Fighting Friends Smiling Enemies

"How about Truth or Dare?" Ginny suggested as she rolled over onto her tummy. She was at Gabby's "School is Coming" Slumber Party. Sarah had been complaining that it was getting boring, even though Gabby had suggested a ton of fun games. Ginny was sure Sarah would have played had it been her party.

"Sure, would give us a break from lameness," Sarah remarked snidely. Out of

the corner of her eye, Ginny saw Gabby's face break a little. Sometimes Sarah just had to say nasty things. Ginny had gotten used to it, but then again, most of them were aimed at Gabby. Ginny had a sneaking suspicion that if it weren't for her, Sarah wouldn't have accepted Gabby at all. She thought that there was nothing she could do.

"So, who is going first?" Catherine asked.

"Gabby, it's her party after all," Ginny cut in as she saw Sarah open her mouth, about to speak. Sarah shut her mouth and nodded.

"Alright, Catherine, truth or dare?" Gabby said.

"Hmm, truth," Catherine said.

"If you had to pick one guy in our year to kiss who would it be?" Gabby said. Catherine blushed at this question.

"Kyle Dimsire," Catherine said. The other girls giggled. They might have been witches, but they were still twelve-year-old girls. "Alright, Sarah, truth or dare?"

"Dare," Sarah challenged. Catherine seemed stumped. Most people didn't pick dare.

"Alright, I dare you to, um, tell Oliver Wood he's awesome," Catherine said weakly. Sarah rolled her eyes.

"Sure, whatever. My turn. Ginny, truth or dare?" Sarah said.

"Truth," Ginny said. Sarah was the only one who ever picked dare, she was also the only one who had the guts to come up with mean ones.

"What terrible thing would a close friend of yours have to do to make you consider abandoning her?" Sarah asked.

"How close?" Ginny asked.

"Gabby close," Sarah said. Ginny wondered if maybe she should have gone for the dare.

"Well, a ton," Ginny said in a pleading way, but Sarah wanted more. "Fine, one scenario. She would have to date one of my close guy friends and cheat on him with another guy. And this other guy must also be a yucky, like one of you two's would-be boyfriends," Ginny said gesturing towards Sarah and Catherine, "or someone annoying like Colin, or gross like Mark. Something similar that, but it wouldn't happen, so I'd never abandon her! Gabby, truth or dare?"

"Girls! It's time to sleep. No more talking. I already let you talk thirty minutes after I have last said so. Now quiet!" Mrs. Martin shouted from the hall. The girls smiled and snuggled farther into their sleeping bags.

"Yes mom! Night everyone," Gabby said yawning.

"Night," said three other voices softly.

~*~*~

"Can we sit here ladies?" said a boy opening the door to their compartment. Gabby glanced up. She felt her heart speed up a little bit; he was an eye-catcher. Glancing at Ginny, she mouthed 'Kyle'. Ginny nodded with a sly smile.

"Sure," Gabby spoke up for Catherine who was still sitting there, stunned.

"Thanks, come on, these beauties are letting us intrude," Kyle said waving some of his friends inside. He winked at Gabby, at least that's what she thought. Only it was over before she could be sure. Her mind scolded her; she was hallucinating. Catherine liked him. Four guys followed the guy in. To Gabby's utter horror, Mark was one of them.

"Who are they? Oh hey Sarah," one of them said as he saw Sarah.

"Hey Daniel," Sarah began, then turned to the other guys "Kyle, Eric, Michael, Mark." They all nodded at her and sat down.

"So, who are these friends of yours Sarah?" Daniel asked. Gabby knew who he was. He was one of Ginny's best guy friends. She had heard of him before.

"Guys, meet Gabby, Ginny, and Catherine. We're all in Gryffindor. Mike is in Gryffindor. Micheal Corner and Daniel are in Ravenclaw, Kyle, and Eric are in Hufflepuff," Sarah said gesturing at them all.

"So what have you been doing this summer?" Catherine managed to squeak out, coming out of her shock. She still seemed to be severely nervous. Gabby felt her face glow red as she tried to stop her laughter. She focused on the conversation, and tried to identify the stories Sarah had told about each of the guys.

"Oh you know, stuff. Hanging out. How about you guys? Have you been hanging out with your boyfriends or something?" Daniel asked. He had blonde hair and braces. He wasn't jaw-droppingly cute, or ugly either. However, he was straight out smart and a bit of a bookworm, being in Ravenclaw. Sarah laughed at this.

