Still Delicate

Unwelcomed Changes

It's the final countdown. In exactly five hours I will be dead. I wonder how Aidan will get along without me. I know I've probably messed him up good and proper at this stage, but hopefully he'll get over it and actually grow up to be a normal person. Or as normal as someone who's half-Malfoy, half-Weasley can be – and as normal as someone who's stepmother has killed his mother can be.

Then again, maybe Daisy won't kill me. Maybe we'll duel and I'll win, despite the fact that she has ten more years' life experience than I do, and a NEWT in Charms. Well, I'm presuming she has a NEWT in Charms if she works in the broomstick-charming industry. Still, I have attitude – or what my mother calls shameless cheek – and you can't really match that with a couple of stupid spells.

In conclusion, I'm a dead woman.

"Cheer up, love," Gladys tells me, watching me twirl my quill around in my hands at super-speed. It's the same quill that 'Aidan' got me for Christmas. I hope they bury it with me. "Maybe she just wants to borrow a jug."

"If she wanted to borrow a jug, then why couldn't she do that in front of the child?" Hazel asks logically, "Nope, Rose is dead."

Cheers, Hazel.

"She is not dead," says Linda fiercely, "Daisy has no right to say anything to Rose about Scorpius! He was hers first!"

I always liked that Linda.

"Well, yes, technically," says Gladys, "But Rose did dump him."

Why do they have to talk about me like I'm not sitting right here beside them?

"Yes, and Scorpius is Daisy's husband, at the end of the day," says Hazel.

"So?" Linda spits, "What Rose and Scorpius had was deeper than a piece of paper!"

"Yes, was deeper," says Hazel, "Rose ended things with Scorpius. She can't expect him to wait around forever."

"It's a good thing she can't hear you," I say dryly.

"He slept in her bed last night!" says Linda, banging her hand down on the desk, "What does that tell you?"

"That he's a typical bloke," says Hazel, "Thinks with his –"

"There was no thinking with anything last night!" I snap, "He slept on my bed last night, not in it!"

I should have called in sick today. There is so much work to be done after yesterday's catastrophe, but I'm just not in the mood to do anything. The death count is up to thirty, and the thought just gives me shivers every time I think about it. We're not even helping out today. We're back to doing the boring admin work; in other words, Linda is back to reading Witch Weekly, Gladys is back to painting her nails, Hazel is back to raving on about her husband and I'm back to fantasising about goals I'll never achieve and blonde hair I'll never have. And of course my pending murder.

On top of this, we have families approaching us every few minutes, asking about their relatives who were injured in yesterday's blasts, some of whom are dead. Gladys and Hazel deliver the bad news. I can't seem to muster up the courage. How do you tell a woman that her daughter is dead? I can't imagine what it's like to lose a child. If anything ever happened to Aidan, I'm not sure what I'd do. Even thinking about it is too unbearable.

I get a letter from Nana Molly around lunchtime. Despite the fact that Al bought her a magi-phone for her 80th birthday, she insists on writing letters to communicate with people. She figures she got through eighty years of her life without semi-Muggle magic, so she shouldn't start using it now. Grandad, on the other hand, thought it was the best thing since his flying car.