Meringues for Algernon

Algie!"

"Uncle, please!"

"Algie! Where are you? Don't you want some meringue?"

"Meringue? Yum!"

At one hundred forty six years of age, Algernon Longbottom was as sugar-greedy as he had been a hundred and forty years earlier. It was said that his sweet tooth rivalled only Albus Dumbledore's, but Hogwarts' Headmaster himself had pronounced Algernon the winner in this competition.

"Mmm... Enid, your cakes are the best." Algernon helped himself happily to his third cake. His eternal bachelorhood didn't grant him any culinary skills, save an uncanny ability to sniff out any sweetmeat. "Though I must say your scones are not as crunchy as Ruth's."

He sighed discreetly. He didn't want to provoke a quarrel with his grandniece-in-law, even if he hadn't currently been her guest. He stole a glance from the corner of his eyes.

"Algernon, don't try to pretend you are afraid of me," Ruth frowned at him, "and I know Enid makes better cakes. I admitted it myself, forty years ago, in case you don't remember."

He muttered something noncommittal. Ruth moved aside her large red handbag, which she always kept close, and got up to fetch more tea.

"Try the bilberry jam, Enid, it's not very sweet and it's good for your eyes."

Enid spread some on her scone, smiling. Ruth could never enjoy food without mentioning its health values. At least she was good at it - hardly any better Herbologist across the British Isles, although her early student, Pomona, was rumoured to have surpassed her teacher. Enid sighed. The realisation that no herb could help her son had been a heavy blow to Ruth's career. Now she devoted all her energy, even too much of her energy, as Enid sometimes thought, to bringing up Neville.

She recalled a small figure of a boy, sitting very straight, elbows close to his body, looking from the cakes to his grandmother and waiting for her to say: "Yes, Neville, you may take another one." One could put a teacup on the top of his head and place books under his armpits and they won't fall. Some people simply don't change - and her cousin was one of them. She could still remember Frank, sitting at the same place, with a volume of Materia Herbologica under each arm. Well, Ruth brought up Frank to be a fine man and one could only hope she would succeed as well with Neville. Speaking of the devil - where was he? It was unusual for him not to arrive immediately when tea was served. Being late always earned him a stern glance and probably a lecture afterwards. Besides he was almost as fond of her pies as Algernon.

"Neville!" Ruth put a large pot at the table. "Neville! Where did that boy go?"

"He'll come, he'll come, don't worry," said Algernon, "when he smells this apple pie," he put a piece on his plate, "he'll burst in here running."

"If there's any apple pie left," said Enid, looking pointedly at Algernon's plate.

Ruth fumed. She didn't want to punish Neville in the presence of the guests - discipline was not a public matter. But if he didn't come in five minutes, he'd be sent to his room without his tea. She listened to Enid's chatter about latest gossip, her eyes tracing the movements of the large hand on the family clock on the mantelpiece. Five minutes passed.

"He might as well not come at all; he won't get his tea anyway."

"Who? Oh, Neville." Enid was puzzled. She had just been describing the latest adventures of Arnold Peasegood, who was mistakenly obliviated by one of his junior assistants and forgot his wife's birthday. And Mrs. Peasegood's temper was legendary.

"Where could he have gone? Algernon, you were with him in his room."

"He's probably in the garden. Maybe trying to show he's not afraid or he's miffed at me."

"Algie, have you been trying your tricks again? I hope not. Blackpool was enough. I don't feel like performing resuscitation again."

"It's your job, Enid," Algie smiled beatifically, drops of caramel shining on his upper lip.

"It's a weekend, Algernon," she reminded him, tone very much like her cousin.

"I'll look for him," decided Ruth.

"C'mon Ruth, let him run for a while," said Algernon, but she was already at the door.

"I'll go too," said Enid getting up. "Leave a few meringues for him."

She followed her cousin into the garden. She heard a muffled cry of "Neville!" from the apple orchard, so she turned and went around the house, where the windows of the boy's room were.

Enid had worked most of her life in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes and needed no diagnostic charms to check his state. Nobody with his neck bent at such an angle could possibly be alive. His pudgy face was hidden in the flowerbed, one hand uselessly thrown above his head, possibly in an attempt to break the fall.

"Oh, Neville," said Enid, sitting slowly as her knees went weak, "so you were a squib after all."

She heard the rustle of her cousin's robe, a short gasp of breath and fast footsteps, muffled by grass. She scrambled frantically to her feet, to run after Ruth.

"You! You and your cakes!"

Enid ran into the sitting room. Algernon was still in his armchair, shocked, his eyes wide, Ruth charging with her wand drawn.

"You murdered him!"

"Ruth! It was an accident!" screamed Enid, grasping for her cousin's hand.

"You wanted a cake! A cake!"

The remaining meringues Enid was so proud of, beautiful, cream filled white lilies, oozing drops of caramel against white crust swirled and leapt into the air, smashing down Algernon's half opened mouth.

"Ruth! Stop!" Enid threw herself down on her knees at the side of Algie's armchair. "Finite Incantatem! Purgo cakes! Resuscio!"

No use, she thought, Ruth was always more powerful, he's as dead as his grandnephew, choked with his favourite pie. She lifted her eyes to Ruth, still standing with her wand pointed.

"Another magical catastrophe for you to sort out, Enid," she said dropping her hand and sitting in the other armchair, very straight and stiff, hands very properly placed on her knees; only her voice was not so stern as usual. "He was the last, you know," she added, playing with her wand. "The last of the Longbottoms."

She murmured two words under her breath and a tiny green spark leapt from the tip of her wand to her left forearm. Her body lost its rigidity, her chin dropped down, her hand relaxed on her lap. For the first time she looked like a really old woman.

Enid pulled herself slowly onto the remaining armchair. Her tea was already cold, so she poured herself some fresh into Neville's unused cup. After all, he wouldnt need it. And she could only wait for the Aurors, who were already Apparating around the house, alerted by the last spell.