A/N: Hello readers! I've been promising it for so long, and now it's finally here: welcome to my Fred/OC fic!

I've been working so hard on this piece, and I've had a blast. It will be spanning all Hogwarts years and beyond.

It's going to be a long story, and an incredibly slow burn – as has become somewhat my specialty – so don't expect things to heat up for awhile yet. Hearing your feedback, I know a lot of you wanted this to be more of an M-rated story, and I'm glad (because I feel like I write that sort of content a lot better than the more tame stuff) but since this story begins when everyone is eleven, the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll (sort of) won't come into it for awhile.

Quick disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I earn any money whatsoever for this story. I'm just a fan having some fun.

Anyways, I hope you like this story as much as I do, I can't wait to hear from you all! Thanks for reading – enjoy!

Glancing down at her golden, elaborately printed ticket, Winona's face scrunched as she read the words 'Platform Nine and Three-Quarters'.

"You just run straight at the wall between Platforms Nine and Ten," the graceful witch – Professor McGonagall – had told her the day they'd gone into Diagon Alley and bought all of her necessary supplies. "It'll take you straight to the train."

Winona was skeptical about the instructions, but the Professor didn't seem the type to be interested in pranking her eleven year old girls.

She followed the other people her age with trolleys, guessing that they were all probably heading for the same place. Turns out McGonagall wasn't full of it after all, people actually were running bang at the wall, disappearing through it and not seeming to come back out the other side.

It was like a doorway to nowhere.

Thinking that McGonagall probably wouldn't wish her dead, Winona knew she had no choice but to follow the instructions she'd been given. Inhaling deeply, she straightened her shoulders, tilted up her chin and ran directly at the wall.

Once she was on the other side she felt somewhat relieved, but also a whole lot more lost. She took a moment to marvel at the shiny beast that was the Hogwarts Express where it sat beautifully on the tracks. It gleamed crimson and midnight black in the sunlight streaming in through the glass ceiling.

Lots of the compartments were still empty, so she slipped into the first one she stumbled across, stepping inside just as a kind man lifted her trunk above her head. She thanked him quietly, and as soon as he was gone she shut the door, letting herself relax into one of the seats.

With the image of the stunning Hogwarts Express still fresh in her mind, Winona pulled out her sketchbook and a fresh pencil, immediately kicking her feet up onto the seat beside her and getting to work.

To Winona, sketching was as easy and as necessary as breathing. She found true peace in the way her pencil glided over the paper, creating a new whole new world out of graphite and colour. She would sketch to try and block out the noise in her head, the memories that haunted her like her own personal ghosts.

She had just finished the main body of the marvellous train when there was a sudden bang and a series of shouting from outside her compartment. Winona reluctantly put down her sketchbook, moving towards the door and sliding it open, sticking her head out into the corridor.

Splayed on the floor of the train was a young girl, no older than Winona herself. She had short, dark hair and wore a lumpy blue sweater. Above her stood a large boy, clearly a couple years their senior, with beady eyes and a permanent sneer on his face.

"I didn't know," the girl was saying, voice shaking a little from fear.

"Of course you didn't, you Mudblood scum," he snarled back, taking another threatening step closer. The girl cowered back, afraid he might strike her.

Winona had seen enough. "Hey!" she barked, sliding out from the safety of her compartment and stepping in between the girl and the older troll of a boy. "What's your problem?" she demanded, voice like ice and her hands balled into angry fists.

The boy blinked in surprise, and Winona got the feeling he wasn't used to being challenged. "Who're you?" he spat, glaring at her venomously.

"Your worst nightmare if you don't back off," she retorted without much of a thought. The girl on the floor hurriedly scrambled to her feet, taking two large steps back so she was stood beside Winona, still shaking just a little, nervously watching the scene play out before her.

The boy laughed darkly at Winona's threat, like she were nothing but an amusing little thing, a minor inconvenience in his day. The sound of it set her teeth on edge. "What're you going to do, firstie?" he sneered. "You gonna tell on me?"

Winona cocked her head. "Would that teach you a lesson?" she asked easily.

The unnamed boy looked taken aback by her confident words, but he recovered quickly. "You threatening me?" he demanded.

"If I were threatening you, you'd know," she assured him. She'd been standing up to bullies like him for as long as she could remember. He was nothing compared to the demons in her past. Dealing with him was inconsequential, but she knew it would also be terribly satisfying.

