The Healer | Part 3: The Survivors

Two Fs and a G

Edith

My birthday arrived a few weeks later. I spoke to my mother a few more times over my mobile, we had agreed to meet the next time I was in Edinburgh to visit Bonnie, though I had no idea when that would be.

George didn't want me going to far from home or the hospital and I didn't blame him one bit. I had no idea how difficult it would be to Apparate should I go into labour somewhere else and I wasn't curious enough to find out.

So it was looking like it would be after the boys were born when I would see my mother and Bonnie again. Mum had mentioned she had picked up a few things for the babies and had a belated wedding gift for George and I. We had decided not to have a baby shower. With Mondays being my only day off and being on-call every other day, it just wasn't practical. Besides, George had mentioned on numerous occasions how pleased he was that we could afford all of our own things, and that they were new, not hand-me-downs. This way, we could have a party of sorts after they were born so everyone could meet the twins at once instead of me worrying about people stopping in unannounced.

He had wished me a happy birthday before I left for the hospital that morning. I had spent part of the day feeling guilty because we had barely even acknowledged his birthday the month prior. He had already eluded to a special meal and maybe a nice gift, which was more than he had for his birthday. It was hard to do much, I was still on call and I was so pregnant that I had very little energy anyway. By the time I finished my day at the hospital, I had tried to prepare myself as best I could for whatever he had planned.

However, when I arrived home, he wasn't there. That was certainly odd. He always made a point of returning home promptly at the end of the day, if not earlier.

I went upstairs to change out of my uniform. Even the maternity clothes Fleur had let me borrow were barely covering my tummy anymore. I was just over two weeks away from my due date, I wouldn't need them much longer anyway. I could only pray that my normal clothes fit again relatively soon after the birth. The thought that I may have gained extra weight during the pregnancy was almost too much to bear. The last thing I wanted was to have to buy bigger clothes once this was all over.

When I returned downstairs, George was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. My heart dropped. Something must have happened. There was a plastic food container sitting on the table beside him.

He didn't acknowledge me as I slowly descended the steps. As I got closer, I noticed there was messy writing scrawled on a piece of parchment stuck to the top of the container.

DO NOT OPEN UNTIL MAY 21!!!

All of a sudden, I knew what was inside. My heart was in my throat and tears threatened to fall as I approached George and gingerly reached out to touch his shoulder.

'George, sweetheart?' I said softly.

'Ron and Harry found it in the freezer,' he said, his voice oddly steady. 'They were waiting until today to return it.'

'George...'

'They seemed quite happy to be rid of it,' he looked up slowly. 'Apparently it was taking up quite a bit of space in their freezer.'

'Has it been there for two years?' I asked quietly. 'This whole time?'

'Yeah,' he replied. His face was lacking emotion of any sort. I didn't know what to make of this. I knew there were six slices of two-year-old birthday cake inside that container and only two of us remained to enjoy it like we had promised. Granted, we had promised to eat it two years ago, I couldn't believe it was still there. I'd have thought Ron and Harry would have thrown it out straight after they moved in.