It's already Thursday! And seriously, thanks to all those that are following and commenting, it makes my day seeing them. Sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes, a lot of these were just written messily when I got the idea and I've been doing an overhaul to get them semi-readable. Warning: Not my favorite chapter. Nothing really happens, but I wanted to further develop a certain relationship. I hope you enjoy and I will do my best to upload tomorrow even though it is a Friday. I love you all!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or any previous, current, or future references to TV Shows, Music, Movies, etc.

Chapter 19: Christmas Eve

I sighed as the familiar opening melody to Jingle Bells played on the radio again. The worst part was that they were all just covers that had been butchered with techno beats and odd voice inflections. I had yet to hear the plain and simple version of Jingle Bells, the one that I could bare. I have never understood why Christmas music was such a big deal. I loved it for the first few songs, and then I wanted it to be over with. I peaked out of the kitchen to see everyone else was decorating the tree. The adults, on the other hand, were getting drunk on eggnog in the basement. I smiled and returned to plopping balls of Chocolate Chip Cookie dough on the baking sheet.

It was our tradition to get everything ready on Christmas Eve because all the stores in town were closed, so we really had nothing else to do. I started up the beaters again and it thankfully drowned out the sound of We Need a Little Christmas, country version.

The past few days were filled with playing games. Although it seemed whatever we did, Fred and George would always win. It was kind of annoying, actually. I thought it might have something to do with a secret twin power. There wasn't much time left either. The only games left were the three day scavenger hunt dad had been planning along with the help of Charlie and Bill, Mafia, and Assassin as well as a rematch of Marco Polo because Ron insisted that Fred and George were peaking.

We also had cancelled Truth or Dare because Hermione thought it was too "childish". I didn't protest, though, I didn't want to get in an awkward position with Zach if I was forced to kiss him again or have my true feelings about Fred be revealed. True feelings, what does that even mean? Whenever I thought of him I felt a fluttering in my stomach and I couldn't help but blush. I noticed it grew stronger after he helped me get all the twigs and leaves out my hair. I felt like we had gotten closer. Then again, it was probably only me being a stupid girl. I twisted my face in anger. I was turning into one of those, boy crazy, over thinking, obsessive girls.

"You really shouldn't do that with your face, it could get stuck like that." I heard a familiar voice say as I dusted the counter with flour.

"Well, Fred, not all of us love Christmas music." I lied. I wasn't going to tell him what I was thinking. He doesn't like me like that.

"I'm just saying, your face is pretty now and we wouldn't want to mess that up." He smirked. I froze; he just called me pretty. Stupid girl. Stupid, annoying girl. "So how are the cookies going?"

"Fine. These sugar cookies need to go in the freezer for an hour. The stained glass cookies are cooling, the chocolate chip are about to be finished with this last tray, and the short bread and brownies are going to be started right after this." I told him sticking the sugar cookie dough into the freezer.

"What about the pie?" He asked.

"What pie?"

"On the list here, it says you need to make pie for tomorrow and cupcakes for the neighbors." He read off the sticky my mom had made for me since it was hard to remember what I had to bake.

"Yeah, we make those tomorrow. Besides it's almost dinner time."

"Whatever you say."

What was that suppose to mean? I shook off the thought as the oven time rang. I really shouldn't be over thinking these things. I sighed as I walked over to the over. After I turned off the timer I opened the door and the wave of heat washed over my face. I slipped an oven mitt over my hand and carefully pulled out the sheet of cookies. At the same time I picked up the other tray with lumps of dough set it in the oven. Apparently I wasn't as careful the second time because I accidently hit my bare hand on the rack. I yelped in pain, running to the sink to run it under some cold water.

"What should I set it to?" Fred asked, standing next to the oven. He had closed the door and was hovering his hand over the number pad.

"10 minutes." I told him.

I turned back to see how my hand was doing and noticed the initial redness had calmed down. I heard the beep that let me know the time had started.

"Thanks." I said instinctively.

"Don't worry about it." Fred walked over to me. "Are you okay?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah, sorry." I said noticing how close we were and it threw me off.

Why was I so flustered? Why did I say sorry?

"Well I was wondering the same thing." He smiled. "But as for the flustered question, it's understandable, a lot of people can't handle being around all of this, that's why George gets girls. It's cause we kind of look a like, he's just less to handle."

"Hey!" I heard George call from the living room.

At first I was confused, but then I realized I said that out loud. My face turned bright red and I looked back to see my finger looking pretty normal. Why was I so stupid?

"You're not that stupid. Well…" Fred started and I wanted to slap myself. I can't seem to filter my thoughts right now. "You really can't, can you? It's probably because you're a Slytherin."

"I should just stop thinking." I said.

"That was supposed to be said out loud right? It's just that right now you're being awfully honest."

"Yes, that was supposed to be said out loud." I rolled my eyes.

"So what's next the shortbread or the brownies?"

