Disclaimer: All things HP belong to JKR and all things Buffy/Angel belong to Joss
Title: A Letter Home
Author: Kate R.
Rating: FR13 to Teen I guess
Pairing: None right now
Summary: Joyce writes a Letter Home
Note: This was originally my Twenty Minutes with Joyce response. It's polished a bit now but the original piece took me about twenty minutes to handwrite. It may get more added to it now that I've started using the HP character she's writing to more.

Dear Father,

I am writing this letter to you because I am dying. I know I am dying and there is no charm or spell that can change it. I'm writing to you because I need you to do something for me now.

But first, I need to tell you that I understand why you set mom and me away when I was little. I understand it now better than I 'ever' thought I'd be able to. To know evil is after you, to know it can take your family, is a terrible fear. And I live with it now, not because it's after me but my daughter, my older daughter, fights it daily. I see her face it every day and I face it with her because I'm her parent and she can't do for me what you did for mom and me. She can't send me away. I'm the parent.

I used to be so angry that you did it, I did some stupid things, too, because of that anger. But I understand now why and I wish I'd written you sooner. I truly do. I live with the fear now that you must have felt when that evil wizard first threatened us. I used to think you were a horrible father but now I know you were one of the best.

Forgive me, daddy, please. And if you can't, please don't take your anger out on your granddaughter. Yes, you have two, but you're only going to end up with one. I have Mom's gift. I've seen what's going to happen and there is noting I can do to stop it. Buffy wouldn't allow it. Buffy would say it's her choice and her destiny and I have no right to try to stop it. Just like I told mom. But I need you, father, to take care of Dawn, your younger granddaughter, when what's going to happen finally does.

You're the only person I trust with her, dad. The only person I know can help her deal with her grief. I know you were at mom's funeral. I saw you. Even if you didn't want to be seen, I saw you. And I do know what killed mom. I know because he came after me, too, but I guess carrying a Slayer in your womb offers protection. The curse bounced; the killing curse I mean, and killed the Death Eater that threw it. I think it was Lucius Malfoy's father.

I know this is probably a bad time, if what I read in the Prophet is right, but you're the only one who can do this for me.

I love you Daddy,
Joycie

Sighing, she addressed an envelope, attached it to an owl along with an official document, and sent it off. The owl would know where it was going. They always did.

"Please, don't let me down, Daddy," she whispered, before going to lie down on the couch. "Not like I let you down."

There was bright pain suddenly, and then nothing.


A small scrap of paper fluttered to the ground from her now limp hand. It bore the address she'd written on the envelopes she'd sent off with the owls:

Prof. Filius Flitwick
Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft ad Wizardry
Hogsmeade, Scotland