Pranksters Extraordinaire

*Pranksters Extraordinaire*

By:GoldenSilence

It's a well known fact that fairytales only ever seem to really come alive within our minds. People who spend their whole lives dreaming of a prince charming showing up on a white horse generally end up disappointed. However, there are times in reality, if you look hard enough, when you can see a glimmer of the magical. The trick is not in dreaming, but believing. If you believe hard enough, the ordinary is not so ordinary at all. The difference is all in the action you take. The question is, do you make your dreams come true, or do you just dream?

Angelina didn't have time for dreaming or self inflection. There are some people who are based so firmly in reality that they really don't ever have time to be introspective, and Angelina just happened to be one of them. She may not have been like Hermione and known where she was going in life, but she sure as hell was going to have fun along the way.

So then, why exactly was Angelina reading "The Crimson Corset" by Lucita Hamingsmock ? Those unable to contain their curiosity on the matter that day had found out the hard way that, number one, untrue to popular school belief, there were some things Angelina got embarrassed over, and number two, when seeing Angelina actually sitting still for more than five minutes,

it was probably best to quickly exit the way you had entered.

Angelina had offered up so many excuses for the sad little tome of flowery writing, her imagination was beginning to run dry. The truth of the matter was, the book was really Lavender's and she was only borrowing it, but that statement only opened up a whole other line of questioning. It wasn't important the book was Lavender's property (as written in alternating pink and yellow letters, that, in addition to clashing violently, caused the eyes to cross and a myriad of little wrinkles to appear on people's foreheads when the tried to interpret it.)

What was important was that Angelina was reading a romance book of her own free will, as there was no way Angelina could possibly argue she had been forced to read it. Angelina couldn't be forced to do anything.

She responded to force like camels did to anything that wasn't water, another camel, or men with exceedingly big sticks (although with a good deal less spitting than her four legged counterparts, and with the benefit of opposable thumbs.) Trying to get Angelina to do something against her will was not just a feat to take note of, it was all but bloody impossible.

This still did nothing to explain why Angelina was reading a romance book. Angelina preferred to have her true justification remain a mystery.

*************

Having younger siblings, with the oldest just passing six, and the youngest recently turned two, had led to very little every surprising Katie. Toddlers are rambunctious enough even in the most normal of households. Add wands and magic to the equation and what you get is chaos, pure and simple.

Scrubbing scribbles off the walls of the house became that much harder when they were written in purple tentacle slime that had a strange tendency to cause explosions.

After that, there's a precious small amount of things that merit a raised eyebrow, much less two.

So it is of particular note that upon this occasion, Katie's eyebrows were both raised, to such a degree that they resembled the twin peaks of two extremely pointy mountains.

Katie rolled over and nudged Alicia. Normally, this would have been a feat impossible that would have resulted in Katie coming to direct and painful contact with a cold stone floor (as Katie could vouch had happened many a time), but this night it was a different story. Katie, Angelina, and Alicia were all having a slumber party for Angelina's fourteenth birthday.

With the holidays approaching, as well, and no classes scheduled for the next three weeks, it was no wonder the words "slumber" did not apply half so well as the words "party" did. Hey, Angelina was all for any excuse to stay up all night without falling asleep during quidditch practice the next day ( History of Magic was fine for taking a nap, but on a broomstick bordered on suicidal.)

Alicia turned towards Katie, with the air of one who was trying to hide the fact her thoughts had been busy elsewhere; a particular elsewhere that involved a certain dread-locked individual. "Hmmm?"

"What's with Angelina?" Katie whispered, one eyeball moving sideways to glance at Angelina suspiciously, the other remaining fixed on Alicia.

"What do you mean, what's with her?"

"Just look at her."

"Uhuh. Okay. No head spinning, no extra legs flailing. I fail to see the problem. She's not acting weird or anything."

Katie, defying all laws of probability, raised her eyebrows even higher.

"Well, she's not! You know, for Angelina, anyway."

"It's just it's kinda spooky to see her sitting still for so long without moving."

"She's blinking."

"That doesn't count. And since when does Angelina read-"

Katie tried to get a look at the title of the book, but couldn't, as Angelina's hand was covering it up (this, of course, was intentional on the part of Angelina.)

