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l'amour après la mort

Summary:

Teddy Lupin cleans out his godfather's room, after he died and while he cleans he finds hidden letters from Harry to his misterious soulmate.

The story of Harry and Voldemort told trough letters.

Both Harry and Voldemort are already dead at the start of this story, this is about looking back into the past.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

The Daily Prophet - 2181.01.01

The Saviour of the Wizarding World, The Boy Who Lived, Defeater of The Dark Lord, rumored Master of Death, Order of Merlin first Class, Lord Harry James Potter is dead.

 

Lord Harry James Potter passed away exactly at mindight - as reported by the mediwizard - on 2180.12.31. We were contacted by his godson and sole heir of both the Potter and Black lordships, who revealed to us that late Lord Potter knew his death was aproaching and gave him premission to share details of his life that until today remained a secret.

The sacrifices that the Saviour of the Wizarding World had to make are well documented, and most of you probably know them all already, but we always knew that there were things that the late Lord Potter and his friends (well respected for their own achievements) never revealed to the public.

Lord Edward Remus Lupin in his letter to us answered a lot of rumours that our newspaper speculated upon, he said that it was his gofather’s last wish to tell us the truth that he was too afraid to do so while he was alive. (It is his own words that this author is quoting, but rest assured I was just as surprised as you might be now, dear readers)

The only thing that we won’t get a complete and honest answer to is who was our beloved hero’s soulmate. Lord Lupin told us that his godfather only told him that it was a wizard who died in the Battle of Hogwarts during the last Wizarding War. Our paper previously speculated that it may have been Ginerva Weasley or there were rumors that a certain Roonil Wazlib, but now it seems we never will know who that wizard was.

We however were able to confirm the rumors that Lord Potter was indeed the Master of Death, Lord Lupin shared that with his godfather’s peaceful death there would be no more Masters of Death so keep it a secret anymore. He told our paper that Lord Potter wanted the people of his beloved wizarding community to know that they had no reason to fear death as fear only leads to brash and stupid decisions.

“He always spoke of Death as an old friend ever since I was little, it helped me a lot when I finally understood why I was raised by him and my grandmother, and not my parents. I lived, and still live, life to the fullest with no fear of the inevitable Death that would one day come for me. If he could have, he would have revealed this knowledge to the world sooner but it wasn’t safe while he was still alive.”

For more information, and detailed achievements of Lord Harry James Potter open page 11.

 


 

Teddy felt that it was time he cleared out the room of his godfather, it has been a year since he died peacefully in his sleep, but the wound of loosing the man who raised him were still as fresh as ever. He knew that Harry is probably much happier on the other side, finally reunited with both of their parents and his beloved godfather and friends. Soon Teddy knew that he would be joining them as well, probably not for another twenty or thirty years, but he could wait, and until then he would enjoy spending time with his children and grandchildren.

He was reminiscing about times that have long since passed when he found them. A drawer that was locked for as long as he remembered has opened for him. Inside it were multiple packs of letters, some yellow with age, some still relatively new. What was even more strange was a diary that he nearly instantly recognised under them. It was one of the first Horcluxes of Voldemort.

He left the diary where it was, but he couldn’t stop himself from opening the letters, starting with the oldest looking one.

 

Dear Tom,

I can’t believe I am writing to you. I just wanted to tell you that I miss you, and I am sorry for what I have done, but there was no other way.

Your Harry.


Dear Tom,

I still remember the first time I saw you in my second year. You were my first crush, my first heartbreak, and as fate would have it you will be my last love, and last heartbreak aswell. I know you probably think you have no soulmate, but you do, and I love you, and you deserve to be loved.

Your Harry.


It was the mention of soulmate that peeked Teddy’s interest, his godfather was tightlipped whenever Teddy asked about the wizard, but he may have just found their correspondence from back when they first met. He had to know more, whoever this mysterious Tom was, Harry seemed to love him deeply.


