CHAPTER 10:
Four months had lapsed since the end of their war. Now, Edward was sure he had to let by-gones be by-gones. They were distant friends, if even that. Oh! How he wished he could forget and move on, but in the long vampire lives, forgetting never came, thence forgiving never came.
Edward's undead life sucked! Bella got on his last frayed nerves, constantly begging to be turned. Why? He had no bloody clue! None what so ever! The only thing now keeping them together was her crazy obsession with him, somehow he felt she'd dip on the wrong side again if he ever left her.
Overall, all things considered, the only thing Edward was even marginally looking forward to was the start of the new term. If only to rid himself of the monotony of his life. Once school started, at least he'd be able to re-learn crap from donkey's years and amuse himself with the surrounding teenagers' witless musings.
CRACK! CRACK!
What the….!
His un-beating heart somehow racing, Edward was at the door in a flash just as his mother opened the door with a broad smile.
"Harry! Hermione!" Esme cried in glee. "Come on in and I'll get some tea going."
"Thank you," Harry smiled at Esme.
"It's been so long," Hermione hugged Esme, uncaring of her ice cold and equally hard body. Esme glowed with something very similar to maternal pride.
"Welcome back dears. We've missed you around here," Esme kissed Hermione's forehead.
"So have we," Hermione smiled, moving from Esme's arms to greet everyone else.
"What brings you to our side of the pond then?" Emmett fired, faking a British accent.
"How are things after the war soldiers?" that was Jasper.
"How are you guys and Ron? We see Luna of course, she makes it a point to visit us every week," Alice said.
"And your godson? Teddy, wasn't it? Why didn't you get him along?" Rosalie asked wistfully.
Harry and Hermione laughed good naturedly. "You haven't spoken a word, Edward," Harry said gleefully. "Don't you have anything to ask us?" Hermione smiled, eyes twinklingly with mirth.
Shaking his head, Edward asked, "What took you so long to find your way back?" Edward saw the beginnings of a frown on Hermione's forehead at his question but before she could say anything, Esme came back with their tea and some cookies and the two thanked her while accepting the cups, the somber mood from Edward's question forgotten.
"When Carlisle told me you two have requested for a meeting with him, I made him promise to send you here to meet all of us and I've stalked up on cookies since," Esme smiled.
"You knew?" It was now Edward's turn to frown.
"We all knew, Eddie. You have been busy with Bella, we have been home," Emmett chuckled.
Why didn't I hear a thought about any of this then? Oh yeah, that's right because I've been so lost in my thoughts that reading others mind hasn't been happening lately.
"Now, now," Alice clapped her hands, "Time to answer our questions."
Hermione smiled and obliged. "We're here to seek some professional advice from Carlisle. One of our friends, Teddy Lupin's grandmother in fact, hasn't been keeping well and none of our healers are able to work out her ailment. Harry and I suspect that it could be a muggle disorder so we thought of seeking advice from a muggle doctor; but as things are, we do not have any trusted muggle doctors back in England so we thought of asking for some guidance from Carlisle. We need a doctor that knows about magic so we can provide the best treatment for Andromeda getting both muggle medicines and magical potions together. That's when we wrote to Carlisle and he has thankfully agreed to take a look at her."
"Good. Either ways, it's good to see you again," came Carlisle's voice from the doorway. In a flash he was seated opposite the Britishers and asking for Andromeda's medical documents.
Hermione pulled out her beaded bag from her socks where she had tucked it in for safe-keeping during their travel from UK that evening and she pushed her entire arm in, feeling out for a stack of papers. Everyone heard metal clanking before she finally pulled out a thick wad of parchment, tied together with a red ribbon. "Here it is," she announced triumphantly pulling out the wad completely with some effort. "These are all her records from St. Mungo's, the wizarding Hospital in England."
Nodding, Carlisle accepted the sheaf of papers and started going through them all at vampire speed.
Harry laughed on seeing Hermione's jaw drop. "Wish you could read like that, don't you?" he teased making everyone else chuckle.
"I am sorry," Carlisle said finally. "Nothing apart from blood works makes sense to me. We will have to get some tests done before we decide on what path to proceed."
"Sure. We were in fact expecting nothing else. But how do you suggest we do the tests?" Harry asked
"I need to have a look at her and then I'll write down the tests that need to be done and then we can take it from there after the reports come in," Carlisle said.
"She's too frail to travel though. She lost a lot of weight but we thought it was in the aftermath of the war, what with her losing her husband, daughter and son-in-law. But when she started having fainting spells, we thought to seek some psychological help for her and then it all just snowballed." Hermione shook her head in remorse.
"In that case, how about I come with you now? I'll have a look at her, we'll get the tests done and then I'll come back after we decide on a path ahead?"
"You'd do that?"
Carlisle nodded.
"Oh, thank you," Harry sighed his relief while Hermione's smile of gratitude almost split her face in half.
"Just give me a couple of hours, I'll need to hunt before we leave."
"Sure, we can catch up with your kids till then."
"Yeah, maybe I can even ask Luna to join us here? It's been months since I last saw her."
"Sure. Sure. You kids have fun, I'll be back soon." Then turning to Esme, "Darling you want to come along?"
Hand in hand the parental couple left the kids in the glass house to go hunting together.