She was hardly surprised when the boy lunged forwards, hands held out in preparation to shove her backwards. His movements were clumsy and overconfident. Winona sidestepped the attack with ease and once he was in position she sent her small fist flying into his nose.

He tilted sideways in surprise, hands immediately flying to his face. Red began to pour from his nose and he let out a colourful array of language, shock flaming in his teary eyes. Winona shook out her aching fist, hoping she hadn't broken any of her fingers (again).

"Wright!" cried a voice from behind him, and Winona leaned around the bleeding boy to see a pair of boys gaping at her in horrified shock. "You all right, mate?" asked the taller one incredulously. Confusion was clear on their faces, each wondering how the hell an eleven year old girl had gotten the drop on their large, more physically intimidating friend.

"You're going to pay for that, Mudblood," spat the bleeding boy around a mouthful of blood.

"Promises, promises," Winona replied in her most bored tone of voice.

"Come on, Wright," said the boy behind him. "We'll deal with her later."

Wright looked like he desperately wanted to fight back there and then, but he resisted, spitting a final insult in Winona's direction before turning and fleeing, much to her pleasure.

She turned back around to see the girl the guy had been bullying. She was staring at Winona with something like hero-worship in her eyes. Winona grimaced at the sight of it. Beyond her there was a horde of other students piled into the thin corridor, all staring unabashedly at the scene before them. Winona took note of the respect in their eyes. Seemed she already had a reputation to her name – was that a good thing? She doubted it.

"I can't believe you just did that!" gushed the girl.

"He was a dick," Winona shrugged. "It was the least I could do."

"Are you a first year too?" she asked hopefully.

Winona nodded. "I'm Winona," she said, lifting her hand in an awkward wave. "Andrews," she added, because it seemed like the thing to do.

"Alicia Spinnet," the girl told her, giving a wide smile in return.

By now most of the crowd had moved away, losing interest in the event. Two people remained, however, and they were brave enough to approach. Identical twins with flaming orange hair came to a stop beside them, wide grins on their faces.

"That was the greatest thing we've ever seen," said one of them, practically bouncing on his toes, as if high on adrenaline from merely watching the confrontation.

"We've never seen anyone break someone's nose before," the other one chirped. "At least, not on purpose."

"Glad to be of service," Winona replied dryly.

"I'm Fred," said the one to the left, still bursting with excitement.

"And I'm George," said the other one cheerfully. Their massive grins were almost too bright to look at directly – it was like staring into the face of the sun.

"And you're our new best friend!"

Winona genuinely had no idea how she was meant to respond to that. She stared at them a moment, struggling to formulate a reply. She'd never really had friends before – people she was kind of friendly with, sure, but friends? It wasn't something she had any experience in.

People didn't tend to like her. They thought she was different or weird. She supposed, now that she knew she was a witch, their accusations made sense. She was different and weird – but so were these people, too.

If she wanted to get through the next seven years intact, she needed allies. Of that much she was certain.

"Do you have seats yet?" she asked them carefully. They lit up again, and she wondered how they could do that so many times in the space of one minute.

"We were just looking for somewhere!" said the one called George. Already they were shouldering their way into her compartment, bouncing down onto one of the seats with childlike enthusiasm.

"Winona, was it?" asked Fred brightly as she slipped in after them, retaking her spot at the window. "And Alicia?"

Alicia slunk in after them, eyes happy although just a little unsure. Winona nodded to the space beside her and Alicia smiled in relief as she sat down. Winona gathered up her sketchbook and a handful of stray pencils, quickly shoving them into the bag at her feet before sitting back up.

"Can't believe that ugly brute called you that," George was saying with a twist of his mouth.

"You mean Mudblood?" asked Winona. Fred and George both grimaced at the word, but when she glanced over at Alicia she was glad to find she looked just as confused as she felt. "Dunno what it means," she confessed.

"It means you have dirty blood," Fred explained, seeming just as horrified by it as his brother had been. "It's what Pure-blood's call Muggle-borns when they want to feel superior," he added with a snort of disgust.

"Oh," said Alicia sadly, looking down at her hands.

Winona knew from McGonagall that her parents hadn't been Muggles – in fact, they'd attended Hogwarts like any other witches and wizards in Britain. But she supposed the name could still be applied to her, considering she hadn't been raised by witches at all, but rather a series of Muggles who Winona would happily say all had dirty blood to one degree or another.

She didn't want to go into her tragic backstory, however. Let them think what they wanted about her lineage – it really didn't bother her one way or the other.

"Ignore that guy, Alicia," said Winona quickly, the words full of sincerity. "There's nothing wrong with you."

