A/N: Sorry so long…it was basketball season. Anyway, here's the next installment. R & R please, it's always appreciated. You have no idea how much
/Let's go
Don't wait
This night's almost over
Honest,
Let's make
This night last forever/
--Blink182, "First Date"
"Hermione," I said incredulously for about the seventeenth time. "Hermione!"
I was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, expostulating all my very sincere doubts as to the happiness of the budding couple. Alicia was lying on the floor, with her blonde hair fanned out and occasionally giving a sentence or two to stem the flow of my anguish. George and Lee were playing chess. It was only the three of us tonight, as Angelina and Oliver were off enjoying their six month anniversary (probably consisting of snogging) and Fred was out with Hermione. I could hardly stand to even think of the name without adding a nasty emphasis on it. Normally, of course, I didn't have this sort of ill will toward the girl. I maybe even liked her. She seemed nice enough at any rate. But dating Fred, my best friend in the whole world, now that had crossed the line. I would to anything to get rid of that little meddler who called herself—
"Hermione!" I cried again. "Why her?"
"You had your chance, Katie," George replied calmly as one of his rooks obliterated Lee's pawn. "Just leave it alone."
"He probably won't think anything of her at any rate," Alicia put in, staring up at me from the floor. "She's all wrong for him any way."
"Then why wouldn't you let me follow them?" I said angrily. "If she was going to ruin it herself, why wouldn't you let me make sure they didn't—snog or anything?"
I had tried to follow the couple to Hogsmeade just in case something like that happened. I'd asked Harry Potter in private earlier that afternoon at practice if I could borrow his invisibility cloak tonight for personal reasons, and he'd agreed. I was about out of the door when Angelina and Alicia seized me around the waist and drug me back into the common room kicking and screaming. Apparently I'd had toilet paper on the bottom of my shoe and the cloak had failed to cover it. Blast those Hogwarts bathrooms. Didn't Filch get paid to make sure stuff like that didn't happen? Whatever.
"I wasn't going to let you make a fool of yourself," Alicia said firmly. "You're much better here with us."
"But you guys are all letting Fred make a fool of himself by dating Hermione!" I wailed staring at them all, almost pleadingly.
"Fred's a big boy, Katie. He can take care of himself," Lee said.
"What are you saying, that I can't?!"
"What is the problem, anyway, Kat?" George asked. "You told my brother you didn't like him, remember? The way you're acting tonight makes me think that you do."
"Don't be ridiculous!" I cried. "That has nothing to do with it!"
They all stared at me.
"Well, okay, so maybe I like Fred. A little. But so what? That doesn't change the fact that they're completely wrong for each other!"
"Katie, look," George said seriously. "My brother's a little mixed up at the moment. Honestly, I think he's been madly in love with you since the age of eleven, and having you shut him down like that mixed him up. He can't tell his right from his left, and I think he put his shoes on the wrong way too. And it's not because of Hermione Granger. So please try and understand why he's acting the way he is. If he decides to give you a second chance, hey great. But don't complain until then, alright?"
I shut up. Stupid George. Why did he have to go and make me feel like a jerk? And why did he have to be right? Weasleys joke and laugh, they don't make sadly correct statements on your love life.
Lee yawned and stretched. "I think I'm gonna call it a night," he said, "What about you, George?"
George nodded. "Think about it, Katie. Decide what you want first."
The two of them retreated off to bed and I began pacing again. I knew what I wanted: Fred back! Duh. Now there was only a bushy haired third year standing in my way. Oh well, I couldn't do anything about it now. I might as well be miserable. Maybe me and Alicia could sneak down to the kitchen and get a lot of chocolate ice cream and spend the night in front of the fire talking over our disastrous love lives until Angelina came back and threw her luckiness all over the place and made us both sick. I was about to suggest this idea when Alicia sat up and yawned and said, "I think I'm going to go to bed too, Katie. Are you coming up?"
I frowned. "No! I'm not retreating off like I'm giving up or anything! I'm staying here until they get back and then I'm going to make sure they don't kiss goodnight!"
Alicia yawned. "Whatever you say, Kat." And she too left me.
