Methadone - G. Weasley

The Radio

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The Leaky Cauldron never changed, it hadn't since Iris was a young girl, it hadn't since she had started working there over the summer. The place always looked a little on the rough side, the bar was never quite fully clean and the toilets weren't worth stepping in. The people inside didn't change either, Iris had her regulars about 9 to 10 of them. Varying in age and gender and circumstance but she loved every single one of them. There was Terrance Higgins a man in his mid forties who's marriage had fallen apart in the last year or two. His wife had left him and taken his two children and he had turned to the pub at first for the alcohol, and then later the company it provided him. He always came in at around 8pm of an evening, every Tuesday and Thursday, taking his scarf off before he had even fully entered the pub itself, his large mottled brown coat was draped on the coat stand and he took his normal seat on the bar greeting everyone with a small cheery hello.

Not all of Iris' regulars attended in the evenings, there was a small frail old witch named Jennifer Smally, who had to be pushing on 110, who turned up every Wednesday. She would come for the lunch they put on once a week and on occasion she brought one of her friends along with her. Jennifer who always reminded Iris to call her Jenny, loved to sit at a table in the back right hand corner of the pub, the one with the radio nice and close, yet she loved it loud enough that the whole room could hear it. She would read the paper whilst waiting on her food, a warm cottage pie every time, and sipping the cup of tea she no longer even had to ask for. 

And finally there was William Belli, he wasn't quite a regular in the same sense that the others were. William had decided to long term rent one of the rooms available at the pub until he had saved enough money to rent his own place. He was working a small distance apparition away in the ministry. He could not afford the downpayment for renting his own place just yet and therefore was quite happy to stay in one of the guest rooms of the pub. He often joined them downstairs for breakfast and dinner each day, eagerly chattering away about his day at work. Like Iris understood anything he was talking about, and she supposed over the few weeks he had been staying there she was slowly starting to understand some of what he did. He had some sort of role in the regulation of magic use in under 18 year olds, that was what she could work out. But that was about it. She just knew that he had developed a rather serious liking to one of the women that worked in the same department as he did. Someone named Sally. 

Therefore, when William had told her at breakfast that morning to keep an eye out on the radio and its announcements that morning Iris took to actually listening. She normally had it on very low most of the time, considering the fact that it could be a little spooky during quiet time. Therefore, she had it on the volume that Jennifer normally requested for most of the day. Yet there was no big announcement like she had expected. 

The lunch rush arrived and yet there was still no announcement. Jennifer had turned up once again for her weekly lunch inside the pub. And this time she was accompanied, but not by a friend it looked as though she had brought her grandchild with her for lunch today. Well Iris only assumed it was a grandchild. They seemed to be the age that would consist with being Jennifer's grandchild. But of course the new person would mean Iris would have to go and actually take their order. Now it wasn't a problem going over and talking to them, surprisingly Iris was quite happy doing so despite her more shy personality when she was in school just a few month prior. It was knowing that she might have to head to the back to talk to the cook that meant she was going to possibly miss the announcement.