Dear Tom,

I know you hate that nam, and yet I find myself to call you anything but that. I told Ginny today about our situation… She didn’t speak to me for a whole month, but last day she came to me and we talked. I think she somewhat understands where my love for you is coming from, and although she struggles with it, she accepts it. I still haven’t told Ron or Hermione, or anyone else really, but maybe one day…

Your Harry.


Dear Tom,

It is getting harder every day to keep up the facade that everything is okay. Everyone is looking at me, expecting me to reassure them, again and again that Voldemort is truly gone. I tell them, I show them, but it is still nolt enough, and while I understand their fear I feel like I am drowning. I thought that  after I killed you after I defeated him, I could finally rest a little, but it seems I was wrong. 

I went to every EVERY funeral, I appologies to EVERYONE, then I went to every trial and I my wounds were cut open again and again for everyone to see. I wish you were by myside, I really miss you.

Your Harry 


Teddy stared at the letter in shock, he may have misunderstood, the letters seem to have been written after the war, after Harry’s soulmate have already died. He always wondered why he never dated anyone, many people who loose their soulmate try dating others with a similar fate trying to fill the void inside them. These letters were probably Harry’s way of doing so.


Dear Tom,

I talked with the portrait of Dumbledore, I told him who you were to me and while I know that the portrait is not really him, I couldn’t help it. I searched far and wide for a portrait of you and even though I guessed I wouldn’t find any, it still hurts to know that you are only a memory now. I hoped that I could get some advice from the old man, considering our similar situation, but it just made me realise how unique our bond is.

I still love you, and grieve for you.

Your Harry.


Dear Tom,

I am so angry at you. You were my first love, my first heartbreak, my biggest enemy, my last love, my last heartbreak, my soulmate… And I remember how you tought Love to be a weakness, but even a heartless asshole like you was deemed worthy for Love by Lady Magic… I hate you, and I am angry at you. Because of you we could never be together, and while you died not knowing, I must suffer and live with the knowledge… If I could I would send you a Howler but unfortunately you are dead and I can’t even argue properly with you.

Your (Angry) Harry


Dear Tom,

I won’t appopogise for my last letter as that would be stupid for multiple reasons, but I am much calmer now. This seems to actually help me cope with  the whole I killed my soulmate thing  everything that has happened. The newspaper is printing about me again, it seems than whenever there is nothing to write about they go back to their favourite fucking story. You know me and my damn soulmate. Sometimes I wonder if I should tell them about you, about who you were, but the peace is so fragile and I can’t.

Your Harry.


Teddy felt dread coming over him, he had an idea who this Tom could have been, but grabbing onto the slightest hope he had that Harry was talking about someone else, he kept reading.


Dear Tom,

I accepted that I will never have my own family. I love Teddy as if he was my own, but I know that it should be Remus and Tonks here and not me. Watching him go to Hogwarts, growing up and being the perfect mix of his parents… I know that I am just a placeholder, I don’t want to replace his parents and I never could, but sometimes I wish… 

Ron and Hermione just welcomed their third child, a little surprise baby for sure, and as much as I love them and feel happy for them, I am jealous. I wish we could have met under different circumstances, I wish I could have grown up with my own family and then started one with you…

Your Harry.


Dear Tom,

Today is Halloween, I never write to you this day, as you have made me hate this day, but I can’t hold back anymore. You killed my parents, you tried to kill me over and over again, and even though I accepted that I love you years ago, whenever this day arrives I hate you for a day, and it gives me a breath of fresh air. To be able to hate you again… It gives me some sense of power over our relationship. But not now. Today I woke up and realised I am no longer able to hate you even today, and that makes me sad and angry, and I feel like I am a bigger monster for loving you than you ever were.

Your Harry.


Teddy was crying as he realised just how much pain his godfather was in while raising him, and giving him the best childhood he could give him. Harry was the pures soul that ever walked the earth, when he was a kid he thought that his godfather was an angel, and now reading these letters he was sure that he was one. Who else could have so much love in their heart to forgive the man who ruined his life, than an angel?


