(no subject)
A reminder to all Healing class students: there will be no class tomorrow. Instead, you will have a study period in the library to work on the long paper that is due in three weeks' time. I have given Madam Pince a list of basic medical manuals and texts that you may use as a starting point, but I expect you to refer to no fewer than five texts that are not on the list when you write your essays. If you need a pass for the Restricted section, come to me during the study period and I will give it to you then.
[Private]
I really shouldn't have gone to the Cenotaph service yesterday. I tell myself every year that this year will be the last one, but every Remembrance Sunday I find myself slipping out for the wreath laying and the Two Minutes' Silence. At least I've stopped going to Diagon Alley to Floo home afterwards -- I don't think I could stand to see all those people going about their business as if nothing was unusual about the day.
There was an elderly Muggle man in one of those wheeled chairs selling paper poppies in Charing Cross Road. If I had had any Muggle money on me, I would have bought as many as I could. If I had had the time to stop, I would have stopped and spoken to him, talked to him for a few minutes if no more. But when I passed by him, for the briefest of moments our eyes met...and he reached out and caught my sleeve (thank heavens I still had my Transfigured robes for a winter overcoat), and said in this rusty little voice, 'Thank you, ma'am. You and the other sisters...we'd never have made it without you.'
I couldn't speak. I could only nod, and hope that my eyes were stinging from the chilly wind and not because I was going to cry right there in the middle of Muggle London. I somehow made it to a place where I could Apparate without being seen, and then it was time for class.
Tomorrow...tomorrow is my day. My day, and Philip's day, and if only the Muggles understand it then so be it.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields....
[Private]
I really shouldn't have gone to the Cenotaph service yesterday. I tell myself every year that this year will be the last one, but every Remembrance Sunday I find myself slipping out for the wreath laying and the Two Minutes' Silence. At least I've stopped going to Diagon Alley to Floo home afterwards -- I don't think I could stand to see all those people going about their business as if nothing was unusual about the day.
There was an elderly Muggle man in one of those wheeled chairs selling paper poppies in Charing Cross Road. If I had had any Muggle money on me, I would have bought as many as I could. If I had had the time to stop, I would have stopped and spoken to him, talked to him for a few minutes if no more. But when I passed by him, for the briefest of moments our eyes met...and he reached out and caught my sleeve (thank heavens I still had my Transfigured robes for a winter overcoat), and said in this rusty little voice, 'Thank you, ma'am. You and the other sisters...we'd never have made it without you.'
I couldn't speak. I could only nod, and hope that my eyes were stinging from the chilly wind and not because I was going to cry right there in the middle of Muggle London. I somehow made it to a place where I could Apparate without being seen, and then it was time for class.
Tomorrow...tomorrow is my day. My day, and Philip's day, and if only the Muggles understand it then so be it.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields....