4 Privet Drive, Surrey
9 July, 1995

Dear Sirius,

          It was marvellous to get your letter, one of the best presents I've got in ages. Please, please don't worry yourself about the Dursleys and me. I can stand them a bit longer; it's not like anything they might want to do to me is anything worse than what could well happen in the coming year or so. If they did put paid to me (which, trust me, they won't), they might be doing the world a favour at that. Sorry, don't mean to be mordant.

          I shift well enough for myself. I do all the cooking and most of the wash, of course, but it's dead easy with electricity. I sometimes quote Professor Snape's homework ("add one-half dash of powdered hemlock, season with a soupcon of blowfish liver") just to catch their interest. I do quite well off Uncle Vernon's leftovers. I think the diet's doing him good. Speaking of which, I barely recognised Dudley! Seems the twins's Ton-Tongue Toffee prank put him off sweets a bit, and he's slimmed down an amazing rate. It does make it a bit easier for him to catch me now, but Seeker's reflexes don't die over just one month, thank Merlin, and I can still squeeze into a number of nooks and crannies that he can only stare at.

          I think they may have noticed... something... happened this school term, as they seem a bit worried. It was on the tip of my tongue all this time to say, "Look, someone I know died. And I killed him, it's all my doing," but I honestly don't know what they'd say to that. They still believe my godfather's a homicidal maniac (please don't worry, I KNOW you're not, and nothing in a million years could ever make me think you were—but THEY don't know that. Yet.) and would probably assume your Malignant Influence has rubbed off on me a bit. But considering the official story is that I'm an incurable lunatic only one step away from a chainsaw and evil laughter, perhaps they'd think I'm a bad influence on you, who knows? So I haven't said a thing, I'm not that daft.

          I can't believe I'm babbling about the Dursleys, they're not a patch on you and never will be. I... oh god. Look. I WANT to live with you and Professor Lupin. I wish, I wish, I wish we could! But it's not worth your coming out in the open and getting yourself shoved back into hell because I whinged about my summer holidays in a letter once too often. You and Professor Lupin have to protect yourselves before anything else, and I won't let my own petty wishes interfere with your well-being. Honestly. I'm all right. I have enough to eat this summer, I can do my homework properly without interference, and I have you and Ron and Hermione to owl me—please do tell Professor Lupin he's more than welcome to write too, if he wishes, I just didn't want to impose on him, given everything else he's got on his shoulders.

          Speaking of which, and moving on to much more pleasant subjects: I do wish Prof Lupin were back on the staff. He's a fabulous teacher and really the only one who ever related to us students on any kind of personal level without either being intrusive or effusive. (Now Lockhart on the other hand... eugh. I wish him well in St Mungo's, and in all honesty, I hope he stays there a while yet.) He (Lupin, not Lockhart) knows his subject, knows how to present it so we'll all be interested and pass our exams, yet keeps it challenging enough that even Hermione had to spend an extra hour or so in the library stacks—which she adored, of course. Only Professor Lupin would think to make us run an obstacle course complete with Dark Creatures for our end of terms exam. I'm sure Malfoy was ecstatic. Takes one to know one, etc. (Er, if Professor Lupin's reading this over your shoulder, that was meant as a stupid joke, not that Malfoy is competent enough to exist as a Dark Creature. That would be giving him too much credit. Although he was rather charming as a ferret—did I ever tell you about that one? Some other time perhaps.)

          I'm babbling again. Hedwig won't be happy with me. I'll just say Professor Lupin was a wonderful teacher, and we all miss him terribly. The only other good Defence master turned out to be an impostor, and Merlin only knows who we'll get in the post this coming year. My expectations aren't terribly high, I'll just say, and leave it at that. On the bright side, if you can call it that, if Snape hasn't been given the DADA post after all this time, we're probably safe enough.

          Professor Snape—you know, I'm probably not qualified to judge him properly as a teacher, because, quite frankly, I hate his guts. I believe he knows his subject. He strikes me, actually, as someone who'd be a brilliant researcher at some facility somewhere, where he can mutter about and dice things to his heart's content and torment his assistants and probably come up with some marvellous new concoction that cures the common cold, eliminates spots, gives you 20-15 vision, and, quite as a side-note, makes Voldemort expire in agony. No doubt he's working on something like that as we speak. But as a teacher: he's horribly biased; shows no respect for anyone not named Malfoy in his class; positively revels in humiliating me, Ron, Hermione, and especially NEVILLE at every turn; and in general shows himself to be a horrible, unspeakable, bastard git. (Please excuse the language, I haven't had this much fun in ages.) And, yes, he's slimy; I'm sure he hasn't washed his hair since the Beatles were at the top of the Pops, if then.

