Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.
Chapter 6 Readings and Reflections
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sat down, opening the first of the letters. It was from Remus. Remus. That disgusting werewolf who thought he shamed his parents. 'He shames my parents. They're pissed off with him now.'
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dear Harry,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, please. If you're reading this, don't stop. Please. I'm truly sorry with what I've done, what I've said. I've shamed the Lily and James, not you. I betrayed your and their trust in me. Trust is not something I'm given often, and I violated your trust, your friendship with me.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Please Harry. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I don't deserve that. I should kill myself for what I did to you. I was supposed to stand by you, like Sirius would have. I failed in my duties as a godfather. I won't do anything drastic, if you care. I owe you Harry, and my life is forfeit to you. I can't blame you for disappearing on us, and I would never dream of holding it against you if you never wanted to see any of us again.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Just please, Harry. Don't harden your heart. Don't let this experience drag you down and bring you to the darkness.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Sincerely,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Moony.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'He still thinks like a Marauder, at least.' Harry thought contemptuously. 'Maybe I should sock him, for Dad and Sirius. Of course, then I'd have to punch the entire wizarding world, or at least everyone I know.'
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry toyed briefly with the idea of writing a mean, scathing letter, perhaps lined with a touch of silver before immediately discarding the idea. 'Tempting, but a little too 'Dark Lord' for my taste.' He thought humorlessly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The comment about Remus being Harry's new guardian and godfather brought back bittersweet memories of the hearing of Sirius' Will.
--Flashback—
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ An officious goblin stood at a podium and after looking upon those gathered at the table, began reading the paper in front of him. "This is the reading of one, Sirius Thomas Black's will. It reads as follows:
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I, Sirius Thomas Black, being of sound mind do hereby bequeath my possessions to the following friends and associates, naming Remus Lupin as its executor. I hope I died fighting Death Eaters, for a good cause, rather than at the hands of the Ministry needlessly. I would pass on easier knowing this.
"First, I bequeath a sum of five hundred thousand Galleons to The Weasley Family, and my eternal gratitude for caring after Harry when he had no one. This is my small token of thank you, and I ask you to watch over Harry now that I am gone."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mr. And Mrs. Weasley's eye's widened and the large fortune Sirius had handed them, and looked as though they would protest, if a Wizard's will was not binding and irreversible.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Next, I leave Hermione Granger with fifty thousand Galleons. Hermione, you truly are the cleverest witch I have ever known, and I know you will stick by Harry no matter what."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione's eyes watered and she broke down, sobbing.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I leave Ronald Weasley with fifty thousand Galleons. Ron, we didn't know each other that well, but when I look at you, I am reminded of James and myself, in our younger, happier days. I know you will also stick by Harry, and I tell you and Hermione to sort out your differences, and also make sure Harry does not push you away."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron had a small smile that he and Harry shared at mentioning James and Sirius' younger days, and Ron and Hermione blushed at the sort out your differences part.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I leave Ginny Weasley with fifty thousand Galleons as well. Ginny, I had fun hanging out with you this summer, as everyone else was so busy. I know that Harry will appreciate the young, vivacious woman you really are."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny and Harry blushed deeply at Sirius' comment, and Mr. And Mrs. Weasley shared knowing looks.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Next, I leave a Million Galleons to the Order of the Phoenix under the care of Albus Dumbledore. It gives me pleasure to know that the Black Family fortune will be used to fight the very evil it promotes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Next I leave Remus Lupin a Million Galleons. Moony, I know you loath charity as much as the Weasleys, but this is not charity. This is just me trying to help my friend, and at this point, the last True Marauder. Also, I leave Harry's guardianship and status of Godfather to you, Moony. Don't give me that werewolf excuse, Harry knows and still trusts you. He needs a link to his parents, and that's where you come in."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked about ready to cry at Sirius words, but somehow kept his composure.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Finally, I leave Harry Potter the remainder of my money, as well as Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and a small summer home in Florida. Harry, I know you're blaming yourself for my death and I won't have that. The person who fired the spell killed me, not you. Unless you fired that spell. Just kidding Harry.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I never said this, but somewhere in my heart, I thought of you as my own son. I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but I had to say it, if I haven't already. Harry, live life to the fullest, and don't ever change. You are the purest person I have ever known, despite the struggles I know you have faced."
--End Flashback—
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry blinked furiously, resisting the urge to fall to his knees and sob. Those words still rang true today, as Sirius told him. Pushing aside his feelings, he moved towards another letter.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was from Hermione. From the looks of things, it was written right after the Battle at Diagon Alley. The handwriting was poor, and the whole paper was blotchy, probably from tears.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'How dare she cry! She wasn't the one who had to suffer!' Harry thought contemptuously, as his eyes scanned the paper.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dear Harry (The Harry part was jerky, as if she could barely hold her hand steady.)
