Here it is, the long awaited reaction to George's kiss. I hope you enjoy it :-)

Huge thanks to all my reviewers and "followers" and so much love to remuslives23 for being the best editor ever and the goddess of fanfic!

Special dedication in this chapter to tanyanubin--I brought back a certain "character" just for her (mostly because she wouldn't stop bothering me about it...just kidding :-) )

A/N: if ya recognize it, its JKR's...if not, its mine.

Enjoy!

Evey's eyes widened in shock. George was kissing her. GEORGE – her sweet, funny and totally brilliant platonic best friend was kissing her. And he was actually doing a damn good job of it.

Her eyes closed and lips parted as she instinctively kissed him back. She heard his breathing falter as her lips caressed his then his right hand was sliding up to tangle in her dark red curls as his left tightened at her waist.

It was a strange feeling, being kissed by George. Evey had never thought about doing that with him…well, except for that one time in third year, but that had been purely experimental. He cared about her – in a very non-platonic way she guessed as his tongue flicked at her lip. God, was this wrong? Could she ever care for him as more than a friend? His soft tongue traced the edge of her lip and she moaned softly into his mouth. If he kept kissing her like he was right now she was sure she could be convinced quite quickly.

Her hands rose, skimming over his arms before her fingers weaved through his shaggy ginger locks. George made a little noise in his throat before his left arm snaked around her waist, crushing her body to his. Their kiss deepened, Evey's tongue now meeting his eagerly. This was getting better every second, and Evey thought she could do this all night. Until…

'Bloody hell!' George screamed as he leapt off the couch, away from Evey.

Evey's eyes opened quickly to see her usually sweet cat, Dorothy, nearly mauling poor George. George was flailing about, trying to get the devil-cat off of him, screaming as her claws kept creating painful red scratches on his pale, freckled skin. Evey rushed to assist him, and was able to quickly remove her cat from George's back.

'Dorothy! Bad girl! What has gotten into you! Go find Crookshanks to play with,' she instructed the gray tabby as she gently tossed her onto the stairs leading to the girls' dormitory.

Dorothy landed gracefully on her small paws, turning back to hiss at George before trotting up the staircase to find her feline friend. Evey sighed and turned to George, who was wincing with every movement.

'Blimey, I'm sorry, George! I dunno what's wrong with her today,' she said as she crossed to him.

George tried to smile, but it came across as more of a grimace, 'No worries, Evey--I've gotten worse from Scabbers.'

'Ron's rat? What happened to him, anyway? I asked Ron at the beginning of the year but he just got really mad and said Scabbers was dead to him.'

George froze when he realized his mistake. Last summer, after weeks of hearing Ron mutter dark things about his suddenly missing rat, they were able to catch him with his guard down in a moment of anger and drag the truth out of him: Scabbers the rat was really Peter Pettigrew, a believed deceased illegal Animagus and murderer who had framed the truly innocent Sirius Black. At first they thought Ron had taken a too hard hit to the head from the Whomping Willow, but when they saw his panicked face and he begged them not to say anything to anyone, they realised he was telling the truth. Shocked, they agreed to stay silent. It was hard keeping it from Evey but she had been so frightened when Sirius Black was loose that they didn't like to mention his name around her - even if it was to tell her he was actually innocent.

George came up with a lie quickly.

'Yea, he, er, died over the summer. No surprise, really; bloody thing was nearly thirteen.'

He felt awful lying to Evey, especially after what they had just been doing. He just hoped this would never come back to haunt him.

Evey nodded, 'Right. Well, do you want me to heal your scratches? I know how painful they can be--I've been at the wrong end of Dorothy's wrath before. I'll never try to give her a bath again!'

The two laughed heartily at the cat's expense, George wincing again after a moment.

'Sit down,' Evey instructed as she gently guided George back to the couch.

She pulled out her wand, which was in a pocket of her dress robes, and quickly healed the wounds she saw, much to George's relief.

'Are there any others?' she asked as she healed the last visible one on his neck.

'No, that's the last of them,' George lied. He had some more scratches on his chest but healing them would require the removal of his shirt and that wasn't going to happen - not right now, anyway. He could fix them himself later.

Evey nodded and stowed her wand and the two fell into a very awkward silence. Their eyes avoided each other, drifting aimlessly around the room as Evey fidgeted in her seat and George sat with his arms crossed over his chest.

'So, what just happened?' Evey asked after a few minutes, unable to tolerate the silence any longer.

'Well, your cat nearly killed me,' George said smartly, smirking.

Evey rolled her eyes--leave it to George to make a joke when she was trying to be serious, 'I meant before that.'

The smirk fell from George's face. 'Oh.'

