...I Suppose It's A Twin Thing

George's Tale

Alicia Spinnet.

Alicia Spinnet.

Alicia Spinnet.

Alicia Spinnet.

...

Alicia Weasley.

...

Bugger.

...

Bugger Oliver Wood.

Bugger Oliver Wood and his sodding stupid rules.

Bugger Oliver Wood and his sodding stupid rules about intra-team fraternisation.

You see, according to Wood, it was okay to muck around with almost any girl from Gryffindor or the other houses. I think he secretly hoped that Cho Chang or some other girl playing for one of the house teams would fall for us gorgeous Weasley boys and get stuck when they were playing against us.

Thinking logically - for maybe the only time in his Quidditch-obsessed life - Wood banned us from dipping our quills in the team inkpot.

"No romantic involvement!" he thundered at us back in our second year. "I don't want you chasing your girlfriend out there if a Bludger goes for her! I want you chasing your team-mates!"

"Can we chase our team-mates when we're not playing, then?" Fred asked innocently.

"Keep your mouth shut for once, Weasley," he snapped. "I know what you two are like. I've seen the girls drooling after you. Try it on with one of my Chasers and I'll have your privates on a plate!"

Fred and me exchanged a quick look. Girls? Drooling after us? That was news to us. I knew exactly what Fred was thinking right then: That this was something worth investigating.

And guess what? Oliver was right: The girls did love us Weasley boys. Of course, it would have been unfair to restrict ourselves to just one girl, right? So we spread the love, never made any promises we couldn't keep - something to be avoided, in my experience - and listened closely to Bill and Charlie's advice on certain charms that kept us from being in a position that would have made Mum cry, which is definitely to be avoided.

The whole time, though, I had half an eye on Alicia, which can really put a crimp in a man's love life.

I just... She's always been there, right? And somewhere along the way, she wasn't just a friend anymore. I don't know when. It may have been always, it may have been yesterday. It happened gradually, and it was never a case of waking up one day and thinking: "Today I fancy Alicia Spinnet."

So, I've been dealing with that while, at the same time, keeping my hand in. Being a Weasley means that you do get a certain amount of female attention - even Ron's starting to get girls looking after him, not that's he's noticed, dozy twit - and being part of the fabulous Gred and Forge means that the attention is just amplified.

Still, Fred does seem to have more girls after him. And some of the girls I get seem to have this idea that I'm a good listener, someone to spill their hearts out to. The night we won the Quidditch Cup last year? I was listening to a sixth year girl spill her heart out to me about her Hufflepuff boyfriend who she thought was cheating on her. It's all very well being caring and generous and all that stuff, but I wanted to be at the party, dancing with the others, downing Butterbeer and cosying up to Alicia...

Fred, for the record, disappeared that night in the direction of the Prefect's bathroom to meet, I believe, Sarah Harding, a seventh year Ravenclaw who's already been on the cover of Witch Weekly three times.

Talk about rubbing it in.

But I'm getting off topic here, aren't I? Back to Alicia, then.

The day that Fred apologised to Angelina - stylish, in a bizarrely low key kind of way - I think that I was about to kiss Alicia. Until Fred came in, of course.

You see, she was sitting next to me on the sofa, and she was stammering over something that seemed really, really important to her. Then she shut her eyes, and took a deep breath, and I leaned in impulsively, because for that split second, she looked like she as about to cry.

In my experience, crying stops when you kiss someone. It's amazing how well it works.

I mean, okay, they might only stop them crying long enough to whack you with a broomstick, but it works, right?

You should have seen Oliver's face when Fred and I kissed him after we lost to Hufflepuff last year...

Look, it's painful to watch a grown man cry, right? Especially Oliver Wood.

Still, I suppose that now he's a big Quidditch star, Fred and I could make our fortunes by selling the story of that morning to the Prophet. I bet Rita Skeeter would lap it up, the cow.

Ugh. Rita Skeeter. Let's talk about a much nicer woman. Let's talk some more about Alicia.

So, I nearly kissed her. And then Fred interrupted. I suppose it's a twin thing, the impeccable timing that lets you spoil the moment for the other person. I just wish, for once, that I could do it to him rather than him to me.

The rest of the day was weird. Alicia got caught in the blast when Angelina's cauldron exploded, and that sniggering loon Warrington made some snide remark about her burnt shirt being easier to take off.

With Fred being nowhere to be seen once the lesson ended, I strode up to Warrington during lunch.

"Warrington," I growled. "Stand up."

"Why?" he grunted.

"So I can knock you on your fat arse," I said. I've always believed in honesty.

"What for?" he said.

"For insulting my friend during Potions," I said.

Warrington sniggered, and I was ready to pound him then and there.

Then he stood up, and for the faintest moment I regretted not having backup ready.

Warrington is huge.

Fortunately, I had a trick up my sleeve, but then, I always do. As co-founder of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, it'd be embarrassing if I didn't have several samples on me at any given time.

The prototype Wildfire Whiz-bang went down the front of Warrington's trousers quicker than anything had ever been down there before, I'd bet. The Ton Tongue Toffee went in his mouth while he gasped in surprise and I threw in a Canary Cream as well, just to see what happened.

What happened was Warrington's trousers exploding as he got thrown ten feet backwards across the Slytherin table. Fortunately for everyone, the Ton Tongue Toffee took hold and the four-foot pink thing hanging out of his mouth prevented anyone from catching sight of his unmentionables.

