Angelina Johnson felt done with school, although she wasn't. She was tired of professors and the dangling threat of life outside Hogwarts; fed up with schoolwork, oblivious boys, and a season of Quidditch disappointments after a whole year without playing. Despite the sinking weariness, she turned the page and squinted at it fiercely. If nothing else, she was determined.
A tap on her shoulder roused her from the lull her Transfiguration book had sent her into, and she turned, ready to rage at whoever had disturbed her studies for her N.E.W.T.s.
The oddest look was on Fred Weasley's face as he grinned at her absently, flopping down into the common room seat across the way. "How goes the books?"
"About as well as can be expected," she answered, frowning at him. "Go away." She turned back to her book, not failing to notice Fred clapping his hands to his heart and tumbling to the floor with a clang loud enough to make Parvati Patil give an annoyed, "Hmmph."
"You wound me grievously," he said from the floor, clutching at his chest. Angelina moved to kick him carelessly, and he jumped up at once. "Look, mon capitan, or would-be capitan if not for She-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named, can I have a moment of your time?"
She looked up. He widened his eyes to make them appear earnest. Heavily sighing, she set the book down. "What? And this better be quick."
"Oh, I'll be fast, I have to be somewhere at five anyways," he insisted, tugging on her arm. Reluctantly, she allowed him to yank her to her feet, then pulled her arm away.
Glancing back and forth warily, he grabbed her arm once more, despite her protests, and dragged her out of the sight of the rest of the Gryffindors until he yanked her down behind one of the spiral staircases leading up to the dormitory.
"What do you think you're doing?" Angelina demanded, annoyed. He was slightly too close for her to be comfortable.
He looked mildly confused. "Talking without being overheard. I didn't reckon the Room of Requirement was a good idea, since everybody and his brother knows about that what with D.A. meetings and all, and clearly you wouldn't be happy if I dragged you up to one of the dormitories...erm, that came out wrong," Fred said abruptly, flushing slightly.
"What is it you-"
"What're you doing after school?" he asked suddenly.
She stared at him. "It is after school, Fred. And I have Quidditch practice most days, remember?" She flinched slightly at the thought of it, since the last practice had not gone right in the slightest, none of the old easy comfort and camaraderie there had been the year they won the Quidditch Cup, more of an awkwardness, particularly with the new Beaters and Keeper and the ever-felt absence of Harry.
"'S not what I mean," he said, rubbing his hair. "After this year, that is. I've been meaning to ask you, but you keep avoiding the topic."
She gave him an annoyed look. "It's not like you've been around, at all. You and George have been spending all your time with those sniveling snacks-"
"Skiving Snackboxes," he corrected.
"Right, those, and you're never in class anyhow, not to mention the fact that you're no longer on the Quidditch team-"
"It's completely unfair that I never got to actually do anything that merited getting kicked off," he interjected.
She winced. "Not to mention you've been spending your lunches wandering around the Great Hall conscripting first years as testers without attracting Hermione's attention, or sitting with-"
"We've moved up to third years, actually," he commented. "We have to pay them more, but they give better descriptions of how it made them feel. And they actually buy our products."
"We never even see you anymore," she interjected coolly. "It's like you're already gone."
He paused, tilting his head at her with quite a serious look in his eye. "'Pose we did take all the time we spent together at practice for granted. But it's not like we've dropped off the face of the earth."
"Only a matter of time," she remarked.
He blinked at her. "I forgot what I asked you," he said softly.
She shook her head in mock dismay. "What I'm doing after I graduate," Angelina prompted, braids swaying.
"Right!" he said enthusiastically, then waited. "So?" he asked.
"Playing Quidditch, I hope. Though if we don't hang onto the Cup, I don't know what chance I'll have of getting signed to any decent team," she remarked, dark eyes suddenly downcast.
"I didn't do anything," he protested, since he felt suddenly guilty.
She grinned. "Not for lack of trying. So, why'd you ask?"
"Ask... Ask wha- oh, right. Well, I figured I'd want to see you, 'cause, y'know..." He stopped, looking confused.
Angelina put her hands on her hips, looking impatient.
"I'll, er, oh, miss you. But I guess you're right. I haven't seen you much." He looked at a corner in the ceiling, shaking his head in disbelief. "Mum was right," he remarked with some surprise.
"Your mother usually is. About what?" she asked, tapping her foot.
