A/N: I own Kez, she is mine, and also Allistar, but otherwise, JK Rowling takes all credit.

Do's and Don'ts

Chapter 1 – Setting The Stage

Kez liked boys, because they just don't. Girls do. Guys don't. Some guys don't less than others, and there were boys who didn't way too much. You don't want to get too close to them, they can get kind of... scary, sometimes. And the guys that don't too little, they just bother you as much as girls. You have to pick your battles, but you've also got to pick your friends. So that's why Kez was so pleased the first time Fred and George pulled a prank on her, on the train, heading to her second year of Hogwarts.

She was sitting in an empty train staring out the window, twirling her fingers around the hem of her shirt, picking out trees and hills that looked familiar, trying to pass the time. She didn't mind the quiet, the seclusion, and didn't feel alone. But then two boys opened the door to her car and stepped inside, hauling their luggage with them.

"Oi, Georgey, mind sharin'?"

"I share evr'y day with you, what's it matteh to me?"

Kez wrinkled her nose. Hm, company. They looked taller than her, but also the same age as her. They had bright orange air, and were very obviously twins. One had a sweater bearing a giant red 'G', the other a giant blue 'F'. 'F' what?

The other boy, not 'Georgey', then turned to her. "Everything else is full, mind if we crash?"

She dropped the hem she was fiddling with and shrugged. "No." she responded, though as they both starting putting their bags up it seemed the question was more out of courtesy than for permission. Oh well, it still didn't bother her. She watched as F plopped himself on the seats across her, and Georgey proceeded to sit on F's feet until he moved. Hm. She turned back to the window.

She sighed softly as they crossed a blank landscape, filled with nothing but lush grass and the occasional shrub. Not nearly as fun to stare at as water or forest, shame.

"So 's it your secon' year? Or first?" Georgey asked her when he managed to shove F enough to sit comfortably.

Deciding conversation with the twins would be somewhat more entertaining than counting, or trying to, the blades of grass whizzing by, she turned back to them and replied, "Second."

He nodded and his brother elbowed him. "Don'tchu listen to mum? Never ask a girl her age."

Kez smiled slightly as his brother rolled his eyes at him saying "Did I ask 'ow old she was? No, I didn't, so shut it."

"I'm twelve." Kez piped up, watching as they turned to her, Georgey in mid-elbow. "My mother says not to ask women her age. I'm not a woman. I'm a girl. So, I don't think it matters."

F looked pensive a moment, then nodded. "Very wise, twelve. I'm Fred." F, er, Fred, extended his hand to her, and she leaned to shake it, receiving a very rude awakening as his palm sent a small shock through her arm.

She recoiled, curling her fingers to a fist, then stretching them out, then repeating the process several times as the two boys almost pissed themselves, falling over one another with laughter.

Kez frowned and whacked the cushion next to her, looking quite frustrated, as F-Fred and Georgey turned to her, still chuckling. She opened her mouth to tell her that was rude and maybe ask them to leave her car, until she found a giggle escaping her throat. She calmped her lips shut, but then another, and another, came bubbling out, causing her to smile and laugh like the boys had been.

Fred looked at his brother and they both paused in momentary confusion before busting up again. Though it's unclear if they were laughing at the buzzer or at Kez's reaction.

Today Kez sits lying in wait in one of the bigger trees in the clock tower courtyard, peering down at those walking beneath her to get to their lessons. But she wasn't really watching for anyone, she was listening for someone. Or, more accurately, someones.

The sound of loud laughter and sparks grows louder by the moment, the sight of a small flying firework growing bigger, is what triggers Kez to pull out her wand and crouch down a little lower on her branch. She peeks around leaves and waits until two pairs of feet are in perfect position before giving her wand a wave, and mumbling something under her breath. The pebbles on the ground exploded, snapped, popped, and caused the owners of the pairs of feet to stumble and shout, one of them falling back.

