The Girl Everybody Forgot

By Raekitty13

Disclaimer:

Read: What's yours?

Raekitty13: Nada, nada enchilada.

Reader: In English, Missy-Anne

Raekitty13: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING…sadly…

Author's Notes: Sorry this is sooo late. I claim all mistakes && nothing else.

Thank yous: just written && Isabella95 – sorry I didn't realize your reviews earlier! Please forgive me for this being so late! _ Hopefully this chapter doesn't disappoint you. Your support despite my lack of commitment is absolutely ASTOUNDING and I am the one who should be forever grateful for your kind words, not the other way around.

Thanks.

Chapter Nine Happy Christmas

Needless to say, Oliver made the Quidditch team. Regardless, the same routine was followed before every game. Call it a tradition. In all honesty, it probably became as much of a comfort for me as it did for him. It gave me something to fuss over—something other than being away from the only home I could remember that is.

As Christmas grew closer and the weather got colder I began to wonder what I would do for gifts. I had this new found talent and yet it couldn't help me in the slightest in the gift giving department. I used to just make gifts, never having much money back in the orphanage. But I felt like this year should be different. Not that I had any more money to work with but I had magic, and that should count for something, right?

It had to. I couldn't go home without my past AND no gifts.

I took to hanging out in the library in between classes and Quidditch games. Mostly to find a quiet place to do homework, but also so I could research simple gift making charms.

I've never been much of an artist, but colored pencil and crayon sketches were my signature gifts. I was flipping through another photo book when it hit me. The girls back home would LOVE LOVE LOVE a moving photo of me, Kelsey and my new friends.

All I had to do was find someone with a magical camera and convince them to take a picture or two for me –which was harder said than done.

"You don't have one either?" I asked Franki dejectedly, my last hope. Peter didn't have a need for one, Oliver's was at home and the Twins couldn't afford one.

"Lo siento, Chica," She murmured. "Wish I could be of help."

"It's okay," I told her with a weak smile. "I can just find another gift idea for the girls back home."

"Girls back home?" Franki asked, her soup spoon halfway between her mouth and her bowl. "You mean the muggle girls back in the orphanage?"

There was something in her tone that caught me off guard. It was harsher than I expected. I instantly felt myself tense, ready for a reprimanding, although I didn't quite understand why.

"Haven't you realized that muggles really can't be in on this stuff? People like you and Peter are lucky you can tell your families. Not that most would believe the kind of stories we brujos can rattle off, but the Wizarding world is supposed to be a secret, Querida," she stressed, voice more gentle, but just as urgent.

I glanced down at my toast for awhile before looking back up at her, knowing my eyes were as cold as ice, mere seconds from fusterated tears. "They are my family."

I thought she knew me better than that.

"I know," she said comfortingly. "But that's the kind of gift that would expose our world. They could show it to others and our magic would be known. It's dangerous, Cali."

I shook my head. "They wouldn't do that! They wouldn't show anybody! Besides, I read about a charm that makes the pictures look still in the presence or ill intending onlookers."

"Do you really think you could pull of a charm that complicated?" She wasn't trying to be mean, I knew that, but watching my perfect gift shatter before my eyes was weighing me down.

"I at least want to try," I informed her more forcefully than I had intended to.

Standing up quickly I left my breakfast untouched. I would find a wizarding camera. Mark my words.

"Cali?" Oliver demanded as I nearly ran him over and then ignored him completely. It wasn't intentional. I just have a one track mind.

I heard him ask Franki accusingly, "What did you do to her? She's walking around like-like…"

"A freaking zombie," George supplied before I was out of earshot.

I tromped back down to the library. Somewhere along the way Fred appeared at my elbow, keeping pace with me silently.

I loved that about him.

He never had to voice his support or demand that I spill my guts, he just stood there quietly. And his presence always worked wonders for me. He always managed to convince me to talk by simply being there in a noninvasive manner.

By the time we reached my library study carol and I threw my bag onto the floor. I was already ranting my disappointment at him in such a way that I didn't realize my preliminary boredom doodled notes had spilled out on the floor between our feet.

"I just wanted the perfect gift to take back with me! How can I not share the wonderful wizarding world with my FAMILY? That's what those girls are to me, Fred. Family. Why must I keep secrets from them?"

We had plunked ourselves down into our usual chairs, facing each other eye to eye. Except he wasn't looking me in the eye. Instead he was glancing down around our feet where my doodles lay sprawled and exposed.

"Is this what you usually give them?" Fred asked quietly, not answering my questions. Another trait I liked about him. If he didn't have a good enough answer, a real answer, a truthful one, he never gave one at all.

Some day I'm sure his evasiveness would kill me, but right now, as it always seemed to do when I was upset, it comforted me. I wasn't the only one without answers. I wasn't the only one who didn't understand.

