Jamie

As we arrived down near the lake we saw a random, large group of students gathering around another pair of students. Before we even saw what was going on we knew, from the chants for them to keep duelling. The first sight we did see however was one of the students, the tall one and I'm pretty certain he was from Slytherin, cast stupefy directly at the other and had them keeling over backwards seconds before the bell rang for the next lesson.

'Can't we get any peace around here?' Taylor moaned. Nobody seemed to notice the bell other than Taylor, I had barely taken it in myself, the duel did seem to be over though, the tall student went over to his friends and high-fived them, while several other students ran to the guy still on the floor. Moments later Professor McGonagall ran over to the group,

'What are you all doing over he-?' she asked sternly, then the student laying on the ground sat up, the spell had worn off 'what happened here?' she ordered of the group. The shorter student jumped up and flung themselves towards the taller one who had hexed him, forgetting his wand and throwing punched instead. McGonagall rushed forward and pulled them off of each other.

'EVERYBODY GO TO THEIR LESSONS NOW OR YOU WILL GET A DETENTION!' she roared, everybody scattered towards the castle accept the students that had been fighting. I made to walk away,

'wait I want to see what happens' Taylor told me, I shook my head and carried on. She and Tia followed moments later, possibly having been confronted by McGonagall but I hadn't stopped to ask, I had astronomy and it's probably the furthest lesson you could have in the school, since it was in the tallest tower of the school and right on the opposite side of the castle that I was now. This was another lesson I had with Taylor, however we didn't have Tia with us this time.

Taylor and I pushed our way through the corridors and almost ran through the multiple courtyards until we reached the astronomy tower.

By the time we had made our way up all the stairs through the tower and found our seat in the classroom we had missed ten minutes of the lesson. The rest of the class were drawing up star charts for Friday night's stargazing session. They were basically compulsory after school clubs, only available to our class, and occasionally the lower year groups classes too on special astrological events. It was times like these that astronomy strongly reminded us of divination. Star charts were one of the easiest things to do in astronomy, we'd look at our text book and look at where the planets have been on this day for the last five years (there are several pictures on one page, so it doesn't take as long as it sounds) and finding the pattern to decide where they SHOULD be now. Working together, it didn't take Taylor and I long to finish, giving Taylor extra time to talk as she loves to do, but in this lesson without Tia here, she actually likes to talk to me.

'did you hear about the results of the Appleby Arrows verses Wimborne wasps game this weekend?' Taylor asked me, while I finished putting the final details onto the star chart (I like to be precise), I looked up

'the what game?' I asked

'Quidditch of course!' she said 'Oh I forgot, you don't really like quidditch do you?'

'not really, sorry'

'oh well, I'll explain, well the Appleby Arrows and Wimborne wasps are like the ultimate rivals of the national Quidditch teams! And the game on Saturday, it was... well it was like a bloodbath!' Professor Sinistra looked over as she heard the words leak from Taylor's mouth and coughed slightly. I looked up at her quickly then to Taylor who had her eyes on the professor, waiting for her to look away before giggling.

'Sorry, I think Quidditch is a better subject for you to discuss with Tia. I'm only going to get lost in the matter.' I told her, before she tried to carry on.

'Jamie we have just got to get you more interested in quidditch, I don't know how you don't like it. Half the wizarding world are obsessed and the other half follows the sport anyway, you'd probably get more friends if you did like it.' I shrugged, so she moved on. 'Well what would you prefer to talk about?' I considered for a moment,

'what do you want to do during our free lesson next?' I asked,

'eat probably. Then when Tia gets out of Arithmancy we can spend the whole of lunch talking about what happened with Ryden without my questions being interrupted by eating!' Taylor laughed, but at the mention of Ryden's name I became suspicious.

'about what happened with Ryden?' I asked 'they're in a lesson, how much could happen?'

'nothing that interesting, but Tia's helping him out today, he says he doesn't understand something in the lesson apparently'

'so?'

'so with them actually talking, they might talk about other things'

'what exactly is going on between him and Tia at the moment?' I asked suspiciously again

'Oh Jamie, don't be so big brother-y. You're twins. Tia can both look after herself as well as you can look after yourself' we fell silent for a moment.

'would you like to go flying in our spare lesson?' she asked

'not really, I prefer to keep my feet on the ground. But I can come sit in the stands if you want to fly?' I offered

'I'm not sure yet' she pondered 'I just thought it'd get you more interested in quidditch'

'I doubt it. I've flown before' I told her,

We carried on talking and the end of the lesson didn't take long after the conversation had really started up. We took our time to pack our things away and leave the classroom, avoiding the rush of the corridors. Taylor headed to the door onto the almost entirely open roof of the astronomy tower, I followed. She looked over the grounds, and sat down so her legs were over the edge of the tower but at chest height there was a bar to stop her from falling, we did this every week until the noise of the corridors calmed down before making our way to wherever we wanted to go for our free lesson alone. I sat down beside Taylor, facing the opposite direction and leaning on the bar instead. When I had first done this it was a feeling of about to drop but now I was used to it, as long as Taylor was there to distract me.