"It's probably just another quidditch book or something. You know, she has billions of 'em."

"Oh, as opposed to your trillions."

"Hey, most of mine are on permanent loan from either you or her."

The book shut. "Aha, so that's what you mean by borrowing, Alicia! You hoard stuff worse than Scrooge himself."

"Yes, I heard you," Angelina said patiently to Katie and Alicia's composed and pointedly not guilty faces.

"Look," said Katie hurriedly. "We didn't mean. I mean, that is, we weren't talking bad about you or-"

"-We were just wondering why you were reading all of a sudden. It's uncanny. I half expect a polka-dotted cow to show up next."

Angelina put her hand to her heart dramatically, smiling. "Oh, ouch. That hurts. That hurts right here. Really wounding, guys." She traced a line down each cheek. "Tear, tear."

Katie laughed. "Alicia, maybe you ought to go back and rethink what you just said."

"No, no!" protested Alicia. "What I meant to say was, it's just strange to see you that absorbed in a book. I mean, it was like Hermione or something, honestly."

"Yeah, you looked like you were one step away from actually reading it," joked Katie.

In response, Angelina threw a pillow at her good naturedly. "Oh, do us all a favor and kept your mouth shut until your brain starts functioning."

"-And we all know when that will be! Never," added Alicia.

"At least I don't snore in my sleep," retorted Katie.

"I do NOT snore."

"Ohoh, yes you do."

"Now, now, I'm inclined to agree with Alicia on this one. She doesn't snore. She-" here, Angelina stopped and made a sound that resembled the noise of Snape inhaling through his beak of a nose coupled with a chainsaw being run over by a car.

"Says the one looks every morning like her hair's the plug for every major muggle electrical socket," shot back Alicia.

"Oh come now, that's being a bit harsh," said Katie. "Me and Angelina aren't the ones that had the genius idea of going to sleep with rubber bands wrapped in our hair, now are we?"

"They weren't rubber bands. They were these thingamabobs to make my hair curly."

"And where did you here that from? Witch's Weekly?"

"That magazine is a perfectly good waste of paper that could be used for wiping people's bums," stated Angelina defiantly.

"Well, don't look at me, I don't read it!"

"Suuure."

"Oh, bring it on. Bring it on."

As it always going to happen sooner or later at a slumber party, a pillow fight broke out.

************

The handsome young man stumbled up the winding stairs, limping on one leg and clutching at his bleeding arm. He had defeated the dragon, and now he had only to rescue the princess. If there's one fact that princes know innately, it's that at the top of three hundred twisting steps, there's always a princess, and at the bottom, there's always a dragon.

It's a boring job being a prince. Princes have only got one job description, and their job qualifications aren't exactly enormous, either. However, this was one prince that knew today wasn't just any ordinary old day of rescuing some stereotypical blonde princess. No, as he walked on the stairs, he knew that what awaited him at the top was going to be worth the climb,

not to mention the broken leg and the puncture wound, too. This princess was going to be different.

The prince placed both finely manicured (princes have a lot of free time) on the door and pushed. Nothing happened. On second thought, the prince pulled. Still nothing happened. Driven to take desperate measures, the prince then gave the door a good, hard kick. It opened.

Stepping into the room, the prince walked towards the bed, anticipating something, though he could not have said what. Once he pulled back the curtains hanging around the bed and saw the princess, though, he began to have more of an idea.

She was beautiful, but unlike the other princesses, it was not due to what was on the outside. On the outside alone, she really wasn't what you would call extraordinarily pretty. She was striking in an unusual way. Her face wasn't the kind forgotten.

The prince wasn't thinking any of this. All he realized was that she was familiar somehow, in a way that made her only more beautiful. The prince put one hand to the girl's short, curly hair and leaned in to kiss her. He wasn't nervous. You didn't last very long as a prince if you were the kind to get nervous.

The prince was just about to kiss the princess's lips when a sudden inkling of impending danger made him stop. Something wasn't right here..

The curls the prince held in his fingers were tighter and even shorter than they had been before. How come the girl smelled like chocolate frogs?

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," chirped Lee happily.

