Jones,

I hit Slovenia yesterday. And yes, before you ask in that rhetorical way, I'm still alive.

It's peaceful out here, peaceful in the way a dead body is peaceful. I'm always waiting for something to come out and get me. Stupid, I know. I'm a stupid person generally, is what you would say if you were here, which of course, you aren't.

I don't know when this'll get to you, so for reference, I'm writing on the fifteenth of September. 1977. If that needed clarification. Maybe it did. Just to remind you that you're getting older every year. Anyway, it's mid September, so being in Slovenia already is making me optimistic when considering how long it'll take for me to reach the Kórház. Hey, I might be back with you soon enough. I don't think you care much, but I'm telling you as a threat, not a reassurance, don't fear; I'm under no particular illusion that you miss me much.

How are things in Merthyr? Good enough, I hope. Calm. Since our run-in with the dementors I've been thinking about what you told me. That one of the pack was Kissed last year. Who were they? What had they done? What happened afterwards? Nobody ever explained to me what happens when someone is kissed by a dementor. I always wondered, because I figured somehow that would be the way that I went. You know. Werewolf in the magical world and all that.

Have the power cuts been too bad? I think all the time of June. Those three weeks. I know it was awful but a part of it was… raw. Made me feel like a person again, worrying about the coal dust in the water supply and the radiators that wouldn't turn on. Having to take a bath in the pot after five others and it was cold by then anyway. I felt less like a wizard and more like a person. I miss it sometimes, worrying about all that shit as opposed to… this. Dark lords, wildfires. The great heavy reality of what I'm out here looking for.

I know you told me Efa was sending me on a doomed mission. And I believed you. But you'd think she would at least try to convince me this was worth something. She's being heavyhanded with this shit. She wants me to KNOW that I'm going nowhere. I don't know how to feel about that. I don't know how to feel about her. I know you adore her, Jones, but she can be... a piece of work.

It's beautiful where I am. It'll be the next moon soon. I'm going to go get chains tomorrow, from a hardware store somewhere. Tie myself up in the forest and hope it keeps the wolf down. Being without the pack will make him go a bit bezerk I think. You told me once I should call the wolf 'him' instead of 'it'. I've been trying to bear that in mind. You sounded like James as you said it. You scare me sometimes but you didn't then.

Anyway. I don't know why I'm still going on. I was considering sending you a postcard so I'd have to limit my wordcount, but I couldn't find a tourist place that sold them. I'm already running out of money, but you knew that, didn't you? And you know I'll survive anyway. Built the same, we are.

I should get back to my pointless mission. Every pursuit I've made in the past few months, few years, forever, it has felt like this. Maybe that's what Efa wanted. So I'll ask you this: do you think she's really that cruel?

Cheers,

Lupin.

Auror Moody,

We have yet to receive a response to our last letter, so I've made the (risky) decision to send word again. If our messages are being intercepted, we need to know as soon as possible. We can't afford to make mistakes right now.

We've got a store of stolen dragonhide ready to send down whenever you're ready. We've all got the Trace; it'll have to go the muggle way. But we need your address. It's been radio silence for weeks from you. Forgive me for sounding unprofessional, Alastor, but what sort of operation are you running? No witch or wizard I've spoken with in the past two months has heard a word out of London. No letters back. Are ours even reaching you?

Respond as soon as possible, or we'll have to sell on to an unlicensed buyer overseas. We have chosen our side in this war, and it's with you. That puts all of us in danger. Do not make us regret it, Moody.

Yours faithfully,

Glen Conebush, Scottish Magical Trade Commission.

Sirius (Surname Redacted),

I don't know why I'm writing to you. I think I've been influenced into this. I'm going to throw away this letter: when you find it in the rubbish, reader, know that I'm going to try to steal the last of your change out of your jacket tonight. It'll be gone by the time you read this. Don't try to get it back off me, Marlene, or I'll knock your teeth out.

Anyway, back to you. The Sirius in my head. The Sirius in my head is a corpse, hanging bloody-mouthed from a noose somewhere. That is, perhaps, a bit morbid, but I told myself I would be honest here, so that's what I'm doing. You are a corpse in my mind and I think I'm writing to you to make things simpler for myself. To figure out how I feel.

First of all: I think you're a coward. I want you to know that. Wherever you ran to after you got out of Rosier Manor, you've been a ghost for a year now, and I think that makes you a coward and it makes you a dead thing, and you deserve nothing from anybody but contempt. I say this with the full awareness that I've done the same thing, but I raise you this: I have never pretended to be brave. I have never pretended to be kind. I have never pretended to be anything other than living on stolen time and I think you have committed murder in a way by killing the real rotten terrible self inside of you and replacing it with a false person.

