"Hermione, please!?" I heard from across the common room.

"For the last time George, no! I will not write your Charms essay for you!" Hermione said.

"But it's due tomorrow and I haven't even started yet!"

"Sorry, that's your problem. I've got other things to work on." She left the common room and I chuckled quietly to myself.

"Waiting until last minute again, are we?" I asked George. He gave me a look that said it all. I've been pretty good friends with the Weasley family for a while now. I was a year below the twins and a year above Ron. Our parents were friends so we were all pretty much raised together. And coincidentally we were all sorted into the Gryffindor House. The past few summers I've spent at the Burrow. My little sister and Ginny are best friends so it worked out pretty perfectly. And we fit in with the clan too. Okay, now that you know the back story we can return to reality.

"If you're going to give me the speech about being more responsible and managing my time more wisely you can just skip it because Hermione covered everything."

"Me lecture? Never."

He rolled his eyes and I said, "Come here, what's this essay about."

He sat down next to me on the couch and said, "Kelsey, you're brilliant at Charms! Will you please write this for me!?"

"Write it for you? No, but I will help you with it."

He hugged me, clearly thankful, and said, " Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank-"

"Easy. You can thank me when you finish the essay. I think you're putting too much faith in me. I am a year behind you so chances are I won't even know what you're learning."

"Of course you will!" he said this in a hopeful tone and I gave him a skeptical look. But sure enough, it was a topic I was pretty fluent in. I helped him form a thesis and gave him the crucial information he needed. I made him handwrite the whole thing, but I provided him with sentences to write. After some time, he even started to write his own sentences with factually correct information. I was impressed.

After three or so hours of working he convinced me to give him a break. He set aside his parchment and said, "So, Kelsey. How have you been?"

"Pretty great. Things have been going my way."

"Things always go your way. Your Irish blood brings you luck."

I shrugged and said, "Is that why you wanted my help? Because I'm lucky?"

"No, it was more because you're wicked smart. And I missed talking to you. I haven't seen you much this year."

"This is true. It's mostly because you and Fred are always working on a prank of some sort."

"And you're always talking to someone different, Miss Socialite."

"Oh that is not true. I'm just friendly that's all."

"Sure."

"Any good pranks in the works?"

"I know that you're dying to be a part of one of our infamous pranks, but that will never happen."

"I think you're underestimating me. Think about it, filling me in on a prank wouldn't be a bad thing."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because I'm logical. I think of everything, therefore there would be no chance of error. And, you know, I'm fun to be around."

"I will agree with you on the latter part. We need to hang out more. Outside of quidditch."

"Well you should remember that and ask me to hang out sometime. I'm pretty sure you'd much rather be spending time with me while we're doing something fun instead of writing an essay. And speaking of essay..." George groaned and grabbed his books.

"Come on, we only have a few paragraphs left to write." He started writing again and it was then I noticed it was 2 in the morning. I let out a big yawn and felt myself become tired immediately.

"You sound tired. You should go to bed. I don't have much left to write, I can handle it," he said.

I shook my head and replied, "No, I'm okay. And let's face it, you couldn't finish this without me."

"It's good enough as it is. If I BS the next few paragraphs it'll be fine."

"Nope. I have to keep you company. If I leave who's to say you won't fall asleep."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that." By this time we had relocated to sitting on the ground with our backs leaning against the couch, directly in front of the fireplace. I felt myself getting cold so I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. George was being somewhat efficient, which was surprising. He was quietly muttering words to himself as he was writing and I had to admit it was kind of cute.

"How's it going?" I asked.

"I'm just trying to get this thing done. I don't care how good my writing is as long as I get my point across."

"Okay," I yawned. A moment later I found my head resting on his left shoulder. He noticed but he didn't seem to mind. Soon I felt my eyelids flutter over my eyes and I was out.


I woke up the next morning to find myself in a room that was not my own. It was not the common room either. It was definitely a dorm but whose, I was unsure.

"Morning sunshine," someone said. I looked up to find George's face smiling down at me.

"Morning," I said as enthusiastically as I could. "Where am I exactly?"

"In my room. See last night you fell asleep, and I didn't want to wake you. So I was going to carry you to your room but then I remembered that boys aren't able to enter the girls' dorms. And I just took you to the next place I could think of, which was here."

"You could have just left me on the couch in the common room, you know?"

"Sure I could've, but you were already shivering. I just thought you'd be more comfortable in my bed."

"Well that was very sweet of you. But where did you sleep?"

"On the floor. I grabbed some spare pillows and blankets and-"

"George! You didn't have to sleep on the floor. You really should have just left me in the common room. I would've been fine. I never meant to take your bed."

"I just wanted you to be comfortable. Any gentleman would have done the same thing. Now please stop arguing with me because there isn't anything you can do to change it."

I opened my mouth to say something but found I had nothing to say. I slouched and crossed my arms, clearly unhappy with his previous statement.

"How did the essay come out?"

"I showed it to Hermione already and she said it looked decent. I just need a passing grade. If I pass this, I pass the class."

"Oh, I didn't realize this paper was so important..."

"You did all you could. Most of it was on me, for being a slacker. But thank you. I'm really happy we reconnected last night."

I smiled at him. "Me too. And it's no problem. Really."

I left his room and headed to my room, receiving curious looks on the way. Last night made me realize how much I had missed George. We used to be best friends but recently we drifted apart. We were still friends, but no where near as close as we used to be. I only hoped he would take my advice and ask me to hang out soon.


"Kelsey!" I turned around to see who was calling for me. It was George and he seemed very excited about something. I asked the group I was in a discussion with to excuse me and I headed toward George.

"Kelsey! I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Oh have you?"

"Yeah! Guess what!?"

"Do you really want me to guess? Because I'm not a great guesser."

"I got my paper back and I got an O!"

"O as in outstanding!? Really? That's awesome!"

"I owe it all to you! You practically wrote the paper for me."

"I did not write the paper for you. I helped you write it. But thanks anyway."

"You really don't understand do you? You are the reason I passed! Flitwick was so impressed he even wanted to keep it to use as an example!" Now that was a big deal. Flitwick very rarely chose an essay to keep for future students to reference. Only a handful of mine hand been picked from all my years at Hogwarts.

"I'm really happy for you! You just seem so excited."

"I am excited!" He embraced me in a hug and managed to pick me up off the ground, while spinning me around. I just laughed and I felt like such a little girl. He put me down and I just smiled at him. Then the last thing I ever expected to happen happened. His face became serious and he leaned in to kiss me. It was a relatively short kiss. I think what happened was he just did it without thinking because he pulled back and his face was that of panic and shock.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know what-" he started, before I cut him off. I grabbed his chin and brought it down towards me and kissed him again, this time more passionately. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I reached mine around his neck. Everything felt so...right. I couldn't help but smile as I realized this had been what I wanted all along. It just took me 16 years to realize it. Who knew what the future would entail with us