Fred's eyes popped open and looked straight into the pair of brown eyes and bemused face opposite him. In the early morning hours, Fred may have had the reflexes of a turtle moving through molasses, but wake up to a person mere centimeters away that you do not recall being there last night, and a multitude of defensive mechanisms are bound to start. These defensive mechanisms worked considerably faster when you were cloister-phobic, to boot.

Forgetting he had Lee's curls still in hand, Fred scuttled backwards, the muscles in his legs and arms springing into action of their own accord while his foggy mind thought in exclamation points. A sharp pain entered Fred's head as he smacked into his headboard, a fistful of Lee's pulled out hair in hand.

"Ah," said Fred, rubbing his head and glaring at Lee through sleep rimmed eyes. "S'what you had to do that for?"

Lee grinned. There should be some sort of law, thought Fred grumpily, against people grinning this early in the morning like maniacal clowns at a freak show. This law applied even more so when their teeth were covered in chocolate.

"Just looking out for your well-being."

"Well, can't you go look out for it from further away?" grumbled Fred angrily.

"Look, pal, if you sleep thirty minutes later, McGonagall is going to come in and wake you up for detention, and that definitely is not good for your welfare-"

"-Or sanity," added George from the foot of Fred's bed, shivering not so much at the thought of McGonagall in a nightgown so much as the thought of McGonagall's wrinkled face right up in his.

"Gee, I'm touched, guys. You somehow always manage to look out for my welfare while looking out for your own."

George smiled. "Of course, Gred. That's what being a twin is all about."

"Uhuh, I see. Say, for instance, I was hanging from a cliff with Lee in the middle, and you, George, perfectly safe at the top. What would you do?" asked Fred.

"Scream. Loudly. Or laugh depending on my mood," answered Lee. "Maybe both."

"I'd make sure at least one of us survived," said George.

"Point taken. Can't leave the world without at least one copy of our handsome selves, right?"

"Right."

"Hey, hurry up and get up, Fred. We had better get going before McGonagall decides to wake from her beauty sleep-"

"-And she will soon when she finds the frogs you put in her bed last night." George threw Fred some clothes that- Fred's early morning reflexes and his brother's throwing skills being what they were- ended up flying straight over Fred's head, over the bed, and straight to the other side of the floor.

"Would have been better her face than Lee's," retorted Fred, still not over his nightmare of an awakening. He sat all the way up in bed and waited for the room to stop spinning in front of his eyes before venturing to put both fuzzy slipper clad feet unto the floor and pick up his clothes.

"I heard that!" Lee muttered. "I'm not the one who has him for a twin brother."

"You calling me ugly?" asked George. Fred said nothing until George elbowed him in the ribs. Then, he spoke.

"Well, I don't see how that insult applies to me. We aren't identical, after all. He has a mole and I don't."

"Hate to correct you, o brother of mine, but I believe you're the one with the mole," said George.

"Oh no, no, no. That mole is yours." Fred pulled his sweater over his head. "I'm positive. I certainly had to look at enough when you were running around in diapers."

"Well, whoever it is, wherever it is, I'm just thankful to the almighty I haven't had to see it." Lee gestured towards the door. "C'mon, guys, we've got 'work' to do."

Fred, George, and Lee snuck across the chilly castle of Hogwarts, as silently as a Hagrid wearing tap shoes with frying pans strapped to his body.

Fred's sweater did not help them to stay any more incognito. It happened to be candy cane striped. This was an issue George and Lee were in stitches over.

"Why," asked Fred of George. "Did you throw me this sweater of all sweaters to wear?"

"Well, we didn't have a flashlight, so.."

"Oh, haha. Now I know why Mum never dressed us alike. You have absolutely no fashion sense," said Fred.

"So says the mighty owner of the polka dotted bloomers."

"You know very well those aren't m-"

Fred raised an eyebrow and Lee snickered.

"-Yes? Any more incriminating evidence you wish to share with us?"

"Speaking of incriminating evidence," said George, changing the subject quickly. "Exactly what were you dreaming about that caused you to pull Lee's hair?"

"Nothing."

"Aww, did he interrupt your little romantic dream?"

"Of course not!"

"Then explain why you were clutching at Lee's hair."

"Unless I was supposed to be your knight in shining armor, in which case, it all makes perfect sense," joked Lee.

