Alright everyone, I just got finished reading the best George/Alicia, Fred/Angelina, Lee/Katie story ever, (in my opinion) and I just couldn't wait to write my own.Go check it out it's called"Old Faces, New Tricks,", and it is totally good for a laugh.This story is short, sweet and doesn't really have so much in the way of a plot – other than being sweet enough to feed your sweet tooth for an hour or so. I like it though, so I hope you all do to. If I tweak it right, I think I could shape it into a longer story (eventually) if the readers express an interest…hint hint

Enjoy!

Satori Blackthorn

Backfire

'I can't believe they had the bloody nerve!'

Alicia Spinnet fumed as she made her way back up to the sixth year girl's dormitory.

'This time they've gone too far.'

She stomped up to the Fat Lady and nearly screamed the password at the dozing portrait. Making her way she passed many wide-eyed Gryffindors; she was absurdly pleased that no one was stupid enough to approach her in such a state. Anyone who did was sure to get an earful, at the very least.

The rest of the common room was silent as Alicia stalked up to the dorms, and slammed the door, all the while not having made direct eye contact with any of her housemates. All the inhabitants of the room, ranging from first years to seventh years, waited until they were sure she had gotten far enough into the room so that she was away from the door, then broke into hushed whispers and giggles that were quickly hidden behind their hands.

They all had a very good idea of what had occurred.

Any doubts they had left about the reason of her colourful state were demolished when, scant moments later, one of the infamous Weasley duo stumbled through the portrait hole, red-hair flying and the distinct scent of burnt ozone lingering to his school robes.

He caught himself quickly, but not before all those in the common room saw his entrance and added this latest tidbit of information to their whispered conversations. His save in face was drastically diminished when the rest of his companions burst through the portrait hole, all of them tearing the twin apart in various dialogues.

"You edjit! You weren't supposed to set them all off - it was going to be a coordinated display, that way everyone could see the new colours we'd invented!"

"What the hell were you thinking, Weasley? Alicia's never going to talk to you again!"

"You'd better hope that the color come out of her hair mate, otherwise you're going to have to kiss your Transfiguration mark good-bye!"

"George Weasley, you go up there right now and apologize to her!"

The aforementioned twin sighed and turned to face his friends, he should have been angry at them, it hadn't been his entire fault her hair turned color after all, but he knew to some extent that he was to blame.

"Guys, I told you, I didn't mean to do it! It was an accident!"

"I don't give a flying fart in hell if you say it wasn't your fault – you were the one who set off the fireworks that landed in her cauldron!" Angelina fumed, pulling at her ponytail in indignation. The exploding cauldron had not just claimed Alicia as a victim. The ends of Angelina's dark locks were tinged a vivid pink that stood out like a dandelion in a field of red tulips.

"I didn't mean for them to hit her!" George said, trying to defend himself.

"You wasted a whole package of merchandise!" Fred groaned, his head in his hands. "We were going to use them to scare Mrs. Norris into the Forbidden Forest!" He wailed and threw himself into Angelina's shoulder. She simply gave him a look that said she wasn't going to buy into it. Fred detached himself from her and went back to complaining about the injustice of it all.

"You can always make another batch," Katie consoled him, once again taking up her mantle as the group's mediator. "I'm sure you have another one in the dormitory anyway."

Fred shrugged, coming out of his funk immediately. "You're right. It was only the first batch, we've got plenty of materials to make a few more."

It was George's turn to groan, he wasn't in the mood for planning any more pranks, especially after the spectacular failure that their last one turned out to be. Mind you, it hadn't started out that way. There shouldn't have been any way for it to backfire. It wasn't anywhere's near as elaborate as some of their other pranks. It was just a matter of timing, and not being seen, of course.

The twins had invented a new and improved batch of fireworks, superior to Fillibuster's wet-start ones, as they needed only a single prod with one of their wands and they would shoot off in the direction they had been aimed in, then after whoever witnessed their flight had dismissed it as a by-product of potions fumes, the explosions would erupt in a brilliant display of vibrant and shimmering colours.

There was nothing complicated about it.

'So what went wrong?' he asked himself.

Ignoring his bantering friends for a moment, he fell down heavily on one of the vacated, over-stuffed chairs in the Gryffindor common room. He thought back to the afternoon's class of Potions. Everything had been right on schedule.

Fred asked a stupid question to Professor Snape about the strength draught they had been brewing for the majority of the afternoon.

Professor Snape had turned on the feigning-innocent Weasley twin and viciously asked him if he had done any of the research they had been required to do prior to the day's lesson.

George snuck the set of fireworks out of his bag and lined them up behind his propped-up Potions text.

Fred asked Professor Snape about his views on the morals of using a potion to increase your body mass.