'Why'd you do that?'

George squirmed, 'Well, you were just so sad--I hate seeing you sad, you know that.'

Evey felt a sudden sadness overwhelm her as tears filled her eyes. 'Oh. Is that all?'

George realized what that sounded like and backpedaled as fast as he could. 'No, no of course not! I meant what I said. I-I care about you, Evey.'

Evey blushed along with George, trying to hide the wide grin that tried to escape. 'Oh. Er, since when?'

'About third year.'

Evey was surprised. Why hadn't she ever seen this? Why hadn't he ever told her? 'And you're telling me NOW?'

'Well I didn't realize it until the beginning of this year. Besides you don't just go up to your best mate and say "I fancy you, lets snog!"'

'No. I suppose not.'

There was another moment of that horribly uncomfortable silence, which was broken by George this time.

'So, now what?'

'Now what, what?'

'Well, I mean, I think that you enjoyed that as much as I did but…do we just forget it happened and go back to being mates?'

'Do you want to forget it?'

'Hell no!'

'Well, me neither. But, I mean, we've been best mates for five years…wouldn't it be weird?'

'That kiss didn't feel weird to me. In fact, it felt pretty bloody brilliant!'

'George!'

'What? I'm a wonderful kisser. OW! Stop hitting me, woman!'

Evey sat back down and glared at the boy across from her, 'Always a jokester.'

'It's in my nature. Though I must add that you aren't a bad kisser yourself.'

Evey blushed again and smiled a little self consciously. 'Thank you.'

George leaned close to Evey. She thought he would kiss her again, but he spoke instead.

'I don't want to forget what we did, Evey. I don't want to ignore it, either.'

'So what do we do?'

George smirked. 'Well, for starters…'

He pressed his lips against Evey's again, firmly but briefly – still long enough to make her head spin and her vision blur and she wished he'd just forget about the talking and do it again.

'Secondly,' George continued, 'I'd be honoured to accompany you to Hogsmeade during the next visit.'

Evey shook her head, 'George, I don't know. I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with you, and kissing you is amazing…' She ignored his smug smile and continued.

'But what would the others say? I mean, for Merlin's sake, we've spent five years telling half the school that you and Fred really aren't my pimps -- how would they react if they knew we were dating? They'd think we'd been lying all this time.'

George nodded thoughtfully. He was well aware of how much those rumours hurt Evey, and would be damned if he was going to be the one to cause her more pain. Suddenly, an idea popped into his head, and he smiled.

'What?' Evey said, noticing the change of expression.

'I just had a brilliant idea.'

'I don't know whether to be intrigued or terrified. The last time you said you had a "brilliant idea" you and Fred wound up in the hospital wings with white hair and beards.'

'I thought that ageing potion would work!'

'Hmm. Alright, let's hear it. What's your idea?'

George smiled, 'We keep it a secret.'

Evey stared at him blankly. 'Huh?'

'We keep it a secret,' George repeated. 'We keep doing these things--if you want to, of course--but we don't tell anyone.'

'Not even Fred?'

George paused; he really hated keeping secrets from his twin, but he had really enjoyed kissing Evey and desperately wanted a repeat performance. Several repeat performances.

Hesitantly, he nodded. 'Not even Fred.'

Evey considered the idea for a moment then smiled, 'Ok, sounds good to me.'

'Great,' George said with a smile. 'And maybe one day, when you're comfortable enough, I can snog you in public.'

'George!'

'What?'

Evey rolled her eyes, 'You're ridiculous sometimes.'

George simply smiled before leaning forward and kissing Evey gently. He ignored the niggling feeling in his stomach telling him that a secret 'relationship' was a bad idea, focusing instead on how soft Evey's lips were.

For the remainder of the evening, George and Evey spent their time alternating between talking and kissing (kissing seeming to become the favoured activity very quickly) until they heard voices outside the portrait hole. They hastily kissed each other good night before fleeing to their respective dorms.

Each were separately questioned by their roommates that night about why they had disappeared and where they had gone. Luckily, Evey and George had thought to come up with a story between their snogging sessions on the couch, telling their roommates that Evey had injured her ankle while dancing and decided to come back to the common room to hang out and play Exploding Snap (Evey winning seven games out of nine). Thankfully, their friends believed them, and both Evey and George fell asleep with secret smiles on their faces, thinking about what had really happened in the abandoned common room.

And there you have it! Hope you all enjoyed it! OH, special A/N--I know that it doesn't mention anywhere in the books that the twins knew the truth about Wormtail and Sirius but I had to put it in, so I made it fit with cannon as much as possible. All will be explained in due time...probably in the next chapter if you review like good readers. If you do I'll give you cake :-)