First meeting, did you say? The amount of thought this chapter required LOL.

Bookcozy: Thank you for reviewing! They make my day! Fred and Tori are such firecrackers on their own. I need them to get together already, it kills me. Even if I'm the one that's writing it LOL. Writing from both of their perspectives was certainly interesting…I debated heavily which person's POV I wanted to write, but the dynamic is so complex that it felt smarter to go for both.

Rating for this Chapter: K

Timing of this Chapter: Post-War, but Pre-Hogwarts (we'll put twins and Tori at about 3-4ish, so July 1983)

Chapter Two

That summer was horribly hot — so much so that it felt like something was sitting directly on the chest anytime someone stepped outdoors. The humidity was horrific and cooling charms were barely able to keep The Burrow at a reasonable temperature. It was exhausting to get anything done with the sun beating down upon them all, and they'd spent the majority of their day indoors. Which, for most families may have been fine, but Molly Weasley was one step away from madness.

Seven children had felt like nothing when they'd been trying so hard for a girl, but when they were all trapped inside, it was like a madhouse — the twins sneaking around trying to get into the cookie jar, Ginny wailing when Ron took her pacifier, despite knowing he was too old for one at this point, Percy getting into their closet to look for his father's wizard robes. Keeping them all occupied for longer than a moment was like corralling cattle, not made easier by Bill and Charlie's insistence that they were too old to play with the little ones. She'd not had a valid argument for why they should play with the twins and Percy anyway when Bill had asked what they were supposed to do when the twins ultimately made Percy turn purple with rage after throwing his toy wand into the chicken pen again.

She spent more time chasing after Fred and George than she did any of her other children, nevermind that they were older than her two youngest and should have been much easier by this point. They'd been a pain in her neck from the moment they'd been born — she and Arthur had found it endearing when they'd learned that they'd been having twins, and they'd been holding hands in the first scan the Healer had shown them. It became less endearing when Fred had absolutely refused to be born without his brother. Leaving the womb without the other had been an endeavor, and Fred had screamed bloody murder until George had been laid next to him several minutes later.

She should have known then they'd be a hassle. Being born on April 1st had seemed like no big thing, but the two of them had been laughing and causing havoc for the entirety of their short lives. She should have taken it as a sign. Arthur had said they'd probably grow out of it as they got older, but Molly had doubts. Gideon and Fabian had been the same way — two halves of the same whole, inseparable in every way, and mischievous as a gnome.

Arthur wasn't set to be home for several hours yet, so she had to remain as calm as possible in the situation, despite her current exhaustion. It would be a relief when Carla arrived with her daughter. She was around the same age as her twins and she hoped that, unlike everyone else who had been subjected to the likes of Fred and George Weasley, the little girl could keep them interested and distracted. And Carla was having such a hard time being a single mum — a very young one at that — and she'd been through a lot in the last few years.

They'd met at a Ministry function — some Christmas party for Arthur's department — and Carla had had to bring her daughter with her to the event because she had no one else in her life to watch her. It had tugged at Molly's heartstrings, and she'd invited her over for tea, advising she had twin boys around the same age. It had taken some convincing, but she'd clearly needed some form of human companionship, and had agreed by the end of the event.

Molly was practically begging for a break when there was a knock on the door. It took her several long moments to get to the door, dodging random toys, broomsticks, and racing children.

"Hello, dear," she said immediately with a smile.

Carla Hastings was a breathtaking woman, truly. Bleach blonde hair that was stick-straight, and fell all the way down to her waist, with an hourglass figure that Molly secretly envied. Her eyes were a very pretty, sea blue color, with the kind of thick eyelashes that most women would have prayed for. But there was a hint of sadness behind them that Molly had every intention of removing by the time her visit was over.

Her daughter, however, was her opposite in almost every way, except for the confidence she mustered even at her young age and the arrogant tilt of her chin. She was small, but unafraid as she met Molly's gaze with a wide, toothy smile. Long, curly black hair, heavy-lidded gray eyes, and full cheeks, she was quite possibly the cutest little girl Molly had ever laid eyes on. Other than her own daughter, of course, but that was likely biased.

She immediately wrapped Carla in a hug, an action she was unable to suppress. Carla's surprise at the warmth was quickly masked by her own awkward reciprocation.

"Hello, Victoria," Molly said with a smile, moving to crouch down to the younger girl's height. "You look very pretty today!"

Victoria grinned back at her, letting go of her mother's fingers to twirl so that her sparkly red dress was sent swirling around her.

