I won't lie about the fact that I did get pretty jealous of George when Ellie kissed him. If you call that kiss a kiss at all.

Fancying the same girl your twin does, as we unanimously agreed, wasn't easy.

It was somewhere around fourth year when George and I started noticing something different about Ellie. Like the way she twirls her hair around her fingers and starts biting it whenever she's thinking of something important, or whenever she arches her back and part her legs a bit when she stretches after a short jog by the Black Lake, oh, and especially those times in class where she would puff a stray strand of hair from her face while she answers the tests our professor hands out.

Ellie was in some sort of mutual understanding with Wood at the time but being hormonal teenage boys, it was pretty hard to keep it all in.

George admitted he fancied her first, somewhere by the end of the first term, and then, I realized, I did too. Surprisingly, we didn't have any kind of ill feelings towards eachother as other people normally would and decided to wait things out a bit. After all, we wanted Ellie to be happy, above everything else, and apparently being with Wood then made her so.

I won't go as far to say that the three of us are inseparable, though the family might've labeled us that over the years, but George and I made sure we'd make an extra effort whenever it came to Ellie.

Being in separate Houses, us in Gryffindor and Ellie in Hufflepuff, put a definite strain on our friendship especially in our first year.

We liked Ellie, we decided, after happily talking with her in the Hogwarts Express despite her stutter problem then. She was nice, understood our sense of humor and could give a sarcastic comment or two about something we did or shared that would make us howl with laughter.

As she sat in a separate table during the welcoming ceremony, me and George promised ourselves that we'd spend time with her even if she was in Hufflepuff.

Easier said than done, really.

There was the occasional chat in the Great Hall during meals until we were dismissed to classes or the dorms, the frequent "hi" or "hello" by the hallway as we moved from class to class or the rare prank that she would help us with in between lessons (we made sure she'd never get in trouble though despite her protests) during the weekdays but that was it. Our friendship, although we became more acquainted with eachother compared to when we first met, was at a stalemate and George and I wanted to change that.

But on August 30, 1989, a date neither of us would dare forget, Ellie put in stone a friendship that will last lifetimes. Inspite of our desire to do it ourselves.

"That as quite a beating we had there, aye, Georgie?" I smirked despite the situation as I cradled my sprained wrist.

"What can you expect, Freddie?" George drawled out with his aching jaw and black eye "They're the Slytherin Quidditch Team! 'Course they have thick arms to go with their thick heads!"

"What was that, Weasley?" the oversized beater picked little George up "You better be careful with that big mouth of yours 'cuz I can break you like a toothpick!"

"Speaking of toothpicks, why don't you try using one for once?" I taunted, hoping he'd eventually leave George alone and leave him as he is "I don't know about you but your breath is just ghastly!"

"Why you little-"

Just as I expected another blow from the beater, his sleeve suddenly caught on fire.

"AAHHHHHH! Put it off! Put it off!" he wailed to his teammates flapping his arms around like a chicken as his others sleeve also started burning up.

"Psst! F-Fred! Gee-George!" a voice whispered, its owner quietly making her way towards George as she muttered more spells to set the other Slytherins' cloaks on fire "A-are yuh-you a-alright?"

"Ellie!"

We couldn't keep our smiles from fading after we saw her that day. George sported a black eye, an aching jaw, a few other bruises here and there and a bloody nose. I on the other hand, had a busted lip, a sprained wrist, also a few bruises here and there and a splitting headache slowly growing all the more after every minute it took her to bring us to the Hospital Wing. All I remembered before I blacked out was hearing Ellie's promise that she has yet to break 'til this day:

"I-I'll always be here for yo-you. Nuh-now and Always."

Fred!

"Hmm?" I blinked.

Ellie tugged on my hand as George led us up the path to the portkey. "Hey, what are you zoning out for?" She grinned "We have a World Cup to go to!"

I'll always be here for you too, Ellie. Me and Georgie? Yeah. We'll never leave you. Not for the world, not for anything.