Dearest Fleur
Ron brought round the Christmas card today, Hermione always said he had the emotional range of a teaspoon- not that it stopped her from marrying him- but It’s not his fault I suppose. I don’t even think even Hermione suspects.
The flask came out around three in the afternoon. He tried to hold off. He was fine, even past lunch, which was top marks in his book this close to the holidays. Then Ron stopped by his office.
2:58.
“I’m heading out early!” He said brightly, knocking on the door frame of Harry’s open office.
Harry had to struggle to pull himself out of the scroll he was studying. Witness reports of Knott's brush with Neville in Scotland. Brutal stuff. He looked up a bit vacantly at Ron, and blinked away his stupor.
“Oh, yeah, go ahead mate,” He checked his watch and saw the time, most of the office went home after lunch. “I didn’t realize the time, I’ll be wrapping up too.”
“Okay, don’t forget, Mum expects you round by Monday at the latest.” He rolled his eyes.
Molly liked to try and get Harry round the burrow about a week preceding all major events. To mother him and make them both feel like he was in school again, coming round for summer. In the first few years after the war she did it to all of them, the whole surviving Weasley clan were summoned to her place as soon as their jobs would allow them and were expected to holiday with her and Arthur, school days style. Now, with various marriages and grandkids starting to pop up, she really only demanded that Harry come round so early.
It made her feel better. He supposed that alone should make him feel better, but… The Burrow was painful.
“Oh! Almost forgot.” Ron popped back up in his door, and he walked over to the desk to proffer a little postcard. “Noticed you didn’t get the owl a few days ago, and Hermione and I each got one so here-”
Harry took the Christmas card and looked down at the Happy family smiling up at him and waving. Fleur and Bill were standing outside their little cottage, a deep green wreath on the door and a light dusting of snow over everything. Little Victoire waved up noncommittally from her father's arms, the spitting image of her mother at a year and a half old, with silvery blond hair, all Fleur in miniature but for her father’s green eyes.
“Thanks mate, see you.” Harry said dully, and Ron departed to start his Christmas holiday.
Harry sighed and dropped the picture on the side of his desk away from his to-be-read pile. He took another scroll at random and leaned back in his chair. No one was left in the office, it was three in the afternoon, he could leave whenever, he would read this last scroll and then head home.
For these reasons, he told himself, he would have a drink.
The last scroll was an expense report for Neville’s stay at St. Mungo’s. All that mattered was he would make a full recovery, but as department head it was a staggering sum, and a headache to his budget.
He found himself staring down at the little moving picture.
The flask was about half empty.
He finished the itemized list of expenses for his friend’s life saving treatment, snatched up the Weasley Christmas card, and tucked it into the same internal pocket he stored his flask in. When he stood it was a bit unsteady, courtesy of the fire whiskey, and he chuckled to himself.
In an effort to avoid apparating home too drunk, he waited until he was at the ministry departure point before he downed the rest of the flask. He turned and stepped into the mouth of the alley toward his flat right after, and he could still feel the warmth in his throat as he passed the first wardlines outside the stairwell.
He stayed in a little flat off diagon alley, near to the ministry headquarters. Just a little bedroom, a living room that he furnished like an office, and a kitchen. Hedwig hooted greeting when he entered and he stopped to give her head a pet before he went to retrieve a bottle. He was careful to avoid the stool blocking the way to the kitchen, and he took his treasure back over to the desk by the window where Hedwig waited eagerly to be let out.
“Not yet girl,” He told her, falling wearily into the chair. “I’ve got to write a letter, then you can stretch your wings.”
He kicked off his shoes and pulled over some spare parchment. He toyed with what to write, toyed with the idea of writing anything, but he had to. He dipped his quill and with a sigh he simply dove in.
But I see why I wasn’t on the mailing list. I’m glad to see you guys are doing better. Don't worry about me, I'll take our little secret to the grave.
Harry showed up a week early to the first christmas after the war. He, Ron, and Neville were newly minted Aurors, and Kingsley was doing his best to dismantle the ministry and rebuild it wholesale. They were sweeping departments, clearing the corruption of generations of things like the Malfoys' donations. Things were good. Things were getting better. Progress was being made.
He was busy at least.
Stopping for Christmas was agonizing. Worse still he was holed up in the Burrow, staying in Ron’s old room, and he felt sixteen again. Nevermind he was only eighteen, the events of those two years stretched them infinitely. No one was the same anymore. It was hard to believe it'd only been seven months since the battle. Since Fred and Ginny, Tonks and Lupin, since he had died in the forest and woken to fight Voldemort one last time. Here he was though, back at the Burrow for Christmas.