"I was cutting the tentacles of the giant, wild...umm..." Fred trailed off uncertainly.

George looked over at Lee, who was struggling to keep his face straight.

"I think it's best for sanity's sake and Lee's dirty mind, if you call it an 'octopus.'"

If George had changed the subject ninety degrees earlier, Fred changed it at least one hundred and eighty degrees more. "Soo, were exactly are we off to at the lovely hour of..."

Fred's jaw dropped at the trio slipped outside through a hidden door. "Ugh, it's still pitch black outside! What do we have, detention with Snape again?"

"Oh no, we don't have detention still seven. Surely you haven't forgotten-"

"-I have-"

"-Alicia, Katie, and Angelina. Revenge, remember?"

"I've got the cameras and the, the, what do you call those thingamabobs again?"

"The talkie walking things," finished George.

"Oh. That." Fred sighed. "How exactly does this revenge tie to sneaking to their rooms in the middle of the night? Couldn't we at least wait until-oh, I don't know-a time where the bats are sleeping?"

"Why, Fred, if I didn't know you better-"

"-You don't have much of a choice, we're twins-"

"-Well, still, just the same, if I didn't know you better, I'd think you didn't want to do this."

"Why, Feorge, are you accusing me of being a fun hater?"

George grinned. "Well, you seem to be hating fun pretty effectively right now-"

"-That's because it's not even morning yet!" protested Fred.

Lee gave Fred a pat on the back. "Cheer up, mate. It's bound to be morning over in Asia or somewhere."

"Besides," said George. "You do want to get revenge on the girls, don't you? For goodness sakes, think of our reputation!"

"Think of Snape's detention to us for what THEY did."

"Well, we were bound to spell his robes to flower-printed purple eventually," conceded Fred. "They just saved us the trouble."

"Yes, but still, the point is we were framed! We weren't guilty!" said Lee.

"Not guilty of that, anyway," said George.

"Look, of course I want to go to Angelina's room," began Fred and then stopped. He realized what he had said, but not as fast as George and Lee did.

"No words," said Lee, trampling across the snow. "I have no words."

"Actually," he added thoughtfully after a pause, "I have words, but I think I had better just swallow them and use them for blackmail later."

"You know I don't like Angelina!"

George wheeled around in the snow to stare at him. "Do you hate her?"

"Well,no..."

"Then you like her," concluded Lee.

Fred threw up his hands. "Well, sure, but not like that." Fred had never been so glad his thoughts couldn't be heard. When both of your usually disagreeing inner voices were calling you a liar, they were trying to say something.

"You had us scared for a minute there, Fred."

"I haven't been so scared since oh, fifteen minutes ago when I tried to wake you up and you started stroking my hair," said Lee.

"Yeah, yeah. "

"You know, though, during Oliver's quidditch meeting the other day, you did fall asleep on Angelina's shoulder," pointed out George.

"What, would you rather I would have put my head in your lap?"

"Actually, it wasn't really Angelina's shoulder, it was really more of her-"

Fred wished desperately that Hogwart's grounds were shorter and that he could cross them quicker. As it was, he resigned himself to a long walk of being teased. Mind you, not that he would hesitate to tease back.

Meanwhile, the slumber party was continuing on into the night, with less energy and enthusiasm than it had before.

"Sooo?" asked Alicia, drawing out the "o" to the point that if you weren't paying attention carefully, you would have forgotten what she was originally trying to say. A magazine was out on her lap.

"So what? It's not a big deal. I just want to pass on this one, okay? It wasn't me that picked truth, anyway. Give me another dare."

"What happened to the Angelina Johnson that never backs out of anything?"

"I think she's currently taking a nap. What's with all the girly girl questions, anyway? 'Fess up. Which edition of Witch's Weekly did you get that question from?"

"That's not pertinent."

"Probably because it's from the 1970's," murmured Angelina.

" Now Angelina, be a good sport. You have to admit all our

made-up truth questions were getting boring. Telling what kind of broom you want for Christmas isn't exactly a secret of epic proportions," Katie pointed out, directing her last sentence towards Alicia in particular.

"Katie, that's just it," said Angelina. "We don't have any secrets of epic proportions from each other. We've all known each other since before we could even talk, much less eat solids."

