Dear Sophia,

Frankly, back then none of this seemed possible. Perhaps, like many things yet to come, we should have seen the writing on the wall. It was there all along. It was slowly but surely being revealed to us, and like too many other things around us then, we missed it. Or maybe we chose to ignore it, because ignoring it was easier. Back then we could tell ourselves nothing was as bad as it seemed. Back then, even the fraying around the seams didn't seem like it could be fatal.

We knew things were not right. We knew we were not ourselves. We had known it for weeks, for months. But we began to skim coat the uneven surfaces instead of repairing the crumpling studs. And everyone always made sure things looked so beautiful, so smooth and even and strong. We'd moved from believing we would 'get back to ourselves' once the tour ended, to pretending nothing was wrong. And we'd gotten very good at believing it. We'd gotten very good at buying into our own PR.

And then the season ended, and things did settle down. We decided, mostly at your father's insistent urging, to spend our time off in Godrics Hollow instead of London. He thought it would do us well, he said, to 'really, truly get away from it all.' Deep down, we all believed he was right.

And early on, things did seem to come around…not instantaneously, of course, but we did begin to tear down the damaged drywall and repair the studs. Slowly at first, and in stages, we began to feel like ourselves again. We began to communicate again. Perhaps that's why we never noticed the failing foundation.

After a few weeks at home, your father began to tell us the story of his last few months—his months of exile—and the burgeoning romance with your mother. He admitted things to us carefully…giving us the story in pieces, withholding always. The story he told always focused on the plot-lines, never the characters. This was an inconsistency we didn't notice. We'd grown just far enough apart that I missed what ran between the lines. We believed that he was telling us everything, and the look on his face after a letter from your mother was enough for us to believe in his genuine happiness. We did not question him. He was, in his own words, in love. And deeply so. Despite all the things we managed to miss, that much we could see.

At first, we stopped questioning your father when he began disappearing again for days at a clip. It felt different then, perhaps because we thought we knew where he was going when he left for London. At first, it did not seem odd to us that no press photos ever appeared to give us any indication of what he was doing in the city, or who he was with. We knew he was with his girlfriend. For a while, that was enough. We filled in the details on our own.

It took easily two months, but eventually we began to wonder about this woman we never saw, this woman your father spent so much time with, so anonymously. Eventually we began to inquire more directly about the woman for whom he left us behind with increasing frequency. Initially our questions were awkwardly avoided. But with growing intensity we continued to badger him, unsatisfied with what he offered. Eventually even your grandparents became restless, curious, frustrated with your father's hesitancy to share with us, to say too much. Even your grandparents began pressing for answers. And eventually, your father had to begin telling us more about your mother. Eventually the plot-line of the story was no longer enough. We wanted to be introduced to the characters.

So he began by telling us the major details. She lived on her own in London and went to Hogwarts (she was a Ravenclaw), she'd grown up on Sheffield, and she had a younger brother and two parents who were still married. She was smart, and beautiful, and wrote fiction and poetry and studied Irish Wizard History. She'd travelled abroad and worked for the family business. She was athletic and artistic and bold and loud and had a great sense of humour. We could see nothing wrong with this situation.

But by this time, we wanted to meet her. We couldn't understand why your father kept her from us, this woman who was so wonderful. And it was at that point that your father had some serious damage control to do. Because even though he'd never specifically lied to us, he'd left out enough important details to make us feel as though he had. He'd chosen his words so carefully that they could be seen from two angles, as the truth and as a lie.

"She's…older," I remember him saying at the dinner table, softly and almost reluctantly, the night before she was to come to our house for Sunday brunch.

"What, James?" your Grandmother asked, calmly, as though she simply had not heard him.

"Ash is older. She's…she's twenty-five," he looked down at his fork, "and…" he stalled, fork scraping around on his plate.

"And, what, James?" his approach, his visible reluctance, raised your Grandmother's defences. Something felt wrong. Something was wrong.

"You know her," he said, looking up, "you've met her. She's the girl who worked for the team with the promotional stuff."

Suddenly it all clicked into , who worked for the team. The redhead.

"The girl who ignored you?!" Your grandfather gave voice to my thoughts, my mind racing back to every discouraging encounter your parents had ever had.