Alicia grinned and Winona smiled back, a little wooden but genuine all the same. "I'm not usually so easy to scare," Alicia told them with a shy smile. "But I didn't even know magic existed until a few weeks ago, and everything's so strange and new."

"We'll get him back for it," George swore with unyielding certainty.

Alicia looked surprised. "Winona already broke his nose," she reminded them. "Don't you think that's punishment enough?"

The twins exchanged a look. "Nah," said Fred brightly, a mischievous glint to his eyes. "Besides, our brother Bill gave us a stack of Dungbombs to use this year – and I think we found the perfect first target," he told them eagerly.

Winona didn't know exactly what Dungbombs were, but she could certainly hazard a guess. Her lips curved up in satisfaction at the thought of that Wright guy getting one in the face for his trouble.

"So, what House are you guys hoping to be in?" Fred asked them both eagerly.

"Uh, I don't really know anything about the Houses," Alicia admitted, bringing her legs up and curling them underneath her meekly.

Winona nodded in agreement. "Yeah, me neither," she said with a shrug. "Grew up around Muggles," she added by way of explanation.

Neither twin so much as blinked at the information, and Winona found herself warming to them even more. "Our whole family's been in Gryffindor," George told them eagerly. "So, obviously, we will be too."

"Obviously," she nodded with a pretend conviction. She really shouldn't be rude. Wasn't that on the no-no list of friendship? Never be rude? It sounded about right.

"What are the Houses, anyway?" Alicia asked, brimming with curiosity.

And so Fred and George launched into an explanation of the four Hogwarts Houses. Of them all, Gryffindor sounded like the best one for Winona, and not just because it was the one her new kind-of-friends wanted to be in.

She could be brave sometimes. Maybe not chivalrous, and certainly not gallant, but she'd stood up to plenty of bullies in her time. Besides, the twins made it sound like the best one, so perhaps she was just a little biased.

"You guys must know heaps about magic," said Alicia during a lull in conversation. "You're probably going to do really well in all your classes."

She sounded sad, like she were resigned to failing at school already, before they'd even walked through the front doors.

"Nah," said Fred, lounging back in his seat, shoes kicked up against the window. It didn't look particularly comfortable, but what did she know? "We're pretty much just here for a laugh."

Alicia stared, blindsided by the comment. "You mean, you don't plan on doing well in your classes?" she asked carefully, as if she'd never heard anything more barmy.

"We just wanna learn how to use magic," said George enthusiastically. "We don't care about doing well in classes. We're not Percy," he said with an edge of disdain.

The girls exchanged a look of bewilderment. "Who's Percy?" Winona asked, understandably confused.

"Our brother," said Fred, grimacing as he did. "The guy's ambition in life is to be made a Head Boy by the time he reaches seventh year. It's disgusting. Doesn't help that our older brother Bill was Head Boy in his day, too."

"How many brothers do you have?" asked Alicia curiously.

"Five, not including George," said Fred with a halfhearted glance over at his twin. "We've got a sister, too, but she's only eight."

"Wow," said Alicia quietly. "I can't imagine having six siblings."

"Why, how many do you have?"

Alicia shrugged. "Just one – a little brother," she told them. "And he's only just turned two." She turned to Winona with a smile, slowly coming out of her shell the longer they talked. "What about you, Winona?" she asked lightly.

"Only child," Winona told them shortly. They kept staring expectantly, and she got the feeling they were waiting for more. Feeling awkward, she reluctantly pressed on. "My parents died when I was three," she said stiltedly.

Alicia's expression twisted in sympathy, but Fred and George just leaned closer, interest gleaming in their identical eyes. "That's what you mean, you were 'raised by Muggles'?" asked Fred. "How does that work? Was it like an uncle or something?"

Winona shook her head. "Nah, foster care," she said casually.

The twins just stared back at her dumbly. "What's foster care?" asked George in confusion.

Surprised that they didn't know, Winona turned to Alicia, who winced at the question. She was used to that sort of reaction. When people found out you grew up in foster care, they usually began to treat the subject like it were a chandelier hanging over her head. One wrong word and it might shatter into a million tiny little pieces, taking her down with it.

"It basically means I was raised by strangers, moving from home to home when I was a kid. Kind of like a pet they couldn't find a permanent home for," she explained offhandedly. The topic had long ago stopped causing her pain.

The twins looked aghast at the information. "You mean you didn't have a family?" asked Fred, horrified.

"Nope," she shrugged again. "Just me."

