A/N: I know I haven’t updated anything in ages & I apologize, but school sucks. I’m writing for the paper this semester & churning out two articles a week with a mean editor isn’t really that easy. And can I just impart some wisdom to you? Never trust a boy with a guitar and a band who sings to you & tells you you’re beautiful. It never ends well.

My wand vibrated for the seventh time that morning. I yanked it out from underneath my pillow and threw it across the room. It was five minutes to breakfast.

“Katie,” Alicia said patronizingly.

I ignored her.

“Katie, come to breakfast,” Angelina tried.

I pulled my pillow over my head.

“Katie!” Ange snapped.

“Shut uuuuurrrrp,” I let out of one side of my mouth.

I could almost see the girls roll their eyes. “Suit yourself, then,” Angelina said, and the two departed.

So much the better.

I was not getting up this morning. Or maybe all day. All week, more like. Or forever. That might do nicely.

No. I would get up once graduated, or kicked out. Musn’t be desperate.

I burrowed further into the soft, warm cocoon of sheets, blankets, and pillows and closed my eyes to block out the rising sun streaming in from the window. It was too early to be bright.

In all honesty, I probably could have overcome the exhaustion if I had wanted to. But it was one of those mornings where just the thought of getting out of bed and facing Oliver’s apathetic face across the breakfast table made me want to live as an invalid.

After Saturday and Fred and George’s promise of “helping me out,” things had seemed fine. Then came Sunday evening. I had sat playing chess with Lee, waiting for Oliver to take his usual spot near the large west window and plan out our new plays for the week. It was something he did every Sunday, and for a while I had helped him.

This afternoon, however, he emerged two hours off of his usual routine, with Elizabeth Dowry accompanying him. My breath had caught in my throat, and Angelina and Alicia had looked up at me knowingly. I waved them off.

“I’m fine,” I had breathed.

I tried to hide the tears that sprang into my eyes as I had watched Oliver sit down with Elizabeth in the exact same manner he had used to with me, laughing, talking, and undeniably flirting.

Even now, my throat clenched at the thought of it. The problem was that when you lose someone, it’s not the fact that the whole tiny microcosm of a world you’ve created around them disintegrates that is
the worst; neither is it the fact that everything you see or do reminds you of them. It’s the thought of knowing that after having tried you out, you have been marked as not good enough by the one person you really…love.

That was why I was still in my pajamas instead of at breakfast, and why half of my hair was pressed flat against the pillow and the other stood up in pathetic little peaks and horns, and why my mascara was
still smudged across my face.

I peeked one eye open in order to stare out at the gray, drizzly sky through the window.

“Maybe I would have been something you’d be good at,” I sang sadly to myself. “Maybe you would have been something I’d be good at. But now we’ll never know.”

I burrowed back into the confines of my comforter and fell asleep once again.

XxX

At around ten thirty, my off-and-on mixture of sleep and laziness was disturbed by a pair of bright blue eyes peeking underneath my comforter.

“AAAAAAAH!” I shrieked. “Fred! What the hell are you doing?!”

“Come to class, Katie Kate,” Fred said easily. “We’re halfway through Transfiguration and everyone misses you.”

“Everyone knows me as ‘that Gryffindor chaser’,” I said dryly. “I sincerely doubt they miss me.”

“I miss you,” he continued casually. “Also, if you skip much more, your grades are going to get even lower. You may end up in remedial classes.”

“Bugger off!” I yelled. And then, “How do you know about my grades?”

“It’s my business to know,” Fred replied with ease. “I’m your agent now, after all. And let me just say that staying in bed, pouting, swollen eyes, and failing grades are not going to impress Monsieur Wood.”

“Fuck you,” I said moodily, and disappeared again under the covers.

“Lovely language, my dear,” he said stalwartly and proceeded to yank my covers away.

“Hey!” I shouted.

“Get dressed,” Fred ordered as I scrambled to hide my mad hair and face. “I’ll be waiting in the Common Room.”

“How the hell did you even get up here?” I pouted.

“Broom,” he replied easily. “And don’t say ‘hell,’ dear. Great bedhead, by the way.”

An hour later I trudged down the stairs to meet Fred and George’s beaming faces.

“Looking much better, love,” Fred said brightly.

“Why are you both here?” I asked darkly.

George shrugged. “I’m here for backup,” he said.

I cocked an eyebrow. “Backup? What did you think I would do to you, Fred? Scratch your eyes out and dance on your grave?”

“Let’s go to class,” Fred said, ignoring me and guiding me out the portrait hole. “It’s Divination! And then Phase One begins tonight and we have plans to go over!”

“Oh dear Merlin,” I groaned, allowing the twins to push me out the door.

XxX

I allowed myself to be pulled by the arm by Fred as he sat me down on a pouf in Divination and forced a quill into my hands. I slumped in my seat, staring listlessly into the crystal ball in the middle of the table and thought about Oliver.

Fred and George sat on either side of me, Lee taking my normal place with the girls for the day. Fred claimed I was at risk for a pathetic backslide today and therefore insisted I not be out of his or George’s
sight. The twins made bad jokes about each other’s futures which I was supposed to be recording, and I chewed on the end of the quill apathetically.

