To Whom It May Concern:

It may grieve you now to learn
I am unable to return
to you the creature that you lent
to me, and illegally sent
to me for uses best unmentioned,
(and not wholly good-intentioned).

For you see, I’ve a complaint
That I now lodge— with much restraint—
concerning quality control
of my newly purchased troll:

I put it in the dungeon, as the pamphlet clearly said,
in a castle full of children, and not one of them is dead!

And your “Guaranteed Distraction”
only functioned for a fraction
of the time that you had promised,
which is terribly dishonest.
And it’s set back all my planning,
ruined schemes I have been manning,
So that now I’m quite upset
with the results of my new pet.

I could destroy your reputation
and your company’s good station!
For you lied to me, you lied!
At great expense and injured pride.

However:
after much consideration
of our current situation,
I’ve decided to just let
the matter drop and to forget
the issue of substandard trolls
and any subsequent plot holes.

But do not expect him back!
For he suffered quite a whack
and bore the brunt of his own bat
and now I don’t know where he’s at.
That is…concussed, he lumbered on
out to the grounds and then was gone.

I shan’t be looking for him, and demand my fee back, whole.
There’s not a bloody chance I’ll pay for your defective troll.

Yours,

Lord Vol
He-Who-Mu
Quirinus Quirrell 

Lily,

Ensnaring senses, I said.
Though I never sense the snare until
those fumes, noxious poison
self-brewed bubbling up,
boiling over— a cauldron
                       a man
can only hold so much.

I lied.
about the stoppering death bit, I couldn’t
even stop myself. Certainly not
your death, certainly
I know ingredients to put death in a bottle,
but no way to keep it to myself,
as mine alone, Hallowed or otherwise and

I would know,
having tried, O
I have tried. Being
after all,

a selfish, selfish man.

-Severus

Harry Potter
English, Year 5
21 September 1990

                “Ode to Dudley” by Harry Potter

          Dudley Dursley with his girth and breasts
            Ate all the food and choked to death.
              Now everyone is growing hungry.
           But nobody wants to start with Dudley.

Mr. Potter,

This is not an appropriate response to the assignment “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” Your guardians will be notified.

—Mrs. Pilgrey

[assignment sent to Mr. and Mrs. Durlsey of Number 4, Privet Drive. request for Parent-Teacher Conference attached. no reply received. ]

  Wolf— 

Take two days prior to the full moon.
If you should neglect this instruction, 
your midnight beast will be mild and 
insufficient in comparison to my response.

You bring danger, beast.
I will call that bet and raise you death.

Do not: Respond to this with protest;
Insinuate marked skin is equivalent
        to your ruined physiology;
Wax poetic and obscene on youth’s foils or;
hint at any seething hint of supposed commiseration: 
‘We were both children once. Fifteen is grown out of.’

Guilty, Wolf, is a label never left behind.

I have turned from my master, monster.
But the moon remains your mistress,
and more fierce for its bloodshed.

Do not neglect this order.

S. Snape

[letter delivered, attached to potion vial. no reply received.]

 Dora,

I’ve been trying to make you see for so long
there are so many reasons not to love me
But in my desperation to make you understand
I have forgotten to mention

I don’t know

I don’t know why you can’t love me but I know that you mustn’t
I have hidden myself from you and I have been weak
A cowardly Gryffindor; I have never been more ashamed
I don’t know how to let you go
If I could choose to be with anybody, it would always be you
You are everything I am not; we contrast so perfectly
I can’t help but wonder what we could have been
Had I not been who I am, and who I am is old, sick, poor and weak
You are beautiful and brave; such a contrast

I don’t know how to be strong without you
But I would become your weakness
It is for that reason that this is how it must be
Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll say that I don’t love you
And you can fall in love with somebody who deserves you
Because I wouldn’t ask you to sacrifice your life
I wouldn’t ask you to do it for anybody
Let alone me

I’m so sorry,
But I just don’t know.

Remus


[letter sent; reply penned but not sent]

“Contrast,” submitted by narrations.tumblr.com →

Hullo, all!

Two things:
1. Christmas is next week!
2. You are all exceptionally amazing. 

What does this mean? 
It means I want to have a “Letters From Hogwarts: Christmas” series over this next week. Holiday-themed letters and posts are the name of the game. Anything goes: A Christmas letter from Ginny to Harry, from James to Lily, Filch to Mrs. Norris— even a wishlist from Gred and Forge to Father Christmas.

It can happen two ways:

1. You can write and submit your own letter  to be posted or

2. You can submit your letter idea that you would like to see written (i.e. write something like: Cho to Cedric, “I miss you when it snows”, set during Order of the Phoenix). 

——

Tumblr is full of beautifully creative people, and this has the potential to be quite fun. So if you’re interested, get writing! If you have a poem/letter you’d like to see, get to asking for it! If you have friends you think would like to participate, reblog and spread the love. 

This is a thank you for the considerable amount of followers this blog has recently received, so hopefully this will be a bit of fun for everyone and a dose of holiday cheer! (Or angst. Even Voldemort probably gets lonely on Christmas. Nagini is always so moody.) You guys are wonderful.

Cheers,
The Postmaster

                                                             
                                    r          t            a             
                      s       m      e           o        l        d              
                        n      o     m        n        b      o          
                         a       o     u      k     u      b         
                             p       d   s       s s      b  c   j   a  m  e   s
                 l   i   l   y   e     y  of light.  y    e      
                              n       s     f     h             d                 
                             i       i      r          e             r          
                           l       r      e         d              i
                         o     i        d               w             c
                       c       u                         i
                               s                         g                                            

                                             h
                                           s
                                         a
                                        l
                                      f
                                    a
                                  n
                                 i
                               s
                             d
                           n
                         e                               

                  everything

Hermione, Harry,

I’m always weak when it counts.

After all these years, you’d think
I could trust what’s in my heart 
and in our past,

                     (hurt betrayal fear pain death grief so much danger
                     togethertogethertogetheralwaysatrio, what can’t we do?)

instead of listening to the ugly parts of me,
pieces that know
the voice inside that locket.

I’m sorry. I promise I’ll come back, somehow. I’ll find you.

I will find you.

                            —Ron


[letter unsent.]

Padfoot,

How can a man speak pain, cut up from his gut,
these bleeding pieces of history left lying dead?
The loudest lumos would show only more darkness,
the hollow space in my chest lit up by the cold white
of the moon, where there was once my heart,

was once loyalty, friendship, the hope of better things.
What happened to those days? Salty summers, lakeside,
skipping stones at the giant squid, loping fast through
trees at midnight, not caring, not caring—

We have always been schoolboys and fools. And now we lose ourselves
to death, to disease, to betrayal, greed, fear, imprisonment.
You have died on me a second time, left every wind grown bitter,
left tracks through the forest of my grief, and they are solitary.

“But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking.
Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.”

                           My life is spent in bonds.
She has always been my chilly mistress and you my brother,

but prison needs no Dementors nor bars to steal your soul, to break it—
The only thing required is absence, the only thing required is guilt.
The only thing required is the curse of living when no one else will.

            What is a wolf without his pack? What then, what? 

                     —Moony 

[letter unsent.]