Happy Birthday, my dear Harry Potter.

If all goes well, and I haven't altogether ruined the surprise, you've just celebrated your sixteenth birthday (on the eve of your sixteenth birthday) with your dearest friends and family.

It was Sirius' idea, of course. The whisper of it overtook the room. Naturally, for you are dearly loved.

I confess that I was once afraid of them, my darling. I couldn't see a way. When Ron and Hermoine, when Sirius and Lupin, when Fred and George and Ginny and Arthur and Molly stepped back into your life, how could there possibly be room for me? I was paralyzed by the notion. For to know you, to adore you, and then to lose you — I can hardly imagine a more tragic series of events. Yet I've discovered something in the periphery of your community. Affection for Harry Potter is a thread that has knit the hearts of many, one to another. Somehow I know you better, for their fondness and laughter, and I am better known.

If you're reading this, I'm guessing I've just left your home. And I suppose you're opening the very last gift you've been given — the gift my mother gave my father. Yes, a note. But more than a note. Nearness. Intimacy. For you are, just now, only a quill's scratch away from me. Oh, how I want to know you, Harry. I want to begin a dialogue that never ends. So, you see, this gift is as much for me as it is for you.

So tell me, Harry Potter. How was your birthday?

Yours,
Luna Lovegood

PS — I write this letter shortly after you pressed me against your threshold and whispered into my ear. It's nearly midnight, yet I still feel your lips, your chest, your hips, your… Oh goodness, Harry, the chasm between what I want to say and what I ought to say overwhelms me.
PPS — It's suddenly occurred to me that, perhaps, instant access to you throughout the night may not be the best idea.

Luna,

Hi.

I love that you're only a moment away. I love that as soon as I fold this parchment, you'll unfold it. I feel so very near to you, and it's the best gift I've been given. Thank you, Luna Lovegood. Your whispered affections, your secret thoughts? I treasure every glimpse.

How was my birthday? Well, technically it hasn't happened yet — but even still it was the best I've ever had.

I've always hoped that someday — if I survived this inevitable war; if I were still breathing on the other side of Voldemort, after the darkness dies and all is well — that someday perhaps I'd have people whom I loved, and who loved me in return. That hope has always felt so distant, an abstract vision. Too much to hope for, here and now. And yet, tonight I sat around a table with my family. I was surrounded by people who seem to actually care about me, and who want to celebrate my life as if it matters to them. So much has changed, Luna. I can't express how happy I am.

And yet. For the life of me ( literally?) I cannot shake the looming specter of Voldemort. Hermione is right, of course. I knew it as soon as she spoke the words. Horcrux, whatever that means. We're connected, Tom and I. Something of him is a part of me. It's always been so. And the notion haunts me, even on this bright day.

Are you afraid, Luna? Of his — honestly, I don't even know how to capture the notion — of his influence?

Just a few months ago, I'd have been crippled by the idea. Just now I feel the warmth of hope. Of light. I feel certain, Luna, an unshakable, impossible knowledge. I know that the light will prevail. I feel it, and the joy of it has captured me.

And you, my love. You have captured me. For I am,
Yours,
Harry Potter

PS — I want to hear what you want to say at least as much as you want to say it.
PPS — I am yours, Luna Lovegood, at every hour. My heart races at the thought.

Harry,

Hi.

You speak of nearness, my love. I am here. You treasure my whispered affections? They are yours. You desire my secret thoughts? I am naked before you.

And that is only one of them.

So much has happened today, Harry Potter. So many big things and so many good things. So many memories to treasure and so many burdens to bear.

I loved your birthday party, darling. I feel an unspoken camaraderie with those who treasure your life. Celebrating it is a declaration, in some sense, that our shared hopes will prevail against our shared fears. They've taken me in, and I am the better for it. I cannot express how much it means to me, to feel welcomed like that.

You are loved. You have a family. Oh, Harry, the darkness has already cost you so much. That a meal shared with happy laughter represents such a dramatic shift seems an artifact of that darkness, and perhaps also a reflection of the light which pierces it.

That piercing light. I feel it, Harry, far off but there. A shy warmth, a crimson glow. Like the dawn.

Yes, I hear the whispered rumors of a rising darkness. Some days I can nearly feel the thunder of wicked armies. I know the shining light will prevail, despite the violent hearts of men.

Am I afraid? In a way.

I am not afraid of him. I am not afraid that his influence will prevail. Against who you are — against what you've become — a shard of a shredded soul cannot stand. Yet I fear the burden itself — what it might cost to carry it, and what it might take to be rid of it forever.

I share your hope, darling. Yet I cannot help but wonder what's between this present darkness and the peace of victory.

I have so many questions, Harry. About Nexus. About us. We are bound — perhaps by the Raven King himself? What does it mean? And what will it mean? I feel the weight of its significance. I feel so much. Honor, apprehension, fear. I fear the implications of it all.

I am afraid even to speak the words, as if the whispered articulation might lend these figments life and power, might enchant them to existence.

What if, my dear, what we have is artificial? We are bound. Would we be, otherwise? Now given, can it be taken away? Might it be stripped from us? Might I be left without your kind eyes, your playful affections, the stir of your diligent attention?

No. After a moment's reflection, I'm sure. This — what we share — is true. It is true and good and beautiful. You are mine, Harry Potter, and I am yours. I am certain, as I am of magic itself, as I am of the enchanting whispers of the westward wind. If what we have is a gift, we could no more lose it than a falling leaf can lose the stir of a crisp autumn breeze. If we are bound, we were created to be such. It is knit into our very being. Anything less would be an act of violence against nature herself.

I am yours. You are mine. And I am, every moment, drawn to you. Whatever it is that knits my heart, stitch by stitch, to yours, feels as inevitable as the end of the ages.

Inevitable. Real and building and inevitable. I resist that which is impossible to resist. I feel it, darling. As you enter the room, in your steadied gaze. I feel it when I hear you breathe, when my straying eyes trace your sharp contours, when I taste your lips, your tongue. This inevitable force has all but captured me in its momentum, and I crash into you.

I want to surrender. And yet I strain.

Because I love you, Harry Potter. And because I will be, someday,
Yours,
Luna Lovegood

PS — Were you here, lying next to me in the dark, I would whisper these dangerous words. Slowly and carefully. That I might see, hear, feel your response to them.
PPS — Yet you are there, and I am here. So I will sketch what I cannot say.