Disclaimer: Everything in the Harry Potter world has always and will always belong to the wonderfully brilliant J.K. Rowling.

This is just an angsty letter that Harry's written to Sirius right after his death. I know it doesn't look like a normal letter format, but hey, Harry's not a normal person. The idea came to me last night and wouldn't leave me alone, so here you go......

There's a cat sitting in my windowsill. She's been coming up almost every day now, using the tree outside my window as a ladder and then hopping over onto the windowpane. She's always on time, always climbs onto the same tree branches, always sits in the same place for the same amount of minutes every night.

And she watches me.

I don't recognize her; this is the only summer that anyone besides Voldemort has taken an interest in coming to see me so persistently. I don't know her name, I don't know where she came from, or if she's even got a home to come from at all. I have this feeling though; for some reason, I think she's an orphan, like me. Is that stupid? To feel some sort of sentimental connection with a cat? Sometimes I feel like I can't help it. Any sentiment is welcomed nowadays.

I feed her every time she visits. The Dursleys don't care much about what I do anymore, just so long as I don't speak to them, look at them, listen to them, go within twenty feet of them, or act like I exist. This makes it easy to go down to the kitchen every night and grab some milk, pour it into a bowl, and take it back upstairs for my guest. For the past week, though, I've already had it waiting for her when she arrives.

She always drinks it.

All of it, too, not just a few sips here or there. Sometimes I wonder if that's the only reason she keeps coming back, because it's not as if there's anything interesting to watch around here. I mean, I've developed a new lifestyle involving sleeping, staring, and converting one corner of my room into a post office to sort through all the pity letters I receive everyday, but that's not exactly an exciting spectacle.

She watches me anyway.

Most of those letters are from Ron and Hermione. Hermione, actually—I don't think Ron knows exactly what to say. Their letters used to bother me at first; when I'd try to get some sleep in the early hours of the afternoon, all of the owls pecking at my window began to get very irritating. But ever since she arrived—the cat, I mean—those letters haven't bothered me as much. I almost look forward to them. Ron talks about things going on around his house, which seems to be busy as ever, and Mrs. Weasley always manages to squeeze in an extra note for me at the bottom, asking how I am and begging me to let her come "rescue" me.

But I don't want to leave, for some reason. Maybe it's the cat. I mean, I couldn't just leave her……who would be here to give her the milk?

Hermione, meanwhile, always manages to find something completely unrelated to you to talk about, whether it's homework, or her family, or Crookshanks, or the latest bestseller……to tell you the truth, I like it. It's so……normal. I thought I would hate such normalcy. Maybe I do but I've just lost too much of my mind to realize it.

She never seems to blink. Is that normal? Are cats supposed to blink at all? Her eyes are yellow and round, and always very shiny. And they're always fixed on me, even if I'm just sitting, unmoving, on my bed, staring at the wall. She just watches, patiently, as if I was the most interesting person in the entire world.

I try not to think about you too much. The weirdest things remind me of you……the paperclip on my Potions homework, for instance. I know that you could've made even a paper clip exciting if you were here. Maybe you would even make it into some sort of Snape-torturing device.

Snape wrote me a letter, oddly enough. The cat certainly had a show that day, because when I saw that the letter was from him I tried to sit down on the bed, but missed. That floor is a lot harder than it looks, apparently. He didn't say much in the letter. Thirteen words, to be exact: "Professor Dumbledore would like us to continue Occlumency. Start preparations before term begins." And then there was the postscript, looking like he'd written it very quickly and at the last minute. "Sorry about Black. Apparently you need to work harder this term."

And I can see that where he wrote "you," the faded hint of "we" remains under it. Apparently someone needs to teach him a more effective erasing charm.

Ron and Hermione came to visit me once, too. I think the Dursleys went into hiding during that hour, because the house had grown oddly quiet and lacking in violence. Ron had been afraid to make eye contact with me at first, but Hermione had done her sobbing-and-throwing-her-arms-around-my-neck-Oh-Harry-I'm-so-glad-you're-alive-type thing. It was weird, to tell you the truth. I could tell that Ron wanted to say something and Hermione didn't want to let me out of her sight, and I just wanted to sit in silence with them watching me.

I mentioned that. I asked them to just sit and watch me. Ron asked if I'd been eating enough and Hermione started to cry again, and then they'd left.

That was the first night the cat visited me.

I haven't seen Lupin once, nor heard from him. If he wants to contact me, fine. If he doesn't—fine. I think he's taking it harder than I am. You were his best friend, Sirius. You and my dad, and now you're together and he's left behind. I hope it wasn't always like that with you. I hope he was never left behind when you were all together. Because let me tell you, there are only two things I would never even wish on my worst enemy: the Cruciatus, and being left behind.

I'm still trying to decide which of those is more painful.

I'll bet you're wondering why I'm writing you this letter. Especially considering that I'm not even going to send it. I don't know why, to be honest. It just seemed like the kind of thing that you would do. You would, wouldn't you? If we'd switched places, if it had been me up there instead of you?

She's watching me still, as I write this. Her bowl has been emptied of milk for some time, and now she's sitting upright with her paws neatly in front of her and her eyes unblinkingly on me. I'm wondering, for the first time, what she's thinking. She knows what I'm doing, I can see that much. She knows my personality, my mood, my desire to just be watched without actually being seen.

And now she's doing something she's never done before—she's lying down. Her eyes haven't left me once, I don't think, but she's completely settled down onto the windowpane, as if to camp there for the whole night. I actually went so far as to approach her the other night. She didn't flinch when I carefully touched her soft little head and ran my fingers along her back. She even let me scratch her ears for a bit, her eyes still watching me. Her fur is really soft and she purred when I was scratching her ears, so at least I know she's friendly.

It's just nice to have her there. To know that she'll always come, without fail. The room always feels warmer with her there, on her little perch. Hedwig doesn't even mind her—I think she likes the extra company almost as much as I do. I know that you were a dog, Sirius, during several points in your life, but I somehow feel that this is one cat you wouldn't chase up a tree. She's different.

If she didn't know me so well, she wouldn't even be able to tell that I know she's here right now. I haven't looked at her in a good few minutes, and my back is completely turned towards her. I'm actually drumming my fingers a bit on the desktop, making up some tune that's only serving to depress me more. It probably looks like I don't even want her here, that I'm trying to ignore her long enough so that she'll get the message and just leave me to wallow in my own misery. It's been like this for the past few days, actually. Besides the ear scratching incident I've hardly paid her any attention, hardly acknowledged the effort she puts forth in climbing up to my window every night. And sometimes I do just want to be left alone. Sometimes I just want to sit alone, umoving, unfeeling, and without her eyes following my every move. But she's smarter than me on that one.

She watches me anyway.

You know what to do. :-)