"'To assume makes an ass out of you and me,'" he quoted in mime of Mrs. Weasley, then looked horrified. "Not that I'm implying that- "
A smile began to creep up Angelina's face, but she pushed it back. "Right. Not that I'm even going to pretend to follow your twisted line of thought, but that bit I follow. Mostly. What did you assume?"
"Rats," Fred muttered. He shuffled his feet a bit. "That, er, you and me, were, well, you and me," he said somewhat desperately.
Angelina blinked, multiple times.
He looked very unhappy. "I kind of guessed you knew that I think that you- that I feel like- that- well- I suppose-," his voice began to crack as he reached more desperate tones, "I mean- I'm trying to ask that- well- DAMN IT, DO YOU LOVE ME BACK OR NOT?!!" He then clamped his hands over his mouth, darting brown eyes going suddenly wide.
Seamus Finnigan, walking up the stairs, stopped abruptly and leaned to look under, then quickly scurried off before Fred Weasley could notice and turn him into a giant canary.
Fred whacked himself on the head, hard, which meant he'd removed his hands from his mouth. "Way to go, Weasley," he muttered to himself, dragging his hand slowly down his face and turning away from her slightly. The back of his neck had turned scarlet. "Make her think you're more off your rocker than she already thought you were. Swell. Yet another act of idioc-"
"You can't be in love with me!" Angelina sputtered suddenly.
He swiveled back, eyebrows furrowing. "I am too! I absolutely am! Why can't I be?" He leaned forward slightly.
She stepped back, nearly banging her head against the wall. "B-Because it's ridiculous!"
"I'm ridiculous? The idea of you with me is ridiculous?" he demanded, seeking clarification.
"NO! Yes- well, I don't know but that's not what I meant!" she responded in exasperation. "Where is this even coming from? It's not like I'm your girlfriend-"
"You're not?" he said with a frown.
"No! You're my friend and teammate- usually- and- and you never even asked me, or asked me on a date-"
Fred considered. "There was the Yule Ball," he commented. "We had fun."
"But you didn't- I mean- you acted as if we were- you almost didn't even remember to ask me-"
"I resent that! I-"
Angelina clasped her hands to her head. "It's- you don't just declare you're in love with somebody out of the blue when you haven't given me the slightest indication-"
"Sure I have," he said readily. "Haven't I?"
She shook her head, sending her braids flying all about and crashing into each other. Her heart was racing so quickly she felt certain it would burst.
He quirked an eyebrow at her. "You had to have known I liked you, Angelina. Everybody else did."
"Well, maybe," she admitted. "Katie and Alicia thought that...it doesn't matter what they thought, but then you never said anything, or asked me to a Hogsmeade weekend-"
"I would have if you hadn't had Quidditch practice on bleedin' Valentine's Day!" he insisted, looking wounded. "And besides, Lee likes you and I - well, it made it awkward-"
"I don't like Lee!" Angelina responded, horrified. "Well, as a person, but not the way you mean!"
"Well, I know that," he scoffed, pulling a face. "But that's not answering my question!"
She took a deep breath and put her hand over his mouth so he wouldn't interrupt, earning her an indignant look. "Fred, sometimes- no, most of the time- you act just like a little boy! You don't take things seriously, and you hurt Ron's feelings without even thinking about it which hurts his performance as Keeper which hurts me, and you treat me the same way you did when we were eleven which most of the time I don't mind- but- but we're seventeen and I'm not sure if that's too soon to say you're in love or too late to be beginning to date since Ginny has already been on more dates than I ever have in the time I've known her! And you're saying you're in love with me with nothing to back it up or ever having really kissed m-"
Fred had gone very still when she was speaking. His eyes, which always seemed to be laughing at her, were filled with something she couldn't identify as they danced about. In a sudden, fluid motion which seemed to take an eternity, he removed her hand from his mouth and leaned down the slight distance between their heights to kiss her.
Angelina wasn't certain whether it was mere moments or a considerably longer time later when a familiar voice began to chortle from nearby. Fred's eyes turned to look, and both pulled away from each other very rapidly.
George, with a few fading red welts on his cheeks and arms and carrying a covered bundle of struggling something, grinned at them as he peered under the stairs. "'Ello," he managed, before dissolving in laughter again.
Angelina flushed, darkening her cheeks even more. Then she wheeled, something of a fury in her eye, on Fred, who looked half dazed and half enraged at his brother. "I should slap you," she told him as angrily as she could. "I was yelling at you, and you didn't even ask."
Fred looked briefly horrified, then glanced at his brother. "Are you meant to ask?" he wondered.
George could barely even breathe after that, nearly falling over.