Dear Tom,

I dreamt about you today. Usually I don’t see you in my dreams only HIM and they are more like nightmares than anything else but I digress. You looked like you did before you lost your soul, only older. We lived together and we were raising a little boy who was a perfect mix of both of us… 

Sometimes when Teddy was just a kid he would transform to look more like me and then for just a moment I liked to pretend… But in my dream the boy had your face but my hair and eyes, and he was beautiful. 

It was so real that I only realised it was a dream when I looked into the mirror and it was a much younger face looking back at me… Writing to you helps, but I think I may be writing to you too much, as I feel like I am starting to loose myself in the letters.

Loving you forever,

Your Harry.


Dear Tom,

I was able to restrain myself from writing to you for three years, but I reached my breaking point. The break was necessary, writing to you has helped me heal over the years, I was able to forgive you, accept you, and love you, but somewhere along the way I became obsessed. 

Come to think of it maybe this is how you could have felt with how much you waited for your soulmark, just to die without it… I don’t regret killing him, but I regret killing you. As I became more obsessed with our letters, I slowly started to forget that this is nothing but an illusion. I built a relationship with you in my head, and that sweet poisonous dream was my wake up call… 

But is it so wrong of me to want to embrace my obsession? I am nearing the age you were when you failed to kill me, and your obsession started, so it’s only fair I embrace mine isn’t it?

Your Harry.


Dear Tom,

I finally accepted the invitation to become the DADA professor. I really hope that your curse, that has been working quite well despite your death you smug bastard, will recognise me as your soulmate and let me keep the position. But now that I am here at the only place both of us recognised as our only home, I am tempted to go down to the chamber and explore it. 

Growing up and older made me sentimental I guess, I don’t even know what I am hoping to find but I am finally healed enough to go back there. Half a century of healing will do that to someone I guess. I really miss you, and the only bad side effect of coming back here is seeing McGonagal and Hagrid still managing, they got old but they are alive… 

And I have to think that if only you would have chosen a different path, we could have been together, despite our age gap, if only you accepted the concept of death…

I miss you you old bastard.

Your Harry.


Dear Tom,

I really love you but Merlin I am so angry at how stupid you were.

I feel like a pedofile for hoping to find some pictures of you in the chamber, I did not find any ofcourse as you probably already knew it would be an unsuccessful mission. I however did find books with what I guess are your notes on their margins… You can guess now why I called you stupid  now?

 YOU KNEW WHAT MAKING A HORCRUX WOULD DO TO YOU AND YOU STILL DID IT!!!!!!!

 You split your soul into multiple pieces even though you knew that it would change your connection to your soulmate, that you would feel it less… After all these years living with the pain of loosing you, I can somewhat understand wanting to feel it less, but I am angry at how selfish you were. I sacrificed myself over and over, I still do, every day I wake up, and chose to live another day because I know that my friend and even Teddy despite his age still need me, I live with the pain, and I will probably do so for much longer than you ever did. 

After all these years you still find new ways to hurt me. Was your soulmate less important to you than immortality?

Your Harry.


With each letter Teddy came closer to crying, but he couldn’t stop. No matter how much of an invasion of privacy it was, the sensation was like watching a carcrash. He was terrified but unable to look away, unable to do anything but watch as the cars collided and ruined eachother until there was nothing left of them.

He didn’t read every letter, there were just too many after close to two hundred years, but from what he read there clearly was a pattern. Even when he was angry at his dead soulmate his godfather kept calling himself HIS Harry. Teddy didn’t know who the wizard was reassuring with that, a ghost from the past or himself, but it was truly heartbreaking.He also noticed that as his godfather aged, the letters became longer and he couldn’t help but blame himself for that. Maybe if he spent more time with Harry, he wouldn’t have felt the need to write to his long dead other half.


Dear Tom,

I dreamt with you again. I did not tell you this but through the last two years you were in my dreams nearly as much as you were back when I was only a teen who knew nothing but pain . Before that I only had the occasional dream (nightmare) with you, because no matter how much time passes, every version of you left an impression on me to last me a lifetime. 