"Fank you," she said happily. "I picked it myself!"

"It's very lovely," Molly said kindly.

"Mummy says that I can have fwends," Victoria said, her twirling stopping immediately as she looked at the older woman seriously. "Magic fwends."

The last was whispered to her as if it were a dirty secret, and Molly supposed it was, all things considered. Carla and Victoria lived in a Muggle neighborhood in London, and Carla had mentioned how difficult it was getting to explain her daughter's odd behavior to the neighbors or at the park, so they didn't have many outings with other children.

"Of course," she said, smiling gently at her. "Let me introduce you, yes?"

"Victoria, don't go barging into people's homes!" Carla scolded immediately when her daughter raced over the threshold as if she owned the place. "I'm sorry, Molly —"

"Oh, nonsense, dear," she waved dismissively. "Her manners are impeccable compared to my boys. Let me just get a pot of tea on, and I'll introduce you both."

She could hear loud giggling from the living room as she flicked her wand to get the kettle filled with water and heating over the stove. Victoria did not seem at all fazed by the noise of the home, and was looking around the kitchen curiously, poking at books or trinkets that she found along the way. Carla watched her daughter closely, but seemed almost as intrigued by the happenings around her as her daughter was.

"Right, come on then," Molly said, leading the way into the living room. "Some of the boys are upstairs, probably rough-housing, but this is Ron, and Ginny, and — oh, where did those twins get off to?"

Molly spun in a circle with her hands on her hips looking for her twin boys.

"BOO!"

Molly jumped a mile in the air when they appeared hastily around the corner, jumping out at her with their hands shaped into claws.

"Boys!" she said, putting a hand to her heart as her twin sons were sent into peals of giggles. Carla coughed behind her. "You scared me half to death!"

Victoria cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes comically at the boys in front of her. They were identical in every way, down to the last freckle, as far as she could tell. Each dressed in the same outfit, but with different colored shirts.

She poked them both in the cheeks and they both stopped laughing immediately to look down at her oddly.

"You look the same," she said shrewdly. "Is this magic?"

"Victoria," Carla said with a sigh. "They're twins."

"What's that?"

"Means we look the same," said the one closest to her.

Victoria narrowed her eyes at him and put her hands on her hips.

"That's what I said!" she said. "Is not magic?"

"Nope," said the other one, looking at her oddly. "Mummy says we can't do magic yet —"

"Not allowed, she says," the closer one finished with a scowl.

"No, you aren't," said Molly with a long suffering sigh — it was a debate she heard from her twin sons on too many occasions. They would be a hassle when they finally went to Hogwarts. "Not until you go to school. Now, boys, this is Victoria —"

"I is Tori," the younger girl said immediately, glaring at the two boys in front of her and still not entirely convinced that it wasn't magic. "No Bic-Toria."

"Your mummy just called you Victoria," the closest twin said to her as if she were unaware.

"Mummy doesn't listen," she said, giving him a serious look that made Molly chuckle.

"Right, well, this is Tori," she said to her twin sons. "Tori, this is Fred," — the closest boy in red — "and George. Carla and I are going to be in the kitchen, so you boys behave and play nicely with Vic — with Tori."

Carla hesitated in following the older woman and gave her daughter a questioning look.

"Tori, are you going to be alright?"

Tori rolled her eyes.

"Yes," she said surely. "You said I am a big girl now."

Carla pursed her lips to keep from laughing, but nodded anyway, before telling her daughter to come get her if she needed anything and following the Weasley matriarch into the kitchen.

"You can't play with us in that dress," Fred said, looking at it as if it were entirely offensive to him.

Tori glared at him.

"I can to!"

Fred gave his twin a serious look before rolling his eyes.

"It's going to get dirty," he said, frowning at her. "We're playing with slime."

"Show me," Tori demanded, determined to wear her dress no matter what they were doing.

She had spent ten minutes picking out her outfit this morning, and her mummy had told her that she was driving her mental when she kept changing her mind. She didn't want to take it off, and she didn't particularly care if it got dirty. Mummy was always very good at getting mud out of her dresses when they went to the park.

The twin boys shared another look, but sighed heavily and led her over to the corner of the room where they'd been spreading thick, green slime across the walls and furniture. Tori poked at it with her finger and scrunched her nose when it stuck to her finger.

"Feels like bogeys," she said distastefully, poking at it again.

"Looks like bogeys," said George, but his grin was wide and he stuck his entire arm into a pail of the stuff, spreading his fingers wide. "We want to put some on Pewcy."

