Owl Post meme, a bit late, sorry sorry.

[madam_rosmerta]

OWL MAIL Wizards might not text with a mobile phone all that often, but they do have other methods of communication available when it comes to a quick chat with their mates (or enemies) at any hour of the day. Post your characters, name, and preferences in the title area. You can include a generic starter if you want, or just post a blank. Anything goes. 1. OWL MAIL This might be a little slow for quicker chats, especially if you're close by, but it's good to give the bird some exercise! 2. FIRE CALL Just pop your head into that fire and chat away. Probably not recommended for drunken calls. 3. ENCHANTED MIRROR Those little reflective surfaces that show your friend's face whenever you might need to tell them something. Maybe you can enchant them to connect to any reflective surface around your chosen contact? (Maybe not the bathroom...) 4. HOWLERS Ever received one? It's supposed to be absolutely horrible. 5. OTHER MAGICAL COMMUNICATION The ones above are hardly the only way wizards can reach out to each other for a quick chat. Feel free to invent new items or use something like enchanted notebooks that you write in and the other sees the text at their end. You could also use flying letters, talking portraits, or, well, cellphones, if you will.

Comments

[surnameonly]

[ Remus was not a wealthy man, and Tonks has certainly never been rich either. It's easy to tell that these clothes are costly beyond anything she would ever have been able to buy for Teddy, even with her mother's help.

Does it occur to her to burn it? Yes. But then Teddy catches sight of the chameleon, and his little hands reach for it, and she can't bright herself to not give it to him. Too much has been taken from him already.

So she lets him have it, and she sits down to write a letter to Narcissa. ]

Narcissa,

Honestly I'm too damn tired to be angry right now. There's been too much of it already. And enough hate to last us all a lifetime. I might feel differently if I was speaking to you in person rather than trying to write something that makes sense.

I don't know what I would say to you if you were here right now. Probably things I might later come to regret. Hurtful things that I would mean from the bottom of my heart, at least in that moment.

Thank you for the clothes, he does need them and I haven't exactly been in the mood for shopping lately. He's growing bigger every day. He smiled for the first time yesterday. It was his father's smile.

He loves his chameleon. Mum actually tried to take it from him and he cried like a banshee.

[ She should probably say that she is happy for Narcissa that her son still has a father, but she can't. She can't even think it without wanting to scream.

Lucius Malfoy, that bigoted, sadistic coward got to live while her Remus had to die. ]

Dora Lupin

[purely]

| She hasn't lost Lucius, never more than temporary, but she remembers the despair she had felt when she thought she might. There were brushes, more than once, and they cling to her. When he didn't come home after being summoned by the Dark Lord, when He had fallen for the first time and Lucius had been taken to court. She had held Draco, still a baby, and wondered what to do if this was it, for him.

But it had never come to pass, that worst case scenario. He was asleep, now, she could see him lying on the bed from her spot in the study. He wasn't fine, but he was alive, and she was privileged. Tonks had not been granted this privilege.

She keeps the letter.

A few months later, the same owl returns to Tonks with yet another package – just as big. |

Dear Nymphadora,

they grow so fast, and they outgrow even faster – I thought Teddy might like some of these. | Clothing, so much clothing. It's as if Narcissa, as a new mother, did nothing but dress her child, three times a day. | The book is a lifesaver; you may already have one like it. It deals with all the teething troubles and other childhood maladies, plus the first exploits of magic.

The pictures are of your mother, as a child. I found them recently. Perhaps she would like to keep them, though I doubt it – in either case, it might be nice for you to have them.

Narcissa

| The photographs show a young Andromeda, in all stages. A small child, laughing, a young girl with her Hogwarts letter, unwrapping gifts, climbing trees, toddling after a house elf. She is alone in all of them, Narcissa was careful to make sure of that when she selected them. |

[surnameonly]

[ The photos make her cry, as so many things seem to do these days. She never used to be one for crying, laughter always seemed to come so much easier than tears. Now she can't remember the last time she really laughed.

The clothes are a welcome gift, sparing her the agony of having to go out and buy some. Morphing has become so difficult, but she can't bear the sympathy in people's eyes when she goes out on errands as herself. ]

Mother isn't quite ready yet to accept your olive branches, but I will keep the photos safe until she is.

Thank you for the book, so many things about babies leave me stumped. Auror training does in no way prepare you for parenthood. I suppose maybe nothing really does.

