Both the twins and Vicki greeted a few people as they headed down to where the twins were going to take Vicki. Vicki had no idea where they were headed to, she found herself enjoying the adventure. The twins had escorted her down past the Great Hall, they were going further down. They went down a stair case and wound up next to a painting of a pear.

Vicki didn't say anything but instead shot a look towards the twins as she waited for them to explain. It was a game of chicken, they were all caught in a stand off. The twins were grinning whilst Vicki shot them confused looks.

"So uh, how does this painting give me coffee? I assume this is part of the great plan?" Vicki asked, the first one to speak up.

"It doesn't." Fred smugly responded.

"It's what behind it that does." George added on.

"Yes, okay." Vicki nodded, trying her best to not lose her patience and get annoyed as she knew that's exactly what the twins wanted, they were playing with her.

This time the twins relented and let Vicki win this round. Time was running thin before they had to go to their first lesson and also mainly because they needed Vicki for their favour, they didn't want to tease her too much and push her too far. Of course Fred also had his own reasons on why he didn't want to go into Victoria Hartwell's bad books.

"What we are about to show you is probably one of the most sacred places in Hogwarts-" George began.

"-So we're asking you to respect it." Fred finished.

"Please don't go around telling everyone about it, or it'll ruin it for everybody." George stated.

"As tempting as it is also, don't go using it every day. We don't want the teachers shutting down access to students if it becomes common knowledge students are coming and going every day." Fred added on.

"Well, alright then. I'm not even sure what lies behind this bloody painting of a pear, but whatever it is, I agree to your terms and conditions. Can I peak behind the painting now?" Vicki half-joked.

Fred couldn't help himself. Although secretly Vicki made him feel very unnaturally shy and nervous, he still had to be himself in public. He couldn't drop his pranking nature in front of her, or anyone else. So without thinking of the consequences he found himself flirting with Vicki before he could stop it.

As his twin George tickled the pear to gain access, Fred in an over-the-top obvious joking manner tickled Vicki by lightly touching her sides. He didn't do it for very long, just enough for her to burst into laughter and lightly push him away as she squirmed. When he finally realised what he was doing there was no time for regret. She had taken his affections well based on her giggles and he had also managed some skin-on-skin contact and an excuse to touch her. That was definitely a win in his books.

Just as Vicki straightened herself after swatting away Fred for the last time she watched as the pear disappeared and a green door knob took its place. George was closer than Fred who was by Vicki's side, so he grinned and opened the door and led the others inside.

The inside was something that Fred and George had seen many, many times but the sight was new to Vicki. She was completely in awe. She had never given the kitchens at Hogwarts much thought, but if she had to guess what it would look like she'd guess it would be like something at a commercial kitchen. Something with lots of stovetops, benchtops, ovens and hanging pots and pans with white tiles everywhere.

However Hogwarts was a school that was established in the middle ages and thus the kitchen was reflective of those medieval times. The room was massive, and almost a carbon copy of the Great Hall that was directly above. The four house tables were present, as well as the teachers table. There was also a high ceiling and some of the same lighting that the Great Hall had, with everything made of stone. There were a few differences. The handsome and striking decorations were missing and the kitchens looked a lot more basic. To the side there was also a kitchen preparation area, where lots of house elves were rushing around preparing breakfast for the students above.

Vicki's attention was transfixed on the ceiling. It was very plain and boring – it was made of cobblestone like the floor and barely stood out – with a simple chandelier hanging down as a big source of light.

"There's all these house elves scurrying around making every kind of food imaginable and you're occupied with a ceiling?" Fred snorted towards Vicki.

"This room was designed to be identical to the Great Hall, which is made really obvious. Without all of the decorations and additions, this is what the Great Hall would look like." Vicki explained.

"And?" George asked, looking up towards the ceiling but before either he or his twin could tease her further realisation dawned upon them both.

The roof upstairs was enchanted to look like the sky, but this one was in its boring original state. The Great Hall's ceiling had been bewitched since Hogwarts had opened to resemble the outside sky. Therefore if this room was created as a copy of the Great Hall upstairs, this is what the real ceiling of the Great Hall looked like – something that very few people over the years would have realised.

A moment of silence fell between the trio as they all stared at the ceiling in wonder. Vicki smiled as she put an arm around each twin and pulled them close to her.

"I take it you've been here a lot of times, but I'm glad we could all experience looking at the true Great Hall ceiling together." Vicki gleefully stated.

