School: Ilvermorny Year 4

Topic: Description and Tenses

WC: 246

"Move over!"

Percy's hiss is a whip-crack breaking the hush that has settled over the hill, and heads turn to stare at him, Bill and Charlie following suit with their neighbours. They had arrived late in their clucking huddle as Mum had fussed over their hair, tugging at Charlie's shorn locks in an attempt to get them to lie flat.

Charlie ducks his head, drawing himself further into Bill's shadow as Mum descends upon her younger children, drawing them around her with tugs to their cloaks. Pulling at his collar — the edge pressed to a point — Charlie peers out at the clearing they are gathered around. Small flowers dot the vibrant green and, for a moment, Charlie stares out across an inverted sky indented with stars.

"Easy now," Bill mutters. His hand hooks onto Charlie's collar, creasing the clean edge into a rumple of wrinkles with a wink. "If I were braver, we'd be back at the house to listen to the radio show, but Mum always likes coming to see the flowers bloom."

They could still sneak away but Charlie chuckles, shaking his head. "She would find out somehow. She always does."

The faint flicker of light blooms and bursts in the corner of his vision, a firework in its dying ferocity, and Charlie turns to watch the flowers explode in shimmering clouds of blues and pinks, reds and yellows, all the final remnants of one witch's final experiments for her daughter.

A/N:

Problem verbs: They could still sneak away but Charlie chuckles, shaking his head. "She would find out somehow. (…)"

Subjunctive: "If I were braver, we'd be back at the house to listen to the radio show, but Mum always likes coming to see the flowers bloom."