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_draco]

And if you can't tell, we've decided that "Mercre" is Voldemort's mother, and that the other Tom is his muggle father, who he's named for. Sounds to us like she decided to enchant him into loving her.

I still wonder if the tell him about a muggle father who had is actually tell him about a muggle father who was. There are definitely three letters in the word but only the letter "a" in the middle is fully legible.

[alt_daphne]

How fascinating.

And if I'm understanding Draco, this letter was written by the Lord Protector's mother (who was a witch) to her father (the Lord Protector's grandfather!), more or less disclosing that she was pregnant with a muggle's child. So, it sounds as if her family wouldn't have approved, but she didn't care that the father-to-be was a muggle and loved him anyway? Only enchanting a muggle to love you hardly denotes respect, does it?

It's so strange to think of where Voldemort might have come from, and to picture him as a baby. Who was loved by his mother. What happened to her, I wonder?

[alt_alice]

Nicely done, both of you.

I wonder about that last name of Grant. It's not familiar, but then again, if the line truly ended with her, it wouldn't be. Bill, anything in the records that might corroborate things?

[alt_sally_anne]

'Mercre' seems like it ought to be 'Mercy' -- that's a name sometimes, a very old fashioned one.

It would be a dead IRONIC one for Voldemort's mum. But could it be Mercy?