A/N - Wow. The small corner of my mind, which really needs to expand, that controls my inspiration and creative side apparently took a nice long hibernation for the past year. I posted 'A Glass Window' a little over a year ago and I mentioned maybe writing an extended version. Actually, I had started extending this once before, but like I said - my muse left the building. But I gave it a strict talking to, and swift kick, and it seems as if it is back. I've read enough fan fiction and short novels to get my muse going again and I sat down and finished this.

Well, this chapter anyway. That's right! You heard correctly! I've got a second chapter in the works. What? No, no, you're not having eye problems! No need to walk away from the computer, the radiation waves aren't working over board! After I extended the first chapter (which was a drabble for a challenge) I got an unusual burst of inspiration and I've actually got an outline planned out. And the reason why I hang some things in the air is because I've no clue what to do with them. But I know where I want this story to go and I'm going to wrap it all up in the next chapter. And I promise to you, no more procrastination, it will be up soon. And by "soon" I mean sometime within the next few weeks.

Now, enough with the world's longest and most boring Author's Note. Here is the too-long awaited extended version of 'A Glass Window'! I really hope you guys like this and I hope it lives up to the expectations. And please remember to review! I may sound desperate, but I'm kind of anxious to see what some people think. And please be gentle, the muse is weak at heart.

Oh, and for the record, the extended version is 2757 words. And I am quite proud of it.

A Glass Window
By Ashliegh

I knew it would never work out.

She sat there, in the corner of the Gryffindor common room, gazing out the window. Her raven hair whipped at her face as the cold air blew in from the opened window. Her lips had started to chap from the mixture of her salty tears and the cold wind.

She continued looking out of the window, watching two young men give something to two younger students. As the two young students altered into a pair of large yellow birds in a snap, the older boys broke out in laughter while they took observations. She just rolled her eyes bitterly.

She had been watching the pair for the past hour. The past hour that was supposed to belong to her. But it didn't happen. He had forgotten. Again. However, during that hour she hadn't once called his name. Not once did she call for his attention to remind him of their plans. She wanted to see if he'd remember on his own. And, like she had thought, he didn't.

The two of them had started dating right after he invited her to be his date for the Yule Ball. Things went pretty well for the first few weeks. They would hold hands in the corridors, exchange quick kisses before departing for separate classes, and often stay up at night in the common room just discussing whatever happened to be on their minds at the time. Then he and his brother started inventing new products for a joke shop they were planning to open, and it all went down hill from there.

He'd lock himself up in his dorm, along with his brother, while they made new concoctions and potions. And he'd usually be too wrapped up in conversation to even talk to her in between classes. At meals she actually got a word in with him, but he'd just nod and give her a quick kiss and tell her that he had to go. It was always the same conversation or something similar to it at least.

"Hey," she said quietly, sitting next to him at the Gryffindor Table. He looked up from a piece of parchment he was writing on and smiled at her.

"Hey, love," he replied, touching her hand lightly. It was always a sweet gesture that made it look like everything was all right.

"Do you want to do something this weekend?" she asked, hoping she'd get a chance to spend some time with him.

"I'd love to, but I've got to work on some new order forms this weekend. Also, we're still working on the Canary Creams, there's still a few kinks in the transformation back," he said, while he wrote more on his piece of parchment.

"Oh," she replied shortly, a bit disappointed.

"Well, I've got to get going," he said standing up.

"But-"

"I'm sorry, really I am," he bent down and gave her a quick kiss on the lips, "I'll see you at lunch."

Then they'd have the same conversation at lunch. Then she'd only speak a few words to him during Defense Against the Dark Arts and during Transfiguration, then he'd sleep through History of Magic. They'd have another short conversation at dinner, and he'd lock himself in his dorm again or sit in the corner of the common room working, much harder than he ever did in any classroom, on the joke shop.

But sometimes she would get a decent conversation out of him during the day. If they paired up during group projects in class, or if she managed to sit right next to him during a class they could goof around in. He never wanted to work during class, so that was always the time when they actually had some fun.

Sometimes things would look like they were getting better, but it never stayed like that.

She really didn't mind how he had put his plans for a joke shop over her. She liked seeing him work for something, but she just wasn't used to him being so busy. She didn't want to be selfish and demand that he spend more time with her, but she felt rather neglected. The six years she knew him, they had always spent so much time with each other.

She often thought that maybe they were better off just friends. But she couldn't help but listen to her gut feeling when her stomach filled with butterflies when he touched her.

