With a roar of delight, the fire transformed from a burning orange like the sky at dawn to a green fit for the Emerald city itself as Islabeth Bloskey cast Floo Powder into the embers.

“Bloskey’s Brews!” She said as she eagerly stepped into the flames. The fire licked at her skin and tickled all over her body, but within seconds, she stumbled out of the fireplace in a puff of smoke.

The three older kids were already dusting their clothes off; Muggle clothes because Lily’s mum wouldn’t let her leave the house in her school robes and the others didn’t want to make her feel out of place. Well, Beth and Zebby didn’t. Sev couldn’t have cared less, but one sharp look from the other boy and he begrudgingly donned jeans and a button up shirt with a gray vest which, if you asked Beth, was overkill.

“C’mon, Bessie!” Beth’s brother said. Her name rolled off his tongue so quickly that the syllables melded together, just another testament to how often he used the word.

Zebby grabbed Lily’s wrist and, with Severus on his tail and Beth falling just behind, skipped down the stairs of the flat that the kids had turned into the hangout spot. The Bloskey family was too large to fit into the single-bedroom apartment above their potion shop and even if it had been big enough for the five of them, Mrs. Bloskey insisted that the kids be raised predominantly in the Muggle world to “prepare them for the future.”

Try as they might, the Bloskeys would never truly fit in the Wizarding World even though their family line traced all the way back to Helga Hufflepuff herself. In fact, Helga’s daughter was the first of the line to be a Squib. Since then, they were all Squibs. But, just as it hadn’t stopped their father and dozens of other ancestors from hiding their condition under layers of non-wand skills like potions and herbology, it wouldn’t stop the younger two Bloskeys from participating in every aspect of the Wizarding World possible. 

“Excuse me for a moment,” Mr. Bloskey, who had been caught in a conversation with a customer about the benefits of a copper lined cauldron in comparison to the plain pewter, turned to the children. He drew his pale salmon lips into a frown of what he hoped was intimidating disapproval, but looked funny on his usually cheery face. The same youthful face that Beth shared with soft round cheeks and deep set dimples that appeared with every perennial smile.  “Oi! Where do you think you’re off to?”

The four kids froze, Severus with his hand on the doorknob with its chipping gold leafing. Zebby smiled sheepishly and replied, “Florean’s?”

“Florean’s? But it’s eight in the morning!”

“Bye Dad!” Beth shouted, shoving the others out and yanking the door closed behind them. The little copper bell tingled farewell, drowning out Mr. Bloskey’s next words.

The quartet grinned like madmen as they sprinted down Diagon Alley, tripping over long robes of the other patrons in their haste. Even Severus couldn’t help but smile, somewhat begrudgingly, though he clearly disapproved of his rowdy companions.

“You,” Severus said after they’d finally slowed to a walk, “need to learn to be more subtle if you’re ever going to be a spy.”

Zeb laughed and threw a hand on his best friend’s back playfully. “A spy? I’m not gonna be a spy! I’ll always make my loyalty known, no question ‘bout it.”

“Good,” Severus sniffed and crossed his arms over his chest, “you’d be a rubbish spy. Everywhere we go, you insist on bringing all eyes on you. I don’t know why I’m even still friends with you lot.”

“Aw, don’t be like that, Sev! You know you love me!” The blond moved to give his best friend a kiss on the cheek, but Severus quickly ducked and swatted him away in disgust, making the girls laugh. Instead, Zebby stuck his tongue out at Severus, but any hard feelings were quickly forgotten as they reached the corner building.

Protruding from each wall was an enormous bay window divided into dozens of smaller glass squares by a grid the same shade of pale yellow as the rest of the building. “Florean Fortesque’s Ice Cream Parlour” was etched into the crown molding with light green lettering and then again on the door’s window.

Zeb grabbed the handle and yanked the door open, sweeping into a bow as he said, “After you, ladies.”

Severus, who was in the front, walked through with a glare, but Lily just giggled and gladly took advantage of the gesture.

“Nice one,” Beth whispered to her brother as she too stepped inside. Zeb winked and let the door swing closed behind them.

Counting out a few Knuts, Beth strode to the counter and ordered her usual double scoops of apple crumble topped with caramel sauce. By the time Lily had finally stopped deliberating and settled on strawberries and cream, Beth was already halfway through her first scoop. The boys, however, were too absorbed in a zealous argument about earl gray and lavender ice cream.

“That’s, like, the most grandma flavor ever!” Zeb laughed.

“Grandma flavor? How can a flavor even be ‘grandma?’” Sev argued indignantly. “If anything, it’s just too sophisticated for your childish taste! What were you going to get? Bubblegum? No, birthday cake?”

Zebby just grinned and drummed his fingers against the counter. “Two scoops of toffee pudding, thanks!”

The girl behind the counter, a brunette with a pixie cut and a contagious smile, turned to Severus with a question on her lips, but he cut her off before she could speak.

“Vanilla. Just one scoop.”

That sent Zebby into another round of laughter, earning him a harsh glare from his friend.

“Would you two hurry it up already?” Beth called from the barstool she spun on, resting her elbows on the counter behind her. “I wanna hear about Hogwarts again. Are you excited to see your roommates again?”

“No,” Severus said shortly, moving to take the seat on Lily’s opposite side. Zeb beat him to it.

