Okay, so, I did get a review on my previous story stating that Nessa has the personality of a character they would associate with a child of Lily and Snape's and asking if that was intentional. Since I can't respond via that story, I'll do so here.

That is absolutely, without a doubt, unintentional LOL. I can promise everyone now that there will be no curveball with which Nessa is the lovechild of Snape and Lily. And not just because I don't like Snape much. I have my Bachelor's in Psychology (FUN FACT!) and there's so much that goes into a personality, and not all of it is genetic. In my head, Nessa gets her kindness and temper from Lily, and her fierce loyalty to her friends (and Harry), as well as her occasionally cruel behavior (i.e. she can sometimes be a bully herself, even if she does so out of protection for her friends and her brother) from James. Her social anxiety and all of her other qualities are more a factor of her environment. She grew up being neglected by her family (much in the same way that Snape was by his father) and taking care of her brother when she was too young to be doing so. Those things have an impact on personality as well, and any overlap in personality between her and Snape could be chalked up to similar, unfortunate childhoods.

So, moral of the story, I promise 100% that she is absolutely the daughter of Lily and James. No surprises on that front.

Anyhow, enjoy this chapter!

Bookcozy: The relief I feel knowing that I no longer have to write about his relationship with Alicia is truly unparalleled. I've been waiting SO LONG to post that chapter. It has been on everyone's minds the longer the year progressed. Thank you for reviewing! I appreciate any and all feedback I get, and you have been fantastic in providing it to me. I truly appreciate you!

Aurorab33: Welcome! I'm so happy you're here! Sirius will show up very soon, and I am so excited about it ! Thank you for reviewing and enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Twenty Three

George awoke on his birthday, feeling giddy and well-rested.

He loved his birthday. Not only because it was his birthday, but also because it fell on April Fool's Day. The fates had been kind to him and his twin — mischief-makers born on the most mischievous day of the year. His mother insisted it should have been a sign for how many gray hairs they'd give her in the future. He preferred to think of it as the world's first gift to him and his brother.

They had plenty of pranks lined up for the day, of course. Mostly for the Slytherin Quidditch team, who were being particularly annoying with the upcoming Quidditch match in a few weekends. None for their friends this year, as all of them were on edge with Sirius Black on the loose, and only one for Professor Snape. They'd have to skip classes, of course, to complete them all, but it was to be expected.

All in a day's work.

He'd considered pulling a prank on Fred himself, but had decided against it. They'd been banned from pranking each other since the Great Exploding Incident of 1989. He and Fred were too well-matched. They understood each other too well to truly prank each other. It led to a catastrophic event when they tried to. If he ignored his mother to prank Fred, his twin would certainly retaliate, and Hogwarts would be reduced to cinders. An event with which he knew his mother would never forgive them, and would, likely, get them both expelled. So, truthfully, Fred was the only person within the castle who was truly safe on a day like today.

"GEORGE, WHAT IN HELL IS THIS?"

George startled at Fred's loud voice and opened the curtains around his bed in interest. His voice had come from the bathroom, and the door was closed, so he wasn't able to tell what the problem was. Lee had popped his head out of his own tapestry, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"Can't the two of you keep it down? You shouldn't be yelling on your birthdays," he said tiredly.

George snorted and opened his mouth to say he didn't know what the problem was when the bathroom door opened and a cloud of steam came out. His twin stepped out, having clearly showered after his run with Nessa, with a towel wrapped around his waist, hands on his hips. It took George a moment before what he was looking at caught up with him.

George gaped at him in surprise for a second and then Lee was howling with laughter so intense that he fell off his bed and started rolling around on the floor.

Fred's hair was purple. A very intense shade of violet, actually.

"What did you do?" said George, working very hard to keep from laughing himself.

Fred was tapping his foot in impatience, hands still on his hips, but his eyes were twinkling. Lee was still howling with laughter, gasping something about how this was the best day of his life.

"What did I do?" Fred said with a raised eyebrow. "What did you do, Georgie?"

George looked at him blankly for a moment before realization hit him.

"I didn't do that! Honest!" he said, laughing and holding his hands up in placation. "We have a truce."

"Don't joke with me, George," Fred said, pointing a finger at him. George snorted. "I'm going to get you back for this."

"I swear to you, it wasn't me!" said George indignantly. Fred made a sarcastic agreeing noise and George smirked at him as he moved to his bed to get dressed. "You don't believe your own twin?"

"I'd believe you a lot more if my hair wasn't this atrocious shade of violet," Fred deadpanned, pointing a finger at his head.

"I think you look very comely," George smirked.

Lee immediately disagreed.

"You look hideous, mate," Lee said, gasping for breath.

"You watch your back, too, Lee," was all Fred said in response.

-o0o-

Fred did not let up throughout the entirety of their trip to the Great Hall. He was not going to be convinced that George was innocent in this, no matter how much he insisted he had nothing to do with it. No one else would have dared to prank him, according to Fred. George conceded that this was true, but it still hadn't been him. Lee was "staying out of it," but kept feeding Fred nonsense about how he saw George messing around in the bathroom the night before after he'd gone to bed.

He'd stopped when George nearly tripped him down the stairs.

All heads turned when Fred entered the Great Hall and people started snickering immediately. Fred, who enjoyed attention in all forms, grinned widely and held his head high, walking confidently to their usual seats across from Nessa and Tori, who were deep in conversation and had not noticed their presence yet.

There was only half a second of bemusement before Tori was sent into peals of laughter at the sight of a violet-haired Fred.

"That's the most atrocious thing I've ever seen," she gasped between laughs, as Lee was sent into another round of his own hysterics at the sight of Tori's mirth. "I thought you two didn't prank each other anymore."

"We don't," said Fred cheerfully. "But apparently Georgie has decided to break the rules this year. He's a big cheater, just as I always knew."

George rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air.

"It wasn't me, you git," he said in exasperation. "I'd never do something so…so juvenile."

"What seems juvenile is that the two of you didn't think to check your shampoo bottles on a day like today."

