Thinking back to my last letter (the last one I burned that is) it's funny how prescient my subconscious actually was. Funny how dreams of a fake retirement party preceded a real one. Flooing across the country to sit in a room of people I went to school with would usually be somewhere under unanesthatized dental surgery on my to do list, but then your name appeared on the rsvp list and there was never any doubt.

Seeing your face, exactly as I remembered it, was such a balm on my soul...or possibly the biggest cruelty ever. I haven't decided yet. But I do know you can't give an academic overachiever a once-in-a-lifetime excuse to see someone she's not allowed to contact again and not have her over analyze every single second of the night over and over like a nightly post game film review that starts the second she closes her eyes. It's like a fun new part time job just for me.

I knew the second you got there. I was talking to someone in the other room and I swear I felt you before I even heard your voice or people say your name. (Yes, I'm keenly aware of how stupid that sounds, thank you. I tell myself I'm stupid all the time. It's one of my greatest strengths these days.) I'm not proud of how I hid from you those first few minutes, but I knew exactly where you were regardless. Apparently tracking your location in a crowded room is one of those skills that doesn't atrophy with disuse. What an atrociously lovely fact for me to now know.

And then I couldn't fight it anymore. Pretending Ron was standing in the room as my litmus test for propriety, I let myself talk to you. Did you know there's no correct way to hug someone who used to be your world, someone who has occupied an alarming percentage of your thoughts for the last decade (despite not actually having seen each other since, gods...since)? I preemptively ruled out my initial instinct to run sobbing into your arms. Something about plentiful witnesses and social mores and not being an insane, home-destroying harlot, so awkward hug it was. Was it enough? No. Can I still feel the ghost of your arms, now the 10 years later version, around me? The feel of your robes brushing my skin? Only every time I shut my eyes.

I thought we were very mature, all things considered. At first it was like we vanished our entire relationship and I was just talking to my old professor, but the first time I dared actually look you in the eyes I knew you were feeling, well... something. Does my horrible brain want to believe it was you having missed me? Oh yes. Could it equally likely have been you feeling awkward around someone you wanted nothing to do with? Also yes.

Eventually we actually mentioned how nervous we'd both been about seeing each other, about how many memories it brought up. I got to ask you if you were happy (and you answered so fast in the affirmative) and you asked me back and I was glad I'd pre-rehearsed my answer of "I try to be" because I never know how to answer that question in normal life... and I'd have been that much more stammering and awkward answering it from you. And, at that point, I then got to say one of the other things I had been practicing in the shower for the past few months: "thank you and I'm sorry, in equal measure". Calm, succinct, not stepping across any moral lines, respectful. You made me repeat it twice. I think you heard me the first but you were just...surprised? I don't know. You just kind of nodded and I'd probably give every galleon I have to hear your internal mental dialogue for just that 30 second period.

So I was good. Proper. Measured. Mature.

A grown woman with adult responsibilities and children. Children I couldn't not show you of (because I've always wanted to share photos of every little thing with you) but I won't lie and say that act didn't feel like yet another betrayal.

Thank you and I'm sorry. Totally appropriate to say in public. So mature. But I didn't let myself say what I really meant. I guess I'll tell my fireplace what it actually meant.

First, I said thank you. I meant thank you for being the kindest, most caring, dedicated, respectful, loving, devoted, upright person I ever had the privilege of being with. In every instance and at every turn you treated me better than anyone ever has and I never got to thank youi properly for being a shining example of exactly how a person should be treated by someone they love. Thank you, Remus, truly. The time I spent with you was some of the happiest I have ever known and you never got to hear that, despite deserving to hear it repeatedly. Even a decade later when I have a bad day I still remind myself that I must not be completely unloveable because of how completely and thoroughly you once loved me, and it's nowhere near as much as I want but it's enough to get me through the day. So thank you.

The second part I said was I'm sorry. God, was that the biggest understatement to ever leave my mouth. The way we ended, the way I unilaterally ended us... I know you know it was due to parental pressure from the Drs. Granger, but I didn't truly understand until later (too late) what a complete and utter coward I had been. I begged you to take a chance on me and then didn't have the gumption to stand up for it when my feet were put to the fire. I callously pulled the plaster off for both of us and pretended like my feelings didn't exist anymore because I felt like I wouldn't ever win so I may as well surrender peacefully... and in doing so I betrayed one of the best people I've ever known. Regardless of whether you have, could, or should forgive me for that... I don't think I ever will. I'm so sorry, Remus. I'm sorry if it made you feel less important than you were, like my feelings for you weren't as strong as you had thought...it was all me. You did nothing wrong. I was a coward and I didn't deserve you.

If it helps, you should also know you've won the war of attrition a thousand times over. Once I realized what a horrible mistake I had made (2.5 kids and a muggle white picket fence too late), the first thing that hit me was that burying your feelings doesn't change them. If anything it makes them stronger. I say this now with complete certainty: I have been at least halfway in love with you every day of my life since sometime when you were away for that year to do Order business and we traded letters when I was still at Hogwarts. For better or worse, loving you is a part of my being, like the fact that I'm obsessed with charms or that I adore reading. It's just who I am. Be it when we were courting or when we hadn't seen each other for years or when we saw each other again and it was still the most natural thing in the world to gravitate to your side in a crowded room...loving you is a permanent part of my being and I don't think I could stop if I tried. (And trust me, I tried for years.)

I think that's the biggest thing I wish you could know. Regardless of our situations or your feelings about me or the whole 'making your bed and lying in it' thing...you deserve to know that there's someone out there who loves you like breathing, quite literally whether she wants to or not. Are there parts of you that did (and probably still would) drive me crazy? Absolutely. Do I think you are or were perfect? Perfection doesn't exist. But does that stop me from loving you exactly as you are? Nothing has so far.

And so we watched the projected pensive memories of Professor McGonagal's greatest hits from her tenure as if whatever sadistic soul who made it hadn't set them to that song from that muggle musical, the one you used to say reminded you of us and I'd make fun of you for being morbid because the two women singing it were changed for good but didn't end up seeing each other again after singing it. Chalk up another point for prescience.

You tried to get me to eat when you noticed my nerves had me avoiding the food tables. Merlin, if I wasn't already dying inside that did it. To have the person who had every right to hate me still try to take care of me after...everything? Well let's just say I've since cried at the mere thought of that moment in the middle of the night, randomly during the day, and intentionally to a muggle therapist. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be that taken care of. Not sure whether to love you or hate you for reminding me. I haven't decided yet.

So now we're back to nothing. A vast and unknown space of being trapped in my own thoughts, my own over-interpretations... and my fake letters. There are always fake letters.

God, so this is ending up another awful sob fest. Great. You know, someday I'll stop filling parchment just to burn. Apparently today is not that day.