Hey Uncle,

I've not written in a while.

There's a bunch of excuses that I could use: too much homework; the cat ate the other letters I wrote; Prefect duties take up too much of my time; pranks take careful planning.

The first two and last, however, are lies. I don't bother with homework, we don't have a cat and pranks are often more spectacular when improvised.

I'm not actually a Prefect, either. Dad would probably kill me if I had that badge. When the letter arrived for my fifth year I tricked him into thinking I'd gotten it (Teddy didn't even notice that his was gone) and he about brokerage down with the shame of it all - apparently I wasn't convincing enough and he was just ashamed that I didn't know better than to think that I could pull it off and trick him.

Mum had believed me until he started listing all of my mistakes, and then started to take notes on what he was saying for future reference. What she didn't realise was that dad later pulled me aside and taught me how to correct them so that I wouldn't slip up again.

Is this how the others' letters are to you? Rambling about what's happening at the moment? Or do they just ask you how you are, what you're going and how death is treating you?

I don't know if it makes me selfish or stupid or silly for writing this (maybe a combination of all three), but I'd feel weird apologising to you for getting off the subject. After all, you may not even be able to read this, and if you can then you've probably witnessed first-hand what I've been describing.

Anyway, I thought I'd say hi.

But I don't really know what to put now because as I've said previously, I don't really know you.

So I may write again, but if I'm perfectly honest it may be a bit weird so I might not.

- Fred II