I followed his gaze and nodded glumly at my horrid stick figure drawings, expecting him to start laughing at me. Admittedly they looked like a two year old had drawn them and if I'd been in a better mood I might have started laughing myself. The one I was currently looking at reminded me of an anorexic moose with two extra sets of legs and five antlers instead of two, although I knew it was supposed to be a picture of Yasmine laying on the dinner table the day we glued her hair into five jagged spikes. It was one of our favorite memoires because we were never given glue for an art project after that—and it had been my idea of course.

But Fred didn't laugh. He just picked it up, my anorexic moose with too many appendages and said: "Her arms were moving a bit weren't they? Kinda like this?"

And suddenly Stick Yasmine's arms were moving—exactly like I remembered them. Her head was so heavy once the glue dried that she thought she was going to fall off of the table. She had been flailing her arms like windmills.

And suddenly I was laughing.

"How'd you do that?" I demanded once I could breathe again.

Fred shrugged nonchalantly, hiding that adorable blush of his. "It's just a trick my brother Charlie showed me once."

"Just once?" I asked him.

He nodded, winking at me shyly. "I'm a quick study."

"Really?" Kelsey demanded, appearing out of nowhere, George and Lee Jordan trailing after her, all pulling up chairs of their own. "So why is it that you can't keep up in History of Magic?"

"Because Binns isn't nearly as talented as Charlie," Fred supplied. "I think you're about the only freak that stays awake through his monotone, Kelse."

"No," I corrected, pulled out of my funk entirely. "I'm pretty sure Lee stays up too, staring at Kelsey."

I got a round of laughs that nearly got us thrown out of the library. So much for getting homework done.

"So what were you two doing in here, all by yourselves?" Kelsey demanded in a way that made me feel guilty, like we were doing something wrong.

"Nothing," we replied in unison, making us sound like liars.

Were we?

"Uh-huh," Kelsey sing-songed.

"Oh come off it," Fred retorted. "We like each other about as much as George likes Angelina Johnson."

George made a gagging noise and I couldn't help but laugh. "She's not THAT bad."

"Bloody woman thinks she's gonna be better at Quidditch than me," George complained.

"George," I reminded him. "You're trying out for different positions, NEXT year."

"Doesn't matter," he stated bull headedly. "She looks at me funny, anyway."

"Because she can't tell you and Fred apart," Lee laughed. "You should see her trying to keep you both straight. She can't tell which one of you is talking to her half the time."

"And that's my problem, how?" George demanded. "She doesn't have to look at me like I have twelve extra arms."

"George," Fred commented gravely. "I hate to break it to you, mate, but you've got more than twelve extra appendages."

I watched, aching at the sides from holding in my laughter, as George leaped up from his seat and tackled Fred out of the chair beside me. "I'll show you. Twelve extra appendages."

They were wrestling on all of my notes for History of Magic when the librarian walked over to us and hissed, "Get out of here, now! You're much too noisy to be hanging out HERE."

I picked up my notes as the twins continued to roll around on the ground. Kelsey and Lee Jordan disappeared conveniently, leaving me to break the two apart.

"Come on," I tugged on either boy's arm. "Let's take this elsewhere."

"Whatever you say, Cali," one replied complacently.

"George, knock it off," the other complained. "You know you can't confuse her."

"I'm not trying to confuse her. And I'm not George. Honestly, can you get any more immature?"

"Seriously, George," I told him, shaking his arm roughly. "There's nothing between me and Fred."

George just glared at me. "I'm not George! I'm Fred. Don't you even know who I am?"

"Yes, I know who you are. You're the brother who thinks a girl is stealing his best friend," I remarked. "But you're getting angry at the wrong girl. Tell you what, we'll share Fred. He's been your best friend forever and I can't change that, but he can be my best friend too."

George shook his head. "That's not why I'm angry."

"You actually like Angelina?" I asked, reflecting on the tall black girl in our class. She had dark brown eyes and a keen smile. She wasn't one to be messed with, but she was friendly enough as far as I knew. She had been the one to argue with Professor McGonagall about letting first years try out for the Quidditch team.

"No," George sighed. "I'm not angry."

"Yes you are. You're upset about something," I told him, refusing to let it drop. I didn't know what it was about me, but the Weasley Twins couldn't lie to me—either of them—despite being able to deceit just about everybody else.

"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered. "Just something stupid…"

I reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before letting it go again. "Promise you'll tell me when you're ready to talk about it? I bet it's not nearly as stupid as you make it out to be."

We walked out of the library before Fred started grinning again. "He's upset 'cuz I tried to turn him into a squid once. He really did have twelve arms. And he thinks I have some sort of blabber mouth and tell the whole world about it."

I couldn't hide the smile that creeped across my face. "You turned him into a SQUID? Fred that's horrible!"

"Well I'm not actually all that great a magic, mind you."

"He did say TRIED, Cal," George added darkly, glaring at his twin.

Fred shrugged it off. "You should've seen what we did to Ronny-Kin's teddy bear."

