"Ah, Merlin, what's the time?"

These were the words Vicki awoke to the next morning after her birthday party. She groaned loudly as she shut her eyes even tighter and snuggled into her pillow. Her reaction was partly because she wasn't feeling too crash hot after a night of heavy drinking and little sleep.

But mostly it was because she knew exactly what those words meant.

Fred had already warned her the night before that he wouldn't be able to stay very long the next day. He said that George and Lee were in on his great escape plan and would be able to cover for him, but only for the first couple of hours in the morning. He still needed to make an appearance at breakfast in order to not raise suspicions.

Even though it was the Easter holidays, Fred could get in serious trouble for leaving school grounds. By electing to remain at school he had waived his right to leave the school during the holidays. It would be the same as abandoning the school during term. It wasn't allowed and carried serious consequences.

Therefore Vicki wasn't hurt he needed to leave and she understood completely. But she still would be sad to see him go.

"This glowing clock thing, which is super cool by the way, says it's currently just past six thirty. Is that thing correct?" Fred asked her.

She opened one eye to see her shirtless boyfriend looking over her form to her alarm clock radio next to her. She let out an audible sigh as she opened her eyes and slowly sat up, covering her own naked torso with the blanket out of self consciousness.

"Yep. That's the time. What time do you need to go?" She asked Fred. She didn't mean to be selfish but she knew she was pouting in an attempt to convince him to stay a little longer.

"Just a little longer, maybe ten minutes or more." Fred sighed with a goofy smile as he wrapped an arm around Vicki and rested his head against hers.

"I already wished you a happy birthday last night, after midnight. So I don't have to say it again. But I will. Happy birthday, tiger." Vicki teased Fred as she gave him a light punch on the bare shoulder.

"Oh, trust me. No more birthday wishes are needed from you. I had a very happy birthday last night." Fred grinned widely.

This caused Vicki to blush madly and look downwards out of embarrassment. Last night shortly after Vicki and Fred retired to bed after midnight, the couple were intimate for the first time. Not only was it their first time together - it was Fred's first time with anyone.

The two spent the rest of their short morning together cuddling and making small talk about what they'd both be getting up to for the rest of the holidays. But very quickly they had to break apart and clothe themselves as Fred needed to depart so he could get the floo network back to Hogsmeade, and take the secret passageway from Honeydukes back into the castle.

"It's only three more days until I make the trip back to Hogwarts. Hell, it's Tuesday and I'll be seeing you Friday. That means that the only days we actually won't be seeing each other will be Wednesday and Thursday. Just two days." Vicki hastily explained as she walked Fred to the door of the guest room.

"Err, is Cedric and Cho in there?" Fred asked nervously as he eyed Vicki. He certainly did not wish to see Cedric and Cho in any compromising positions. He even respected Cedric enough to not want to interrupt anything. After all, he wouldn't have wanted to be interrupted the previous night.

"Oh shoot," Vicki said as her eyes went wide "Guess I better find out."

She immediately approached the door and rapped on it loudly.

"Guys! Make yourselves decent as soon as possible. We're coming in, Fred has to go back to school!" Vicki said shrilly before rapping on the door again.

The young couple awkwardly stood in silence as they waited to hear Cedric and Cho prepare themselves for their entrance into the room. When she couldn't hear anything, Vicki loudly knocked again. Once again it was silent.

"Alright, I'm going in. Wish me luck." Fred said bravely with a deadpan face as he burst through the door and into the guest room.

"Oh, sweet Merlin!" Fred gasped dramatically, causing Vicki to run in behind him as she was worried about what he was referring to.

She looked upon the guest bed and saw it was completely empty and unslept on - the white sheets were still crisp and the bed was made. Fred was clearly joking about seeing an alarming sight in order to trick Vicki.

She went to make a comment but he quickly picked her up and spun her around a few times before putting her feet back onto the wooden floors.

"I better go." Fred said sadly as he jabbed his thumb towards the fireplace.

"I know. Tell George I said Happy Birthday and I'll see you in just three days. I love you." Vicki gushed to Fred.

He didn't respond but he took a step towards her to close the gap between the two. Fred did his best to put his all into the goodbye kiss he was giving her. He cupped her face tenderly and did his best to be as gentle as he could in the snog he was giving her. They both broke apart and were both smiling.

"Well, see you then." Fred smirked before swiftly turning to the fireplace, throwing some floo powder from the container next to the fireplace and yelling 'Three Broomsticks!' and diving headfirst into the fire.

When the shock of Fred's sudden departure wore off, Vicki flopped herself onto the fresh guest bed and burst into a fit of giggles.