"Of course we have, but just because you've known someone forever doesn't mean you know absolutely everything about them." Alicia changed her mind. "Actually, you don't have to tell us if you don't want to, Angie.

Our friendship's way more important than any stupid secrets."

"If you did want to tell us, you know you can trust us to keep our mouths shut about it," said Katie. "Think of all the secrets we could have told about you but didn't. The time we all dared each other to drink that concoction you made and you ended up throwing up all over your mother's sofa-"

"-Not to mention the fact that you still sleep with a teddy bear," Alicia said.

Angelina threw her bear at Alicia. "Hey, no insulting Brownie!"

"Hey, I'm not the one throwing him half way across the room."

"Oh hush, and throw him back before he loses any more clumps of fur."

"You know, he sheds more than Mrs. Norris."

"Everything sheds more than Mrs. Norris. She's got nothing left to shed."

"Ahem," said Katie. "Back to boys, please, and further away from the topic of animals."

"What's the difference? They're pretty much the same thing," said Angelina.

"Amen to that," said Alicia.

None of the girls noticed the commotion going on outside their very window.

"Alright," said Lee, his voice sounding muffled due to Fred's foot being right in front of it. "Almost there. Just a little bit more.."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Lee," said George as he shifted a little bit sideways to take the weight of Lee off his back, "but maybe you should cut down a bit on the sweets."

"At least you don't have toe jam threatening to enter your nostrils," grunted Lee. "Fred, can you reach the window now?"

"Going to fall, going to fall, going to fall," chanted George from the bottom.

From the top of the swaying human chain, the window ledge of Katie's, Alicia's, and Angelina's dorm was grasped by Fred's searching hands.

"Got it!" he said in a triumphant whisper.

"Good." With those words, George collapsed into a pile of snow, Lee falling with him and landing on his stomach. "Geroff, geroff!" George tried to shove Lee to one side. "Can't breathe.."

When Lee had been pushed off, George looked up, trying to make out Fred fifteen feet above in the dark. "Where is he?"

"Easy. He's over there. Can spot that sweater for-" Lee stopped and swore.

"What? What is it? What's he doing?"

"Bloody hell! I thought when he said he'd got it, he was up-"

Fred was hanging by his fingers from the ledge, desperately trying to pull himself up. "Guys, a little help here..."

Lee began swinging the camera around his neck like a lasso before aiming and throwing it in Fred's direction. It clinked as it hit the ledge above Fred.

"Oh, thanks a lot for nothing!"

"X-may on the alk-tay," whispered Lee nervously.

"What?" asked George.

"X-may on the alk-tay" Lee repeated, in the voice of one whose very life depends on getting the point across.

"Lee, for goodness sake, you don't have to whisper. All the teachers are at some meeting thing on the other side of the castle. Even Snape can't go roaming around like his usual vam..."

"Might I ask what two such gentlemen as you are doing outside on a night like this?"

George turned around and froze, his lips moving wordlessly. Lee smacked his forehead and mouthed "I tried to tell you."

"Well, next time don't try to tell me, man. Just hit me over the head with a rock and drag me away," hissed George.

"I believe you owe me an explanation. Though I know it would not suffice to save you from another fifty points from Gryffindor and yet another detention. To my office," Snape drawled, putting an iron grip on either boy's shoulder and herding them along. Suddenly, he stopped and looked suspiciously back to where George and Lee had been a few minutes ago.

"If I am correct, you usually go around in a set of three. How incredibly

bizarre that the other Mr. Weasley would not be here with you."

Snape wheeled around and peered into Fred and Lee's faces. "Where. Is. He?" he asked, annunciating each word with the preciseness of dart hitting its target.

"Believe me; we are as devastated by his absence as you are," said George, "but you see, Fred couldn't come. He was sick."

"Yeah, we would have dragged him along anyway in a sack, but he sounded awful."

"Honestly, he did. Like this-"George coughed pitifully and clutched at his stomach area"-Ooh, I think I have the black luunng.."

"That will be quite enough," said Snape. "An extra hour of detention for lying directly to a teacher, and when I do find the other Mr. Weasley, I can assure you his punishment will be no less."

