Chapter Text
Dear Henrietta,
It feels strange to send you a letter, though I’m not entirely sure why. We’ve exchanged letters for years, though I suppose it’s not quite the same. Those usually come in the form of late night conversations on scraps of parchment we didn’t need for prep, with Hedwig flying back and forth between floors of the Tower. Sending this seems more official, I suppose, and more personal than we usually act toward each other. I feel as though perhaps I should have more pressing news, or at least more in general, to be worth sending a letter. But I’m rambling.
It’s strange here, Ri. I can’t tell you the name of the house, as in the spells make me literally incapable, or else I would. Even thinking about writing it to you is making my head hurt. But, as you do know, we’re at Sirius’ place in London. It’s… interesting, to say the least. From what I understand, he hasn’t been here in years, not even counting Azkaban. Everything’s dark and dreary, and the house practically reeks of evil. That’s an overstatement, I suppose, but you can feel the dark magic in the air. The house is falling apart a bit, and quite filthy, so Mum has us all cleaning. I don’t like that much at all, and not just because it’s chores. Mum runs this house as if it was hers, and it’s not! Sirius just stays in his rooms or with Buckbeak all day, probably to avoid Mum. I try to spend some time with him every day so he doesn’t go crazy all alone. We usually have tea together, and he’s good company, even if he barely talks. He misses you a lot, he mentions it every day.
The Order of the Phoenix meets here every few days, that’s the group that Dumbledore leads against Tom. I think your parents were part of it, too, in the first war? I’m not certain though. I don’t know much about what they talk about- they put up a lot of anti-eavesdropping wards. Fred and George made these new products, extendable ears, and those let us hear some things at least. Tom’s been pretty quiet since the third task, which is good, I think. Some of his people have been raiding muggle villages, but the Order doesn’t think Tom had told them to do it. That was really all I heard before Mum destroyed my extendable ear. I’ll keep an ear out for anything else though, no pun intended. Er, sorry for that.
Dumbledore ordered us not to write you, which is why it’s taken me so long to do so. Partially because I didn’t want him to be angry with me, and I apologise for that awful reasoning. You’re my friend, or I hope you are, and you deserve to be kept in the know. I don’t know why he thinks he should control your mail of all things, and I really am sorry it took this long for me to question it. I know it wouldn’t have stopped you. But that does bring me to the other reason. I rather figured that Ron and Hermione would have been writing you this whole time. After all, Dumbledore’s demands wouldn’t stop them from writing their best friend, right? I mean, you three have broken the rules loads of times when you think it’s the best idea. Not to say that it isn’t, actually it usually is. They’re usually silly rules that you break. But I think this is a silly rule, too. I guess Ron and Hermione disagree. I assumed you would have gotten enough letters and information from them that you wouldn’t particularly care to hear from me, but then I heard Hermione mention that you were “home in the muggle world without even letters” and I thought I’d have to check on you.
I do hope you’re doing alright, Ri. I know those Muggles aren’t the good type, even if you don’t say it. I’m writing this in the middle of the night so no one will see, and my candle is almost gone, so I’ll have to wrap this up. I’m sending this with Percy’s owl, but he has to come back without a response. Tell Hedwig to bring your reply directly to me at night. I’ll send another letter when I can, but that might be a bit, what with Mum’s utter tyranny.
I’ll talk to you soon, and hopefully see you at some point. Bye for now, Ri.
Ginny Weasley
Henrietta folded the letter and clutched the thin parchment to her chest, almost crying in relief at her first contact with the wizarding world in a month. She had to admit, she had wondered why Ron and Hermione weren’t writing. They alway wrote, Ron with his short letters coming every few days, and Hermione with her veritable essays coming every week, not to mention that Ron’s or the twins’ letters often came with snacks, and she was missing them this summer especially. She wasn’t sure if this new information added to or took away from the betrayal.
It was better than if they had simply chosen not to talk to her or forgotten, but since when did they care about sticking to the rules? Well, Hermione did sometimes, but she should still have used her clever brain to question things. Ron really had no excuse. He had flown a bloody car to rescue her after first year! And now all it took to keep him away was a request from a teacher?
Ignoring her currently rather sorry excuses for friends, it was a wonderful feeling to have an idea of what was going on, given that all her other information was coming from skimming the front pages of her Daily Prophet subscription and considering every day if she should just cancel it before the state of the Wizarding world made her go insane. So she was grateful Ginny had chosen to write her, though she hated that circumstances made her think it necessary. She seemed to have almost no information about the Order of the Phoenix, but she figured that Sirius would have to know. And if all went well, he would tell her.
It bothered her beyond a level she was comfortable with that Mrs. Weasley had claimed Sirius’ family home as her own domain. A sort of possessive anger boiled inside her that she wasn’t quite sure how to name. Perhaps she felt protective of her godfather? Perhaps she just knew what it was like to be trapped in a house you never wanted to see again, and if she was reading between the right lines of Ginny’s letter, he was just as angry to be separated from her as she was from him. Mrs. Weasley was wonderful, but her overbearing nature must have been making Sirius miserable. Being treated like a guest in his own house…. She would have hated it. She could only assume Mrs. Weasley was cleaning and reorganizing without asking Sirius how it was meant to look, cooking meals and structuring the day with no respect for his home or wishes. The woman was like a mother to her, but it didn’t take a genius to see that her children dreaded her presence at times.
