Disclaimer:
It's JKR's world, I just play in it.
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Dearest Sia —
In light of recent events, it would, I imagine, be apt of me to address certain eventualities. Oddly, or perhaps not, these aren't obligations, I've well considered before. There was no cause, not because I was not at risk, but because the ramifications of that risk were limited to my own already corrupt flesh.
I am hesitant to continue and am put in mind of my earliest lessons of the magical world. To name a thing is to make it real. When this war finally kills me and my force of will is no longer enough to sustain the charade, please do whatever it is need be, for your self and for our son. I do not want you wasting time on what I would have wanted, hemming and hawing over memorial services where people I never liked will no doubt discover my supposed virtues for the first time.
Despite my oft misplaces pride, ego and hubris, I am not interested in being a hero and beg of you to ensure I never become one. My choices are merely what I have been compelled to, to pay this multitude of debts. The task is Syssiphean and the respite of you, an oddity on the landscape of it, no doubt confounds many as much as myself.
Apologize to your parents for me. Tell Gabriel how desperately I loved you both. Find your way back to the world. Everything that is mine and good or useful will become yours and I hope that, that will be both all and enough.
I was never so tangible as I should have been. How can I be anything but sorry? I hope we will both have the requisite courage to let go, when a time comes that I can only pray will be distant.
Your unfinished ghost,
Severus Snape.
The writing of the letter was difficult for him, not because of the subject matter but because it was hard for him to control the quill through his trembling. It was a truth of the world that it was the small indignities that could and did make so much intolerable.
He thought about giving Allosia the letter, but considered that its concerns, while necessary, might make it more than unwelcome, and so he tucked it away to place with the others.