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_sirius]

Mellie sounds more like a petname, and she doesn't seem the type whose father called her something affectionate.

Some particularly old, proud purebloods don't even like to shorten their children's names.

Let's see. Family members, namesakes, constellations, stars, famous wizards or witches, gods or goddesses, virtues.... Those are typical for pureblood given names.

[alt_hydra]

And flowers/plants, too. Narcissa, Pansy, Lavender.

For stars, I can think of Maia and Merope, of the Pleiades.

[alt_sirius]

Well, I think your aunt was named for the myth, but point taken.

[alt_hermione]

If what we thought was 'c' was really 'o', then the 'r' could be a 'p', easily. Merope. Merope Gaunt. Only it was M.R. so... Merope Riddle? Did they actually get married while she had him enchanted, do you think?

[alt_draco]

Possibly. Or else she was swoonily writing M.R. in hopes that they'd marry someday. You know, much the way Padma likely scribbled Padma Malfoy on her spare parchments in moments of girlish fantasy.

[alt_ron]

Oh, I'd pay for one of those parchments. Think how it'd make her squirm to know that might get sent off to one of the gossip mags... New Councilwitch Lusts for Outlaw Traitor.

[alt_pansy]

Hah! Secret Passions, Forbidden Romance, truly the stuff of legends.

[alt_luna]

Wasn't Merope of the Pleiades the one who is dimmer than the others? Because she hid her face in shame because she married a mortal lover?

Call it a hunch...but I'll bet that was her name.