The two twins sent a big grin towards her, but Fred's was just a little bit larger than his twin's.


A few weeks had passed since the Weasley twins showed Vicki the kitchens, and a handful of times when she'd been up late completing homework she took advantage and grabbed a cup of coffee in the kitchens from the house elves before going to breakfast the next morning.

It was sometimes tempting for her to go a lot more regularly but she had promised the twins she wouldn't. She understood it wasn't sustainable to go every day – there would be a good chance a teacher would find out what she were doing and procedures would then be put in place to stop students from entering. It was also a bit of a hassle when she did go. All the house elves were already scurrying around preparing breakfast, she usually had to wait for her coffee and had to try her hardest to avoid being smacked into by an elf carrying a big plate of eggs. She also had to drink the coffee in the kitchen to avoid detection by teachers, which meant she either would burn her tongue when she drank it quickly or miss seeing her friends for breakfast and have to eat in the kitchens so she could finish her coffee.

She had also kept her promise to the twins about not revealing the kitchens to anybody – well, mostly. As the kitchens were close to the Hufflepuff common room (which Vicki only found out recently) she had run into Cedric a few times in the hall after leaving the kitchens. Without revealing the location of the kitchen or how to get in, she did admit exactly what she were doing.

Cedric and Victoria had grown to be fairly close friends over the past few weeks. They had always been friendly, especially as they belonged to the same friendship group and because their parents were friends. However now she spent more quality time with Cedric. Even though she and Roger hade made-up, she decided to continue working with Cedric during Potions. During prefect meetings they would always sit next to each other, and every time their big group of sixth year friends spent time together, Cedric and Vicki seemed to dominate the conversation. They also now did a lot of their prefect patrols together too, to the delight of Kelly the Head Girl and Paul the Head Boy, as Vicki and Roger were known to sometimes sneak off to snog when they were on patrol shift together.

The other person she had become very close with over the past few weeks was Fred Weasley. She had befriended both twins and she got along very nicely with George but as she spent a very big chunk of her time with Fred alone (due to the classes they shared but sometimes they would spend time together outside of lessons every now and again during a spare period) she was much closer to Fred.

It amused Vicki that perhaps the two people she was now closest with at school (aside of course her darling Roger) were nothing more than casual acquaintances a few months ago.

Roger had absolutely no problem with Vicki and Cedric becoming friends. Not only was he approving of Cedric being both a fellow prefect and a house Quiddich captain, but as he knew both Cedric and Vicki well he could easily tell their close friendship was nothing short of an innocent, platonic relationship.

Fred, on the other hand, was one that Roger wasn't too impressed with. He had voiced his concerns to Vicki, saying he didn't think it was appropriate for a prefect who had a really good chance of being Head Girl next year to be fraternising with the troublemaking Weasley twins. Vicki snapped at him every time he brought this up, so Roger eventually gave up and resorted to glaring at both twins when he could, and sometimes even bumping their shoulders when he passed them in the hallways. He wasn't able to tell the two twins apart when they were together, but he knew it was Fred that held feelings for his girlfriend based on their interactions when he was with Vicki.

When Vicki woke up on a Monday morning she had no idea just how much of a busy morning lay in front of her. She awoke in Roger's arms, she had spent the night in his dormitory with the curtains closed getting up to no good with him. She woke up a bit earlier than him and tried to wake him but he groaned and swatted her away. Some girls would have been annoyed by this but she thought it was cute and put her pyjama pants back on before going back to her dormitory.

Twenty minutes later she was heading down to the Great Hall by herself for breakfast. Roger still had yet to emerge from his dormitory and Steph had already headed down before Vicki had even gotten back to their dorm – she did this a lot of mornings so she could go see Stebbins – they were still going strong.

When Victoria got to the Entrance Hall it was hard for her to even get off the staircase, as there was a big sign erected at the bottom that a lot of people were congregating around. She initially planned to wait her turn to get close enough to read, but due to her status of both popularity and being a prefect people moved out of their way to let her through.

She read the sign – the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students would be arriving on the upcoming Friday. Students would be finishing their last lesson half an hour early to quickly store their bags and books and make themselves decent before coming down to the front of the castle to meet the guests.

"Better prepare ourselves for this. Us prefects are going to be given lots of tasks this week to prepare for this visit." Cedric stated out loud as he made his way to the front as well, giving Vicki a small smile.