This is the second point I want to make, following on: Riddle is a coward too. He's expanding into France as we speak. He's killed a lot of French people that 'Direct Action' will not name. Their faces won't grace the deathlist. But the main man himself hasn't been seen. He's hiding like you are, somewhere out there in the howling winds. This storm the New War has created. I can't figure out why yet, but I'm thinking on it. But I could never get inside his head like you, could I? I never understood him like you did. You were always far more like him than I was. The ultimate irony. There it sits between us, the Absurd. I won't speak with anybody else's mouth: I am not like you.

That being said, here is the third point I'm making: I'm a coward, too. I won't write where I am, even though you'll never read this. Just in case through the miles of space and time between us some shred of it reaches you. But I'm holing myself away in some poor dirty hovel in Central Europe, there is the smell of gasoline on my hands. I am burning the things you left behind. Have you noticed me yet? I ask myself a lot. Have you noticed me yet? Have you noticed yet? Have you?

There's this great brewing brimming awful hungry violence in me these days. I had it before but now it sits right on the surface. I spend half the time fighting Marlene and the other half of the time picking holes in myself, I have grown my nails out to do it right. That's what Durmstrang did. I am bleeding on the paper, I hope you hate that. I hope it makes you hate yourself. When I see you again I think I might, just a little, perhaps more than a little, try to kill you. A few times. Enough that the message of it sticks. We killed people the other day. I can do it again.

You left. You don't know how bad it was when you left. You never will. You don't know how bad things were. I feel like a raw ugly thing. More pain and anger and murder than person. And you can tell me over and over you stepped into his hands and stepped into his storm for me, and each time I will believe you less. I hope you choke on your words and I hope they kill you slowly.

I freed Kreacher. I told myself it was the right thing to do but you know why I really did it? I think he deserves all the misery you do. I think you deserve it more. He spent our childhoods watching us burn but you got out and didn't come back.

- Regulus Arcturus Black.

Lily,

This letter is mostly motivation for myself, so I apologise if it… rambles a bit. I'm sorry. But just bear with me and I'll try to get something worthwhile down on the page.

I've been a bit behind on letters recently. Not much! Only by a few days. Everything gets delivered in the end. Honestly I'm probably overreacting about nothing and chances are it's actually fine and I don't have any reason to be anxious but… well. Anyway. I'm writing this so it motivates me to get all the built-up mail sent off, so then I can send this to Rostock and you'll get it. I doubt you'll reply (I'm not Remus, am I? Sorry that was a horrible thing to say), but I'm going to send it anyway.

I hope you're doing alright after the raid on the train. It's been three weeks and I hope you know that I don't blame you anymore. That's a lie. I sort of blame you. You knew that, though. I don't blame you as much as I did that day though, so we're probably on a downwards slope. By this trajectory I will have forgiven you in a couple of months. Which will probably be how long it takes for me to see you again.

It's getting so cold already. Autumn (it's almost October!) and the dementors have made it fucking unbearable out here. London is the coldest it's been ever, I think the muggles said on the radio. It's making a bunch of them panic. Little do they know. It's minus ten and minus fifteen most nights, and it's going to get worse. Dorcas and I sleep on the same mattress now just for the body heat. She says I kick in my sleep. She's probably right but I'll keep denying it.

We're losing more of London each day. That's the worst bit. We keep losing chunks of it, streets. Soon we'll have lost all of the inner city. We've managed to keep the muggles (in an official capacity) unaware. On paper it's unsafe gas pipes. Made half the city unlivable, everyone's been moved out and kept out for their own safety. There are already conspiracy theories flying around though, and the death eaters are all too happy for the muggles to know about them, and to be scared of them, so that's that, I suppose. We're fighting a losing battle here. We need time and weapons and… and letters. But I'm getting on that! It's all going to be alright in the end. I promise you.

I would write to Remus but I don't know his address anymore. I saw it on the letter he sent to the Order a few months ago but at the time I was so angry at him that I didn't note it down. I wish I would've now. He mentioned he'll be travelling out of the country soon (something for the werewolves), but I could probably send him a few letters for his own peace of mind and have them all be there waiting when he gets back to Wales, right?

I can't stop thinking about him. Him and you. You and him. I thought I'd pressed it down deep enough in me to get it off my mind but seeing you at the raid on the train lifted it all up like fucking gunk and grime. It's hanging around in my gut like weird cultures. Him and you. You and him. Sirius too, but Sirius never left. It's been a while since I wrote to him. Not since Little Hangleton.

I told you I would ramble, didn't I? And I was right. This is rambly as anything. I'll cut it off here by telling you this: I'm fine. I'm great, actually. Despite my increasingly wanted status, I haven't gotten properly hurt yet, and my chest is doing great! I'm optimistic about the war, even though things are a bit shit now; nobody's seen the big man for months, that's a good sign, right? It means people will lose faith in him. It means we're getting closer to winning. This is how we win.

Stay safe in Rostock. Bring me back a pretzel next time, or whatever it is the Germans eat.

