"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -Albert Einstein

I don't own Harry Potter

Fred shut the door to his room, trying to make as little noise as possible. When he turned around, he jumped slightly. George was staring at him from his bed, a smirk covering his face.

"What?" Fred asked innocently, walking to his own bed and dumping the spiders in his trunk on the way.

"I believe you are slowly inching towards losing the bet, if you haven't lost already that is," George answered.

"No, I'm not going to lose," Fred answered. His voice didn't sound too sure. If he could hear the doubt in his own voice, he was sure that George could.

"You won't lie to get out of having to pay up, will you?" George asked. "If you do fall for her, you'll say something?"

"Yeah, what kind of person do you think I am?" Fred asked, punching a hand into his pillow before getting into bed.

"Just checking," George shrugged. "The bet was that you would fall for her sometime while we were here, so you don't have to admit defeat until November 5th."

"I won't be admitting defeat," Fred answered.

"I think you will," George said. "There must be something different about the gravity here becauses I think you're falling for her. Or you're going to soon. I'm telling you, Fred."

"What a funny joke," Fred snorted. "Anyway, the gravity is the same here as anywhere else, so if that were the case, and I was falling for her, which I'm not, it wouldn't be because of gravity."

"So, she pulled a prank on you." George stated, changing the subject and wiggling an eyebrow. "What did you think of that?"

"It was bound to happen eventually," Fred answered, shrugging like he didn't care. The truth was, though, he had been surprised beyond belief that Sara had attempted to pull a prank on him. He hadn't expected that to happen so soon. He thought it would take forever to get her to that stage, if she ever got there at all. She had said it had been payback, but he could tell she had been amused. Maybe she would come to understand what exactly it was about pulling pranks that Fred and George liked; the thrill, the amusement, the laughter.

"I'd say we're having an effect on her," George said, "which is good actually because she needs to loosen up."

Fred nodded. "She's been through a lot, though." Instantly, he mentally kicked himself. He wasn't supposed to say anything, but it was always so hard keeping things from his twin.

"What do you mean?" George asked, turning on his side to face Fred's bed.

"It's just—well, she asked me not to say anything."

"Fred, I'm your twin. We tell each other everything. Did she tell you a huge secret or something?"

Fred nodded again. "She doesn't want me to tell you or Katie though. She said she'd talk about it more when she was ready."

"Why did she tell you, then?"

"You're asking the wrong person because I have about as much of a clue as you do."

"What happened to her?" George asked.

"I promised not to say anything," Fred bit his lip.

"Look at you, keeping a promise to Sara Sheridan. You aren't even telling your own twin some secret that she told you; a girl that annoys the heck out of you. At least used to." George smirked.

"I don't like her like that," Fred answered, flinging his pillow at George. "Plus, it doesn't matter who she is. I made a promise and I want to keep it. I would tell you, George, I want to. I hate keeping things from you, but-,"

"—but you made a promise to Sara," George said her name in a singsong voice and made kissy faces.

Fred gave a frustrated sigh as George through his pillow back at him. He didn't know if he was more frustrated that George was teasing him, or because there was a possibility that he might be right.

The next day was Sunday and Sara woke up early. She was pretty sure that she was the only one up since she knew for a fact that the others weren't exactly fond of getting up early and it also didn't help that it was a Sunday, basically the universal sleep in day.

Yawning, she got dressed and went downstairs. She searched through the cupboards for the box of cereal they had bought yesterday. When she finally found it, she poured some in a bowl with milk, grabbed a spoon and headed outside, sitting down at the outdoor table to watch the sunrise.

The air was a little chilly, so Sara pulled her sleeves down to cover her hands. She pulled her feet up on the chair and continued to eat her cereal in the silence. It was actually very nice out here. It was quiet and peaceful.

Apparently, she had thought too soon. The sliding back door opened and Fred stepped out, his own bowl of cereal in his hands. "Looks like you found a cozy spot to eat breakfast," he said with a smile.

"I wanted to come out here to watch the sunrise," she answered. "I like the peace and quiet." She looked at him with a raised eyebrow when she said 'peace and quiet.'

"I can leave then if you want," Fred stopped halfway to the table. He actually looked a little disappointed.

She sighed. "No, stay. I don't mind."

"Are you sure?" Fred asked.

She nodded and turned to look back at the sunrise. "Why are you up so early?" she asked as Fred sat down across the table from her.

He shrugged. "I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I saw you come out here and thought I'd join you. My window looks out to the backyard," he added, when Sara glanced at him, confused.

She nodded her head and they fell into silence again.

"So, we start school tomorrow," Fred said.

