A/N: Sorry this took a while -- I actually went somewhere, though not far from home, for Spring Break. Anyway, here is the second chapter. :)

The very first thing I did the next morning when I woke up was scan my dormitory. I found, to my slight surprise and interest that there were so many little details that I didn't know where to start. I settled for Angelina's trunk, since it was close enough that I didn't have to move my lazy self to examine it.

It was dark green, and worn. It had probably been in her family for a while. The detailing was brass, and it had someone's initials on it in the upper right-hand corner of the lid. E.J. I wondered who E.J. was, and how long Angelina had owned the trunk.

From there my eyes wandered over the dormitory. I took in the floorboards, which were nice mostly, though the wood had a few knots in it. It wasn't dusty at all, doubtless the work of industrious house elves. The little windows that lined the walls showed the gray light outside, the kind of light when the sun isn't quite rising yet. The gray light is just a promise -- a reassurance that the sun hasn't forgotten that its supposed to come up.

Unfortunately, its also a promise that the day will start and Hogwarts students will have to actually get out of bed.

Perhaps by now you have gathered the impression that I'm not exactly a morning person. How very right you are.

After Angelina and I had gotten ready, Katie, Angelina and I made our way downstairs side by side. At breakfast I was to busy actually eating to make any particularly stunning observations, other then the fact that Millicent Bullstrode isn't a morning person either, as she got supremely annoyed when I brushed up against her every so slightly. I swear I thought I was going to get a beating from, of all people, Millicent Bullstrode, and was perfectly ready to defend myself and justify the consequences, when Fred, George, and Lee arrived to swell our ranks. Thankfully, Bullstrode left.

Of course, this was due to the accidentally excellent timing of the trio, not of any heroics of George's…

… but somehow, I attributed it to him.

There really is something wrong with me, isn't there? I'm hopeless for one thing.

From breakfast Katie and I went to Care of Magical Creatures. When we were signing up for N.E.W.T. classes, I was short one class and Katie begged me to take Care of Magical Creatures with her, so we'd have another class together and so that she wouldn't be alone. Angelina and I are two of her best friends, and its kind of hard on her that we're a year ahead.

Anyway, I had the schedule space, and good enough marks, so I agreed to it, and one summer later, there I was.

Katie's a pureblood, but in the muggle world, she would definitely be classed as a hippie. She's a diehard environmentalist. Save the Dragons and all of that. Not that I don't support it. I just don't get quite as worked up over it as Miss. Bell. Angelina basically just humors her.

Hagrid was absent from his classes, and a Professor Grubbly-Plank was there instead. She gave us a quick lecture about how crucial N.E.W.T.'s were to our futures, which she'd been doing every day since the start of term a week ago. Thanks for driving that message home professor. Stress? Never even heard of it. Then she set us a quick review to see how much we knew. Turns out that the "wonderful" world of N.E.W.T. classes begins with review, review, review.

Not that I was complaining, not in Care of Magical Creatures anyway. I knew that once Hagrid got back we would be sure to move on to more, er, interesting creatures, and confidentially Hagrid's idea of interesting can translate into deadly.

I should have known they're be a N.E.W.T. class that was an exception to prove the rule. Transfiguration. McGonagall. First she gave us the standard lecture on the importance of N.E.W.T's But then she started us off with something new right away, and it had to be the hardest stuff I'd ever done, even in that class, and that class had always been hard.

She informed us that we would start off with transfiguring live things into inanimate objects and "go from there."

Hard as I tried, I couldn't turn my worm into a piece of string, and next to me, Angelina was having no more luck than I was. I'll admit it, it sort of bugged me. I mean, I'd always been pretty good at Transfiguration. I was pretty good at most of my classes, not because of any wild amount of skill (me? Skill? In Potions? Now there's a good joke) but just because I pay attention and actually do the work. But the worm in front of me stubbornly remained a worm, no matter how hard I focused on the incantation, and no matter how many times I waved my wand.

I may have started to panic just a little bit. If this was what the rest of the year was going to be like, just how was I going to pass my Transfiguration N.E.W.T.? Overreaction you say? Well you can thank the teachers. They were the ones who had constantly been pounding the importance of N.E.W.T.'s into our poor, impressionable minds. Besides, everyone has a stress area, right? For Angelina its Quidditch, for Katie it's the environment, maybe for me its my grades.