Yours,

James.

Professor McGonagall,

This is a follow-up to my last letter. I wanted to ask whether you'd received it? I understand that communication is tenuous these days, so in case you didn't, here's the message again:

I've recently taken a handful of escaped students under my wing. They climbed out of their dorm room windows and ran into the forest. I live near Hogsmeade and they're staying with me now; they're safe, don't worry! Fourth-year 'Hufflepuffs' (I never attended Hogwarts, so I assume that's how it's spelled?), four of them. Purebloods scared of being stuck in the castle as the war gets worse. I don't blame them. They're terrified.

If it's convenient, I can keep them here for as long as is necessary. I understand that you're busy. But I wanted to make sure you're aware that they're with me. Their faces have been in the Prophet; their parents must know that they're missing, and I'd imagine they're terrified. I would appreciate some sort of response, even if it's short. Maybe I'm fretting, and if anybody knows how deadly the death eaters can be, it's me, and I want to do everything I can to protect these kids from him. But not at the expense of their parents.

Please write back as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Miss. Verda Pertinger.

Dorcas,

Another day, another letter that I will not be sending. It's strange to make the decision beforehand. This feels voyeuristic, like an exhibition. Regulus, stop reading, I write, despite knowing he won't. Regulus, I'll take your shoulder out of its socket again, I write, and he knows I'll keep to my word, but he won't quit. We are all tangled up in each other's heads recently. It makes me feel like something that is not myself.

The password for last week's 'Direct Action'. Did you see it? Me. My name. 'Marlene'. Crazy, that. Do they think I'm missing by mistake? Do they not know I missing'ed myself? Has James not told them? Knowing James he's far too busy delivering people's mail and making Remus Lupin cry to tell them anything. But it's funny to be treated like a missing person. It makes me feel quite mysterious indeed. Like I faked my own death. Me and Reggie.

'Reggie'. He'll hate that. You hated when I called you 'Dorky', told me you thought it was ridiculous. But you'd smile when you thought I wasn't paying attention, wouldn't you? You couldn't hide it from me. I could see right through you. I'd like to call you that again someday but something tells me when we see each other again, it'll be less than amicable.

There's a letter I will be sending soon, though. I won't be signing my name on it but perhaps you will see it and perhaps you will recognise my tone and know in an implicit mystical way that it was I who wrote it. I like to think we were that eternal. I like to think that you only think of me now. Mary, too, but in a more abstract way. Or maybe not. Maybe to you, I am more a dead person than she is. That's a funny thought. I don't like it. I imagine us as doomed lovers. Something poetic. Don't tell me I'm delusional: I know I am.

We kidnapped a guy the other day. Not quite kidnapped. Transferred him from the death eaters' custody into ours. Crazy, right? Crazy. He's in the boot of the car we stole. Neither of us can drive. We take shifts. We've almost crashed four times. Between you and I and him, he's the worse of the two of us.

Think of me. And I'm sorry, if hearing it helps. I don't know that it does.

- Marlene.

Padfoot's Army/James Potter,

You got Dorcas Meadowes out, so I know you're my only hope. I need help.

My name is Elias Kirwin. I hope you remember me? I was a part of the original PA. We were friends, I think. I'm a Ravenclaw. I know you get a lot of letters and everyone knows you must be getting overwhelmed, since you don't respond to stuff much since the new year started (or at all, I think?) but I need to get out of here. I wouldn't be reaching out if I had any other option.

We got a new DADA professor this year. Professor Hickories. He's… well, he's the odd sort. Not as intimidating as the last one. Mean but in a quiet sort of way. And he knows that I'm a halfblood; he took me aside after our first class and told me. Straight to my face. Like he was reprimanding me. He knew my dad, knew he married a muggle. He knows.

I've been getting myself by as a pureblood until now, like all the other halfbloods here. He's going to tell the other teachers soon, though. As soon as I'm not of any use to him anymore. For the time being I'm… surviving. I've managed to keep him from spilling yet. Don't ask me how; I can't say it. He's not a nice man. I've kept him quiet for now. But it won't last for long. They'll kill me, or do what they did to Dorcas Meadowes and make an example of me. I'm not brave like she was. It'll destroy me, torture curses in front of the school in the great hall, cutting me out of classes. They'll go after dad. I can't warn him; I tried writing him a letter but he never replied. I guess they intercepted it somehow. I don't know.

Help me. Please.

Your friend, hopefully, Elias.

Ms. Agata Wehner,

I hope you and the sanctuary are well. Be aware: my English is not good, so this is being written by a friend. Misquotations should not be attributed to me. That being said, neither should honest inaccuracies. I'm not in this for anything other than the money.

To answer your primary question directly, yes, I know of the kettering curse. I treated a girl with it earlier this year, late July. It was the first time I'd come across it. I am unaware of her current condition. If she's dead or recovered, I haven't been told. I'm left to assume she is neither.

