Private Message to Amara Mitiku

Mother,

I'm sorry if you think I've not adequately expressed my sympathies for your loss. I suppose I expected you'd find ways to console yourself as you always have done. Is this time so different? (And now I suppose you'll feel I'm speaking out of turn.)

At any rate, have you not received an acknowledgement from the Fund for Saltpetre Widows and Orphans? I made a generous contribution to them in Cooper's memory; they were almost embarrassingly grateful. (Interesting what one receives in acknowledgment, isn't it? I've had a truly hideous silk tie from Spattergroit Research, twenty or thirty ill-written notes from Quidditch-playing eight-year-olds, and apparently I'm to have a tree in Yorkshire named after me by the Bowtruckle Protection people.)

Do cheer up, Mother. Schedule something indulgent with Madam Ardenia, why don't you? Or book that highlands tour you were talking about. You might meet someone.