But back to my dream as I remember how impatient you could be… We were both old in it, it was so realistic that sometimes when I wake up, I touch the bed next to me, searching for your hand to hold it like I did it in the dream. In the dreams I didn’t see any kids or grandkids only the two of us, in the kitchen drinking tea, outside in our garden just looking at the sunset, or in our livingroom sitting on our sofa and reading.

Every time we are in a different place, but there are things that never change. The calmness that takes me over in those dreams, and that we are old and wrinkly and just so stupidly in love with each other even after more than a century together. And let me tell you that I find it extremely ironic that you were afraid of getting old, and dying and yet it is my biggest dream to grow old with you.

These dreams offer me calmness, but I think that they are a warning as well. I think Death is warning me that my time is slowly running out, and that soon I will have to be ready for his arrival. If I am right then these letters are coming to an end, and I am shameful to admit that I am grateful.

Mione used to worry about me being sucidal, but that is not it, maybe back then I was, but now I am just ready to reunite with my family. I miss my mom and dad, I miss Sirius, I miss Remus, I miss everyone and I know that when I die I will see them again. 

See you soon my beloved.

Your Harry.


Teddy was surprised, it seemed that it was the last letter that Harry wrote to his soulmate, but there was still one letter left.


Dear Teddy,

You are the son of a Maraurder, and Tonks, raised by another son of a Maraurder who also just happens to be me. I am under no illusion that you would not find and read my letters after I pass away, and I am begging you to forgive me for them.Long ago I told you that there are things that we can’t control, who someones soulmate is is also out of our control unfortunately.

Voldemort was my soulmate. No matter how much I tried to pretend that Tom Marvolo Riddle and Voldemort are two different people I can’t anymore. Dead people should not lie, and if you are reading this, that means I am dead already, so I shouldn’t lie to you now either. I will use his own words to describe who exactly Voldemort is to Tom, he is his past, present, and future.

His story is not mine to tell, so I won’t tell you about it. There is a reason his identity and how he became a monster stayed a secret for so long. But I will tell you one thing, this is my one and only excuse that I will use to try to explain myself, him and I are more alike that you would think. I do not want to elaborate, and I hope I raised you to know that it is not ideological similarities that I have with him, however due to our similarities I can emphatise with him, and probably understand him better than even he himself did.

I have no more explanation or excuses, if you want feel free to read all the letters I know that there is a lot but if after this letter you still need some sort of explanation, there they are. The only think I want to remind you is, that they are love letters born out of desperation, so don’t expect much.

If you are still reading this I have a favour I would like to ask you. If you feel that it is disrespectful feel free to ignore it, but please humor this old man… I couldn’t put this in my actual will, as I have a feeling that the reading of that will be a huge public affair, but I have one last property that I did not left in it for anyone.

More than a century ago I bought the old Riddle manor, it is in Little Hangleton, and I want you to go there and retrieve the ashes of Tom, and burry it with me please. I didn’t tell this to anyone but after the Battle of Hogwarts I collected his body and cremated him and out of pure anger I left him at the same resting place that his muggle father is buried as well.

After I found out he was my soulmate I bought their property and built and orphanage for muggle kids there and because I was a petty young adult I named it Riddle’s Sanctuary, and even tough I was still too hurt to take his ashes with me, I would like to spend my eternal peace with him.

As I left it in my will I want to be buried with my parents, and I would appreciate it if you could put the name Marvolo next to mine. He despised his muggle name, and I think leaving him where I left him was enough punishment, furthermore I want our family gravestone to look nice.

I understand if you don’t want to do that, mum and dad are his most famous victims, but he was my soulmate and I feel it is only right that I share my eternity with him.

Sorry for the ramblings of an old man, I love you pup, and I am so proud of you! Take care.

Until we meet again.

Harry James Potter


In Memory Of

James Potter        Lily Potter

The last enemy that should be destroyed is death.

Harry James Potter        Marvolo

And then he greeted Death as an old friend…

Notes:

Hope you like it! Don't be afraid to comment, and maybe check out the other two one shot in the series.

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