Twenty-four hours she was in a very different state of mind. She was excited to be seventeen and able to use magic outside of school for the first time. But she was still upset and didn't feel whole, all because her boyfriend wouldn't be there for her on her boyfriend - and because she too would be missing her boyfriend's birthday.

But here she was a day later. She had the best birthday party she could ever ask for, and she got to consummate her relationship for the first time. She got her wish of not only getting to spend time with Fred on her birthday, she got to see him on his own, albeit briefly.

Once she got over her fit of giggles she suddenly realised something. If Cedric and Cho weren't here, where were they?

This caused her to jump up from the guest bed and make her way down the stairs in order to search for her two friends.

The party ended up winding up pretty early last night as far as parties go. People started clearing out around midnight - those with parents willing to pick them up turned up around that time, and those getting public transport needed to leave around that time to get their last service home. Eventually just after one in the morning it was only Vicki and the three people who were allowed to stay over for the night - Fred, Cedric and Cho. Vicki and Fred retired to bed, but they both had very little regard for Cedric and Cho's plans at that point.

But now Vicki was wondering where on earth the two had gotten to.

She didn't have to look very far. After landing downstairs she saw Cedric and Cho sleeping soundly on the couch in the loungeroom in each other's arms with a blanket covering them both. She smiled and thought it was sweet - until she noticed Cho was fast asleep on Cedric's bare chest. Vicki was going to awkwardly inch away and go back to her room (and potentially sleep) as she didn't want to disturb a naked couple, but the blanket fell further down revealing that only Cedric was shirtless to sleep. Cho was wearing a pyjama shirt and presumably both were wearing pants.

Vicki still didn't want to disturb them. It was still fairly early in the morning and not a reasonable time to wake up. She also empathised with their situation - they were a young couple in love from different houses. Like herself and Fred, this was the first time they were given the chance to wake up in each other's arms. This opportunity might not happen again for them.

Watching to ensure they weren't going to stir she silently crept back up the stairs.


The next few days went by very quickly for Vicki - much faster than the start of the Easter holidays. She still missed Fred a great deal. But it was now a bearable longing as she now had very happy birthday memories to think of, plus she knew she would be seeing him very shortly.

With both of her parents away she did everything she could to keep busy, and she was successful at it. She made sure to catch up with her muggle friend Sarah one last time, who spent the whole time shooting questions about Lee Jordan who she had met last summer and had written a few letters to - sending them to Vicki to give to Lee.

The rest of the three days were spent catching up on TV shows and movies that had been released during the school year. With plenty on her plate and less to be sad about, in no time at all she was back at Kings Cross Friday morning ready to make the train journey back to school.

"Hey Vicki! Did you have a nice easter?" Vicki heard a familiar voice say as she turned to see Stephanie Fawcett beaming towards her.

"I did. Did you?" Vicki smiled towards Stephanie.

The friendship between Vicki and her old friends was still fairly strained. There was no longer any animosity between them all, her friendship circle had long forgotten the incident at the second task and had welcomed her back with open arms.

But Vicki hadn't forgotten the way she was treated. She had learned first hand the downsides of popularity - it was easy to lose and once you were deemed unpopular all of your so-called friends will turn their backs on you. She had purposely refrained from inviting them to her birthday party.

But with only a year of school to go she didn't want to cause too much upset or dramas and remained civil, but wary of them.

"Kind of. I really missed Kyle, he stayed at Hogwarts so I didn't get to see him." Stephanie pouted.

"Yeah, so did Fred," Vicki weakly smiled, not wanting to divulge into the full story with Stephanie who was not invited to Vicki's party "Sucks aye."

"Let's catch up on the train." Stephanie beamed as she hooked arms with her former best friend and charged towards the train, forcing Vicki to awkwardly drag her trunk behind her.

Vicki found herself squashed in a compartment with a group of her former friendship circle for the train ride home - including Roger, Phillip and Stephanie. Cedric was initially missing but he joined them later surprisingly without Cho - apparently Cho's best friend Marietta wanted to spend some time alone with her.

Vicki found it awkward to begin with and struggled to get involved in conversation, even after Cedric had joined them all. But eventually she began to wiggle her way into the conversations and by the time the sun was beginning to set at the end of the journey the group were asking her questions and including her in everything.

She even found herself getting pulled into the invisible horse drawn carriage with Roger Davies, Phillip Bridge and Stephanie Fawcett as four were needed in the carriages.

"Can you believe we're all nearly in seventh year!" Stephanie squeaked as the carriages were off.

"I can't believe we're only going to board that train a maximum of four more times, assuming we come home for Christmas next year but stay for Easter." Phillip added on. It was rare for Phillip to not give a cocky response, Vicki didn't think he was capable of being sentimental.

