Away

I've always wanted to be a writer, Lily. To see a world explode from nothingness by means of your very fingertips—that, I think, is true magic. It doesn't matter that I'm a wizard, it doesn't matter that writing is a common profession, looked down upon in the Wizarding world: I care not about my reputation but about that feeling power associated with creation.

I know what you're thinking: that I'm irrational when I can create anything so much more easily with real magic. But you're forgetting the fifth exception to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, Lily, and to no surprise—Transfiguration was always your worst subject. You can conjure concrete things but not abstract. Language is an abstract concept… it cannot be made, cannot be manipulated, from thin air.

I find it powerful that it's possible to work around Gamp by such simple yet such painstaking means as those used by Muggles in everyday life… but a good writer I am not. Try as I might, I cannot unlock the key to the written word.

And so I strive to find power in mere, uncreative magic, strive to quench my curiosity with brewing potions, inventing spells—and what good as it done? For I lost you in my search, Lily, and there is nothing I regret more than the loss of such friendship in your eyes when you used to look at me.

I never meant to call you Mudblood, Lily. I know you don't believe me, but it did slip out, proof of a nasty mindset I've acquired over the years. I trust you noticed how long my essays were? That is why… I again hoped to suffice for lack of creativity with other intelligence, but it did me no good. Of Muggles I am jealous, Lily, because they have what I do not; I thought the likes of Voldemort would prove wrong my beliefs, but becoming a Death Eater only made clear how foolish I have acted.

Dumbledore called me a brave man once, but I do not deserve the honor of that title. Do you see him now, Lily? He is dead by my hand and the hand of silly power, and here I lie, dying, my life wasted on lies and an impossible craving for satisfaction, killed by the man I turned to in my feeble hopes.

"Take… it… take… it…"

How very ironic that I am still so able to pick and choose the memories to pour out for you now. A flawless character sketch of myself… I should be proud, yet I am not. I am sending you to your death, Lily, you will know it in due time, and I fear that all I am good for is murder. I suppose it's noble of me to ignore my love and act for the common good, but then, one act of nobility cannot erase the irreparable damage done in my past; come see what happens when such nobility is advised by a portrait from whom I have taken orders for a year…

They think me evil, Lily, and perhaps I am.

I know that I am delirious in this state, but I cannot help but feel that I have failed you. I am the only one left… all gone, all gone, Potter, Black, Pettigrew, Dumbledore too; Lupin will be next if he has not yet died, I can feel it, the brave of heart take the most risks. Perhaps he's left even now, and yet it feels so strange to wish now that I had treated your fellow Gryffindors better and ignored my omnipresent envy.

I'm the only one left, and I'm dying, but then, why is it that I see you before me? Is that even you, Lily, whom I am so regretful to wish death upon in my final moments?

"Look… at… me…"

You meet my eyes, but I am relieved for only a second. The guilt is overwhelming, as is this dreaded feeling of uselessness, and I wonder if I deserved what I so clearly had coming.

Write me the rainbow, and perhaps it will all go away.