This treatment dug quite severely into my stores. The potion I used to combat the spreading of the infection required, among other things, ground Hodag horn, Porlock hoof and bursting mushroom. All are rare in the best of times, but especially now. Even this potion did not do much more than slow the infection. I am uncertain of how it might be stopped entirely, but I have some ideas.

It's concerning to hear of the curse's more frequent use. From my understanding, you believe it to be a recent invention? I don't advocate for the use of terms that denote wars as 'old' and 'new' - it is all the same one - but as I understand it, this curse has only been in documented use since the spring, has it not? A New War pestilence indeed.

If paid a suitable commission for my work, I could begin research into a permanent cure. It'll be expensive, though, particularly to get the ingredients. My skills are one of a kind and my time is valuable. Write back to me if and when you have come to a decision as to whether they'll be useful, and enclose your offer. If you're unwilling or unable to pay, do not bother.

All my well-wishes go to the sanctuary. I think what you are doing is admirable. I was in the business of self-sacrifice once but right now is a bad time for me. So I'll remind you: contact me if you can pay.

Sincerely,

Mx. Claude Archeambeau (they/them (ENG), ul/lu (FRE), xier/xien (GER), hen (NOR), hán/háns/háni (ICL), etc.)

Jones,

I have entered Hungary! It's miserable as sin. Cold and grey and very damp. I keep getting that dementorish feeling, even though I haven't seen any yet. Can't tell if the voice in the back of my head is a bad memory or my imagination. They become more the same thing each day.

That was morbid! You're laughing at me, I can hear it from here. Laughing at my melodramatics. I'll quit it, for now, but let the threat of it hang over your head: at any moment I can whip out some great sad line and press it on you. Always be on the lookout.

Your letter confused me a bit. Things have been fine? Without me? It doesn't make any sense. Here I was thinking things must be awful over there, because I was so integral to the pack. Almost a month without me now, and things haven't changed? I thought I was important. Guess not. You can fix fences on your own next time, then.

In all seriousness: I'm glad things are okay. I get the sense that things aren't often just… alright. That you're in a sort of peril more than you're not. But it's good to know you're surviving, all of you. Efa, too. You spent a great deal of time talking her up to me in the last letter you sent. You know telling me all her good traits won't make me see her any differently, don't you? But I'll admit maybe I was a bit harsh. I know why she's doing this and she knows that I know. So we're at an impasse. On a level. Mutually assured destruction or something of the like.

I'll be at the hospice sometime soon. It'll take some time for me to find it, since it's so magically obscured. After the next moon, maybe. This last one was… bad. Reminded me of being a kid again. I almost broke both of my wrists. Small blessings that I didn't, right? The chains worked alright. I'll have to use them again.

October is cold. Is it cold back home too? Are you staying warm? What a weird thing to say.

Cheers,

Lupin.

Padfoot's Army/James Potter,

Did you get my letter?

Elias Kirwin.

James,

I haven't heard from you since the raid! How are y

Things are getting worse in Rostock. People keep coming in with that strange curse nobody will tell me anything about. Not being able to speak German is a curse. I wonder if it's the same curse that got Mary. I wonder

I think of Peter a lot. I really am sor

I haven't written to Remus since we all saw each other. Partially because he's on the move and I don't know an address, and partially because I know it upset you to hear that we'd been sending letters to each other and not to you. This is a sort of olive br

I remember back home in Kettering before I came to Wales to stay with the both of you, I thought I would be fine living the rest of my life angry with you. But I can't, I just can't. Please write b

I can't do this

Auror Moody,

Our dragonhide has been sold on to a secondary buyer. We understand that at times like this, trade isn't your highest priority, but we would ask that next time, you refrain from leaving us in the lurch like that, especially after impressing on us how important it was that we sold to you.

Yours faithfully,

Glen Conebush, Scottish Magical Trade Commission.

Marlene,

Look at me, writing letters I can't send. I'm turning into James.

I think James is one of those people it's hard not to turn into once you've been around him for a while. He's electric in that ball-lightning way, little bits of him jumping off and into other people. He gives me static electric shocks whenever we share the mattress. His chest has been getting worse and he groans in his sleep and it's very irritating, I wish I cared less.

It's odd, being all that the other has. Us two. Left behind, the last of our strange little knots of love. Him and I are the same in a lot of ways but I think we're most the same when we're losing. And we're almost always losing.

I'm talking about him to keep from having to talk about you, if that wasn't obvious already. I'm okay with talking about him (he's easy to discuss: he's a mess, so am I, but not enough that I feel like a hypocrite for saying he is, he makes it easy to pretend I'm fine). It's far harder to wrap my head around you.

