February 21st, 2009
When Holly-Anne woke up, she had this raging headache which lead her to her potions cabinet for a pain relief potion. Holly-Anne soon walked out to her kitchen to find Hermione already there and cooking something for the both of them. Holly-Anne was way to hungover to argue with this
"Hangover remedy?" Hermione asked
"Sure." Holly-Anne said as she sat down at the table wanting the potion she just drank to start working and take the pain she was feeling away.
Soon after breakfast, because she can work anywhere she wanted, Holly-Anne grabbed her writing stuff, her kindle and headed for the hospital. When Holly-Anne got to her husbands hospital room John had noticed how his wife looked really hungover and he knew why. Holly-Anne tended to drink that much when she was in distress and John had certainly put his wife in distress by getting wounded like this.
"What did you have to drink last night? And how much?" John asked with a small laugh hidden in his voice.
Though John knew that Holly-Anne might have drank a lot of Elf wine last night as it was one of her drinks of choice. John usually got the wine via a magical he knew whenever he was not deployed on Valentine's day or Holly-Anne's birthday.
"Do I really look that bad?" Holly-Anne asked
Holly-Anne feared that this would happen after her alcoholic frenzy last night.
"Yep." John said nodding
"I had Elf wine and Fire Whiskey last night. Though I'm pretty sure that I also had a small glass of every other alcoholic beverage we have at the house. And I had a lot and I mean a lot a lot of Elf wine and Fire Whiskey. It didn't help that my uncle kept giving me the Elf wine when I went to see him at his restaurant for dinner after I had left you last night." Holly-Anne said
John knew that his wife's whole family must know about him being in the hospital as otherwise, Angelo wouldn't have given Holly-Anne so much wine.
"By the way, why are you here and with your laptop?" John asked as he looked at the black electronic device.
"I wanted to be with you but I needed to work as my publisher is up my arse about my next book so I decided to work here." Holly-Anne said
"What are you working on now?" John asked as he tried to look onto his wife's laptop screen.
"I'm working on an idea for a children's book." Holly-Anne said
"Do you have time for that? Especially with the other books you are actively trying to publish?" John asked
"I'm part way through publishing those books and I've written them all. So I have time." Holly-Anne said
"Are you writing under a pen name?" John asked
"Yep. I'm publishing the books under HP Watson." Holly-Anne said
John smiled as he knew HP Watson really meant Holly-Anne Potter-Watson and Holly-Anne only did that as male names got published faster. There was still the stigma of women needing to stay home and care for the family and the men with a job to take care of the family in the publishing world. The last time John had been in a book store, he had noticed that almost 95% of the author names were either men or initials of women to look like men names. John hated that his own wife had to use her initials to just publish a book, but he knew that it had to happen if her dreams were going to come true.
"How are your books selling?" John asked
"Kids can't get enough of them. But my publisher says that we need to space them out and not just dump them all at once." Holly-Anne said
"That's good thinking. Give the people reading your books something to wait for." John said
"The wait will drive up the sales for the next book that gets put out onto shelves." Holly-Anne said
As Holly-Anne stayed in the hospital as long as she could, John was really happy about it as he loved spending time with her.
February 28th, 2009
Over the next week Holly-Anne regularly visited with her husband who was still in the hospital all the while bringing her laptop to work on. And now it was time for Holly-Anne to bring her husband home so she could do her part in taking care of him as a good wife would. And due to John's injuries and where they were located, Holly-Anne couldn't just aperate or she would risk further injury to him. Holly-Anne did the smart thing and she had called for one of the many taxis in the city to take them to their home safely so John could rest up.
John really liked whenever they did take a taxi as it was an intimate time before an event that they wouldn't get with aperation. And once they were home, they found Hermione, Sherlock and James in the living room that hadn't seen any love since John left for the war. They were watching the tv and Holly-Anne saw that there was food from her uncles restaurant sitting in the kitchen waiting for them.
"Welcome home John." Hermione said with a smile as she was happy to see him out of the hospital.
"Hey Hermione." John said
Hermione was one of the few friends that his wife had that didn't make him feel like his brain was loosing braincells just by talking to them. He could have really intelligent conversations about anything under the sun with Bill, Charlie, Fluer and Percy whenever they saw each other. But when and if he ventured down to Dean, Seamus, George and Ron, he would need either a lobotomy or alcohol to get through the conversation. And Molly wouldn't allow either as her house was the only reason why John would ever talk to Dean, Seamus, George and Ron.
"What is everyone doing here?" Holly-Anne asked as she helped John onto a comfy chair and got his foot up on a nearby ottoman.
"We knew that John was coming home today so we decided to come to greet him and give him a welcome home party." James said
"That explains you and Hermione being here but not Sherlock." Holly-Anne said
As far as Holly-Anne knew, from their limited interactions, John and Sherlock couldn't stand each other, they could be in the same room but nothing else. Holly-Anne was Sherlock's eldest friend and he wanted to respect that bond by trying to be civil with her husband. Sherlock respected James just a bit more and he knew James liked John for his daughter so the detective would say hello to the doctor. And John didn't want to sleep alone so he tried not to argue with Sherlock whenever they saw each other.
Sherlock was one of the few friends that Holly-Anne had that John couldn't stand to be around.
"I came for the food." Sherlock said not looking away from the television.
Sure Sherlock was a genius and he didn't care for most childish things, but he still enjoyed the occasional session in front of the telly. Sherlock mainly watched the news, but every once in a while he would watch whatever his wife had on at the time. And Hermione liked watching everything from romcoms to American comedy specials to everything she had missed while at Hogwarts. Holly-Anne agreed with Hermione on the comedy, but she mainly liked American tv shows and movies as she thought America did better tv than her home country.
