Dale knew his mother was sick, she had gotten sick near the end of August, about two weeks before he was to leave for Hogwarts. He was naturally worried about her, but both of his parents assured him over and over again that it was nothing, especially his mother. She told him to go and enjoy his year, and Dale himself wanted to enjoy his year more than anything, his last year had been.. Eventful to say the least, between his “love life” or more so failure of one, and the unfortunate events that seemed to happen at almost every public event Hogwarts hosted. He wanted to try to lie a bit lower, spend more time reading, and less time under tables at balls. It was going to be his 3rd year after all, there was so much to learn and look forward to. 4 new classes including ancient runes, a class he had been looking forward to since year 1.

And the year started off well, with nothing of much importance happening, just the way he liked it. 3 months passed by, but he didn’t get much news of his mother's condition, most of the letters he got from her were about her new book. He had assumed that she was all good now… how wrong he was. It was mid-November when he got the owl, his parcel with his fall jackets and gloves hadn’t come yet, and he had barely received any owl from his parents, he assumed they were just busy, or maybe they had gone to travel and weren’t receiving his owls. But all of those theories came crumbling down when he got an owl from his parents. The owl contained a couple of medical documents and a letter from his father. Dale looked through the medical documents first, he could barely understand, it was full of lingo and horrible handwriting, he had to read it twice to understand but when he did, it hit him like a truck. His mother had cancer, Dale quickly opened up the other letter, the letter was short, It was his father informing him of his mother did in fact have cancer, but that wasn’t the end of the bad news, His father wasn’t able to get any time off of work, and he needed Dale to come home to take care of his mom.

The next week was spent very solemnly for Dale, he didn’t cry, in fact, he still had not fully processed it yet, it all felt like a bad dream, something he would wake up from any moment now, but he never did. Over the course of the week, he packed his things, said bye to his few friends, and talked to his professors about continuing his studies from home. And then on November 24th Dale left Hogwarts.

When Dale got off platform 9 3/4ths he was greeted only by his father. The road trip home was quiet, Dale could tell his father was hurt even more than Dale was. Dale's father, Jamey, usually liked to keep a clean face, but he didn’t have the will to shave in the past 2 months and it showed. The road home seemed a little different, he had never really seen it at this time of year, it just made Dale feel even more uneasy.

Dale followed his father into his house, the house reminded him just how unreal this all felt to him. The house was usually very well kept and brightly lit, single-handedly thanks to his mother's insistence. But all of that light and cleanliness was nowhere to be seen, most of the lights were off, and the windows were all covered up, there were boxes and other small pieces of trash all along the hallway walls and stairs. Jamey immediately went upstairs and Dale followed him up. The upstairs seemed a bit more like the house Dale remembered, with all of the windows being opened and no trash anywhere to be seen. Dale’s father insisted that he go in first, and he did. He pushed open the door to his mother’s room. There on the bed was his mother, she didn’t look all that bad, other than a few bags under her eyes, she looked like she was doing fine. Dale internally let out a sigh of relief, he thought his mother was already on life support or something worse than that. Vija Kurt greeted her son with a wide smile, joking about how he was going to get a few months of break while she recovered. Dale smiled for the first time in a while, seeing his mother like this made him feel like everything was going to be ok, it was the 20th century after all, and he knew his mother was quite the sturdy one, he convinced himself everything was going to be ook.

The next few months passed by relatively peacefully, Dale spent almost all of his time with his mother, she made sure he did his school work and he made sure she took her meds and that she was eating well. Dale found himself with a lot of free time during this time, he spent this time improving his magical skill and sending owls back and forth with his friends. He knew that his magical skill was severely lacking, and he wanted to change that, he practiced magic a lot, and he slowly was seeing himself getting better at casting, he was still failing spells, but he expected that, he was just glad he could cast some of the more important spells with a greater chance of success, he was also able to start learning something a bit… special during his practices but sadly he wasn't able to expand on this newfound skill.

During the months where Dale was taking care of his mom, he could see his father becoming more and more disheveled. Dale wasn’t able to talk to his dad much, but the few times he did talk to him, He could see just a little bit of hope, Dale was even able to get his father to smile in what seemed like months. It almost seemed like the bad times were coming to an end, it was already mid-February, and it didn't seem like his mother's condition was getting any worse.. But it also wasn't getting any better.

Another month passed of relative peace, the only difference was that his mother seemed to have less energy than before, and his father looked more stressed than usual coming home from Vija’s weekly doctor's visits. Dale was getting worried, had something happened? If something did happen, his parents were not telling him, his father kept telling him to talk to his mom, and his mom kept telling him that everything was going to be ok. It felt like he was being kept in the dark about the condition of his own mother. That was until one night right before Dale was going to go to sleep, He heard a knock on his door. It was his father, Dale knew something was wrong as soon as he saw his dad’s face, there were tear lines on it. In all of Dale’s 14 years, he had never seen his father cry, and Dale had already assumed the worst. His father only confirmed it, Jamey informed his son that his mother had only about 2 months to live.

The next day Dale and his family all drove to the hospital. He was scared, but his mother wasn’t, in fact, she acted like there was nothing wrong like she wasn’t even aware of the fact that she knew her time of death. She tried to cheer both Dale and Jamey up, but to no avail, Dale felt like his father was in the same state of shock he was in like everything was just a bad dream and he would wake up from it any minute now, but never did. As they checked in his mother Dale and his father insisted that they spend the night with her at the hospital, and while Vija was against the idea saying that they should go home and sleep in their own beds, nothing could convince them otherwise. It took Vija a week and a half to convince her son and husband to go home, and come and visit her during the day.

The 2 months were spent very solemnly, Jamey took as many days off as his work would allow him, and spent all the time he could with his terminally ill wife. Dale spent all the time he had with his mother helping her finish her last book. As soon as they finished the book, she told him that she knew that this was going to be her last book and that she couldn't have a better co-author for it, that filled Dale with a sense of pride, but also a great sense of sadness as he could tell that the condition of his mother was getting worse and worse by the day. Vija still had Dale keep up with his work, much to his dismay, the last thing he was worried about was his stupid school work, but she insisted. And on May 19th Dale and his father said goodnight to Vija and left. Only to be informed the next morning that she had passed away due to heart complications in the middle of the night.

Jamey immediately dropped the phone and rushed over to the car, Dale quickly followed. They drove as fast as they could to the hospital, and as soon as they arrived, the doctor was there to greet them. Both Dale and his Father were informed that Vija Kurt had indeed passed away in the middle of the night. Jamey immediately rushed into the room, and Dale could hear the cries from outside the room. Dale himself just sat outside the room, none of this felt real to him, like a bad dream, a nightmare, but he knew he couldn't just wake up from this. And for the first time in a long while, Dale cried his eyes out