"We don't have boyfriends. Want to fix that?" Sarah flirted, eyeing Eric. Eric also wasn't special in the looks department, or a genius in studying. Sarah had told them that he was very nice. The guys just exchanged looks and smirked.

"Maybe, we'll have to see," Kyle said. Gabby absolutely loved the way he smiled. He was indeed very charming. Unlike his friends, he had been blessed with looks and did alright in school. Sarah had warned Catherine that he was completely cocky at the party.

Catherine! Gabby reminded herself, falling deeper into her thoughts. Catherine had already admitted that she liked Kyle at the party. Well, she hadn't said it forthright, but Ginny had confessed that it was the truth when Gabby had asked her later. She had been sworn to secrecy, although Catherine wasn't covering it up very well right now.

"Earth to Gabby," Daniel said waving his hand in front of her face. Gabby came out of her thinking and smiled. "You ok? You seemed like you were on some other planet for a moment there."

"Yea, I'm fine. Just thinking. So how do you know Ginny, being in Ravenclaw and all?" Gabby started, making pleasant conversation. He replied with something about Charms class. She looked over at Kyle, who was chatting with Catherine. She forced herself to feel happy for her friend, but couldn't help feeling a little empty inside.

~*~*~

The beginning of school soon put thoughts of Kyle and the guys out of Gabby's mind for a while. The teachers had started them up at full speed and she was swamped with homework. Her magic skills hadn't approved at all over the summer and she still struggled miserably in all her classes. She had received extra potions homework on the first day. She even had to skip dinner to get it done almost every night.

"Absolutely awful. I do not know how you manage to do so poorly. Write an essay tonight on your performance, if you can even call it that, and why you have wrecked it so terribly," Snape had said to her, frowning down at her bubbling yellow liquid, that was supposed to be a bubble-gum pink solid.

Gabby shuddered at the memory. She was however delighted when Mark received even worse. Distracted with his efforts to annoy Gabby, he hadn't followed half of the directions and his potion had turned to gas.

"Pathetic. This is even worse than Martin if that's even possible. You are to write the same essay, 10 points from Gryffindor, and detention," Snape had said to him before moving on to praise Sissy's concoction.

Gabby finished up with Charms homework and pulled out a blank piece of parchment to start on her Potions essay. She put her name on but was interrupted as Ginny, Sarah, and Catherine loudly entered the room. They had managed to finish early enough to spend some time relaxing in the Common Room.

"Hey, are you still working on homework? That's totally not fair. I messed mine up too. You shouldn't have to write extra when like all of us did the same," Catherine asked kindly.

"Yea, well who said Snape was Mr. Fair? Not me! So did anything big happen while I was up here?" Gabby asked.

"Well, I think I made progress with Kyle! At dinner, he came over to talk to us. Sarah actually had the guts to ask him who he liked and guess what Gabby?" Catherine said with delight.

"What?" Gabby asked, not quite sure she wanted to know.

"He likes one of us! He wouldn't say which one, but he said one of us!" Catherine said. She seemed so happy that she could faint.

"That's great!" Gabby said and forced herself to seem just as excited. She scolded herself. She continually reminded herself that she was supposed to want Kyle to like Catherine.

"I'd love to continue talking about this you guys, but I've got Potions homework," Gabby said motioning to the parchment and quill in her hand.

"Ok, we'll quiet down. Good luck Gabby," Ginny said coming out of the bathroom and moving towards her bed. She got in and dimmed her light. Sarah and Catherine did the same. Gabby looked down at her essay and sighed. Thinking of all the dark spots under her eyes she'd have this year, she proceeded to write about her mess-up. It was getting quite old. She had been doing this essay every day for over two weeks...

~*~*~

Gabby stared up at the book in the library. She could see it, but she couldn't reach it. Much to her chagrin, she was much too short. She put her foot on the second to bottom shelf and attempted to climb to get the book. But climbing was not her greatest skill and she soon found herself falling down. Closing her eyes in expectation of a sudden sharp pain in her bum, she was quite surprised when she found herself dangling in someone's arms. Turning around, she saw that it was Daniel.

"Need help?" he said with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, thanks. I can't reach that book up there," she said as she straightened her robes and pointed to the book. With ease, he grabbed the book off the shelf.