George almost didn't think he'd heard correctly. Or maybe he just didn't quite understand who had said it. Because it absolutely could not have been Vanessa. Not a snowball's chance in hell.

But it had been.

She still hadn't looked at Fred, having pulled out whatever book she was in the process of reading, and casually eating her scrambled eggs with one hand. The tone she'd used was forcibly casual, and her expression was mostly blank, except for the smirk she had on her face. It was the smirk that really clued him into her words and he narrowed his eyes at her in the same moment that Fred gaped and pointed accusingly at her.

"It was you?" he exclaimed. "I've been blaming George for the last thirty minutes!"

"I told you it wasn't me!" George said, smacking him on the back of the head pointedly. "Did Tori put you up to this?"

Nessa snorted when Tori made an indignant noise.

"I didn't tell her to do it!" Tori said defensively. "I didn't even know she was doing it! Although, I do find it rather enjoyable. How long is it supposed to last?"

Nessa shrugged and flipped a page nonchalantly.

"No idea," she said. "You'd have to ask them. It's one of the products they've been working on. I took it out of George's trunk."

"I lock my trunk," George said in shock.

"Pity you taught me how to pick a lock last year then, isn't it?" she said, raising an eyebrow. "The two of you should really consider protecting your products better. Anyone could just waltz right in and take them."

Lee started laughing again, as Tori turned an impressed expression upon her best friend. Fred and George were too busy gaping at her to notice much.

"Pranking them with their own product," Tori said pridefully. "So diabolical, Vanessa. I have never been so proud of you in all my life."

"I might not have even done it if George hadn't called me a goody two shoes."

George snorted. He had called her that only a few weeks earlier, but when she'd said she would prank someone to prove him wrong, he'd assumed it would be someone else. Like an unsuspecting Slytherin or her brother or Ron. Truthfully, he'd doubted she'd actually do it altogether — she didn't mind getting detentions, but still was too afraid to get caught. It made very little sense to him, but he'd stopped questioning it.

"Pranking us with color changing shampoo hardly gets you out of being a goody two shoes," Fred said, echoing his own thoughts.

Nessa huffed and slammed her book shut.

"It does so!"

"It does not!" Fred said, mocking the high-pitch of her voice. She chucked her book at him. "For one thing, you picked something that you couldn't get in trouble for —"

"That was not a stipulation of the agreement!" she said indignantly. "George didn't say I had to get detention!"

George smirked at her.

"The risk of detention — for you or the victim — is part of the fun, love," he lectured. "You can prank us all day if you'd like, but you're still a goody two shoes unless you take some risks."

"You're changing the rules, George," she huffed at him.

He merely grinned at her and took a bite of his cereal. She huffed at him and chucked a paper bag at him.

"What's this?" he said in confusion, barely managing to catch it before it hit him in the chest.

"Your birthday present, you stupid prats," she huffed at them. "Although perhaps I should take it back and eat them myself. They're muggle candies. You said you wanted to experiment with them for your products, didn't you?"

George opened the bag eagerly and peered inside. They were perfectly square and had a mix of colors, all individually wrapped in brightly colored paper with a large 'S' across the front. He frowned at them and pulled out an orange one.

"They're a bit unimaginative, aren't they?" said Fred, grabbing a pink one and eyeing it in disappointment.

"They're Starbursts," said Nessa robotically. "Fruit chews. I assumed that nondescript was the look you were going for, is it not? Unless you're telling me you'd like for people to smell your pranks from a mile off."

George grinned at her still obvious frustration with them. Riling her up gave him a great deal of satisfaction. He liked the fire that banked in her eyes, and the flush that colored her cheeks.

"I don't think you're supposed to be snippy with the birthday boys, love," he said pointedly, unwrapping one of the candies and popping it into his mouth.

The flavor hit his tongue immediately and he made an impressed noise at the amount of flavor within the candy, despite its bland appearance. Fred took this as his cue to eat his own and made a pleased noise.

"Perhaps the Muggles are on to something," he said, reaching into the bag still in George's hand and pulling out a red candy.

-o0o-

Watching the twins eat the Starbursts she'd had stashed in her trunk was an exercise in self-restraint. Her anxiety was through the roof at this point, and she'd severely wondered if giving the candies to them so blatantly would have come across as suspicious.

They hadn't thought a single thing of it, for which she was grateful. Fred had always said she had an innocent look about her and neither of them seemed to believe she was capable of pranking them. She'd have found this irritating, except she was relying on this naivety to accomplish her goal, so she chose to allow the satisfaction of their later embarrassment be payback enough. She tried very hard to remain relaxed and hide her giddiness as they began eating the candy eagerly.

The shampoo she'd replaced wasn't really of her utmost interest, although she did have to admit that Fred looked horrible with such a vibrant hair color. She'd had to work hard not to laugh at him when they'd come down for breakfast.

The prank did, however, further take their attention away from the candies she'd spent the last few weeks charming to use as a prank. A way to convince them she'd taken a shot at pranking them, and had been too tame in her attempt. She'd hoped it would further lower their guard to keep them from being too suspicious to eat the candies. Acting as though their dismissal of her prank had also been a cause of anxiety for her — George could read her as well as Tori could, and she'd been concerned that he'd pick up on some clue that she was merely acting. Masking the relief that he hadn't had been nearly impossible.

Their naivety would likely have been enough, but she was a planner by nature and her anxiety did not like going into any situation without a plan for every potential pitfall. So, she might have gone a little overboard, but it had clearly worked to her benefit, regardless.

She'd debated waiting a little longer to use the candies, as she wasn't entirely sure if they'd have worked the way she wanted them to, although they'd worked when she'd eaten them. She'd never eaten as many at once as they were, however, and she had no idea how long the effects would last if they kept eating them. A part of her worried that there could be negative effects to eating too many, but she continued to play it casual — she'd worry about that if the time came. But also, she hadn't been entirely certain what to get them for their birthday this year, and a prank had seemed like a fine substitution, considering who she was talking about.

