Chapter 4.

Yes, I snogged Fred Weasley

On the morning of September 1st, Lara was awoken by her brother. Her twenty-two-year-old brother who, squealing like a baby pig that was about to be fed, came running into her room and catapulted himself onto her bed. Lara's heart dropped as she flew sideways, just managing to save herself from plummeting to the floor by grabbing the bedside table.

"You bloody idiot," Lara said breathlessly once she was stable again. "I almost cracked my head open."

"I could've healed it."

"Not the point."

"Come on, get up! You're going back to school today!"

He got off her bed and began rummaging around her room for her already-packed trunk, Fudge's cage, and her backpack. He carried them into the hallway while Lara watched blankly from her bed, only half awake and still shocked from the abrupt wake-up call. "Get up!" He clapped his hands together impatiently as he appeared in the doorway. "Chop, chop. Move your arse. Get ready. Make yourself presentable."

"Why are you so eager?" Lara grumbled, throwing back her covers. "You're never this excited about school."

Walter beamed widely and watched as Lara went over to her desk, where she'd set up an outfit to wear for the day. "I just have a feeling you'll have a great year," he said eventually.

Lara gave him a confused look. Ignoring her, Walter closed her bedroom door as he said, "See you downstairs."

Once clean and dressed, Lara ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, where her mam was pottering around and Walter was sitting at the dining table reading The Quibbler. Lara was suddenly glad that their dad was already at work; he and Walter got into the worst arguments about Walter's choice of reading material.

"What do you mean I'll have a great year?" she questioned immediately as she sat opposite him. "Do you know something? What's happening?"

Walter placed his magazine onto the table to give her a smug look. "I can't tell you."

"You can't do that!"

"Yes I can. I just have."

"Are you bringing some sort of animal in? A unicorn? A dragon?"

"Sort of."

Lara gasped excitedly as Pamela placed a dish of scrambled eggs and toast in front of her. "No fucking way—"

"Language!"

"A dragon? A real dragon? Do we get to ride it? Oh Merlin, do we get to see baby dragons—"

"I've already said too much!" Walter held up his hands defensively. "Me and Charlie promised the boss we wouldn't spill the beans… I will tell you this, though: Start saving up so you can buy a pretty dress."

"A pretty dress and a dragon?" Lara said dubiously. "How do they correlate?"

"You'll see."

Lara spent the rest of breakfast telling her brother what a condescending twat he was. They were arguing back and forth so determinedly, Pamela barely got a goodbye in before she went to meet a friend for lunch. The two of them continued their bickering while they Flooed to the Ministry. They walked into Muggle London and took the subway to King's Cross Station, all the while screaming to be heard over the pouring rain.

"Just give me a hint—a hint, Walter—"

"I've told you a million times, I can't—"

"But you can't do that to me—"

"I regret even mentioning it, you annoying shit—"

"You're the one being annoying—"

"We're at the platform." Walter sounded immensely relieved by this fact. "Please, please run through it."

Lara smirked playfully and lined up with the wall, running through it and immediately becoming overwhelmed by the smell of coal. The platform was abuzz with chatter and laughter, mostly from excited children desperate to get back to Hogwarts. A few parents were crying. Older students were causing drama about getting their things onto the train. In the distance, something sparked and banged—a loose bit of magic from an untrained wand.

Lara couldn't keep the smile from her face. She was home.

"Come on, let's get away from the wall," Walter said, having appeared with Lara's things on a trolley.

She followed him through the crowd, stepping over baggage and jumping out of the way of playing children. As Walter walked towards the far end of the platform, Lara saw a flash of red in the corner of her eye. Her stomach flipped; she'd been avoiding thinking about a particular Weasley for days now, as she cringed whenever she remembered their last encounter.

What had possessed her to snog Fred Weasley, she didn't know. Not only snog him, but do so in front of everyone. For the rest of the night people had sent her smirks and smiles, and at one point Lee Jordan had winked at her. At the time she'd been too drunk and happy to care. Now, sober and in the light of day, she felt embarrassed. Not because of the snog—it had, after all, been rather good—but because the whole school knew about it.

