Chapter 410 - Easter Sunday (2/2)
Elphinstone flushes, but before he can speak, a woman's voice shouts, ”Morag, what did I just say about manners?!”
The girl named Morag wrinkles her nose at her mother and flashes Elphinstone a cheeky smile, before skipping back towards her mother, a golden, reddish haired woman. The woman is flushed pink in embarrassment as she dries her hands on her apron. ”Pardon me, I was just washing my hands, when that little minx, my daughter rushed ahead of me to answer the door,” the woman apologized as she extended her hand in greeting, before flushing again embarrassment.
”Oh goodness, me,” the woman muttered again in embarrassment. ”Just where are my manners? I apologize, I am Evie McGonagall, Malcolm's wife, and you must be Mr. Urquart. Minerva has written to us so much about you.”
”She has?” Elphinstone said with a gleam of delight in his eyes.
Evie McGonagall nods her head and holds out her hands to take the bowl of potato salad from the wizard. Elphinstone carefully hands the bowl over and says, ”I don't know how good it will taste, but I tried.”
”It will be delicious, no doubt,” Evie murmured. ”Now please head on outright down the hallway and out the backdoor. They're already set everything up outside since we're having such lovely weather today.”
”Er, yes, thank you,” Elphinstone said, before making his way down the hall. He slowly took in the fact that the cottage is mostly muggle styled with no wizarding portraits visible out in the open. But he already knew that the father of his beloved Minerva was a muggle.
Still carrying his bouquet of flowers, Elphinstone emerges into the warm shining sun to see an open pavilion tent set up over the long dining table that had been set out on a patch of dried grass. There are two seated men along with an older silver-haired woman watching the children running around in laughter.
There are two more golden, reddish haired children. One is a boy that looks roughly around five years old, while a little girl looks to be about three years old. The two children chase each other around with a third dark-haired boy chasing after them. Said child, is roughly three years old, and greatly resembles the youngest McGonagall brother, Robert Jr.
Beyond them standing is a dark-haired woman, no doubt the wife of Robert Jr. The young witch is rocking a one-year-old toddler to sleep. The little girl is yawning loudly but is clearly putting up a fight refusing to take a nap. Still, the young woman continues to rock her youngest causing the little girl's eyes to flutter open and shut.
Overall, it was a picturesque scene, which Elphinstone would one day love to be a part of. He had been an only child having been born to his parents in their older years. They'd both since passed away some ten odd years ago. And though he did indeed have cousins still living, they all were quite older than him or estranged due to living on the northern European continent.