"I don't know." I brought out the two books with the recipes and flipped it open to the correct pages trying to figure put which one would take longer. However, I was still acutely aware of the fact Fred was standing right behind me. I could tell he was leaning over because I felt his hot breath tickle my neck, sending electric shots through my body.

"You should do the shortbread cookies."

"I'm doing brownies." I decided, slamming the other book closed.

"I had a feeling you would do that…" Fred's voice drifted. "So what should I do?"

"You should be decorating the tree with everyone else." I said. Fred was nice trying to keep me company, but I loved baking when I was alone. It was peaceful.

"No thanks, I would much rather be here with you." He said, tapping my nose. "I know we'll need a bowl, a baking pan, butter, and flour."

He moved around the kitchen with such ease. He seemed to know where to go. My jaw had dropped. How did he know where everything was? I could see his eyes flicker to me and a small smile grow on his face. I turned quickly feeling my blush coming on. Stupid face, why did I have to be so pale? And blush so much?

"Like what you saw?" His voice was suddenly next to my ear.

His body was pressed up against mine, each arm was on either side of me, and he was setting the bowls and pan on the counter.

"No." I lied. "It was just creepy that you knew where everything was."

He didn't reply, but made his way to my fridge to get the butter.

"Can you pull out four eggs too?" I asked walking into the pantry.

I didn't really hear what he said, but I hoped he got them. I found the vanilla extract and the salt quickly, but the flour, sugars, and cocoa powers were up high, so I did my best to get on my tiptoes and try to reach for them. They were right out of my grasps. I even tried making a few noises like they would help.

"Need help?" Fred asked, walking up behind me. He chuckled softly as he pressed against me, pushing me into the shelves. "Careful there."

He used one of his hands to snake around one of my waist the other reached up to grab the flour and sugars. I took them from him and slipped out of Fred's grasp to start on the recipe. I ignored Fred when he came out of the pantry holding the cocoa powder. Instead I focused on combining all the ingredients. What was he doing? I huffed as I turned on the beaters again. I was getting exhausted, my arm hard become sore of holding it in the awkward angle that was required. I directed a breath upwards in order to blow some of my hair out of my face.

"Here." He said, using his pinky to clear away the hair and tuck it behind my ear.

"Er, thanks." I said. As soon as the words came out, I realized they sounded cold.

"No problem?" Fred questioned. So he had noticed. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, it's just been a long day and my arm is getting kind of tired." I told him.

"Then let me help." He grabbed the beater from my hands and once my arm was down, a flood of relief ran through it.

"Thanks, that feels so much better." I said. I turned to notice the pan had already been buttered and flour dusted. I nodded slightly in approval.

"I think it's done." Fred called to me. "It tastes really good. Try some."

He dipped his finger into the batter and held it out for me. I tensed up trying not to blush, but I knew I wasn't eating off his finger. Instead I dipped my own finger in and tasted it myself.

"It's good." I told him.

Out of nowhere, he made the finger make contact with my cheek and drew a line. I furrowed my brow not sure what he was doing. Then he dipped his finger again and drew another line on the other side. He did the same thing to his face and I realized it looked like warrior paint.

"You look so cute! We need a picture." Frozen in shock, I let him grab my phone from my back pocket and forced a smile when he took a picture.

I just started to feel weird. We were touching a lot, not in the bad way of touching, but we were just always close. Then he's offering to help me bake and he expects me to eat brownie batter off his finger. It made me feel nervous and uncomfortable, but excited and happy. I watched Fred as he poured the batter into the pan and felt my stomach do flips as his arms flexed while he scrapped the sides to get the leftovers in the pan.

"All done." He beamed up at me.

I snapped out of my thoughts and smiled back, "Great."

"Quick question though." Fred started. "What are we doing for dinner? Because I don't see any dinner being made."

"Oh, yeah, we order pizza." I told him. "The only thing open is a pizza place that everyone goes to on Christmas Eve, but because there are so many people over we decided to have it delivered."

"Never had it before." He shrugged.

"Really? But they have Pizza in the UK." I said.

"They have pizza, it's just not popular in the Wizarding World."

"True. Well I guess I'll be taking one of your firsts." I said. Fred didn't answer so I looked up to him and he was almost glaring at me. "What? Not going to crack a joke?"

"I'm trying rally hard not to." Fred said.

"Why?"

"Because you're so defenseless right now I wouldn't want to take advantage of you."

"That's never stopped you before." I said standing up. "What's different?"

Just as Fred was about to answer the doorbell rang.

"I got it." I heard Ginny call.

"No it's fine." I called her off.

After everyone had dinner, we watched A Christmas Story then all went to bed. It's sad, when you grow up Christmas becomes less exciting. I didn't have a hard time falling asleep and when I woke up Christmas morning, I just rolled over and slept till strong hands shook me awake.

"Go away." I slurred trying to hit them with a pillow.

"Merry Christmas, Auden!"