David knew about it.

Fred's reasoning had seemed sane at the time. In fact, it still seemed sane now. Jealousy; it was such a simple concept, and if Fred, a boy, thought flirting with him would make David finally see her as something other than a friend, then she was willing to try it. Flirting, a bit of kissing—fine. But then Lara had pushed it further, had snogged the living daylights out of him. Fred hadn't seemed to mind… but what did David think? Had she totally put him off by snogging Fred? Did he think she fancied Fred—a reasonable but wrong assumption—and now Lara had no chance whatsoever?

A head of red hair turned her way. The Weasley twins were grabbing their things to go onto the train, and one of them had spotted her. With a grin, the twin reached over and nudged his counterpart, who turned questioningly as the former pointed Lara's way. The second twin got a bright smile on his face and gave Lara a quick wave.

Lara couldn't help but grin back. For some reason, the person that made her feel the least awkward about the situation was Fred, her snoggee. Afterwards, he'd made random jokes and spun her around until she felt dizzy, and then they'd gotten a drink together at the table. He kept teasing her about David and she teased him about Vicky Frobisher's legs; it was all very simple. It was almost like she'd snogged someone else, someone that just looked like him (which was, of course, possible, but she was pretty sure she hadn't actually been kissing George), and Fred was a purely platonic, never-snogged-before mate.

"Right, have fun," Walter chirped, bringing Lara's attention back to him. "Don't get into too much trouble… No, wait. That might not apply to this year…"

"Walter!"

"Sorry, sorry." He smirked widely. "I'll shut up. Just have fun and be careful, okay?"

"Fine," she huffed, rolling her eyes as he brought her into a bear hug. "Imagine if this was the other way around. You would've farted in my face by now."

"Which is why I'm the better one."

"The stupider one, more like—eep!" Lara cried as he lifted her off her feet, squeezing her middle tightly. "You're squeezing my bladder!"

He placed her back onto the floor and grinned at her ruffled appearance. "I'm gonna miss you, is all."

"I'll see you at Christmas."

"Hmm." Walter's lips thinned. "No, you won't."

"I'm going to kill you."

"I know. Get on the train."

She picked up her things, kissed his cheek, and rushed onto the train. Gliding down the hallway, she peered into compartments until she saw a bunch of familiar faces.

"Walter," Lara said loudly, announcing her arrival as she yanked open the door, "has been very annoying this morning. He's been so secretive and mysterious, which isn't like him at all. Has anyone else's family been acting weird?"

Lara got no reply as she hoisted her trunk onto the luggage rack. After a moment, she collapsed onto a seat and glanced around at her friends, who were all smirking and wiggling their eyebrows. "…What?" asked Lara suspiciously.

Erin and Amanda looked at each other for a moment before Erin motioned for Amanda to speak.

"You snogged Fred Weasley," Amanda said with a wide grin. "You snogged Fred Weasley."

Lara groaned and slid down in her seat. "I wondered when this was going to come up…" At the party, everyone else had been too occupied with their own misadventures to confront her about hers before she'd slipped home to sleep. She had almost hoped that they would have forgotten all about it by this time, but she knew her friends better than to truly believe that might happen.

"Going to come up?" squeaked Erin, and Omar sniggered into his hand. "How could it not?"

"Because I have the best friends in the world and they don't want to embarrass me even more?"

This was, of course, ignored.

"Out of everyone, I thought Mandy would be the one to snog a Weasley," Stan said perceptively, glancing at Erin for confirmation; she nodded understandingly. "I mean, she's been wanting to shag Charlie for years."

"And Fred and George look the most like him," Erin said.

"How do you know it was Fred, anyway?" Lara asked defensively. "It could've been George—"

"George and I were talking about it afterwards," Omar grinned from his seat next to the window, his feet kicked up on the one opposite. "Saying how random it was. Lee, Angelina, and Alicia called him George, so it was definitely him."

"What does that prove? They've pulled switches on them before."

"So." Amanda leaned forward with a pleased expression. "You're not defending yourself about snogging him, you're just pointing out that it could've been either twin."

"Or both, if they swapped places," added Stan.

