That morning, when Alicia Spinnet opened her eyes the whole world was exactly the same as it was yesterday morning, yet, it was completely different. Her parents used to say she was a little too intense for an eleven-year-old girl, but her godmother Molly Weasley used to say she was just poetic and free-spirited. Being a Spinnet girl meant she was expected to be as close to perfection as one could be, meant to seat straight and only talk when required, meant to always have the posture of a ballerina waiting for the start her act in the backstage of the Bolshoi ballet, meant to have their perfect long blonde hair always in place and never to get dirty or to have mud smeared all over their perfect flowy sundresses. Yet, Alicia managed to break all the mentioned rules.

Her favorite thing about the summer was to be able to spend some weeks at the burrow, the Weasley family's house, therefore, her favorite part of the year was the summertime. Her appreciation for those hot and loud weeks was not only for the warm company of the redheaded family she considered her own, but also (and mainly) for the opportunity to be herself. To be a child. There wasn't a day in her life she didn't pray, as her religious muggle mother always told her to, she would get on her knees by the side of her bed and thank the God her mother was always talking about for, somehow, making her perfect mother fall in love with her messy, lousy, irresponsible and, in her opinion, perfect father. She would also always thank the fact that his father had a best friend, and this best friend was Arthur Weasley, which made possible for her, a supposedly uptied Spinnet girl to be included so kindly in the hot mess that was the Wasley family.

Today was the very last day of the summer vacation. Usually, she would be sad and crying quietly during breakfast as she had done all the previous years, but the reason this year was so different for her was that this time, she wasn't going home. No, this time she was going somewhere she was sure it would be far more special than her off white boring house. She was going to Hogwarts.

When she sat up on the mattress, her head hit the soft itchy blanket that was being held by two beds, one in each side of the room and covering the middle of it like a tent, or a fort, as she would put it. She looked around and realized she hadn't slept in Ginny's room, as her mother was always making sure she was while staying at the Weasley's. She had fallen asleep in the twins' bedroom. It made perfect sense she was there, considering Fred, George, and herself were playing and talking until the first hours of the morning, for them being too excited to fall asleep the time they were told to.

With a sudden movement, the blanket flew away from the fort and hit the ceiling, then it slowly flew to the uncovered bed and started to tidy itself to it. She heard an upset sigh coming from the entrance of the bedroom, she looked at the door to see an irritated Molly Weasley making her way towards the three children spread across the floor.

"I can't believe you are all still sleeping!" She said while waving her wand to the two sleeping boys on the floor, making them jump scared when they suddenly felt a tickly sensation on their bellies. When Molly pointed the wand to Alicia, she jumped to her feet and said

"No need to attack me I'm UP!" She screamed the last word as the tickles hit her with the same intensity as they had hit the boys, even after she told Molly it wasn't necessary

"For the love of Merlin, woman!" Fred started "I think you developed a taste for torturing us". He said while rubbing his belly at the place Molly's spell had hit him.

"You think?" said a really irritated George back at his brother "I'm sure she did! Why other reason would she have attacked poor Alicia who was already up and everything?"

"Because," Molly said, while picking up the pillows from the floor and tossing them to the beds "It is 9 am already! How do you plan to have showers, get dressed, eat breakfast, and leave in only 30 minutes!" She yelled.

Alicia loved her godmother more than anything in the world, but sometimes she was really scared of her

"We can skip shower!" said George, as if it was a great revelation that would change the world someday.

"...And eat breakfast on the train!" completed Fred

"What leaves us to just get dressed and head straight to freedom" George said, with a relaxed tone, putting his hands behind his head.

"Freedom", Alicia repeated in a hushed tone. It might be just a joke to her two best friends, but it was a little more than that to her. Once she was off to the boarding school, she would actually be free from her mother's vigilant stare. Maybe she would be able to eat a sweet now and then, and maybe wearing some pants or shorts during the weekends! Who knows she would even be able to practice some sport, even Quidditch maybe!

All those thoughts made her really excited, but also really nervous. She knew she was putting too much expectation to it, Bill had told her last night that Hogwarts was, yes, a little less suffocating than her house, but it wasn't an amusement park, she would still have to follow a few rules in order to not get into trouble. Badly he knew, Alicia couldn't wait for a little trouble.

As if she could read her thoughts (and sometimes Alicia thought she actually could) Molly looked her goddaughter in the eyes and said jokily:

"You might be awake already but you sure are not done dreaming" with that, the woman tucked the girl hair behind her ears and said "Your clothes are in Ginny's room, get dressed as fast as you can! Merlin knows that with the amount of food you ate yesterday during dinner you won't be able to stand too long if you don't have a proper breakfast"

After she got dressed, brushed her teeth and put her hair into a ponytail, she started making her way down the stairs, with a wimpy Ginny holding her hand. She didn't mind watching out for the little girl who she loved as she was her own sister, but Ginny's crying was making her even more nervous than she already was. As if it was even possible.

Once she got downstairs to the living room, Charlie came to Ginny's encounter, hugging his little sister and saying

"Oh don't be sad, Ginny" while wiping her tears away "Ron will be here with you, you won't be alone!"

"I don't wanna play with Ron" said a really angry Ginny between sobs "I don't wanna be the only girl here all year long!"

When she heard this, Alicia's heart got tight as if there was a belt around it, she hadn't realized the little girl was crying like that because of her, but it made perfect sense. Alicia was the only girl Ginny had any contact with, and Alicia was way more persuasive than Ginny, so when she was around she would always convince Fred, George and Ron to participate in the fake tea parties Ginny would organize in her room. Sometimes she would even manage to convince Percy to participate in it as well, but she had the suspicion it had something to do with Fred and George threatening him.