Especially after George had made comments about her usually straight-laced attitude. She didn't know why it bothered her that he thought so — she wasn't prone to breaking the rules, so it wasn't entirely incorrect — but the idea that he thought her a prude rubbed her the wrong way.

So here she was. Feeding the Weasley twins — the most notorious rule-breakers Hogwarts had ever seen — charmed candies and holding her breath that all went according to plan.

"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Weasley," Professor McGonagall said, bustling over to them and looking down at them disapprovingly. "I need hardly remind the two of you that I expect the both of you to attend your classes today. If I get one whiff of trouble from the two of you —"

"Aside from being sexy, what do you do for a living?"

There was a horrified sort of silence that passed over each of them as George's voice interrupted McGonagall's clearly rehearsed speech. Nessa had never quite seen McGonagall go so still — she'd never even seen McGonagall speechless and she certainly looked to be at the moment. And she was not the only one.

Lee and Tori had gone wide-eyed, looking between him and their Head of House in terrified silence. George looked horrified himself and Fred was staring at him as if he'd never seen him before.

"I beg your pardon?" McGonagall said, sounding choked.

"Do you want to go to the Shrieking Shack? We could do some shrieking of our own."

Nessa covered her mouth with her hand when Fred spoke. The shock was not faked. She'd known how the candies worked, but having them be used on McGonagall was a horror she'd never experienced. She wasn't sure if she should run away or laugh. Not made better by how red Fred's face became as he realized what he'd said.

"Have the two of you gone mad?" Tori hissed at them fiercely.

"Professor, I seriously did not mean to say that to you —"

George interrupted him before Fred could finish stuttering out his apology.

"I bet I can make you scream louder than a Mandrake."

Nessa made a horrified squeaking noise in the back of her throat and averted her eyes. Lee shot forward to use his goblet of pumpkin juice to cover his laughter at George slapping both hands over his mouth in horror. McGonagall looked for all the world like she might explode any second, her face turning a shade of fuschia that rivaled even her Uncle Vernon.

"I have never," she began in an angry hiss. "Never in my entire time teaching at Hogwarts have I been so appalled by a student's behavior. I don't know what joke you're playing —"

"Professor, I swear we didn't plan —"

"What is a nice girl like you doing in a dirty mind like mine?"

Lee choked and Nessa tried very hard to stop herself from laughing at how horribly awkward the entire experience was.

"Ohhhh, I can't not look at it," said Tori in wide-eyed horror, a hand on either side of her head as if it would stop her from hearing or seeing what was happening directly in front of her.

"Mr. Weasley —"

"I'm not feeling myself today. Can I feel you instead?"

McGonagall's lips had gone so thin that they disappeared completely and she pointed a shaking finger at the door to the Great Hall.

"Both of you in my office, now."

There was a horrified silence among the three of them for several minutes after they'd disappeared with McGonagall, presumably about to receive a large number of detentions and a horribly awkward letter written to their mother.

Truthfully, the prank had worked a little too well.

"Remind me," Lee said slowly, the horrified shock still coating every word he spoke. "To never call you a goody two shoes."

-o0o-

He and Fred had not managed to pull off a single prank that they'd had planned.

They'd, instead, been forced to avoid every person they came into contact with. Flirting with McGonagall at breakfast had not been the end of it. They'd landed themselves a month's worth of detentions each for their "unexcusable, vulgar behavior," and it had been a horrifying thirty minute lecture from their Head of House because they'd had to cover each other's mouths to prevent them from throwing out some more horribly inappropriate pickup lines.

They'd run into Snape in their haste to leave her office and the absolute horror with which he'd felt at the words that had come out of his mouth at the sight of their greasy-haired Professor — "Did you take Felix Felicis? Because you're making all the right moves." — had been quite possibly the reason he was going to drop out of school. He'd been entirely certain that Snape was going to strangle him, but Fred had had the good sense to grab the back of his robes and pull him in the opposite direction.

Keeping their distance from people did not help either. They'd been careful to remain yards away from anyone passing by, dodging into hidden alcoves and broom closets when someone got too close, but the spell had no qualms about making things worse for them. George had not known whether he should laugh or scream when Fred had yelled across the corridor at some passing Hufflepuffs.

"YOU'RE SO BEAUTIFUL MY ZIPPER IS FALLING FOR YOU!"

Words that had earned him a slap across the face and sent a number of other passing students tittering in amusement. They couldn't even speak to each other without saying something horribly embarrassing and George was entirely certain, prank or no, that he was ever going to be able to look at his twin the same way again.

Their only option to prevent further chaos had been to hide themselves away in their dormitory and wait for the spell to wear off. They had no idea how long it would take, however — they'd eaten a lot of those stupid candies Nessa had given them, which, clearly, was an indication that he was an idiot. He never should have underestimated her. He'd seen her prove to numerous students before that she was a force to be reckoned with. He'd known that himself, for Merlin's sake.

It was part of the reason he liked riling her — there was something exhilarating in the knowledge that she could lay him flat in a matter of seconds. Something alluring about it, truthfully — yet another indication that there had to be something wrong with him.

By the time the odd tingling sensation in his throat had faded — which he assumed was a sign that the spell was wearing off — it was near dinner time. Cautiously, he peered out between the curtains of his foreposter to look at his brother, who was sitting up slowly himself.

"Thank Merlin," Fred sighed in relief when the sight of his twin did not send him into another round of pickup lines. They'd gotten worse and worse as the charm had progressed. "We're not calling her a goody two shoes ever again, I'll tell you that much."

George was inclined to agree.

Figuring out what had happened had not taken them long. The only thing they'd done before hitting on McGonagall — McGonagall, George thought in horrified silence — was eat the candies Nessa had given them. How she had done it, he was unsure, but the amount of effort she'd put into lowering their guard had been admirable. He'd not even thought twice before eating them — and they'd tasted phenomenal, so he'd nearly gorged himself on them.