Ron wasn’t in there with him. He and Hermione shared her room. Charlie was in with George. Bill and Fleur shared a room, even Percy was back around. Harry had the little attic room all to himself.
He struggled to make it through that first christmas. He didn’t know about whiskey yet. Hadn’t yet started on that path of bandaids and self medication.
Obviously his state stood out enough for some to notice. Hermione wrote more the remainder of that winter and following spring. Mrs. Weasley tried to get him to turn up for odd weekends, usually acting through one of her many children or her husband within the ministry.
When that failed, they sent in the big guns.
Fleur turned up at his apartment by March, and she banged on his door until he woke up and answered it, accepting no excuse as she commanded he get dressed and ready for a trip down to Diagon Alley.
Harry spent that first day with her, thinking half resentfully that this was another of Molly’s ploys. Misplaced concern. Harry just needed time, time alone, time to grieve. It wasn’t helping that everyone kept picking at him, upsetting half healed wounds while he tried to soldier through it and work. He could think of no nice way to tell everyone to bugger off and let him deal with his shit. They would take offense. So he swallowed it, but it manifested in the bad mood he carried around London with Fleur that day.
They didn’t do much, Fleur did some light shopping and purchased a ridiculously expensive hat and she bullied him into buying some new ties and socks. Which he did, because he couldn’t in all honesty deny the need for new socks, and Fleur picked them out and told him which to wear with which. He didn’t even attempt to retain that information, because he would not be putting a fraction of that much thought into his tie-sock coordination, but he let her teach him nonetheless.
It wasn’t until they had dinner in the Cauldron, and he asked after Bill, that he realized she may have her own motives for dragging him out of his apartment. She only told him that Bill was in south Asia, doing work for Gringotts, but he got the impression she was lonely. They shared two bottles of wine in the Cauldron, her drinking the majority because her French heritage and advanced age made her the stronger drinker. He didn’t really like wine, but it was nice to sit and share this normal adult moment with another person who wasn’t trying to force third helpings of food on him and fussing over his unruly hair.
“I had fun,” He told her, still rather tipsy despite his lower portion of wine. “Thanks fer forcing me ta have fun.” She laughed at his drunkenness.
“Of course ‘arry! We Triwizard champions ‘ave to stick together no?”
They hugged and parted ways, and Harry remembered finding it odd then, he suddenly felt like he and Fleur were friends. He’d known the girl for almost five years now, but never really called her ‘friend’. He’d certainly been more her friend than the others, when Fleur stayed at the Burrow before she got married he’d played buffer between her and his friends. Hermione had never really gotten on with her, not really, and Ginny was in open battle half the time.
But now they were all older, she was married to Bill and Ron and Hermione weren’t technically married yet, but they were certainly beginning to recede into their coupleship. He realized suddenly that not only was Fleur his friend, but she was on the shortlist.
They grew closer, as the months and years wore on, Bill threw himself into his work in those early days. It was selfish of him, but people weren’t perfect, he lost a brother and a sister in the battle and had the pressure of his own family in addition to work and personal grief. Fleur and Harry became mutual crutches, when Bill left on long trips to far flung destinations they’d meet up and have drinks at the Cauldron. Or they’d find each other at the Burrow and pass Easter braving Molly’s pampering together.
He wouldn't have made it so far without her, not with work and the war looming over him. He was aware, even then, how much her friendship meant to him. It wasn't enough to stop him though.
I’ve been thinking, you know, a lot these days. About love, and about you.
Harry could not point to a specific moment when things became inappropriate.
He was aware that his feelings for Bill Weasley’s wife were altogether unacceptable. Even before they kissed for the first time, he felt like the relationship was already across the line by that point.
By the third Christmas after the battle of Hogwarts Harry had his procedures down. He came into the Burrow that year with his trusty hip flask, and he let himself be seen taking maybe one in every ten sips, in jovial Christmas spirit. The other nine sips were expertly hidden, and everyone around him breathed easier because Harry seemed to be healing. He was more sociable, quicker to laugh, and more engaged in conversation.
Fleur knew, of course, because they were frequent drinking buddies, and multiple times that holiday she caught him mid swig. She seemed to make a sport of it and he supposed it was good at least one of them derived joy from it. More often than not when he ducked off to unscrew his little metal lid and she popped up to make him jump in shock she would simply laugh and steal a sip of her own.
