The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

Limeberry Sourblast

Oliver Kent sat on the stoop of a randomly selected row house, several blocks from where he actually lived. He had his book bag from school at his feet and was reading over the letter he'd received from Hogwarts.

Dear Mr. Kent,
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry formally presents you
with financial aid vouchers for the following shops in Diagon Alley in
order for you to purchase supplies for the upcoming Autumn term...

He noticed one of the vouchers had been made out for Quality Quidditch Supplies and Minerva McGonagall herself had signed that one, although the other vouchers were signed by Albus Dumbledore. At the bottom of the letter, below the list of required Year Five texts, McGonagall had written simply, "Your additional voucher is one pair of high quality for seeker's goggles".

Oliver folded his letter back up, carefully tucking the voucher slips into the envelope, and put the whole lot in his jacket pocket. He shuffled his feet on the sidewalk and watched muggles walk by, carrying their shopping bags and pushing baby prams and such, too thoroughly distracted to notice the boy sitting on the stoop. It seemed like ages before a sleek black motor car pulled up - a cabbie - and the back door opened up. 

"What are you waiting outside for? I would've come knock on the door... It looks like rain." Wally waved to him from the back seat as Oliver quickly hastened to grab his bag and rush forward. He threw himself into the cabbie beside Wally.

"Hi Ollie!" called Wally's father, Archimedes Grant - everyone called him Archie.

"Hi Archie," Oliver said.

"I wanted to meet some of your housemates," Wally complained.

"You don't want to meet them," Oliver said, "Not really." He slid across the seat and dropped his bag onto the floor by his feet. "Honest. Besides, they're all out."

Wally sighed, "Someday, you need to let me meet your family."

"They're not my family," Oliver said quickly as the car pulled away from the curb and into busy London traffic. "It's cool your dad has a motorcar."

Wally shrugged, "I guess. I'm glad that old hag let you come with me to Diagon Alley."

"Yeah, me, too," Oliver said, and he shifted his weight in his seat guiltily, hoping he wouldn't catch it too bad later on when he got back to the group home and Mrs. Jennings  got a hold on him. He'd already gotten in trouble twice since getting back from Hogwarts for the summer break. First because he'd slept in and missed morning Mass the first day back, and then again when he took the blame for a broken lamp that one of the other kids had done. He might've been alright on that one, but he then refused to repair the lamp by magic when Mrs. Jennings told him to. He wasn't allowed to do magic out side of Hogwarts, he told her, but she screamed at him that the lamp wasn't going to fix itself and he'd spent the afternoon trying to glue the thing back together to no luck and had caught hell for his efforts. 

She was in one of her moods this morning, when Oliver had gotten up and come downstairs planning to ask her about Wally visiting and going to get his text books from Diagon Alley, and she'd told him to go away and leave her alone - but to bring her the aspirin first. "Too bad you can't magic away the headaches you bloody kids give me!" she snapped at him. "But I suppose that's not allowed outside of school, either, helping your dear poor house mother."

"I wouldn't even if I could do magic outside of school," Oliver said, "I'm not a mediwizard."

"Well what good is your magic if you can't even heal a minor headache?" she spat, and she'd given him a bit of a throttling for being mouthy and making up a term like mediwizard. "Nonsense," she had said, "Absolute idiocy!"