The thing no one talks about is that despite being cute most children are talkative, not talkative like a normal person, but super talkative like in quantity middle-aged aunt next door. Well I got that clear after spending an evening with Little Shayna. I think wizard's should research more about a child's mind rather than magic because it's much more complex. One second Sha, as we call her at home, was talking about her castles and the other she was muttering about how no one plays with her anymore. Mostly, she was discussing with me which grandmother or grandaunt is her favorite at Hemlocks and the other most interesting topic was the food which tastes most delicious to her. By listening to a chatter I came to realise that there are at least seven grandaunt she is fond of but the surprisingly,some of them even belong to different factions. It seems that the little one's cuteness magic works on not only on our direct branches but even on relatives from our rival factions.

As is expected from a millennium old power our family has quite a few factions. These fractions are neither based on the issue of ruling philosophy or method, nor on the issue of succession. The factions arise from the fact that each warlock is entitled to create a branch so that results in creating a faction when a warlock is not satisfied in his existing faction. The factions each compete internally but that is a healthy competition and mostly bragging rights and rewards are allocated depending on the contribution to family. The family decision is never taken by a single faction, at leat four-fifth of warlocks must pass a particular idea before it is implemented in the family. So, factions are more like Hogwarts houses in this sense as they all belong to the family but are lead by different warlocks, who compete among themselves for better results. Only the results here decide which faction will control which resource of the family and who will gain the tutelage of archmages is the grand prize reserved for those who are consistently brilliant in the family. Currently our family has six factions out of which four are in one way or another directly related to our family, while one faction outright opposes us due to the rivalry between the two warlocks leading them while the another one keeps itself isolated and focuses solely on magic research.

By the time we returned home, sun has set and mother was back cooking while our house elves were hovering around her. She saw us enter the house, smiled a bit and said "Played enough kids?"

"Mom we made a super big castle, like the one in garsy and it was huge, brother made it in the river. We even made the dragons around the gate. They were super huge."

"It's Garhys, sweetheart and why where you standing in water all this time, you will get ill. Shane, you were irresponsible. You.."

I hurriedly interrupted her before she went full throttle blaming me and creating havoc. My mother is a gentle kind witch but once she launches her tirade, she sounds like a senate member raving about...what member?

It seems like the memory of that dead soul is still lurking around my mind. I need to go and see what it contains more clearly. But firstly, diffuse this gentle ticking mother's temper.

"Mother, I kept Sha at beach most of the time and even when she went in water, I quickly dried her off. She was never in water or wet for too long. She won't get ill at all."
" Mama..mama ... brother was very good to me, don't get angry. He even brought fruits for you to eat. See.."
She lifted her picnic basket and showed the fruits we have collected in between from the garden to eat when we get tired after playing. We have kept a few as we can't eat all as she gets full quite fast as she is a child while I alone can't eat everything I picked from the orchard.

As soon as mother's pitch started increasing, Sha got in her cute act to support her brother. What a sweet child...love you baby sister!

Mother took a look at the fruits, smiled at her and surprisingly said to me.."Alright, alright. I won't get angry at your brother. Quickly go wash up and come down to eat." Sha bounced up to her room accompanied by Mara, her personal elf while mother turned her attention to me and said "Your father will not be returning anytime soon as he is overseas. So, I will drop you off at platform."

" It's fine, mom. Alar can drop me off as usual."
Alar was the chief house elf of our family, usually he is responsible for bringing me to and fro from Hogwarts barring the beginning of school term on which day the whole family accompanies me to the platform nine and three-quarters.

" I am not busy in upcoming days so I will go with you."

"Alright."

After everyone gathered for the dinner, Shayna enthusiastically narrated our family of three with the tales of the adventure she went on with her brother, so basically our mother was the listener while I chipped in with my comments. Mother sat there at the table, eating and smiling the whole time but maybe it was my perception or just my increased soul capacity, she seemed genuinely happy to me.

Seeing both my closest family members happily chatting and including me in their daily lives made me forget a bit about the trauma I suffered while undergoing the ritual last night. It also made me reaffirm my belief of including my family more in my life and taking care of them.

After eating, I retired to my room and started concentrating to retrieve the memories left by the foreign soul. The foreign soul was surprisingly very easy to read with his memories overflowing all over without any sort of protection requiring me to break through. He was a senior politician so I expected some form of resistance from his memories to legilimency but surprisingly it was very easy to read his memories probably because his soul has already dispersed or probably just because he was a muggle.