The Annoying Wolf's Den
12 July, 1995

Dear Harry,

          Let's get one thing clear here right away, shall we: THE WORLD WON'T BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU. Got it? Now write it down five hundred times. Paint it on your walls and ceiling, right over your bed. Sing it in the shower. Tell your mirror to remind you of it every morning (it IS a polite, considerate thing to do, so I'm sure even a muggle mirror would agree to it). Do whatever you have to, but GET THAT INSIDE YOUR HEAD! Or else I'll be knocking on your door to yell it in your ears until your brain liquefies and leaks out through your nose.

          Now THAT was a nice way to start a letter...

          But what did you expect? Telling a guy whose life priority is to keep you alive, safe and happy that putting paid to you might be a favour... Stupid, idiotic kid. Consider yourself smacked on the head whenever you come up with silly ideas like that. And don't make me go there and actually do it.

          Better yet, I should send you Moony. That way I'll be sure you'll get your head properly smacked AND some decent meals as well. I was feeling positively guilty this morning, savouring his last invention for breakfast—something between an omelette and a waffle, with cheese and some delicious fruits I've never even heard of—while thinking of you living off your uncle's leftovers. You're almost fifteen, for Merlin's sake! You should be devouring whole boars at every meal! Or are you trying to be the first Seeker in history to be carried away by the Snitch?

          Oh dear, I sound just like my mother. (Well, not when I mention Seekers and Snitches, Mum seldom acknowledged the existence of Quidditch, and when she did it'd be with an impressive grimace of displeasure.) But really, you worry me. I remember thinking on the first time I saw you after leaving Azkaban—the night you left the Dursleys' on the Knight Bus—that you were thin enough to be mistaken for a broomstick! You looked only slightly fleshier than I did myself, and you know how I escaped from my cell. And that was before the family started with the diet?!

          I just can't wait to get you out of there. And if you sincerely want to live with me, then live with me you will. (We'll have to go through some rat-hunting first, but that's something else I can't wait to do.) And I'm SO glad you included Moony in this. Because I'm sick and tired of his silly attempts of convincing himself that his fate is to live forever as a lone wolf. The role never fitted him. Now I can tell him YOU said he's living with us. He'd never listen to me, but to you...

          He's writing you a letter right now, I think. At least I hope it is for you. He's taken to write to Snape lately. Of all people. And he keeps calling him "Severus". "Dear Severus". Ugh.

          I reckon he misses teaching at Hogwarts just as much as you miss him. He won't say it, at least not with that many words. It's always, 'I couldn't have stayed' or 'it would never be safe enough' or 'werewolves aren't supposed to be around children' or, my least favourite of all, 'Severus had the right idea'. I really don't want to know what he's been writing to that slimy bat, I keep imagining lines like, 'Thank you, my dear Severus, for making me lose the best job I've ever had'. Good grief.

          But he can't tell me about his classes and his students without smiling that dreamy smile he has whenever he remembers those cups of Chocolate-Swirled Pudding with Cherry Sauce we found in this cute café in Vincennes (hey! another place to add to our list!), and that is saying something. I also made a point of asking him if he felt that teaching at Hogwarts was as good as chocolate and he's still trying to figure the answer, and that is saying quite a lot. (Wasn't that the perfect job for a chocoholic, teaching DADA with Dementors around... the perfect excuse to go around with Chocolate Frogs crowding his pockets...)

          Remus wouldn't be intrusive if his life depended on that. (He wouldn't write without permission, and he wouldn't read over my shoulder even when I said I wanted him to; I had to make use of an old tactic—reading some parts for myself a bit too loud, just enough for him to "accidentally" catch a few sentences. He was stifling a grin, very suspiciously, when I got to the part of the Malfoy boy being too incompetent to be a Dark Creature. Now, I'm sure, we're both very curious about the charming ferret.) And he would never be really effusive either. I guess that would be my reputation. On the other hand, he's really hard not to be friends with once you've known him (you see, even old Snake, I mean, Snape seems finally to be starting to warm towards him, if too late to do Moony any good), and he's also a fantastic storyteller. The night before our History of Magic tests, the entire Gryffindor common room would stop and listen to him retelling all the goblin wars and the international mermaid assemblies Binns had put us to sleep with.

          Hell, I'd have liked having Remus as my teacher...

          Lockhart was the guy teaching DADA before him, right? Never met him. What was he like (besides intrusive and effusive)? And just how did he land up in St Mungo's?(Do I want to know? Remus says I don't. Now what's THAT supposed to mean?)

          So Barty Crouch was a good teacher... I wouldn't be too surprised, HE certainly knew his subject... But I suppose it makes things even harder. I mean, good guys turning into bad guys (Crouch) and vice-versa (Snape?), so we don't know whom to trust, who's on which side, who is acting on his free will and who's being controlled... This is the stuff I told you about in the cave, how things were last time Voldemort had his full powers. No wonder some people are refusing to see what's happening, no one who lived through that nightmare wants to face it again.