Still smiling softly, Henrietta pulled a sheet of parchment and a ballpoint pen from her trunk. She appreciated the value the magical world placed on beauty, but she really could not stand quills.
Dear Ginny,
I agree, it feels very strange- and much stranger than it should, all things considered- to write you a letter like this. But I suppose it’s not too different than sending letters between floors of the tower late at night. After all, we weren’t supposed to be doing that either.
Words cannot express the gratitude I felt when I received your letter. You’re right, my Muggles aren’t the good sort, and, Merlin, it’s been hard to make it through the summer without snapping. They haven’t been too bad (I warned them about my escaped convict of a godfather), but I can’t say I enjoy the constant chores and constant taunts. Oh well, at least I have some freedoms now. I’m sure Sirius would get quite the laugh if he knew he was the reason. They’ve mostly just been ignoring me, if I’m being honest, and it’s quite the relief. I’ve just been hanging around the house, mostly, and Aunt Petunia’s let me take over her garden ever since I won her an award for it last summer, so that’s been a lot of fun.
I had indeed wondered why I had received no post this summer, and I must say, I’m both unsurprised and unimpressed with the reason. You’re right that the three of us haven’t given much thought to rules the past few years, and I can’t help but wonder what changed for Ron and Hermione. I’d like to imagine I wouldn’t give in quite so easily, were it me in their position. I confess to being less shocked than I may have otherwise been, however, after the events of the past year.
I hate to take up space on this letter ranting about things which you shouldn’t bother yourself with, but I can’t say I have anyone else to speak to at all. As hard as I’ve tried, I find myself simply unable to fully forgive Ron for abandoning me during the Tournament, and, to a lesser extent, Mione, for excusing it. I know, I know, Ron’s jealousy and the stick which occasionally presents itself in Hermione’s arse got in the way of their reason. But is it not allowed to bother me that my best friends allow their jealousy to get the better of them and their obsession with rules to override their trust in me? Can I not be angry with both the situation and their motives, honest though they may be about them? I don’t know my own answers, nor do I expect them from you, but it is nice to get out on paper. It’s nice to admit that I’m angry sometimes. That I can be hurt.
I would also like to take this opportunity to assure you that I do not fault you in the least for not writing me sooner, and I ask that you not attempt to upset yourself over your imagined wrongdoings. You couldn’t have expected Ron and Hermione to suddenly care about the rules and listen to Dumbledore, nor could you have been expected to suddenly write me a letter with no real purpose when you never had before.
I am beyond thrilled to hear that Sirius’s condition is improving, and I am grateful to you for any part you have had. It upsets me as well, more than I expected, to hear how your mother has taken over the house. I suppose I’ve grown quite protective of my Lord Father over the past couple of years, but I hadn’t realized to what extent until I read of the disrespect done to him and his House, and, by extension, my own. I hope you take no offense on your mother’s behalf, but I find her behavior toward my Lord Father to be atrocious, and I don’t know how I’ll keep from defending him when I arrive.
On that note, I will be arriving soon! I believe I am to be picked up shortly after the beginning of August. We can both make it that long, I’m sure of it.
Thank you for letting me know what’s going on within the Order. It’s good, though strange, to hear that Tom has been quiet recently. I don’t quite know what I expected, but certainly I figured there would be more bloodshed after his return. I do hope he’s actually changed his mind about his course of action rather than just lying in wait for the perfect moment when we’re off guard.
And finally, thank you again for this letter. I confess I almost cried upon realizing I had contact with a friend, and above that, I am eternally glad that the letter was from you. I’ll see you soon, Gin, and I hope you get the chance to write back before then.
With love,
Henrietta Potter-Black
She was glad Ginny had written her, even above her best friends. Something about how she spoke was very comforting. She supposed it was because of the history they had, the friendship comprised mainly of written word. She couldn’t help but think of the very first time she had written Ginny, it couldn’t even be considered a letter, not really, but she had ripped a bit off the corner of her Transfiguration essay and scrawled a single line: How’re you holding up?
She had been up all night that night, snatching maybe a half hour of sleep at the beginning before the nightmares were too much to handle, blinding yellow eyes around every corner, and Ginny’s limp, cold body on the colder stone, a boy she trusted- a boy she felt that she could have loved - standing before her with the coldest smile. Her sheets had been soaked through with sweat and her pillow just as wet with tears, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with the thought of GinnyGinnyGinny that didn’t go away until she had given Hedwig the scrap of parchment with the line written in her shaky handwriting, and sent her to the lower floor of the tower, figuring Ginny was probably awake as well.
She was awake, of course, and probably curled up in a little ball against her headboard as Henrietta had learned that she liked to do when she couldn’t sleep. She had written back, on the back of the very same piece of parchment: You want the honest answer?
Always , she had said.