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, forgive me. I'm sorry. If you and Ron betrayed me, I wouldn't speak to you anymore. I know you're having a tough time. Please, forgive me.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ (The rest of the letter was so jerky and repetitive Harry didn't bother to read it.)
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Jeez. I left Know-It-All Granger without her brains. I should get an award." Harry said sarcastically.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He picked up a more recent one, seeing if she had gotten her brains back.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dear Harry,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Please read this. I hope you've read my other letters, but if you haven't, I understand.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, I want you to know I regret nothing more than my actions against you that day. I feel so horrible Harry.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, I don't know why I did what I did. I've known you since you were eleven. I've watched you again and again try to save everyone without thinking for yourself, and watched you take the weight of the world on your shoulders. But even though I judged you wrong that day, I know that you would want an explanation.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I was torn, Harry. Torn between you and Ron. I chose Ron's side, and his thinking turned me against you. But I don't blame Ron, though you have every right to blame him. I didn't want to lose Ron, Harry.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But at the same time, I can't help but feel I betrayed you, even then Harry. But I buried it by hating you. Harry, I know that Ron, Ginny, and myself hurt you the most. We had a bond, Harry. I mourned the death of that bond 3 years ago, and I regret those actions that severed any chance of repairing that bond when you were exonerated.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, please. Forgive us.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Sincerely,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at the letter from the closest thing he ever had to a sister, feeling a mix of disgust and grudging respect for her.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'I think anyone who doesn't like Hermione, even Malfoy could see her intelligence.' Harry reasoned.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He tossed the letter next to Remus', and proceeded on to Ron's letter. Several of them looked so jerky that he couldn't read them. He decided to skip ahead towards a more recent letter, Hermione's before and after letters giving him an example.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hello Harry. Harry, I want you to know that I'm really sorry mate. I just want you to know that, that I regret everything I said from the day you were accused to the day you showed up in Diagon Alley.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mum, Hermione, and Ginny have been in a right state. They were bawling at odd hours, continuously. Ginny looks the worst, though.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She's miserable man. Please, come to the Burrow. If not for the rest of us, then for her. She looks worse and worse each day.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'Even after all these years, he still hasn't changed a bit.' Harry thought, a slight smirk beginning to show on his face. He was troubled, though. Ginny did look worse for the wear when he saw her at Diagon Alley, though in one part of Harry's mind that he chose to ignore, she was still as beautiful as ever.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He shoved that part of himself down, right next to the horrors he had faced before and in Azkaban.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He looked at a large assortment of different owls. He didn't really feel like looking through all of them, not today, maybe not ever. His eyes scanned the names, however. Neville, Luna, Fred, George, Oliver, each name struck a memory, which struck an upsurge of anger, and a tiny pang of loneliness.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly he found a large stack of letters. Each one of them had a name that had haunted his existence in Azkaban, a name that had circled in his head, taunting him, more than any other. Ginny Weasley.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He looked at the newest letter, as if it were a poisonous-snake wouldn't be right, Harry could deal with that- well just poisonous.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Tentatively, he picked up the letter, it's familiar, haunting yet loved scent of apple blossoms wafting into his nose. Ginny's scent. Even today, it made him warm inside.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Damn that girl. How can she do this to me!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Shaking his head, as if it would dispel the hold the smell had on him, he focused on the letter, using his Occulemency training to shut down all other emotions
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dear Harry,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I'm so sorry for what I've done to you. I know you better than anyone, but Voldemort fooled me. Harry, I have no explanation for the questions I know you are asking. I don't know why I betrayed you.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I want you to know, Harry. I never stopped loving you. I tried so hard to stop when you were sentenced. A part of me died that day you were imprisoned, Harry. It came back the day I was told you were innocent, and I was racked with guilt. Please Harry, forgive me. Know that I love you, even if you don't love me anymore.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I know that you probably don't want to here this, but I have said it anyway, just I as I did when you were shaken by Sirius' death. Harry, please. Come back to me. Please talk to me.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ All of these things I have said don't even begin to scratch the surface of what I feel, Harry. You deserve my answer in person, and although I don't deserve it, I want to see you again. Meet me at the Leaky Cauldron in two days, at 12:00.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Love Always,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry mind was racing, just like it always did where she was concerned. 'How dare she! How dare she say she still loves me!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'Still, maybe I'll take her up on that offer. I do deserve an answer, from her most of all.' Harry thought resignedly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, another brown owl from the ministry flew in. It was a breaking issue from the Daily Prophet. The headline caught Harry's eye.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Minister Fudge Declares Harry Potter Dead!