Redheads Anonymous

Anyone who ever thought that Molly Prewett and I just met and came together perfectly has obviously A) never met us and B) never met a redhead. Don't understand me? Well, let me illustrate my point.

Now, where to start? Oh yes, how about when we first met?

We all stood crowded around the Great Hall doors, our first-year faces all exhibiting some sort of emotion: fear, eagerness, boredom, the whole gamut one can run through when faced with the next seven years of one's life. I was one of the "eagerness" faces. Beyond excited at the prospect of being a full-fledged wizard one day, I made my way to the front, politely (I felt) getting people to move aside. I guess it kind of helped that I was almost two inches taller than the majority of the other kids.

And then suddenly my progress was completely stopped. More than stopped actually. I'd gently just nudged a girl near the front aside so that I was in front, so I could be one of the first kids to see the students and professors of Hogwarts, when I found myself flying back, my arms and legs flailing for purchase and then landing rather hard on my bum with my chest feeling like it'd just been jabbed hard with a small pole. My head was spinning.

"Whaddya think you're doing, beanpole?" a sharp and annoyed voice cut through my confusion. Looking up, I was confronted with narrowed brown eyes and hair as ginger as mine. She just glared and huffed at me, and turned just in time to face the doors as they were opened. And that was how I was introduced to Hogwarts. On my arse.

Then there was that day when I first realized that she was more than the daughter of my mom's best friend. And she caught me—mid realization.

I couldn't seem to stop myself staring. What did she do to herself over the summer? I'd heard that her family had gone overseas for a continental vacation and I don't know what they fed her or what exactly they'd done, but the end result was that Molly was looking kind of foxy.

Everyone in the House was hanging out in the Common Room and she'd just come down in what I guess she considered her pyjamasa tank top and shorts. My eyes had instantly gone for her legs, like a magnet to metal. They'd looked long and shapely and a tan color that red-haired people didn't usually get but envied all the same.

We'd become sort of friends after being sorted into Gryffindor and having to work together in various classes but I'd never actually even considered Molly to be a girlwell, of course, a "girl" but not technically a girl that I could ever see myself dating or kissing. But those type of thoughts were definitely entering my mind now.

I let my ogling eyes wander up her legs, past her small waist and those female parts of the body that were a source of endless fascination for the male population, and met the burning stare of one Molly Prewett. And it wasn't a burning with passion stare, nope, it was burning with anger.

Blimey. You can't call me a coward for running away from that look. It definitely kills.

Or how about this one: when she asked me out in our fifth year…and I said "no" and she'd run off in tears.

Whoa! Stop right there! I think I've been duly punished for this one.

"ARTHUR WEASLEY, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT SON OF YOUR FATHER! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU, OF ALL MY CHILDREN, HAVE BEHAVED abominably! MAGGIE JUST TOLD ME THAT YOU ACTED HORRIFICALLY TOWARDS HER PRECIOUS DAUGHTER! FIRST YOU TORTURE AND TEASE HER AND COMPARE HER TO THE WIDE-END OF A BLAST-ENDED SKREWT THEN PUSH HER INTO THE LAKE? WHERE HAVE YOUR SENSES GONE?"

At that last bit, I was startled enough to peek my head up from under the table where I'd dived as soon as I recognized the Howler coming my way. I hadn't done that!

"YOU APOLOGIZE TO THAT GIRL THIS INSTANT! I DID NOT RAISE YOU THAT WAY AND IF I DO NOT HEAR OF YOU MAKING IT UP TO HER IN YOUR NEXT LETTER…"

And with that ominous ending, the red envelope caught up in flame and I stared at it, in wide-eyed fear. I could hear the rest of my table starting to crack up at the whole scene but I felt shell-shocked about the whole thing, my body caught in an uncomfortable position under the table. A movement at the corner of my eye was enough to shake me out of it. I didn't actually know why until I'd turned to fully take in the threat, er, threats coming my way. I caught Molly's smug look but was distracted. Because Molly's older brothers were headed toward me and they didn't look happy at all.

I don't even know why I'd said "no" other than the fact that I'd really, really, really liked Molly for awhile and I didn't want to ruin our friendship by turning it into something else and then neither friendship or romance surviving. 'Sides, even when I did want to apologize, I wasn't capable of even speaking properly for months after her brothers were through with me.

And then it took me a whole other year to get her to chill out towards me enough for her to even listen to me. Then it took me some groveling and some pestering and then some more groveling and she finally said yes to me dating her.

If you think then at that point we stopped fighting, boy, you completely don't know us ginger-haired folk.

Sure, now that we were over the boy-likes-girl-but-she-doesn't-know-it-and-she-likes-him-too-but-isn't-saying-it stage, the firefights were infrequent but still very present. For instance: now.

We'd been eating supper in the Great Hall when she had gotten upset over some little thing—okay, maybe me forgetting her birthday wasn't technically "little"—and was going on about how I obviously didn't care for her and she didn't know why we were together and had just left the table.

I watched as she stormed out, her long auburn hair swinging irately behind her and felt angry for her being angry. I stood up and went after her, unthinkingly yelling the first words that came to my mouth. "Molly, you stubborn—of course, I care about you! I bloody love you!"

All sound seemed to cease in the Great Hall, students stopped chatting, teachers stopped eating and Molly stopped walking. She whipped around and I took a small step back, feeling a little afraid of what I saw in her face as she moved quickly back to where I was standing. She looked mad, but not. I wasn't actually too sure what her expression was. Then surprisingly her lips were on mine and she was wrapping herself around me, snogging me senseless in front of the whole of Hogwarts.

So, in addition to being quite bullheaded and argumentative, we redheads are also rather passionate. In a very good way.