This is what this is: this is me writing it down so I don't have to say it when I see you again. If I see you again. Big if. All of the things that I can't say out loud. I am writing you a sort of obituary, for her, for me. For all the things that've died since Hangleton. Before Hangleton, really. When you left in January. Stepped onto that boat and never came back. Mary used to have nightmares about it.

I guess I'll start with this. A part of me still remembers the way you looked that morning in third year when you took me to the owlery and sat me down in the hay and asked if you could date me, please. All polite. I'd never dated anyone and I hadn't been sure until that point that I wanted to. I had assumed I was like Lily, who told me once that she was sure she wasn't able to fall in love with people, that she didn't have the capacity.

But I said yes, I guess because it was what I wanted. Oh, I can't lie to you; that was always you. It WAS what I wanted. It was what I wanted then and that didn't change. Mary came along because she always did. We didn't even need to tell her. I kissed you and you kissed her with bits of me still lingering on your lips. And that was all we needed to do or say.

But it started with you and I.

I'm saying this because I feel like I need to: I despise you. Not all of me does, but it's a big enough bit of me that it's eating me up. You told me once that you think a part of any relationship is hating each other just enough that you don't leave. I didn't believe you then and I don't think I believe you now. You were the one who left. Was it because you hated her? Because you hated me? Was it always hatred, down to its core? Was everything hatred with you?

I don't know how to talk to you anymore. I want to understand you. I want to pick apart your brain and look inside; I want to know why. It feels like it's been years since I knew why you do anything. I understood Mary just fine but I never understood you. You don't feel like a person anymore. You feel like prey to a predator. Salt in that wound she left behind the night she died. This elusive thing I'm chasing, smoke between my fingers.

Maybe you're dead already. I don't know. There's been no trace of you. I wouldn't be surprised if you were in Australia by now, living it up someplace nobody knows you. Perhaps back where your dad's from. Perhaps you really are gone, burnt out into a husk in a ditch somewhere where people won't find you until you're unidentifiable and maggoty. And I don't know how to feel about it. I don't know whether I'm sad. I don't know whether I'm scared. I don't know whether I'm happy.

You left, is what I'm saying. You left. I can't put it in fancier fucking words. You would like me to. You want poetics and shit and I'm just not doing that. You left and now I'm alone with the ghost of her hanging around me and not leaving, and you're some faroff place where 'Direct Action' can't report on you, you're scattered to the wind somewhere and I doubt you'll ever come back for anything. Least of all for me.

And I'm so angry. I'm so angry with you. I'd like to grab you and shake you. I'd like you to die, I think it would make me happy as much as it would make me sad, I think I'd get closure and move on and go to therapy or something. At least it'd be a clean break. You and your grand assumptions, you and your fucking temper. I wish you weren't the only thing I think about. I think about you and your deadness and your laugh and the blood in your teeth and your face in the owlery more than I think about our dead girlfriend and I hate you for doing this to me I hate you I hate you I hate you. I hate you. I want to kiss you. I hate you.

This was meant to be a breakup note but I can't say it. I'd rather find out you died somewhere, alone and mangled somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, like her. I'd rather that than have to end things with you. I could read a speech at your funeral more easily than I could tell you I don't love you. Because I did and I do and I'm scared I always will.

Mary used to say you would come back. But she doesn't — DIDN'T, she's dead, were you aware? I'm making you aware — know you like I do, Marlene. I know you're some ugly thing like a broken bottle or a raw wire and you're a coward, you're more scared of death than anybody I've ever met. You won't come back. You won't. And I'm scared I'll spend the rest of my life hoping for you. Wanting you. Unable to mourn you, because you won't be dead but you'll haunt me like you have since we were thirteen. You won't ever fully go away.

I don't know what this note is for now, but I'm going to keep it to give you, in case on some off chance I really do see you again. So you know where I stand. The truth is this: it would be easier for both of us if you died, and I wish you had the decency to. But if you came here tomorrow and knocked on my door and asked me to run away with you I would do it. I would do it. I wouldn't have to think about it.

God, it sucks being all that's left here. And you don't care; I know you don't care; wherever you are, whatever you're caring about right now, it isn't me. You heartless bitch, I miss you. I miss you like I've never missed anything before. I miss her too but I feel like I can survive with this great hole in my heart she left. But so long as you're still out there I'm going to stay half-dead.

Go fuck yourself, Marlene.

- Dorcas.

Esteemed Order of the Phoenix,

Since you haven't responded to our last letter, we assume you haven't any interest in repossessing Mundungus Fletcher? Did it reach you? We used that fun mailing service you've got. Fletcher keeps telling us he isn't with you but we're not sure we believe him. This is your last chance to get back to us! Otherwise we'll probably dump him in the ocean or something. We're just being pragmatic here.

Once again, yours faithfully,

Some friends 3

Sirius (Surname Redacted),

Having so little food here is messing with my head. It reminds me of our childhood; remember it? Days without eating properly. The bones-deep ache of it that lasted as long as it felt pain could possibly last. Like a broken bone. It makes me anxious, makes me think I'm back in Durmstrang. I don't know why I'm telling you this. Probably just because I need to tell someone.

