Dear Dad,

There are a hundred things that you have taught me. In fact, there are probably more. You once told me that there is nothing on earth more beautiful than the frost on a winter morning, and you used to let me draw pictures in the frost upon the window panes, even though you had to clean the glass of fingerprints later. There are a hundred ways to make tea, but I always think that you made it best. There are a hundred ways that a hug can be given, but yours were always the warmest. Most of all, there are a hundred ways in which I love you, and the day you died I started to count them.

Some evenings when the night grows dark and storms roll across the horizon I remember the way you used to read to me, even if it was far past my bedtime and you had to get up to teach the next day. I loved you then, and when the storms come in now I love you more, even though you are not here anymore. Perhaps it is because I miss you so.

Remember that time I got a rip in my favourite blanket? The one I could not sleep without? I think you probably do, wherever you are, and if you do you will recall that you hunted all over the house in the middle of the night for some thread and a needle, because that ragged old blanket would not hold together with magic it was so worn out. I still can see you sitting in your study as I stood by the arm of your chair, watching as you pulled the thread through that beloved blanket of mine. Do you remember how you wrapped it around me, and carried me to bed? I lay awake a long time that night, feeling the spot on my blanket where you had stitched it back up. Sometimes I think you've stitched up more than just my blanket, because some hurts only you seemed to be able to heal.

The summer I was fifteen and came home sick after I'd tried firewhisky for the first time still makes me feel ashamed, but somehow I think you knew that I felt guilty enough already for what I had done. You held me up while I was sick, and you rubbed my back when you thought I was too miserable to be paying attention to anything of that sort. You denied it to your dying day, but you wrapped me in a blanket and you carried me to bed just like you did when I was six. You think I don''t remember, but I do. I also remember how you sat beside my bed, dozing, and waking when I had to throw up again. All I can recall that you said in the morning was that you hoped I'd learned something. I certainly did, and I didn't touch a drop of alcohol until I was of age.

When I wandered into the forbidden forest with my friends during my last year of school you were not pleased either. I'll never forget the way you looked at me. I still feel bad when I think of that look of disappointment, but the words you said will always remain the most vivid part of that memory. You were not the one to give me detention, but even weeks of serving time with McGonagall did not straighten me out as much as the four words you said to me when you sat me down after I got caught. You said only one thing, and it hit me like a tonne of bricks. "Was it worth it?" you asked in a low voice, and all I remember is lowering my head to hide my shame, because it wasn't. I knew you were mad at what I had done. I knew you wanted to storm and rage at me, but you did not. It was love that made you ask me that one question, the one thing that would truly get me to see what I had done. It was because you knew me through and through.

I know I've only said a few reasons why I love you so much, Dad. But like I said, there are a hundred, if not more. In fact, the number of things you taught me is probably equal to the number of ways I love you, because everything you did, and everything you told me was because of that. Maybe this all sounds sentimental, and maybe it's soppy, but it is the truth.

All things aside, here's to you, and here's to your life. You may not have made discoveries that changed the world, Dad, but someone's word was changed because of you, and it was mine.

Your son,

Harry

P.S. On a slightly less sentimental note, I think one of your finest moments was hexing Lockhart onto his back during the duelling club. That was legendary.