They didn't seem to know what to say; not because they were trying to be delicate – she knew by now that they weren't the type – but because they were so genuinely appalled that anyone would have to grow up that way. She hoped they didn't pity her. That was the last thing she wanted.

"S'alright," she assured them. "It is what it is."

"Well, being raised by Muggles, you two probably know next to nothing about Quidditch!" said Fred loudly, leaning forward and launching into yet another rambling explanation all about the Wizarding sport known as Quidditch. The girls listened eagerly, and in the back of her mind Winona was wondering if it had actually been this easy to make friends all along, or whether Fred and George were just a special case.

Hours passed with light conversation, mostly the twins telling Winona and Alicia all about the Wizarding world, catching them up on everything they didn't know. They appreciated it; it was nice to go into this knowing as much as they could; going to a new school was scary enough without adding a whole new world into the mix.

Finally they arrived at the station in a town called Hogsmeade, and all the first years gathered in a group behind a massively built man with a thick, wiry beard that made Winona's fingers itch to try to recreate it on paper.

They followed him down to a sprawling lake, the surface of the water still and glossy, like a mirror reflecting the sky back to them. When they got in their boats it was like sailing through the stars themselves.

The castle before her was the single most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her life. It stood tall in the night, firelight drifting out from the hundreds of windows, making it glow warmly against the starry night sky. Winona was humbled into silence from her place in her boat with Alicia and the twins. Even the rambunctious Fred and George were quiet, making no jokes as their small vessel drifted magically across the quiet water of the great lake.

"You know, Bill told us once that there's a giant squid at the bottom of the lake," whispered one of the twins from behind her. Winona smiled ruefully, knowing the humbled silence had been too good to last. "Fancy a swim?" he pressed impishly, and a gut feeling told her Fred was the twin speaking.

"You even think about pushing me in and I swear, I'll break both your arms," Winona warned him in the same muted whisper. She heard him laugh quietly, but her attention had already moved. She stared up at the glittering, towering castle before her, trying to commit every inch of it to memory, so when she was up in bed and couldn't sleep, she would be able to recreate it on paper to keep forever.

Climbing up the endless stairs to reach the room called the Great Hall, Winona came to a stop with her fellow first years outside of a pair of huge double doors carved from reddish wood. She absentmindedly fingered the wand that was tucked into one of the deep pockets of her new school robes, feeling the wood against her skin, somehow warm and cool in the same instant.

And then McGonagall was there to greet there, giving a speech about rules and Houses and points and family, but Winona barely listened. It was just all so intense, all of it so much. She didn't know how to react, not even within the safety and privacy of her own mind.

The doors opened, swinging out to invite them in, and the first years were assaulted by a wall of noise. Made up of mostly chatter and laughter, Winona tried not to meet anyone's eye as they were marched up the middle of the four lengthy tables, guided up to a larger table at the end where all the teachers were sat.

Winona's eyes slid over them all, taking in the stern looking woman wearing the witch's hat; the tiny little man with glasses and a balding patch; the greasy looking man with inky hair and a hooked nose like the beak of a bird; and finally the man in the centre of them all.

Sitting tall and regal in the most elaborate of all the chairs, the man was wearing a set of light purple robes with tiny little stars stitched on in real constellations. He had a huge, long beard that disappeared down beneath the tabletop, and a pair of half-moon spectacles bordered a pair of glittering blue eyes – the kind of eyes that made you think the owner knew something you didn't.

Winona wasn't sure whether she trusted him immediately, or didn't trust him at all. It was either one or the other, but she couldn't decide which it was.

Those glittering eyes flickered away from McGonagall to meet hers, almost like he knew she'd been staring. Their eyes locked, and she wondered whether she were imagining the knowledge that glinted in his gaze. Like he knew exactly who she was. Like he already knew everything about her.

"Andrews, Winona," a loud, Scottish voice called.

For one breadth of a second she thought it was the bearded man calling her name, then someone jabbed her sharply in the side and she realised it had been McGonagall and that now the entire student body was waiting for her to do something.

The person poked her again, and Winona quickly walked up to the stool stood in front of the bearded man's spot at the table. His eyes never left her, and she felt uncomfortable turning her head away, as if he were somehow a threat to her safety.

Reluctant, she turned her back and sat obediently on the stool. Without preamble McGonagall dropped a wide-brimmed, heavy witch's hat down onto her head, and she tried not to crumple at the unexpected weight.

"Hmmm…" purred a voice in her head. Winona flinched but otherwise didn't react. "So much creativity. So much force of will. Where to put you…?"