"Yeah," Sara nodded. Starting at school had been what she had been the most nervous about. Back at Hogwarts, their professor had made sure that they had Muggle American school supplies, so they had everything they needed, but Sara was just nervous about how they would be treated, being the new kids and everything.

"You're worried," Fred said.

She could feel his eyes on her and she nodded again. "Lots of things could go wrong."

"We aren't going to use magic," Fred had paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth.

"I'm not really worried about that," she said. Fred nodded and continued eating. "We've all survived the first day without magic and it wasn't a complete disaster."

"What are you worried about then?" Fred asked.

"Fitting in," she said, finally looking at him.

"Oh," Fred gave a laugh. "That's all?"

"What do you mean that's all?" she asked, her voice coming out high pitched.

"I just meant that I don't think we'll have any trouble."

"You won't have any trouble, you and George. You two are friendly, funny, outgoing. Everyone instantly likes you."

It's not that Sara was shy, but she wasn't exactly outgoing either, and for years she had been the bossy, know it all, independent, controlling girl who always had the answers and never went to anyone for help or to tell them about her problems. The only time any of that had changed was the day before.

"You'll be fine," Fred said confidently.

Sara just shrugged one shoulder and stared into her cereal bowl. When she looked up, Fred was drinking the leftover milk from his bowl. He caught her eye and froze before lowering the bowl and putting it on the table.

"Sorry," he smiled.

She smiled back. That had been kind of awkward, but it was funny. "It's okay. I like drinking the leftover milk too, believe it or not." She tilted her own bowl to her mouth and drank the rest of the milk.

"Wow, we have something in common," Fred said, looking slightly surprised.

"Who knew," Sara answered, standing up. She gestured for Fred to give her his cereal bowl. "I'll take it if you want."

"Thanks," Fred answered, handing her the bowl, standing up and following her inside to the kitchen.

Sara started washing the dishes at the sink and Fred hopped up on the counter. "You shouldn't sit on there," Sara said, not looking up.

"You sound like my mum," he answered.

"You do this at home, too?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"I'm not surprised," she answered, handing him one of the bowls and one of the spoons with it. "Here, put these away."

"I don't know where they go," he said innocently.

"Oh, don't play that game with me," she said. "You made your own cereal this morning, so you must have gotten the bowl and spoon from somewhere."

"Ah, you caught me," Fred laughed, jumping down from the counter and putting away the dishes Sara handed him.

When both bowls and spoons were washed and put away, Sara and Fred stood in the kitchen, unsure of what to do.

"Well, I'm probably going to go work on my Hogwarts schoolwork," Sara said, backing away towards the stairs. She was getting nervous just standing with Fred in the kitchen with nothing to say.

"Okay. You do that, and while you're being studious, I'm going to go wake George so we can work on more invention sketches."

"Okay," Sara answered. Once she had raced up to her room, she shut the door and took out her schoolwork, spreading it all out on her bed. It was about a months worth of work, and there was a lot of it too; even more than normal since it was OWL year.

There was a knock on the door and Sara sat up, her stomach fluttering for a second. "Come in."

The door opened and Sara's stomach felt like it deflated. It wasn't Fred, but Katie. Sara couldn't believe that she had just been disappointed that Fred wasn't coming to see her. It definitely seemed like she was falling for him. She half wanted it to stop, but she half wanted to see where it could go.

"Fred and George are busy inventing and they're never interesting when they're inventing like that. They focus too much on their work and don't listen to a word anyone else says to them. It's impossible to hold a conversation." Katie rolled her eyes and plopped onto Sara's bed. "I brought my own schoolwork in here. I thought we could do it together."

"Yeah, that's fine," Sara moved some papers out of the way. "I'm doing all the History of Magic work first. It's the most boring so I decided to get it over with."

"Good idea," Katie nodded. "Then we should do Potions. It's definitely the second least favorite class of the Hogwarts population."

"Except the Slytherins," Sara said, flipping through her textbook.

"True. I can't believe Snape assigned us so much work. I mean, he assigned us four essays that are supposed to be twice as long as the ones we usually write and that stupid equation assignment."

"He's probably trying to make up for the fact that we won't be in class making the potions."

"You're right, of course," Katie sighed. "Even McGonagall didn't give us as much as Snape, though." She opened her own History of Magic textbook and flipped to the right page.

"I expected her to give us a lot, actually," Sara answered.

"You know," Katie said thoughtfully, "Fred's really good at Transfiguration. You should do McGonagall's essays with him."

"Why just me alone? Don't you mean 'we'?" Sara asked, looking up.

"Yeah, that's what I meant," Katie said, giggling.

