There has been the odd letter before this, but no detail about the research at St Mungo’s, as the letters are censored (and stamped to indicate such). The handwriting is uneven, owing to relearning to write with a different hand.

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H Bombay
…
…
London

c/o Harper Graves
Department of Magical Law Enforcement
Ministry of Magic
London

Dear Hannah,

Woke this morning thinking of your mum. I know, I’ve had better mornings too. At least it’s not tomorrow.

With everything-that-I-must-not-speak-about, there’s been more than a few memories coming back to me of late. Since you were, well, not yet a thought in the world, and there’s no-one of note to share it with here, I thought I’d record it here for your posterity. Feel free to burn this or worse when you’re done.

The memory in question was my sixth birthday. Yes, I realise it might be hard to imagine I was six once. I remember when you were six quite clearly, including the hair. We somewhat shared the unruly brown curls, only mine were shorter and haven’t neatened in my advancing years.

I’d been excited to turn six for well over a week, perhaps even a month. Five year olds are truly obnoxious, but I was on my best behaviour, worthy of Father Christmas himself (who would naturally bring yet more presents less than a fortnight later). The worst thing about my birthday is it being in December, and that means 11 months of the year there’s a gift drought. When you’ve only had maybe three birthdays you knew about, that’s a really significant event.

As for Cyn, well, she must have been eight, and no big sister particularly enjoys having a younger brother at that age, apart from for torture. Maybe if I’d the long hair back then and she’d been any good at knots I’d have been used as a stylist’s dummy…

At this point we were both attending the local primary in St Albans, and both had Muggle friends. Grief, we were friends with anyone back then as kids. Anyone who had a bike that wasn’t faster than mine and who could kick a football was worthy of friendship to me at that age. To the detriment of your grandparents’ better judgement, they’d decided I could have a little party, with my birthday falling on a Saturday that year. It gave half a dozen sets of parents an afternoon off to do the Christmas shopping, which in retrospect was remarkably charitable of them both. Your grandmother was rarely out of the shops when she wasn’t working in December.

I don’t think I shut up about having a party from the moment I woke that Saturday. By the point my friends were round, Cyn had such a face on she’d caused an indoor rainstorm in her room quite by accident. Well, I reckon so nowadays, because she couldn’t have been capable of it so young, but I was sure she had done it on purpose to try and spoil my birthday. Couldn’t have Muggles round if your sister is a walking rain cloud. (Ironically, it would have rather helped matters later.)

By the time the climax of the party arrived - not the presents, or the ridiculous games (‘hunt the thimble’, for Merlin’s sake, 1960s fashion) - but the cake, my moody sister was nowhere to be seen. Until right at the point where the singing ended and I inhaled the deepest I’d ever inhaled, ready to blow six year old gob all over the cake. My classmates all round the dining room table, waiting to see if I’d manage to pull it off, blow all the candles out in one puff.

That’s when Cyn excelled herself. From somewhere behind me - I only wish there was a photograph - came her enormous eight-year-old head. Shoved between me and the cake. Had I been older, I might have shoved her face right into it, but fate did me proud instead. In her haste to blow the candles out, she leaned her newly permed hair right into the flames, and her blonde curls went up like a wand-kindled fire.

I couldn’t decide if I was outraged or if it was the funniest thing I’d seen in my entire life. I’m pretty sure it was the latter, and there was no way I could blow my sister out. Dad emptied a whole jug of orange squash over her head to put it out, and we didn’t see her or mum for the rest of the afternoon. Best birthday ever. Incidentally, it was your grandad who made the cake, one of his secret talents. Make sure you ask him to pass on the recipes.

Take care, give the world hell,

Lawrence