Is there a lot of food where you are? I expect not. You're probably withering away, especially now that it's getting colder. Mid-autumn. Doesn't feel like it should be that late in the year yet. I haven't told Marlene, but I think it's really killing me, this starvation thing. I almost passed out the other day, my head got all spinny. My fingernails are brittle and my stomach always hurts. I don't know how to ask for more. Nobody ever taught me. How do you do it? You're supposed to be the one to tell me stuff like that.

- Regulus Arcturus Black

Dorcas,

You know, I wish my travelling companion wouldn't write bullshit fake stories into his letters to his estranged brother about food scarcity and leave them out for me to find just to guilt me for not giving him more money to go out and spend on cigarettes or speed or whatever he buys. It would really ease up my stress levels if the little cunt would refrain from being so underhanded. In this confidential letter, only between you and I, I'll confide that I, too, had a bad childhood, and if he's a decent person he'll go get a job to fund my, I dunno, black tar heroin addiction. Or something like that. I can make up plenty of stories myself, you know.

Love you!

- Marlene.

Sirius (Surname Redacted),

If I was better at using my words, I would tell my travelling companion: it was worth a shot.

- Regulus Arcturus Black.

PS: Marlene, my nails are not brittle. Get too close and I'll take your eye out.

Padfoot's Army/James Potter,

HELP ME. PLEASE. PLEASE HELP ME.

I don't know if my letters keep getting lost or something: PLEASE. He keeps threatening to tell them. I can't keep this up. They'll go after my family, they'll hurt my parents. The Slytherins will murder me in my bed. Nobody will stop them. You don't know how bad it is here. Is it so hard to get into the castle again? Since those Hufflepuffs made it out, not a single escape attempt has succeeded. There's no making it out of here. I need SOMETHING. PLEASE.

PLEASE MERLIN HELP ME

Elias Kirwin.

Auror Moody,

Are any of our letters reaching you? ARE ANYBODY'S letters reaching you? Are you even still there? You old fool, whatever's going on in London, we'd assumed at least some of the Order was still alive. Christ almighty. Without apparition and more of the floo network going down by the day, you might as well have disappeared off the face of the godforsaken planet.

I'm in contact with a few resistance groups around the country. People are getting antsy. The Order was the heart of our operations, but you've been dead silent for months. In Hogwarts students are dying. Out there in the rest of magical Britain, families are being MURDERED, Moody, and their names aren't making the deathlist. The Newhaven fire has started eating away at towns, killed that little muggle girl the other day. And you're all dead silent.

Get your bloody act together, all of you. My brother really set up a shambles, didn't he?

Sincerely,

Aberforth Dumbledore.

Claude,

I know you don't open these, but I need to keep trying or I don't know what I'll do. This is coming to you by snail-mail. Just… just keep reading, please. I paid for stamps.

Sirius is sorry. He won't stop saying it. He seems to apologise more than he breathes these days. Kid's going to develop a complex about it; I suppose we can add it to the list, eh? But he's sorry. I want you to know that. Truly and honestly cut up about it. Guiltier than he was after Galina, even. Well. As guilty, at least. I miss him when the only thing haunting him was getting fucking groomed by that psychopath. Now he's haunted because he thinks he killed Galina and he thinks he permanently wounded you or whatever.

Galina's still hanging on, just so you know. I visit when I can, which isn't often. Without her on call or you for emergencies it's hard to juggle everything. I'm getting grey hairs! What a disaster. Almost as much of a disaster as the fact that the only person I have left in the world is on her deathbed, Sirius is going to get himself killed, and you. You. You. Ohhh you. You make me soooo angry.

I know you're waiting for me to come down there myself to talk to you. Don't think I don't know what this is about. I think I would if I wasn't scared of what'll come of it. Are you angry at me, too? Or just him? From what I can tell, I didn't do anything, but neither did he, did he? And you're still determined not to talk to him again, so maybe I'm in the same category. Guilt by association. I thought we'd matured since we were sixteen. Guess not. You've managed to convince him you're a traumatised shell of a person but I know better. You're waiting. Waiting for bloody repentance.

I know you'll come around on your own eventually. But I fear we're running out of time. I'm trying not to scare her but the girl is dying. Dying, truly dying. Worse by the day. I can't DO eventually, Claude, I can't wait for your great ballooning pride to go down so you come around on your own. There's two dying kids on my hands and you can save at least one of them. Sirius is going to kill himself one of these days, you should see his arm. It's tearing him apart at the seams. He needs you. And Mary's innocent in this, practically a civilian.