Lara opened her mouth to refute… but, well, wasn't that exactly what she was doing? She'd pointed out that it could have been George to divert the attention away from the actual snog, and somehow she'd made the situation worse.

"Why is everything I do a bloody struggle?" huffed Lara, collapsing back into her seat.

Her friends laughed at her expense. Erin leaned forward and patted Lara's leg. "It's okay, mate. It looked like a decent snog."

"You could've just said you'd set your sights on him, though. Then Erin and I wouldn't have had to talk to David and his friends all night and have the most boring conversation of my entire life—"

"I haven't." Lara interrupted Amanda's rant, awkwardly playing with the end of her t-shirt. "Set my sights on Fred, that is. It was just a snog."

She didn't want to tell them why they'd snogged. The whole group would tease her mercilessly; first of all for even listening to anything Fred Weasley had to say, and second of all for thinking it was a good idea. Erin and Amanda didn't understand her crush on who they'd dubbed 'Dreary Dave,' and the boys had been telling her for years to just go for it.

"You're cute and shit; just go up and ask him to Hogsmeade," Stan had once declared whilst shovelling mashed potatoes into his mouth.

"What he's trying to say," Omar had then said, shaking his head and throwing Stan a disgruntled look, "is that you're pretty, funny, and any guy would be lucky to have you. You should go for it."

The sentiments were sweet but did little to calm Lara's nerves. Every time she gathered the courage to 'go for it,' she'd end up standing in front of David, the words 'will you go out with me' on the tip of her tongue, but instead she'd ask about homework or Quidditch. She knew it was utterly ridiculous, especially considering she was a Gryffindor (weren't they meant to be brave and courageous and daring?), but she couldn't help it. He had this effect on her, this weird force that made her all nervous and jittery.

Honestly, she was such a mess.

"So you still like David?" Amanda asked, unable to hide her disappointment.

"Well… yeah." Lara flushed slightly, crossing her arms over her ribs. "Anyway, isn't Fred a bit… young? And… prankster-y?"

"Prankster-y?" Omar smirked at the same as time Erin spoke.

"No, of course he isn't." She let out a sigh and pouted. "Aw man, I really thought you liked each other. I was so excited."

"I think he likes her," Amanda said. "I mean, he must do, right? To snog her?"

"He doesn't like me—"

"And the way he was looking at her all night." Erin smiled. "Like a lovesick puppy."

"He did not—"

"He kept staring at her boobs, too," commented Omar, ripping open a Chocolate Frog.

"Your boobs did look great that night," Stan agreed, nodding.

"Okay, can we stop talking about this?" Lara cried, fretfully tugging on the end of her plait. "It's making me feel anxious."

"Yeah, anxious to shag Fred Weasley—"

Lara threw one of Omar's Chocolate Frogs at Amanda's head, effectively preventing the end of that sentence from seeing the light of day. Her friends sniggered before changing the subject to school and the Sorting Ceremony. Lara turned to her side, resting her back against the compartment's wall and stretching out her legs. She tried to listen to her friends talk, but all she could think about was ginger hair and seventh-year Hufflepuffs.

She knew she was being annoying with her fanatical boy troubles. It was usually Erin or Amanda with these sorts of problems, not Lara, which was probably why her friends were obsessing over it. Lara didn't really do the whole dating thing; she'd only ever really liked Dave, and he'd never seen her as more than a friend. And now, after spending the last three years in her own bubble of school and unrequited love, she'd suddenly gone to a party, gotten shit-faced, and snogged Fred Weasley. She felt like she'd gone from 0 to 100 overnight on the drama scale.

No wonder her friends were looking at her funny.

The train suddenly chugged forward, jolting Lara from her daze as it sped around the corner towards Scotland. Lara's indiscretions weren't mentioned for the rest of the train ride. In fact, Lara had nearly forgotten all about it, too busy talking to Erin about Walter's strange behaviour, until the girls left the compartment to change into their robes. As Lara entered the small bathroom, she spotted Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet by the sinks, applying make-up and patting down their hair.

