Ever since that first letter, Harry had maintained a relatively casual correspondence with Draco by owl post. He had written to Malfoy after Andromeda's birthday to tell him that she had been made very happy because of his letter and the prospect of meeting them later. He decided to test him a bit by mentioning passingly that Teddy had finally decided on the wedding date and venue after the year-long engagement. It was hard to tell with written words but Harry thought his new friend seemed a bit shy when he wrote about Andromeda. He had explained in his reply that the success of his long letter had encouraged him to write to Andromeda because he would like to make things right with her before meeting her again in person in Easter. Draco also congratulated him very formally about the wedding, which he found a bit disappointing but he reminded himself that Malfoy knew nothing about Teddy's desire to invite them to his wedding that he remained cautiously optimistic that the Malfoys could get close to Teddy once they had all met in person.

Later in the month, Harry received a surprisingly honest reply to his regular letter to Albus about how he had been doing. Before then, Al had always avoided his question about his nightmares and had instead focused on the more positive things in Hogwarts, which had mostly been about Scorpius and about his own improving academic performances. After a few weeks, it had all become a routine to Harry that he would always ask about how his son had been sleeping, if he had any nightmare while Albus would always not answer and would simply write about something else, that he himself had stopped expecting an answer to his questions despite still asking every time. So it had come as quite a shock when he read the following words and realised that his son had decided to change tactics to close the subject once and for all.

"If you really have to know, dad, I have indeed been having nightmares regularly, sometimes even once a week. Of course they were about the incidents but I am still not ready to talk about it yet. I did mean what I said on New Year's Eve that I want to be able to tell you someday and I understand that you are trying to help, dad, but as refreshing as it has been to be able to write to you about stuff, I hope you can just stop asking about the nightmares. I have talked to Madam Pomfrey and she has agreed to give me some sleeping draught, as long as I only take a quarter to half a dose every time, as she knew that I had witnessed the murder. I have been taking that occasionally as well as more chocolate, that it really has not been too bad lately. I have talked with Scorpius a bit about them too so it's not like I'm keeping everything to myself. I'm telling you this because I don't want you to worry too much but please don't ask about it again in every letter."

Remembering how annoyed he would get when his friends bombarded him about his nightmares and connection with Voldemort in his fifth year, Harry knew that his son's annoyance was entirely reasonable, not to mention Albus had been unusually mature about it by giving him an honest answer (even though it could have only been the partial truth), and assuring him that he had been actively trying to deal with it. However, as a worrying father, it had become really difficult for him to reply to the letter without addressing the elephant in the room at all. Unfortunately, Al had also given him an even bigger problem in the letter when he "casually" asked the following questions.

"If you really want to help, dad, would you mind telling me something? Did you think about Cedric Diggory a lot in your fifth year? If yes, what did you do about it?"

To Harry, there really was only one implication to these questions, which was his son had been thinking about Craig a lot and was having troubles coping with the guilt. In theory, he knew that he should be the perfect person to answer these questions but unfortunately, feeling guilty about more and more people's suffering and deaths had never helped him to get used to it and be able to cope better in a similar situation that the truth was, he was as crappy as he had always been when it came to dealing with his guilts. Also, there was no way he could be completely open to his son about these questions because of his unique and complicated circumstances of dating the ex-girlfriend of Cedric mere months after the boy's death and how Snape had been repeatedly messing with his mind during occlumency lessons by bringing up his memories of Cedric's death that year. Of course, he had felt terribly shaken and guilty during the summer and at the beginning of his fifth year, but by the later part of the year he had come to feel annoyed whenever he had been reminded of Cedric's death. He knew that he would not be able to give a satisfying answer to his son that he turned to the best person who should be able to help him, his wife.

After calmly and silently reading through the whole letter, she looked at him and asked, "Well, how do you plan to answer his questions?"

"I don't know, Gin. That's why I'm asking you, you know better than anyone how unsuitable I am to be answering questions and giving advice about guilt." He tried very hard to hide his frustration from his tone.

She shrugged and said, "I think you should just answer as truthfully as possible."

"To tell him that the guilt still eats at me till this day at the most unexpected times and I basically didn't do anything at the time to deal with it, except if you count me seeking comfort from Cedric's girlfriend." This definitely put him in the most unflattering light possible when all he wanted was to be able to help his son and to earn his respect. Ginny grimaced at his mention of Cho that he immediately regretted his choice of expression, but she was able to return to a more neutral demeanour in no time.

"On second thought, you should totally leave that part out. What I meant was that, there was no point for you to sugarcoat this because false reassurance would do nothing to help him. He asked you precisely because he knew you had experienced it, that you had been in the exact situation as he's. The truth may be difficult to accept but the sooner he can accept the inevitability of guilt, the sooner he would be able to actively learn how to deal with it instead of running away from it or pretending it's not hurting him and letting it do the worst damages." Her tone was a little harsh to begin with but it had substantially softened by now, when she paused and pressed her hand on his.

"I believe our son just want to hear it from you that everything will be fine someday." Looking at his wife's sincere expression, he asked himself, was everything truly fine for him? Just the fact that he had said the unforgivable to Albus about six months ago and had let the Time Turner incidents happen should be proof enough that everything had not been fine. What was worse now was that as consequences of his own failures, it had become his son's turn to suffer that deep down, this could never be fine at all. But he could see the truth in her eyes that Al just needed the reassurances that things could get better.

He nodded and said, "Why don't you reply him, you are way better than me in giving advice and surely you would be able to put things into words way better than me."

At this, she playfully lifted up the letter again and read aloud, "Dad, I'm doing not bad..." now she even turned the letter around and pretended to search for something, "hmm… why should I be replying a letter that was not addressed to me?"

Not willing to give up, he countered, "He was replying to a letter from me so it makes sense that he would address to me alone, but surely he could understand it better if you…"

She interrupted him decidedly, "Have you forgotten what I said back then, Harry? He needs to feel specific love from you and this is your chance. He needs to hear it from you because you were the one who had witnessed Cedric's death and had experienced the guilt yourself, not me. My job here is to help you organise your thoughts and words, but trust me when I say a reply from me would give him much less impact than one from you. How about this? The senior Quidditch correspondence at the Daily Prophet will personally proofread and edit the letter for you afterwards." She even mischievously gave him a wink at the end, why did Ginny have to be right all the times?

A/N: I'm back! I'm pretty sure I've just taken my longest break from the fic yet. I had first expected to keep writing at a much slower pace for the last 6 weeks but ended up stopping completely. It had been an exhausting couple of weeks but it's relieving to get my exams over with. Also, I have passed the exam I failed earlier! I'm excited to get back to my writing but this feels so much harder after the hiatus, hence this shortest chapter yet (and probably a not-as-well-written one). My next few updates will probably continue to take longer than usual or be much shorter but I hope to return to my regular schedule/(and) length soon.

Thank you so much for your support, please comment =)

PS: I changed the fic's profile picture to Samuel Blenkin's Scorpius just because I finished the drawing a while ago :P