CHAPTER ONE

I sighed, sitting at the edge of the ballroom, perfectly content to spend the entire night just sipping punch and watching everyone else have fun… YEAH RIGHT!

"I'm sooooo bored!" I complained, sagging in my chair. My best friend and his brother, along with a few of my other good friends, were somewhere in the throng of dancing people because they'd been sensible enough not to wait until the last moment to look for a date. I know, it's hard to imagine the Weasley twins being sensible, but, compared to me at this moment, they kind of were. "Stupid dance…" I mumbled.

We all went to a boarding school in England (aptly named Hellis Manor).

I was wearing a ball gown fit for a maid, surrounded by girls who could be princesses in you saw them tonight. This is when being on scholarship to a fancy rich kid school sort of sucks. At least I wasn't alone. Fred's entire family was here on scholarship for one thing or another. He and his brother had gotten a full ride scholarship from ToyPeople Inc. after winning a toy invention contest. His younger brother, Ron… well I'm not sure exactly what he's here for. He's not really good at anything… I need to remember to ask him about that. Anyway, his little sister is here on an academic scholarship, and so is his brother, Percy (plus he's sort of a pretentious prick if you ask me, which gets you bonus points in a place like this). The oldest two have already graduated from here, so I don't feel the need to try to remember what scholarships they had. Is that all of them? There's so many of them that it's hard to keep count sometimes.

Meanwhile, I'm an only child of an absent father who sends me presents on my birthday but never bothers to actually show up and a mother who'd be content to just drink herself into oblivion. I guess I'm lucky to have parents.

My friend Harry lost his parents when he was a baby. He's sort of emo sometimes but, otherwise, he's an okay person to hang out with.

Another of my friends, Hermione, is actually the only substantially wealthy person in our little group of friends. She's also a know it all and could have easily gotten a scholarship if she'd needed it.

Anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah…

I was alone at the homecoming dance, staring at all the dancing people.

"Uuuuuup!" said two voices behind me.

My eyes widened and I wasn't fast enough to get up out of the chair, but managed to at least keep myself from falling. The legs of my chair were grabbed and I was lifted into the air. "Fred! George! Put me down now!"

"Should we, brother?" one of them asked.

"I don't think so. More's being a party pooper. Maybe we should take her out in the dance floor like this?"

"Great idea."

"No!" I insisted. "Put me down and I'll go dance on my feet!"

I couldn't tell which was which by the tops of their heads. They were twins and did absolutely everything together. That got annoying sometimes considering that one was my best friend and the other was my worst enemy.

One of them laughed and started bending down to sit me on the floor, but the other seemed to want to torture me some more. Now it was pretty easy to tell which was which by the way they acted.

"Come on, Fred, let's mess with her some more."

"George, I swear, if you don't sit me down right now…." I didn't have to finish. I was on the female lacrosse team, and had often threatened to shove the stick up his ass. I'd actually gotten kind of close once, but then realized I'd have to pull down his pants in order to do that and who wanted to see that?

Fred chuckled. "Come on George. Let's just take her out to dance on her feet like she asked."

George sighed in disappointment and nodded, moving to sit me down. When all legs touched the floor I jumped out of the chair, punching George hard in the shoulder.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, pulling far away from me and holding his shoulder. "What about Fred? It was his idea!"

I slipped my arms around my best friend's shoulders and turned to stick my tongue out at his brother. "Yeah, but I loooooooovvvvve Fred. I hate you."

Fred laughed and sat his hand on my hip. "What can I say, man? You either got it or you don't."

George rolled his eyes and started heading back out to the dance floor. Fred and I let go of each other and followed. "Where'd your dates go?"

"Well, George and I played a harmless prank of Sarah-."

"Roach on the shoulder?"

"You know us so well. Anyway, she ran out screaming and hee sister chased after her and we haven't seen them since."

"Well, how long ago was it?"

"Oh, about…. Five minutes ago."

I sighed. "You guys are so impatient. What if they come back and see you dancing with me?"

"I don't care. George was getting bored with his date anyway."

I turned to George and raised an eyebrow. "Really? You got bored with a girl who had boobs like hers? Was she that awful?"

"She hummed show tunes," he mumbled in response. "She didn't think my jokes were funny, and she kept stepping on my feet when we dance."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Wow, you two sure can pick 'em."

"Shut it, More. You don't even have a date. You're just that undesirable."

Fred chuckled. "Well, my date was going pretty well, and she's coming back over. I'm going back. You two have fun, and try not to get blood all over George's tux when you go to kill each other. It's a rental."

