Backdated to Saturday
[Private to Sirius]
I have recently spent a good deal of time considering the direction my life has taken, as well as words of advice dispensed to me during counsel given on another matter:
"Let weak things perish as they must."
The advice was not dispensed save in a very specific capacity, but as I said: I have been thinking. You asked me what your next step was towards rehabilitation. I believe it is not your step, but mine. I can not help you if I hate you.
When we were boys, you played a prank. It nearly resulted in the loss of my life. I have spent the past four months attempting to impress upon you the seriousness of what you did.
Had I lived, I would be forty. I have a family to consider, and I now wonder what they will think of a man who holds a twenty-five years old grudge. I believe the time has come for me to acknowledge several things:
Firstly, I was not blameless. Perhaps I did not start a good many of our confrontations, but I certainly helped to perpetuate them.
Secondly, it was a mistake - one which did not require decades of hatred.
Perhaps I was assigned to you because these were lessons I yet needed to learn. I need not be your friend, but I can sit in the same room with you now without drawing my wand. Even if it pains, frustrates, irritates me to write these words (and, indeed, I have snapped two quills in half), I have written them. I shall consider it progress.
As to your rehabilitation: since your arrival, I have maintained that you did not deserve to be an inmate. I have advocated for you because, in spite of our feud, you are a good man
That pause you may have perceived was the loss of another quill.
I have not read your file, but I know that your life has never been as easy as I would like to believe. You have a difficult road ahead of you, and you will find I will exacerbate matters. This is in my past, and I can do nothing to correct it. I will say now to you, however, that I am regretful. Truly - my behaviour was inexcusable.
I suppose there is more to be said, but I have other matters to which I must attend, and if I continue with this semi-saccharine rubbish, I'll throw myself overboard. So I shall conclude with this:
I do not like you, but I respect you.
Grudgingly. Very grudgingly.
Our feud is a weak thing. I would prefer to give it a long-overdue burial.
[Private to Martha]
Martha, I am writing this now in the hopes that I might say all that needs to be said. Were we to have this discussion in person, I suspect it would go just as well as our last.
I have spoken with Lucius. Before you object, I will state for the record that he gave me remarkably good counsel for someone with such an objection to you, and I, being a relatively intelligent person, have given this a good deal of consideration on my own.
To begin, I owe you an apology. Two, in fact. First, my response to your decision was far too emotionally charged and unreasonable. I viewed your decision as a choice of your inmate over me - and whether it was or not, I ought to have remained calm. Instead, I invited argument for the sake of argument. I apologize.
Second, I have done you an injustice. I have held our marriage in comparison to that of the Malfoys, presuming that your loyalty would be the same to me as Narcissa's is to Lucius. That you would choose family above all else. When I broached the subject with Lucius, he reminded me that they have been married for two decades, and it has not been easy. Our situations are not the same. I thought you were unshakably loyal to me. My expectations were too high, and when I was confronted with reality, I reacted poorly. For all of that, I am sorry, also.
That is all you are owed of me.
He also, in some context, suggested the appropriate response was either to bring you around to my line of thinking - or say 'yes, dear', and trust you have my best interests at heart.
I do not believe you have my best interests at heart, Martha. So I shall tell you my line of thinking and you may make your decisions from that point.
Arya. This girl is an inmate. She is not your child, no more than Mozenrath was mine. Just as Mozenrath rehabilitated with the aid of another warden, so would Arya. Just because you believe you are able to help her does not mean you are the sole person who can.
There is, too, the matter of our expectations of one another. When it seemed you wished to leave, I reminded you time and again that I would take no insult in it if you chose to go. You did not offer me the same consideration.
If I can not expect you to abandon Arya, and you wish me to remain aboard with you, there is a fair deal of hypocrisy in expecting me to abandon the inmate I am assigned next. It is a rare thing when two inmates graduates simultaneously.
I cannot make you leave. If you wish to stay, that is your choice. However, you are here willingly, Martha. I was brought here against my will. I remained here for you and for Mozenrath, thinking that, when his time was done, there would be nothing to hold us here. I placed him above you as you placed Coyo. above me. I did not think you would prioritize another inmate above me, but that is neither here nor there. In short, I do not want to be here. This is not a home to me; it is a prison. I was imprisoned here, I have experienced horrors and suffering here, and I do not like being here. The expectation that I would stay in some perpetual cycle of inmates is inconsiderate and unjust.
It is your decision to remain aboard for Arya. If you truly believe you are the only one who can help her, you have my blessing to stay. Do so in good health.
However, I have a right to a decision of my own, and it is this: I will see Sirius Black through to graduation. If he does so within the month, I will remain aboard until the year is out. Come December 30th, I will leave with or without you.
I will not turn you out again, whatever you decide. I will wait for you at home if you wish it. If not - it is not something I enjoy considering, but I have attempted to keep emotion at bay. If my departure from the Barge is what ends our marriage...well, I will say then that I did, indeed, take too much for granted, and am willing to allow weak things to perish as they must.
Be warned, that there are consequences to any decision. I am willing to accept the consequences of the decision I have made. Weigh yours carefully, Martha. There is guilt in leaving an inmate to whom you have grown attached, but there will also be guilt in choosing that same inmate over your spouse. You must decide which burden is yours to bear.
I do love you. That I have taken time to write this should be evidence enough of that.
[Private to Lucius]
Remarkably good counsel.
Problem solved.
[Read: Thank you.]