When they'd looked at each other for several minutes and nothing happened, they decided it was likely safe to exit their dormitory. The common room was full — and snickering erupted at the sight of them — but they found Tori, Nessa, and Lee immediately.

"Well, look who it is," Tori said with a sly grin.

"Hey, did you ever make it to the Shrieking Shack?" Lee asked in mock interest.

Nessa, who had been in the middle of hiding her grin behind her water bottle, choked mid-sip. George flung himself into the seat next to her with a grin, shoving her playfully as he did.

"No, but we did get a month's worth of detentions," said Fred, grinning at Vanessa in amusement. "You have to explain to our mother what happened, you know."

Nessa smirked at him.

"I'll do no such thing," she said primly. "The two of you should really learn to be more appropriate in public."

"We should have gotten a picture of how terrified they looked," Lee said thoughtfully. "We could have framed it."

"Am I still a goody two shoes now, boys?"

"Absolutely not," they grinned at her.

George had no idea what hit him in that moment when she grinned brightly back at them.

He'd seen that smile a hundred times before now, but looking at her in that moment — so openly happy, so proud of herself, with that mischievous twinkle in her eye — his stomach lurched. She was just so…intriguing. Multi-faceted.

Looking at her now, he wondered how he'd never noticed it before. The reason he loved being near her so much. The reason it bothered him so much when she was upset. The reason he'd not minded knowing that she fancied him. Looking at her now, every time he'd ever felt that lurch came back to him. Every time the sight of her had made his chest warm or taken his breath away.

Her singing his sister to sleep to help with her nightmares…the way she chewed on her lip when she was writing essays…the fire that had erupted in her eyes when she'd been yelling at them for not keeping that Bludger away from Harry…how breathlessly she'd laughed when they'd been making a run from Mrs. Norris after pranking the Slytherins the year prior…the sweet innocence in her voice when she'd tried to scare him and Fred over break…

How had he not noticed it before? Denial? Simple idiocy?

Looking at her now, laughing at some stupid joke his twin was making at their expense, he wondered why he'd bothered lying to himself for so long.

He was so bloody fond of her — her laugh made him grin, her smile soothed something in him, her gaze made him feel naked. Looking at her now, the beauty of her took his entire breath away.

"George, are you okay?"

Her voice was soft, concerned.

"Yeah, love," he said slowly, smiling fondly at her. "Yeah, I think I am."

When she smiled shyly back at him, he didn't bother to hide his grin as he tilted his head back onto the couch to look at the ceiling, the truth of what was hitting him sinking into him like warm honey.

He fancied Vanessa Potter.

-o0o-

The Easter holidays approached faster than ever before. It was not even close to being relaxing. They'd never had so much homework — she'd thought the previous year had been bad, but she was severely wondering if the teachers had some sort of bet to see how much homework they could assign all at once. Neville Longbottom seemed close to a nervous collapse, and he wasn't the only one. Nessa had been working on not ripping her hair out while working on a particularly difficult Transfiguration essay on Color Change Charms and the differences between this and Metamorphosis when Seamus Finnigan had begun yelling in the common room.

"Call this a holiday!" he roared at them all one afternoon. "The exams are ages away, what're they playing at?"

Fred and George, who were not at all concerned about completing homework, had sniggered at this and went back to their product development. But the rest of them could not help but agree. Tori had screamed into a pillow one evening until anyone nearest them had raced out of the common room and Fred had eyed her with a mixture of concern and terror; Cormac McLaggen had begun practicing spells when he was half-asleep — and had nearly set a first-year on fire by mistake; and Patricia Stimpson, a fifth-year girl who was trying to study for O.W.L.s on top of all of her homework, kept coming over faint.

Even still, no one had as much to do as Hermione. Even without Divination, she was taking more subjects than anyone else. She was usually last to leave the common room at night, and she was one of the first people Nessa saw every morning in the library; she had shadows like Lupin's — and Nessa's own about a month ago — and seemed close to tears. If Nessa had not had so much to do herself, she might have attempted to convince her to drop another subject again. Ron had had to take over working on Buckbeak's appeal himself, since Hermione was so bogged down with work, and Harry, who had Quidditch practices on top of his own homework, was already being spread too thin.

Oliver Wood had become crazed as the Quidditch final approached. He was irritating the entire team — Tori had flung hexes at him one morning when he had come over (for the tenth time) and reminded her that she needed to score as many points as possible before Harry could catch the Snitch — but he seemed to spend the majority of his time hounding Harry. Day and night, at mealtimes, Nessa had even seen him follow Harry into the loo once, gesticulating wildly as he spoke to him. The match was set to take place on the first Saturday after the Easter holidays, and Slytherin was leading the tournament by exactly two hundred points. This meant (as Wood's constant reminders to his team conveyed) that they needed to win the match by more than that amount to win the Cup.

This, unfortunately, meant that the burden of winning the match fell largely on Harry, because capturing the Snitch was worth one hundred and fifty points. A fact which Oliver seemed to find very important and, unfortunately, left Harry as the team member who was taking the brunt of Wood's tactics discussions. Harry had yelled at him in frustration once in the Great Hall when he'd come to remind him for the thousandth time that he needed to make sure to catch the Snitch only if Gryffindor was at least sixty points up. Tori, who had seen him coming and started pounding her head repeatedly on the table, had been so relieved by Harry's outburst that she'd flung her arms around him in a hug and started sobbing in relief. Nessa had never laughed so hard in her life at the look of panic on her brother's face.

The whole of Gryffindor House was obsessed with the coming match. Slytherin was being particularly vicious and spiteful in the halls, which only further enraged the Gryffindors and made their desire for victory skyrocket. By the time the holidays were over, the atmosphere leading up to the match was so highly charged that it reached a breaking point. A number of scuffles broke out in the corridors, which culminated in a Gryffindor fourth year and a Slytherin sixth year ending up in the hospital wing with leeks sprouting out of their ears.