I gave out a very long sigh of frustration and flopped down on the floor. Being a guard dog wasn't exactly what I would have liked to have chosen for myself but that seemed to be the way it ended up. And there was no way I was going to admit I was frustrated. I was calm, and in control of this entire situation. So there.
I wasn't sure how long I had been asleep or even that I had been asleep, but the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake by none other than the infamous Fred Weasley.
"Hey," he said playfully, pushing my head back and forth, "You alive?"
I opened my eyes and stared at him. He was crouching beside me in front of the fireplace giving me a very strange expression.
"Yes," I said, as thought it was the most obvious thing in the world. I couldn't seem to recollect why I was laying on the common room floor instead of in my own bed and the fact that I'd woken up to Fred was somehow even more puzzling. I tried to think. It was hard work.
He raised his eyebrows. "Are you…alright?"
I nodded, still staring at him.
"Okay…well…would you like some help up?"
"No thank you, I don't believe in elevators."
For some reason he found this incredibly amusing. "Alright, then," he said, "I guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way." And he scooped me up in his arms and carried me over to the couch. He smelled like the cologne I'd bought him for Christmas last year. It was good. But why would Fred be wearing cologne on a boring night like this? And then it hit me.
"Aren't you supposed to be out with Hermione?" I blurted, everything rushing back at once.
He looked surprised at first and then laughed. "Aww, yeah, that…um. It didn't go so well."
Yes!
"I'm sorry," I lied.
"Naw, it's alright," he said easily, "I—er—wasn't sure what I was thinking in the first place. She kept talking about Ron the whole time, and as soon as she found out we could get detention if we got caught, she 'demanded to be brought back here at once!' Not really my type of girl, if you know what I mean."
His impression of her made me laugh. "Yes, well, you should have known better than to take a future prefect to Hogsmeade on an undesignated weekend," I replied seriously. "It might seriously damage her reputation."
He laughed a little. "Yeah, I guess. She's a nice girl, Hermione, but…again, not really my type of girl." He shrugged. "So…how was your date? With Davies, right? Or was it…Warrington?" His eyes sparkled the way they always do when he knows I'm lying. I felt my face go scarlet.
"Um…it didn't work out," I said firmly. "Anyway, are you done with your essay for Snape's class?"
He threw back his head and laughed. "You," he said, "are the biggest liar I have ever met in my life."
"So?" I cried angrily, swatting him with a pillow. "I didn't want to be the only one left out!"
He grabbed me around the waist and held me down on the couch. "That," he replied, "was highly uncalled for. I was not the liar here. I believe that was you." And he started to tickle me until I screamed and wriggled and begged for mercy.
"Lemme go!" I squealed, "lemme go! It wasn't my fault I didn't want to be alone tonight!"
Fred laughed and released me, staring amused as I blew air up to my forehead to blow off my stray hair. I glared at him. He laughed again.
"Alright," he said, "Let me make it up to you…we'll go to Hogsmeade right now, just the two of us. How does that sound?"
I found myself staring at him again. "Huh?" I asked stupidly.
"Yeah," he continued. "Neither of us had really great nights and I think we should make it up by having a little adventure."
"Tonight?" I asked.
"Yeah, tonight."
"What about tomorrow? It's kind of late tonight."
"Oh come on…that's not the Katie I know. Has Diggory turned you soft?"
"NO," I said defensively, "It's just…it seems kind of stupid to go on two dates in one night don't you think?"
"No," he replied. "That's just how I roll."
I threw another pillow at him. He laughed. "Alright, alright…I'm just…I wanna hang out with you tonight, Kate. Somewhere other than here. Anyway, I can't tomorrow."
I raised one eyebrow. "And why not?"
"I—uh—have another detention, actually."
I rolled my eyes. "What did you do this time?"
"Left a thong in Snape's desk drawer on the day of his inspection," he said easily.
I busted up laughing. "And where, pray tell, did you get a thong?"
He patted my head. "Don't worry about that. It's between George and me."
I stared at him and he laughed again. "Come on," he said grabbing my hand. "Tonight's almost over!"
