"I know Micah and Lex are going to kill us, but that was a lot more fun than the train," Victoire said, stretching her arms above her head. They were slowly meandering toward the train station, hoping to slip in among everyone else before anyone - other than their family and friends, presumably - noticed they hadn't been there the whole time.

"It was," Fred agreed. "Though I'm a little surprised Teddy didn't kiss you goodbye. I bet he would have if I hadn't been there."

Victoire stopped dead in the street. "What?"

Her cousin glanced back at her and grinned. "Oh, come on. He wanted to."

"No he didn't."

"Yeah, he did. I'm a guy, I know these things."

"He didn't," she insisted, though Fred's conviction was sparking a sudden wave of interest.

"Yeah he did. Just look at how long it took him to put on the new shirt when he changed - he wanted you to be looking at him. I mean, fair enough on his part, he's a fit guy, but that's what he was doing." She felt her face start to get hot again. "And the jacket thing?"

She glanced down at the oversized jacket she was still wearing. "He thought it might be cold here!"

"And smelling your hair when he hugged you goodbye?"

Now she reached out to shove him gently. "He was not."

He snorted. "Sure he wasn't. Come on, we don't have enough time for you to just stand here."

She fell back into pace with him. "He wasn't," she insisted. "Doing any of that, I mean. And smelling my hair would just be weird."

Fred snorted. "Yeah, well, Teddy's a little weird sometimes. Kind of a creepy gentleman, I guess - he'll smell your hair, but not ogle you. Though I'm pretty sure he did that, too - he was just subtle about it." She made a face at him, and he held up his hands. "Vic, I'm a guy. I notice it when other guys do these things."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I just do. And I especially notice it when they do it to you." When she cocked her head to the side, he added, "Well, I've got to know who I'm supposed to beat up for being gross. It's kind of my job, since I'm the oldest guy."

"What about Teddy?"

"Teddy's not a Weasley - which is good, since he definitely wants to sleep with one."

Victoire considered addressing that, and decided to go with something far more straightforward instead. "I can beat people up on my own."

"Yeah, I know. But it's the chivalrous, overprotective thing to do, so I'll save you the detentions."

Victoire only bit back a smile with difficulty. She wasn't quite sure she liked the overprotective silliness Fred was talking about, especially since she was pretty sure that at least part of him actually meant it, but his good moods tended to be infectious even when they were ridiculous, and she supposed that there were probably worse things than Fred being a little overprotective.

"So why aren't you beating up Teddy?"

Fred shrugged. "Well, Teddy's a good sort overall. I'll let it slide."

She shoved him again. "You're ridiculous. Whose heart are you planning to break this year?"

He screwed up his face while he thought about it. "Dunno. Any suggestions?"

Victoire considered that. "What about Lexy?"

Fred wrinkled his nose. "No," he said quickly. "Lex is my friend. I can't date my friends, that never ends well."

"Ended well for your parents. And for our aunt and uncle. And-"

"Fine - it rarely ends well. And I don't think I could like her that way, anyway - I like my girls taller and with a nicer figure." He winced. "Er - don't tell her I said that."

"Wasn't planning on it."

They were nearing the station when he said, "What about Juliet? You know, in your house?"

The delivery seemed a little too casual, and Victoire had a feeling he'd been waiting for an opportunity to bring Juliet up. She bit her lip. She shared a dormitory with Juliet, and she liked her, so she didn't want to be disloyal… but still, it had to be said. "I don't know, Fred. She's a little… well… silly. Especially for a Ravenclaw."

"Perfect. I've got enough intellectual types in my life - you and Micah will drive me crazy if I don't get some relief from your analyzing every damned thing ever. And anyway, sometimes I just want to kiss someone. Even someone who's a little silly." He considered that. "Especially someone who's a little silly."

"Spoken like a true Gryffindor."

"I am a Gryffindor. And I like her."

Victoire gave up. Her cousin had gone through his growth spurt in his third year, so he was already taller than most of the girls at school; he was, according to everyone in her dormitory, very attractive; he was a Quidditch star; and he was an absolutely shameless flirt. Everyone liked Fred - including Juliet, who'd spent more nights than Victoire could count giggling about him that past spring. Unless she'd found someone else over the holidays, she'd be absolutely thrilled, and Victoire would definitely be in for a long run of uncomfortable gossip as she was trying to sleep.