Nessa and Tori had gotten in a particularly vicious scuffle themselves when they'd seen numerous Slytherins trying to trip Harry up in the corridors, and Crabbe and Goyle had tried to sneak up on him and hex him from behind. This had been Vanessa's breaking point, despite her attempts to remain rational, and she had — stupidly, considering how much bigger they were than her — flung herself at them in a rage, screaming and hitting them in any available space she could find. She had not realized that the sight had enraged Tori as well, so much so that she'd started whaling at Crabbe, who had frozen in shock when Vanessa's rage had erupted. It had taken Fred, George, Lee, Harry, and Ron to pull her and Tori off of them — not for lack of strength, but because they'd latched onto Crabbe and Goyle's hair as they'd been trying to pull them apart — and both she and Tori had received a week's worth of detentions with McGonagall.

Wood had since given instructions that Harry should be accompanied everywhere, in case the Slytherins made attempts to put him out of action. The whole of Gryffindor House took up the challenge enthusiastically and Harry could not be seen without being surrounded by a large group of people.

Nessa's frustration did not begin to dissipate as the middle of the week approached, and she took to the library three hours earlier than she was set to meet Cedric for tutoring in the hopes that the silence would help cool her rage. By the time Cedric arrived that evening, she had already come to the realization that this attempt was futile and had been stabbing viciously at the essay she was working on, so much so that when he sat down she'd stabbed a hole through the parchment with her quill when she'd been trying to write a period.

She swore viciously and Cedric raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"So we're coping with the upcoming match very well, I see," he said sarcastically.

She glared at him and began to roll up the essay she'd been working on, so viciously that it ripped slightly. She let out an enraged growl and chucked it across the table. Cedric grabbed it and fixed it with a muttered "Reparo!", placing the paper gently in her bag to avoid any further injury to the parchment.

"I am sick," Vanessa said vehemently. "Of Slytherin. Flint tried to lock me and Tori in a broom cupboard this morning, did you know that?"

Cedric raised his eyebrows again, pulling out his Potions textbook as he did so.

"I didn't," he said conversationally. "Although I assume the two of you made it immediately clear that targeting the two of you was the biggest mistake he's ever made."

Nessa snorted.

"Tori hexed him and I kneed him in the bollocks," she admitted unashamedly. Cedric grimaced in what she assumed was an understanding of the pain Flint had felt. "I've never seen someone go down so fast. It was pathetic — he didn't even try to bring help with him. Just assumed he could take us both himself."

Cedric hid his grin behind his hand.

"And you find that offensive?"

"Well, of course I do!" she said indignantly. "What did he do? See how small I am and assume I wouldn't be able to put up a fight? It's insulting!"

"Well, I can assure you it's not a mistake he's likely to make again, butterfly," he said placatingly. "Personally, I'm surprised he was stupid enough to try it in the first place after your attack on Goyle."

The entire school had given her a wide berth since then, aside from the twins and Tori, and had been very careful about making the wrong move when she was within distance of Harry. Cedric had heard about the incident in Herbology, when he'd overheard the twins and Lee telling Angelina Johnson what had happened in painstaking detail. He'd thought it was a joke they were playing until he saw the black eye Goyle had been sporting and the scratches on his face. She'd thought Cedric was going to die of shock, although the rest of her friends hadn't thought it all that surprising. According to Lee, it was only a matter of time before she hauled off and tried to whoop the crazy out of anyone stupid enough to touch Harry in front of her.

She chose to take that as a compliment.

"I hope he falls off his broom," she said petulantly.

He chuckled.

"If he does, I'll cheer along with you," he said honestly. "Are you going to be okay enough to get through the next hour or should I start saving money for bail for when you murder Flint in his sleep?"

She gave him an exasperated look, which he laughed at and chucked her under the chin affectionately, before pulling his notes toward herself. They were working on Befuddlement Draughts, which she was fairly familiar with because it was similar to a Confusing Concoction, which was taught in their third year and caused confusion in the drinker. She reviewed his notes, pointing out things that she felt were either errors or could use more clarification. Befuddlement Draughts weren't particularly more difficult than a Confusing Concoction, but they made the drinker belligerent and reckless. It was for this reason that the Ministry did not allow them to learn the potion until later in their careers. Not that she particularly understood under what circumstances she would need to make someone belligerent and reckless, but that was a consideration for another time.

She went over the differences between a Confusing Concoction, which simply caused confusion in the drinker, and a Befuddlement Draught next. The ingredients were similar, but the addition of frog brains is what changed the overall effects on a person. Frog brains were a particularly volatile ingredient to use in Potions brewing and had a more violent effect when added to Potions. They were also used in the Essence of Insanity and Baruffio's Brain Elixir, which was supposed to increase a person's brain power, but was simply a fraud that caused issues for Saint Mungo's given its volatility when brewing and the fact that it didn't actually work. She warned Cedric that adding too many frog brains would be catastrophic and likely wouldn't win him any points with Snape, so he should make sure to weigh the quantity and get it exactly correct or he'd likely end up with something Snape would threaten to feed to him at lunch time.

"Have Devon test all my food and drink before I eat it, got it," he said, scribbling notes on the side of his parchment.

Nessa snorted.

She had not forgiven Devon for believing she'd had anything to do with the Chamber of Secrets the year prior, something with which amused Cedric a great deal. He often made jokes at the man's expense in order to get a laugh out of her, and had grinned at the two of them when Devon had joined them for one session, in which Nessa had ignored him completely and spoken directly to Cedric only. She'd felt a little bad — Devon was Cedric's best friend — but he'd waved away the concern, stating that Devon could use a hit to his ego. She'd had no argument for that, considering how ignorant he'd been the year prior.

"Do you need me to look at your Transfiguration essay?" he said, rolling up his notes and stuffing them back in his bag.

"No, George looked it over last night," she said dismissively, running a hand through her hair and taking a deep breath — the discussion about Potions had at least calmed her nerves a little. When Cedric said nothing, she looked up at him and froze at the weighted look he was giving her. "What?"

