Private message to Barty

For some reason, tonight I am thinking about when you were young, and when we first met -- how torn you were between not wanting to intrude on my tutoring sessions with Regulus, knowing how little time we were able to carve from Hogsmeade weekends, and yet being drawn so inexorably to what you could overhear of what I was teaching.

I have ever been glad that you allowed curiosity and the lure of the forbidden to overrule the manners you had been taught, you know. I am certain we would have found each other anyway, in time, but I would have hated to miss the honour of having been your first tutor in the Arts.

You will roll your eyes at me for the sentimentality, but I do not say it often enough: I love you, my son, and I am so tremendously proud of the man you have made yourself. The most joyous day of my life was the day upon which I was able to welcome you into the family in the presence of all our honoured dead.