Order Only: The Letter

[alt_hermione]

We reconstructed the letter, we think. Draco and Mr Snape and a little help from Sirius. Anything in brackets was something we decided from context, but there are places we just couldn't make out what it said.

Father,

I don't know if [you'll] ever come back, but if you do, I [will] be gone. I [made] a mistake and tried to make Tom (?) love me. But he'll never love [me] the way I love him. I [ ] him about the baby and he [laughed]. LAUGHED. I thought if I [shifted the] (Mr Snape thinks it's lifted) spell, he would remember something of the way [we fell] (? (Sirius thinks it's felt.). But it wasn't [right?]. He doesn't love me.

But you never loved me, either.

You've always wanted the [Grant] line to continue. It will, but it won't be pure. If it's a boy, I'm naming him [Tom Marvolo], to honour our ancestors, but all I'll tell him is about a [muggle] father who had [grateful], and [king], and [winsome]. And he's going to know love.

Don't try to find me. Not that you will.

Mercre (still not sure about that?)

We're still working on it but that's at least enough to figure out what the letter was about. I've never heard of anyone named Mercre, though. Maybe it was Mercure? But that doesn't make any better sense.

Comments

[alt_hermione]

Yes, and Draco figured out that it had to be 'Tom Marvolo'.

Oh, I think you're right. But then 'grateful' and 'king' and 'winsome' don't make much sense.... OH! KIND.

Hang on, I think....Draco, where's the original?

[alt_draco]

I think you left it next to that massive potions book you got for your birthday.

"Grateful" is definitely wrong. He LAUGHED at her, after all. But then why would she think him kind?

[alt_hermione]

Found it.

No, it's not a 'G' it's an 'H', I think. If the stem of the r is part of that.... handsome? And the one we thought was -some was the -ful.... wonderful. Handsome and kind and wonderful, maybe.

Must have been while he was under the love potion.

[alt_draco]

And that's how she preferred to remember him, enchanted and enthralled.

Well she does have one thing in common with her son: unscrupulous actions in the face of being denied what she wants.

[alt_evelyn]

How very sad. She was surrounded by people who didn't love her.

[alt_hydra]

I don't find it a bit sad. Not for her, anyway. She enchanted a muggle to fall in love with her against his will.

It's not any different from rape.

[alt_evelyn]

Oh.

Yes.

I suppose I was mostly thinking about how she hadn't felt loved by her father, so she must not have known what it was really like.

But you're right.

What she did was awful, regardless.

[alt_sally_anne]

'Was graceful'? Could that be it?

[alt_pansy]

Ooooh. Yes. I could see that.