"Who's Pewcy?" she said, her forehead scrunching when she followed George's lead and stuck her arm into the pail. It was cold and jiggly, but somehow slippery too. She'd never played with slime before, but she sort of liked the feel of it.

"Our brother," Fred said, watching her distastefully as she squealed in delight when she took her arm out quickly and it made a loud squelching noise. She was grinning at George now as they pulled a wad of the slime out of the pail and tried to stretch it as far as it would go. He didn't like it. George was his best friend.

"Does he look like you too?"

The two of them looked at her oddly again, but she was distracted by the slime that was getting stuck on her fingers. It was impossible to get off.

"No," they said together. "Pewcy looks weird."

She looked up at them both curiously, calling it quits with the slime and wiping it on her dress instead. George grinned at her at this, but Fred scowled.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He can't see," George said seriously. "Has to wear gwasses. Makes him look like a bug."

Tori giggled.

"You're funny," she said delightedly. George grinned back at her. "I want to put slime on him too."

"You can't," Fred said, glaring at her still.

George frowned and looked at him curiously. Tori glared right back.

"Why not?" she demanded. "We is fwends now."

"George is my fwend. Not yours."

"He can be my fwend too!"

"I can be fwends with both of you, Fweddie," George agreed, nodding his head resolutely, and looking entirely too serious for the ridiculousness of the conversation. "Pwomise. Just don't fight."

"Fine." Tori pouted. "But I want to put slime on Fwed too."

"No," Fred said peevishly. "We only put slime on Pewcy. Then you go home."

"Have you had a nap today?" Tori said, crossing her arms at him and looking at him through her lashes. "You need one."

"I do not!"

"Do too!"

"Do not!"

"I said no fighting!" George said, huffing at them both in irritation.

"Sowwy, George," Tori said sincerely, playing with the hem of her dress. "I forgotted. Can we do slime now?"

Carla's daughter got along rather well with her twin boys.

Well, with one of her twin boys.

George had taken a liking to her almost immediately. She heard them giggling quite often when she came over, getting into things they shouldn't be. Tori was not afraid to get dirty, which appealed to her boys, although they didn't much care for her dresses. They'd covered Percy's room in slime on her first visit, an instance that had to have required the use of accidental magic from at least one of them, but Fred and Tori blamed each other, and neither her or Carla could get one of them to admit to doing it. They'd let the argument go, but had banned slime from the house, but it still managed to get somewhere in the house every time the younger girl came over.

Fred, however, did not seem fond of Tori. Molly had found this odd at first — he and George agreed on nearly everything, only arguing about who drew her what picture that day — but she'd heard the two of them arguing over George whenever he'd gone to get them cookies. Fred had never had to share his twin with anyone before — he seemed to have an odd time of it, even though the two of them were perfectly fine once Tori left for the day.

"What is that supposed to be?"

"It's a biwd," Fred said with a huff, coloring the wings of his bird rather viciously. "What is that?"

"It's a sunshine," Tori said primly. "Yours looks like a plane."

"It's not a plane!" Fred said angrily. "And you can't draw sunshine."

"Why not?" she said with a glare. "I likes sunshine."

"Because sunshine is nice," Fred said as if this were obvious. "And you is not nice."

"I am too nice!" she said, slamming a hand onto her paper. "You is just mean. You don't want to share George —"

"He's my George!"

"Fred, Tori," Molly said firmly from where she was watching her daughter try to roll onto her back on the other side of the tree house. "Be nice to each other. George doesn't like it when you fight."

Fred and Tori glared at each other, but didn't say anything else to each other as George came racing back up the ladder and into the room. He flung himself onto the bean bag between the two of them and grabbed his own drawing, which looked nearly identical to his brothers.

"I like your biwd, George," Tori said immediately, smirking at Fred when he looked up at her incredulously.

"You said it looked like a plane!"

"Yours looks like a plane," she said with a haughty sniff.

"What's yours supposed to be?" George said, looking at hers curiously and changing the subject before the two of them could start fighting again.

"Sunshine," Fred grumbled. "She likes sunshine."

"Mummy says I is sunshine," Tori said, throwing her curls over her shoulder and leaning down to color some flowers at the bottom.

"Your mummy lies to you, sunshine," Fred said with a snort.

"Fred," Molly warned from her seat across the room.

Fred huffed, but didn't say anything else, coloring next to his brother and Tori until she left for the day. He didn't care what his mum said. He was going to call her sunshine until it made her leave George alone.