"This one?" he asked handing it to her. She nodded gratefully. "You're in the library a lot."

"I know. I'm always behind in studying. I finally finished my homework early today so I thought I'd get a head start for the future," Gabby said as they walked back to the table she had been sitting at.

"Oh, I see. I like to come here to do my homework sometimes too. I could help you if you want," Daniel said. The offer was tempting; she really could use help. But she also could sense that he wanted more than to just be nice.

"Maybe sometime," she said without setting a time or anything. She'd have to think about it.

"Ok, just tell me when. So, Quidditch Game tomorrow," he said still trying to continue the conversation.

"Yep. Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw," Gabby replied.

"Which side will you be cheering for?" Daniel said.

"Hmm, I don't know. I don't really have a reason to cheer for either side," Gabby said with a sly smile.

"Well, I'm in Ravenclaw. So I think you should cheer for Ravenclaw," Daniel said.

"You aren't on the team. Why does it matter?" Gabby asked.

"If you cheered for Ravenclaw, you could come sit with me in the stands and that would be nice. So would you cheer for Ravenclaw?" Daniel asked scooting closer in his chair. Gabby looked at him and into his smiling eyes. Her mind raced quickly trying to come to its decision.

"Sure," she heard herself say before she finished thinking.

"Great. I'll meet you outside of Gryffindor tomorrow," Daniel said, grinning widely. "I'll leave you to work on what you meant to do. Bye."

"Bye," Gabby said and she watched the boy go. What had she gotten herself into? She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

~*~*~*~

Ginny twiddled her thumbs nervously as McGonagall passed the papers back. Not so much for herself, but for Gabby. Ginny usually pulled off a passing grade, but Gabby had been stressing over this paper for weeks. She had even spent weekends in the library, researching, while everyone else goofed off. Daniel had been helping her whenever he could. A smile came to Ginny's face as she remembered how Gabby had sat with Daniel for the Quidditch Match. Professor McGonagall put their papers on the desk.

Ginny turned hers over- A for Acceptable. She glanced over at Gabby's grade and gasped. Gabby got O for Outstanding, higher than Ginny. She was smiling from ear to ear with her first O grade ever in all the time she'd been at Hogwarts. She usually got P's or D's.

"Congrats. Daniel really helped you," Ginny said.

"I know! He told me I should put this paragraph in, and look at McGonagall's comments," Gabby whispered showing a part of the report that McGonagall had praised.

"Do you like him?" Ginny asked suddenly. Gabby sighed and looked down.

"Sure, he's cool," Gabby said.

"No, I mean in that way," Ginny said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gabby said trying to avoid the subject. Honestly, she didn't really like him that way. She liked Kyle. She knew it was stupid. She liked Kyle because of his looks but she couldn't help it. If she had any control, she would have chosen to like Daniel, but she didn't.

"Oh come on. You two spend every day together. You sit with him during the Quidditch matches. He helps you non-stop on homework. If he were to ask you out, would you say yes?" Ginny whispered. McGonagall was starting to look at them.

"Yeah, I guess," Gabby replied softly.

~*~*~

"So what we working on tonight?" Daniel asked with a smile as he sat down beside Gabby in the library.

"You don't need to help me you know. I feel bad. You're spending all this time helping me and I can't really repay you," Gabby said.

"Don't worry about it. If I wasn't doing this, I'd be getting into trouble with Mark or something," Daniel said.

"You sure?" Gabby persisted.

"Well, if you really want to repay me, you could go out with me," Daniel replied. Time seemed to freeze for Gabby. It didn't really, but it seemed like it did. Her mind raced trying to think of a reply.

"Maybe I'll just stick to feeling guilty," she said.

"Well, how about you go out with me just for the sake of going out with me? Come on, don't break my heart, I might not help you with homework anymore," Daniel said half joking. At the mention of homework Gabby felt something hit her. Stop helping her with homework? She thought of the good grades she wanted.

"Yes," she blurted out without properly think about it.

"Cool, so we're dating now," Daniel said, his grin getting larger.

"Yep," Gabby replied forcing a smile. She kept reassuring herself that she would learn to like him and that this was a good thing. If she dated him, she definitely would never go for Kyle. Everything was fixed.

"I'll meet you outside of the Gryffindor Common room, we can hang around the lake," Daniel said getting up.