And it had been quite a few minutes until she had gotten a reply back, long enough that she had wondered if Ginny had gone back to sleep. But then Hedwig came back to her, a new bit of parchment in her beak, and Ginny’s story in a sideways type of crammed scrawl telling her that she still found herself sleepwalking every few nights and it terrified her, even though it was a perfectly benign occurrence, coming only from habit, nothing more. She told her how she had lied to her mother when she said she couldn’t remember much of what had happened between her and Tom- and Ginny was the only other person Henrietta knew who would exclusively refer to Voldemort as Tom- and that she in fact remembered every word he had written, and she doubted she would ever forget them.
In return, Henrietta told her how the scars on her arm still hurt where the fang had pierced her, and she wasn’t sure if it was real or just in her head, how she couldn’t turn a corner without looking around it first, how even when she slept, it was with her wand under her pillow- had been since first year- and how she had accidentally cursed half her roommates for trying to wake her up because she was too scared that something had happened.
And the scraps of paper didn’t end there. Sometimes Hedwig would peck her awake in the middle of the night because Ginny had send her with a scrap of paper to say she had a nightmare, and Henrietta would always lie and say she was already up, and she was sure Ginny did the same, because her responses were always prompt when it was she herself with the terrors.
By some time in Henrietta’s third year, the notes had changed from just the bad things and just the memories to hey, I can’t sleep, how was your day? and hey, I can’t sleep, can I tell you what Ron said today and why it’s really pissing me off? and whatever else came to mind. They still would only come at night, of course, but that seemed to make it a little more special, because every note was written by the moon or their wands.
By fourth year, they were mostly back to nightmares, especially after the tasks began, dreams of dragons chasing her with those glowing yellow eyes of the basilisk and mermaids with diaries keeping Hermione captive again at the bottom of the Lake, or sometimes they were holding Ginny, her lifeless body sunk to the floor of the lake and her glowing red hair floating around her like a halo.
Ginny had a way of cheering her up that she couldn’t even really put a name on, just a combination of being there and caring and her goofy sense of humor. There wasn’t much either of them could do about the other’s nightmares or phobias, but they could be a safe outlet to talk about them, and they were the only person who really understood them.
It was funny, she felt sometimes, in a rather dark bout of humor, that even though Ron and Hermione were her best friends and the ones who came on all of her “adventures” with her, Ginny was the only other one who actually had ever seen Tom, let alone spoke to him. First year, when Tom was on the back of Quirrell’s head, she was the only one who got to the final room of protections, so Ron and Hermione hadn’t had to see the second face of their Defense teacher. Second year, Hermione was petrified and Ron was in the cave-in with Lockhart. Third year, she didn’t have to deal with Tom at all, not directly, of course, and fourth year, Ce- he was the only other person in the graveyard at all who wasn’t Tom or a Death Eater, so they certainly didn’t have to see any of that. In that same rather dark way, it made her laugh that only a third of the Golden Trio, Dumbledore’s biggest hope for defeating Tom, had actually seen him at all, and another third’s younger sister had the most experience perhaps of all of them.
Outwardly, her friendship with Ginny, if she could even really call it that, didn’t show. No one had noticed them getting any closer, and in many ways, they weren’t. They didn’t factor each other into their daily routine, and they were rarely seen together. But if one looked close enough, they would see the little smiles and gestures over breakfast, the lingering glance as they passed a plate, the silent ‘you doing better?’ in a tilt of the head, the silent ‘thank you’ in fingers brushing together, that passed between them.
Henrietta folded her parchment neatly and tapped the parchment with her wand to create a soft wax seal in a pretty shade of bright red. It had taken a lot of nerves the first time she had done it, but it turned out that it did not, in fact, count as performing magic outside of school because she wasn’t casting any type of spell. The parchment she had bought for letters had the charm built in to leave a seal, so she only had to tap it with her wand to trigger the delay. She pressed her ring to the wax and left a small imprint of a lily flower in the center of the wax, blowing on it until it felt dry enough to send back with Hedwig.
“Come’re, girl,” she cooed, holding out her arm so the snowy owl would land on it. “I don’t have any treats, I’m afraid; you know Uncle Vernon locks those up with the rest of my things.” It was really only luck that she had her wand, even. She had given him one of Fred and George’s trick wands instead of her own to lock up, and hidden her real one under her shirt, probably the one place he wasn’t going to check. “I bet Ginny has some, or Sirius does, at least, so maybe if you went there for a bit, you could get some food?”
Hedwig just pecked at her ear.
“I know, baby,” she crooned, kissing the little owl on her forehead. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to take care of you right, but I can’t help that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have been barely giving me enough food for myself, let alone you. Why don’t you stay with Sirius and Ginny for the rest of the summer, and I’ll make sure to reply quick whenever I get a letter, does that sound good? Thank you, Hedwig,” she said with a soft smile, tying the letter to the owl’s leg and giving her another kiss.
She worked her window open as best she could with one hand, and watched Hedwig fly away before she closed it again and drew the curtains over it, the last bit of moonlight illuminating her room shadowed and sending her into darkness. She sighed, packing her parchment and wand into the space under the floorboard, and collapsed on her mattress, only awake for a few moments more before sleep took over.