I looked over at Fred and George, hoping to see that they were miraculously excelling and would be able to help me, but to no avail. They were talking about something (probably Weasley's Wizard Wheezes) and only halfheartedly trying to transfigure the worm that wriggled unhappily on the desk in front of them. Being "Little Miss. Scholar" (okay, Angelina said that, not me, just for the record) I went over to scold them.

For my trouble, I got a worm in the face.

I will give Fred the benefit of the doubt. He was gesturing with his wand and talking to George, and I am sure that he didn't mean for the worm to fly through the air and hit me in the face.

George got enormous credit (as if he needed any more in my book) for speedily removing said worm.

"Oh Merlin Alicia, I'm really sorry!" He said immediately, replacing the worm on his desk and looking at me anxiously.

How could I be angry when George Weasley was looking at me anxiously? He didn't look like a puppy dog, he looked like a…a…Well, he looked like George Weasley, which is more than praise enough in my opinion.

"That's okay." I said, hoping I didn't sound like I wished I had a poster of him to hang on my wall.

Obsessive? Who me? Never.

Fred, George, Lee, Angelina and I all met up in the corridor on the way to Defense Against the Dark Arts. It was going to be our fourth class with that Umbridge woman, and we could already predict what was going to happen.

"Please put away your wands, and take our your books."

Sure enough, upon arrival, we were ordered to take out our copy of Defensive Magical Theory. Let me give you a quick piece of advice. If you are ever out book shopping and you think to yourself, gee I've been kind of bored lately. I want a book that will interest me. A book that will entertain me, and give me something to look forward to. Then, you spot Defensive Magical Theory on the shelf.

Walk away. Immediately. At the speed of a small freight train. Don't go anywhere near that book, because you will be sucked in to a furious black hole of boredom.

I'm serious.

Apparently the Ministry not only didn't want us doing actual magic, it also wanted to bore us to death.

So that Umbridge woman (who bears a striking and highly unflattering resemblance to a toad) told us to read Chapter Four of Defensive Magical Theory, and we did. The end. I wondered what she was going to make us do once she ran out of Chapters. We'd probably have to read the index, first forwards and then backwards.

It wasn't until we got back to the Common Room that night that I remembered my promise to notice the little things.

I have argued throughout, and will still argue now, that coincidence conspired against me. It did so again by placing George in an armchair across from mine.

Was it my fault that the flickering firelight half illuminated his face, highlighting his lopsided grin? Absolutely not. Was it my fault that my eyes were drawn to his freckles as I counted them one by one? Well, okay…maybe the counting.

Alright, so maybe when I write that down, it looks ridiculous. But believe me when I say that at the time it was not ridiculous at all.

I carefully took in the differences between the left side of his face and his right. The left side of his mouth curved up more than the right side. His eyes were the same on both sides, a startling blue. His hair flopped down over one side of his forehead more than on the other. In the firelight I imagined I could see the differences between each ginger hair. There was a smattering of freckles on the upper part of one ear, clustered together like their own constellation, their own galaxy.

Do I sound like I was hopelessly smitten? See, I don't know where you would get that impression.

I really do sound like I had a freakishly unhealthy obsession with George Weasley don't I? I swear, I did (do) have other interests. Like Quidditch, and school, and Angelina and Katie.

I just, you know, think George is amazingly…amazing.

I sat there, soaking it all in, all these 'little things' that I had never even noticed before.

I wondered, suddenly, what else I hadn't noticed about George.

We had been best friends for ages, but I'd had a crush on him for almost that long, and I couldn't help but wonder if maybe the crush had made our friendship superficial? Maybe I'm not explaining that well -- its hard to explain. But I wondered if I had turned into a giggling Weasley twin fan girl, instead of being a good friend.

Before I went to bed that night I grabbed a piece of spare parchment and wrote two things on it.

1.) George has 11 freckles on the upper crest of his left ear.

2.) Note to Self: Am I a real friend to George?

A/N: Thanks for reading. Constructive crit. is always appreciated.

Thanks to everybody who reviewed the first chapter: lady Arre, mangolady, SkywalkerChild, Jagged Epiphany, bredalot, and Magical Fish. Hope you like this second chapter!