Hello all:D This is my first story here! I've been reading fanfiction forever, and wanted to try my hand at it! This is a slash story eventually so warnings about that. This is based on a website, from which it gets its name. People from all over send in anonymous post cards with deep secrets on them and the cards appear weekly on this site for the world to see. This fic will involve two of my favorite characters, and the confessions that draw them together.

Chapter 1

Severus grabbed the parchment off the shelf, dusting it off with his sleeve hastily. His fingers trembling, he grips his quill like a blind man clings to his dog. Slowly, he begins to spell the letters out, eventually forming words, forming sentences, forming a perfect paragraph, its words bold with the weight of confession.

I am beyond remorse. I am beyond pain.

I feel as if a rope has been tied tightly across my chest,

The weight of my sins dangles down from it.

There is no sanity, no sanctity anymore.

If I had the courage, I would end it all.

But there is not enough liqueur in the world

To encourage a man such as myself,

To actions as paramount as those.

He doesn't sign his name. With trembling fingers and a fluttering heart, he ties the confession to the leg of the bird nearest to him. The dusky owl regards him inquisitively. "Destination?" seems etched in its amber irises. "Your choice," Severus whispers as the owl spreads its wings and soars out the window. For a brief moment, Severus is all elation, is all hope. He has exposed himself, in the most secure of all fashions. When sunlight kisses the hem of the horizon, he descends from the owlery into the gloom of the dungeons, carrying his relief like a torch in his breast.

…

By the time Severus barrels into the great hall he is humiliated with himself. Such moments of weakness, common when he's been chugging absinthe with reckless disregard, have gone too far. He almost brutally takes his seat at the teachers' table, not touching his steaming breakfast, merely observing the masses of students swarming about from table to table. One of them has my letter. He grimaces. He knows it. One of the contemptible little brats will receive his letter-his bitter revelation. Will they laugh it off and show it to their friends? Will they hide it under there musky pillows and ponder over it in the godless corners of the night? He shakes his head wearily. He is not going to let his drinking lead him to such risks again.

The day passes slowly, one class blending into the next until the day becomes a fabric of questions and chastisements. Only in his sixth year potions class does he awake briefly from the mental fog that's been congesting his thoughts all day. Harry Potter is furiously stirring his lime green mess of a concoction, casting baleful looks at his neighbor's correct pink simmering potion. His hair, longer now, chin length, falls into his eyes, and he flicks it away quickly in annoyance.

"Mr. Potter." Severus drawls.

"Yes?" Harry glances up warily, like a puppy about to be kicked.

"What exactly have you created?"

Harry glares back and with a curl of his lip intones, "The potion assigned, sir".

Snape dips a nearby ladle into the soup of a ruined potion and lets the contents drop back into the bubbling cauldron.

"The assignment was to create a Serenity potion Mr. Potter, not replicate the consistency, color, and texture of the mucus in your nasal cavities. A zero for the day."

With the vague warmth of satisfaction giving bounce to his step, Severus stalks away, but he can't help noticing that this warmth is nothing compare to the radiance of this mornings.

…

When the day is completed and the last of his dorm mates have began their heavy sleep laden breaths, Harry takes out the letter, for the twelfth time that day, and pours over it with thirst barley quenched by the bold, firm paragraph. His mind can barley grasp it; some horrified, lost person, had written out a deep secret, then, like a message in a bottle, given it to a owl to deliver to whom it chose. Harry couldn't believe that such faith and acts of resignation existed. Through the velvet curtains of his bed, he could hear Ron stirring in his sleep, mumbling within his dreams. Harry decides then and there, he would write back, he would find the owl, and give this brother, this lonely companion, a secret of his own. Reaching carefully into his bedside drawer, he pulls out parchment and quill, giving himself time to think his response out. When it is perfect, he sets his trembling pen to the parchment, and in a shaky scrawl, begins to write.

When my friends pull away from my hugs,

I tell myself it is because we are too old for such things,

But I know in my heart,

It's because they believe that

I killed him.

He is still trembling when he pens the final line, his handwriting having steadied. When he dots the period, his is terrified. He can feel his pulse like a dark horse racing through his temples. Slipping on his invisibility cloak, he slips out of the shelter of his velvet curtains, into the quiet of the dorm. He listens…snores and mumbling, all is quiet. He slips out of the dorm door, into the common room, were the embers from the fading fire make the rooms shadows twice a long as they were. He pushes back the portrait of the fat lady ever so slowly, and miraculously she doesn't wake. His heart gives a flutter; he is almost done, almost complete. He tears up the stairs to the owlry, the school's quiet pressing on him like a thousand pale hands. When he reaches the owlery, he looks for the little brown owl from this morning, and finds it on a perch near the window. Tying the note to the owls willing leg, he briefs it in his most professional voice

"Now, take this to the man who used you earlier with no destination in mind. Give it to his at breakfast"

the owls expression did not change, but slowly, never taking her eyes off his, she hoots softly and rustles her feathers. Harry slides his hand over the crest of her soft head once before exiting the dusty room. When he has closed the door, a wave crashes over him. He has done it. The secret that has held him powerless, like a knife to his throat, is out. Relief, smooth and incense scented slides across his brow. He doesn't bother with his wand for light on his way back; he feels it is within himself already.