          As far as I know, it's not decided yet who's gonna be your DADA teacher this next term. Dumbledore is being secretive about it.

          Oh Snape... I hate his guts too. Have hated for so many years I've no idea how to stop now. (Snape teaching DADA? Dear Merlin, what an image... Of course, he knows the subject too. If that is enough reason to give someone the job.) No question about his talents, he IS frighteningly powerful, I'm afraid. (Don't ever tell him I said that or I'll disown you.) But would he waste his precious time worrying about curing the common cold, eliminating spots and doing general good for humanity? IS he working on something to cause Voldemort to expire in agony?

          It's the same point we brainstormed about in the cave. Dumbledore trusts him, and Dumbledore is mostly right about people. He isn't perfect though. But I'll be the last one to bring that up, considering my life might depend on his trust in me, while almost the entire community is looking forward to my capture and/or death.

          I wouldn't dare claim to know what Snape is capable of. This isn't school anymore, it isn't about Quidditch or winning the House Cup or having the last laugh in our private prank wars. As you very eloquently put it, he's "done things". After standing so much crap from him over the years I'd thought I knew him. Still it was quite a shock to see that mark on his arm. I don't know, despite all the evil things I can say about him, and even knowing that most of his Slytherin friends (if one can call those goons friends) did become Voldemort's servants at some point, I'd never pictured him as Death Eater material. I don't know if that will make any sense to you, but I've always thought Snape would value his soul too much to sell it so cheap.

          What can I say, Harry? I am trying to put the past aside when it concerns Snape. (And he doesn't help any when he writes to Moony about me. That was a totally gratuitous insult, and he KNEW I was going to find out about it, because even if Moony wouldn't tell me I'd obviously read over his shoulder, like normal people do!) I know sometimes we have no choice but accepting less-than-desirable allies. It's just frightening that the reasons I think of Snape as less-than-desirable company are mostly his insufferable pomposity, his abominable disdain regarding everyone not belonging to his little conceited circle, his sickening I-cannot-be-bothered attitude, and his loathsome pleasure in humiliating people—all "qualities" he'd already displayed in our school days. All this comes from remembering how he hexed James off his broom at forty-five feet high (one leg and three ribs broken), how he shook Remus' hand in Care of Magical Creatures class (two weeks after the Whomping Willow incident) while wearing a HUGE silver ring (poor Moony couldn't even scream or let go, or all the Gryffindors and Slytherins in our year would find out the truth), how he slipped a whole beaker of concentrated Purgatio Kseron in my pumpkin juice (you don't want to hear the consequences of this one, believe me), etc, etc, etc. Do I need any more reasons to hate him? I don't want to know about that tattoo and the things he's done. Really, I don't.

          Another of life's implacable ironies: he would enrage me the most when he decided to go after little, sweet, loyal, dependent, hopeless dueller Peter. The lowest, most despicable thing to do, that's what I thought that was. I don't even know how I feel about it now. How I should feel. Fourteen years to get used to the idea and some parts still don't sink in for real. I wonder if they ever will.

          Hmm, are godfathers supposed to scold their godsons over their language? What a hypocrite that would make me... I reckon I'll let Moony worry about that one. Second reason why we need him living with us--first would be, being our slave and cooking all our meals for the rest of his days.

          (Why can't the annoying wolf read over my shoulder? It'd be so much funnier!)

          'McGonagall would have kittens', heh!

          Should I tell you this...? What the hell, better learn it from me than from somebody else.

          You see, fifth year was when things were getting really interesting. James, Peter and I succeeded in becoming Animagi. Lily was appointed Prefect. And Prongs started acting just a little bit weird around her. As in, grinning like a fool, blushing suddenly out of nothing, adjusting his tie every five seconds, stumbling on his own feet... But oh no, James didn't fancy Lily, of course he didn't, how could we even suggest something like that, were we mad or what? He was grinning because of something funny he had thought (and promptly forgotten), and the heat was reddening his face and making him sweat (in December), and his tie was scratching his neck (never thought of loosening it a little, did he?), and couldn't we see that loose floorboard? (oh sure, Prongs, Hogwarts corridors were full of loose floorboards... even on the grounds lawn). He didn't, never did and never would fancy Perfect Prefect Lily Evans. No way. Now could we get the idea in our heads and quit smirking?

          I'll tell you one thing, Harry. Having your best friend in love with a girl can be so exasperating. Not to mention embarrassing.

          Anyway, during those later baptised "Prong's Days of Denial", whenever we were about to go "marauding", we would pat his back and ask, faking grave concern, 'Prongs, are you sure you want to do this? Prefect Lily will have fawns if she finds out!'