I know people are saying now that you only work for pay. On commission, whatever you call it. Since the cave. I know you're sulking or angry or something. I KNOW you. I know you like to think I don't but I know you better than I know anybody in the world, and I certainly know you better than anybody else does. And I know that as melodramatic and awful and cruel as you can be, you're sitting in Cannes right now worrying yourself sick about Sirius. Holding yourself back on principle, you are, you idiot. You awful terrible fool.

Get over yourself. Come back. He misses you, and I miss you too - don't make me say it again, my pride is wounded! I really do, though.

And more importantly, the girl is going to DIE. A bit time sensitive, no?

Frustratedly yours,

Tsai Yí'ān.

Padfoot's Army,

This is my fourth letter. Please, I beg you, read this one. Ibrahim, Labros and Hakeem McKinnon, my brothers in law, are missing since a raid by the death eaters almost two months ago. I'm pleading with you here, I'll do anything. Tell the Order of the Phoenix. Tell the people who run 'Direct Action'. Tell someone. Anyone. My daughter has been missing for a year since she had to run when the death eaters came for her, and her uncles are gone now, too. It's only me left, and I'm not magical. If they come for me, I can't protect myself.

Please help me. I can't take this radio silence any longer.

- Roisin McKinnon.

Jones,

I think I'm close now. Almost November and I haven't found it yet. Guess that optimism was misplaced, wasn't it? But I'm almost there now.

I suppose this is the right time to ask it, but… why? I get that she wanted to send me on a doomed mission but this feels cruel. And against her philosophy. Efa's been fighting the Ministry for years on every attempt they make to find a cure, or a supressant. It's baked into her ideology that she thinks trying to make us human isn't mercy.

Why on earth would she send me to find this dying man, at some hospice for the terminally ill in some country I've never been, only for false hope? Only for the same false hope we all know how to avoid? It's a fake trail, a dead lead. Going nowhere. Obvious as anything ever is. You know it. I know it. She knows it.

Is it really only about my loyalty? Or is she trying to figure out what sort of werewolf I am? What she can offer me to get what she wants out of me? I think she thinks I'm useful. Good: I am useful. But this seems inordinate. All I do is walk and walk and drag these chains around and I'm tired and this is unnecessary. I could come home right now, lie and say I found him. She wouldn't believe me, but would she believe me if I was telling the truth? Will she believe me at all?

I'm half doing this for you, you know. I think because you represent what I might have been if I never left Wales. The sort of friends I would've made. God, that's a weird thing to say. Sorry. But it's true. I would've given up and gone back to the Order already if it wasn't for this horrible killing hope I've got that I can save my country and be the right kind of werewolf for the Order. The right kind of wizard for the pack. The right kind of soldier in this war. I want to be of use; I want to be worth something.

That being said, with all this killing hope inside of me, none of it is for the validity of this lead. Because I've been told it my whole life and so have you, Huw Jones. There is no cure. A goose chase by some crazy lady isn't going to change that. So why, why, why?

I want to turn back. But I suppose there's no point, is there? I have to be worthy of something. I'm just scared of what I'll find there. Scared most of all that I'll walk out with nothing. Because I know it. You know it too. I'll walk out with nothing.

And then what? Then what?

Cheers, I suppose,

Lupin.

James and Remus,

They said on 'Direct Action' this week that they haven't got any names for the deathlist. That's good news but… the way the lady said it… I'm worried. We're all worried. And for more reasons than one.

Are things okay out there? It's like half the wizarding world outside Hogwarts has died. We don't get letters from parents anymore. None of us do.

What's going on?

- Hestia Jones.

Dorcas Meadowes, James Potter,

Can't write much. Wrists gone gammy.

Something's wrong in Britain. What's going on? What happened to 'Direct Action'? There's no news. Radio silence.

Did you get my first letter? Are you okay?

Yours,

Mary Macdonald.

Pads,

Hey Pads. Hey Pads. Hey Pads. Maybe if I keep writing it it'll get easier.

It's almost November. It was almost March the last time I wrote to you. My stupid birthday. The whole stupid affair of it. I don't know why I stopped for so long. I wrote to Remus over and over and threw them all away. Lily, too. But I couldn't bring myself to write to you.

I think it's because I can't stop seeing the look on your face. Every time I close my eyes. The whole picture of you, in front of me. Close but not close enough. Your hair was a mess around you, longer than I've ever seen it. You were looking at me and seeing only me. You were looking at me and it felt like the first time anybody had looked at me in months. You were looking at me and I knew you'd leave again and it was like this big knot of hope or something it just died inside of my stomach. My chest was on fire, I couldn't breathe. I would have hugged you again if I could. Know that I would have, even if it broke me in two.

Remus and Lily really did leave in the end. I wasn't lying about that, though I think you knew that. I'm not a good liar. I used to think Remus wasn't either but now I don't know. He stayed so quiet for so long and I worry that one of these days he'll explode under the pressure of it. Just go fucking apeshit and start breaking things. I wonder whether I'll be one of the things he breaks, or you? Both of us? All three of us?

