It's been a long time since I've been able to work on this. I don't know that there's any excuse for me to have lost touch with my update schedule. I started out writing, and posting, one chapter per week. I fully intended to keep this going indefinitely.

The problem with my writing schedule is that it's rather hectic; I have eight projects going on right now. I'm working on finishing up two of them, but aside from these projects, I also have a great number of other obligations. I don't mean to make excuses; I only mean to say that it's a tenuous tightrope, and when pretty much anything throws a wrench into the works, writing these stories becomes immensely difficult.

I have spent the past couple of weeks in and out of the hospital; a family member has recently been diagnosed with cancer. A very close family member. It's been difficult for me to focus lately, and those chapters that I have put up recently have been backlogs and edits. Actually writing out new content has been frustrating. I feel like I've finally gotten back in touch with my creative spark.

This chapter is somewhat short, but that's more due to the style of the chapter than anything else. So, all that said, let us begin.

I hope you enjoy this installment.

I'm writing this down because I don't trust myself to speak.

The way I hear it, Peter, you've already spoken to Remus, and you want to talk to me. He says you want to set things straight. To tell me what happened that night. To explain. I'm afraid, considering everything that's been going on lately, that I'm not entirely interested in hearing any explanations.

Understand something, Peter. We trusted you with something vital. We all believed that you would be strong enough, and brave enough, to handle this mantle. We gave you a chance to prove yourself not as a Gryffindor, but as a friend. You failed. And don't consider that an attack from me, because it's not. I failed, too. And Remus failed. And Dumbledore, and the Order of the Phoenix, and the entire bloody "Magical Community."

James Potter and Lily Evans were a pair of the best of us. The best damn witch and wizard I ever had the blessing to meet. And I used to think myself on a level with them. I used to be arrogant enough to think I could stand alongside them and call myself their peer.

I was wrong. And the night you want to talk to me about…that just proves the point.

I know that there was a reason, something behind why you broke your promise. Why the magic failed, and why James and Lily were killed. I know that you've been through hell, and that nobody deserves what you got. But you know what? Nobody deserves what James and Lily got, either. Nobody deserves what happened to Frank and Alice, or any of the Dark Lord's victims. We've all been put through the wood-chipper by this war, and I'm sorry to say that my sympathy for you, and your desire to explain yourself to me, is practically nonexistent.

Harry Potter is four years old now. Do you realize that? It's been three years since they died. Three years since you made a lick of sense whenever you worked your lips and tongue into speech. We've all been doing our best to move forward since the Dark Lord's "death," and I don't feel like drudging up those memories again. Just writing this out is enough reminiscence for me. If you feel like you need to tell me what you feel, to tell me what happened, in order to move forward yourself, go ahead and write it down in a letter. You can even go ahead and send it to me.

I won't read it.

I don't expect you to understand why I'm being so harsh about everything. I don't expect you to forgive me, either. I understand I'm being nothing short of a colossal prat, but I also have no intention of doing anything about it. It was my idea to pull a fast one on the Death Eaters; my idea to put you into the line of fire. I failed you, and you turned around and failed me.

James and Lily paid the price for that.

This doesn't mean I've burned a bridge or anything like that. I'll still talk to you; I'll still stand by you, and I'll still be a friend to you. I'm no turncoat, and I have no intention of abandoning you. I'm simply writing this so that you understand I absolutely refuse to talk about this. I'm writing this so that you know things aren't ever going to be the same between us. This event has shown me the measure of you, and has clarified the expectations I can reasonably have of you. You are not the man I hoped you were. You are the man I feared you were.

If you feel hurt by these things, then I believe there might still be hope for you. If this bothers you, being told these things in such a callous and—some might say—heartless fashion by a friend, then there's still potential for you to become the friend that James and Lily deserved. I still believe, even after all these years, that the same potential exists in me. I look in the mirror and laugh at the folly of thinking that, but I still do. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's why I'm closing the door on our past. I will never forget the Potters. I will never allow their son to forget them. But I will never allow him to see them as victims. I will tell him of their heroism, of their actions, of their beliefs and their convictions. I will teach him what they would have taught him. I will teach him to honor them.

He will never think of them as corpses lying in a broken house.

And if I have anything to say about it, from now on neither will I.

Some part of me wonders why I'm being so wordy about this. Theatrical. Some part of me wonders why I don't just say "no" and be done with it. But there's another part of me that insists I need to lay this all out, so that you understand the gravity of your seemingly innocuous request to clear the air.

Remus would say I'm sulking. Remus would say I'm being a hypocrite.

Maybe I am. I can't be trusted to analyze my own psychology. It doesn't really matter to me.

I suppose it comes down to this: you know that they named me Harry's godfather. You know that they entrusted him to me, should the worst happen to them. Remus and I have been taking care of him these past years, raising him as best we can; but Remus has made it abundantly clear that he is simply assisting me. The final decision always comes back to me. It is my job, my calling if you like, to make sure Harry has the best shot at a life worth living.

I am, sad and sorry as it might seem to anyone looking in, a father now. I can't afford to be James's friend. Lily's friend. I can't be a part of their family anymore. I have to be Harry's. The only living relatives he has, people who actually share his blood, are Lily's sister and nephew. He's never met them. Maybe he will, someday, when he's old enough to make the decision himself and I no longer hold sway. In any case, it's my job to build a new family for him.

That's why I'm taking this so seriously. So dourly.

If you wish to honor the memory of your friends, then I invite you to be a part of their final legacy. I invite you to be a part of Harry's life, and help old Moony and Padfoot from making total idiots out of themselves about it.

But that comes to the last thing I'm going to tell you, the last thing you need to know.

I take this job of mine immeasurably seriously. It is the most vital task I've ever been given, and the closest thing to noble I've ever done. I pride myself on the fact that Harry is happy, healthy, and he's fast on his way to becoming the sort of wizard that James and Lily would have been proud to call their own.

I know that you are afraid. I know that the Death Eaters fed on that fear, and that fear ultimately led to the state you are in. I understand that you never really had a chance to face that fear. You could probably blame us for that. We did you a disservice, protecting you all the time like we did. Treating you like a lesser member of our little gang. We used you, and tried to tell ourselves that we made up for it by sticking up for you.

It was a mistake, and I'm sorry about that. But it doesn't change what you've become. So again, I understand that you often fall prey to your fears, and that you can be manipulated. I'm sure, despite the way you were treated, that the Death Eaters may well try to take you back. They might come to you, and they might threaten you into submission. They might try to use you to revive Voldemort, and descend our community into a new age of fear, and you might be duped into thinking that will make things better in the long run for you. After all, if everyone is cowering, who's going to notice little old you?

I want you to know that I will.

If you let weakness take you again, the way that you let it take you on the first night of November, three years ago…if you allow yourself to be manipulated, if you have any part in putting the slightest shadow across my son's face…if you bring back the faintest memory of the terror and loss he felt that night…

Run.

Run as fast as your legs can carry you, and do not look back, because I swear to you I will be there. I will find you. I tell you this as a friend, so that you understand the gravity of my mission. We all know that the Death Eaters will be trying to revive their master, probably they already are. If they try to hook you into their games, and you allow yourself to be hooked…

I will kill you with my own hands. No spells, no transformations. No warning.

I will not let you soil what they fought for.

And you will never, in all the years you could ever hope to live, be able to stop me.