Cedric's prediction came true very quickly. After making her way through the crowd and taking a seat the Ravenclaw table for breakfast, as soon as she put two pieces of toast onto her plate the Ravenclaw Head Boy – Paul Greene took a seat in front of Vicki.

"You know I'm not a prude, right? I agreed with Kelly to let the prefect pool parties be organised again." Paul opened with.

"No one is accusing you of being a prude, Paul. I don't know why you've taken a seat in front of me to ask me whether I think you're a prude or not." Vicki said sarcastically, taking a big bite of her toast.

Paul fidgeted a little with his blazer as he felt highly uncomfortable about what he was about to ask of Vicki – well, ask her to not do. He briefly reconsidered what he was about to request of her. He didn't mind Vicki, and he certainly didn't want to get on her bad side, she had a lot of friends in this school. But then he remembered he was Head Boy. Not only was the house of Ravenclaw's reputation at stake, but so was the school's. No one said being Head Boy would be easy, and this was an uncomfortable conversation he had to have.

"I saw you leaving the sixth year boy's dormitories this morning. Look, I know you've been doing this since last year and I have no problem with it. Unfortunately though all of the heads of houses, as well as Dumbledore as of this week are cracking down on student behaviour and rule breaking. It wouldn't look good to find out my sixth year female Ravenclaw prefect was sneaking into her boyfriend's dorm for some er, extra-curricular activities." Paul explained to Vicki in a hushed tone, sounding very awkward speaking about such a private matter with her.

Vicki was silent for a few moments. She didn't know whether she should be angry at his interference, be embarrassed about the sensitive topic or just give up and be reasonable and understand his point.

"So um… I guess you're saying you want me to stop going into Roger's dorm, right?" Vicki weakly asked, wanting to come to a complete resolution with Paul.

"Yes, effective immediately and indefinitely. You don't want Hogwarts to develop a terrible reputation should Beaubaxtons or Durmstrang get wind of the fact we tolerate girls sneaking into dorms." Paul stated, and his eyes widened as he noticed Vicki's calm demeanour change as her face screwed up in anger.

"Understood. You can go now though, you're dismissed. But just know there's a reason those spells are only one-sided to stop boys going into the girls dorms. Bad reputations and rule-breaking in these instances go both ways." Vicki hissed at Paul. It was rare for her to confront anyone or be rude, one of the reasons she was well-liked. But Paul had rubbed her the wrong way and he knew it as he quickly jumped up and went to scamper off to the other end of the house table.

When his back was turned Vicki threw a bit of her toast at his back, but missed. At the corner of her eye she saw Fred smirking at her all the way from the Gryffindor table. She didn't know, but he had been watching her for a short while. He noticed her looking confused as Paul was talking to her and he saw when her face twist in rage. He definitely saw her throw toast at his back.

Fred couldn't remember a time he had seen Vicki angry, aside from towards her boyfriend. He knew Paul must have said something really offensive to her, and rage automatically flowed through Fred as well. He felt anger for her, even though he had no idea what Paul had said to her.

He tried to catch Vicki's eye and as soon as he did he grabbed a discarded edition of the Daily Prophet and rolled it up. He then grabbed a fried egg from the table and performed a spell on it he had used before to convert a cooked egg back into a raw egg within its shell – it was a handy spell to know when one required an egg for what he was about to do.

Vicki looked on from the Ravenclaw table in confusion, as she had no idea what Fred was about to do. Without any warning Fred threw the now raw egg in the air and used his Beater skills to swat it towards Paul's back using the rolled up newspaper. It broke magnificently, splattering Paul in egg matter.

He looked behind him quickly. As Vicki's toast had missed him and as the egg had come from another direction he didn't even suspect Vicki and had his eyes towards a group of first year Ravenclaws who had finished breakfast early and had inconviently stood up at the wrong time. With no evidence to tie the first years to the assault he strode out to change his robes.

Vicki was about to get up from the table to go thank Fred for his actions towards Paul and to laugh about it with him, but at that exact moment the morning post was distributed as all the owls came swooping throughout the Great Hall. Vicki saw her owl, Fez shooting down and he dropped two letters in front of her.

Before ripping them open she looked at who they had both come from. One was the fortnightly letter Sarah, her muggle best friend sent. It was possible for muggles to write to the school – it was something the Hogsmeade post office organised – a fake muggle-friendly address that would ensure the letters ended up at Hogwarts. Therefore she and Sarah took alternate weeks to write to each other.