He didn't answer for a moment. The look of dread and disapproval on his face was making her irritation rear its head again, and she was about to snap at him when he spoke again.

"The two of you seem to be getting along well again," he said elusively.

The tone was forcibly casual, but she could tell based on the expression on his face that he was working hard not to convey how little he liked this fact. A part of her was offended on George's behalf because there was nothing wrong with George at all, and she didn't quite understand what he could possibly have to look so disapproving about. Another part felt a little bad because she could also see disappointment in his gaze that he was carefully trying to hide.

She knew he hadn't given up in his pursuit of her — not really. He might not have made any overt moves toward her again, but the majority of his behavior toward her had not changed. The flirting was about the same, although she tried to maintain as much of a friendly distance from it as possible without upsetting him. And she caught him looking at her at dinner most nights, an action which she'd started glaring at him warningly for and he'd merely grinned and winked at her every time before going back to whatever conversation he was having with his friends. When she'd brought it up to Tori one night, she'd shrugged and said that men enjoyed the chase — "everyone wants something they can't have."

She'd not found that to be at all comforting.

"I suppose so," she said cautiously, trying to weigh which of the two emotions would win out in this conversation. "He's been in a better mood since he broke things off with Alicia."

A half-truth. They'd been getting along well even before then, although not having Alicia around certainly made both of them less tense when they were near each other. And he'd certainly been more like himself since. It had only been a month since their break up, but it was almost as though he'd not had a girlfriend at all. She'd asked him if he was sad at all that things had ended, and he'd merely shrugged and said he wasn't, although he looked a little bad for having admitted it. Not that he should have because Alicia had already moved on with some sixth-year Ravenclaw, for which George had merely said he hoped she was happier with him than they'd been.

She'd never seen anyone take a breakup so well before, and she was entirely certain it was not a charade either. She'd gotten very good at reading his moods in the last year and he truly seemed…content. He had either been far more miserable in the relationship than he'd ever truly let on or he was quite possibly the happiest person in the world. She suspected it was a mixture of both.

"Yeah, looks that way," he said.

She bristled at the tone he used.

"If you have something you'd like to say, Cedric, I'd suggest you just say it," she snapped.

He gave her a hard look and leaned back into his chair, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Is he finally giving you the light of day? Or are you two just friends?"

"First of all, don't talk about him like that," she said angrily, bristling immediately at the implication — that he'd intentionally string her along like that or that she was too naive to tell if he was, she wasn't entirely sure which one angered her more. "And not that it's any of your business, but we're just friends. He hasn't made any move to change that."

Although, now that she was saying it, she did concede that he had been acting oddly since his birthday. She'd thought that maybe he'd been more offended by her prank than he'd originally let on, but that made about as little sense as Harry keeping himself out of trouble. Not to mention that the twins had asked her to explain in great detail how she'd managed to charm the candies she'd given them and asked if they could use them for their shop — they'd give her part of the sales since she'd come up with them, they'd said. She'd told them they could and she didn't want any of the proceeds, although based on their expressions, they had no intention of listening to that.

She'd caught George staring at her on several occasions, sometimes when she was just working on essays, sometimes when she was laughing with Tori about some stupid joke she'd made. When she'd asked him why he kept staring at her —- she had been starting to believe that she had something on her face or, worse, that he and Fred had pulled some prank on her she hadn't yet noticed — he'd just grinned at her charmingly, said it was nothing, and went back to whatever work he and Fred were doing, smiling to himself all the while. Fred had rolled his eyes every time the exchange occurred, although he was grinning each time.

This morning he'd told her she looked nice — which was odd in itself, but odd also because she was wearing her uniform, so it wasn't like she'd put in much effort into her appearance. Tori and Fred had grinned at each other when she'd started stuttering her thanks and gave him an odd look. He'd also been more touchy with her lately. He'd always been that way, so she tried to tell herself she was merely reading into things, but he seemed to make every attempt to do so these days. She'd have asked him what his deal was, but he just kept grinning stupidly at her.

"I just don't want you to get hurt, is all," Cedric said gently.

She rolled her eyes. The words were so similar to the ones George had said to her when he'd been talking about her friendship with Cedric. She'd half a mind to tell the both of them that she could take them both in a heartbeat, just because they behaved as if she were incompetent in looking out for herself.

"Don't presume to know anything about what happened between us," she snapped in irritation. "You hardly know him at all, and I don't need to defend him to you. So whatever jealousy bullshit this is, I'm not interested."

"Nessa —"

She shook her head, laughing derisively again, and stormed off in the direction of the exit. She barely made it ten feet before a strong hand was pulling her back. She whirled and opened her mouth angrily to snap at him again, or maybe yell in frustration.

Before she even had the chance to say anything, his lips were crashing against hers.

She stumbled backward in surprise and was forced to catch herself on the stack behind her. Cedric went with her, one of his hands, slowing their momentum by reaching out a hand to catch himself on the books behind her, somehow managing to keep his mouth locked on hers. She gasped in surprise and it was swallowed in their kiss.

The last time he'd kissed her, it had been gentle, slow. Like he'd been afraid to scare her off or hurt her. There was an intensity, a desperation, in this one, however, as if he were trying to convince her with a kiss alone that she shouldn't spend her time thinking about George Weasley. She reached up to grab his robes and push him away from her, except she — well, she didn't do that at all, for a purely selfish reason. Instead, she pulled him toward her and let him deepen the kiss.

Maybe she had entirely lost her mind at this point because she still had no intention of starting things up with Cedric — and she still had very confusing feelings about George — but she was already pissed off and the intensity of the kiss was somehow cathartic. She made a mental note not to admit this to Tori, who had always claimed that snogging had helped her release pent up frustration, because she'd always told her that that made no sense. The fact that Tori was turning out to be correct on so many occasions had to mean that hell was freezing over. Or, at the very least, that Vanessa was becoming as far from what was considered to be healthy coping mechanisms as her own best friend. And wasn't that an alarming thought.