"Well, you didn't slap me, and I do love you," Fred told her.
George groaned, sitting up. "You didn't go and tell her that!"
"You are not," Angelina ordered, fixing her hair.
"Aren't I?" Fred demanded of his brother.
His twin looked in him in horror. "Don't involve me! You're the one who enjoys playing with things that blow up in your face, I prefer it to blow up in someone else's face!"
Angelina scowled at him. "What's that meant to imply?"
"Nothing!" George said at once, eyes searching for an escape. "Just that-"
Fred grinned, continuing, "-you can sometimes be a bit-"
"Volatile," George finished with a wince. "And you'll have to forgive Fred, he can be something of a dunce-"
"Though in that, my brother excels far more than I," Fred said, with a dark look, "particularly in-"
"Entering into situations where his presence is neither needed nor desired?" George suggested. "Unfortunately, he has to come with me." He gave Fred a mockingly furious look. "After leaving me to go after the Whomping Willow myself."
Fred scrunched up his face and went pale. Then he grinned, stepping forward to snatch the bundle from George. "This?"
"What you think it is," George confirmed, and Angelina eyed it suspiciously as a few leaves stuck out of the blanket covering the thrashing, stick like shape. She had a sinking suspicion the Whomping Willow would be found to be missing a bough.
"Then that's everything," Fred said happily. "What ti-"
"Half past four," his twin answered promptly.
His eyebrows rose and Fred looked somewhat panicked. He pulled at his brother's robes, blew Angelina a kiss, and shouted, "We better hurry up, then! Pick up the pace, George, you slacker!"
George bowed gallantly as his brother thundered over to and up the spiral staircase leading to the seventh years boys' dormitory, and offered his hand to Angelina to help her out of the alcove under the stairs. "He'll remember you in a bit," he assured her. "We're a bit pressed at the moment- business is booming, so we've decided to cut one of the pressures on our time." At her curious look, he told her mysteriously, "You'll see soon enough. Make sure you're at the corridor near the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, east wing, in a bit. Bring Katie and Alicia. Oh, Fred's given you a whole package of Skiving Snackboxes and a few other products, they're on your bed," he told her.
"What are you going to do?" Angelina demanded with suspicious alarm.
He shrugged. "It was his idea, usually is, so blame him, not me."
"Usually do," she told him, grinning.
He smiled, looking, to her at least, very distinguishably different from Fred. "It'll be perfectly lovely having you as a sister someda-"
"Don't you dare, George Weasley," she said in a highly threatening tone.
He grinned again. "Just in case Fred got his words tangled up around you, while I have no such problem, he's crazy about you and you should know that. Anyway, he intended to give you this." George held up his hand in an odd position, turned it in the air and suddenly produced a card. He handed it to her gracefully.
She eyed it suspiciously.
Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!
Enter at Leisure, Exit Without Purchase at Peril
Number 93 Diagon Alley
(Don't Scratch the Gold Bar Below! Really!)
(We Mean It!)
George explained casually, "It's reverse psychollogicy. Hermione explained it, kind of. To insure," he said wickedly, "you drop by." His expression became suddenly grave. "Really, though, don't scratch it in Hogwarts or if another person's holding it too. Dead serious. Very bad voodoo could res-"
"George!" Fred bellowed desperately from somewhere above.
He waved, and as he backed away, added, "He really cares about you. As much as you do about him. He just isn't good at showing it. Neither am I, for that matter, but at least I'm better at hidi-"
"Is it Katie or Alicia?" she asked calmly.
He bolted.
Angelina stared at the card, then frowned slightly. "He isn't in love with me," she muttered. She cast a glance at the stairs, then shook her head slightly. "He can't be."
It was so impulsive and Fred of him. She half-loved it. The other half was wild with exasperation. Yet if George thought…
No. It couldn't be that easy.
Still…
She tucked a lock back into her braid with a thoughtful look and bounded toward the girl's dormitory, books forgotten. Angelina smiled, feeling buoyant. She expected something dangerous and stupid and fantastically entertaining in store.
She was never exactly sure what a Weasley would do next, but she was looking forward to finding out.
A/N: A Fred/Angelina interaction pre-departure. Written quite a while back as a bit of something else, but I liked it too much to leave it. I figured it was worth sticking up as a one-shot. Anyway, please please leave a review, it's only an extra minute by the time you've actually made it to this point, otherwise I will be forced to sic Fred and George and their Whizbangs on you. ;) Thanks for reading at any rate, I hope you enjoyed it and seriously- review, it'll make my week. :)