The exploding continued for a few more moments, someone managing a small gasp every time an unexpected rock popped, until eventually everyone was quietly waiting for nothing more to happen.

Eventually the small group relaxes, and the twins cracked a smile. George turns his face skyward and cups his hands over his mouth. "Prank thief!"

Kez smiles and stows her wand back in her boot, turning and, carefully, dropping from the tree branch. "Not my fault you created an easy prank." She said with a small shrug, sauntering over to the crowd, where only two people were smiling. The rest looked warily at every normal pebble on the sidewalk.

Fred came at her and put her in a headlock, ruffling her hair. "Perhaps, but it still isn't right to prank the prank-creators, 'lright?"

She continued to grin as she tried to bend over and crouch and remove herself from his grasp, using her arms to push his off like a hat. "I make no promises." She manages to grumble, adjusting her shirt and throwing her frizzy, curly brown hair over her left shoulder. By now she didn't bother trying to fix it, it would only be invitation for them to screw it up again.

"Not even to us? I'm hurt, Kez, I thought you cared a little more 'bout us." George says, slinging an arm over her shoulder and steering her away from the overly-careful crowd and towards their charms classroom.

She rolls her eyes. "Says the twins who use me as a test subject for numerous projects and products."

Fred scoffs. "That doesn' mean we don't care, Kez. It means you're much too willing. Now what's that say 'bout you?" he says, opening the door to the castle, leading them inside, up a few flights of the Grand Staircase, and onto the third floor.

"It says nothing about me, more that you two are just lucky." She replied, turning to Fred and raising an eyebrow at him. "Right? Who else wants to play victim for two devious sixth year Gryffindors?"

"No you always pull that argument! You know as well as us we'd find someone. Someone, in some house, would be dying to fill your shoes." George pipes up.

She rolls her eyes and rounds a corner, greeting her other friends standing by the door of their classroom. "I know you've got your weird fantasy about some hot Ravenclaw nerd wanting to be your test subject but you're stuck with me, so count your blessings."

Kez releases herself from George's arm and pats his shoulder with a small sympathetic look before giving a small chuckle and retreating to her seat inside beside a Hufflepuff girl.

George stands agape momentarily as Fred laughs at him before he snaps out of it, shaking his head and snapping "Hey it's your fantasy too" at Fred with a shove, and together they entered the room.

Professor Flitwick made his way to his stool in the front of the room and waved his wand, shutting the door and lighting the candles to the side of him. "Welcome class! Now, today we will be learning the..."

At this point Kez had her parchment out, ink un-stoppered, and quill poised. Charms was her favorite and best subject. You'd never hear them say they pay attention in school, but it was Fred and George's best subject as well, though it was closely followed by Defense Against the Dark Arts. See, knowing the twins for so long, she realized how most of their pranks revolved around charmwork, either casting a charm on an object or performing one, and she gradually began to pay more and more attention to the class throughout her third year, becoming quite obsessed in her fourth, and devoting much of her free time to learning new and advanced charms over her fifth. And now she sits in class in her sixth year, scribbling notes on the charm Flitwick was teaching today, and writing down notes about charms she might be interested to learn, or if any existed, and if she could find a spellbook at school with them.

She didn't really have much of a preference for other subjects in school. Excluding History of Magic, which everyone shared, that is was the most boring class in existence. But Potions was fine, DADA was good, even Arithmancy wasn't drastically hard and stressful for her. She didn't tend to focus much on the negatives; of classes, of people, of anything like that. She wasn't some intense optimist, but he didn't really like being brought down, being upset and feeling useless, so she tried her best to ignore that, and go with the fun, the fulfilling.

Kez looked up, watching as her Professor demonstrated the newest charm, and she quickly jotted down a small sketch of the wand/wrist movement, despite knowing it wasn't very complicated, and she'd remember it with ease.