"Sure, see you there," Gabby said turning back to her homework.

"Oh wait, you need help with your homework. I'm helping you," Daniel said sitting back down.

~*~*~

"Ooo la la. Gabby and Daniel sitting in a tree. K-I-S," Catherine sang but stopped as Gabby's pillow collided with her head.

"Shut up!" Gabby called out from her bed. It was really distracting. The three kept teasing her about saying yes to Daniel and she desperately needed to finish up this assignment.

"But, it's so romantic," Sarah cooed. Gabby rolled her eyes.

"Oh come on Gabby, you know it's awesome. Daniel's a great guy, I've been friends with him since 1^st year," Ginny said.

"Yeah, he's nice. What about you Ginny? You still crushing on Harry Potter big time?" Gabby said without looking up. Maybe if she pushed everyone's attention onto some other topic they would let her finish in peace.

"I can't help it. He's just so brave," Ginny said blushing.

"Ooo Ginny's blushing," Catherine called out from her bed to have yet another pillow thrown at her head.

"Well you like Kyle," Ginny shot back at Catherine. Her pillow was thrown right back.

"Who wouldn't? He's gorgeous and such a flirt," Catherine said dreamily.

"He's gorgeous," Sarah sighed as an attempt to mimic Catherine. Gabby's pillow hit her straight in the face.

"You know what? With all these pillows flying through the air it can only mean one thing...pillow fight!" Ginny screamed and grabbed her extra pillows from under the bed. Gabby groaned.

"No! I need to finish this," she cried out but it was too late, a couple pillows were already coming her way. She set her parchment to the side away from harm's way. She couldn't beat them, so she might as well join them.

Pretty soon the whole room was covered in feathers and several pillows had broken. The girls were sitting on the ground, laughing so hard they could barely breathe.

"Reparo!" Ginny cried with a flick of her hand. The pillows were repaired and the feathers were gone.

"That was fun, but I really need to get back to finishing this," Gabby gasped out in-between giggles as she reached for her parchment.

"Ok, you do that. We're going to go hang out in the Common Room," Sarah said getting up from the floor. Ginny and Catherine followed her out. Finally, Gabby could work in silence. It had been an awesome pillow fight though.

~*~*~

"Hey Gabby," Daniel said as she exited the Gryffindor Common Room via the portrait. He had been waiting outside.

"Hey Daniel," she said and smiled. Over the past week she had had sleepless nights thinking about this. She came to the conclusion to just give this relationship it's all.

"You look very pretty," he said. Gabby laughed at this.

"Oh really? Thanks! You look pretty too," she teased. He took her hand and they walked together, swinging their arms.

"Oh look! Isn't this cute! Gabby got a boyfriend. What did you do? Pay him?" said a voice off to the side. They stopped and turned to face it. It was Sissy.

"You're just jealous because you don't have one Sissy," Gabby said tensely. Sissy got under her skin sometimes.

"Wrong, more like I have higher standards than most people. They just simply aren't worthy," Sissy said coldly.

"Bugger off, why are you wasting your time talking to me since we aren't friends anymore?" Gabby said. Sissy stared at her for a moment, eyes narrowed.

"It was your fault you know," she hissed before turning promptly. She walked off in a different direction and joined the other Slytherin.

"Prissy snob," Gabby muttered under her breath.

"You two used to be friends?" Daniel asked raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, back when we were like eight. But that's been over for a long time. Four years have passed after all," Gabby said. He simply nodded. They were twelve. Gabby pondered this for a moment. Were all these emotions and feelings about guys normal at twelve? She thought about this silently as they walked to join the others. Everyone else seemed to be obsessed with it. But she still wondered if maybe this whole dating this was too old for her age. After a while, she concluded that thirteen was an acceptable age and Daniel was thirteen. That was good enough for her.

"So what happened between you and Sissy anyways?" he asked as they started to walk around the lake.

"Long story, bad memories. I'm not even sure, we just kind of...drifted," she said. She looked around, seeing if anyone else was around. She spotted her friends. She waved them over and they joined the two in their walk. Kyle was there. He was walking with Catherine. Gabby felt her stomach fall just a little bit but reminded her self not to. She would have been able to quench it completely except he winked over at her. This was the second time that Gabby had hallucinated that he winked. Maybe he really was winking. Gabby was utterly confused.

~*~*~