"I'll certainly be staying at Hogwarts over Easter. N.E.W.T. year, can you imagine how much is going to be on our plate!" Vicki spoke up.

"I'll certainly be staying too, just so I can get up to no good with Kyle. It's been two whole weeks since I last-" Stephanie began to explain, but she was cut off by Phillip.

"-assuming you're still with him. There's a good chance you'll break up between now and then." Phillip teased.

"What do you mean there's a good chance we'll break up!" Stephanie snarled hatefully towards Phillip.

"Well Vicki and I broke up…" Roger pointed out.

This caused Vicki to smile guiltily. He had a point and she agreed with him. She was absolutely crazy for Roger for well and truly over a year - even at the start of this school year the two seemed to still be mad for each other. But here they were towards the end of the year, broken up and being used as an example on why school relationships may not last.

"Yes, but that's because you two weren't to be. Vicki and Fred are perfect together. They're going to last, I can feel it." Stephanie pointed out.

It was a nice thing for Stephanie to say, but Vicki had a feeling she was only saying it in hopes that Vicki would return the favour and would defend Stephanie's relationship with Kyle Stebbins to the two boys present.

In no time at all the carriage pulled up at the school. Vicki was keen to get out so she could go and find Fred, but the other three occupants of the carriage seemed just as desperate to get out as they all scrambled over each other to exit. Stephanie called over her shoulder that she would catch up with Vicki at dinner as she raced towards the Entrance Hall, most likely to go and find Stebbins.

Vicki strolled through the courtyard and into the Entrance Hall, wondering if Fred was here to see her or whether she should just go dump her trunk into her dormitory and come back down for dinner.

"Vicki! Vicki Hartwell!" She heard her name being called and she stopped dead in her tracks as she recognised the voice. She then quickly upped her pace to get away from him.

"Vicki! Hey, where are you going?" The boy said as he put an arm on her shoulder to spin her around and keep her stationary.

"Ravenclaw tower. I'm putting my trunk away." Vicki stiffly replied. She had always wished she had the courage to tell this particular person where to go, but she was still heavily traumatised by what had happened a few months ago.

She felt she was getting a bit better as she could now be fairly blunt with him, instead of being meek and letting him have full control over her.

"Let me carry your trunk for you. It looks heavy and well, have you seen the size of my arms?" The boy bragged, even going as far as to clench his biceps by raising his arms and giving each one a kiss.

"Oi! Montague! Get the hell away from my girlfriend you twat!" Fred Weasley yelled storming down the Entrance Hall. It was said with such a murderous rage that those in Fred's path quickly jumped back in order for him to reach Vicki as quickly as possible.

"One in a stable relationship wouldn't feel so insecure about a member of the opposite sex talking to his girlfriend, Weasley. Is your relationship not going as great as you'd like?" Montague snorted, however he didn't wait for Fred's response as he scampered away quickly, but tried to make it look like he was strutting away.

Fred was silent for a few moments as he glared at Montague's turned back as he was walking away. But then he turned his gaze back onto his girlfriend and immediately dropped his hard look to send her one of sympathy.

"I promise you, with every fibre of my being, that one day Montague will get what's coming to him for what he's put you through." Fred promised Vicki, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to bring her comfort.

"I'll be able to stand up to him one day, promise. I am getting better." Vicki weakly smiled.

Fred went on to argue that she shouldn't be apologising or feeling bad about how meek she became around Montague - it was Montague's fault for what he had done to her. But he got the impression it was better to just move the topic along.

"I've missed you a lot," Fred stated loudly, moving his mouth to her head to make it look like he was kissing the side of her head but then spoke softly in her ear "over these last three days."

Vicki quickly looked around to see if anybody was listening. The Entrance Hall only had a few people passing through - some students were going down to the Great Hall for dinner early, and the last of the students coming back to school from Hogsmeade station were passing through. Basically whilst the Entrance Hall was bustling, everyone had somewhere to be and no one was paying attention to Fred and Vicki. She was safe to ask questions she had been yearning for an answer.

"I take it you snuck back in all right then?" Vicki asked him curiously.

"Sure did! Kenneth Towler got a little suspicious as I slipped back in for breakfast, he mentioned he hadn't seen me in the dormitory that morning." Fred responded.

"What? How did you manage to get out of that one?" Vicki asked quickly, raising her hands to her mouth in shock.

"Simple. I made it very obvious that Towler's fever was causing him to have delusions." Fred said cooly.

"He had a fever? Gee, that's lucky then." Vicki snorted.

"Some might call it luck. But the most likely explanation is that I slipped a little something into his morning pumpkin juice - something that actually causes fevers. It's a new product that George and I are developing." Fred stated with a devilish grin.