The following spring they kissed for the first time.
It was a drunken mistake. As was everything that happened after. They’d just spent the day flying, something he hadn’t done in ages and she was never quite the most enthusiastic fan of. It felt great, flying had not lost an ounce of its inherent thrill and it was momentarily overwhelming how great it felt to feel something so pure and familiar.
At least that hadn’t changed.
She was unsteady on the cheap broom she had, and after a few minutes in the air it became apparent that this activity wouldn't last long if he left it up to her to fly. She dismounted and climbed on his broom without much need for convincing, and with her behind him holding on tight he gave her an enjoyable time, if a bit tame for his own custom.
They capped the night off at the Cauldron, and though she was a steadfast wine loyalist, she did have a couple stolen drinks off his whiskeys. They walked, drunk and together, back toward his apartment and hugged at the door to his stairwell like usual.
Only this time when they pulled back from the hug they never quite made it out of each other's arms, and they stayed there for a few heartbeats. He couldn’t remember who’s fault it was. Really it wasn’t anyone’s fault, or rather it was both of theirs. Eyes flicking down toward lips, slight leaning in, all subconscious, there was no instigator, they were just suddenly kissing.
He might’ve been the one to pull her back toward his stairs, but she was the one that jumped into his arms and wrapped herself around him to be carried into the apartment, and they were both equally guilty of stripping quickly. Perhaps he should’ve felt more guilty, she certainly did, but he felt like she never quite appreciated his perspective.
Everyone knew that he took the loss of Ginny hard. She was the only person he ever really connected with in a romantic way. The efforts with Cho were cringe-inducing memories of awkward teenage blunders. Ginny though... she was his first love, they never said the words, but it was well known what would’ve happened after the war if she’d made it.
That was all well and good, but they’d also shared a few months of school romance as teenagers. He had done nothing more than passionate kisses with her at sixteen. Now, at twenty and hovering over a very naked, very married Veela, he did so much more than passionate kisses.
It was the first time for them, and for him in general, but it would not be the last for either.
The next day she was horrified. She bolted early, waking him in the process, but not stopping to say much, just enough time to get her clothes on and out the door. He made an effort to beat himself up over it in the following weeks, he reminded himself often that it was Ron’s brother, tried to equivocate them and make himself feel like he’d just slept with Hermione and betrayed Ron directly. He could never quite manage it, and he did feel a little bad about that, because Bill was a good bloke, if near enough a stranger.
Alcohol helped that guilt. It also helped her absence in those months. He supposed sometime in the early summer Bill came back from wherever he’d been, because they were together at his Birthday at the Burrow that summer. She was careful to avoid talking to him, or looking at him, and he never saw her with less than three other people present. No one knew this secret that hung thick in the Weasley house between them.
His mood blackened the longer she avoided him, by the time they had his birthday dinner he was well and truly drunk. He didn't confront her though, because he knew somewhere deep down how that would play out if he tried.
Work was hard. It was all he could imagine himself doing though, and some of the best moments in his objectively bleak week to week life were the result of big wins in the Auror office. It was a source of purpose in his life, but that didn’t make the particulars of the work itself any less dark. He handled the horrors of human life on the day to day, dealt with society's worst, and coordinated the study and clean up of some of the most gruesome scenes. It didn't help his drinking.
She came back, in the fall of that year, at a point in his life where he had grown fond of getting home from work and drinking himself to sleep. She was selfish. Petty and lonely, and angry at her absentee husband. He was broken and addicted to her.
He fell hard and fast for Fleur, into Fleur, with a kind of reckless abandon only a young troubled man could. She returned it fiercely, if not fully, as she vented her frustration and took comfort in his body.
Their affair only lasted about a year.
Can I really say I loved you if I’m not willing to love you as a friend? I think no, right? That’s what they say about love right? Selfless and all that.
Harry woke one chilly February morning, so utterly content and warm. Veela were like little space heaters he learned, with Fleur in his bed it could be downright hot. In a drafty flat during the English winter though, that heat was delicious.
Her hair was wild, evidence of their amorous activities before bed, and he took a moment to admire her face because that was all that wasn't cocooned tightly in blankets. She was painfully beautiful. He considered waking her, considered repeating last night's lovemaking, but she looked so comfortable.
