Hannah wanted to ask why her uncle had felt the need to yell language at her and why the lost owl showed some resemblance to his posterior. But he continued to speak, looking rather displeased. The owl had been harsh, unnecessary. Uncle Lawrence would have made a lovely husband one day. It was simply a pity no one was interested. Or at least Hannah was aware. She’d already decided that the thought of kissing someone and marrying them was pointless. It wasn’t as if such actions helped you get on in life.

“I don’t need the dictionary.” The budding healer told her uncle as he set to laying the table. She took a quill, some parchment and sat on the floor next to the coffee table to write draft owl to her mother. she spoke quietly to herself as she scribbled, pausing for thought between words and sentences.

“Dearest sister, it is with great…sadness that I inform you of the ailment your daughter appears to be suffering from. She has been stricken by a…travelling sensitive form of…Ague. Her shivers, chills and fever make her a travel risk and it will take at least…51 days for a full recovery.” A new line was started beneath. “As a highly contagious ailment, I deeply…advise against…no…I deeply implore you to stay away. It would…greatly bereave me to see you also stricken. I, your loyal brother and caring uncle to Hannah, shall bravely watch over her. Yours sincerely, Uncle Lawrence.”

With the letter written, Hannah stood and handed it to her uncle.
“You can copy that up in your own handwriting.”

Behind Lawrence, Hannah helped herself to some parchment from the stack on the shelves, and a self-inking quill. He glanced over his shoulder at her sat cross-legged on the floor, resting the parchment on his coffee table, her bushy hair ever more wild. She was the exact opposite of her mother, but the curls were definitely a Musgrave trait.

He felt his irritation with Cynthia fade a little as he paused to watch his young relative. The door to one of the kitchen cupboards slipped open and two plates slipped out, floating up to sit beside the stovetop. Above the living room window, at street-level, a group of people passed, casting shadows down onto the carpet. Instinctively, Lawrence glanced up at them, ears catching youthful laughter. Despite Cynthia’s explosive letter, the world still went on.

Once he was done setting the washing up with charms, Lawrence crossed the kitchen to approach Hannah from behind. He was on his way to perch on the battered green sofa beside her when she got to her feet and offered him a draft of a letter.
“You can copy that up in your own handwriting.”
“Right…” Lawrence replied, trying to sound neutral about it, not to offend Hannah. She was a precocious eleven year old, but he was a thirty-three year old auror. He would reserve verdict on the letter until he’d read it and perhaps reworked it in his own style. His hazel eyes glanced over the letter before he sat down to give it a proper read.

“Ague?” Lawrence asked, raising an eyebrow, “I’ve kidnapped you and I’ve infected you with fits and fever. Shall we add an amputation for good measure?” He was joking, but they had considered it in the past. Cynthia was thick enough to believe most official-looking letters, her husband Fred was more intelligent, but normally read between the lines, and a cheeky beer between them when Cindy was out of earshot smoothed most things other between the brothers in law.

“I did add some new clippings though,” Lawrence restated, nodding to the healer’s dictionary on the shelves. It was a fat, well thumbed book which was made fatter by the number of news clippings, photos and pieces of parchment shoved in between the pages. Ever since Hannah had been showing an interest in healing, her uncle had been adding to it from cases at work and the Daily Prophet. Sometimes it could be considered too graphic for a girl her age, but Hannah was a witch and no ordinarily girl. “Clive posted me an impressive case of scrofunulus for you. Worst he’s ever seen.” Lawrence continued, distracted by Hannah’s letter.

It took a few minutes to rework Hannah’s draft into something more recognisably from Lawrence, both in handwriting and tone. He made sure to add a healer had attended, and of course it still took the piss, but suitably that it was easy enough for Fred to draw conclusion Hannah was safe but desperate not to have to endure her mother’s birthday. He reduced the number of days but didn’t mention it to the petite witch. He signed off and blew on the ink out of habit - the temperature in the flat that summer evening meant it was already nearly dry.

“Oi, pecky arsehole,” Lawrence called to the owl on the wireless, demonstrating language double-standards in a sentence. Despite the rude address, it seemed to recognise it as a name and hopped off to the coffee table, talons tearing at the magazines in a pile as it got purchase, revealing one of the Veela Vixens copies, not that Lawrence noticed.

“Take this back to your delightful mistress.” He attached the letter, and lifted the bird onto his forearm to take it out of the flat again, leaving Hannah alone a minute.

“…Shall we add an amputation for good measure?” Uncle Lawrence finished reading the letter and his young niece frowned and shook her head.
“She won’t believe that.” Hannah’s mum was stupid, she’d figured that out years ago, but even she had her limits with the stupidity.