Blushing the colour of a tomato, Lara all but ran into a bathroom stall. She desperately hoped that the sixth-year Gryffindors would be gone by the time she finished, but alas, even after changing as slowly as possible, she could still hear them outside talking to Erin and Amanda. When Lara awkwardly left the stall, walked over to them, and began to straighten up her uniform in the mirror, all four girls turned to her with teasing grins.

"Don't even start," Lara said quietly, not sparing them a glance. "Yes, I snogged Fred Weasley. Can we move on?"

"Absolutely not," replied Alicia simply, leaning against the sink with a cocked hip. "You can't do something like that in front of the whole school and not expect people to be talking about it."

"I was drunk," Lara said (though deep down she knew it wasn't a good excuse). "And it wasn't the whole school."

"Sixth year and up."

"That's, like, what? Twenty percent of the school—"

"Was it good?" Angelina asked excitedly, cutting off Lara's nervous rambling. "I've always wondered."

"It was—well, it was…" Lara could feel her face heating up, her heart clambering in her chest. She couldn't lie (damn her mother!). "It was pretty decent, yeah. He was very…"

"Very what?"

What word was she looking for? What word described the way he buried his fingers in the roots of her hair? The way his hands skimmed across her waist and hip? The way his lips moved against hers, searching with a purpose, but not overwhelming?

"Focused," Lara blurted out, then cringed into her shoulder. "Merlin…"

Erin and Alicia giggled together and Amanda looked positively over the moon at Lara's embarrassment. Angelina, taking pity on the blonde seventh year, patted her on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry about it. People will forget soon. It's only the upper years that are really gossiping."

"That doesn't make me feel much better," sighed Lara, anxiously running a hand over her face.

"Well, you were the one that snogged him—"

"It's not because of Fred," Lara gulped as Alicia turned defensive, having mistaken Lara's embarrassment as being about who she'd snogged rather than the situation. "He's—he's great, honestly. It's just—I've never been the one being gossiped about, you know? And people probably think I'm a proper… proper…"

"No one thinks you're, y'know… promiscuous." Alicia smirked, her softness returning once she realised why Lara was upset. "Honest. Most people are just surprised that it happened."

"How so?"

"Well, you're a year older than him, for a start," grinned Angelina, her eyes sparkling. "That got the boys talking. They think Fred's some sort of Romeo, and he's lapping it up, of course—"

"And there's the fact that you've never properly talked," Erin continued. "Like, you've never mentioned him to me before, and then suddenly you're snogging him at a party. Plus, you're not one to really go around snogging guys, anyway, which adds intrigue. If Mandy had snogged him I bet no one would even be bothered."

"Hey!" Amanda huffed, then shrugged when Erin gave her a flat look. "Okay, yeah. Fair enough."

"I say you just own it." Alicia nodded confidently. "Like, 'Yeah bitches, I snogged Fred. Problem?'"

Angelina agreed, throwing her friend a bright smile before turning to Lara. "Yeah, what she said. And if anyone gives you trouble, we'll hex them."

"Thanks," Lara sighed, giving the girls a kind smile. Angelina opened her mouth to say something else, but the bathroom door opened and bunch of girls wearing Hufflepuff uniforms came in, heading for the stalls.

The Gryffindors headed out to go back to their respective compartments. As they entered the busy hallway, Lara saw a bunch in Gryffindor uniforms, huddled together and talking. Looking closer, she saw it was Stan talking to Fred, George, and Lee Jordon.

Why had her friends suddenly become so chummy with the sixth years?

Lara tried to walk past, her head down, following Erin and Amanda as they chatted ahead of her. She thought she was safe, her foot just about to step into the compartment, when a hand grabbed her elbow and dragged her back.

"Didn't you say Walter has been acting funny?" Stan asked innocently, though the glint in his eyes told Lara he knew exactly what he was doing.

"Yeah," Lara replied, keeping her eyes determinedly on Stan. "Why?"

"Fred and George said their brothers were acting weird, too."

Of course, this made Lara look at the twins. She still couldn't tell them apart, especially with their identical smirks.

"Maybe Charlie and Walter rubbed off on each other at the World Cup." Lara shrugged. "Made each other weirder than they already were."