He got up carefully instead, throwing a cloak over his naked body to fight off the chill in the air. She had taught him a charm that turned a simple cup of black coffee into decadent lattes and he brewed the bitter drink to perform the transformation. He was partial to tea, good ol' English boy as he was, but she liked coffee and it did provide a certain kick tea lacked.
He had finished his drink, and hers sat on the counter under a warming charm, when she joined him. He was making eggs in his little kitchen when arms encircled him and a warm body pressed up against his back.
"Your coffee, princess."
He gestured to the cup with a smile, stirring rapidly solidifying eggs in the skillet. She purred approval but did not move to take the mug, just held him and squeezed.
"What are we doing today?" She asked instead, and only after she raised up on her toes to kiss his neck did she release him.
He had no plans, and it was cold enough that he imagined it wouldn't be hard to convince her to spend the day in bed. He didn't get a chance to suggest it though, as a bright silvery shape burst into the room at that moment. He had his back to it, but turned at her gasp, and saw the ephemeral Jack Russell Terrier make a tight circle before speaking in Ron's voice.
"Dawlish is dead. On my way to Brighton now."
He swore, breakfast forgotten, and dashed into his room. He was dressed and striding toward the front door when he remembered Fleur, she was taking the eggs off the heat.
"I'm sorry, I have to-"
"Go." She told him with a tight smile, she knew of Dawlish from her days in the Order. If he was dead then Harry's week had just taken a turn.
He didn't leave immediately. He paced over to her and caught her in his arms, pressing a searing kiss to her lips.
"You going to be here when I get back?"
She sent him a coy smile. "Do you want me to be?" The grin he sent her was answer enough.
"I'll try to be quick."
He had to be a few steps out from the bottom of the stairs to apparate away, he turned on the cobblestones and stepped onto the pavement of the seaside city. Dawlish's entire house was obscured by wards that blurred it from sight when he arrived. There were a half dozen ministry officials already there, Ron was the only one from the Aurors office though. Most were DMLE obliviators.
"What's the situation?" He asked grimly of his best friend.
"Bellatrix." It was really all Ron needed to say, but he continued. "She crucified him to his front door. We've got muggle repelling charms up, the usual gambit, but plenty saw before we got here."
He grunted in response and crossed the wardline to see the damage. The body was strung up to the door. He knew the nails driven into the corpse were for poetry and pain's sake, there would be sticking charms as well. Two DMLE workers were already there, ashen faced and observing the body, trying to pick apart the spells that stuck it to the building exterior.
It had all the signs of one of her kills. His body was draped in a cloak as best it could be, but Harry had seen its like before. Under the cloak he was naked, and carved from collarbone to hips with Voldemort's mark that left his abdomen and torso a bloody torn mess.
People said it took a certain type of person to do this job. Harry didn't feel that was expressly true. It took a certain set of skills to be sure. To detach from the humanity, or lack thereof, of a situation. To assess the mutilated corpse of a friend clinically. He felt that anyone could develop those skills though, he preferred that to the concept of him somehow being made for this grim fate.
The DMLE wizard nudged the body, the tissue between two of the carved snake's curves split and suddenly Dawlish's insides were spilling out. Everyone jumped back, Ron swore, and the DMLE witch started gagging. Harry looked over at his friend, who was turning green at the gore.
"Go home." He told him. "I'll handle this mess." Ron looked like he was about to try and reject the idea so he pressed on. "Seriously, go give your wife a hug from me, yeah?" He tried to inject a bit of levity into the situation and got a hesitant nod for it.
It only took another fifteen or so minutes to get the body down, Harry told the DMLE officer in charge of the obliviators to get him a report on what was witnessed and then he apparated back to the office to await the coroner's report.
It was barely ten in the morning, but Neville didn't comment on his flask when he turned up in the office to find him going over witness reports.
"They got Dawlish huh?" He said by way of announcing his presence. "I just got Ron's message."
Harry sighed heavily. "Yeah. They got Dawlish." He passed Neville the flask at his look and Neville took a drink in honor of their fallen comrade.
"You didn't have to come in," He told his old friend, casting a look around the empty Auror office.
"Nah I didn't," Neville agreed. "But I know you, and I didn't want you drinking alone."
He sent Harry a grin and it was hard not to return it. Ron was Harry's best friend, always would be, but with Hermione pregnant and the ghost of Ginny hanging over the Burrow he found himself in the company of Neville more than anyone.
Except Fleur, but that was only if Bill was out of the country.