She turned away from the window to wipe fresh tears that were falling from already red eyes. She tried to stop remembering the practically failed relationship that she was in.

She didn't care that his joke shop was more important to him than her. She had to keep reminding herself of that. But she did care that he didn't even take serious notice when she hurt because of it. And she also cared when he missed dates that he had scheduled himself. When he'd actually see how lonely she was and he'd tell her to meet him somewhere. But he'd always forget.

But this was one time too much. She couldn't take it anymore. She turned back to the window to see the pair had left. She wiped her eyes once again and waited. Waited for him to walk through the portrait hole, smiling and laughing as if he didn't have a care in the world.

About ten minutes later he and his brother walked through the portrait hole. They were laughing and looking at a rather long list of what she assumed to be either notes or another order form. She automatically put her focus on him. His bright red hair was ruffled, he had blotches of dirt on his face, and his wand was sticking out of his robe pocket.

She didn't care how bloody attractive he looked at the moment; she had to remember that she was angry with him. She took a deep breath, stood up firmly, and walked over to him.

As she approached them, he noticed and smiled at her as he continued walking. She didn't return the smile. She stopped him by grabbing his wrist, her face full of calm anger. He looked at her, a confused look on his face, but once he noticed her expression he knew something was wrong.

She led him out of the room, not saying a word, hand still gripped around his wrist. Out in the corridor, she made sure it was clear, and pushed him up against the wall. She did it with such a force of anger that he looked up at her, shocked. Her hand that held his wrist moments ago was now pressing down into his shoulder as she pinned him up against the cold stone wall.

"Did you forget what we were supposed to do today?" she asked calmly, her voice was low and dangerous.

"What? Were we supposed to – oh. Oh, oh, oh," the plans re-dawned on him, "Blimey! I am so sorry, Angel! I absolutely forgot, I-"

"That's the point, Fred!" she snapped, the grip on his shoulder tightening as she slammed his right shoulder into the wall once more. He looked at her as if she had gone mad. She straightened her posture to look him directly in the eye. He didn't say anything. A mist of dead silence fell over the pair. Although there were inches left between them, they did not say a word.

Thinking it could help, Fred pressed his lips to hers. Her knees instantly weakened when their lips made contact. However, his lips felt rough, while hers were still cold from the wind. He tasted the salt from her tears. She abruptly pulled away and looked at him, a look of disgust on her face.

"No," her voice was firm and her eyes begged him not to make anymore body contact, "I've put up with this for too long," Angelina said, taking something off her finger, "I really tried to put up with your rubbish. I really have. The day when you have enough time for a relationship, come find me. Or when you're bloody joke shop is up and running and it isn't the only thing in your life. Whichever comes first."

And with that she grabbed his hand and placed a blue diamond ring in his palm. The ring, which he had given her for her birthday, was a sparkling blue. The piece of jewelry, instead of resembling their relationship, resembled her emotions more than anything. She turned on her heel and walked down the corridor, hoping that day would come soon.

She only made it half way through the corridor before Fred realized what had happened. Sure, he had been spending loads of time on the joke shop but it never really occurred to him that it was bothering her. She, nor anyone else, had ever said anything about it before this. Angelina had just started to turn the corner when he ran after her.

"Angelina!" he called, running up to her, "Angelina, wait," He fell in step with her but had to quicken his pace to keep up. She was walking fast, looking straight ahead, and avoiding eye contact.

"Just go, Fred," she said desperately, shaking her head.

"At least let me explain," he pleaded.

"Honestly, I don't want to hear it," she said, still not looking at him.

"But why not?" he begged. They had just turned into a crowded hallway full of third and fourth years. Fred and Angelina dodged students as they argued. They kept getting distracted by students or professors but they kept going on nonetheless.

"I've told you, Fred, I don't want to hear it," she repeated, bumping into someone, "Sorry, Seamus,"

"But you haven't told me why! Move it, Patil," he said, shoving past the girl as she scoffed.

"Because I've heard your excuses too many times -" she argued back, "Hi, Dean, how are you? - And I'm sick of it, to be honest with you. And I bet you don't even have an excuse, you're probably going to pull something right off the top of your head!"

"But I do have an excuse!" he said, "Sorry, Professor, I'll slow down,"

Angelina purposely quickened her pace to make it around the corner. The second she turned the corner she turned right back around so she could face him when he rounded it himself.

And needless to say, when he rushed pass the corner he had to make an abrupt stop to avoid a collision with her. She was standing with her hands on her hips, a look of fury written rather clearly on her face. The corridor was unbelievably deserted and Fred didn't really want to be alone with her right now. When he was murdered he really wanted witnesses.