Across the room, Fred and George were playing an intense game of tic-tac-toe on a sheet of parchment put between them. They probably relied on Kez's note-taking in this class more than they should. Even if they did pick up charms easily, it wasn't always wise to try and study for their charms tests over her shoulder ('They're my notes, so I'm going to study with them. You two can try whatever you like to get a glimpse.'). George grabbed at his hair and stifled his grown as Fred connected his three o's, signifying his win as he moved to another part of the parchment and drew another set to boxes for a rematch.

George made a face, like a sore loser, and took the paper from his brother, folding it in his hands to form what looked like a cross between a plane and a bird. He shot his twin a look, daring him to comment on his folding, before raising it in the air and tossing it towards their scribbling mate.

Kez ignored the paper bird-plane that glided nicely across the top of her desk, finishing her thought. Though that clearly wasn't enough for the impatient Weasley twins, who took to clearing their throat many times as if to pull her attention.

She sighed, setting her quill down with a shake of her head, reaching for the paper, unfolding it, and furrowing her eyebrows. She turned to them, when Flitwick was looking the other way, and held up the almost blank paper, putting her arms halfway in the air, as if to ask 'what's this for?'.

'We're bored.' Fred mouths to her. 'Groundbreaking.' She mouths back.

At that moment, Professor Flitwick insists they partner up and practice the charm for a few minutes. The twins casually stand up and make their way towards her, calling that 'we'll be the group of three, Professor', knowing fair well that the class was an odd number, therefore needing one group. They were always, or at least most of the time, the group of three.

Kez pulled her wand from her boot again and headed to their usual spot at the back left of the classroom, turning about-face to look at them, holding their own wands, and poking one another. "You two are children." She commented, but smiled. She always found their friendship quite amusing. Other siblings she knew really weren't so close, and bickered a lot. But she couldn't recall a time when one twin was ever truly mad at the other. Some close calls, some misunderstandings, but they were quite good at forgiving one another. She wondered briefly if they considered her to be as close of a friend as she considered them to be.

"Okay, now, I'm going to assume you two weren't paying attention, judging by that paper... bird... plane... um, so you've got to move your wand like this and..."

Leaving their classroom, they were immediately bombarded. "Hey, hey, look who it is. The pathetic gang of misfits, featuring miss ray of sunshine. Even now, you're outshined by a set of tomato heads, how fitting. Can't even beat some hair, can you?"

"Oh, lay off, Rheyes, you're at it every day..." Fred stepped in front of Kez, almost nose to nose with the Hufflepuff seventh year. Even if Fred was a year younger, they were easily the same height.

The other boy scoffs and gives Fred a hard shove on the shoulder, easing past him to bend slightly, onto Kez's level. "What, can't go anywhere without dumb and dumber protecting you? Can't stand up for yourself? How utterly depressing."

George pushes his shoulders, pushes him away from her. "Hey, back off, I—"

"Do I look like I'm fucking talking to you, Weasley?" Rheyes grabs George's hair and tosses him sideways, having him fall to the ground. "I think I was talking to dear little Miss Hadlen, so kindly bugger off." Rheyes turns to Fred, who materialized by his brother's side to help him up. "Oh, how cute-"

"Cut it out, Rheyes..."

Rheyes whips his head around to face Kez, who curtly straightened out and tilted her chin up, trying to feign confidence; not something she usually needed to fake. He crossed his arms over his chest and had a bemused, yet entertained, expression on his face. "Well, well, she can speak after all."

"You do this every day, what do you get from it?" she quipped, swallowing the small lump beginning to form in her throat.

Rheyes scoffed. "Get from it? The satisfaction, of course. The satisfaction of seeing you squirm every time I open my mouth. It's more bloody entertaining than any Quidditch match, I'll say." He took two steps towards Kez, who stood her ground despite the nagging in her gut telling her to just walk away, like she always did.

It wasn't even that he said really hurtful things. Sometimes he managed a good line that kept her awake at night thinking, but he didn't really know her, didn't know anything about her that he could use against her, didn't have much of an upper hand. He was just bigger, and older, and menacing. Ever since he started picking on her in their third year, his fourth, she'd been secretly terrified of him. She'd never tell anyone, that'd only make it worse, but whenever she saw him coming her heart sank.