But she could hardly dissuade Fred from pursuing a girl just because she didn't want to hear more giggles late at night about his kissing. Or whatever.

There was nothing else for it - she'd just have to put up with it. Or cast a spell blocking out the sound and hope there wasn't an emergency.

"So," Fred said, snapping her out of her thoughts. They'd reached the station. "What do you reckon? We hide behind the trees and just slip in when everyone gets off?"

Victoire made a face. Once he'd said it out loud, it didn't seem like as good a plan as she'd originally thought, but she couldn't really see another option. "Have a better idea?"

"Unfortunately, no." They clambered off the platform. Once the Hogwarts Express pulled in ten minutes later and the students had begun to stream off, they fell into step with the rest of them. Victoire saw her sister ahead of them, but before she could call out to her, they heard two very familiar voices. When they turned around, they found Micah and Lexy, who had both their own trunks and Fred and Victoire's trunks in tow.

"Wish you'd warned us before you'd decided to play hide and seek on the train ride," Micah drawled. His tight blond curls had been cropped close to his head since she'd seen him at the beginning of August. "You hid yourselves very well. We were searching, too, weren't we, Lex?"

Lexy smiled sweetly. "We were. We thought you'd at least appear to get your trunks, but when you didn't, we decided we'd humor you, because hide and seek really is such a wonderful game. We've been missing it since we stopped playing when we were, you know - seven or eight."

"We'll let you take over your trunks now, though." Micah waved his wand and let Victoire's trunk clatter to the ground with a loud thump. Lexy did the same from Fred's trunk.

Victoire had to admit that they both probably deserved their friends' ire. As soon as they'd climbed into one of the carriages, both sixth-years turned to them and demanded, "Seriously, what the hell happened?"

Fred shrugged. "We missed the train."

Lexy goggled at him, as though she couldn't quite believe how blasé he was being about the whole thing.

Micah did not suffer from a similar lack of words. "Yeah, we noticed. How the hell did you manage to do that?"

"Lost track of time."

"So what did you do instead?"

Fred stretched his long legs out. "Oh, you know. This and that."

Micah turned his attention to Victoire. She grinned mimicked Fred's position. "Like he said. This and that."

Lexy kicked Fred. It was a fairly gentle kick, as these things went, but he finally grinned and took them off the hook. "We went to go bother Teddy. He fed us and then took us to this magical menagerie his friend works at. Then we floo'd to the shop."

This did not seem to appease their friends very much, though it did succeed in momentarily sidetracking Lexy. "Teddy Lupin, huh?" she asked. Victoire could see her dark eyes gleaming even in the dim light. "Now I'm even more jealous. He's fit, isn't he?"

Victoire shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know," she said after it became clear that an answer really was expected of her. "I guess, yeah."

"Well, I'm just saying - I wouldn't mind following him around for a day."

Victoire had no idea how to respond to that, so she mumbled a noncommittal, "Mm." Fred, who'd clearly picked up on her discomfort with the subject, quickly changed the subject.

They'd really begun to think that they might have gotten away with it when they got out of the carriage and fell into step with the rest of the students, who were streaming through the doors and heading for the Great Hall. Then they saw their respective heads of house, Professor Longbottom and Professor Goldstein, and stopped dead.

"Damn," Fred muttered.

"Is there any particular reason the two of you decided not to ride the Hogwarts Express today?" Professor Longbottom said mildly when they'd reached him. "We weren't notified of your absence, and neither, it seems, were your parents."

Neither of them said anything. Victoire was hoping beyond hope that they were just guessing, or that they might let them off the hook just this once -

"Come with me."

Victoire exchanged a look with Fred, and they fell into step behind Professor Goldstein. "Damn," she echoed softly. In trouble before term had even started; this was the first time they'd managed that.

On the bright side, though, they didn't appear to be heading toward the Headmistress's office, which was probably a good sign.

She hoped.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

A couple points of clarification: In my headcanon, each dormitory has a bathroom attached to it. I can't see any other reasonable way to accomodate so many students, especially if you want to give them any privacy. I also don't have a standard number of students in a year or have houses evenly split along gender lines - the castle is magic, I'm sure they can expand the rooms to fit enough beds if they need to. :P

Thank you so much for reading, and as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts if you wouldn't mind taking a moment to leave me a review! Branwen