Oh, my life,
Is changing every day,
In every possible way.
And oh, my dreams,
It's never quite as it seems,
'Cause you're a dream to me.

- The Cranberries, Dreams.

ii.

In her second year at Hogwarts, she had grinned with Katie Bell at the hastily-scrawled posting in the Gryffindor common room.

Positions currently available on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team: One beater, two chasers. Please try out on Saturday morning, September the twenty-first at 7:30 am. Good luck and no charmed brooms (Richard that means YOU) - Charles Rice, captain.

Katie beamed at Angelina, showing her white chiclet teeth. They spoke in hushed whispers and behind their hands over their potions assignment on the couch that night, giggling and virtually vibrating with excitement. The pale girl had bright, winter green eyes and a smattering of freckles across her button nose, in constellations, Angelina thought dizzily. Her pin-straight auburn hair fell past her shoulders in a shower of dark, shiny and glittering. Angelina was instantly jealous the moment she had laid eyes on her.

"But of course we'll try out for chaser positions, won't we, Angelina?" She sniffed at the twins and Lee, who were laughing. "We'll make it, too."

Angelina bit her lip when George said, "Please. They rarely ever let second-years on the team. What makes you think that you two girls could ever make the team?"

He grinned wickedly, and Angelina knew that he had only said that to get a rise out of Katie, whom the entire world knew he had a crush on. But he needn't rely on petty adolescent behaviour; he was very good-looking. Though small and skinny, he had a pretty face and a perfect smile.

"George Weasely," Katie had announced loudly, "you are a tosser."

And then they had laughed, and Angelina looked over at Fred. She did it often, and secretly, because she really didn't wish for Katie, love her as she might, to know.

But no one was paying attention, let alone Fred, who was busy playing Exploding Snap with Lee. While Fred had all of George's handsomeness, there was something about him that set him apart. Perhaps it was the way his right eye crinkled slightly at the corner when he laughed, or that he had a chipped canine tooth on the side of his mouth his parents couldn't afford to fix. But when he smiled widely she could see it, and it gave him a roguish charm that brought her heart sailing to her knees every time she saw it.

"Well," Lee said, "I think Angelina could do it,"

"That's because you're soft on her," Fred said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. Angelina felt herself flush. Over the laughter and Lee's smooth talk on how he and Angelina were destined to be soul mates, she watched Fred never take his eyes off the cards, or smile.

"You don't think I can make it, Weasely?" She had frowned at him. He looked up and she tried to tear her eyes away from his, but as always, it proved impossible. Deep and ridiculously blue, they were the colour of the sky on summer afternoons.

"We'll see, Johnson," he grinned. "I wouldn't put it past you."

But the next week found Angelina standing at the entrance to the quidditch field, gripping her broom tightly, and the September wind whipping her red and gold scarf about her. She tried to take courage from the colours swirling around her; Gryffindor, house of the brave, the same colour of the leaves on the trees and the strands of Fred's hair-- but all she felt in her stomach was a dull buzzing.

Crunching on the grass behind her caused her to turn around. He was running towards her, something grey and knit flapping in his hand. He was just a dark silhouette against the bright morning sun, but she'd recognize that blur of shadow anywhere. He stopped in front of her and held out a pair of worn gloves, grinning awkwardly.

"Er...I thought you might need these. It's cold."

She took them from him, a smile stretching across her lips and pulled them on. Wriggling her fingers in the worn wool, she looked at him. He was picking lint off his thin corduroy jacket, decidedly not looking at her. "Fred," she said. He looked up. Again, she was astounded by the colour of his eyes and how the sun glinted off his red-blond eyelashes.

"Thank you," she murmured, taking his bare hand in her own, glove-less one. His pale hand was freezing in her small dark palm, and she rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. She felt him shiver, and frowned. "You're cold--"

"No, no," he said shaking his head so that strands of crimson-gold flew around him, eyes wide.

There was silence in which he leaned forward. Angelina assumed he was going to whisper something in her ear as they often did during transfiguration, when they thought McGonagall wasn't looking, so she leaned forward. But his lips came into contact with the area under her ear, and she froze, his hand in hers.

His mouth was brief and warm against her cold skin; it was when he pulled away, blushing and murmuring, "Good luck, Angie, I'll be watching," that she realized he had kissed her.

Shaken and trembling from head to toe, her legs moved inch by inch until she entered the quidditch pitch. Katie ran up to her, pale cheeks flushed pink with cold, saying, "Angelina, darling, you look like you've seen Merlin's ghost!"

But mounting that broom and looking up into the small crowd of Gryffindors sitting in the stands to watch the tryouts, she saw Fred, huddled under his slim jacket, pulling on George's scarf and pointing at Angelina. They both grinned down at her, and she couldn't take her eyes off him.

As she rose into the air, her dark eyes still trained on his, she felt a surge of confidence and exhilaration she had never felt in her entire life. The wind ripped through her hair and she could barely see more than strands of dark whipping in her face, but she caught that first quaffle easily, and the rest were easier to come.

It wasn't hard when she had itchy gloves that smelled of Fred to keep her warm.