'its a nice day, we could go swimming in the lake' I suggested

'or we could check out the snaggle puffs again' she suggested, 'it'll be cold soon and I'd really like some to keep warm'

'the forest is out of bounds except for when Hagrid takes us in during lessons.' I told her

'it's barely in the forest, its on the edge and in a clearing' she argued 'either way, it wouldn't take long. Could you make another envelope thing for me? Like you did with the ones you caught for Tia?'

'I suppose, but I'm not going into the forest'

'well you can stand guard then' she laughed.

Soon we realised the school had fallen silent apart from the very quiet murmur of Professor Sinistra teaching her next class. I got up and Taylor followed me, we headed for the forbidden forest, passing our bench on the way. Taylor ran to the trees and grabbed the closest one,

'wait here. I wont be a moment.' She told me and ran off into the woods. I stared after her to see her run towards where we had found the snaggle puffs in lesson, it was half an hour past noon now yet still with the thickness of the forest it didn't take long for her to be consumed in darkness. It took no longer than a minute for me to realise what dangers there were in the forest that could hurt Taylor so I started to walk after her. I found the darkness fold around me as usual, as I followed the path, but I soon found the clearing. Taylor had conjured a flame from the end of her wand and was trying to catch the attracted snaggle puffs with her other hand, but they kept managing to escape before she sealed the envelope. I walked over and took the envelope of parchment off of her, then with one sweep through the air I caught a few of the creatures and sealed the envelope with my own wand. It glowed warm for a moment and Taylor took them out of my hand.

'thanks' she smiled at me 'lets get going before we get caught. I'll race you to our bench' I had barely agreed by the time she had started running, I darted after her and caught up with her in seconds, I was taller than her so my legs were longer,

'you cheated' I told her, laughing a little as I jogged beside her.

'no I didn't. You were just too slow to start!' she laughed back, slightly more out of breath than myself. We ran practically side by side for a moment, I didn't want to leave her behind in the forest alone, we soon saw the edge of the forest again. Surprisingly Taylor managed to speed up even more, I followed suit and we stayed equal for a moment longer, we were almost at the bench, Taylor jumped to the side- in front of me, I had to slow down to avoid running straight into her.

'Oh that's how you want to play it?' I asked, speeding up again. I had an idea, I ran ahead of her a little bit, and stopped in front of her, I reached out to her waist and tickled her until she stopped running then I began to run again myself. Seconds later she caught me and tickled me and I tickled her back, we ended up reaching the bench at the same time, laughing hard from the tickles.

When we finally calmed down Taylor looked up at the blue sky, her eyes squinted very slightly, it was an oddly warm day for September, the sun was out and barely any clouds were to be seen. I looked back down to Taylor, she had gone from the bench and had decided to lay down on the grass. She had somehow managed to get take off her cloak and jumper and was using them as a pillow and a blanket before I had even realised she had moved.

'what are you doing?' I asked, amused

'making the most of the weather.' she said simply, she closed her eyes against the sunlight so I just watched her sunbathe until the end of the lesson.

'maybe we should go to the Great Hall now?' I suggested to Taylor as the lesson ended, 'to meet Tia?' she opened her eyes slightly to look at me.

'fine' she agreed, she got up off of her cloak and put her jumper on, then she put on her cloak and dusted off the pieces of grass which had stayed attached to it. We made our way slowly to the Great Hall and sat at the Gryffindor table, Tia wasn't here yet so we got back into conversation.

'so have you opened any of your birthday presents yet?' Taylor asked me, I shook my head, I hadn't even thought of opening presents yet, they were all sitting in the trunk at the end of my bed having been too drunk last night to consider them.

'good because I forgot to give you my present' Taylor said, 'I didn't want you to think I just hadn't got you anything. I was just having too much fun to remember at the party. I'll give you the present at the end of school' I smiled

'thanks. Has Tia opened any presents yet? Do you know?' I asked

'not sure. Why?' she replied

'well if she hasn't we could open them together at our bench after lessons finish.' I suggested. Suddenly we spotted Tia come through the doors to the Great Hall, 15 minutes late for lunch. She legged it over to us and threw herself into the seat beside Taylor, grinning, she clearly had a story to tell, to Taylor, if not to me too.