"Strange how one corridor can be completely crowded and the other one completely…Er…not," he said worriedly, trying to change the subject, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck.

"Don't try to change the subject, Fred," she said slowly. 'She caught that quick.' he thought. She took a quivering breath and continued, voice sounding quite like Professor McGonagall's before she gave a week's worth of detentions, "Now tell me, what that excuse you were talking about was?"

"Oh, Er," he stuttered, "Well, you see…"

"No, Fred, you see," she said firmly, shoving her finger into his chest, "It's right there, in front of your own face. You don't have an excuse. And you know why? Because there isn't an excuse. There shouldn't even be an excuse. If you weren't so careless and so thoughtless we wouldn't even be in this situation right now!"

"How can you say I'm careless?" Fred asked angrily, "Have you not seen all the work I'm putting into the joke shop?"

"Oh bloody hell!" Angelina exclaimed her voice half exhausted and half fuming, "For once, Fred, just for once, will you please talk about something else besides that ruddy joke shop?"

"Angelina, you know how much 'that ruddy joke shop' means to me!" he yelled back, mocking her.

"I know!" she cried at the top of her lungs, unable to withhold her anger any longer, "For Merlin's sake, you think I don't know? If it's one thing I do know it's that! I know that you care about your joke shop, Fred! I know that you care about it so much that you can't even bother to talk to me anymore! And I am completely aware that you care about your blasted joke shop so much that you choose to forget dates that you've scheduled yourself!"

"Angelina-"

"I'm not finished, Fred!" she shouted, cutting him off, "I've wanted to tell you this for the longest time but for some reason I haven't. But I'm going to now. I don't mind that you spend absolutely all your time planning your joke shop, honestly I don't! I don't want to look like the bad guy here, Fred. Because I love that you're actually working for something that you really want. To say the least, I'm proud of you. But I've been your friend for the past six years and I think I deserve a little more respect then to be completely blown off. I mean, it's quite clear that you haven't anytime for a relationship but the least you could do is break it off."

By the end of her small speech, her voice had changed from intensely angry to desperately… well, desperate. Her facial expressions had changed from fury to extreme disgrace. She was ashamed that she let someone ignore her and take advantage of her. Although she did feel better now that she told him everything she had been bottling up inside.

"Angelina," he said slowly, looking anywhere but her eyes, "I didn't know that's how you felt."

She looked up and saw him staring at her. He looked pitiful, and she didn't blame him. Anyone who had to sit through one of her long angry outbursts usually did look pretty pitiful. But it didn't matter now. His usually twinkling blue eyes had lost their twinkle. He actually looked confused.

"I," he started again, "I just…It really didn't occur to me that I was ignoring you,"

"Didn't you once take a look and notice that you had a girlfriend that you never saw?" she asked quietly.

"But I do see you," he said reasonably.

"Yes, during meals and classes," she responded, voice still quiet and distressed, "But, you know…I just kind of wanted to spend some time with you, Fred, that's all. Not even as a girlfriend, but as a friend rather. I don't want to sound selfish, but that's all I wanted,"

She could tell he was avoiding her eyes. He was staring at the floor, still looking more confused then he had ever been, taking in all she was saying.

And she was glad.

But not because she didn't want him to look at her. But because tears had started to run down her face for the second time today. Although she would have liked him to look up so he could see how much pain she was in.

"And what I also wanted," she continued slowly, voice not breaking, but tears still silently rolling down her dark cheeks, "was to let you know how I felt. And I did. So I'm done. I'm done with my pathetic out lash, I'm done with spilling out my heart, and I'm done with sitting around and waiting for you. You know that's not the type of person I am. You may have forgotten, and unfortunately, I did too."

She hadn't noticed that she had not been looking at him. Mainly because of her failed attempt at keeping herself from crying by franticly moving her eyes. But she didn't want to look at him. Not now anyway.

"And the funny thing is," she sighed, "I've never been unsure of myself or forgotten who I was. Never. Until now."

And she was gone.

She had silently turned around and exited the corridor as quickly as she could. She walked swiftly, still trying to hold some of her dignity.

What she hadn't noticed, however, was that Fred kept glancing up at her while she was pouring her emotions out in front of him. She hadn't noticed that he saw her walk away. And she hadn't noticed that he had seen the sparkling tears flowing from her eyes.

And as horrible as he felt, for some reason, he didn't go after her.

TBC