter; my heart shattered every time.

I used to think that I was in some way broken, that I couldn't properly do relationships of any kind. When we first met, I was so desperately lonely and empty, I fucked you just to feel something. But then I realised that that wasn't working in the way that I thought it would and I felt like I was losing you, so I purposely fell pregnant. Completely the wrong way to want, or even love a child, now I know they are not a solution – children should never be a solution. And then I fell pregnant again (without even telling you of my intention) to try and fix me. But I found myself incapable of loving them properly and I they did not fix me, only widen the vortex consuming me.

At that time, I felt unloved, unlovable and incapable of loving. I sound like a broken record, a whining jealous bitch by going back to Oliver, but I will. When Lucy was only a few months old, I was again jealous of your relationship with Oliver. I am not suggesting that anything untoward happened between you – you would never cheat, but God the way you were there for each other. When Oliver reached the end of a messy relationship it was your door he would knock on, it was your shoulder he would cry on. It was him who brought your favourite beer, smiling sheepishly at the door. It was him who came with presents for the girls. It was him who you would talk to. It was him who you would laugh with, and god he made you smile in a way that would have melted the bloody Antarctic – you were radiant when you were with him. God, I was jealous.

My jealousy was ever growing, I felt ugly after recovering from the pregnancy and unglamorous from living in a house with two children under three. I was miserable. I had descended into a grey fog that left me wallowing in self despair. And that's when I met him. I should be sorry for going behind your back, cheating on you after I had entrapped you, forcing you into a life and relationship which you never truly wanted, but the truth is I'm not. He pulled me out of the fog into the dazzling sun. I do not feel broken with him. With him I am radiant, glowing, euphoric - I feel weightless. And whenever I returned back, I felt castrated, numbed, suppressed. Torn from a technicolour dream back into a dull black and white routine. Each time I saw him it became harder to return, I was addicted – one taste would never be enough. The capsules of my youth in my mind filled with such intense feeling no longer seemed foreign – life was now in glorious colour. Maybe you saw me drawing away from you and the girls (or maybe I was never truly there in the first place) - I kept rebutting your suggestions to move house and I kept on turning down Oliver's offer to babysit so we could go out. Or maybe you haven't seen it coming, maybe you were pleased that I had a 'friend' to see, if that is so my betrayal will hurt even more. As time passed my jealousy was ever increasing and I was increasingly longing for something (or someone) else, I realised I had to leave (and I realise that you will probably never forgive me).

Goodbye,

Audrey.

A.N.

Thank you for reading! This is partly inspired by a tumblr post where Audrey leaves Percy (which some of you may have seen). I am thinking of developing the story more, exploring Percy and Oliver's relationship so subscribe if you are interested. If you have any feedback (spag mistakes etc.) please let me know.