Fred breathed a sigh of relief, partly because Snape had not seen him, and partly because he had managed to pull himself up onto the spacious window ledge. Moving aside the curtain, he began snapping pictures of the room, particularly one of a certain toy.

"Good lord, is that a figurine of Oliver Wood? I swear, it's practically enshrined."

Fred trailed off as he caught the murmur of voices. Putting one ear to the window and the camera to one side, Fred listened to what the girls were saying.

"Alright, alright, I'll tell. You really want to know the truth?" said Angelina.

"It's.. No I can't. I'm sorry. You wouldn't understand."

"Aww, Angie. Of course we would," said one of the other girls (Fred couldn't quite make out which one.)

"Who would we tell, anyway? Fred and George?"

Haha, if only you knew, thought Fred with a smile.

Angelina sighed. "That's not comforting."

"Hold up. Angie, it's not-is it? Wait, it must be!"

By this point, Fred had the right side of his head so close to the windowsill; it was all covered in frost. Unfortunately for him, just as Angelina was saying a name quietly, Fred's walkie talkie was crackling with Lee's voice.

"Fred? Fred? Are you there, can you read me?"

Fred tried to tune out the noise of the walkie talkie and listen to what was going on inside.

"Heeeellloo? Fred, Fred, come in Fred."

Fred gave up and spoke into his walkie talkie. "Yes, I bloody hear you. So does everyone else within a twelve mile radius."

"What's going on? Got any good pictures yet?"

"Shhh. Not now."

"Is something happening?"

"Not anymore."

"What?"

"Goodbye Lee." Fred clicked the walkie talkie off. Now, someone is the bedroom was ranting, and it didn't take Fred long to figure out it was Angelina.

"This is so stupid! We're all turning into Lavender clones. Boys aren't the center of our universe. They aren't even the center of a planet. Look, don't worry about what I said. It's not serious or anything. It's just a tiny-" Angelina winced, refusing to say something as dumb as 'crush' "-you know."

Fred frowned while mentally ticking off the names of people he knew on his fingers. Who could Angelina possibly have a crush on? Angelina was the sort that-well-suffice to say in the seventies, she most likely would have been busy burning her bra.

Going through the list of potential adversaries he knew in alphabetical order, Fred lulled himself to sleep. He didn't even make it through the "d's" before he was napping peacefully. This time, when he awoke, he would only wish he had been so lucky as to see Lee's cheerful mug in front of him.

Instead, what woke Fred from his enchanted slumber was a scream. It wasn't the kind of scream someone made when they were in dire trouble; it was the kind of scream that was followed by throwing things.

On the other side of the glass pane, Angelina's face was a cross between mortification and extreme anger. Fred answered her scream with one of his own. Hurriedly opening the window, he poked his head in, trying to recover his wits.

"Why Angelina, imagine meeting you here."

"Yes, how strange, considering I sleep here." The sarcasm dripped off of Angelina's voice.

Fred tried to stop his face from turning the color of the stripes on his sweater. "Oh, do you ? Well, that's nice. You should really go back to bed. It's not even light outside yet."

"Oh don't worry, your sweater would help me see through the dark even if I was an Eskimo in Antarctica."

"Angelina, I can explain, really-"

Her only thought to get Fred out, Angelina yanked the window down until it gave Fred's head a solid thwack. Fred ducked his head back outside and rubbed his skull ruefully. "Ouch!"

Angelina looked concerned and abashed.

"Oh, are you okay, Fred?"

Fred was taken aback. The girl was insane. First, she practically tried to kill him, and then she asked if he was alright? What was with that?

"Errm," Angelina added hastily, "because if you are, I'm going to make sure by the time you leave here that you're not."

"Right. I'll just be popping off, then." Fred bent over and tried to stuff his camera into his pocket before Angelina could see, but to no avail.

As soon as she laid eyes on it, Angelina yanked the window back up, and grabbed the camera from Fred.

"I can't believe it! Out of all the low things I can think of to do, this has got to be the lowest." Angelina took a deep breathe. "Just go away. Get out of here, now."

