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James,
If you are reading this, I have died. My death is inevitable, though my mortality is more acute than yours. It is why I do not fear what will become of my body, nor my legacy; either of my likely causes will further ravage my corpse and paint me a deviant, desecrated by both my devotion and this illness.
I write this letter not to summon guilt and grief, but to encourage against it, and to possibly explain myself. As it stands, I am a traitor to those who truly love me; you, my brother, my disgraced relatives. You would all be correct in your assumption that I have betrayed you, for I have betrayed you by lying to you, so profusely that my lies have spun a web more intricate and nonsensical than any silk could withstand. Please allow me one chance to redeem my broken soul.
I did not choose to join the ranks of Lord Voldemort of my own volition. This decision was influenced by Professor Dumbledore - let me finish - in the interest of being a double agent for the benefit of the Order. I understand that the idea of a superior, with a responsibility to care for and protect his students, encouraging an underage pupil of dark descent to succumb to his enemy, is inconceivable and, frankly, insane. However, when considering the circumstances of both the war and my disposition, I was the best candidate for what was, and continues to be, a suicide mission. My skill in both occlumency and legilimency made me an asset, along with my familial influence; my illness and its terminal nature made me disposable. You may or may not understand, though, if I remember your courage and orthodoxy correctly, I assume and pray you will. What is important to know is that I am a spy; below the frozen surface of my devout persona, I do not believe a word of that man’s bumbling lunacy. I am sorry for making you all believe that I ever did; for the record, it was yours and Sirius’s salvage that delivered me from the true disgrace of falling orthodox to his fallacy.
As I write, I know it is almost time. If you were to see me, you would not recognize me; any beauty I possessed in my youth has evaporated, devoured by this illness. I weigh so little, and I exhaust so easily. I only wither further under the faux concern of my parents and the healers they bring me to; if they were not all so blind to the origin of my maladie, I would suffer the same as the muggles, and almost certainly would have met my demise much sooner.
Though I am still unsure if this wisp of a life was worth holding on to for this long, it has been made endurable by the chance to help save the innocent of the Order. I wish I could tell you more, but the only knowledge I have of my objective is dangerous if disclosed.
What I can tell you is that all I have done, all I have endured and lost in this ill-fated pursuit, has been for you, and for those close to you. As soon as I knew of the imminence of my finis, I knew as well my desire to keep yours as far on the horizon as possible. You are good, in every definition of the word, so rare and endangered in this ashen landscape of senseless, unbridled violence, and I will always strive to preserve that. Even if your innocence is ripped from your hands by your duty, the James Potter I remember will be the one who chose to defend the condemned, to love the undesirable.
Perhaps, if I were not afflicted in both physiology and fate, I would have loved you more directly. I could not stand to break your heart in any closer proximity; it is why for so long I have only aided from afar, recklessly and impersonally. That is not to say I regret my course of action, only that if circumstances were in our favour, I would abandon the greater good in favour of your absolute, not once looking over my shoulder as I fled.
Perhaps, in this impossible utopia, I would allow sorrow over my hopefully merciful death. However, in this Hell in which my fate is predetermined, the only thing I can ask of you is not to mourn when the bell tolls my untimely demise. Even with my name cleared in your forum, I am not innocent, nor enough of an asset to this world to deserve your malaise. You, James Potter, are the best thing to happen to me; my long-suffering, dying wish is that you gain some solace from my sacrifice. You have been dealt an unjust hand of cards, and I gave you mine in hopes of bettering your odds. Do not waste my pitiful offering to your divinity in the name of lamenting my ruined body.
I love you from my remote outpost in your life, and hope to do so more intimately in the next.
Regulus Black
20 December, 1979