Chapter Six: The Longbottoms
We went back to the Leaky Cauldron to get a bite to eat, directions to St. Mungo's, and send an owl to Professor Dumbledore saying that we were in London and en route to the Hospital. After our meal, Magistra Whitehawk and I took the bus and then walked to St. Mungo's. She whispered "Two to meet the Healers and visit the Longbottoms" to the dummy in the window. The dummy winked at us, and then Magistra pulled me through the window into a large waiting area. Looking up at the floor guide, I didn't know where we were supposed to be heading, but Magistra bulled past the Welcome Witch and went up to the fourth floor. "Now I want you to be polite," she hissed at me on the way up, "These are my cousins we're visiting, and they are… rather childlike, so be on your best behavior." I nodded, afraid to speak.
We arrived at the Janus Thickey Ward, and the Healer at the door let us in. Magistra strode down to the end, where there were curtains drawn, and rounded the corner on an imposing woman wearing a stuffed vulture on her hat, a nervous, round-faced boy who looked as if he'd rather be anywhere else, and a man and woman in nightclothes. The woman with the vulture looked up in amazement as we approached, "Why, Everly, what a pleasant surprise! Are you in England long?" I shot a startled look at Magistra, and then settled my shy gaze on the floor. "I'll be here," Magistra Whitehawk said, "for as long as it takes for Albus and the Healers to figure out what's wrong with this girl here." I looked up at the woman, smiled slightly, and then returned my eyes to the floor, blushing.
W still had not been introduces, although clearly Magistra knew the old woman and possibly the boy as well. "She looks well enough," the woman proclaimed, "although she could do with a few manners. I do hope that's not your doing, Everly. Stand up straight, girl, and introduce yourself. I am Mrs. Augusta Longbottom, matriarch of the Longbottom clan, and these are my son Frank, his wife Alice, and their son Neville." Neville finally looked at me for the first time, blushed to his roots, and shook my hand silently.
"I am Melantha Cardigan, I think, ma'am," I said in a heavy Texan twang. "You think?" she rounded on me, "Either you are or you aren't!" Magistra lightly put a restraining hand on her arm, "Please, Aunt Augusta, don't be too hard on her. That's part of the reason we're here… it seems that the Sorting Hat at the Kansas Prairie Songsmith Acadame called her Melantha Cardigan Potter," Neville's head shot up and his eyes went wide, staring at me, "and recently, since the first accounts of the Triwizard Cup have been in the papers, she's been having nightmares. Sean Westing, Magister of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Songsmith, thought that it might be a Memory Charm dispersing. But that's how we came to be in London."
Neville, his eyes still on my face, blurted out, "Sh-She looks like Harry, Gran!" then blushed again and turned away to answer his mother's tugging on his shirtsleeve. Mrs. Longbottom studied my face a long moment, then declared, "Well, I don't know if that's true, being as how I have never met your friend Harry Potter, but she is a very pretty young woman, Neville, and I hope you will be her friend if she is to show up at Hogwarts next year."
(Here I should mention that I have been told many times since finding out who I really am that I have my mother's face, as my brother has our father's face, and we both get extraordinarily tired of hearing it. But until I regained all of my memories, it seemed that there was a glamour upon me, to make people think that I was just a girl with hair the color of all flames green, blue, black, purple, white, etc. and had eyes that changed colors like a chameleon. This was most fortunate for the both of us, as you will later see.)
Now both of us blushed, and Magistra distracted her with small-talk of how the rest of the Longbottom clan was doing. I dove into my schoolbag and brought out a novel, it didn't matter which book I chose, and started reading, to allow Neville time to regain his composure and look after his parents. Magistra and Mrs. Longbottom spent several hours pleasantly chatting about old times and old friends, while Neville entertained his parents and I hid in my book.
