black and white ✰ g.w.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was sundown on New Year's Eve, and Olivia was Apparating around the flat, frantically doing cleaning spells anywhere that needed them. The twins were no help when it came to this, and were instead downstairs in the shop, closing up. Not that they would be much help if they actually tried to be; 19 years old, and they were still rubbish at cleaning spells.

Just when it appeared to Olivia that she had finished, that the flat was as clean as it was going to get, she heard the distant dinging of a bell from down in the shop, alerting the three inhabitants that the door had been opened. All of them Apparated to the entrance at once, nearly piling on top of each other in their rush to be the first to greet their friends.

There was a shriek and then Olivia was struggling to keep herself upright because of the added weight of the embrace she was now in.

"Oh, wow, we're hugging," she said, awkwardly patting Alicia on the back. "Hello."

Fifteen minutes later, the six old friends were upstairs, sitting around on the floor of the flat. Each had their own bottle of firewhisky, and already, the stories they were recalling of their Hogwarts days were seeming a lot funnier than usual.

"Ah, I remember Ollie's first match," Olivia reminisced. "Poor boy didn't even make it five minutes before he took a Bludger right to the skull. Mum had herself all worked up that whole week he was unconscious in the hospital wing. And then when he woke up, they gave him an award for effort to make him feel better after making Gryffindor lose." Her eyes filled with tears of laughter at one of her brother's most embarrassing memories to date.

"Didn't Oliver join the team in his second year?" Lee asked.

"Yes."

"None of us had even started Hogwarts then! How could you possibly remember that if you weren't there?"

"I wasn't there, but Ben was. He kindly gave me a play-by-play of the whole match when they came home for Christmas."

"So this was before Ben hated your guts?" Angelina asked with a teasing grin, and the rest of the group burst out laughing.

"Yes," Olivia answered, and they laughed even harder at her bluntness. "Oh, and remember our match against Slytherin in third year?"

"My first match as an official member of the team?" Alicia said.

"Yeah, that one. Oliver got hit by a Bludger during that one, too. Fell right through the goalpost." Olivia laughed again. "No wonder he never even considered being a Beater. He's got rotten luck with Bludgers."

"I was hit with a Bludger during that match, too," Angelina said, wincing a bit as she remembered the pain of the incident.

"Still won the match, though," Lee pointed out.

"No thanks to any of us," George said. "That was all Harry."

"Yeah, and then we had the worst loss in three centuries in the last match of that same year," Fred said. "Which was also all Harry."

"Yeah, that one was rough," Olivia said. "Damn Ravenclaw."

"Oh, come on, guys, be nice," Alicia said. "He was in the hospital wing after saving the world. Give him a break."