Title: The Damsel in Scarlet Armour

Pairing: Fred x Alicia

Characters: Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Lee Jordan and Alicia Spinnet.

Prompt: Write about a character getting a bump to the head OR waking from a concussion. Write about rumours. Minimum 1 000 words. Cauldron Cakes: [dialogue] "I'd rather kiss a troll", [style] story within a story, [setting] Headmaster's office, [colour] scarlet and [emotion] envy.

AN: To be honest… I don't think I've ever written anything like this before.

Written for the How Many Do You Ship? [Challenge] held by SnarkyAndProudHufflepuff, the Jurassic Fever [Challenge], the [Challenge] World Gobstones Championship held by whitetiger91 at The Golden Snitch Forum and the [June Event] Honeydukes Challenge held by SiriusMarauderfan at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments).

Warning: Mentions of violence.

Word Count: 1, 776

It wasn't shocking to see Fred, George and Lee sitting at the headmaster's office. Dumbledore and McGonagall almost looked at them as they would something that was a part of the decorations rather than three students. Alicia Spinnet on the other hand did not blend in with the decorations. Her presence was as unusual as the presence of the three boys was common. And although both professor McGonagall and Dumbledore was aware of the fact that they were meant to find out what had happened they were curious about why one red-headed boy held the hand of brown-eyed, vicious looking girl. They were certainly a pair. Fred looked like he was ready to have a nice chat while Alicia looked like she was ready to fight someone if needed to.

"So, would anyone like to tell me what happened?" McGonagall asked from where she stood on Dumbledore's left side.

Her mouth was pursed together and she looked at them with disapproval. Although she didn't say it out loud it was clear to everyone in the room that she was hoping for some explanation that didn't require her to give detention to three of her players who were all sporting their scarlet and golden uniforms.

George leaned forward, Lee copied his movement, and smiled. Lee focused on Dumbledore whom appeared more amused by the situation than anything else.

"Well you see, it's all really a rather long story." Lee nodded his head during the short moment when George wasn't talking. "To understand we need to start from the beginning and we all know who normally start our stories…"

McGonagall glanced at Fred whose smile grew as he nodded towards Alicia. "It wasn't me this time."

"Alicia Spinnet." McGonagall said her name in a tone that was almost too shocked for Alicia's liking. Just because she hadn't gotten into trouble more than she could count that didn't mean that she was some goody two shoes. "Would you be so kind to tell me how we ended up in this predicament?"

"Well, you see what happened was…" Alicia glanced to the side where the three boys curiously looked at her with expressions that bordered on amusement. She coughed and glanced back at McGonagall. "It all started with a rumour."

Hogwarts had always been a place filled with rumours. It was unpreventable considering the number of students that walked the hallways on a regular basis. Fred Weasley, though not as often as Harry Potter, had been the target of his fair share of vicious rumours. Or maybe vicious was overdoing it a bit. The point was that he had been the target of rumours, he had even spread rumours and knew that it took no time at all for a rumour to reach all corners of the great school. But he was shocked when a rumour was spread in short time that it took for him to wake up from being violently hit in the head, visiting the hospital wing and walking down with his best friends to get lunch. It was only a matter of hours.

Fred remembered being hit in the forehead and then everything went dark. Before that had happened, he had been laughing. Oliver must have been annoyed about the fact that no one took his practice as serious as he wanted them to. Not that Oliver would hit him in the head and cause him to faint. At least Fred didn't think that he would.

"Technically the story didn't start with a rumour then." Dumbledore said with a calm voice which earned looks of confusion from the four teenagers. "Miss. Spinnet said that it started with a rumour. But her story started with Mr. Weasley getting unconscious. Albeit that does explain the wonderful bump you're currently sporting Mr. Weasley; it is no rumour."

"Thank you, professor. I think it's a good look for me." Fred smirked and gave Dumbledore a slight nod. "You may be right that it didn't start with the rumour but I promise that it will appear in the story and you'll understand why we think that everything really started with the rumour."

"Well…"

Although Fred insisted that he was fine, repeatedly even, neither George nor Lee took his word for it. And while everyone else finished practice he was escorted to the hospital wing. At that moment George had never been more grateful that he had grown up with so many siblings. It was easier than he'd like to admit to ignore the constant whining that came from his brother as they more or less forced him to follow them. Lee on the other hand seemed to struggle more but George chose to not comment on the way his eye begun twitching as they reached the entrance to the hospital wing.