Lawrence focused on the letter while Hannah pulled the giant Healer’s dictionary from the bookshelf and sat herself on the floor with it on the coffee table. On her knees, she flicked through to S and took the clipping.
“He got the boils on his intestines?” she muttered, eyes darting over the small piece of parchment. “Cool.”

“Did you know that a German wizard died from this last month?” The eleven year old called across the room to her uncle as he ‘fixed’ her letter. “He thought he had a bad allergic reaction to a potion and just left it untreated. How stupid! Even Cynthia is unintelligent but even she’d get something like that seen to.”

The clipping was slipped back into the book and the young witch pushed herself to her feet.
“Is it done yet?”

“Is it done yet?” Hannah asked, the boils not holding her attention for as long as he’d hoped.
“Just sending it!” Lawrence called from the next room as he carried the owl out into the garden to let it fly off.

“Yes, your mother’s owl just took it back to her screechiness.” Lawrence thumbed over his shoulder at the hallway as he returned to the living room. “Or did you mean our shepherd? Probably near about, don’t like to cook it too quick with the charms otherwise it can get bouncy.” Or at least that’s what one of the girls he’d tried to cook dinner for had cautioned, but maybe her motives had been to ensure they both had an appetite. Not something he could elaborate on in context for his niece. The wireless was playing what sounded like bagpipe music, much to Lawrence’s irritation, so he pointed his wand at it to turn it off.

“So, supposing your Ague is a suitable reason for skipping your m- Cynthia’s birthday party, was there anything in particular you wanted to do?” Despite having worked seven days straight, and looking forward to some time sleeping and keeping to himself, he set that aside now. Spending time with Hannah was important to him, they didn’t have long left before she became a teenager and thought he was lame. Because all teenagers thought adults were lame.

“I’m just happy being here.” Hannah shrugged her shoulders, her expression neutral. It was simply a relief to be out of the house and far away from her mother. Cynthia Bombay would be the reason if her daughter was even driven to madness. Hannah had often considered how she might have been adopted but then almost immediately pushed the thought away when she remembered that her mother didn’t act like a particularly willing mother. But perhaps it was because Hannah was far more interested in books, potions and ailments than makeup, hair and boys.

“I’ll do my own thing, you don’t need to entertain me.” she was far too accustomed to having to entertain herself and it always came as something odd whenever uncle Lawrence actually wanted to spend time with her. He was one of the few people she’d known to want such a thing.
“I have to prepare for term, anyway. Do you know how many books are on the reading list?” Now, the young witch did smile, excited. “I can’t go in there knowing less than everyone else. The I’ll never get put in Ravenclaw. Then no one will want me as a healer. How many successful people have you ever heard of from Hufflepuff?”

“I’ll do my own thing, you don’t need to entertain me.”

Much as Lawrence admired Hannah’s independence, and as much as he loved her as family, just to have an eleven year old hang around his flat was a bit odd. Considering his plans to sleep, eat something terrible, go to the pub and watch Independence Day. Hannah might pass for thirteen if she wanted to come along, but she was pretty short, and it possibly wasn’t interesting to her. It was too warm to stay indoors, or even wander the stone-walled postage-stamp of a garden out back. Hannah didn’t really get on with Jenny and Ljudmila in the flat above, otherwise he’d invite them down for a drink in the garden.

He approached the toppled-over pile of papers and magazines on the coffee table and fished out the most recent Daily Prophet. He hastily rearranged the pile on seeing a stray copy of Veela Vixens was amongst them, and hoped Hannah hadn’t noticed. She was rambling on about Hogwarts again, so he presumed himself safe.

“… do you know how many books are on the reading list? I can’t go in there knowing less than everyone else…” The likelihood of Hannah going in knowing less than other people was impossible the way she went on. “How many successful people have you ever heard of from Hufflepuff?” Daily Prophet in his hand, Lawrence studied his niece and laughed at her joke. Cynthia was a Hufflepuff graduate, and Hannah knew that.

An uneven cuckooing sang out from the kitchen corner, and still chuckling, the auror set out across the room to attend to the shepherd’s pie.

“More than you’d think,” he told Hannah as he went, tossing the paper onto the little round dining table. “Come on then, time to massacre a shepherd.”

End



Once the pair of them had dished up and were seated opposite at Lawrence’s modest dining table in the flat’s bay window, Lawrence flipped open the paper to the list of events and announcements, and peered at it intermittently as they discussed.
“You’ve got The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One haven’t you?” he asked his niece as he arranged a suitable portion of pie and peas on his fork with his knife. “That’s always on the list, and Waffling’s Magical Theory. Well, you’ve got what’s left of my school books in your room.” He tipped his head in the direction of the spare room. Only a few of the Grade Spell books had survived for his later years, though.

“You er, asked about a pet yet?” uncle asked tentatively.