When Professor Trelawney asked what I saw in the crystal ball, I replied solemnly that I saw nothing for myself other than a cold, loveless future. She gave me an ‘O.’ Fred and George laughed until they cried.

After scribbling down the twins’ dictations for our groupwork, I pawned the parchment off on Alicia to turn in and Fred did a rather obvious scope of the room before pulling out a very large piece of parchment filled with scribblings, drawings, and directions. Against my better judgment, I scooted closer to George to see what it was.

“Map of the castle’s piping system,” George said shortly, seemingly reading my thoughts.

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

“For tonight,” he replied, seeming annoyed. “Duh!”

“Duh,” I mocked, sticking my tongue out at George. Fred caught my eye and smirked.

“We’re travelling by pipe, Kates,” Fred explained in whisper.

“Again, may I ask why?” I said contemptuously.

“Well it’s not like we can just walk into the Ravenclaw common room and ask to be escorted to Elizabeth’s room,” Fred said as though this was all extremely obvious.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said. “What do I do?”

“You keep out of the way,” George answered. “You’re loud. You’ll get us caught.”

“I will not!” I protested.

The twins exchanged glances.

“Katie my Belle,” Fred said in his sappiest voice possible. “We were rather hoping you could be our station in the Gryffindor common room.”

“What am I supposed to do there?” I asked impatiently.

“Well ideally, you’d be doing our Herbology homework.”

“Fred! You dragged me out of bed, you said you needed me!”

“We do! We’re rotten at Herbology and your marks are decent.”

I glared at the pair of them. They huddled together in a conference. I huffed impatiently as they hissed together, and George whispered very loudly the words “bloody calamity!”

“Katie,” Fred said finally. “Upon serious consideration, George and I feel that while we both appreciate your…effervesence, your tendency to be slightly calamitous may inhibit our ability to properly observe and catalog your competition—“

“Shut up,” I said. “If I let the pair of you go by yourselves, you’ll just end up ogling the Ravenclaws in their underthings. I’m coming.”

The twins exchanged a glance.

“Fine,” Fred agreed, looking rather defeated.

XxX

“I can’t believe you’re actually going through with this,” Angelina said scathingly as she peered at me that night from over the top of her Muggle Studies textbook.

I was pulling my hair back into a ponytail while simultaneously searching for black jeans. Fred and George had insisted I dress incognito.

“And I can’t believe you’re not trying to stop me,” I shot back without paying her much attention.

“You know I couldn’t if I tried,” she snapped. “And besides, you know the real reason you’re doing this.”

“My sordid infatuation with Oliver?” I said.

“Your subconscious aching for more time with Fred.”

“Oh God, Angie, give it a rest,” I complained, tying up my black Converse tennis shoes. “I’ve got poor taste in men, but I haven’t descended to those lows yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “I still say he wants you.”

I ignored her and smoothed my hair back absentmindedly. Alicia walked through the door a few seconds later, her blonde hair fairly mussed.

“How’s George?” I said, raising my eyebrows. She blushed deeply.

“Fred and George are waiting for you downstairs,” she said, ignoring my snarky comment.

“Enjoy crawling through sewage!” Angelina called, and I slammed the door shut.

XxX

Fred and George were sporting matching berets and black jumpers. George’s was slightly askew.

“You two look like morons,” I greeted.

Fred was grinning at some nameless fourth year, and winked. “Top secret, Tiffany, can’t say,” he was saying cheekily. “Oh hello there, sunshine,” he said upon seeing me.

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just get this over with, please,” I said. “I’ve got a bed to attend to.”

“And homework,” Fred reminded me. “Transfiguration.”

“Lay off with the Transfiguration stuff. Now…where are we entering these pipes?”

Twenty minutes later, George was leading the way through the rusty, disgusting piping system of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Fred followed, backpack clanking against the occasional turn, and I brought up the rear, cursing every few seconds.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going, George?” I whined. “I’m crawling through the most unbelievable shit back here!”

“I know, I crawled through it first, Kates!” he returned. “Nearly there!”

Exactly five seconds later, I ran into Fred’s buttocks which had come to sudden halt.

“Aaaargh!” I yelled, only to hear George’s insistent shushing.

“If you felt that way, Kates, you should have just said so,” Fred whispered cheekily, turning to face me. “Would have negated the whole purpose of this mission.”

“You’re disgusting,” I said impatiently. “Now what’s going on?”

“Hush, you two!” George said importantly. “I think we’re here! Fred, screwdriver please…”

“What’s a screwdriver?” I hissed, but this time they both glared at me, simultaneously putting fingers to their lips.

Fred expertly slid the backpack from his shoulders, and extracted a long metal tool which he gave to George who stuck it into a screw in the vent and twisted until it loosened. Fred carefully removed the vent and set it silently down on the bottom of the pipe, revealing an entrance just large enough for the three of us to squeeze through.