"All the moaning and whining…" Lee commented as he leaned forward and rested his hand against the palm of his hands. "I have never heard so much complaining in my entire life. Merlin…"

George gently patted him on the back. "There, there…"

"Come on boys," Fred leaned forward from behind Alicia so that he could see his friend and brother easier. "I couldn't have been that bad."

Both boys looked him dead in the eyes and nodded. But George was the one to speak without absolutely no trace of humour in his voice. "You were exactly that bad." George looked at Dumbledore with his eyes slightly widened. "He was exactly as bad as we are describing him."

Dumbledore nodded, he leaned his fingers against his cheek and nodded towards Alicia. "Proceed please."

Alicia coughed and nodded.

After Madame Pomfrey, much to the dismay of George and Lee, told Fred that he could go down for lunch that's where the three boys headed. Once it became clear to them that Fred wasn't going to continue his whining both boys relaxed and any plans of pranking Madame Pomfrey vanished into the back of their minds. It was on their way to lunch that they heard the rumour for the first time.

"Did you hear that Alicia Spinnet hit Flint?"

George, Fred and Lee stopped dead in their tracks but whoever had uttered those words seemed to have left as quickly as they had appeared.

"No," George shook his head. "That cannot have been our Alicia."

"Why?" Lee asked as they continued walking. "Because she's a girl?"

George rolled his eyes much to Fred's amusement. "No, not because she's a girl. She wouldn't hit Flint because she's intelligent and because she's so painfully aware that Fred has a crush on her and would do anything she asked. That includes pranking Marcus Flint into next week."

"She has a crush on me?" Fred gestured towards himself.

"Yes, beloved brother of mine, Alicia Spinnet the girl that you have been admiring from not so far away has been harbouring a crush for you since at least a few months back when she went on a date with some unknown and unimportant boy. If the rumours are true then she has been planning on taking you for a date since then." While he spoke, George laid his arm around Fred's neck but it was pushed away once he mentioned the word rumour. The grumpy look on Fred's face made George laugh. "Is that envy that I see upon your face?"

"You're acting weird." The grumpy looking twin commented. "It sounds like you're the one with a mild concussion instead of me."

"Fred tried to deny that he was envious of whoever Alicia had dated but we knew the truth. It was all over his face. He looked almost like… how do I describe it." Lee's smile dropped when it landed on McGonagall's face. He tilted his head to the side for a moment or two before Fred and George followed his eyes, both reacting the same way. "I would describe it like the face you're doing right now professor. Except a bit sourer instead of angry."

Dumbledore looked at her with the hint of amusement in his eyes. "Dear Minerva, do you need anything?"

"I only need to know if any of these boys broke Marcus Flints nose like he claimed." She stated with a voice that went just between the line of frustration and panic. "I do not care much for your stories even if the headmaster seems amused. I only want to know which one of you that I'm giving detention."

Lee smiled. George smiled. Fred smiled. Alicia pointed at herself. "That would be me professor."

Although professor McGonagall had worked there for many years and had heard things that would cause most people's jaws to drop she didn't expect to hear those words come from Alicia's mouth. "Why?" she asked with a surprised tone.

"Well, I was actually getting to that…" Alicia took a deep breath. "What happened was that after practice I went to lunch. I was just about to leave when I heard a rumour that Fred had a crush on me. Someone had heard them talking about it when they found out that there was a rumour that I had hit Flint which I hadn't because at the time I had only talked about it. And for some reason Marcus Flint, by some ironic joke, thought that was really funny because I would apparently never go for a guy like Fred when he was around. That disgusting little…"

"Miss. Spinnet!"

"I'm sorry professor." Alicia didn't sound the least bit sorry. "I told him that I'd rather kiss a troll and then he began bashing Fred being poor, untalented, stupid until I kind of lost it and smashed his nose in."

Fewer silences that the twins and Lee had experienced were as deafening as the one they experienced then. For the first time since they stepped foot within the halls of Hogwarts they were stuck at the headmaster's office even if they had done nothing wrong.

Fred raised his and Alicia's interconnected hands and kissed hers before winking. He looked straight at Dumbledore. "She's great, isn't she, for protecting my honour like that?"

McGonagall in spite of doing her best couldn't hide the smile that appeared on her face. It was hard not to smile. The scenario was nothing short of amusing and slightly odd. And although the method that Alicia Spinnet had chosen wasn't one that McGonagall preferred – she would definitely get detention for a few weeks – she couldn't help but feel a certain sense of pride how her students stood up for their own.

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully, his eyes glimmered with amusement. "I agree Mr. Weasley. Alicia Spinnet, as it turns out, is quite the damsel in scarlet armour."

The end