"What does a 25-year-old woman have in common with you? How could she…what does she want from you?" Her voice rose. I cannot accurately describe the look in your grandmother's eyes as she spoke; it was some combination of shock, betrayal, anger and loss. It overtook her instantaneously. The whole room shifted with her.

"Nothing, Mum, she doesn't want anything from me. She loves me. I love her. That's it." He was no longer hesitant. The words rung out strong, the look on his face set.

From there, things went downhill. Drastically, fantastically. Things disintegrated as the reality of your mother revealed itself to us. Maybe it was the way your father handled the situation that turned it into a fiasco. Maybe it was the way we (his family) handled the situation. In the end, it was probably a little of both. In the end, it was definitely a symptom of how damaged we all were, how much the seams had frayed. The garment was barely holding itself together anymore.

Looking back, I suppose we made a lot of mistakes. The first of which was not noticing the changes in your father. The quiet, steady maturity that had crept in without a word. The devotion, focus and composed demeanour that had become his every day. The shift in his vocabulary. Maybe if we'd seen these things, we would have believed in your parents' relationship before it was too late. But back then, all the lying made things seem outsized. The lying was all we could see.

The lying allowed us to believe there was some terrible reason to keep their relationship a secret. We could tell ourselves your mother was manipulating the situation to keep things silent. Convince ourselves she knew that what she was doing was wrong and that she was obviously in the relationship for all the wrong reasons. We allowed ourselves to believe your mother was manipulating your father. As though he didn't really know what love was or couldn't possibly grasp the concept. As though she was selling him a false bill of goods. As though neither one of them were capable of truly loving the other: your father too young, and your mother too backhanded. If only we'd seen…

Questions. There were so many questions, and to us, none of the answers felt sufficient. For whatever reason, we did not want to believe it could be as simple as it was. That your father had fallen in love at first sight. That your mother succumbed to his pursuit, to her own growing feelings. That they loved each other more deeply than either could verbalize.

What did they have in common? What did she want from him? What was she getting out of it? What was wrong with her, that as an adult she pursued a relationship with a teenager? What could he possibly see in her? Wasn't he just entertaining himself, trying to pursue her? How could it possibly have become a relationship when it started out as a game of cat and mouse? Why did they have to lie? Why did they have to hide it from the world? And worse, why did they have to hide it from us?

So many questions. And in our minds, every answer inadequate. Every answer a lie.

It did not occur to us, at the time, that your mother could have done everything possible to stay out of your father's public life for any reason other than to avoid censure. It did not occur to us that she could possibly have had absolutely no interest in his public life. It did not occur to us that she insisted upon secrecy, not to protect herself, but to protect him and his career. That you parents were slow to reveal themselves because they needed to be sure of things—of their relationship—before they shared it with the world. It did not seem possible that they had kept secrets from us because we had forced them to, because they feared our reaction. It did not occur to us that we had pushed them away.

Your mother did come over for brunch that Sunday after all. We were determined to hate her. We held our questions high, like castle walls, and kept the drawbridge closed. We interrogated both of your parents mercilessly about their relationship, about their intentions, about their lies. We believed nothing. We saw her, always, as a pariah. We painted her as a death eater in the wings, as a threat to a life we believed we had earned. We did not notice all the things we had lost sight of. Like love, and family, and who we used to be to each other.

It was awful, what we did to your parents, what they endured. All your mother ever wanted was for us to accept her and instead, we tortured her. We forced her to prove herself to us, and refused to accept what she offered. She tore her heart out and offered it to us on a platter, and we spat on it.

In the end, we asked, nay, demanded that your father choose. Your mother or our team. Your mother or our family. It is a day I'm not sure I'll ever be able to write about. A memory I fight every day to erase. The single most selfish day of my life.

Your father chose your mother. He loved her that much. He walked away from one of the planet's most famed wizarding families and one of the most famous upcoming quidditch team. He walked away from his career path. He walked away from his family. All for love.

That was the last time we spoke. Lawyers handled the end of the team who had no heart to play anymore. Therapists handled the end of our family. And we handled nothing. We simply walked away.

All my love,

Uncle Al.