Reflections - Mattheo Riddle

Potions Class

"Do mine ears deceive me?" said Fred, arriving with George and squeezing onto the bench beside Kirra. "The Hufflepuff prefect surely doesn't wish to skive off lessons?"

"Look what we've got today," said Kirra glumly, shoving her schedule under Fred's nose. "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen." 

"Fair point, little Hufflepuff," said Fred, scanning the column. "You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."

"I'll have one, makes it easier to chuck a sickie that way," Alex speaks up quickly

"No trust me you don't want it, not yet," Kirra said quickly, shaking her head as she glared at the twins, her lips twitching in amusement

"What why not?" said Alex suspiciously.

"Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven't got an antidote yet," said George, helping himself to a kipper.

"Cheers," said Alex with a sigh, pocketing her timetable before picking up a few grapes and eating them, "but I think I'll take the lessons."

"Never seen you before, you a newbie?" Fred spoke up, standing up to go sit next to her, throwing his arm around the new girls shoulder

Alex shrugged him off, her face scrunching up slightly at the contact, "yeah I'm a new 5th year."

"And speaking of your Skiving Snackboxes," said Kirra, "you guys found anyone to test them out?"

"We're advertising them on the Gryffindor notice board, you reckon you could stick 'em up in the Hufflepuff common room too?" George asked her

"Not likely," Kirra said with a snort, "I'd get in so much trouble, probably lose my 'shiny new badge' too," she said, putting on an extremely strong and posh English accent

Fred, thickly buttering a crumpet. "You're starting your fifth year, you'll be begging us for a Snackbox before long."

"And why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snack-box?" asked Kirra with a smug look.

"Fifth year's O.W.L. year," said George.

"So?" Kirra asked, waiting for them to remember that she has done the exams before

"So you've got your exams coming up, haven't you? They'll be keep-" Fred nodded suddenly, "oh yeah..."

"Well half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to O.W.L.s," said George happily. "Tears and tantrums . . . Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint. . . ."

"Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d'you remember?" said Fred reminiscently.

"That's 'cause you put Bulbadox Powder in his pajamas," said George.

"Oh yeah," said Fred, grinning. "I'd forgotten. . . . Hard to keep track sometimes, isn't it?"

"Anyway, it's a nightmare of a year, the fifth," said George. "If you care about exam results anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our spirits up somehow."

"Yeah . . . you got, what was it, three O.W.L.s each?" said Kirra.

"Yep," said Fred unconcernedly. "But we feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement."

"We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back for our seventh year," said George brightly, "now that we've got that money from Harry. I mean, do we really need N.E.W.T.s? But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."

"We're not going to waste our last year here, though," said Fred, looking affectionately around at the Great Hall. "We're going to use it to do a bit of market research, find out exactly what the average Hogwarts student requires from his joke shop, carefully evaluate the results of our research, and then produce the products to fit the demand."