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Now that we’re past Christmas and New Years and back to our usual schedule, everything is progressing quite nicely at Moddey Dhoo. Our two newest additions are settling in, and today the sun was shining and the snow was lovely, so the children had quite a lunch hour spent out of doors. Katherine McGivern ended up coordinating the construction of an entire zoo of snow sculptures, and they took us around to the different animals to show them off before everyone went back to classes. The sphinx in particular was quite impressive! Divyesh is proving to have quite a talent for Transfiguration; he's working right alongside Alec in his schoolwork in that area, and we expect him to pass Colin right by in another few months. The winter greens and potions ingredients in the greenhouses are thriving (including the fluxweed), and Stephen continues to dicker with the Wolfsbane potion to see if he can’t make it a little more stable and decrease those side-effects Remus wrote him about.

It did Victor so much good to see his daughter at the holiday party. He’s so proud of her and glad to see her more settled with the Sherwood group. Lucinda has really grown up so much in the last few months into quite the self-posessed young woman, and I know they are lucky to have her.

And it's hard to believe, but our Kevin is 18 months old now, and is chattering away – his favourite things to say right now are “want up,” “sweeties,” and “Play, daddy, play,” and he says them all constantly. It's funny when he gets them mixed up -- just the other day he looked at me and said, "sweeties up," and then looked so very confused!

Other than that, things are fairly routine around here. There’s always work to do, and lessons to sort out. The only trouble is that I haven’t been sleeping well the last few days, and I suspect it’s because I’ve been thinking a lot about Leicester. I hadn’t thought of it for such a long time, and then, all of a sudden, it fell neatly into my lap and it’s like it only just happened. I remember the sound my shoes made in the mud, and the Killing Curse that hit the Muggle man who was running alongside me, and that woman, the one that they and poor Sturgis calling out as they took him away to do Merlin knows what to him until he told them what they wanted.

I even remember the explosion that killed Parkinson – from where I was, it was a bright flash followed by a thumping, cracking sound – but it all happened so fast and in the middle of so many other things that I’m not sure I even asked anyone about it after all was said and done. It was chaos. And Moody – Merlin, I didn’t think he’d pull through, he was bleeding so badly after his duel with Malfoy. Kingsley, do you remember how much he swore while we patched him up? I don’t think I could have managed it by myself, between his jerking around and my hands shaking as badly as they were.

When I dream, though, I keep seeing Sturgis. The look on his face. No-one deserves what happened to him. I’d no idea he was still alive until he showed up on the list of those that escaped from Azkaban this summer. And for a little while, I thought if only we could get to him before they did… well, I’m not sure we could have ever made up for what he’d gone through, but it was almost like he’d got his second chance. When he was Kissed, it was like losing him all over again.

Goodness. I didn’t mean to be so maudlin. I think I’ll ask Stephen to make me up a little Dreamless Sleep for tonight.