"So what'll it be, sweetheart? Running off again, hiding behind two tomatoes so poor they couldn't afford to turn themselves into ketchup? Or are you really going to try sticking it to me? I don't think you've got it in you."

And she really didn't know if she had it, or not.

Her hesitation was enough for him to start laughing again, for the twins to come to her side and nudge her, telling her to leave it. But she always left it. And it never got better. But she wasn't so sure that facing him would make it much better either, if it'd just stay the same, but she'd wind up with a black eye too.

"Go on, run along, I won't stop you. I'll just sit back and enjoy myself as you cower."

"I don't cower, Allistar."

Her eyebrows narrow, and his laughter stops. Even Fred and George stop in their tracks.

"What did you call me?"

"Allistar. That's your name, right? Allistar Rheyes, Hufflepuff, seventh year. Still getting remedial Charms, are you?" The words flew out of her mouth before she could take them back, but she was on a roll. Stopping now would ensure her black eye, though what happens if she continues was unclear.

Rheyes looks more than angry, he looks infuriated. It was true, he was taking remedial Charms, but no one dared go up against him, if they knew what was good for them. His eyes look like they were shooting daggers aimed right at her, eyeing her up, wondering what would be the easiest way to destroy her on the spot. He was not a calm fellow.

Kez briefly wondered if he would hit her. Not that she wanted him to, but the quite murderous look in his eye made her consider it. It's not as if there were people beating each other up every other day, nor were there 'notorious girl hitters' or anything like that, she'd like to think Hogwarts was a non-muggle-violent school, but she knew there were times Rheyes didn't mind throwing a punch, and thought maybe he wouldn't mind throwing one at her.

But he didn't. Unlike his quiver left fist might suggest, he stands there in invisible flames.

"You don't think it comes with a price, insulting me like that-?"

"And insulting me doesn't?"

The idea of bullying always made her curious. What right did bullies have? What made them better, or worse, than everyone else? Why did they think they were so important, doing those things to people?

"Course it doesn't! It hasn't! You were just a simple, easy target. One day it was bound to happen, this... lashing out. But it was a useless attempt. One day revenge will be sweet, and you'll sink back into your hole, hiding away, like you always had, and you're destined to always do." He points his finger at her, the words slipping from his mouth like a thick soup; slow, dense, and promising.

With that he turns on his heel and storms out of the small entryway outside their Charms class, leaving a small crowd of classmates staring into the doorway, watching his retreating form, giving Kez and the twins ample time to collect their things and retreat the opposite way.

There were days when she'd face Allistar Rheyes more properly, more confidently, but today wasn't one of those days. There were also days when she'd face the crowd, try and explain why he always picked on her, or play it up like some kind of joke. But today wasn't one of those days either. Today was a fuming day, and today was a worrying day.

A Hufflepuff, as she well knew from her numerous friends and classmates, never forgets a promise.

Rheyes' impending revenge haunted her the rest of the day, and into that night, waking her at the crack of dawn in a cold sweat. His face had been hanging just inches above hers in her dream, laughing down at her, and repeating 'I promise' until she awoke.

*Comes out from hole* So um. I haven't died in some tragic accident, woo, hooray, but well. This isn't The Blue Dress.

If any of you care about that (If you're here for this story alone just. Ignore.), then I'll tell you I have the biggest writers block ever and it sucks and just. Grade A Butt. The end. I can't. I'm trying really hard to get things down on paper and fix it and all that, but I want it to be perfect, and I refuse to upload a half-ass chapter. So I'm really sorry it's taking a million years for this chapter, but I am trying. It's not nearly finished yet, alright?

Otherwise, please review! I'm trying 3rd person narration, with a male OC, and Harry's generation, and it's different from my usual stuff, and I would LOVE feedback! Thanks, you're all fab and win cookie points.

~xo DA