"Our other brother, Bill, was saying some stuff, too," one of the twins said, then nudged his brother. "Wasn't he, Fred?"

Lara didn't miss the emphasis on Fred's name. As if knowing what she was thinking, Lee threw her a wink.

Merlin help me.

"Said he might take some time off work to see some of it," Fred said quietly, nodding his head once.

"See some of what?" Lara questioned, her embarrassment momentarily forgotten. When the twins shrugged, she continued, "Walter said something about a dragon and then told me to save up for a pretty dress. I have no idea what that means."

"I don't really see how they relate," said Lee.

"That's what I said," Lara sighed unhappily. "And he said I wouldn't want to come home for Christmas."

Fred suddenly perked up. "Our mum said the same thing!"

"Maybe Hogwarts is having a ball or something," Stan guessed and Lee pulled a face of displeasure. "It would make the pretty dress suggestion make sense."

"But what about the dragon?"

"Maybe Hagrid has finally got his way with the Ministry—"

"And he's breeding dragons for us to ride!" George finished Fred's sentence excitedly.

"I somehow feel like that's against the law," Lara said slowly, watching as George stopped hopping around excitedly to pout at her. "But, you know, when has that ever stopped you?"

"True, true." Lee laughed, then motioned to Lara and stage-whispered to Fred, "Hey, I like her. I approve."

Fred's lips thinned and he looked away, turning red, while George guffawed brightly. Stan turned and gave Lara a shit-eating grin, but she could barely see it through her embarrassment. Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she rushed back into her compartment, shutting the door behind her.

"Are you alright? You're very red," Omar said through a mouthful of sweets.

Lara sighed and took one of his Chocolate Frogs, aggressively biting off the head before it could even begin to think about jumping away from her. Omar raised his eyebrows, a smile tugging on his lips.

"I just have a feeling," Lara said, pausing to swallow the chocolate in her mouth, "that this is going to be a long year."

OoOOoooOOoooOOoooOOO

At the Welcoming Feast, all of Lara's questions were answered.

The Triwizard Tournament; that was why Walter was being so weird. It didn't really explain the dragon part of things, but it did answer why Walter was acting so strangely and excitably. The 'pretty dress' comment didn't make sense either, until Erin, Stan, and Lara ran into Amanda and Omar on the way out of the hall.

"The Triwizard Tournament has a Yule Ball," Amanda happily explained across the crowd of people in the Entrance Hall, which was still wet and slippery from the neverending rain that the students had tracked in earlier.

"A Yule Ball?" Erin yelled back.

"A massive party to celebrate the three champions chosen!" Omar cried back, a wicked smile on his face. "That is, of course, if they all survive the First Task!"

And with that sombre message, he and Amanda disappeared into the throng of Ravenclaws. Lara shared a befuddled look with Erin, though it was short-lived, as the Prefects began to cattle the Gryffindors towards their tower. Once inside the common room, Lara sat in an armchair beside the fire, leaning into the warmth as her friends talked around her. Everyone seemed to be shouting over one another about how eager they were to put their names into the Goblet of Fire.

Lara flopped back into the seat, feeling tired but too distracted to sleep. A little part of her wanted to put her name in the goblet, but mostly she wanted to keep her head down and get on with her N.E.W.T.s. She felt like a rather crap Gryffindor; everyone else seemed so excited to put their names in. Maybe she should put her name in just to live up to her house's reputation… but what if she was actually chosen? Could she do her N.E.W.T.s and the Triwizard Tournament at the same time? Was she good enough to compete in the competition?

She saw three heads—one dark, one ginger, and one blond—heading up the boys' dormitory stairs, just as the sixth-year Gryffindors appeared. Alicia, Angelina, and Sierra Sloper were whispering to one another, while Lee, George, and Fred complained loudly.

"It'll be, what? Six months until we're seventeen? They can't keep us from entering!" one of the twins cried.

"Don't worry, George," said the other (Fred). "Like I said—Ageing Potion. Piece of cake."

"An Ageing Potion?" Lara blurted before she could stop herself, breaking out of her daze. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I am," Fred replied indignantly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because Dumbledore himself is making the Age Line," Lara scoffed. "There's no way a bloody Ageing Potion will get past it."