"Anyway, I can just use the textbook. I've always done fine on my homework without Fred's help."

"If you say so," Katie shrugged. "But that was before this weekend. Now, you might actually want his help." She smirked.

"What happened this weekend that changed anything?" Sara asked. Nothing had changed between her and Fred. Not really, anyway. They did get along better, but it wasn't like they had all of a sudden announced their engagement. She just happened to sort of, maybe, possibly like him. She was still trying to figure that out, actually.

"There are just moments when you're different. Happier, it seems," Katie said, tapping her chin with her finger.

"That's good, then, isn't it?" Sara asked, returning to her essay.

"Yeah, it is good," Katie said. She didn't say anything else on the subject. Instead, they continued working in silence and by lunchtime they had finished half of their History of Magic assignments.

"Are Fred and George planning on doing any schoolwork at all?" Sara asked as she and Katie thundered down the stairs to make lunch.

"Oh, they'll do it," Katie said. "Most likely the night before we go back home."

"I expect they'll be barging into my room in the early hours of the morning begging for help," Sara rolled her eyes.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Katie giggled.

They made sandwiches for lunch and Sara ended up with the job of going to tell the twins to come downstairs. She reached their room and knocked.

"Come in," one of the twins said. It might have been George, but she still found it hard to distinguish their voices.

She opened the door and her eyes widened at the papers littering the floor, some crumpled, some lying flat, and some ripped in half.

"Did a tornado hit in here or something?" she asked, stepping into the room. Fred and George were sitting on the floor at the ends of their beds, in the process of creating a new sketch.

"No, this is how we typically are when we're inventing," Fred said. "We clean it all up when we're done, though and throw away all of the ones we don't need or want."

"Well, lunch is ready," Sara said. "Shouldn't you be doing schoolwork?"

"Yeah, but this is more fun," George grinned, collecting some of the papers and throwing them away.

"What'd you and Katie make?" Fred asked as his stomach growled.

"Sandwiches," Sara answered, leaning against the door as she waited for the twins to clean up.

"I'm so hungry," Fred complained.

"How do you think I feel? I didn't even get a chance to eat breakfast because you woke me up and insisted we get inventing," George groaned.

"Not my problem, George," Fred said, throwing a crumpled paper at his twin.

"I'm just going to go downstairs," Sara said.

"No, don't leave," Fred said. "Just stay right there and don't move an inch."

"If you insist," Sara answered, leaning against the door again.

Finally, Fred and George finished cleaning the papers off the floor and they ran down the stairs to the kitchen.

"I was beginning to think you had gotten lost up there," Katie said from her seat at the kitchen table where she had been waiting.

"Sorry, we were cleaning up our room," George said, giving Katie a kiss.

"Did you and Sara get a lot of work done?" Fred asked, already sitting down and picking up his sandwich.

Sara sat down next to him as Katie answered. "Yeah, we're working in order, starting with our least favorite subjects."

"History of Magic first, then," the twins said together.

"Exactly," Katie said. She glanced at Sara and smirked. "Sara wanted help with Transfiguration, though. I thought maybe you could help her, Fred."

Sara gave Katie a look. "No, I told you that it's fine. I'm pretty good at Transfiguration and I have my book. I can just use that."

Katie rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to answer, but Fred interrupted. "You need homework help from me?" He looked shocked.

"No," Sara felt her face turn red. "I don't know why Katie said that."

"Well, maybe she doesn't need help, but I thought you could work together. Like I said, Fred's really good at Transfiguration."

"I'm fine," Sara said, drinking her glass of water.

"If you do need help, you can always ask," Fred said, looking at her.

"I'll keep that in mind, but really, I think I've got it under control."

"Okay, well then maybe you can help me with my homework," Fred said. Katie looked satisfied and George was looking on the verge of laughter.

"What do you need help on?" Sara nibbled on the edge of her sandwich.

"Potions," Fred answered. "Specifically that assignment Snape gave us with all of the equations and measurements. I'm terrible with math and measuring. That's usually George's thing. Potions and Charms."

"Okay," she nodded, staring down at her plate. "I can help you. When?"

"What about today?" he asked. "After we finish eating."

Sara looked at him, surprised. "Okay," she said again.

"Okay," Fred said quietly, smiling at her. Sara felt her stomach flutter.

After lunch, George and Katie went outside while Fred and Sara decided to do their homework in the living room.

Fred waited on the couch while Sara went to get her books. She came back into the room and set them down on the table. Then, she sat down next to Fred, leaving a good amount of space between them. Fred tried not to smirk. That was certainly not going to be acceptable. "Okay," Fred said, pulling out the assignment from Snape and sliding closer to Sara, leaving a fraction of an inch between their thighs. He glanced at her face to see her reaction. It was unreadable, but it looked as if she was holding her breath.