The second was a surprise. The return address was for Ludovic Bagman. Vicki had written to him weeks ago – Fred and George helped her with the letter as part of their deal of showing her where the kitchens were. When Vicki never heard back the three of them determined that Bagman must have moved onto another young girl to stalk and that they would have to find a new avenue to Bagman to get their World Cup winnings.

Therefore in excitement Vicki opened Bagman's letter first.

My beautiful Vicki,

I must apologise for my delayed response – I have been very preoccupied organising the Triwizard tournament. Please be aware I did think about you a lot – I just haven't had a spare moment to pick up my quill to give you the proper letter you deserve.

I am so grateful you wrote to me and said all those kind words about me. It is very flattering to be called a 'stud' by such a beautiful girl.

There are so many things I'd like to write, but I feel it's much better said in person. I'll be at Hogwarts this coming Friday when the other schools arrive and will be staying at Hogsmeade overnight for reasons I cannot say.

I would love to see you on Friday, maybe spend some time in private getting to know one another? I will request a Hogwarts prefect to greet me and show me around, any chance you can try and ensure that prefect is you?

I look forward to your letter back but most importantly I look forward to seeing your pretty face again.

Sincerely yours,

L. Bagman

Vicki burst into laughter after reading his response, it was all she could do to stop herself from feeling disgusted and bringing attention to herself. She looked up at the Gryffindor table and hoped there was a chance she could grab Fred's attention. Unfortunately he was preoccupied with something Lee Jordan was showing both the twins so Vicki decided to read her other letter first before finding an excuse to go over to the Gryffindor table.

Heya Vicki!

How are things going at boarding school?

I never thought sixth form would be so hard! Maths has become so difficult and I want to punch my English teacher so much!

The gossip does get a lot more juicy though. I went to a party last weekend and some guy was having a wank in his room (why would you do that at a party?!) and then jizzed in his eye. This other girl got fingered and the whole school found out so she dropped out of school to go work in child care.

My friend Susan and I were going to get drunk on Friday at lunch because it's funny but she invited this other girl, Abby. Abby then went around and blabbed to the whole school thinking she was so cool and of course the teachers found out so we had to abandon the plan. What a bitch.

Any funny stories from your end? How are you and Roger going?

I've enclosed an envelope that contains a photo I want you to give to your friend Lee to remember me by – he was hot and sorry I know he's your friend but he was also a good lover. Under no circumstances are you to look at the photo, give it straight to Lee.

Can't wait to hear from you.

Sarah xo

This was another letter that made Vicki laugh. It was a perfect example of how backwards the wizarding world felt when it came to sexual liberations. There was no way Vicki would ever write about anything so open with her school friends, but Vicki's letters to Sarah were always just as trashy as the one she had received. Things were getting better but the magic community was still very conservative. Vicki would write to Sarah using the same manners and talk about crass things but aside from Steph, she wouldn't talk that way to anyone else.

This was one of the main reasons why Sarah's letters meant so much to her. It was a small thing that kept her connected to the muggle world. She enjoyed hearing about all the crazy parties, alcohol drugs and hookups. But she also enjoyed the small things like school, shopping and friendship dramas.

Once upon a time Vicki's parents forced her to go to primary school to learn basic literacy and numeracy before she started at Hogwarts. She remembered when basic algebra would drive her crazy and she remembered how good she was at English at the time, her reading levels were always very advanced. Now it felt so foreign to her, sometimes when she was struggling to conjure a difficult spell in charms, brew a painful potion or transfigure something that was impossible she remembered how hard additions used to be for her, and realise how simple it seemed looking back.

Vicki noticed the small envelope that was sealed with the letter. The main reason why Vicki didn't open it wasn't out of loyalty but mostly due to the fact she knew exactly what was inside and certainly did not want to see it. She did however grin as now she had a perfect excuse to go to the Gryffindor table.

Vicki grabbed all of her letters, but stuffed the one from Bagman into her pocket to ensure it didn't fall into the wrong hands, and went to the Gryffindor table, taking a seat and squeezing herself between Fred and Lee.

"What did Paul Greene say to you?" Fred blurted out, not bothering for a proper greeting first.

Due to the two letters Vicki received, she had already completely forgotten about the altercation she had with Paul. She went to tell the truth to Fred – that Paul no longer wanted her to go into Roger's dormitory at night – but quickly decided to keep her mouth shut. She was fairly close with Fred but they didn't have that type of friendship where they would casually blurt those intimate matters. She would have to change her story.