And I use the word with feeling, believe me.

Just as the stunned silence faded, Warrington swallowed the Canary Cream.

It seems the Ton Tongue and Canary Cream spells don't mix very well.

Or they mix incredibly well.

I suppose it depends on whether you're Warrington or not.

He exploded.

Oh, not in a messily fatal way, although I don't think that would have bothered me very much, 'cos he's always been a git.

No, he expanded in every direction at once, swelling until he was about three times his normal size.

He started to float, bobbing off the ground.

He started to change colour, turning an interesting shade of purple that actually matched my dress robes rather nicely. I shall think of him whenever I wear them.

Oh, and he started to molt. First his eyelashes and eyebrows. Then the revolting skinny moustache that even makes some of the teachers shudder when they see it. Then, finally, the hair began to fall from his head in his great clumps.

Warrington bobbed gently in the slight breeze coming through the doors at the end of the hall. Everyone seemed too stunned to say anything.

Then there was a familiar clunking nose from behind me.

"Weasley," Mad-Eye growled from behind me.

"Professor Moody."

"That was a cold-blooded attack on an unarmed opponent, lad," he said. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him leaning heavily on his staff, watching contemplatively as Warrington bobbed helplessly four foot above the ground, his tongue the only thing touching the floor. By now, he was hanging upside down and even some of the Slytherins were sniggering at him.

"Yes sir, I know. I'm prepared to take my punishment."

"Right. We'll call it thirty points from Gryffindor and a detention with me tonight," he said shortly, before turning away and clunking off.

I did my best to hide a grin as I walked back to the Gryffindor table. Thirty points was nothing, and a detention with Moody'd probably be fun. Moody's cool.

"What was that about?" Alicia asked, as Warrington was towed past us on his way to the hospital wing. He was yelping indistinctly as the person taking him out of the Hall was pulling him along by his tongue.

"Oh, I just didn't like what Warrington said to you earlier," said, not wanting to look at her as I said this. I wasn't sure how she'd react.

"You did that for me?"

I nodded.

"Oh. Well, thank you, I suppose."

"You're my friend, Alicia. I wasn't going to let him get away with it."

"It doesn't bother me, George," she said.

I looked at her.

"It bothers me," I said. "I care about you too much to let Warrington and his mates get their kicks out of making fun of you."

Alicia was silent for most of the rest of the day after that. It was after dinner before she spoke again, cornering me in the common room.

"George, if I ask you something, do you promise not to laugh at me?"

Anyone else, of course, this would have been a cue for me to launch into banter with them about how I could promise not to laugh when I didn't know if what they were going to say was funny or not.

Not with Alicia, though.

She looked really, really nervous.

Well, okay, she was biting her lip, which is a bit of body language I've always found incredibly cute in girls, and which just made me want to pull Alicia onto the sofa and...

Yeah, well, anyway.

All that flashed through my head in about a half-second. When I looked up, Alicia was still there, still biting her lip, still wringing her hands.

"Of course," I said, waving her to a seat opposite me. "Ask away."

She sat, and wrung her hands some more.

"George," she said, slowly. "Do you like me?"

"Yes," I said, simply.

"How?"

"How?"

"Yes, how. How do you like me?"

This is the sort of surreal conversation I'm more used to having with Fred. I tried to wrap my head around what she's asking.

I tried. But I failed. Completely.

"Can you... I don't know what you mean," I admitted.

She looked at me as though I'd betrayed her, and the next thing she said sounded like it took a hell of a lot of courage to say.

"Do you like me more than as a friend?"

Ah.

You see my dilemma? This girl that I'm crazy about asks me if I'm crazy about her. By rights, if it were a perfect world, I'd just say yes.

But it's not a perfect world, kids. It's a deeply imperfect world, and for all I know, she's asking because after today's lunchtime, she's scared that I have all these higher feelings for her and it's going to impact badly on our relationship.

It might me a dilemma, I suppose, were I anyone but a Weasley. We're Gryffindors, through and through, remember?

"Yes, I do," I said.

"Oh."

I waited. I couldn't read Alicia. I don't normally have a problem with that, because she's a very open person. But at that moment, her face was completely blank, which I found a little unsettling.

"I..." She was screwing up her courage again, and I could tell that this was taking a lot out of her.

So I leant forward and kissed her, as softly as I could, and then sat back.

"Alicia," I asked. "Will you do me the honour of accompanying me to the Yule Ball on Christmas Day?"

She smiled, and I smiled, and we were happy.

Later on, I made my way upstairs to the dormitory, possibly whistling a jaunty tune as I did so. Certainly when I walked in, Fred was quick to spot that I was in a good mood.

"Finally asked Alicia out, did you?"

"Yes. And what's with the finally, Mr I've-Fancied-Angelina-Since-I-Was-Eleven?"

"I fancy every girl I meet," Fred said, magnanimously. "It saves time. You, on the other hand, have been drooling after Alicia since third year."

"Rubbish," I said, collapsing back onto my bed.

"Truth," he said.

"Well, whatever," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "We both have dates for the Yule Ball, yes?"

"Looks like it, provided we don't upset the girls between now and then."

We exchanged a look. We both knew what the other was thinking.

"How upset would they have to be with us before they'd break the dates?"

We looked at each other, identical grins spreading across our faces.

The End