Triss Marigold: Thank you, thank you, thank you! I hope this chapter is up to your standards.

Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Harry Potter. The genius JK Rowling, however, does. I am not affiliated in any way with the people connected to Harry Potter.

Revelation

Padma stared into the small antique store at her sister, who was carefully placing a customer's purchases into a large yellow paper bag. With grim determination, she forced herself to walk inside to the front counter. Their fight had gone on for much too long, in Padma's opinion. Most of their arguments lasted hours at the most, but never this long.

She waited patiently for Parvati to finish with the long line of customer's before approaching. Parvati's eyes opened wide with surprise at the sight of her sister.

"I'm sorry, Parvati," Padma blurted out, "Because you were right."

The look on Parvati's face turned from surprise to confusion.

"Right about what?"

Padma sighed and began to play with a quill that had been lying on the counter.

"About George and I. As much as I don't want to admit it, I like him…a lot."

Parvati's eyes began to twinkle and a smile stretched across her face.

"Padma, that's wonderful!"

"Wonderful?" Padma exclaimed, tossing the quill down in frustration, "How is it wonderful? I have a crush on my best friend!"

"In case you haven't noticed," Parvati said impatiently, "George fancies you, too."

"He does?"

This was not what Padma had expected to hear. If anything, she thought Parvati would gloat with the usual "I told you so" and then comfort her for her unrequited crush, assuring her that there would be other boys. But it gave her a small glimmer of hope.

"Do you think that if I told him…"

"He'll be thrilled," Parvati answered before she could finish her question, "You'll end up dating for a few years, getting married, and then popping out a bunch of kids."

The reply was met with a glare.

"I get it, Parvati. I'll go tell him."

George stacked the boxes of Puking Pastilles against a back wall of the stock room. His mind, however, was not on his work. It was focused on Padma and the look on her face as Amanda Zonko dragged him off for a dance. For a brief second he could have sworn that she looked almost jealous, but the look was fleeting and soon gave way to anger and boredom. Amanda had ended up monopolizing his entire evening, not allowing him to return to Padma until it was time to leave. By then the damage was done. The walk back to her flat was dead silent. He was positive that if she had actually been close to having deeper feelings for him before the evening, the possibility was gone by the time she was home.

"George!"

He was torn from his thoughts and jumped, disturbing the already precariously positioned boxes. The stack toppled over, the boxes landing all over the dusty floor. A few of the boxes burst open and the chews spilled out, making them too dirty to sell and essentially worthless. A days worth of work had just gone down the drain.

"Bloody hell, Fred!"

"Don't blame me. You're the one who was daydreaming."

George muttered a few choice words under his breath as he picked up the dirty pastilles to throw in the bin and began restacking the boxes that remained undamaged. Fred had disappeared back into the showroom, leaving George, once again, alone with his thoughts which quickly drifted to Padma and the various ways he could apologize for the disastrous evening. If nothing else, they could still be friends.

There were several options, but none of them seemed right. Flowers and sweets were overdone and not to mention mostly used in romantic relationships. Free WWW products were useless since she did not typically go in for practical jokes. Taking her to her favorite restaurant was too date-like.

He placed the last box in the stack and checked to make sure they were well-balanced before going to join Fred. It was quite a shock when he saw that his twin was talking with Padma at the front counter. She did not look upset, but that could have been because she was talking to Fred instead of George. He would just have to bite the bullet and risk certain death to apologize and repair their friendship.

"Hello, Padma."

Her head jerked away from Fred to face him.

"I need to talk to you," they said at the same time.

She laughed anxiously and bit into her lower lip.

"Do you mind if we go outside?" he asked, eyeing the mass of customers.

"Oh no, not at all."

He took her hand and led her out the door and onto the sunny Diagon Alley streets. There were not too many people walking about much to his relief and most of them did not so much as glance at the two of them. Now he would not have to drag her around town in search of privacy.

"Padma," he said nervously, "I'm really sorry about the dinner. I didn't mean to abandon you."

"It's all right."

"No, it's not," he stated, "You deserved much better treatment than that. I chastised Ron for months about the way he treated you at the Yule Ball only to treat you the same way. I just hope you can forgive me."