"Well, you don't have to ask me twice."
He laughed and stood, leaving the troubles of his work on the desk until Monday. He checked his watch, it was early, but the Cauldron would be serving. They moved toward the atrium and Harry let Neville floo into the Leaky Cauldron first. In the privacy of the empty weekend Ministry he summoned a patronus and sent it after Fleur wherever she was now, informing her where he was going.
It would not be unusual for her to join them, most viewed Harry as a surrogate Weasley even if he never got the chance to marry in, but he left it up to her.
She did, about half an hour later, as Harry and Neville finished off their second pint. Neville, bless him, still went a little pink everytime Fleur showed up but he was never as affected as Ron. They shared a round but Neville begged off as Harry ordered lunch, citing a date that night he had to prepare for.
"Are you okay?" Fleur asked him once they were alone at the bar. The Cauldron was relatively empty this early in the day.
"It was Lestrange." He told her, and because she was a Weasley she didn't need anymore. They all held the grudge close to heart.
"Let's do something fun tonight." She declared, and he had no doubt that she would force him out of his dark mood. He loved her for it.
But it's fine, Bill’s a good man, I’m glad you have him. I’m glad he’s there for you, both of you.
Fleur was the first into St. Mungo’s to see him. It was a week out from his twenty second birthday, Bill was in Peru, and he and Neville had just killed Bellatrix Lestrange. The young healer assigned their ward that night tried to rebuff the panicked Veela at the door but that was a suicide mission Harry wouldn’t let her undertake. She had to be close to his age, maybe only a year or so older, but in Healer’s terms that made her the greenest freshman on the ward.
He could hear Fleur’s furious French through the door, and the Healer responded in kind. It settled the mystery of where this girl had gone to school at least, because he didn’t recognize her from Hogwarts. He forced himself out of the bed, his chest was sore from a handful of half-regrown ribs, Neville was the one that caught the worst of it.
“It’s fine, let her in.” He didn’t really have any authority here to say it, on an older healer it might've even been shot down, but he was a senior auror and Harry Potter to boot. She chewed the corner of her mouth a second and then acquiesced, stepping aside to let Fleur into the dark room.
Neville was still out, but his sleep was heavily induced and maintained with potions. Fleur paid him less than no mind, as soon as the door clicked closed she had Harry’s face and both hands and she was turning his head in all directions, inspecting his unharmed face in the dim light.
“You are okay?” She demanded and waited for his nod. “Where are you hurt?” She asked, even though he’d said he was okay.
“Just a couple ribs,” He told her, because she couldn’t see the magical bandages under his robes, “Bone splintering, they removed them and gave me skelegrow.”
She clicked her tongue in distaste.
“Ronald said you got Lestrange.” It wasn’t quite a question, but he was familiar enough with Fleur’s moods to recognize the clipped tone as a demand for further explanation.
“Neville did, yeah, it was always his kill.” Ginny was tragic but Bellatrix Lestrange's crimes affected no one more than his friend, and he was glad to pin her down for Neville to administer the killing blow.
She hummed thoughtfully and finally released his face, deeming him alive and well enough it seemed. She leaned in and kissed him, secure in the dark room with only the sleeping Auror as witness. It was hard, in the moments following the kiss, to contain the sudden admission that wanted to bubble up. Harry loved Fleur. He knew this now, had for a few months, but he was afraid to say it. Afraid to hear what she would or wouldn't say back. He pushed down the desire to confess it with practiced ease.
He recovered easily enough and was out of hospital the next afternoon. Neville was a little slower to heal, his liver had to be largely reconstructed after Bellatrix’s liquifying curse did a number on it, but he was out in time for Harry’s birthday.
It was not long after said birthday that he got the confirmation he knew and expected. In the comfortable bliss post sex, holding her in his bed, he told her.
“I love you.”
He didn’t want her to say it back, didn’t expect her to leave her husband and be with him. He may have hoped for that, deep down, but he didn’t expect it. He didn’t even know how that would work, the Weasley family encompassed the entirety of Harry’s loved one’s now that Hermione was married-in. They could never be together, not in England, and he knew that. He just wanted to say it, at least once.
She smiled sadly at him, and gave him a kiss that melted him into the bed.
“I can’t-” She started to say, but he cut her off quickly.