I whined and reluctantly let go of his sleeve. "Don't leave me with this imbecile, Fredikins!"

"Imbecile?"

"You don't even know what 'imbecile' means? Wow, you really are an idiot."

He growled and pushed my shoulder gently. "I know what it means. It's just more of a word Hermione would use, so I was surprised it came out of your mouth."

We were quite for a moment, just standing in the middle of the dance floor, with a mass of people spinning around us. I was feeling awkward and started seeking out Fred, hoping he'd do something wrong on his date, get slapped, and come back here to rescue me from his brother.

"At least dance you two," his voice came from behind me. I turned around and saw he and his dance slow dancing near the edge of the crowd.

"With who? Man-hands?" George asked, not so subtly pointing at me and trying to hide it with his other hand.

"Hey!" I exclaimed. "That was years ago, and I've grown into my hands now, so you can shut it. What about you, Pizza-face?"

We were so busy bickering that neither of us noticed that Fred had left his date and was gently pushing my forward by the small of my back until his brother and I were only inches apart. He reached around me and took George's wrists, bringing his arms around my waist.

We both suddenly noticed and turned to look at him.

"What are you doing?" we asked at the same time. I was a little surprised that we chorused like that. He usually only does that with Fred.

"Trying to get you two to dance together?"

"Me dance with him?" I asked, bring my hands up to push George away. Just then, Fred pushed my back so that my hands were still on his brother's chest and we were in the perfect position to dance.

George sighed in annoyance and lightly glared at his brother. "You're not going to give this up, are you?"

"Nope."

"Fine. We'll dance."

I hit his chest lightly. "Don't speak for me, you-."

He leaned forward to whisper in my ear. "Let's just pretend to dance for a while and slowly move away from him, then we can stop."

I growled but then sighed in defeat. "Fine, but I'm not happy about this, Fred! You're gonna get it when there aren't so many witnesses around!"

The older twin just laughed and moved back to his date. "Okay, More. Okay."

George's hands were sitting lightly on my hips and we swayed back and forth. He looked around the room bored, and that annoyed me. "Hey!" I hissed. He looked down at him. "You're dancing with a relatively hot girl. At least look interested!"

"Relatively hot girl? Where?" he asked jokingly, looking around the room.

I hit his chest again, and turned to see where Fred was. He was still to close and glancing over at us too often. He saw me looking and grinned in that annoyingly sly way. I glared at him and turned back to see if George was at least pretending to like dancing with me yet.

He wasn't looking at me, but at least he didn't have that 'I'd rather be anywhere but here' look on his face anymore. It's not like I was happy about this either.

I glanced at my watch and saw that it was nearing midnight. No wonder I was getting so tired.

It was three songs after we started dancing together and Fred was still sticking close to us. We couldn't get far enough away from him to pull away from each other. I sighed tiredly. "I'm going to use your chest as a pillow," I warned him, leaning forward and laying my forehead on his collarbone.

He jumped in surprise but didn't stop me. We never got a chance to stealthily stop dancing with one another, but luckily it was soon announced that this was the last song of the night. We pulled away from each other as if we'd been burned and I headed over to get my things from the table I'd spent most of the night being a loner at. The twins and Fred's date soon joined me by the door. Fred had to walk his date back to her dorm building so, since the three of us were in the same building, but in different wings, George and I walked alone to the building.

We were quiet. It was like a bad romantic comedy. We hated each other, but kept getting thrown together in intimate situations. The only difference between us and those bad romantic comedies was the fact that we were never going to end up together.

We walked inside and came to the fork in the hall that separated the girls and boys. I instantly turned down the girl's hall and waved over my shoulder at him. "See ya, George," I said in disinterest.

He didn't reply and I heard him being walking down the boy's hall.

I walked into my room, seeing my flighty roommate dancing around the room in her big expensive dress. She was smiling widely, but frowned and rolled her eyes when she saw me walk in. "Oh, you're back. I thought for sure you'd be hanging out with your boyfriends for at least a while longer."

"First of all, they're not my boyfriends. Second of all, shut up," I told her, walking over to my wardrobe to hang up my dress. It wasn't my best comeback, but I was tired.

I pulled on a pair of PJ bottoms, not bothering with a shirt since I was wearing a cami, and crawling into my bed. I could my roommate changing in the bathroom and hoped that I'd fall asleep before she could come out and start bragging about her 'amazing' boyfriend.

Luckily, I did.