"Now THAT was bloody brilliant," George admitted, grinning now himself, suddenly over having been turned into a squid. "You're not repulsed by the fact that I was half squid?"

"Not a chance," I smiled at him. "I am repulsed however that Fred is so cruel."

"Aw," Fred grumped. "It wasn't all that bad! You should've seen what he did to me first!"

"I told you!" George shouted. "That was totally PERCY!"

Fred shook his head. "Nu-uh. It was you, jerk face."

"What happened?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

"Don't ask," Fred quipped.

"Percy turned his chicken nuggets into—" George got cut off by Fred jumping onto his back.

"Shut you're ugly mug, Georgie!" He cried, as George tried to dump him off of his back.

"MY ugly mug? You were born first! So it's YOUR ugly mug!"

"Fred! George!" I cried, tugging on Fred's robes in an attempt to pull him off of George. "We're going to get into trouble again!"

"There's really nothing better to do before the train comes, right?" Fred demanded. "We're going home, Cal."

"Right," how could I have forgotten? We were going home for Christmas break. I was going to see my girls. I was going home.

So why did it feel like I was leaving it?

"Can you help me with something before we catch the train?" I asked Fred, pulling at his robe sleeve.

"Name it," he said with a smile.

"Stop getting all secretive on me, now," George added. "I want in."

"Can you help me finish animating my drawings?" I asked holding the remaining ones up. "They're going to be the best gifts ever."

"Absolutely," Fred told me.

"Under one condition," George suggested.

"Uh-oh…" His condition was that we had to sneak into Filch's office. There was something the two of them had seen the last time they were in there. And he had caught them looking at it. They couldn't be tied to its disappearance directly. They were going to filch something from Filch's office.

And they wanted my help.

"Come on, Cal," Fred pleaded.

"It's not his anyway," George added.

"It's been in there for ages."

"It was super dusty when we took it out of the drawer."

"He'll never even know it's gone."

"I won't help you with your gifts if you don't."

Back and forth they ping-ponged, one after the other until I agreed to help them. All I had to do was drop a dung bomb on the third floor and ditch to the train platform via a secret passage way they'd accidentally fell into the other night when they were wrestling over something else, get a train compartment and save them a seat. And cover for them if somebody asked where they were.

"Just tell them we slipped off to the loo, but we were just here a second ago."

"And that we'll be back in any second."

"You can do this, Cal," Fred added, messing up my hair with my hand. "Face it. You're our partner in crime."

George nodded a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Guilty by association. If we're gonna get caught, you might as well've done something fun in the process, right?"

It worked perfectly. My gifts were finished in no time. I easily dropped the dung bomb and slipped into the secret passageway. I met Oliver, Franki, Peter, Kelsey and Lee Jordan on the platform of the Hogwarts' Express and we easily snagged an open compartment.

Fred and George entered moments later looking pleased as punch, but neither said anything to me. Not even a wink. Guess they wanted to make sure I wouldn't be found guilty by association after all.

The train ride seemed so short once I realized it would be another two weeks before I saw any of them again.

Kelsey was coming back to the orphanage with me, but she would end up staying with her aunt. I had been offered the same arrangements, but I knew that I had to go home. I owed the girls an update. Owls just weren't good enough. Besides, just because I now had an interesting education didn't mean I was any different than they were.

I was the same old me—wasn't I?

"Here's our stop," Oliver informed us, pulling me up out of my seat by the hand gently. "Have a happy Christmas. I'll miss you all."

There were choruses of "Happy Christmas!" and "I'll miss you too!" all around as we left the train and walked onto the platform at King's Crossing. From there hugs were passed around along with promises to bring back good gifts and funny stories.

The Weasley family waved to me as they left and Kelsey's aunt came to pick us up.

Giving Oliver one last hug I turned and started my trek back home.

He grabbed my arm, however and pulled me back toward him. "Are you okay? You seemed pretty upset earlier."

I nodded at him. "I was scrambling for gift ideas. I didn't mean to walk right past you."

He smiled at me sweetly. "I know. So, I've been thinking about how not seeing you for two whole weeks is really gonna suck."

He wasn't looking at me any more, but rummaging around in his pocket, blushing profusely. "It's kinda early, but I want you to have this," he presented me with a shard of glass.

"I know it probably looks like junk," he rushed, "But it's actually part of a mirror. I've got the other half at home. We can use them to communicate over break, if you want."

I beamed at him, thowing my arms around his neck. "Thanks, Oliver. That's so sweet!"

He continued to blush. "Actually, it's kind of extreme, but you're not connected to the Floo network and..."

"Floo network?" I asked.

But before he could answer Kelsey called out to me, "Come on, Cali! We've got a cab waiting. Romeo'll still be in love with you when we come back from break!"

"Sorry," I muttered, blushing. "Gotta go."

"Have a Happy Christmas, Cali."

"You, too, Oliver. You, too," and I turned from him and ran to catch up to the waiting taxi cab.f