"I do forgive you," she assured him, "but there's something I need to tell you."

"Okay."

Suddenly, she seemed very interested in her fingernails which he noticed were clipped perfectly without a hint of nail polish on them.

"You see, I, well, what I mean to say is," she stammered.

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Whatever it is, you can tell me. I swear I won't laugh."

She took a deep breath.

"Look, it's just that at the dinner last week I...I realized…"

"George!" a very high-pitched feminine voice suddenly called out, "George Weasley, is that you?"

Amanda Zonko rushed across the street and flung her arms around George. Padma glared at her.

"Oh George, I meant to owl you all week," she continued, her voice having the effect of fingernails on a chalkboard. She released him from her grip. "You were that girl he was with at the dinner, right, Panama?"

"Padma," she corrected her.

Amanda ignored her and continued speaking to George.

"Like I said, I meant to owl you all week, but I was so busy. How about lunch at Moonlight and Star Beams so we can catch up?"

Padma held her breath and attempted to send George telepathic messages.

Don't go with her. Please, don't go with her.

"I..."

"Wonderful," Amanda squealed, "It was nice to meet you, Parminder."

George cursed Amanda in his mind. He did not want to go out to eat with her, but she had railroaded him. Padma had been trying to tell him something, but Amanda had interrupted before she could finish. He managed to look back at her as Amanda dragged him down the street. Her face carried a mixture of anger and sadness. His heart sank clear to his toes. He would have to talk to her after lunch and attempt to fix everything.

Padma slammed the door to the Apothecary behind her as she returned from what she considered almost a complete waste of her lunch break. On the one hand she had made up with her sister. On the other hand, George was out with Amanda Zonko. She desperately needed some firewhiskey, but would have to settle for butterbeer.

"Accio butterbeer!"

The bottle hurtled off the shelf and flew at Padma's head. She ducked and just narrowly missed being hit in the head as the bottle slammed into the wall behind her.

"A little emotional," Mr. Swarthmore commented, peeking out from his office, "I take it that your visit to your sister did not go well."

"Actually, it went fine," she told him, "except that she convinced me to tell someone how I feel about him. I didn't get to finish before we were interrupted by Amanda Zonko. Now he's out with her." She groaned. "I suppose I should be thankful that we were interrupted before I could humiliate myself."

"Not when George likes you as well."

Padma raised her eyebrows.

"Who said it was George?"

"If you two were any more obvious the other customers would start complaining."

Her cheeks flushed.

"Just give him some time, Miss Patil, everything will turn out right in the end."

George managed to reach the Apothecary just as Padma was locking the front door. She stopped when she saw him. He motioned for her to join him outside. Reluctantly, she stepped out.

"I'm sorry about what happened earlier," he apologized, "I didn't want to go but she didn't give me a chance to say no."

"Did you at least have fun?"

"No," he snorted, "Amanda is a boring conceited prat."

Padma appeared to be very relieved at that statement.

"So what were you going to tell me?" he asked.

Her heart began to pound furiously. It was now or never. At least now she knew he was not enamored with Amanda Zonko.

"I like you," she blurted out, "a lot."

There was dead silence for a moment.

"Damn it," she groaned, "I knew I shouldn't have said anything, but Parvati and Mr. Swarthmore were sure that…"

She was interrupted as his lips were pressed against hers. All thoughts were immediately washed from her mind except for the fact that she was kissing George Weasley. It was every bit as wonderful as she had thought it would be. A strange tingle spread through her body from her head to the tips of her toes. She wondered briefly if he was feeling the same thing.

It was all too soon when he pulled away.

"That was nice," he gasped.

"Yeah."

Suddenly, she felt very shy even though talking to him had always come easily in the past. He rubbed at a colored spot on his arm from a potion he had been working on earlier.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," he said.

"Right, tomorrow."

He turned to walk away, his body filled with a warmth he had never felt before. Padma liked him.

I know some people were looking forward to tension between George and Padma before they could get together, but I just didn't see it happening that way. I'm still looking for a beta-reader. I think my work would be a lot better if I had one so please let me know.