          Poor Prongs... His whole head would flush bright crimson, you could see him glowing red in the dark halls.

          Having your best friend in love with a girl can be also very amusing.

          And please, don't remind me that there was once a day when those Muggle Liverpool charlatans were at the top. That was a sad, sad episode in contemporary music history, not assuaged even if Snape decided to celebrate everyone else's mourning by washing his hair for once in his life. It was a BIG scandal, and it lasted for SO LONG!!! It was the last straw that finally led the Ministry to create a Copyrights Department in the Secret Forum for Muggle Incidents, and still it took them almost a decade to finish those cheats' career! I was just a kid so I only had some vague notion of what was going on at the time, but years later Lily made me listen to some of their records. I couldn't believe the nerve of those guys! Every single song in those albums stolen from simply the best of all wizard rock bands of the sixties: The Salamanders, Rosamund and the Bowlers, Iron Sulfide, Floo, Doom Maroon, Lumos & Nox, Coral Pyrexia...

          And they couldn't have stopped there, could they? Plagiarising wasn't enough. They had to take "Scrambled Eggs", Don Iniquitous' best song, ONLY my very favourite song in the entire world, and completely adulterate it into a soppy, mushy ballad called... "Today"? "Tomorrow"? "The Day After That"? Something along those lines. I was so furious I had to accidentally break a couple of those records to feel better. (It WAS an accident! I didn't know those muggle music-disks were so fragile. Songspheres don't break if you throw them against the wall.) And then Lily was so furious she had to break my nose to feel better. (Didn't break, really, but it bled a lot. Your Mum had a smashing right, kid...) And then James was furious--not with Lily, for hitting his best friend, but with me, for making Lily cry! You believe that?! It was MY nose, and SHE was in tears? And then I was the one who had to apologise and buy new disks to replace the ones I had very accidentally broken?

          Having your best friend in love with a girl can be also maddening as hell.

          Wait, I was supposed to be telling you the good stuff about your parents, weren't I?

          In a way, Hagrid is a better option when it comes to digging nice stories from James and Lily at Hogwarts. He was very fond of us all, would invite us for tea and horrible rock-hard cakes every Saturday afternoon and make very little effort to pretend he didn't found our pranks funny. (He was a good sport too, those few times he ended up as our "victim".) And he didn't really had to live with James for seven years (as in, sharing the same bedroom), so he won't suddenly complain about his snoring or the way he flossed. (Remus will tell you that I was a lot more disgusting as a roommate than James, but Remus would have a fit just because of a wet towel on the bed. Hell, he still does that.) Hagrid can tell you about the Exploding Pumpkins Hallowe'en, for example, and his version is certainly the best.

          Good old Hagrid... He probably hates my guts now. I wonder what he did to my bike.

          Speaking of which, I tried to convince Moony to let me send you that awful picture — I'd do anything to get it off the mirror. He saw through my stratagem though (he always does). He told me he'd send you some other picture of my unfashionable sideburns, but that one stays where it is, period. But don't worry. If I know him, he'll find just the most laughable and embarrassing photo ever taken of me to send you.

          But before you start planning your blackmails, let me warn you: I have photos of you NAKED! Ignominious photos that caught you in the very act of rising from your little plastic bathtub, shamelessly showing your privates while playing with a purple rubber duck. So watch your step, my little fawn, if you don't want to see them in the front page of the Daily Prophet.

          Six-foot cattails? I'm impressed! That sure is competition for Zonko. I've always dreamed of developing a fake quill that would turn into a flamingo when made to write the word "pink", but never got around to do it.

          James would be so proud and relieved to know of your generous sponsoring of a new generation of Magical Mischief-Makers. And Lily would be rolling her eyes and saying it's all my fault somehow. My Malignant Influence, so to speak. (What's a chainsaw, by the way?) As if she hadn't married the worst troublemaker that has ever stepped into Hogwarts. I don't think she ever got over the idea that I was the evil genius corrupting my innocent friends into using their intelligence and creativity to cause havoc. (I blame the glasses. Guys with glasses are just like white bunnies, the living image of purity and vulnerability. No one ever thinks the nasty guy is the one wearing glasses.)

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          I was going to finish this letter more or less at this point, since it's certainly long enough to inflame dear Hedwig already. One more comment about the benefits of hemlock seasoning in the daily culinary, a wave and a signature, and that would be it, another witless letter from yours truly. But then I reread your letter (for the eighth time) and read what I wrote so far, and something keeps telling me it's not enough. I'm not doing enough. You ask for a parent to help you put things in perspective and... Do I have any hope of managing something like that, with my irremediably warped mind, irreparably crooked since long before Azkaban?

