Taste of Youth

The Healer stayed with me for two more hours, something about making sure I didn't "give out" later. I didn't argue and let her chatter on after I had closed up behind Mr.Ergs and the others. Her name was Rita Crow and she'd worked as a Healer for over fifty years. Rita had a family of three, two girls. Her youngest, one of the girls named Amanda, was going to be in her first year. Her eldest was working at the Ministry as an Unspeakable. She kept asking me about the schooling I'd been through, what I was going in Diagon Alley. After an hour of subject changes and looks filled with knowing disappointment, I gave.

"My mother and I got into an argument the morning when I got my school letter about my...abilities. My sister agreed that we should send me to a ward, my brother wasn't so hot on the idea. He fought for me when I was too young to have a say. She kicked him out, stopped talking to him and sent me away. I lived at an in-home therapy house until I was fourteen. When I was finally released my brother was gone, they said he ran off but he didn't leave a note or anything. He was the only person in my family I trusted so I figured I'd try and find him."

"Did you?" Her voice was soft and the vial in her hand clinked against her wedding band.

"Yeah. In a county morgue. He was shot, three times in the chest, tried to stop a petty theft and was killed for it. I was called in because my picture was in his wallet pocket, the only thing left in it." I put a stopper on the vial I was bottling and set it with the others, "Then I left. Rounded up the money I had made working in the therapy house and bought a ticket for the first flight out of there. I figured across the Atlantic they couldn't do anything else to me, not that I had anything more for them to take after Leon was gone. I must seem like I'm nothing more than a child to you right?"

Rita smiled and shook her head, "I think that you lost someone very important to you and that you weren't allowed to be a child. I think that what your family did wasn't right and that no one should be put through that. Also, sweetie, you are a child but you are very mature for one."

After a moment of silence I sighed, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, dear. How is you back feeling?"

"It's fine, thank you."

"If you never went to school, Luciana, why do you have a wand?" She looked curious eying the piece of wood sticking out of my pocket.

"Oh I got this today actually. Nearly took down Ollivander's before I got to it. Here." I offered the stick out to her as I set up the ingredients for my next potion.

"Oh my, it's beautiful! What's the core?"

"Unicorn hair." I said my head in a clean cauldron.

"It's beautiful, Luciana. A Healer's wand for sure." Rita smiled as she handed it back.

"What does that mean anyway? That it's a Healer's wand?"

"What it means dear, is that this wand by itself could heal terrible wounds and if the person knows what their doing it could save lives, maybe even several in a single swish. Ever consider doing back to school, Luciana?" She gave me a look that told me exactly what she wanted to hear.

"No I haven't."

She sighed and shook her head glancing at the watch on her wrist. I struggled not to smile at the sight of the Muggle device. Rita began to gather her things and I tried to ignore the sadness that settled in my stomach to see her go. She smiled as she pushed her arms through her jacket sleeves.

"Amanda wanted to go to a record store down the way. She's a bit odd like that, always into Muggle contraptions made me buy her a record player." Rita shook her head and smiled at me, "Consider going back to school, alright? I think that the regrets will be slim."

With that she walked out, leaving me to brew Befuddlement potions and go home to a dingy hotel room. Yet somehow even though that sounded horrible, like I didn't have much, it made me feel like I had something to go home to. I continued with the potion and thought about the boys who had come in to the bookstore. I bet they met at school, just like so many other people. I wondered if I would get to have friends like that if I just considered it.