Instead of writing letters he will never send, Gus decided to keep them inside a charmed journal that only he can open. There are several letters tucked into random pages that he's already penned but didn't have the heart to get rid of.

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This is hastily scribbled, the ink thicker like he'd been pressing the nib hard against the parchment.

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27 June 1895

Why am I meant to keep standing at the edge of graves with my fists clenched and my mouth full of words I didn’t say in time?

If this is my curse, if this is the price of having people I love dearly, then I’m tired of paying it.

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1 July 1895

I don’t know which one of you I’m writing to, so I suppose it’ll be both of you for now. Not that it matters because you’re both not here anymore. It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t sit right in my bones. It’s not absence exactly, but something much heavier. It’s the echo of someone who should still be here.

Both of you should be.

Mason, I’ve been offered your post. Hufflepuff Head of House. I took it because well… I wanted to make you proud.

I mean, I know I’ll never be you. I won’t try to be. It doesn’t feel right, still, having this title attached to my name but I keep thinking about one of the first things you told me when we first met – we just make it up as we go along.

So I’ll do that. I’ll keep showing up and trying my best. For them. For you.

Sophia, keep an eye on him, will you? I just know he went too soon, and I wasn’t ready. You watch him and I’ll watch the kids. It seems like a fair trade off.

Just until I get there.

(But hopefully that’ll be a long while.)

And Mason, I’ll take care of our house. I promise.

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6 July 1895

I didn’t even know how to start this. Hell, I still don’t. I think I’ve written your name a hundred times already, trying to find the words that follow it. But everything sounds wrong.

It’s your birthday.

I still can’t make sense of a world that keeps turning without you in it, yet these days keep creeping up on me - birthdays, holidays and everything in between. I still look around the house and find you’re still here in the spaces that you touched: the novel you were reading is still dogeared, but now it’s collecting dust on the shelf, the bottle of wine you brought home that we never opened after getting married is still in the kitchen, and your perfume is still on your nightstand. I haven't dared to touch it.

Somehow you’re still gone in every way that matters.

I didn’t get to say goodbye the way I wanted. I didn’t get to ask what you’d want me to do with days like this. So I guessed. I made your tea the way you always took it and left it by the windowsill you always sat on. The one that faces the sea. I sat with it. With you.

I don’t know how to do this without you, Soph. Not really. But I’m trying.

Happy birthday.

I miss you.

I love you.

Always.

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7 July 1895

The funeral is over. It’s been over for hours, but I’m still trying to figure out how I feel. There’s no preparing for the kind of finality that I saw today, your name carved into stone. I tried. I really did, and you would have laughed at me for trying to rehearse grief like it was an exam. Hell, you probably would have arched an eyebrow and asked me why I was suddenly getting sentimental.

The truth is, I didn’t cry. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know where to begin. I’m lonelier in a way I never expected to be.

Who’s going to roll their eyes at me across the High Table? Who’s going to let me sit in the greenhouse for hours and talk about nothing? Who’s going to tell me to stop being stupid when I worry about lessons and students? Who’s going to let me drag them on stupid adventures that never go as intended, but are still fun in the end? (At least to me; I hope you had fun too.)

You were my best friend, Mason. And I never told you properly how much that meant.

So here it is, too late and too quiet: thank you. For staying. For seeing me. For letting me see you.

I promise to visit.

I’ll take care of Pepper, too.

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Before he forgets, Gus tucked the Daily Prophet page into the journal, charmed to ensure it wouldn't fall out every time he opens the book. The edges are crinkled from where he's gripped the parchment too tight, like he can't fathom what he was reading.

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12 July 1895

I talked to the moon about you last night. After the kids went to bed. It sounds mad, doesn’t it? Both of you would probably say it does, but I think you’d both understand. Hell, you’re probably looking at each other right now nodding your heads.

Mason, I told her about the time I had to go to you for help with the mandrake. I think that was the moment we became actual friends instead of just colleagues. And Soph, I told her about the first time we danced. How awkward I was in comparison to a real ballerina, but you still appeased me. That was the moment I think I fell in love with you, well you know, best friend in love. I also told her about how I still sleep on the left side, even though there’s no one there to steal the blankets now.

I miss you both. God do I miss you. But I’m still putting one foot in front of the other. Still making space for laughter. Still trying to live because the world insists on spinning.

You would’ve loved the garden this year. The lavender came in early.

Keep an eye out for each other, won’t you?

Just until I get there.

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19 July 1895

Nine months have gone by. Three more to go.

I hate partial-morning more than I hate mourning. Lavender and grey instead of black. I can attend some events now, but not balls or anything super social thank goodness, but it’s also not like I wanted to go in the first place, even when you were here. I was happy, content with our little life.

At least when I wore black people left me alone. Now it feels like the world is getting louder and I keep mistaking the noise for healing. But it isn’t. It’s just everyone else moving on and hoping that I’ll follow like an obedient child and do the same. As if grief were a corridor, and I’ve dawdled too long at the portrait that bears your face.

I tried to wear something lavender just the other day, but I couldn’t. I’m not ready. I’m surviving.

