A/N: I am sorry I let you wait … hopefully the chapter makes up for it. As always I want to thank my reviewers!

I got two fantastic beta-readers, who I want to thank as well for all of their help!

XXX

December 24th, 1994

Alicia stared at her reflection in the mirror with a queasy feeling in her stomach. She couldn't remember ever being so excited. Tonight was the Yule Ball and she had a date with one of the most popular boys in her year. Not for the first time she wondered why George had picked her of all the pretty girls he could have asked. Not that she was ugly – and she knew that she wasn't – but there seemed to be so much more attractive girls.

Alicia let her eyes wander down her reflection, resting for a moment on her chest. Even at the age of almost seventeen, it was still relatively flat, and although her mother kept telling her that she would fill out in time, Alicia couldn't help feeling self-conscious. Even Katie had bigger breasts and she was a year younger than Alicia.

Alicia couldn't help envying her friend. She would at any time swap her long, thin, almost androgynous figure to be small and petite, but curvy in the right places like Katie. Or be tall and athletic the way Angelina was.

But then, she thought, she had a pretty face and her full long blonde hair. And the robes she was going to wear fit her perfectly. They were full-length, made from a lightly flowing material and showed of her slender waist perfectly. Alicia smiled to herself; all things considered she could only come to the conclusion that she was going to look pretty enough and George was sure to notice it.

George.

He made her stomach queasy and her hands go sweaty. She didn't know how this could have happened. Just a year ago, Alicia had had the biggest crush on his brother Fred. And yet, she hadn't felt the slightest bit disappointed that it had been George who had asked her to the Yule Ball. She couldn't even have explained why.

Among the other students it wasn't a secret whom she would be going to the ball with, and she had an idea that not every girl was happy for her. Even although most girls couldn't even tell them apart – the Weasley twins were popular and many would have liked to go with either of them.

"But then," Sandra Maddox had said the other day, "it was no surprise they're both going with one of the Gryffindor Chasers."

"Why's that?"

Sandra shrugged. "Because I don't think they've noticed any other girls yet."

That explanation had confused Alicia, but she hadn't dared to ask any further questions, scared of the answer she might get. Maybe Sandra thought that she and George would not make a good couple and that had been Alicia's biggest fear for the last few days.

She was aware that Sandra was envious of her – for being on the Quidditch team – and pretty successfully so – and so maybe, she was envious of her for going out with George Weasley, too. But then, she had said those words in such a snide tone, and with Sandra it was always hard to tell. She did always say that the twins were way too immature for her liking, whether that was out of jealousy or simply the truth, Alicia didn't know.

But right now she had no time to think about it, especially not with Angelina and Katie bustling into the room at that moment, both being already dressed up and excited and extremely giggly.

"What in the name of Merlin are you two on?" asked Alicia. "Did old Snape finally tell you a recipe for a Potion that gets you high?"

Angelina and Katie both just giggled some more.

"Besides, Katie, this isn't even your room – where are your room-mates?"

"Oh," Katie waved her off. "They're all boring – none of them got a decent date and they've been getting on my nerves all day with their jealousy!"

"Well, Jonathan Stripes can't go with more than one girl," said Angelina with a snigger, putting a very distinct accentuation on the name.

"Neither can Fred Weasley," continued Katie in the same way. "Or George – while we're at it," she added, elbowing Alicia a little bit too hard in the ribs.

"Ouch! Katie! Angelina! What the hell, are you two doing here, anyway?"

"We're waiting for you to get ready!" said Angelina, "so we can go down together, all three of us; the Queens of Gryffindor House."

"Well, you're not big-headed, are you?"

"Not in the least," said Angelina, shaking her pretty head. "Just telling the truth – nothing more, nothing less."

Alicia smiled to herself. The Queens of Gryffindor House? That couldn't have come from any other girl than her. Even if she didn't want to put it that way, it wasn't a secret that Angelina was a little bit arrogant. But she was the most popular and most envied girl in their house – though Alicia had an idea that Angelina might one day be topped by Ginny Weasley, but not for a few years. For now, Angelina was, indeed, the Queen of Gryffindor House, if there ever was anything like that.

It wasn't in Alicia's nature to hang out with people like Angelina and Katie; she was much quieter and more serious. But then there was her love and her talent for playing Quidditch and since she had tried out for the team at the beginning of third year, she was a part of it – and therefore automatically Angelina Johnson's friend.

Although Katie was a lot more like Angelina, both of the other girls had developed a closer friendship with Alicia than with each other. Alicia could only guess why but she suspected that they both saw each other as a bit of a rival as well as a friend. Today, however, it seemed that they were the best friends.

"Who's Lee Jordan going with, tonight?" asked Alicia with a sideways glance at Katie.