"How do you know?"

"Eh, common sense."

"But you don't know our Ageing Potions." Fred skipped over, perching himself on the arm of the chair. His long legs stretched out in front of him, and therefore nearly in Lara's face. She raised her eyebrows, amused. "For all you know, we could make the best Ageing Potion known to man—right, Forge?"

"Right, Gred," replied George, planting himself on the floor beside the fire with Lee. The girls all gathered on the loveseat, whispering and gesticulating excitedly about the tournament. "I reckon we'll be able to do it."

"You're deluded."

"I take back what I said about you." Lee shook his head disappointedly. "I don't approve."

Lara momentarily glared at him. "I'm just trying to look out for you. I don't want you getting hurt by the Age Line—"

"We'll be fine."

"You'll embarrass yourself," sang Lara, cocking her head towards Fred. He peered down at her with a grin. "I bet Dumbledore'll put a hex on it or something."

"We'll see," Fred said simply. "Maybe you'll be embarrassed to be proven wrong."

"Or maybe I'll bathe in all of my glory at being proven right."

"Willing to bet on it?"

Lara licked her lips to hide her grin. "What kind of bet?"

"If I win—which I will—" he began, motioning to himself exuberantly, "you have to… stand on the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and declare me to be the best, greatest, funniest, hottest,"—Lara snorted—"most charming prankster extraordinaire that has ever existed."

"You're on."

Fred went to shake her outstretched hand, a bright smile on his face, but then he hesitated. "But what if you win?" he asked.

"I thought you were going to win?"

"Well, yes, but… say on the extremely hypothetical chance that maybe I wouldn't… What would you want?"

Lara paused, then shrugged. "I don't know yet."

"But—"

"Are you scared?"

Fred's brown eyes glinted and he held out his hand. Smirking widely, Lara shook it then laughed.

"I think we need to go to bed before Lara bets her soul or something," Erin said brightly, pushing herself up from in between the other girls on the loveseat. "You want to go upstairs, La?"

"Sure." Lara stood and Fred immediately slipped into her seat, sending her a grin when she scowled at him. Rolling her eyes, she said, "Night, guys," before heading up the girls' stairs.

"Now you're betting with him?" Erin smirked as they climbed.

"Oh, come on," Lara cried, flailing her arms dramatically. "I had to. An Ageing Potion? Are they kidding—"

"It's fairly stupid, yes," Erin agreed. "But you two looked so cute together on the armchair—"

"You're incorrigible."

"But—"

"He's a friend."

"That you snogged."

"Yes, well…" Lara said indignantly as they entered the dormitory. Fiona Gerald was already in her bed reading a book. She had been the only Gryffindor girl to declare the Triwizard Tournament 'a hazard' and 'stupid,' having done so loudly before heading to the dormitories earlier. "That's neither here nor there."

"I feel like it's very there—"

"I like… you know who," Lara snapped to her friend as Fiona glanced up from her book. Erin giggled and sat on her bed, a grin on her face. "Oh, shut up. Not that You-Know-Who."

"Yeah, yeah." Erin waved her hand dismissively. "I know who you're talking about… I just think—"

"Well, don't." Lara began to dig through her trunk, looking for pyjamas. "I do not fancy Fred Weasley."

"Maybe you don't realise it yet… but you will."

Lara shook her head. Erin was very perceptive and knew a lot about dating and boys in general, but she didn't know Lara's dating life. Nor did she know that Lara had only snogged Fred to make David jealous. Therefore, clearly, Lara fancied David, not Fred. If she fancied Fred, she'd admit it.

'David,' Lara thought sternly. 'David Brentford. That's who I fancy. And nothing is going to change that.'

…Even if Fred Weasley did have a cute smile.

Hope you enjoy the chapter guys! Seeing you all like the story is so great, really makes my day when I see a new review, favourite or alert!

In other news, how's everyone enjoying the new Fantastic Beasts? Everyone I know either love or hate it so I'm curious about what you guys think.

New chapter should be up early December and it's called hence the ferret situation ;)