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To Draco,
If you’re reading this, you must’ve just married Pansy Parkinson. I charmed this to be sent to you only then—unless you took a particular interest in my personal belongings and went digging, which I doubt.
I’d wager it was in March. The wedding, I mean.
She always liked the idea of getting married in March—said it’s when the cold finally softens, and the skies start trying again. Her favorite flower, Godetia, blooms then.
And who are you to say no to her wish?
Anyway, congratulations.
I’m writing this on a particularly snowy night in the Slytherin dorms, and I’m fairly certain I’m drunk. So, pardon the rambling, the grammar, and whatever else I’ll probably regret in the morning. I hope, despite the haze, the heart of it still comes through.
Let me start with a story.
Once, there was a wistful boy.
One who spent years watching a brilliant girl sharpen her smile and weaponize her wit—just to distract the world from how much she was hurting. He saw it all. The cracks in her mask. The nights she flinched in her sleep. The way she clung to the wrong people, because at least they made her feel something.
He was there from the start. Watched her stumble through her first crush, celebrated her little victories, stood quietly through her heartbreaks.
Lately, he’s been the one sitting beside her as she drank herself to the edge of alcohol poisoning—because her hero, the one she’s been orbiting for years, had vanished behind some grand, secret cause he wouldn’t speak of.
Still, the boy cleaned her up. Carried her to bed. Quietly cleared away the wreckage, as if tending to her ruins was the same as saving her.
And then—her story took a turn.
Not an ending. Not a resolution.
But something gentler. A shift. A flicker of light.
Her hero came. On time. And saved her.
Draco, I haven’t seen her that happy in years. She’s sobered now. She’s lighter. That dangerous glassy look in her eyes is gone. There’s spark in her again.
The hero didn’t solve everything. But he gave her something to hold onto. That counts for a lot.
Anyway. If you’re still reading, thanks. I’m aware this letter is running long.
Here’s the truth: I should’ve seen it coming.
The signs were there. The hiding. The sudden aggression. The weight in her voice.
That cursed blade—it wasn’t impulse. It was planned. She made the choice. She bought the damn thing, Draco. She decided.
And I, Theodore Nott, supposedly her best friend, missed it.
How did you get there first?
You weren’t even around this year. Barely said more than two words to her per week. You were absent, closed off, hiding something. And still—somehow—you showed up at the exact right moment. You got between her and that knife.
You took the stab meant for her.
Draco Malfoy, you—with your perfectly gelled hair and your breakdown over humidity—took a fucking cursed blade to the chest because Pansy Parkinson was unraveling?
Did you know it was cursed?
How the fuck did it even happen?
And how did I, of all people, only find out from Blaise Zabini?
Sorry. I’m not entirely conscious anymore. Let me settle down.
This is the point I’m trying to make:
You’ve never been kind to her. Don’t lie to yourself about it. You treated her like a toy. A tool. Something loyal, but disposable. And yet—she stayed. Again, and again.
Is it love? Is it strategy? I still don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t either.
I’m no better. I’ve loved her for years. Quietly. Pointlessly. The way a stray dog loves a warm bed it knows it’s not allowed to sleep in. Pathetic, I know. I was always just one breath too late. A second too slow.
I saw her wrecked and raw and I still couldn’t say it. Because it wouldn’t have changed anything. She was never mine.
But you—you did something I didn’t expect. You changed.
I’ve been watching since the night of the scar. And I don’t know if you love her. Maybe not then. Maybe not even now. But something shifted. You look at her like she’s real. Like she matters.
You treat her like someone worth bleeding for.
And I saw it. I see it. That’s why I’m writing this.
This letter isn’t a surrender. I’ll probably keep loving her until my heart burns itself out, or until it finds someone else to catch fire for. But I wanted this written down, just once—to mark the moment I think it started for you. The first flicker. The beginning of the story she’ll never know she inspired.
If I can’t be the one she loves, then let me be the one who remembers how it all began.
Happy wedding day.
I hope you got the venue right.
If not, I imagine half your guests are being quietly flayed alive for not living up to her expectations.
Love her well.
Your best friend,
Theo
December 19th, 1996.