I am woken up by a very excited Alicia in the morning. She's bounding on the end of my bed shrieking, 'It's my birthday!' She's like a 2 year old, that one.

I groan loudly and sit up before throwing a present at her that's sitting on my bedside table. She claps enthusiastically.

'Thanks Ava!' she exclaims. I roll my eyes at her.

'Calm down before you hurt yourself,' I tell her. She just grins at me and goes and sits on the floor in the middle of the dorm where there's already a pile of presents.

Katie, Angelina and Max are all rubbing tired eyes as they sit up sleepily like me. We watch as Alicia rips the wrapping off a long present, which is apparently from her parents. She then shrieks loudly, and we all wince at the sound.

'A firebolt!' she exclaims, holding up the broom to show us.

Soon enough she's unwrapped a new top from Angelina, a book on beauty spells from Katie, a big box of Berty Botts every flavour beans from Max and a book on quidditch from me. She runs around the room, hugging us all then proceeds to fly down the stairs to the common room shouting, 'It's my birthday!'

'We still have class though, so I suggest we head down for some breakfast,' says Katie, as we come up behind her. Alicia shrugs and we head off for some food.

Wood, Fred and George are already sitting at the table, smiling widely at Alicia.

'Happy Birthday!' they exclaim, as we sit down.

'So, how does it feel to be 17?' asks Fred.

'Brilliant!' exclaims Alicia.

Once classes are finished, Angelina, Katie, Max and I kidnap Alicia, and take her back to our dormitory. Fred, George and Oliver are in the room of requirement finalising everything for the party. They somehow managed to let the majority of the 7th years know about it without anyone spilling to Alicia.

We muck around in our dormitory for a while, giving each other make overs. Genius, aren't we? At about 7.30 we decide it's time to head down.

'What do you say we go show George what he's lost?' I say to Alicia. Her long hair is perfectly curled, eyes shining and she's wearing a black mini dress. She nods enthusiastically.

'Bastard,' she mutters as we make our way down to the common room. We manage to convince Alicia that George will be wandering the halls aimlessly, and so we drag her off to the room of requirement. After pacing backwards and forwards three times in front of it thinking 'I need a place for a party,' a door appears.

Alicia looks at it curiously for a moment before hesitantly opening it. She takes a step inside and suddenly there's a loud chorus of 'Surprise!'

We enter behind her to find her frozen. She simply stares at the room for a moment before bursting out into laughter.

'You guys are the best!' she exclaims to the room at large.

Soon enough everyone's chattering away. Alicia is talking loudly to us over the music.

'This is amazing guys!' she says, indicating the decorations, food and the overall party.

'It was George's idea!' Max says back, raising an eyebrow. Alicia sighs.

'I suppose I should go thank him, shouldn't I.' she states in a resigned voice. We all nod enthusiastically and follow her over to where Fred and George and standing, laughing loudly.

'Ladies!' exclaims George, grinning widely at us. He then looks specifically at Alicia, 'Alicia,' he adds hesitantly. She stares at him for a moment before breaking out into a grin and throwing her arms around his neck. He looks surprised for a moment but then eagerly hugs her back.

'This is the best birthday ever!' Alicia shouts and George's grin gets even bigger as Alicia plants a kiss on his lips. We figure it's probably a good idea to leave them alone, so Max, Angelina, Katie, Fred and I all head elsewhere.

'Want to dance?' Fred asks, offering a hand to Angelina. She nods and giggles, before taking his offered hand and being lead to the dance floor.

Max, Katie and I all look at each other.

'So, we're the loner's huh?' says Max. I spot someone over Max's head.

'You and me are, but Katie here is not,' I say. Katie spins around wildly, before coming face to face with the guy in Ravenclaw she's spent the last couple of weeks gushing about. She grins shyly at him, before letting him lead her to the dance floor.

'Then there were two,' I sigh.

'We really need to find ourselves some guys,' she says. I nod in agreement.

'I'll say. This is rather depressing.'

'You could just go snog Wood, you know,' she suggests, smirking at me. I glare back at her.

'No thanks. I'd rather snog the giant squid.'

'I'm sure,' she says skeptically before scanning the room, 'You know, I think I'm going to go try my luck with that guy,' she indicates a rather good looking boy on the other side of the room.

'Fine, leave me to be a loner then,' I huff, folding my arms. She just grins innocently at me.

'I'm sure you'll find someone to dance with,' she says in a sing-song voice before skipping off. Damn best friend.

Now by my lonesome little self, I half-heartedly drag myself towards the drinks table. I grab a cup of firewhiskey, and down it in one go, hoping it'd make the night go a little faster. It burns a path down my throat and I cough slightly.

'Slow down there Grier,' comes a familiar voice from behind me, accompanied by a hand on my back, 'We don't want you to go snogging random boys now.'