"Okay, what pages in the book relate to what the assignment's on?" she asked, flipping open her book and slowly letting out the breath that Fred knew she had been holding.

"I don't know," Fred answered, staring at the side of her face. She had the cutest profile. No, no she doesn't he quickly thought to himself. Why was it that he couldn't stop thinking about Sara in a way that suggested he liked her? Fred shook his head. He thought he knew why, but he just didn't want to think about it. He had until November 5th until he had to admit to either liking or not liking Sara, so maybe by then he could shake off these confusing feelings of a possible crush and prove George and Katie wrong.

"Fred? Did you hear me?" Sara was asking.

"Sorry, what?" he asked, blinking frantically.

"I asked you if you were going to use your own book or if you wanted to share with me."

That was an easy question. Share, of course. No, sharing was not the right answer. That would only be the answer if he liked Sara. Which, of course, he did not.

"I'll share with you." The words came out before he could stop them.

"Figures, too lazy to open your own book," Sara said, but she was slightly smiling.

"No, I'm not lazy, it's just more convenient to share with you," Fred bumped his leg against hers.

"Yeah, because you're lazy," Sara answered. She glanced up at him and Fred noticed her cheeks were a light pink.

He just shrugged and grinned at her. She didn't say anything else; instead, she moved her book over on her lap. He slid even closer, so that their legs were touching and half of the book was on his leg and half on her leg.

Sara had pulled out her own paper and one of the writing instruments they had to use in regular school the next day. Pencils, Fred believed they were called. He watched as she tapped the eraser end of the pencil against her bottom lip.

"Okay," she said, "this isn't so bad. We just have to use these equations to figure out how much of each ingredient we'd need to use in a shrinking potion.

"So, how do we do that?" Fred asked.

Sara pointed to the paragraph in the book that explained what to do. She read it out loud and then explained it in her own words so that it made sense to Fred. Then, she did the first equation step by step, making sure he knew how to do it.

"You know, you could be a Hogwarts professor if you don't end up becoming an Auror," he said, completing the second problem. Sara was already on the fifth one out of the ten.

"Let me check your work," she said, leaning over to see his paper. Her eyes scanned his scribbled numbers and ingredients. "Good job, except for one thing."

"What?" Fred asked, nervously scanning his work. He didn't see anything wrong with it.

Sara pointed to his final answer. "Four what? Birds? Leaves? Nose hairs?"

Fred let out a snort. "Four ounces."

Sara nodded. "Of what?"

"Powdered unicorn horn," Fred answered.

Sara nodded. "Yeah, you just need to remember the units of measurements. Other than that, you're math is right. I don't think you're as bad as math as you say you are."

Fred smiled. "Because you're a good teacher. You should consider becoming a professor."

"I don't know about that."

"Oh, come on, really, Sara. I've told you this before. You're probably the smartest person in our year. You're capable of getting any job you want."

"I really want to be an Auror."

"Then that's what you should do."

Sara nodded and pushed her hair behind her ear again. Fred suddenly had the urge to push her hair behind her ear for her. Where did that come from? No, no, no, this wasn't supposed to happen. He had never pegged Sara as someone he would fall for, and now it kept looking like he was going to lose the bet, although he was finding that he didn't seem to mind if he lost, because suddenly he realized how much he liked being in Sara's company.

They finished the Potions assignment and Sara packed up her books and papers. "If you need help with the essays, let me know."

"Thanks, but I think I'll be fine. Those don't involve any math," Fred laughed.

Sara nodded. "Well, this was fun, actually."

"Of course it was fun. It was homework. You like homework."

"Ha ha," Sara said, narrowing her eyes at him and pushing past him to get to the stairs.

"Hey," he called, and she turned around, staring at him with those round hazel eyes. "Thank you," he finished, smiling.

"It was no trouble," she answered, smiling.

Fred smiled to himself and threw himself back down on the couch as she disappeared up the stairs. It had taken a while to get her to smile, but now that he had seen it, he wanted to see it more.

The back door opened, and George and Katie entered the room. "How'd your study date go?" Katie asked, perching on the arm of the couch.

"It wasn't a date, but it was fine. We did the assignment. Sara's a good teacher."

George looked down at his twin, amused. "Still haven't fallen for her?"

"No," Fred answered. He hadn't exactly, in his opinion. He was currently dangling on a branch over the cliff, in his opinion. But he got the feeling that any second that branch was going to snap and he'd be free falling over that cliff with no way of stopping until he hit the bottom.