I don't know what to say to you. I think when I wrote to you in the Old War I was telling the truth, in every single thing I said. But I don't feel like I know how to do that anymore. I keep wanting to lie. I keep almost-lying. I almost wrote that I haven't written to Remus or Lily; I almost wrote that my chest is healed up now; I almost wrote that it's a relief to be writing to you like this. That it helps. But it doesn't. I feel worse.

I've never felt like this before, Pads. It's this horrible, pressing ache. It sits in the middle of my chest and I wake up and I just wish I hadn't. Every morning I just want to go back to sleep. Dorcas is fed up with me. I'm a waste of space and she knows it and I know it. I'm not delusional, no matter how much of a comfort it would be; I know when I'm fucking things up.

We started that fire, by the way. The Newhaven fire. Me and her. I don't know why I'm telling you that. Perhaps because we can't tell anyone else. It's spreading further and further and people are starting to die because of it. Pollution in the sky. There's always ash there now, raining down. It's getting too close to London. Fuck, Padfoot. We started it — I started it — for you. To get rid of that ring. Because I knew I had to; I knew you would want to kill it. I thought I knew. But now I don't know that I was right. I don't know that anything I've ever thought has been right. I spend every single day doubting myself and I don't do much of anything else. Is this how Remus feels? Wondering if he'll ever be worth enough for someone to love him more than they love someone else? I hate him, I want to shake him. I want to ask. I want to see him. I'm burning up with this thick, awful loneliness, it's killing me, it's going to kill me. I want a hug.

I told Lily the other day, in a letter I haven't sent yet, that I've got a good feeling about this war. But here's the truth, because you deserve it, because you're the only one that I can say this to: I'm terrified. The tide is too strong against us, and the death eaters are winning. They've practically won. Soon they'll have all of London and then what? How far will they go? We'll die, all of us. Me and Dorcas and Lily and Remus. And you, though you might as well already be dead. That was an awful thing to say, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Please don't stop reading.

I don't know how much longer I can stand this. This waiting. Waiting to die, waiting to lose. Waiting for the deathlist to read out the names of each of my friends. Every morning I wake up and tell myself today will be the day I get the letters sorted but every time I look at them I feel so sick I can't breathe, it sits in my throat. It makes me want to throw up. I can't stop looking at them and thinking of the apartment in Lambeth. I want to go back. I want to go back. If I'd said the right thing, threatened to off myself or something, we would've all stayed together. And things would be okay.

The Order is getting suspicious about the lack of communications. I keep lying myself into a deeper and deeper hole. Saying people have stopped responding. Saying letters are being intercepted. Saying thing after thing that isn't true; my stories are full of contradictions, soon they're going to catch on. I'm running out of time.

But I just can't fix it. It's too big. This huge mess I've made, I can't fix it, I can't solve it. I should run. I should run and catch a train and hurl myself into the Newhaven fire. I should go to Wales and sit at Remus' door and wait for him to come back. I should go… somewhere. I don't know where. I can't think of anywhere. Godric's Hollow? To the parents I buried myself? Somewhere. Somewhere. I don't know. Fuck. I don't know. Fuck.

I wish you were here. Remus said he's seen you cry but I never did. You were this great Iron Curtain and you never knew what to say when I was upset but you were always there. Cracking some stupid joke. Remember in third year I lost that quidditch match for us? Made a big cock-up of the whole season, and the team didn't speak to me for weeks. And you stuck right to my side like glue (even more than usual), and you never left me alone. I miss that you. Shorter hair and less mad eyes. You looked more like a person then and it didn't make me love you more but… but…

I wish you were here, is what I'm saying. I think writing this is helping (I think: don't take my word for it, I'm as unreliable a narrator as they come). I don't know for sure. But it sort of feels nice to feel like your presence is close to me again. Do you write to me too? With that weird fucked up hand you've got now? Do you? Do you? Do you?

It feels like stepping into a grave. That's the right way to put it. Stepping into a grave. Comforting and consuming. Like an ending. I love Remus, in that I'm in love with Remus. I think we'd get married someday if it wasn't for all of this. He's… domestic. Kissing him is like cooking dinner. Like taking a train. But you're something different. You make me feel like I'm thirteen again, riding the high of my own genius. You make me feel like a little kid. Like both of us are little kids together. Like I'm giving you some good childhood you didn't get. Like we're cooking up some great scheme just by existing together, like we'll outsmart each and every one of them.

I'm glad we're here now. Even if you aren't really. I think acknowledging that you're alive is important to me. Like remembering why I'm still alive. Writing to you makes me feel like I am coming back to you and coming back to you and coming back to you.

I love you. (There. I wrote it right at the end like I used to. I don't know why I stopped.)

Yours,

Prongs.

PS: I think I fucked up the war. Just a bit.