George carefully aimed the fireworks towards the cauldron belonging to one of the more vile sixth-year Slytherins.

Snape asked Fred if he was always so thickheaded.

…

…

George jumped out of the chair, startling Lee, Katie, Fred and Angelina who hadn't ceased their tirade after he had sat down.

"What's up, mate?" Lee asked, taking in his stunned expression. "Forget to take the rest of the fireworks out of the cauldron?"

George didn't reply, but he HAD figured it out. In all of the commotion – Snape giving both the twins a month of detention as well as taking off fifty house points (each, he hadn't been having a good day), the cauldron debris knocking out a Slytherin, the shocking changes in hair color, his friends' rantings and Alicia's storming out – the reason why he had set off all the fireworks popped back into his mind.

"The no-good prat!" he exclaimed, perfectly livid.

"Sorry, George!" Lee apologized, waving his hands in front of his face, trying to keep the crazy teen away from his throat.

"I don't think he means you Lee," Angelina said, starting to catch on. The other members of the group turned to look at her expectantly, but she waited for George to continue.

George remembered what had happened now.

He had been all ready to set off the fireworks when he saw him. The Slytherin sixth-year who had been making a move on Alicia. And it hadn't even been a polite "you're looking nice today, Alicia," kind of move, it was more like a "you'd look good latched to my arm, whatever the hell your name is and I'm doing you a favour by talking to you," kind of thing you'd expect from a Slytherin.

Alicia had been trying her best to ignore him without causing a scene in Potions class and giving Snape a reason to take points off of their house, but the git simply wouldn't take a hint. Angelina had been bantering with Lee, who was sitting behind the pair and hadn't heard their whispered conversation.

And how had he come to be listening? It wasn't as if he had been staring at the extremely beautiful Chaser, a girl he had dreamt about since he had been old enough to realize girls didn't have cooties any longer… He hadn't been thinking that her eyes were expressive enough to easily speak any emotion she was feeling. No, of course not, he had been getting ready to set the fireworks off…

Well he had been, until seen Alicia, lost focus and started daydreaming – again. He had been until that piece of slime started making a move on his Alicia.

Not actually his Alicia per say… But, the git had no right…

So that was when he decided to retaliate.

A simple change in the rockets angle of attack, and the firework had a new target. All he had to do was prod the rocket, wait for it to land in the edjit's cauldron and wait for his sweet revenge.

It would have all worked perfectly, had he not miscalculated in his anger and have it land in Alicia and Angelina's cauldron. Anger? Had it only been anger? He had been justifiably peeved at the piece of trash that was harassing his friend, but that wasn't the first thought that had crossed his mind when he had witnessed the scene. He'd been jealous, he realized with an unsettling feeling.

Jealous at the Slytherin? No, that wouldn't have made any sense… Jealous that the boy had been able to approach Alicia and make a move (no matter how disgusting of a move it had been…) when he, as one of her best friends wouldn't be able to.

It wasn't fair, he'd decided, and THAT had been when inspiration hit him. But, as it has already been stated, it didn't work out according to plan.

The delay on the rockets gave the slimy Slytherin ample time to get back to his seat and out of the way of any potential danger. The same could not be said for the two Gryffindor chasers… George had been so stunned that the fireworks hadn't landed in the guys cauldron that all he had been able to do as the timer wound down on the explosives was stare at the girls' cauldron in disbelief. He was unable to even make a move to tell the pair what was going to happen.

It had been like slow, agonizing torture, it had been like watching someone twist your arm off, and you were there – watching – but unable to move and retaliate.

One thing had gone right…

It HAD been a spectacular explosion.

But he didn't think Alicia thought the same.

"I'm so stupid!" he vented angrily, feeling as if he should be smashing his head off the wall. "What am I going to do?"

"Apologize!" his friends said simultaneously, though they still didn't have a clear idea of why he was so angry all of a sudden. George hung his head.

"I don't think she's going to listen…"

"Yes, she will George," Katie reassured him, still calming Lee down from his scare a few minutes ago. "She's probably not even mad at you directly, just that her hair is now neon green and everyone saw."

George didn't think he had a flying chance in hell of her listening to him, but decided he had to go and at least try. She deserved that at the very least. Well, in his opinion, she deserved a whole lot more than that… But that wasn't what was important right now.

Steeling himself, and not giving any more explanation to his brother and fellow Gryffindors, he made his way over to the right side of the common room, over to where the staircase was leading up to the dorms for the sixth-year girls.

Growing more and more apprehensive as he climbed each set of stairs, he was felt about ready to turn back around and forget all about it. Realizing how absurd that would look, he knocked tentatively on the door.

"Go away."

"'Licia, it's me, please let me in."