But before Katie could even react Angelina waved the question off and said, "Who cares? I mean Lee's really funny and all, but who would want to go out with him?"

Alicia suddenly got a suspicion. "Did he ask you?" she asked slowly.

Angelina shrugged, but she did go red a little bit. "What if he did?"

"Then he'll be really disappointed, when he sees you with Fred."

"So what? Fred asked me first – and Lee was around at the time."

"Did Fred?" asked Alicia disbelievingly.

"What's the point of all this?" asked Angelina impatiently. "I said, Fred Weasley, or none at all, remember? So if Lee can't live with this, I can't help it."

Alicia sighed. Unfortunately Angelina heard that. "What?" she demanded.

"Nothing."

But Angelina's temper wasn't to be underestimated. "Alicia – what are you trying to say?"

Alicia lifted her hands defensively. "Nothing. Now can I please do my make-up?"

Angelina turned away sulkily, but Katie jumped in at once, shouting, "Want my help? I know a lot of cool styles that would suit you, Leesh."

Angelina for once recovered quickly from being pissed off and Alicia knew better than to try to talk to her about Lee again. Lee was the clown sort of guy. He hung out with the twins and in his own way he was really cute with his dreadlocks and all – but girls found it hard to take him seriously. He would not make a great couple with Angelina, but Alicia thought that if they just went out together for a day in Hogsmeade or something, Lee would realise that for himself. But Angelina was stubborn, and unfortunately she was as obsessed with Fred as Lee was with her.

A horrible thought came to Alicia's mind – what if, tonight, she realised that she was as horrible a match for George as Angelina would be for Lee? She did know, after all, that some people thought they didn't fit together at all. But then she told herself while thinking about the snappy tone in Sandra's voice that morning, they are just jealous. And she had never really thought about George in that way until he had asked her out. So even if it didn't work out that was probably not going to come as such a big disappointment.

Deep down, though, she knew that that wasn't quite the truth. During that past few days ever since George had asked her, she had been excited. Sometimes the butterflies in her stomach made her even unable to concentrate in class, especially when she could see George from where she was sitting. It was hard to keep her eyes off him, really; not just because he was cute, but also because he was normally always in action, sort of; whether it was performing minor charms on his desk or simply goofing around with Fred and Lee – he was always in action. And every now and then he would look up and their eyes would meet, and then Alicia would feel herself going bright red and would quickly look away.

Until Angelina had made an observation.

"Did you see that?" she had whispered in Alicia's ear just a few days ago during Charms.

"What?"

"George. When he looked over –"

"Shh!" came the hiss from Sandra who was sitting on Alicia's other side.

Angelina bent forward so she could look past Alicia and give Sandra a contemptuous glance, and Sandra glared back at her. Alicia already feared another conflict coming up between her two friends, but Angelina simply directed her attention on Alicia again and giggled, "Did you just see George's ears going all red when he saw you looking at him?"

"No," said Alicia, but she remembered said thing happening constantly on the day George had needed several tries to ask her out.

Angelina nodded fervently. "It was visible even from here. I swear he's got the biggest crush on you, Sweetie!"

A Ravenclaw girl in the row before them turned around with a nasty look on her face and whispered, "Or maybe, you just spiked his drink with a Love Potion this morning."

"Yes, and every other morning, too," said Angelina a little too loudly, causing Professor Flitwick to give the girls a suspicious glance. "Mind your own business," Angelina added to the Ravenclaw girl in a harsher tone, and the girl grinned, waggled her eyebrows and turned her attention back to their teacher.

Alicia and Angelina had kept watching George for the rest of the lesson, and he had obviously noticed it and after some time had decided to put up a show for them behind Professor Flitwick's back.

"Leesh? You still there?" Katie's voice pulled her back to the the present.

Alicia opened her eyes, suddenly remembering that she was in the bathroom getting ready for the Yule Ball and Katie had been doing her make-up while she had started dreaming. "What? Oh yeah sorry. Are you done?"

"Yep," said Katie, seemingly pleased with herself and the work she had done.

"Let me see what you've done to my face then," Alicia demanded, but when she looked into the mirror she saw that Katie had done a good job with her make-up; nothing too obvious; just enhancing Alicia's porcelain-like complexion and making her eyes seem brighter with a little bit of light eye-shadow.

"Like it?" said Katie in a contented tone.

"Oh, yes!" said Alicia, imagining the look on George's face when he would see her.

He didn't disappoint her – in any way. Not just did he gaze at her in the amazed way she had wanted him to, he also had dressed up to look very good himself.

From what she knew about him and his family she could only guess that the dress-robes he was wearing were probably second-hand or borrowed, but they looked completely new and fit nicely. But then, George was very good at charms, so maybe a few spells had helped with the robes. He had mussed up his hair in such a way that it stuck out seemingly involuntarily (while probably every strand of hair was exactly in the place it was supposed to be, maybe even enchanted to be) and that was all. But it was enough to make Alicia's knees go weak.