She wanted to ask it to put her in Gryffindor, but she was sure it didn't work like that.

"Gryffindor, you say?" that voice purred again, sounding intrigued. She realised the hat was reading her thoughts and quickly did her best to think of something innocent and unassuming. The hat chuckled in her head, unmistakably amused. "You would do well in Ravenclaw. They value knowledge and creativity above all else, you know?"

But Winona didn't value those things, not really. Yes, she was a creative person – she spent more time sketching and painting than she did anything else – but that wasn't what she held in high esteem.

"Hm, then what do you hold in high esteem?"

It took her a minute to think, but in the end she needn't say anything aloud.

"Loyalty above all else to those you love, and the courage to stand up for what you believe in…" the hat murmured, interest soaking its tone. "Well, are you sure? You would do great things in Ravenclaw. It's where every other Seer has ever been placed. You would be the first to stray."

Winona's brow pulled into a frown. Seer?

"Well, I can see your mind is made up. It'll have to be…Gryffindor!" the hat shouted aloud, and the table on the far left exploded in cheers and hoots, launching to their feet and clapping for her wildly. A little stunned by the force of her welcome, Winona blinked as McGonagall took the heavy, sentient hat off her head and gave her the tiniest hint of a smile before shooing her off to her new school-family.

Being the first of the first years to be sorted, there was nobody to sit beside except older students. A kid, at least a few years older than her, waved her over to sit beside him. He was tall and ginger, with kind eyes and freckles covering his face. He reminded her of the twins.

He clapped her firmly on the back as she took a seat on his right. "Welcome to Gryffindor, kid," he told her warmly.

"Are you Charlie?" she asked by way of greeting, ignoring the rest of the sorting happening at the front of the room.

The ginger boy looked surprised, and a girl with inky black hair and a permanent smirk on her face leaned around him. "I see your reputation proceeds you, Charlie," she said impishly.

Charlie chuckled, but she could tell he was a little embarrassed by the comment. "I met your brothers on the train," Winona explained, taking pity. "They told us about their family."

"And you knew it was me?" Charlie wondered.

"The red hair is hard to mistake."

Charlie laughed, reaching out a hand. "Charlie Weasley," he introduced himself needlessly.

"Winona Andrews," she replied, gingerly shaking his hand before quickly pulling away.

"Andrews, eh?" asked the girl from before. "I don't know the name. You a Muggle-born?"

"Quinn," hissed Charlie.

"What?" the girl – now Quinn – said defensively. "She doesn't care. It's not an offensive question. Right, Winona?"

"I don't care," Winona confirmed with a shrug. "My parents were magical, but they were both Muggle-borns, as far as I know."

"How could you not know?" Quinn scoffed. She didn't seem rude, just blunt, like she spoke before she thought.

"They died when I was three," Winona told her, wondering in the back of her head just how many times she was going to have to share that fact before it inevitably became common knowledge.

Quinn grimaced apologetically, but Winona just waved off the apology she knew was coming, turning to look when the Gryffindor table exploded into more cheers. A young, mousy girl came to a stop in the spot opposite Winona. She glanced at the cheering Gryffindors shyly, reluctantly shaking the hands thrust her way before sinking into her seat.

"Hey, I'm Winona," Winona greeted her with as much enthusiasm as she could conjure. The twins and Alicia had been easy enough to befriend, how hard could it be to do the same thing with her?

"Hope," said the girl, almost too soft to hear over the cheers from the Hufflepuff table beside them. "Hope Eiseman."

"Do you think this year's pool is a little thinner than usual?" Quinn was asking Charlie loud enough for Winona to hear. She leaned around Charlie to see her nodding meaningfully at the smallish crowd of nervous first years.

"Well, they're all the '78 kids," replied someone from across the other side of the table, a tall guy with dark brown hair and a prominent lisp.

"What's so special about kids born in '78?" Winona asked before she could stop herself, curiosity getting the better of her.

The trio of older kids turned to look at her, but she was relieved to find two out of three didn't appear annoyed by her invasive question. Quinn and Charlie just frowned as if they didn't want to tell her the answer, but the kid with the lisp clearly thought she was stepping out of line.

"It was the last year of the war," Charlie told her, lowering his voice so it wouldn't carry. She didn't imagine it was the sort of topic one causally brought up in conversation.

"Something about all that death and destruction didn't make sexy times particularly easy to come by," said the lisp boy crassly.