“You don’t have to- I just wanted to say it, once. I know what this is…”
She looked at him, and he didn’t quite know what those tempestuous blue eyes contained. She leaned in, until he could feel the puffs of her breath against the shell of his ear, and she whispered it back, just for him. It didn’t mean anything would change, it was just a gift, and a truth.
I just wanted you to know, I don’t blame you, it's not your fault. I know you want to blame yourself but don’t. I never really got over Ginny- and work is hell, the things people are capable of doing to each other-
A few months later, Victoire was conceived. Perhaps if they’d never confessed their love he would’ve known better than to try and shoot the shot. Maybe without that memory to embolden him he wouldn’t have tried, and they’d still be sneaking moments even now. A part of him knew it was best it ended when it did.
He was the first to know about Fleur’s daughter, before even Bill, because Bill was gone.
She was all in a panic about it, and it was hardly appropriate to be pacing Harry’s living room, speculating her plans aloud. By her reckoning, she could bed her husband on his return and no one had to be the wiser, she was confident it would be a girl because Veela genes were strong. If it was a girl, it would carry her race’s traits, she was not sacred of being discovered because of the child. She processed all these thoughts aloud while Harry sat dumbfounded at his desk.
A daughter.
He couldn’t help himself. He tried but for a brief moment an image consumed him, of Fleur and a little silver haired girl with his eyes, outside a little house in Godric's Hollow maybe.
“Fleur-”
She could tell where his mind had gone.
“No ‘Arry.” She said simply.
“Why not?” He demanded hotly, standing now to face her pacing.
“Do not ask me silly questions, you know why not!” He didn’t want to hear that. He felt reckless. Dangerous. She picked up the mood and left him there to stew. It was the last time she came to his apartment.
Look, I'm fucked up- it’s not your fault. That’s the only reason I'm writing. I know you’re probably not thrilled to get this but just don’t blame yourself, I was out of line and I hold all the blame.
Sincerely,
Harry
He dropped his quill and looked down at the letter a little blearily. He had foregone a glass in favor of gulps directly from the bottle, and he was feeling them now they’d had a minute to settle.
He took off his tie and threw it down by his boots on the floor next to his desk.
Hedwig was impatient now, chirping at him with narrowed orange eyes, far too expressive for any normal bird. He placated her with gently pets that at least stemmed the tide of her chittering as he read and reread the letter a few times over.
He finished the bottle as he contemplated the words. There weren’t a lot of them, it felt like he should add more, but he didn’t know what else to say, so they would have to do. He scrawled a quick post script and sealed the letter decisively, before he could stare at the ink any longer and dither.
“You know where to go girl, fly safe, love you.” He told Hedwig, his first friend, his loyal familiar that had survived war and a host of personal demons to be by his side. She flapped off into the twilight to deliver his message and do some hunting no doubt. He watched her fade into a little dot, and then nothingness on the horizon.
He stared after her long after she was gone, just contemplating life and the decisions that lead him here. He felt at peace now, with that letter mailed, so many unspoken words finally put to rest.
He stood, and the motion was labored by a swimming head. He could barely stand straight, the effects of any entire bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey were not inconsiderable even to a veteran such as himself. He half stumbled toward the kitchen and caught himself on the stool that had been such a nuisance all week, sitting in the walkway between the kitchen and living area.
He climbed up onto it, swaying, and adjusted his tie.
He lurched forward, the stool went the other way, and he kicked wildly for a few minutes.
-o-o-o-
Dearest Fleur
Ron brought round the Christmas card today, Hermione always said he had the emotional range of a teaspoon- not that it stopped her from marrying him- but It’s not his fault I suppose. I don’t even think even Hermione suspects.
But I see why I wasn’t on the mailing list. I’m glad to see you guys are doing better. Don't worry about me, I'll take our little secret to the grave.
I’ve been thinking, you know, a lot these days. About love, and about you.
Can I really say I loved you if I’m not willing to love you as a friend? I think no, right? That’s what they say about love right? Selfless and all that.
But it's fine, Bill’s a good man, I’m glad you have him. I’m glad he’s there for you, both of you.
I just wanted you to know, I don’t blame you, it's not your fault. I know you want to blame yourself but don’t. I never really got over Ginny- and work is hell, the things people are capable of doing to each other-
Look, I'm fucked up- it’s not your fault. That’s the only reason I'm writing. I know you’re probably not thrilled to get this but just don’t blame yourself, I was out of line and I hold all the blame.
Sincerely,
Harry
P.S. Look after Hedwig for me, will you? She always loved you.