"That makes sense." Holly-Anne said before walking into the kitchen to make herself and John a plate of food and herself a glass of elf wine.
Holly-Anne had used her magic to bring her glass of elf wine so she could bring everything in one trip and not have to go back for a second. And Holly-Anne would have gotten her husband a glass of his favorite fire whiskey, but the medication that he is on does not go well with any type of alcohol. Holly-Anne had been told by the doctor who treated her husband that if John mixed alcohol with any of the medications, it could be fatal. The doctor even said that due to the combination of the drugs John was taking, he was already teetering on the edge as with a single mishap and everything goes down hill.
"Here you go." Holly-Anne said as she gave John his food.
"Thank you love." John said as he took his food.
"You're welcome." Holly-Anne said before sitting down in front of her husband on the floor.
The rest of the day was spent in peaceful silence as everyone ate food and watched the tv, Sherlock even answered some questions the police had. While listening to the tv and the talk of people, Holly-Anne wrote and rewrote some of her book and answered some emails from her publisher.
April 21st, 2009
"So what are you going to do about Kingsley and the Ball?" Hermione asked
Over the past month and a half Holly-Anne had been so focused on the healing of John that she hadn't given much thought about the Ball that much.
"I don't know. I have been so focused on taking care of John and his healing that I haven't given it much thought." Holly-Anne said
"You could use John's healing process as your excuse to get out." Hermione said
"I could but John could be healed enough by then that he doesn't need 24/7 care." Holly-Anne said
"But Kingsley doesn't know that." Hermione said hoping that no one has looked at John's medical records and told Kingsley about it.
Dear Minister Shacklebolt,
Kingsley, I'm sorry to say this, but My husband John still needs me taking care of him. He won't even leave where I put him when I leave as he doesn't trust himself to walk without me being there. So I will not be attending the ball this year. I have to take care and think of my living family before I even begin to think of my long passed family. I hope that you understand what I have to do. I hope that you will not have to push me to do something rash, like sending a cursed letter.
Sincerely yours,
Lady Black, Heir Potter aka Mrs. Holly-Anne Potter-Watson
Witnessed by
Mrs. Hermione Granger-Holmes
P.S. Hermione here. If you try to guilt trip Holly-Anne about the ball, I will curse and hex you so far into oblivion that your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren will feel it. You do not want to mess with me Minister. I will protect those I love and Holly-Anne does not need to be at this ball. If anything, I will represent Remus and Tonks this year so James does not have to. Holly-Anne still had the mental scars from seeing all the death and destruction that the war had caused. She still mourns the loss of Remus and Tonks everyday.
You can't see it, but every single time the name of someone who died in the war, she starts crying that it takes hours to calm her down. She still sees the war as her fault. She still sees all of the deaths as her fault. It took years just to get her to the point where she can hear Hogwarts without crying. I really hope that you head my words about Holly-Anne because if you don't, there will be a special election for a new minister while I sit in Azkaban not regretting my choices. I will follow through Kingsley, don't make me out to be a liar now.
Hermione sent the letter off to Kingsley before Holly-Anne got a chance to look at it again and change her mind about it. Holly-Anne didn't want to make anyone mad, but she knew that she had to think of herself every once in awhile, and if that meant saying no to the ball, so be it. Soon Hermione went back to 221B and her husband while Holly-Anne stayed in 221C and started to make dinner for her and John. John was in the living room doing his exercises that his physical therapist had given him to do at home and Holly-Anne was a dictator making him to them.
Holly-Anne didn't want to become a widow so young just because her husband was to stubborn to do anything his therapists suggested he do. And John was way more scared of his wife in a foul mood than he had been of the Taliban and Al Qaeda during the war he had been in. And there were people John knew that could understand where he was coming from as they had been on the wrong end of Holly-Anne's temper before. John had seen Holly-Anne use a Bat Boggy Hex on Sherlock before when the detective did something to piss the red head off.
"Doesn't he know to never piss off a red head?" John had asked Hermione back then.
"He doesn't care. He loves getting a rise out of Holly-Anne. He has been doing it since they were kids. He knows where to push and how hard without getting hurt." Hermione replied back.
Back then Hermione had never said that when Holly-Anne moved into 221C, she had been spying on Sherlock for Mycroft. Sherlock knows about Holly-Anne spying on him for his brother and even gave up some information to Holly-Anne just to be 'helpful'. And in exchange, Mycroft gets Holly-Anne whatever she wants when the elder Holmes brother does their quarterly transaction. This time, for the information, Mycroft is getting Holly-Anne a Wii with all the games Nintendo makes for it hacked onto the console. He is also getting her 4 of the controllers and the special charger for them.
"Babe. You okay?" John asked as he came up behind his wife.
Holly-Anne turned around to look at John with this look on her face that said that she wasn't okay in the slightest.
"You sent a letter to Kingsley say that you can't go." John said
"I fear that he won't take no for an answer." Holly-Anne said
"If I know Hermione and I do know her pretty well. She would have put something on the letter after getting it from you but before it was sent out threatening Kingsley that if he didn't take the no for an answer, he would regret it. And from what I know oof her nature, Kingsley will be to scared to act." John said
Holly-Anne hugged John like her life depended on it, though it may have been for her mental health more than anything.
"I hope that you are right about this." Holly-Anne said
Holly-Anne waited for a minute or two before she had let John go and turning back the meal she was cooking for the two of them.