Beth frowned. “Well you’re not excited about anything, are you, Sev?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She already knew what it would be. “What about you, Lils? The girls in your dorm are nice, right?”

Lily licked her ice cream thoughtfully. “Yeah, they’re nice enough. I haven’t talked to them much.”

“What? Why not?”

Lily shrugged sheepishly. “I don’t know. I mostly just hang out with Sev. Besides, two of them, Mary and Marlene, are already like best friends and I don’t want to get in the way…”

“Bah, you don’t need them to be your best friends! You’ve got me!” Beth interrupted. “If I went to Hogwarts though, I’d make all my roommates be friends with me and we’d stay up late having pillow fights and talking about boys and-”

“Lily is afraid they won’t like her.”

That shut Beth right up. Not much could do that, shut Beth up.

“Severus!” Lily hissed. Her cheeks pinkened ever so slightly.

Zebby frowned and said, “That’s impossible. How could anyone not like Lily? She’s Lily!”

This made Lily blush even more, but Beth suspected it was for a different reason than before.

“I’ll try talking to them some more this year, if it makes you feel better,” Lily promised, “but really, it’s alright. I have Sev!”

Severus smiled at that, but Zebby just grunted and said, “Okay, what about your other roommate though. You said you have four, right?”

“Oh yeah, Colleen.” Lily’s green eyes widened. “She seems alright, I don’t know. She’s really quiet and keeps to herself mostly, but her eyes… they freak me out. See, she’s a blind Seer so her eyes are all glazed over and really unfocused- not that that’s bad. I’m sure she’s nice, I just-”

Zeb snorted.

“What?” Lily furrowed her dark auburn eyebrows.

“She’s a blind seer? Blind and seer are opposites, Lilsy Lou,” he explained with a sassy grin.

Lily rolled her eyes. “I know that! I meant Seer as in sees the future.”

“You just said she was blind.”

“She is.”

“Blind means she can’t see.” Zebby grinned widely, never taking his eyes off of Lily.

“She can’t!”

“You just said she sees the future. If she’s blind, she can’t see anything.”

“She is blind! She-”

“Alright, enough flirting,” Severus interuppted. “Honestly, I get plenty of this with that Potter boy.”

“Yeah, just snog already!” Beth grinned mischeviously and was satisfied by the mortified expressions that crossed both her brother’s and her best friend’s faces, but the smile quickly faded into confusion as she registered Severus’ words. “Wait- Potter boy? What boy? Flirting?!”

Lily buried her face in her hands and let out an annoyed groan. Her face was nearly as red as her hair. “Oh, don’t get me started on him. James is just a boy in my house. A stupid one at that. And stubborn. And arrogant and immature- somehow he got it into his thick skull that he fancies me and now he asks me out at least once a week! A week! Can you believe it?”

Zebby wrinkled his nose at this discovery, completely ignoring his sister’s excited squeals.

“I don’t fancy him back, of course. Not even a little bit,” Lily added quickly. She cast a wide eyed glance at Zebby as she said this.

“Oooh, but is he handsome?” Beth asked. She was practically bouncing up and down in her seat by this point.

Lily’s eyebrows shot up and she giggled in surprise. “Beth!” She chided.

“Well? Is he?” Beth persisted. “On a scale from Sev to Zebby, how attractive?”

Lily laughed even harder. The boys both wrinkled their noses in identical expressions of insult.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Severus asked.

Beth sassily raised an eyebrow as if to say, “do you really want me to answer that? We both know the answer.” She turned back to Lily expectantly. Lily just shoved her playfully.

“Fine. Seven. No six! He’s so arrogant,” she muttered to her friend, cupping her hand around her mouth so the boys wouldn’t hear. Beth had to throw her own hands over her mouth to muffle her laughter at that answer. She started to say more, ask for more details about Lily’s not-so-secret admirer, but a pecking sound dragged her attention to the door.

A group of copper brown barn owls tapped on the shop’s door, each holding an envelope in their talons.

“Our letters are here!” Lily exclaimed. She jumped from her stool and ran to let the birds inside.

The first flew past the kids to the girl behind the counter, but instead of just two others--one for Lily and one for Severus--three owls approached the group of friends. Severus, Lily, and Zeb came to the conclusion only moments before Beth did; there was one letter too many and no other students in the parlor at such an hour which could only mean that one of the letter’s was for the Bloskey’s. For the Squibs.

“My letter!” Zebby lept from his seat and danced around Severus, beaming so brightly that the others feared that soon Lily’s roommate wouldn’t be the only blind kid there age. “You were right, Sev! It must’ve just gotten lost last year!”

An incredulous smile spread over Severus’ face and he immediately began planning the school year, catching Zeb up on all that’d he’d missed the year before.

Beth, on the other hand, was frozen in shock. Slowly, she shook herself out of the trance and forced a smile on her brother’s behalf. She shook her head in disbelief. “Zebby… this- this is amazing! I’m so happy for you!”

He beamed at her, then glanced down at Lily. She was the only one still frowning. Her eyes were fixated on the three envelopes in her hands. “N- no, Zebby. It’s not yours. It- it’s addressed to Beth.”

And sure enough, one peek over Lily’s shoulder confirmed the statement for all the kids. The name on the third letter was not Zebediah.

To Ms. Islabeth Bloskey.