She had not even a guess as to how long they stood like that, against a bookshelf, kissing each other as if they were going to die in the very next moment, but when Cedric made a noise in the back of his throat, whatever rational thought she had came barreling back. Cathartic for her, maybe, but it certainly meant more than that to him, and the noise was enough for her to remember that fact.

She pushed away with a gasp and then they were staring at each other in surprise, faces flushed and panting for breath. It took her a moment before the horror of what she'd just done set in and she took a stumbling step in the direction of the exit again, although they were still so far within the library that she'd have to turn tail and run if she wanted to avoid him before he could speak.

"I should not have done that," she whispered, wide-eyed and frantic. It was more for herself than him, but the words made disappointment flash across his face briefly. "Oh, God, I really should not have done that."

"Nessa, I —"

"Don't," she said frantically, putting out a hand to ward him off when he took a step toward her. "I — God, that was — I shouldn't have — I'm sorry."

Cedric ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

"Are you going to tell me now that you didn't want to do that?"

She shook her head slowly, as if waiting for every single one of her frantic thoughts to come into focus again.

"No, I — I mean, obviously I wanted to or I wouldn't have —"

"Then what's the problem?"

She flung her arms into the air with a frustrated sound.

"Nothing has changed, Cedric!" she exclaimed. "I still have feelings for George, and you want more from me than I want from you. That kiss was — was fun for me, but it — it meant something different to you," she pointed a finger at him when he opened his mouth to respond. "And don't you dare say that it didn't because it did."

He looked at her for a long moment, still panting, and clearly frustrated by the situation as much as she was. Christ, the fact that George had been right made her want to throttle him just for the fun of it. She'd just assumed that Cedric would let whatever attraction he had for her go if she ended up having some — well, she couldn't call it a relationship, really, but some attachment to George. Clearly, that had been a fool's gamble.

People had always made jokes that she and Tori were dating because of how close they were. A ridiculous joke, but at the current moment, she was thinking if she'd chosen to go that route, her life would have been so much easier than pining after one man and holding another one at bay. Her life was becoming one of those stupid soap operas her aunt watched on the telly.

"You know, I'm the only one who stands to get hurt in this, Vanessa," he said seriously. "And at the moment, I'm okay with that."

She couldn't decide if that was romantic or depressing. And she wasn't going to bother explaining that hurting him would absolutely end up hurting her in the end too. He was — he was too nice to do that to. Breaking him would kill her. It was killing her now and she was seriously considering asking Tori for every ounce of chocolate she had, her distaste for it be damned.

"You might be okay with getting hurt," she said quietly. "But I'm not okay with being the one who hurts you. You deserve someone who wants what you want, and I'm not — that person just isn't me."

He didn't say anything this time. Just grabbed his bag and left without a word.

-o0o-

She burst into the common room, frantically searching for Tori, and finding her sitting with the twins in the back corner of the room. Fred and George were bent over some piece of parchment in front of them and Tori was balancing on the back two legs of her chair, reading her text for Muggle Studies.

She rushed over, panting from the haste with which she'd made in coming up from the library. She'd stood there for a long moment after Cedric had left, trying not to cry over how severely she'd messed things up, before she'd taken off at a sprint to Gryffindor Tower.

"Hello, munchkin," said Fred with a grin.

"Evening, beautiful," George said at the same time with a similar grin.

She ignored them completely, shooting George a confused look briefly, and looked directly at Tori, who was clearly trying to finish her Muggle Studies homework and could care less that Nessa had shown up.

"I need to talk to you," she panted. "Alone."

Fred and George raised their eyebrows in interest, but she pretended not to notice. Tori may have been pretending she hadn't noticed that she'd joined their table, but she was clearly listening, because she responded without looking away from her book.

"Can it wait?" she said with a hint of desperation in her voice. "Because I have to read this by Monday and Wood is going to run us into the ground until Saturday and I've still got three hundred pages left."

Nessa rolled her eyes and walked over to her, throwing a cautious look in Fred and George's direction, before leaning down and covering Tori's ear so she could whisper into it. Tori's chair legs hit the ground with a loud THUD and she slammed her book shut immediately, jumping up in shock.

"WHAT?" she said loudly. "But I thought that you —-"

"Audience, Victoria!" she said, waving her hands desperately.

Tori paused with her mouth open and her eyes wide, looking over at Fred and George, who were looking between them in bemusement.

"Right," she said breathlessly. "Right, no, I reckon they wouldn't like that at all, would they? We'll be right back, gentlemen."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Fred sharply when they made to turn and race toward the girls' dormitories.

"What can't you talk about in front of me and Fred?" said George in confusion.

She met Tori's eye briefly.

"It's, uh," said Tori, searching randomly for something to say that would keep them from following. "It's about our periods."

"Oh, Jesus," said Nessa in exasperation, looking up at the ceiling for patience, as Fred and George stared at them both for a long moment. They looked at each other and then turned back to them simultaneously.

"You know, I reckon the four of us have gotten too comfortable with each other," said Fred finally.

"Noted," said Tori in annoyance at being delayed. "Now, if you'll excuse us…"

Tori grabbed her hand and raced for their dorm, dragging her along behind her. When they'd reached it, she slammed the door shut and whirled around to look at her, leaning back against it as if she needed it to keep her standing from the shock of it all.

"Our periods?" said Nessa sardonically.

"That's all I could think of," said Tori, waving a hand dismissively. "He kissed you? I thought you told him you were just going to be friends."

Nessa huffed and flopped sideways onto her bed, covering her eyes with her arm.

"I did," she said in frustration. "You were the one that said he hadn't taken the hint —"

"And Ginny, and Fred, and George —"

"Okay, thank you, that's very helpful," said Nessa bitingly. "Clearly, you all were right. He got all jealous about George and then I went to leave and he just — just shoved me against the bookcase —"

"That's hot," said Tori, sounding impressed.

Nessa lifted her head enough to glare at her friend across the room.

"Can you take this seriously, Victoria?"

