“Four, though one of them has recently gone away to explore the world and I am bereft without her,” Ailsa responded, realising a moment too late how insensitive she likely sounded to a man who really was bereaved. Astrild was only in Norway after all! It wasn’t as though she would never see her again – Ailsa, perhaps more than any member of her family, still held fast to the notion that her daughter’s return was a matter of when not if.

Fortunately he didn’t seem to have noticed her faux pas, though neither did he seem overkeen to continue along the same conversational tract. Ailsa though was nothing if not persistent to the point of indecency.

“Are they off at Hogwarts now? I miss my two youngest terribly though I suppose I shouldn’t begrudge them their schooldays. Mine were marvellous. My sister and I blew up the potions laboratory twice. Not deliberately of course but well, accidents happen, as they say.”

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