The Healer | Part 3: The Survivors

Epilogue

Thirteen years later

'It's not fair, why do they get nicer brooms than me?'

'Because we're thirteen and you're only nine!'

That hadn't taken long for the bickering to start.

George had presented the boys with brand new, top-of-the-line racing broomsticks the day they'd arrived home from their second-year Hogwarts as a belated birthday present. After a brief outrage that we should have sent the brooms directly to school for their actual birthday, they could have used them at the Quidditch Cup final after all, we were quickly forgiven and didn't see them again for several hours.

It had taken a lot of convincing on George's part for me to agree to let him buy the boys real racing brooms in the first place. In the end, I realized that I would probably never understand what it meant for a boy to have a real racing broom, I could fly fairly well, but I had never played Quidditch before.

George, Roxanne and I and gone to Hogwarts to watch the final match of the season just a few weeks ago, Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw. We had been to every other Gryffindor and Ravenclaw match that year, I knew George wouldn't miss any of their matches for anything. It was the boys' first year on their respective house teams, Fred played for Gryffindor and Fergus for Ravenclaw, both Beaters, just like their father and uncle. I had to admit, it had been an extremely fun match to watch with the boys playing against each other. It was a rivalry that apparently amused the whole school.

Fred and Fergus were teasing Roxanne with how fast they could fly, much faster than her, limited by her children's broom, and racing each other through the clouds. But there was no way I was letting her have a real broom until she was at least twelve and she made no effort to hide her outrage at that particular decision. Of course, it didn't help that their Aunt Ginny was now a professional Quidditch player. That, and every other member of George's family played the sport. Our back garden was quickly deemed the best place to play, it had the most open space and was far enough away from muggles. It also helped the parents knowing that I was a fully qualified Healer should anything go wrong. And things had gone wrong over the years, more broken bones than I could count. There was usually always at least a few cousins popping out of the fireplace every afternoon, broomstick over their shoulder, with a quick, 'hi Aunt Edith,' and they were in the back garden to join in the fun. Especially since Hogwarts had let out for the summer and the older cousins were able to join in.

I didn't mind playing host to the cousins over the summer. I only worked casually at the hospital so I usually took the summers off to spend time with the boys while they were home. Besides, Fergus had already broken his arm twice in the few weeks since they'd been home while Fred had broken both his ankle and his nose. There had been a brief panic over that one, they wanted to be sure I could fix Fred's nose so they would still be identical. How it mattered, I had no idea. During the school year, one would Simple have to look at the colours on their robes to tell them apart.

I knew it wouldn't be long before they were seventeen and wouldn't be all mine anymore, they were already getting to the point where they didn't want much to do with George or I anymore.

We had added a third bedroom to the house after Roxanne was born, but the boys were adamant that they preferred sharing a room. And now that they slept in separate dormitories during the school term, I didn't have the heart to separate them over the summer.

For now, everyone was on their broomsticks. It wasn't my favourite way to travel, but George had insisted it would be good for us all. The children hardly needed any convincing. I wasn't so sure, but we were almost there anyway, I could already make out the familiar form of Edinburgh Castle in the distance.