"He saw a girl in our house who spent the night in the boy's dormitory with a girl and asked me to make sure it didn't happen again. I said I'd keep a watch out, as the teachers are highly strung at the moment. But then he made a comment about girls not wanting to get a bad reputation or something, whilst completely ignoring it takes a guy also to have sex. So I dismissed him and threw toast at him." Vicki giggled loudly.

She was glad she didn't give the full story as she noticed Fred's eyes widen in shock at her words. They had never spoken about anything of the sort – so hearing the words "sex" from her made him feel highly uncomfortable. Vicki picked up on this and wanted to push it further to make him feel as uncomfortable as possible as a joke.

"Speaking of er...special relations. This came for you." Vicki cheerfully stated, holding up the envelope to Lee which contained Sarah's picture.

Lee said nothing and went to open the envelope but Vicki stopped him.

"I wouldn't open that here. It's from Sarah – my muggle friend you met at the end of summer holidays. If I'm not mistaken – there should be naked photos in there. So choose wisely where you open it." Vicki said, trying to remain casual and cool but was having trouble holding a straight face.

The two twins however could not hold back and were sniggering rather loudly.

"Laugh all you want, I'm the one getting naked pictures sent to me. I'll see you both later." Lee beamed as he jumped off his seat and began to briskly walk out of the Great Hall and presumably back to his dormitory.

Vicki wanted to make the twins feel even more awkward and loudly exclaim what he most likely about to do, but she held herself back. Breakfast would be ending very shortly and she had Potions first thing – not a lesson she wanted to be late for. She had business to attend to first.

"Alright let's make this quick or Snape will eat me alive for being late. I received this letter from Bagman this morning." Vicki stated as she dug the letter out of her skirt pocket and handed it the twins.

George snatched it without a word and held it so Fred would be able to read it too. Their eyes quickly scanned the paper as they read in silence.

As they were reading the letter, Cedric approached Vicki from the Hufflepuff table – which was next to the Gryffindor one.

"Hey Vicki, do you want to come with me to potions? If we leave right now we'll get there in time. Snape would be horrible on any normal day, but now he has an excuse to be even harsher..." Cedric proposed.

Vicki shot a nervous look towards the twins as she definitely didn't want Cedric to lay his eyes on the letter in their hands, or find out what her and the twins were up to.

Fred looked up from the letter and narrowed his eyes at Diggory. Diggory had never done anything to cross him, but Fred never liked him anyway. He had never quite recovered from the time Cedric had scored a win in the Quiddich match against Gryffindor the previous year, only catching the snitch because Harry fell of his room. Fred hated his do-gooder status: house prefect, house Quiddich captain, loved by everyone. It went against everything he stood for as a troublemaker.

He also always felt a tinge of jealousy towards Diggory. Before his intense crush on Victoria Hartwell which started the previous year, he used to have a small thing for Angelina Johnson, a girl on his Quiddich team. It was nothing compared to the passion he had for Vicki now, but he did hold feelings for Angelina once. She used to always hammer on about how handsome Diggory was and the girls around would giggle. Now he had to deal with Diggory being on very good terms with his current crush. It drove him mad how 'perfect' Diggory seemed.

He was also now in a bad mood after the letter he had read, so he was taking it out by shooting filthy looks towards Diggory.

"Right, well I guess we better head off. I'll um, catch up with you both later, maybe at lunch. We can discuss the...thing later." Vicki stammered out in a nervous state, not keeping her usual cool or wits about her.

The two twins greeted her farewell and Fred watched as both Vicki and Diggory walked out of the Great Hall together and headed into the direction of the Potions dungeons.

"I do not envy Vicki one bit. I'm so glad we don't need to deal with Snape anymore." George laughed, but then grew silent when he noticed Fred didn't laugh back.

"This letter from Bagman is a bit creepy, especially when you remember he's in his thirties and Vicki is only sixteen. Do you think she's in danger? Have we done the wrong thing by getting her involved?" Fred asked his twin suddenly, thrusting the letter into George's hands as he didn't want to be anywhere near it.

George blinked as he processed Fred's words carefully. This was out of character for Fred. Usually George was the twin who relented on some of their ideas and pranks, and Fred was the one who pushed forward. He knew Vicki meant a lot to Fred, but perhaps it was even more than he realised.