Oasis: Time Flies...

Who Feels Love?

I put my clenched fist over my cauldron, about to drop my next lot of ingredients in.

"Noel!" Jenny pulled my hand away. "You can't just lob those in like that."

"What?" I blinked at her.

"It says one at a time or it'll go boom. D'you want Snape on our arses?"

"It won't go boom." I dismissed. "They wouldn't trust a load of teenagers with summat that'll blow up if it goes wrong."

"You don't read the books."

"I do. I'm set to get some decent OWLs next year. Potions, Defence, Creatures, especially Herbology."

"Is that what's up with you?" she accused in a hushed tone. "You've been using what you grow again?"

"No, I've not. It's not grown yet."

"You shouldn't be..."

"Chill out, it's just a plant."

"How d'you know you're going to get your OWLs, they're next year and you're crap at Divination?"

"I just do. I'm not crap at it, Divination's a load of crap. Ya can't know the future. You have to make it, dance if ya wanna dance, I want me OWLs so I'm gonna get 'em."

"What's your problem then?"

I sighed, not wanting to talk about it, she was going to get annoyed and call me spiteful and that. "Our Kid's coming up."

"That's it? You're not concentrating cos you're brother's coming up next year?"

"You don't know what he's like."

"He's a little brother."

"Times ten.

She started laughing. "You'll survive like everyone else does."

"It's not funny!"

"No, it's not!" Snape was suddenly behind us, he knocked our heads together. "Would you like to share with the class? Do you two need splitting up?"

I looked down, pretending to be studying my text book while Jenny shook her head "Sorry Professor."

"Get on with your work." he ordered, trying to be intimidating. "Ten points from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw."

The class groaned and as soon as he was far enough away I gave the table leg a kick. Jenny had a go at me for that too. She had to grab the table before everything went flying.

...

I had relied on Paul to stop Liam getting his letter. We live on a muggle council estate, we only ever got magic post from the school so it couldn't be that hard to spot the one owl that was on its way to deliver that letter. It didn't work as soon as his birthday came so did the letter.

Paul turned down his place, maybe he could talk Liam out of going too. It was very unlikely though, he wouldn't stop nicking my stuff, my scarves, my robes, even the textbooks but he could have those. He hadn't stopped talking about when it was his turn to go since the moment he got his letter.

Liam liked his primary school. He had friends, loads of them, he wouldn't be the centre of attention here, he would be at the local secondary. They'd send him a tutor like they did Paul, so it's not like he'd miss out, not really. He didn't have to come to Hogwarts.

They gave Paul the tutor because of special circumstances though, Liam isn't special. Paul was too shy to go. He was quiet, he stuttered, he thought he'd make the spells go horribly wrong. He didn't want to be sent away, leaving Mam and us two, not with Dad around so the wizarding world made allowances. He got both his GCSEs and his OWLs, he was open to work in both worlds, whatever he wanted.