"You've fixed this place up wonderfully, Linda. I can hardly recognize what the house used to look like." Nadia toured every area she could access. Under the pretext of putting away the food, she visited the kitchen and dining room, then moved on to the sitting room and study.
"You've been here before?" Pomona asked with a standard Hufflepuff fake smile.
"I came here when I was little. I grew up in this village, and the children usually played nearby."
"Felix, come down!" Pomona called loudly upstairs just as Severus emerged from the study.
"This is my husband, Edgar Smith."
"Pleased to meet you."
Severus exchanged courtesies with impeccable manners, appearing polite yet distant.
Before long, footsteps sounded upstairs, and Felix appeared on the staircase.
"That's our nephew, Yang Felix. He's practically our adopted son," Pomona added.
"Oh, pleased to meet you, little one," Nadia said in a shrill voice, taking an Easter egg from her pocket. "It's a little early, but you don't mind having more sweets, do you?"
Felix looked at Pomona.
"Say thank you," Pomona said.
Felix took the egg and obediently thanked her.
"I wish my nephew could have come too, so they'd have someone to play with," Nadia said. "But he's at school now."
"Felix is ill." Pomona gave a fake smile. "We can't have him passing his pox on to other children."
"Oh!" Nadia jumped.
"Please don't worry, madam. It isn't Dragon Pox," Severus said. "But the doctor said it would be best for him to rest at home."
Pomona remembered the Skiving Snackboxes in her pocket. They had finally come in handy.
While Severus exchanged pleasantries with Nadia, Pomona summoned the Skiving Snackboxes from her velvet pocket with Accio, then had the invisible Kreacher deliver them to Felix.
Social occasions were exhausting. They