I turn around and scowl at Wood, knowing he's referring to the last party where I ended up snogging him. He smirks at me.

'Piss off. I don't want to talk to you,' I snap him, and after grabbing another drink I attempt to push past him. He apparently has other plans however, because he grabs my arms and turns me back around to face him.

'Why not?' he asks, but he doesn't sound annoyed by the fact that I snapped at him. In fact, he's still smirking.

'Because I don't like you,' I reply, struggling to pull myself out of his grip. He laughs.

'You've said that so many times that it's lost all meaning. Especially after you've snogged me multiple times,' he says cockily. I scowl.

'I didn't snog you, you snogged me!' I say.

'Doesn't mean you didn't kiss me back and enjoy it,' he says, taking a long sip of his drink.

'I did not enjoy it,' I say indignantly.

'I'm sure,' he says, leaning closer to me, 'So if I kiss you right now, you won't enjoy it. Is that right?'

I gulp at his extremely close proximity. His lips are less than an inch away from my ear, and I can feel him breathing on me.

'Yes,' I reply in a shaky voice, which doesn't really help my case. He leans back slightly and raises his eyebrows.

'Uhuh,' he says, looking down at me, 'Are you sure about that?' He leans even closer to me, and for some reason I don't move back at all.

'Very,' I squeak and he tilts his head to the side.

'Right,' he says softly, before bringing his lips down onto mine.

I groan inwardly at my enthusiastic response. Seriously, I'm trying to prove that I don't like kissing him, yet I have to go and start kissing him back straight away. I scowl at myself, yet I don't pull away.

He however, does. He keeps an arm around my waist though, and smirks down at me. I don't look at him as I am too busy cursing myself. Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!

'Really convincing, Grier,' he whispers too me, as I suddenly hear clapping. I groan and turn my head to see Fred, George, Max, Angelina, Alicia and Katie, grinning widely at us.

'Ah, young love,' says Fred, wiping an invisible tear away from his eye. I glare at him while Wood smirks. I push Wood away from me, as his arm is still around my waist.

'You can't just go around snogging people!' I exclaim, glaring at him. He rolls his eyes.

'I'm not going around snogging people, I'm going around snogging you.'

'Well can you not?'

'You didn't seem to mind while you were moaning,' he says arrogantly. I growl at him before storming off.

Bloody Wood. Thinks he can just expect me to be there for a snog whenever he feels like. I don't even like snogging him! Prat. He's making me completely confused. I don't like him, yet I let him kiss me. What on earth is wrong with me?!

'Oi! Grier! Wait up!'

I growl again when I hear the voice. A moment later I hear footsteps getting louder before they finally stop. I slowly turn around to face him, a scowl clear on my face.

'What?' I snap at Wood, and he just grins.

'Don't tell me your pissed off at me for kissing you? Come on, admit you liked it.'

'I did not,' I say defiantly, 'And I am pissed off at you. You can't just keep randomly snogging me.'

'Making you confused am I?'

'Ye – no, What?'

'You can't decide whether you like me or not – you don't want to as a matter of principle but you can't help but notice that when we kiss you highly enjoy it,' he says, continuing to smirk.

'I do not like you. And I don't like kissing you!'

'That's not what Katie told me the other day. And she never lies,' he says. Bloody Katie. She'll be in for it later.

'So was she lying when she said you fancied me?' I ask, smirking after having turned this conversation around on him. He gives me a startled look.

'What makes her think that?'

'The way you act around me, apparently,' I shrug.

'I don't fancy you. I just like snogging. Nothing to do with you.'

'Uhuh,' I say, raising an eyebrow and taking a step closer to him. He automatically steps back and I smirk. Who's in control of the situation now, huh? I take another step forward, and again he steps back, a sightly nervous look crossing his face. I take one last step forward and his back hits the wall. His eyes are darting all over the place, apparently not sure where to look.

'So nothing I do affects you at all?' I ask him, my voice sounding lower than normal. He says nothing, but his eyes go wide as I press myself up against him. Two can play at his game. I do nothing for a moment, except shift subtly to the side of him, before I run a hand lightly down his arm. I notice him gulp. He's staring down at me, barely moving.

I slowly start to lean towards him, watching as he too starts to lean in. However, instead of kissing him like I'm dying to do, I lean towards his ear.

'I really believe you now,' I murmur, before mustering all my self control and moving away from him. He stands there, dumbstruck, and I smirk, 'I'm supposed to be at a party. Bye, Wood.'

I skip off, back in the direction of the Room of requirement, still smirking. It isn't until I'm about halfway down the corridor, that I hear a loud crashing sound, followed by a stream of curses and a rather loud 'Bloody tease!'

Payback's a bitch, Wood.