Alicia put an arm around the little redheaded girl and said "Look, you won't be the only girl in here all year long. I'm coming back to Christmas and new year!" It didn't seem to make Ginny any happier, actually, it made her cry even louder "And besides, now that I'm off to Hogwarts you have just been promoted to the new big girl of the house" this time Ginny's crying seemed to be eased a little bit.

"Wow, I wish I had been promoted to that!" said Charlie, making now not only Ginny giggles but also Alicia. "In fact, the new position deserves a celebratory gift!" He said cheerfully, while getting his wand from inside of his boot and waving it in a circle in the air, making a flower crown appear from the movement. Charlie had turned 17 over the summer and could now make magic outside the school, which Alicia thought was the coolest thing ever. He put the flower crown onto Ginny's head, who automatically ran to the table to show her father her new acquisition

Charlie looked at Alicia who was absently watching Ginny talking to Arthur when he said, a little worried

"Are you Ok, Ali?" Alicia liked very much of that nickname, the only ones who used it were the Weasleys, due to the difficulty George had experienced pronouncing the name Alicia when they were little. "You seem a little green. Would you like a crown as well? I can make a yellow one for you, is your favorite color, right?"

Alicia blushed when he said it. This made him laugh at her, as he guided her to the table, he started:

"Sorry" he said still laughing a little bit "I forgot that now you're too big for all these big girls' stuff" and winked at her. Alicia just showed him her tongue while Molly put a plate of pancakes in front of her.

"Thanks, aunt Molly, but I'm really not hungry" she simply answered looking down at the pancakes.

"I think we went through this topic already, Ali" Arthur said to her, while holding a smiley Ginny on his lap. "You have to eat even when you're not hungry, otherwise you would never eat anything. Try to eat at least one pancake, or we will have to tell your mother and…"

Before he could continue Alicia said "Ok, ok, I'll eat it, but there's no need to tell my mother anything"

Arthur always used this trick to make Alicia eat, sleep, shower or behave when she was under his care, but he couldn't deny that the fear that the girl felt of her own mother, always had worried him a little bit.

Jonathan Spinnet has been Arthur's best friend since they were 11 and got sorted into Gryffindor together, they had always been loyal and free-spirited young boys. When Voldemort rose and the war started, they hadn't even thought about running away from the fight, they had joined the Order of the Phoenix as the brave Gryffindors they were, but the same couldn't be said about Fionna Malkin, Jonathan's wife, Alicia's mother. Not that she was evil, no, but she just didn't care enough to fight. She even wanted John to run away to Russia so he could hide with her family or something. John didn't do it though, he stayed and fought the war beside his friends, while Fionna comfortably sipped Vodka in her parent's house or whatever Russian people do. He was happy that Fionna would let her daughters spend time in his house, and even let him and Molly be Alicia's godparents. Arthur was even happier to see Fionna's genetics were only perceptive on the girls outside, on the inside they were all Jonathan.

As if his thoughts on the girls had summoned the older one, Fi walked into the room with a bleeding finger. Fi is short for Fionna. Yes, the firstborn Spinnet shared the name with her mother, a name that she wasn't really fond of. When little 8-year-old Ron saw Fi's finger bleeding and her once white long-sleeved shirt with red spots all over it he screamed and ran away to hide behind his father's chair.

"Puff" said Charlie walking towards Fionna with a piece of cloth to stop the bleeding "For Merlin, this boy is scared of anything! I bet he will be the first Weasley in Hufflepuff or something"

"Oh, don't be harsh on him, I bet when the time comes he'll be a perfect little Gryffindor" said Fionna, still holding her bleeding finger as Charlie wrapped the cloth around it

"Damn Fionna, just because you like the garden goblins it doesn't mean they like you back!" Charlie said while analyzing the bite on the girl's finger. "Sometimes I think you enjoy getting bite by them"

Fionna rolled her eyes while the boy was carefully cleaning the blood off her hand, Well, she thought she enjoyed getting goblin bites if it meant Charlie would be holding her hand and being close to her.

Charlie didn't know that, but Fionna had developed a huge crush on him since the sixth year, but would never do something about it, she would never risk putting their relationship at risk

Which was the exactly same reason why Charlie would never do something about his crush on Fionna.

"Ok, I bet 2 weeks of homework that they'll finally be together this year" George whispered into Alicia's ear.

As previously mentioned, Alicia was a little too intense for an eleven-year-old, which made her notice things that eleven-year-olds wouldn't, like that Bill was always looking through the job section of the newspaper when his parents weren't around, or that Percy was taking way too long on the shower this last summer, or that Fionna and Charlie had been innocently and almost incontinently flirting for the past 2 years. And as a good best friend, she would always let George know these small things that caught her eyes, but would go unnoticed by the not so delicate look of young boys.

Alicia had two best friends, Fred and George, but she found it easier to have more intense conversations with the latter. Fred was great and he would always be there if she wanted to race someone or start a mud fight, but George had the sensibility to listen and understand her worries and gossips.

"Oh please" she whispered back "Those two will probably only get together when they turn 90" she stared at her sister and her kind-of-brother, wishing they could realize what was going on and start their happily ever after already. "But, ok, it's on" She wouldn't mind doing George's homework if it meant Charlie and Fi were finally together.

"FOR DUMBLEDORE'S PANTS" screamed Molly "Look at the time, we have to go. NOW"

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