How is your family? I imagine things have not been easy.

[ She can't quite feel any pity for Lucious still, but does feel some for Draco. He was just a boy after all. ]

Thank you for thinking of me and Teddy.

Dora

[purely]

We are close to three decades of silence; this cannot be fixed with pictures, though I hope you liked them nevertheless.

I handled the baby times fairly well, myself, it's the toddler years that I struggled with the most. The most random of things are cause for anger or tears. I suppose Teddy, as a metamorphmagus, might leave you clues in colours?

Lucius is grappling with life and "values" – there has been some restructuring in those for me, and we are confronted with things we do not see eye to eye on – and Draco... Well, it is almost September, and I have been trying to persuade him to return to Hogwarts. He is struggling with guilt, and shame, and, I suspect, with the things he has seen, and there is a rift between him and his father that will take time to mend.

If there is anything Teddy and you could need, please let me know. This is what I ought to have done for Andromeda and you so many years ago, and I failed – I will try my hardest not to fail you again, until such a time as you ask me to stop.

Narcissa

[surnameonly]

They were lovely. Mum doesn't talk much about that time in her life, it was nice to get a glimpse of it.

You're right, you can figure some things out based on his hair colour, though it took me a while to figure out what they mean. It's not like there is a very natural logical leap to make between magenta and "I just shat myself".

I take your words to mean that your husband's values remain mostly unstructured?

If you think I can help your kid somehow, I'll try.

I wish we could have been a family instead of what we became. For so many reasons. I'm glad that you are trying now, late as it might be.

Dora

[purely]

I have been trying to find more since you wrote this, but it's difficult to find some of just your mother. It used to be the three of us, a lot, and more so in photographs.

I have to admit, I laughed. This could be an early sign of a sense of humour, no?

Lucius and I were raised on the same rhetorics: blood can be diluted until the magic in it is gone, and the muggle-led witch burnings were a nearly successful genocide. Lucius and I are also both very much capable of performing a flame-freezing spell, and yet the idea of witches and wizards actually dying, as opposed to faking their deaths and disappearing in large numbers, persists over the factual truth. This is about the trust we had in our parents, pride, dignity, honour. He can't believe he followed all the 'rules' and yet lost them all. He knows he only lived because I lied, and yet, I lied. I would like to say that time can fix this, but there are no promises to be made.

His attention is mostly on the peacocks, perhaps that is his idea of peace.

What Draco needs is a set of parents who have become disillusioned by the idea of a perfect pureblood society some seventeen years ago. I don't think anyone can give him that, so in lieu, I am trying to steel him. Thank you for the offer – I let him know, and while he looked confused, it got something of a nod out of him. Perhaps this is all it took, already.

I wish so, too. So much has been lost.

Narcissa

[surnameonly]

I appreciate your sensitivity.

You know, I think it just might be. Wouldn't have pegged you for a toilet humour sort of person, but I deeply appreciate this fact.

If things were more normal I would say that I hope you and your husband can mend things, but because things are the way we are I find myself struggling with how to respond. Perhaps you can understand.

Sounds like there is hope for your kid.

So much has been lost, but there are still new things to gain. It's hard for me to see that sometimes, but today is one of those days when I feel like I can breathe again. I'll be okay, I have to be for Teddy's sake. And for Remus'. All he ever wanted for me was happiness.

Dora

[purely]

Well, what could you possibly reply? I am sure some of your feelings have very eloquently reached my home in the form of a howler, just not in your voice. If lives were currency – Merlin, people would make the trade if all Lucius was was older than those they lost. Having played a role in the deaths of so many, however reluctantly, does him even fewer favours.

I am glad there are better days for you. I wish there were nothing but. I wish that your husband, too, could have lived through the war. I wish I could have seen what this war would come to when I was young enough to change something about my decisions. I know that my wishing does not change anything.

Narcissa

P.S.: Draco returns to Hogwarts on September 1st. He is considering to become a healer, it's a new ambition, and I am very proud of him.

[surnameonly]

I'll see Remus again. It'll just take a while, and I have a lot to look forward to while I wait. That's how I try to look at things nowadays, makes it easier to get out of bed and put clothes on and all those adult things you have to do. Mum is helping out a lot, but I don't want Teddy to grow up with a mother who's only half there.

I'm pleased to hear about Draco, I hope that whatever he does it makes him find some peace of mind. You can tell him that from me if you like.

Dora