And the best thing of all was that George didn't seem to have eyes for any other girl. When she entered the common room he was at her side at once, holding out his arm so Alicia could link it with hers. He even ignored Fred's mocking comments coming from behind them.

On their way out they passed by Harry Potter and George's little brother Ron, who looked too miserable too even notice them.

"What's with him?" said George innocently, as if he didn't know quite well. "He's got a much prettier date than I thought he would ever get in his life."

Prettier than me? Alicia wanted to ask, but instead she answered, "Well, it's not the girl he really wants to go with, is it?""

George shrugged. "Should have worked up the guts to ask her out then," he commented pitilessly and led Alicia through the portrait hole, down the stairs and right into the most exciting evening of her life.

The good thing about George was that he made up for Alicia's shyness by being talkative all the time, chatting with her happily. They were sitting at same table as Fred and Angelina and Lee and his date, Edna Wallis from Hufflepuff. Edna was a nice girl from Katie's year; she was pretty enough, but Alicia had never noticed her before. When it was time to dance they watched Harry Potter and the three other champions doing the first dance, and it was quite amusing.

"I have no idea how that idiot Davies managed to get Fleur Delacour to go out with him," George said after watching the couple for a while, with a critical air. "Honestly, he must even be, what, two years younger than her?"

"No, just one year," Lee corrected his friend. "But Fleur is older than most Hogwarts students – she's eighteen, I've heard. I should've asked her." He grinned.

"Well, I don't think Roger's so bad," said Angelina. "He's really good at Quidditch – and not looking too bad, either –"

"Oi," said Fred at once, taking his date by the arm and pulling her from her seat, "what he can do, I can do as well." He pulled the protesting Angelina to the dancing floor – only to prove that he was the worst dancer ever. But it seemed that he and Angelina were having a lot of fun.

George gave Alicia a questioning look, and now she saw his ears going red again. "Would you like to dance?" he asked.

Alicia shrugged shyly. "Are you a good dancer?"

George gave a snort and then a short laugh. "About as good as Fred is," he said, his ears brightly red now, "but we can try to beat them at who has the most fun."

Alicia couldn't help grinning. "Alright," she said to her own surprise.

They danced and they did have a lot of fun, but they didn't pay much attention to Fred and Angelina. If they had they would have noticed that George's twin and Alicia's best friend had had one of their infamous arguments and were – not for the first time – not speaking to each other anymore. But instead George made Alicia forget about everyone else, especially when he suddenly bent forward and whispered into her ear, "Let's get away from here, shall we?"

The question nearly made Alicia's heart stop and she needed a while before she was finally able to ask, "Where to?"

George shrugged lightly. "Maybe outside?"

"In the cold?"

"I'll keep you warm."

Alicia stared at George, and suddenly he went deeply red, obviously realising what he had just said. "Er, I meant, getting our cloaks," he hurried to say and made to go. But Alicia caught hold of his hand.

"We'll both go."

When they were both out in the snowy yard several minutes later George put his arm around Alicia and pulled her close, "Are you still freezing?" he asked unnecessarily, because Alicia was shivering badly against him.

"Yes, but we don't have to go back inside," Alicia replied, although this being outside alone with George was nowhere near as romantic as she had imagined.

"But we can," said George, pulling her even closer.

Alicia sighed. "Okay."

"We could go into the common room," George suggested. "Nobody was there a while ago."

But the situation had changed. A few more people had left the feast to return to the common room by now – and among them was an even more miserable looking Ron, whose mood did not brighten up at the sight of his older brother entering the room arm in arm with his date. To make things worse a furious looking Fred entered the room right after George and Alicia, glaring at them in a way that made Alicia scared.

"Okay, bad idea, coming here," George admitted.

Alicia almost had to laugh. It was as if something was against them. All she wanted was a place where it was warm and she could be alone with George.

"Let's go," said George as if reading her mind and pulled her back out through the portrait hole. They walked the cold empty corridors, every now and then meeting other students, until Alicia suddenly remembered something. "The broom-cupboard," she suggested.

"Perfect," said George, beaming.

The ran, holding each other's hands, down the corridors until they found the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and found the door opposite it at once. Inside, they both looked around, confused. "Didn't it look different in here a while ago?" asked Alicia.

George shrugged. "It's a magic castle – why shouldn't the rooms inside it look different from time to time?" He tightened his grip on Alicia's hand and pulled her close. "Who cares about the room?" He was even closer now, so close that she could feel his breath graze her cheek, and Alicia knew that he was going to kiss her.

XXX

A/N: A different view on the Yule Ball … hehe … hope you've enjoyed it. Let me know!