"Jace," hissed Quinn. "She's eleven."

"Well she asked."

"What war?" Winona asked with narrow-eyed concentration.

The three of them stopped their bickering to look at her warily. "Just a war that was going on back when we were kids," said Charlie quietly.

"Between who?" she pressed stubbornly.

"Good and evil," Quinn told her, and though the words were played off as a joke, Winona couldn't help but hear the truth ringing within them. She frowned, opening her mouth to ask more only for the rest of the Gryffindors to explode in more cheers as yet another student was sorted into their House.

"It's not good party talk," said Charlie in her ear. She turned to look, seeing him frown. "Ask some other time, yeah?"

Reluctantly Winona agreed, and she turned as a young girl dropped into the spot beside her. The girl had high cheekbones and hair braided back in a complicated plait. She looked at Winona with confidence in her eyes. "Angelina," she said, as if reading it from a script she'd found about how to introduce yourself to strangers.

Winona responded in kind, keeping her face straight. "Winona."

It was hard to tell with her dark skin, but Winona thought she blushed a little. "Nice to meet you," she said, loosing some of the awkwardness in her voice. Winona smiled, nodding back, but before she could say anything there was another great cheer from their table as yet another kid was sorted into Gryffindor.

A kid with beads threaded into his messy dreadlocks appeared, taking a seat beside a blushing Hope. He gave out generous high fives when the others asked for them, seeming to bask in the attention.

"Lee, right?" Angelina asked, apparently having caught his name.

"As you live and breathe," he replied without missing a beat, voice more squeaky than Winona had expected. She hastily introduced herself, glad when he reached out for a fist bump rather than a handshake. They'd always made her feel like a grown-up at a job interview. Not a situation she ever wanted to be in.

Winona turned her full attention back to the sorting, and she felt anxiety begin to build in her gut as the group got smaller and smaller, all three of the people she'd met on the train still waiting to be sorted. Angelina and Hope and Lee all seemed nice enough, but she was really holding out hope that Alicia and the twins would be in her House too.

Spinnet, Alicia was sorted first, and this time Winona joined in on all the cheering as she scurried over to meet them. Winona forced Angelina to shuffle further down the bench, giving Alicia room to sit in between them.

Alicia didn't hesitate to throw her arms around Winona before she sat down, bringing her into a happy hug. Blindsided, Winona awkwardly squeezed her back until she finally let go and took a seat, already beginning to start a lively conversation with Angelina. It seemed that shy girl she'd broken a bloke's nose for was gone, someone bright and friendly in her place.

Finally the twins were sorted – and to nobody's surprise they were placed in Gryffindor too. Winona greeted them with a grin as they high-fived with Charlie and shouted something rude at another redheaded boy further down the table wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. They took their seats beside Lee, already engaging him in a debate about fireworks, but before they could get very far the whole Hall went deathly silent.

Turning her head, Winona realised the man in the half-moon spectacles had stood, commanding the entire room with a single, lazy lift of his hand.

"To all our new students: welcome. And to all our older students: welcome back," the aged wizard began, voice low and raspy, but holding a youthful airiness to it that took Winona by surprise.

He continued on in his 'welcome' speech, listing the out-of-bounds places around the school, and reminding the students when Quidditch tryouts were to be held. It was all basic housekeeping, none of it at all interesting, until the very end.

"And lastly, I would like to remind everyone that violence is not tolerated here at Hogwarts," he said, authority lacing the words, making them heavy and hard. "There are many ways to work through conflict, but the physical assault of others will be properly punished from this point onwards."

His piercing blue eyes flickered to the Gryffindor table, zeroing in on Winona specifically. She knew in that instant that he'd most certainly heard about what she'd done on the train, and that this was her one free pass – after this, there would be no leniency. She didn't acknowledge his direct order, eyes turning down to her empty plate.

With that he commanded the feast to begin, and Winona was so distracted by the piles upon mountains of delicious-smelling food that appeared before her eyes, that she couldn't have cared less that the Headmaster of her new school seemed suspiciously familiar with all things Winona.

That was a problem for another day.

A/N: So I guess my main idea for this story was that I wanted to have a Fred/OC that followed the books, but I wanted to change canon and make it my own. Thus; I made Winnie a Seer. This story is going to follow the basic events of the books, but the deeper we go, the more and more that's going to change, some things big, and some small. I hope you're gonna like it!

I'd love to hear your feedback, and I can't wait for you all to get to know and love Winona - like you have Juliet and Hartley and all my other OC's in the past. See you soon!