Prisoners of Azkaban, Probationary Diaries August 2009, Prisoners #19-09-1979 and #09-01-1960
oooOooo
August 17, 2009
Today I cooked Cullen Skink. It was the perfect day for it; cool and rainy, with fog hanging over the loch most of the day. The weather only brightened late in the afternoon.
Cooking is soothing work, even though the kitchen of the Three Broomsticks is a busy place, with a full cook, his assistant, and a dumpy little witch helping out with Cleaning and Stirring Charms milling about.
Minerva adored that soup, if I recall correctly. Albus used to tease her about that. How she loved it best in cat-shape, lapping it up as soon as it cooled down. I couldn't say. She never trusted me enough to let me see her like that—playful, kittenish…human. Not even after I nearly died trying to protect Albus on the Astronomy Tower. Though I assume I mustn't blame her. I failed, after all.
Like I always failed in my life.
…when it mattered most.
Like I failed Lily. Although I became Dumbledore's spy with the stroke of midnight on my seventeenth birthday, I did not manage to win her love or protect her life.
Like I failed you. You were just a child when you were caught up in this war. Barely an adult when I declared my doomed love for you, when you [ink splodge] Him. And it [ink splodge] Just as Potter promised.
—I may have won your love. And you did survive. But what about your life?
Your youth and your sanity are gone.
You just picked at your food again tonight, although you're already toothpick-thin. Another day over, and still no job or someone to vouch for you. (Or for me, for that matter.) Though the guests at the Three Broomsticks do seem to like their soup now. Well, they don't know who's cooking it. I dare say the popularity of cheap liquid luncheons would dwindle phoenix-quick, should that ever get out…
After supper we talked about Madam Agan. She seemed helpful yesterday, yet she scared you deeply. And I clearly recall my own discomfiture in her presence. She appears to be a beautiful—if reserved—Indian woman. With such a background she could easily possess a draught that could heal your hand. Perhaps the Patils' warning is just some sort of power-play among witches of a shared cultural background.
Bloody mongooses.
Of course they refuse to give any details to back up their warning. And Hannah couldn't tell me much about Agan, either; the woman showed up in Hogsmeade a week after Bellatrix' death, two weeks after Voldemort's death.
She is a mystery.
I never liked mysteries.
I was weary to my bones tonight. And I admit, I longed for the peace of our other cottage, where you enjoy the meals we cook together, even the pudding. Where the only conditions that rule our lives are those of haphazard Highland weather.
We went to bed together.
But when I held you and kissed you and drew our rune on your forehead, I could not tell where I was.
Here, or there.
oooOooo
A/N: Many thanks to Mia Madwyn for beta-reading and sage advice.
Further notes:
# A recipe for Cullen Skink is here: http:// www. rampantscotland. com/recipes/blrecipe_cullen. htm (take out the spaces to get at the URL...)
# Obviously, the Animagus form of Padma and Parvati is a mongoose.