Prisoners of Azkaban, Probationary Diaries August 2009, Prisoners #19-09-1979 and #09-01-1960
oooOooo
August 10, 2009
I have not dared to write down many details yet.
Spelling everything out in my blood and Veritaserum would make it real, wouldn't it?
And that scares me. To find everything is real—only to have it snatched away when—if—we fail to fulfil the conditions of our probation—
But now…I shall attempt a list. Just three items.
1. Bathtime: A real toilet. With toilet-paper. A shower with magically unlimited hot water. Home-made soap frothing into soft foam. Clean underwear and fresh clothes. No fleas. No lice.
2. Breakfast: Two cups of hot tea. One egg, the yolk creamy. Three slices of warm toast without maggots, but slathered with yellow butter and sweet strawberry jam.
3. Severus: Alive.
—And scowling at the parchment Padma and Parvati gave us last night. An address and directions. The Lake House belongs to Natalie McDonald, who emigrated to America after the war. Now she wants to sell it. Padma and Parvati have promised it's ours.
We set out right after breakfast. Just like yesterday, we left Hogsmeade behind. But today we turned left at the Shrieking Shack. A few minutes later, we passed the boat landing. I was relieved that mist obscured both landing and lake. The thought of Hogwarts hurts. When we reached Hogsmeade Station, the sun broke through white clouds, though the air remained humid with a promise of rain. We had to take a break there; we're not used to walking anymore.
To our surprise we discovered that the Hogwarts Express runs four times every day now, stopping at several stations between Hogsmeade and London. While Padma and Parvati have told us much, they never mentioned such small changes, having long since grown accustomed to them. Yet those changes shock us.
It's as if time stopped for us when the gates of Azkaban closed behind us on May 3, 1998, and only started again when those gates opened once more on August 2, 2009.
I know that eleven years or 135 months or 4,109 days or 98,616 hours have passed between those two dates.
But I cannot comprehend what that means.
A few yards behind the station, on the road to Hogwarts, a crooked wooden sign bid us turn right for the Lake House. We entered a narrow lane, sheltered by hedges left and right—hawthorn, hazel, furze, and rowan. The path led us northwards, onto the ness. Moments later, the track dipped down to a western cove.
Down by the water, nestled in a dell, its gardens surrounded by low field-stone walls, a white cottage waited for us.
Two windows (with 16 small rectangular panes each) frame a green door. From the slate roof three large dormer windows greet (with 48 little panes each). A shed with a separate entrance and three windows (four panes each, twelve panes altogether) is attached to the kitchen.
Inside, Natalie McDonald's former house-keeper and a lawyer waited for us.
We paid with Draco's money and signed with our blood.
We have a home now.
oooOooo
A/N: Many thanks to Mia Madwyn for looking this over.
Further notes: I use the map by Charles Mize for this story, http:// www. hplex. info/images/maps/hogwarts-map-cm. jpg. A picture of the cottage (though the location is wrong) may be found here: http:// img. chooseacottage. co. uk/Property/186/400/186146. JPG. (Take out the spaces to use the URLs.)