          I can try, I guess. I have to. But brace yourself. Like James used to say, 'Sirius being serious isn't only a bad pun, it's nothing short of a cataclysm'.

          This is, of course, about Cedric Diggory.

          It's understandable if you don't want to go into this. But Dumbledore was right, numbing the pain will just make it worse later. And I know I won't help you feel any better by pretending that nothing happened.

          I wish I knew what to say to you. Ironically, everything I can think of sounds like a weird mutation of what Remus has been telling me since I got here. 'You didn't kill James and Lily, it's not your fault.' What a dreadful feeling, hating to listen to it and needing so badly to believe it, telling him to shut up while begging him to say more. I'll land up driving him insane, I'm sure. He's even trying to use logic to persuade me. When did I ever listen to logic? (And Snape would love to hear this line even better...)

          Moony asks me, 'Do you believe Harry can be blamed for Cedric Diggory's death?' And I tell him, with all my explosive-tempered eloquence, what a gigantic load of cobblers that is. 'It's the same thing,' he will say then. 'Harry isn't to be blamed, neither are you.' (Fine, his arguments are longer and usually better elaborated than this, but I don't want you to fall asleep on your face, so I'm giving you the very short version.)

          But IS it the same thing? It wasn't my wand or my words that cursed your parents, as it weren't yours that did Diggory. I didn't willingly hand James and Lily over to Voldemort, as you didn't willingly take Diggory to that graveyard. So why do we feel like we were the ones that did it? Me, because I trusted Peter and doubted Remus. You, because you showed the greatness of character of being honest and sharing your victory with your rival.

          Can't you see? Okay, so maybe I had no reason to suspect Wormtail at the time (Remus and I have been discussing this at some length and I keep remembering the old times and finding lots of 'oh why didn't I see it before?' circumstances, but perhaps Moony is right, there weren't enough clues for any of us to suspect him seriously). Maybe that could be considered just a human—if fatal, horrible, atrocious—mistake and I'd be acquitted. But accusing Remus of betrayal was simply wrong and ugly and cruel and moronic and indefensible and unforgivable and WRONG! It was plain madness. And if I hadn't done that, I'd have certainly seen Wormtail for what he really was.

          But what was the really wrong thing that you did that would make you responsible for what happened to that boy? You didn't see through Barty Crouch's disguise? Harry, you had never seen Alastor Moody before in your life. Dumbledore knew Mad-Eye for AGES and HE never suspected it, so how would you? And even if you had, how could you possibly guess what he and his master were scheming?

          You gave your best in that Tournament and won. Was that wrong? If it were, then we're all guilty—me, Moony, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, the Weasleys and the entire Gryffindor House—for we were all unabashedly cheering for you and hoping that you would win. And think, Harry: had you lost, someone else would have taken the Cup and turned up at that graveyard to face Voldemort and Wormtail all by himself.

          You won. So did Diggory. And neither of you would be egotistical enough to refuse the other the merit of victory. Was that your big ugly act of murder, Harry? Would you be prouder of yourself if you had been a greedy, arrogant ass and stolen the Cup and the glory from someone who had rightfully earned them? Can you honestly tell me that that would have been the correct thing to do?

          You couldn't know what would happen when you decided to share the Cup with Diggory. You just couldn't. And that, more than any dark powers or any army of Death Eaters, is the sum and substance of Voldemort's utmost evil: twisting the good-hearted acts of decent people into murder and misery. For each innocent victim, another innocent to willingly take the blame for the crime, while the real criminal laughs from his dark, filthy lair in hell.

          You do neither Diggory nor his memory any good by sparing his true murderers of their responsibility, Harry. You'll be just playing Voldemort's game, and allowing him his first victory over you. So don't give him that pleasure, okay? You did all you could and some more, and no one has the right to demand that you had done any more, not even yourself.

          I know it's hard, and believe me, I know just too well how you feel. I wish I could promise you it won't hurt so much someday, but that's something I still have to learn for myself. In Azkaban time freezes around the very worst moments of your life, and even now I need to tell myself repeatedly that it's been fourteen years since the destruction of Godric's Hollow, not just fourteen days. But my mother used to say that time is the balm for all ailments of the soul, and she was always right about that kind of stuff, even if she could never tell the difference between a Quaffle and a Bludger.

          I can make you this one promise: no matter how long this wound takes to heal, you won't be alone. I'll be right beside you, to listen, protect you, spoil you rotten and offer as many words of wisdom I can come up with. If you don't strangle me after the first week, we'll probably be all right.

          Your very proud godfather,

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written by Morgan D.
November 9th, 2002

Based on characters and events created by J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter novel series published by Bloomsbury, and also on the fanfiction timeline developed by Iniga--particularly on two astounding fanfics called Darkness Dying and Interim, which can be found in Iniga's profile at Fanfiction.net.