"I especially don't want to talk to you George. Go away," she said venomously. His heart gave a painful twist in his chest.

"Please Alicia, let me explain-"

"No, just leave me alone…" she trailed off. It sounded muffled, as if she had fallen onto her pillow. He felt his stomach fall to the bottom of his feet. If he had made her cry… He leaned his head on to the door and held onto the knob, wondering just what he was supposed to do now.

The doorknob twisted underneath his palm as he experimentally turned it. Wondering why in the world she didn't lock it, he silently pushed the wooden door ajar.

"Alicia?" he called out to her softly. She was lying face down on her four-poster bed, a towel wrapped around her head. Obviously she had tried to wash the offending color out and discovered, just as Fred and George had, that the color was permanent, unless you had the special potion they had brewed to remove it. A few neon green strands of hair had fallen out of the towel and were framing her head. "Alicia? Please, I didn't mean for you get hit in the explosion." She snorted into her pillow. "I didn't! I'd never do that to you intentionally."

"Newsflash Georgie, you have," she mumbled again.

He was briefly reminded of a time in their first years when the girls of Gryffindor tower had been the casualties of most of their pranks.

"That was ages ago 'Licia," he argued back imploringly. He figured that if she was using his hated nickname, he had plenty enough reason to use her own. "I'd never do something like that to you now."

"George you turned my hair green!" she yelled, sitting up on her bed. Her face was tear-stained and her eyes were red. Her eyes he had discovered to be so expressive lost none of that quality now. He felt lower than dirt. He hated when girls cried, yet another thing he shared with his twin. Ginny had quickly learned that all she had to do was shed a few tears and her brothers immediately ceased whatever activity they had been doing to make her upset. The Weasley Weakness, their mother had cornily named.

"I was aiming for that piece of Slytherin trash that had been harassing you!" he cried out before he could stop himself.

That stopped her angry retort cold.

"So you saw that then…"

"Yes. How long has it been going on for Alicia?"

"It doesn't matter George, the guy's a creep and I don't want to have anything to do with him," Alicia replied with finality. George decided it was better to let that matter drop for the time being. There was an uncomfortable silence between the two. George still stood in the doorway, trying not to shuffle his feet as he attempted to think of something more to say. Alicia rubbed at her red face furiously, trying to work it back to its normal shade.

"So that firework barrage was meant for him?"

George took her attempt at conversation as an indication that he was okay to come further into the room and sat down on the end of Alicia's bed. He ran a hand through his hair as he thought back to the dreaded class.

"Well, we just wanted to test them out… The majority of them were meant for Filch and Mrs. Norris. We had been experimenting with new colours… As you've noticed…"

That actually provoked a grin from the blond-haired girl.

"Yeah, I had. It comes out right?"

"Eventually."

"GEORGE!"

"I'm kidding!" George laughed, seeing her face light up in indignation. "I'll get the potion for you right after I leave."

"Good. Angelina needs some too," Alicia said thoughtfully.

"I don't know… Hot pink's one of Fred's favourite colours…" he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

That not only earned him a grin, but a pillow in the face.

The two laughed for a while. It felt good, and George could feel all the tension from the afternoon easing from his body. Alicia looked better as well. He decided that no matter how cute she looked angry; she was unbelievably gorgeous when she smiled.

"So… are we okay now?" he asked apprehensively after they stopped chuckling.

"Yes. So long as my hair goes back to normal."

"I like the bright green though…"

"No."

"Fun-sucker."

"I know."

"Are you ready to go to supper now? I think we can make dessert at the very least…" George said standing and holding out an arm to escort her from the dorm.

"Dessert sounds good. But- " she took his arm but made no move to go any farther from the bed.

"I know, I know… the potion first, I'll grab it from the dormitory. I'll be back on a second." He dropped her arm and started to the door, but before he left he turned back and looked down at the teen who still had the towel wrapped around her head.

Impulsively, he leaned down and planted a quick, sweet kiss on her lips. He felt his body jump as if an electrical current was running through it from his lips to his feet. George glanced down to see her eyes wide in a mixture of happiness and surprise.

Deciding to stop before he got too carried away and Alicia got angry with him again, he pulled away.

"You're beautiful Alicia, no matter what color your hair is. Thanks for forgiving a jealous edjit."

"You're welcome," came her stunned reply. He grinned and quickly left the room.

"I think," she murmured, smiling insanely as she brought a hand to her lips. "I should let him pull pranks on me more often."

George, who had only made it as far as outside the door, heard her exclamation and grinned broadly.

"I don't think I'll have to go that far Alicia." He said, poking his head around the doorway to see the silly grin still in place. Her shell-shocked expression gave way to a blushing, shy smile that George returned easily.

'Maybe that prank didn't completely backfire after all…'

End