Once past the vent, we were crawling over rafters and flimsly floorboards until we reached yet another, larger vent. This time, George twisted the panels so that a clear view of what was—miraculously—the Seventh Year Ravenclaw girls’ dormitory.

I gasped in appreciation, impressed, but Fred clapped his hand tightly over my mouth and gave me a stern look. I shoved him off, but held my tongue.

Below, Elizabeth Dowry and three of her roommates were apparently getting ready for bed. One of the girls, a tall redhead, was drying her hair with a towel and another was sitting at the vanity, mindlessly combing her hair. Elizabeth was sitting on her bed, still in her uniform, talking to another girl across the room who was loosening her tie.

“I hate to admit it, but I’m not really understanding the theory behind the Confundus Charm,” said Elizabeth’s friend, hanging up her tie neatly in her wardrobe. In a moment of ridiculousness, I pictured the many ties in my own dormitory which were hung lazily around bedposts and strewn across the floor.

“I think I’ve got it down pretty well,” Elizabeth replied. “We’ll look at it together during the study period tomorrow, okay Michelle?”

Typical Ravenclaws. Even after school hours, they were discussing schoolwork.

This conversation continued for another twenty minutes during which time my eyes began to glaze over. Fred and George, however, were at the utmost attention, ears perked and eyes eager. When the other girl, Michelle, stepped out of her skirt, Fred shoved his fist in his mouth and his eyes widened hungrily. I scoffed loudly, moving my body to cover the vent.

“Katie!” the twins hissed simultaneously. I just gave them a look and they frowned but relented.

Then, out of nowhere, I heard my name.

“—I just don’t know what to think about that Katie Bell…”

I immediately leapt off the vent, and Fred mindlessly grabbed my hand.

I stared at him. “What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Sorry,” he said, quickly releasing my hand. In the dark, I almost thought I saw him blush but I must have been mistaken. “Listen!”

I turned my attention below. Elizabeth was now in pajamas and sitting on Michelle’s bed.

“Who?” Michelle asked, looking slightly confused.

“Oh that younger girl on his team,” she said dismissively.

“What about her?”

“I don’t know…he talks about her a lot.”

My stomach flipped over. He did? I looked over at Fred to see his reaction, but his face was unreadable.

“So?”

“Well I just wonder if that means anything, you know? Besides, when I was over there with him last night, she kept looking over at him…”

“So?” Michelle repeated. “Wood is fine, and he’s her captain. She’s just a little girl with a pathetic little crush—that doesn’t mean he feels that way. Wood’s into you.”

All of a sudden, my blood was boiling. Little girl? Pathetic crush? What the hell did this girl know about me? Or Oliver, for that matter?

Feeling incredibly angry and very ashamed, I sat up and crawled away quickly, reentering the relative safety of the pipe.

“Katie!” Fred and George both hissed after me. “Katie, where are you going? We’re not finished!”

“I don’t care,” I said once we were all back in the pipe. “You stay. I’m not listening to that.”

They followed me, however, George claiming I would get lost and get us all caught.

“Well,” Fred said slowly once we reentered the now-empty Gryffindor common room. “What was that stunt for?”

“Are you kidding me?” I exploded, whirling around. George’s eyes grew large and he retreated up the stairs uttering a quick, “Night, all!”

“You heard them!” I continued. “That girl said I was a little girl with a pathetic crush!”

“So?” Fred said, looking slightly annoyed with my antics. “She was saying that to comfort her friend. She doesn’t know you. What she says doesn’t prove anything.”

“Well exactly!” I said ridiculously. “What does she know? What right does she have to say those things?”

Fred sighed and slumped down in the nearest armchair. He yawned, rubbing his eyes and looking exasperated.

“Kates, you’ve got to stop basing your opinion of yourself on what others say about you,” he said seriously, staring down at the carpet.

I scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say, everyone loves you!” I complained. “You pull a couple of cheap tricks and pull out your guitar and half the castle’s mad in love with your or wants to be you. You don’t know what it’s like to want something you can’t have.”

He just looked at me.

“Sorry,” I said, sighing and joining him on a close couch. I tried not to think about how odd it was that Fred Weasley was critiquing me on proper social protocol. “That wasn’t fair of me to say. You and George were right to want me to stay here. I messed things up pretty bad, didn’t I?”

Fred returned to some form of his usual self. “Not necessarily,” he answered, musing. “We did learn that Wood still speaks of you often. That’s a good sign.”

“It is?” I asked, curious to hear a male’s interpretation.

“’Course it is,” he replied easily. “He’s talking about you, that means he’s thinking about you. Now, I’m tired and you should be too. Let’s get to bed.”

I smiled weakly. “I’d love to, but a friend reminded me I’ve got Transfiguation homework to do.”

Fred grinned. “You get sleep,” he said. “You can copy my essay in the morning.”

I grinned widely, throwing myself at him in a bear hug. “I owe you one, Fred!”

“This is the last time, though,” he said, toussling my hair. “Tomorrow you’re signing a statement that says you’re accepting responsibility for your life.”

“Fair enough,” I agreed.

XxX