Tori grinned at her and rolled her eyes.

"I always take snogging seriously, Vanessa," she said, before coming to sit next to her on the bed, and pulling her up into a sitting position. "I assume by your frantic demeanor that you told him you weren't interested again."

"Yes, but —" she grimaced guiltily at her best friend. "Not before I snogged him for five minutes first."

Tori gaped at her for a long moment.

"Well, I'll be damned," she said, sounding impressed. "I didn't think you had it in you. Snogging for fun…perhaps I've been a bad influence on you."

"I'm sick of you," Nessa deadpanned and Tori snorted. "What am I supposed to do now, Tori?"

Tori rolled her eyes and pulled her up again, because she had dramatically flopped back onto the bed.

"Will you relax? Snogging is supposed to reduce stress, you know," she said. "Clearly, Diggory could use some practice." Nessa glared at her and refrained from saying that he didn't because there had been several minutes with which all of her stress had been forgotten, but she still did not want to give Tori the satisfaction of being right. "You already told him what you wanted to do, didn't you? I don't think you can really be clearer at this point."

Nessa sighed heavily and chewed her lip, staring across the room thoughtfully.

"Yes, but — well, I keep saying that because I fancy George, but if there's not really anything going on between us, is there?" she said, voicing her doubts aloud. "And Cedric is interested in me."

Tori stared at her for a long moment and sighed, crossing her legs. Nessa knew, by that gesture alone, that whatever Tori was going to say next was going to be true advice, rather than another joke.

"I don't think it has anything to do with George," she said. "I think you want it to be something to do with George because it makes you feel better about yourself."

"What does that mean?" said Nessa indignantly.

"Nessa, do you even fancy Diggory?" Tori asked pointedly. "I mean, like beyond thinking he's attractive. Because any woman with eyes can see he's attractive. And any woman with eyes would snog him if given the opportunity. Just because you like snogging him doesn't mean you fancy him."

"Well, how do you tell the difference?" she said in irritation.

The whole thing was just too complicated anymore.

"I don't know, do I?" she said with an eye roll. "I've never fancied anyone before, now have I? Just — just think about how you feel about George and then compare that to how you feel about Cedric."

Nessa huffed, but did as she was told. She did like Cedric. She did think he was attractive, friendly, and sweet. She liked his attention and enjoyed speaking with him or spending time with him. He was honest and safe.

Safe.

George was anything but safe. He was volatile, explosive, obnoxious. He was like playing with fire or going bungee jumping — exciting and daunting and heart-pounding. Everything about him was…intense, all-consuming — even the way she felt about him. The butterflies weren't subtle — they were so intense that they made a squeal bubble up in her throat. Her blush around him wasn't faint, but made her turn as bright as a tomato. When he made her laugh, it was loud and obnoxious, not just a giggle. When he upset her, it felt like being punched in the stomach. When she hurt him, it felt like her heart was cracking to pieces. When he looked at her, it made her feel like she was the only person in the room.

It never felt like that with Cedric. With Cedric it was easy. It was light. But not necessarily in a better way. More like she felt light because their relationship was light. He wasn't aware of the full extent of her anxiety or her overwhelming concern for her brother. She didn't talk to him about what scared her or how her aunt and uncle treated her or her fights with any of her friends. Most of the negative things he knew about her life were things he'd picked up from her tone or posture, not from anything she'd told him deliberately. What Cedric saw of her was only a small part — the lighter, happier part. He didn't see any of the dark or ugly things and she didn't go out of her way to tell him any of them.

She could, too. She trusted him. She didn't think he would say anything to anyone or that it would change his opinion of her, but would it change how he felt when he knew how complicated her life was? Maybe not, but his current feelings for her weren't…they didn't account for any of the ugliness of her life. And she didn't want to know if telling him would change anything between them — didn't want to test the theory because he was one of the only things in her life that wasn't marred by complications. He was her break from reality. He was safe. No strings attached, no overthinking, smack dab within her comfort zone.

Most people might have thought that was a good thing, but…she didn't think so. Safe was…unrealistic, uncomplicated.

George stayed no matter how ugly her life got. He stayed no matter how intense her panic attacks or how much she threatened to hex him — or break his twin's arm. He stayed even when it would be easier to leave. He pushed her outside of her comfort zone and didn't shy away from hard conversations about her anxieties. Despite the fact that he was fun-loving and a rule-breaker, he never tried to demean her when she was yelling at her brother for breaking them — never tried to tell her she was overreacting or undermine her by congratulating Harry on another rule broken.

George was not safe. George was complicated. George was volatile. And a part of that scared her, at the same time that it excited her.

George was the light in the middle of her ugly and dark.

"Well?" said Tori impatiently.

"I — no, I don't think I fancy Cedric," Nessa said finally.

Tori made a gesture with her hand that said 'well, there you go then.'

"Exactly," she said haughtily. "You don't want to tell Diggory that you don't think about him like that, so you tell him that you have feelings for someone else —"

"Well, I do."

"Well, of course, but it's the principle. You might enjoy spending time with him and how uncomplicated he is, but it's just going to end up hurting you both for you to pretend like you feel something more than you do. Even if George didn't exist, Diggory just — doesn't do it for you. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Yeah, maybe if I hadn't snogged him back like I might be interested," she said, suddenly frustrated at herself for her own stupidity.

Tori sighed sadly and shook her head in understanding.

"Maybe you could have handled it better, sure," she said, causing Nessa to snort derisively. "Okay, you definitely could have handled it better," she amended with a grin. "But you didn't do it to hurt him. And you did tell him that you were interested in George. It's not your fault that he ignored that. He's a big boy, you know. He'll get over it."

Nessa sighed heavily.

She knew he would. She just hoped that when he did, he didn't hate her enough to stop being her friend altogether.

-o0o-

SCREAMING, CRYING, THROWING UP.

Just everything in this chapter is making me squeal like a teenage girl. I am so unbelievably, stupidly, beyond excited.

Up next: Quidditch Cup