"It's chocolate pudding," Fred said, holding out a spoon full of a dark globby substance.

Tori was looking at it distastefully, giving him a doubtful look.

"Why's it look weird?" she queried.

"I don't know!" Fred said indignantly. "I didn't make it. Mummy just said she wanted you to try it."

George was eyeing him in interest, caught between telling his brother to stop pranking their new friend and wanting to see if she'd actually fall for it and eat it. He'd told Fred to be nicer to her because she didn't have any other friends, but Fred didn't like sharing much. Only with him, but he'd never had to share him before. They'd always been best friends, and none of their brothers liked to play with them much because they played too many jokes.

But George liked Tori — she thought he was funny, and she was pretty, and she liked playing in dirt and slime. Percy never played in dirt or slime. And she liked to help them get cookies with her magic when Mum wasn't looking. And playing pranks. She was good at them too — last week, she'd helped them catch a gnome and put it in Bill's room.

She'd been coming over more and more lately because her mummy had to work and his mummy liked her. Her mummy was nice too. She brought them candy sometimes, and took pictures with them, and played in the dirt with them too.

But Fred didn't want to believe him that Tori was nice. He wanted to show George that she was mean, and so he kept trying to feed her things that would make her face turn red and chase him around the yard. George sometimes thought Tori was a little crazy, but she was nice to him, so he didn't mind.

"Why does she want me to try it?" Tori said suspiciously.

"I'll just tell her you don't wike it," Fred huffed, turning on his heel and starting to stomp back to the house.

"Quit being such a baby, Fwed," Tori said, stomping her foot. "Give it to me."

Fred grinned at her and handed her the spoon. She stared at it for a moment longer, looked at his twin suspiciously, and then stuck the entire spoon in her mouth.

Fred bent over double with laughter when she immediately gagged and tried to spit the mud out onto the ground below her. George couldn't help it — he laughed too. He hadn't thought she would really eat it because Fred was always trying to feed her weird stuff, and she didn't like it that much. She'd told him she liked Fred a little, even though they liked to fight, because he wasn't afraid of her. The boys at the park were afraid of her when she got mad.

But she hated when he fed her gross things.

Tori screamed, stomping her foot, and Fred stopped laughing immediately, sharing a wide-eyed look with George.

"She's cwazy, George," he said before he screamed girlishly and had to run before Tori could grab a fistful of his hair.

George watched in awe as the younger, smaller toddler chased his twin around the yard and up the apple tree.

"I don't want her to come over anymore, Mummy!" Fred yelled from the tree branch he was hugging.

Molly had been trying to convince him to come down for half an hour. Tori had left, her mother apologizing profusely for her behavior in chasing her twin son up the tree in the first place. Molly couldn't decide if she found the entire thing amusing or irritating. Fred was the stronger-willed of her twins. The more stubborn, more cruel of the two. George was sweeter, a little softer than his brother, but he liked a good laugh. She wouldn't have been entirely surprised if Tori had chased George up a tree. But Fred was a surprise. The younger girl had one of her boys wrapped around her little finger, and the other scared out of his wits.

Truthfully, she'd have preferred if she'd scare both of them out of their wits and spare her the terrible ordeal of trying to control the two boys who were going to prematurely turn her hair gray. But she'd have to make do with half at the moment.

"Fred, she isn't here anymore," she said patiently. "Just come down from there before your father comes home."

"Pwomise me she won't come over anymore, and I'll come down."

She sighed heavily, resting her hands on her hips, and tapping her foot impatiently.

"I can't promise you that, Fred," she said. "Carla needs help and she's your friend."

"You said friends are not buwwies."

"Were you bullying her?"

"No!"

"Yes!" George snickered from behind her. Fred gave his brother a warning look that he ignored. "He tricked her to eat mud."

"Fredrick Gideon Weasley!" Molly scolded. "That was not very nice."

"She started it!" he said angrily. "She said I had a pea brain! She said that's why I can't spell gween!"

"Fred, this is ridiculous," Molly said annoyingly. "You either get down here or I will levitate you down."

"No," Fred said stubbornly, wrapping all four of his limbs around the thick branch he was hanging on. "I'm not coming down until she stops coming over."

"Well then, I guess you'll be up there forever and she'll have to play with George every day by herself."

There was a long moment of silence.

"Fine. I'll come down."

I cannot with cute kid stories. I would write more, but my brain is fried and I need more time to think of cute kid stories. Stay tuned, loves!