Until The Next Time -R //JEGULUS

Letter 1

  26th July 1979

J,

We both know I'm not going to send this. Partially because I'm too scared to disrupt your perfect life and make you hate me even more. But partially because I want to keep these words to myself, I don't want to pour out my heart to you and embarrass myself by sending it so I guess I'll find somewhere to put this where no one can find it, where my emotions are safe.

I don't know what led me to write this if I'm honest. Maybe it's the fact this house is driving me insane. People often come in and out, discussing all kinds of violent business to do with the war and when they leave it's not much better. It's so lonely, I have nobody to talk to besides Kreature, who isn't really the best person to have deep discussions with, don't take this as me saying he has no skills, he's a wonderful house elf but he's not the most understanding of people (Yes, I do see him as a person, I find it extremely cruel not to, they have feelings that ought to be respected too). I suppose I can't really complain about the meetings that have been taking place here, it should be an honour to have all the allies in my family home...but sometimes it doesn't feel like it. Sometimes they'll say things that just feel wrong, I know that I'm really rather far from perfect myself but sometimes I'll listen to what they're saying and I can just imagine the disgust on your face if you heard even a single word of it. Sometimes it makes me feel bad for just hearing it. Maybe that's why I'm writing this letter, maybe it's because everything reminds me of you, I feel pathetic saying that, it makes me look clingy and weak but it's true. And, I suppose, the only reason I am actually saying this is because I know I won't send it to you. You'll never read it. And if by some miracle you do, if you end up finding this letter and however many I choose to write after, I know I'll be dead by then anyway. I don't know how but I am certain that I will be.

Sometimes I wonder how things would be different if I never took the mark. If I never listened to what they told me. Maybe if I were more like you, Sirius would actually like me. Maybe we could both have left the family together. But, then again, that was never going to happen, that isn't who I am, you know that but I don't think he understands as much as you, all he saw over the years was him trying to fight back and me sitting like a little minion to them at all times, perfect and submissive. That is, I'll admit, partially my fault, I never did anything to stop him or any others from believing that it was the truth and, if I'm being perfectly honest, for a while, I believed it myself. That I was the perfect child, that after I got the mark I would be so flawless, the model child in both my parents' minds and my own, that I had to pick one side, one powerful white man or another. I'm starting to think that maybe it would be better if I didn't bother. If I didn't pick a side at all, if I didn't pick a controlling leader to send me out to fight the other for him. If I stayed to myself and didn't associate myself with people from either side of the war trying to brainwash me into believing they are the ones fighting for the better cause. If I avoided my parents, my brother, my friends, you. It feels almost sickening, thinking of how different things could be if just one thing changed, how much loyalty or doubt or fighting or suffering could be avoided with just one small difference being made to my life.

But it also makes me think about how wrong everything would be if they never happened. Even if I had no clue I was missing out on anything at all it would still be wrong. It wouldn't fit right. If I never chose this side to stick with and fight for in this war. Maybe that would have meant I could stay with you. But what if it were to have been the other way around? What if I never loved you, what if I remained hating your guts forever and the lack of seeing the struggles and priorities of both sides made me believe solely in the superiority of the Death Eaters. And that is when I try to stop thinking about all of it. It gets too overwhelming, it makes me feel weak, being so vulnerable to my own thoughts. If you were here you would tell me that it's normal to feel so much painful emotion in the conditions we're in, the war building up all around us constantly, with the background I was raised in. You would have sighed kindly like you always do and told me that my doubt was valid, that I was allowed to feel the emotions I do and that you're always going to be there to listen to them. But then we ended up on opposite sides. So you aren't here to help me. So you lied. So I suffer alone and the guilt gets worse and worse.

And I know it isn't your fault, I know. If I found out you stood for the murder of innocent people and had the branding for it too I wouldn't want to be around you either. But even just thinking just that makes it worse, it makes me realise what I've been associating myself with and standing for the whole time. It makes me feel sick that for a while I put so much faith and energy into it, thinking it would save me and make the world better, just to now realise that maybe it won't.

It's been a recent discovery you know, over the past two months I've begun to realise just how fucked up this war is. It's pathetic, I can't stand for Dumbledore like you and your friends but I can't just let the Dark Lord win either. It's actually made me remember something I read about once, it's gotten me thinking about how I could possibly make a difference in this war without being a kissarse to a man who just wants everything his way in the world. I'll probably look into it more, go back upstairs to the family library when I next feel lonely, find the books I looked at and try to piece together what I can. I know there's something but I don't have enough to figure it out yet. I will though, I'm smart enough. I'm just like you said two years ago, silent as a cat but brainy as an elephant. It sounded so extremely stupid at the time and even writing it out now it feels foolish but you know I guess you were right, I'll figure this out, I promise.

I'm actually starting to feel like this is getting a bit much for just now so I'll stop writing. It's now occurring to me that I'm writing to nobody, it must seem pathetic, I can almost feel my emotions closing off from the rest of my mind as I write this so I suppose this is all I can really say for now.

Until the next time,

-R