OOC: Transfiguring the outline of a snapshot from ages ago into a letter!

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion. Noam Chomsky

Gabrielle Dagon
4C Burgoyne Burbidges Lofts
Barking
London

Ariadne Gamp
107b Diagon Alley
London

Gabs,

So mum told me not to speak to anybody outside the family about this, but I could really do with doing just that. Mum said it with this finality and gravity, the sort she puts on when she’s trying to be tougher than she needs to be. Doing the whole serious auror act.

When it all came out last year it was like I fell off my broom mid-match. When she told me about what happened yesterday I think my stomach made a new home between my knees and my head just seemed to be spinning like a top. It was all A LOT.

So, it turns out Dad wasn’t Dad, my gran is still alive but pretending to be my dad, but then also pretending to be a healer. I know, right, what the heck? My gran’s like a metamorphmagus like my aunt but she never used it for fun stuff. I swear I should have inherited it, I will never get over being jealous. Like if the world could gift me it right now as karma for my gran misusing it, I would be a saint for the rest of my life.

Anyway. Aunt Andie and Uncle Ceph figured it out by the time it was almost entirely too late. Mum and Raine and some others apparently came rushing to St Mungo’s to help them. My grandpa was there, and it turns out my gran wanted to rescue him. There was this big fight[1] and someone set fire to the place, like it wasn’t already dramatic enough.

Then they thought my grandpa had escaped, but now they think he’s turned himself into an umbrella?! You can see how my head was spinning. Like, I always thought my grandparents were super strict, posh and entirely up themselves. We used to joke at how the hell my dad was their son because he’s so different, but clearly my whole family are completely bats (apart from uncle Ceph and cousin Tia maybe).

It had been so much easier first thing on valentines day. I woke up oblivious to the fact it even was valentines day. I miss that feeling of blissful ignorance, that optimistic, ordinary morning. Is it wrong to be simultaneously thankful for not witnessing any of this shit while also frustrated at missing it firsthand? Maybe I am one of the crazy Gamps after all.

So anyway. I’m writing this from their house[2]. My aunt Andie lives here now, and if I peer through the curtains I can see some sketchy Daily Prophet reporter hanging around outside. Like one of the ones people warn me not to talk to at work as a colleague, let alone talk to them about my family. Ugh! I felt it might be safer to come here because I swear someone was hanging around outside our flat in Diagon Alley pointing a camera at our windows. They can be disappointed to only see Virgil and Nick in their undies instead.

It’s kind of cosy here but at the same time weird as, because it’s here I associate with my grandparents the most. Also I keep hoping my dad will actually come home from wherever he is. I don’t like the thought that my gran has been impersonating him, but that explains why he didn’t meet up with me. I thought he just didn’t give a shit. But now he won’t come home for real so maybe Gran wasn’t so far off. He’s probably having too much fun somewhere.

Solly, the house elf is fussing big time over everything. Especially today as Aunt Andromeda has insisted on coming home. She got impaled by an umbrella and blasted by some pretty violent spells so she’s walking around like and old person. I’m just really glad she’s ok and you know, not an umbrella. The house elf is also trying to over compensate, when Ceph told her the news yesterday she wailed all night and tried to blame herself for not realising. She’s quite sensitive for an elf I guess.

I heard them mentioning Morgenthau, Virgil’s boss, was involved. I wonder if he thinks my grandparents are like ‘normal’ unspeakables or if they’re just crazy. Like does he know what they were working on? How they went all weird? Will Virgil go all weird too? What are they going to do to my gran? Like send her to Azkaban? Do experiments on her? What about my grandad? Is he stuck as an umbrella?

Sorry for like dumping on you Gabs. I just miss how we could just talk about deep stuff in the middle of the night in the dormitory at Hogwarts. Nick and Virgil are great but they’re not you. Please send me something sane. Tell me about your weird customers or what your family’s up to at the ranch. How living with Wav is going? Like, maybe I can crash there one night and put the world to rights?

Love,

Ari x

1.	14th Feb, 2012, Dashed to Pieces
2.	the house at Godric’s Hollow