"Let's not be ridiculous. If you would just let me in through your window, I'd be gone before you could blink. After all, there's no other way but-"

Angelina threw the camera back at Fred before he could finish, knocking him backwards and off the ledge. "-Down," concluded Fred's voice faintly from somewhere outside. There was a loud, crashing noise and then silence.

"Angelina?" asked Katie, waking up. "What was that?"

"Fred." Angelina shrugged. "I sort of accidentally on purpose

threw him out our window."

"That window drops seventeen feet!"

"Yeah, but it's only six or so to the prickly bushes."

The next day, Angelina was still fuming. The only difference was, now Katie and Alicia were furious, as well. Instead of sitting next to Fred, George, and Lee as they usually all did, the girls made a point of sitting at the opposite end of the table and glowering in a way that would have made Snape proud.

Angelina was halfway through her third piece of toast when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" asked Fred.

Angelina studied his face. He actually looked repentant. Or as much as someone with mischievous face like his could, anyhow.

"Alright, then."

Fred walked with Angelina out to the hall. They stood for a moment awkwardly before Fred started speaking. "Hey, I just wanted to say I'm really sorry about everything." He handed Angelina something. "I also wanted to give you this. Feel free to destroy it." He shrugged. "Not that I got much of anything on there, anyway. Your slumber parties are awfully boring."

"What were you expecting? Us running around starkers in the middle of winter?"

"Yeah, basically. Isn't that a girl bonding thing?"

"You, Fred, are sadly ignorant."

Angelina turned serious and fingered the camera in her hands. "So why are you giving this back? I've never known you to not follow through

with a prank."

"Yeah, well, the prank was a stupid idea to begin with, and besides,

I'd just rather not have Lee and George know what you look like in your nightgown."

"Fred," said Angelina patiently. "I was wearing toe socks, two sweaters, and a pair of sweatpants."

"Yeah, I know, but still, just the same."

Angelina laughed. This is it, she told herself. No time like the present. Without giving herself any time to worry over it, she blurted out the question.

"It's a good thing you gave me this camera back. I was just about to change my mind."

"Change your mind about what?"

"About asking you to the dance."

"No fair, you beat me to the punch! I was going to ask you. Been thinking of it for about a week."

"Aha! That explains the number of pranks. Mum always said guys who tease girls just want their attention. Admit it."

"Guess I've got no choice. I like you Angelina." He gave a grin that if it was any wider, would have threatened to cut off his chin from the rest of his face. "And you like me."

"Oh, don't go assuming things, mister high and mighty." Angelina couldn't resist a satisfied, lopsided grin. "But yeah, I do."

"So we're going to the dance together, right?"

"'Course! Dumbledore's and Minerva's tango will be nothing compared to our mad dancing skills, right?"

"Right!"

"Guess that's settled, then," said Fred.

Angelina looked up at him, dimples showing up on either cheek as she grinned slyly. "Guess it is." Before Fred knew what was happening, Angelina was kissing him. It lasted for all of two seconds before Angelina broke off and suddenly as she had began. She waved a hand in front of her face, her eyes watering.

Fred put a hand on her back. "Angie, what's the matter?"

Angelina gave a strange half cough, half laugh. "I swallowed my bubblegum."

When Fred finally managed to stop laughing long enough to be coherent, he reassured Angelina. "Aw, don't worry. I've swallowed gum ever since I was little, and look how I turned out."

Angelina snickered. "Do you really want me to comment on that? Bec-"

Fred cut Angelina abruptly off with another kiss. This one was less tentative than the last, though it didn't last for very long, either.

Angelina put a finger to Fred's chest. "Listen here, if you think you can just kiss me to get me to shut me up whenever you-"

Fred was kissing Angelina again, and no matter how hard she tried to continue talking, it just didn't work very well when you were right against someone else's lips. This kiss lasted considerably longer (to the great amusement of those people in the hall.)

"You know," said Angelina afterwards, heading with Fred back to the Great Hall to finish breakfast. "I hear it gets better with practice." She winked.

Fred settled an arm over her shoulder comfortably, giving her nose a pinch.

"I like the way your mind works."

Angelina tilted her head to one side. Interesting how if you looked at Fred from just the right angle, minus the red hair, the freckles, and the brown eyes, he sort of resembled the prince from "The Crimson Corset."

*The End**