Three months left and then I can wear what I want. Do what I want. Carry on as if I am whole again when I’m not entirely sure how to keep going without you. The kids are okay. I make sure to put on a happy face for them. Make sure they know they are loved by me. That you loved them wholeheartedly.

But after they go to bed, I find that I’m someone else entirely. I still reach for you in the dark, still write you letters I never send.

The worst part, Sophia? I’m not sure if you’d like or hate the someone else I’ve become.

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20 July 1895

Do you remember the little slanted roof that we could reach from one of the bridges? The one we used to sneak up on just before curfew? You said it was the best place to dance on campus, even if sometimes you complained your toes might fall off when it was so cold out.

I remember one day you danced. Not a full routine. It was a string of steps that matched the wind, or whatever song you were hearing in your head. Your hair came loose. Your shoes were scuffed. You looked terribly undo if I’m being honest, but I still remember the smile on your face when you were finished. Like dancing was the thing you loved most in the world.

It was one of the moments I fell in love with you. Your freedom. Your grace. Your ability to be you without having a single care in the world for what anyone else thought about you.

It was then I knew you’d be a brilliant dancer. I still think of you under the stage lights, your back arched, arms curved, natural in a way that showed you always belonged up there.

I don’t know what made me think of this, but now that I don’t have a curfew (professor status does have bonuses from time to time), I think I’ll go sit up on the roof. I won’t ask anyone else to join because it’s our spot.

And who knows, maybe I’ll do a twirl or two for you.

I miss you.

But today I feel okay.

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5 August 1895

Sophia,

I’ve been trying to write to you all morning, but I keep getting stuck after your name. Even now, it feels unreal, like you’re just away at the ballet or doing something at the theater. I haven’t stepped foot inside it since… Well, then. What’s the point, when you’re not there?

It’s been almost ten months since you’ve been gone. Double digits. We were only married for what… two, almost three months? You didn’t get anything out of it because you died too soon, and all I got was grief and shoved into mourning. People talk about the gift of love, but it doesn’t feel like a gift when I’m the only one left holding it.

I haven’t moved your things yet, even if the house elves have tried. I just… I live around them, like a ghost myself. I’m afraid if I do, then the last of you will vanish. Like your scent already has from the pillow. Like your voice is already getting harder to hear in my head.

I wear the ring like I’ve earned it. Like a widower with decades behind him instead of scraps. I say my wife in past tense and people offer that awful look. You know the one because I’m sure you saw it often when Jacob passed – the tight, pitying one that makes me want to scream until my lungs give out. I’d rather they ignored it completely.

You died in the bright part. And the dark came too fast after.

You would have hated this letter, I think. Too heavy. Too sad. You would’ve told me to write something beautiful, something worth reading on the other side, if there is one.

But this is all I’ve got, Soph.

Sadness and memory. A ring. A silence too loud to ignore.

And love. Still love. Always love.

Happy anniversary.

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1 September 1895

Today the Sorting Ceremony happens, and well… it’s the first one you’re not going to be at. I keep waiting to hear you laugh or to see you standing by the door with your arms folded, but I can’t even imagine a ghost of you. You’re not here, and the silence you’ve left behind feels louder than any voice.

I sat in the common room for a while, trying to wrap my head around this. I don’t know if I’ll ever grow used to being called Head of House. It feels borrowed, like I’m only keeping your chair warm until you come back to claim it. I miss you. Who’s going to tell me I’ll be okay, and that I’m just getting inside my own head?

I keep thinking of the hundreds of small things I never thanked you for. The way you made me laugh when I was too tired to manage it on my own. The way you believed in me long before I deserved it.

You were my friend before you were anything else. My best friend. And I don’t know how to walk through this castle without reaching for you.

I promise that I won’t let our house falter.. I’ll carry it as best I can, for you, for them. But Merlin, Mason, I wish I didn’t have to do it without you.

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19 October 1895

It’s meant to be over.

Three months in full mourning, nine more in half. I wore the greys, the lavenders, the starch-stiff collars, and clothes that were deemed respectable by someone I don’t give a damn about. I did all of it right but I still miss you. I miss you so goddamn much that it hurts to breathe.

Today marks the day I am free to return to society, to wear the colors I want to wear, to begin a search for a new wife if I wanted one (which I do not), to live my life as if you hadn’t ever been in it. Truth be told, I am still trying to remember how to move at all. Grief has settled deep in my bones. My heart is still broken and I’m not sure anything can be done to fix it.

I didn’t think it would feel like this. I thought it would feel like some spell breaking at last. I thought maybe I’d breathe easier. Maybe I’d miss you a little less. But it doesn’t. It feels like betrayal. Like I’m being asked to step further from you than I’m willing to go.

Society must think that grief expires. That a year and a half is enough to forget a lifetime of love and memories, but you Sophia, are everywhere. My pockets, my lungs, the space beneath my ribs. I miss you. I can’t scrub you out of my head just because tradition says I must.

Sometimes I wake up and forget you’re dead. That’s the worst part. That moment before the grief returns, before the knowledge finds me again and drowns me.

They say I’m no longer in mourning. That I’ve done my duty. That I may go on.

But I don’t know how to do that. Not really.

I will try. For you. For the kids. For myself.

But I promise, I swear on my life Sophia, that I will never, ever forget you.

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