          I wonder though. I know you two, as an understatement, don't care for one another's company much (oh, I can hear you choking as I write). But I've been thinking a bit over the summer—oh, wouldn't he love to hear that line. I mean, Snape's obviously... done things (you saw what he showed Fudge). And Professor Dumbledore trusts him. I don't know why he trusts him—I asked the Headmaster outright a couple of times and he refused to tell me, saying it was a matter between Snape and himself. But he seemed very sure about that, and about Professor Snape. And he (Dumbledore) did say it was vital that the both of you put the past aside and work together. I'm not trying to lecture or anything like that, because I don't think I'd be able to do that very easily myself, and I don't think I've had half the trouble with Snape that you must have had. And I've had considerable trouble with him myself over the last four years, I don't mind telling you that! (Wow, rather a lot of "don't"s in that last section. McGonagall would have kittens—NO, I didn't mean it the way it came out! Urgh.)

          And I had to think. Given that Snape is easily my least-favourite instructor and one of my top-three most disliked people at Hogwarts—would I wish something like Voldemort's wrath turned on him? And the answer is... no. I couldn't do that. There are some things so unutterably wicked that I don't think I could even wish the Malfoys suffering under it (although they seem to have no trouble bringing it on themselves voluntarily), or the Dursleys. There's petty sadism and then there's... evil. I'm not sure there's such a big division between the two, actually, but I'd also say there's a fine line that needs to be drawn. And much as I loathe and detest him, Professor Snape has to be on our side of that line. There's nothing that says we have to like him as a person, because, let's face it, we don't and probably never will. When all of this is over, and it HAS to be over someday, he can go back to his dungeons and his unfair marking and his "Ten thousand points from Gryffindor! I saw you blink, Potter!" and good riddance to him. Until then, I think we're all stuck with each other.

          I'm sorry, rereading this I realize what a dull and sober letter it's been. I guess I've just been mulling things over and not had much chance to discuss them with anyone who can really listen. I mean, that's not true, I can talk to Ron and Hermione about absolutely everything... but for this, I dunno, I guess I need someone who's older and has sort of been there to give it some proper perspective. With everything else, you are my godfather, Sirius. You're the only one who can tell me what my Mum and Dad were like—tell me properly, I mean. All Aunt Petunia would ever say was that my parents died in a car crash and what a ne'er-do-well Dad was...and you know how absolutely untrue all that rubbish is. Clearly I can't rely on her for a fair description of what they were like. And Hagrid loved them, I'm sure, but they were still students to him while he was the gamekeeper. You and Professor Lupin are my only real ties to them. I can't believe that someone they were as close to as they were to you, isn't someone I can't let go a bit with. Yes, you scared the living daylights out of me in the Shack. Yes, I held a wand to your throat (and if there's anything I wish I could take back in my life, that's one thing. And... oh... I DON'T want to go into the other thing now). But you were scared too... gosh, how you must have been terrified! Out in the world for the first time in twelve years, everyone after you—your head was probably in a right mess. Honestly, I'm surprised you had any scrap of rationality in you left at all at that point.

          I just want to say... yes, you scared me. But I didn't stay scared. When I looked a bit harder, it wasn't hard to find someone who'd been hurt terribly and who was trying to survive as best he could... and who was also trying to protect me. And I knew then that you would have never, ever, done anything willingly to harm my Mum and Dad... and that you would never do anything to hurt me. And you were in their wedding picture, once upon a time, happy and carefree and probably more than a little tight... and I want to know that person. Both the one in the picture (so, do I get to see you with unfashionably long sideburns, or are you afraid I'll hold it over you for blackmail purposes?) and the one who is, I hope, reading this letter right now. Because he's a damn sight better parent then the Dursleys EVER were, and always will be.

          I'm getting soppy, I should close this letter soon before I give poor Hedwig a hernia. She already coughed up the cast of that grand mouse dinner you provided her, and frightened Dudley into fits. He probably thought it was a free sample from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Speaking of which, I had a terrible time finding a good quill to use for this, since the Terrible Twins considerately sent me a sample from their own private stores and the feathers kept turning into six-foot cattails. I shoved them in the vents, but the pollen's making Uncle Vernon sneeze and he's been given me some rather suspicious looks lately. Perhaps I should lay off on the hemlock seasoning. What do you think?

          Your very affectionate godson,

---------------------------------
written by Teka Lynn
September 28, 2002

All rights to the characters and setting are held by J K Rowling and whoever else holds them, including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, and Warner Bros. This fanwork was created solely for fun and has no legal or financial connection to the Harry Potter novels.