VIII.

An Afternoon With Fred & George.

To say Oliver was a little annoyed was an understatement.

When he'd woken up four hours too early this morning to the sound of Percy's trumpeting, gargling snoring, he'd decided that he'd too harshly judged the Weasley twins… although their actions and words might not always be the picture of truth, their warnings about their elder brother's snoring had not been even close to a lie. It was horrible. And so, in honour of their having been honest with him, he'd decided that spending the day with his two Beaters might provide some kind of insight into their mischievous lives, thus allowing him to become closer to the rogue fifteen year-olds.

And oh, how his early morning decision had come back to bite him on his Scottish arse.

'Oliver mate, your main problem is that you know nothing about girls,' Fred informed his elder Captain, reaching over to pat his arm comradely, 'and that being the situation, you don't have a girlfriend, and thus, you are uptight and sexually frustrated, thus your unreasonable, Nazi-like tendencies to try and kill us daily on the Quidditch pitch.'

'Oi! I kno-' Oliver tried to defend himself in vain, as George rattled on right over the top of him.

'And we all know you're impossibly in love with the ever-lovely Kit-Kat, which makes it all the more worse, because she's one of the hardest women to figure out … it took Fred here three months to figure out whether she was a pasta or a pizza girl, once upon a time back in third year when he had a bit of a thing for her.'

His dark eyes narrowing, Oliver re-opened his mouth, but was yet again overrun by a Weasley twin.

'And to make matters even more worse,' Fred added with a mournful look in the Scots' direction, 'she's in love with none other than Pretty-Boy Diggory.'

'Eurgh!' George exclaimed before pulling a girly face that his twin mirrored, '"Oh My God, what a man!"'

Pulling his own disgusted face, Oliver couldn't help himself.
'Do they really say things like that about him?'

'Oh mate, that was just an intro.' Fred assured him with a wrinkle of his freckled nose.

'Do they ever say things like that about… me?' he asked hesitantly, screwing his eyes up in morbid anticipation.

'Well, now that you mention it…' George replied.

'…they actually do,' Fred finished with a mysterious wink.

Wrenching his eyes back open, Oliver couldn't believe it.

'"Ah! What an accent!"' they mimicked in unison, '"Have you ever seen such a body!?"'

With a strangled sort of cough, Oliver felt his face temperature rise ten degrees at least.

'"Give me Wood in a kilt any day!"'

'"Gryffindor Captains are always the best looking!"'

With one last bat of their eyelashes, the twins cracked identical grins before bursting into laughter at the look on his face: it was almost indescribable. A mix of embarrassment, pride, ego, amusement and… fear?

'Well now, you haven't been telling our dear Captain what I've been saying about him, have you?' asked an amused female voice from behind them, and they both spun in their armchairs to see Katie standing behind them, grinning.

'Well, as a matter of fact Katie-love, we have,' George countered, making her splutter indignantly.

'I was only joking! You… I… Oliver, you know I'd never say things like that about you!' she appealed to him, making him withdraw, a little hurt.

'Oh. Well, if Diggory is more your type, then by all means, chase the prett- I mean, guy,' he replied, putting his hands up in the air in a sort of surrender.

'Diggory? Oh, Oliver, I didn't mean it like that,' she sighed, walking over to the lounge chair he was slumped in and sitting on the arm of it.

'I don't care how you meant it,' he said with a casual shrug, 'It's your love life, not mine.'

'Oh, Oliver, stop it,' she sighed, reaching and placing a hand on his shoulder, 'don't be like this.'

'Be like what?' he said in an aloof tone that was obviously faked.

'A sulky teenage girl, that's what,' she snapped, firing up.

'Well, if that's how you feel, I think I might just leave,' he said, getting to his feet and stalking up the stairs to his dormitory.

'Oliver!' she cried, sighing as his footsteps could be heard as he trumped up the stone steps irritably.

'Piss off!'

Scowling, Katie got up and marched over to the foot of the stairs.

'Oliver you bloody idiot, come back down here!' she yelled, her dark hair flying around her face as she screamed up the staircase at him.

'NO!' he bellowed in return.

'Fine then! I won't ask you to Hogsmeade this weekend!' she screamed, turning on her heel and huffing over to her own staircase.

There was a surprised cough and then silence.

'Am I still allowed to say yes?' asked a timid Scottish voice after a few seconds.

'As long as you never assume that I'm in love with that idiot pretty boy, ever again,' answered a quieter English one.

'Promise.'

'See you Saturday at ten.'

There was another pause in the Gryffindor tower, as everyone seemed afraid to breathe in case this unusual scenario would crumble.

'Ah, young love,' commented Fred with a snigger, breaking the quiet and allowing the common room to erupt in catcalls and whistles.

'Out with the sexually frustrated four-in-the-morning-practices and in with the weekend sleep-ins!' agreed George excitably, as they both nodded in self-satisfaction.

After they'd sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, Fred grinned.

'It's amazing what Percy can actually achieve when he's not awake and annoying the bloody hell out of somebody.'

hey all,

thanks for the reviews on the last chapter, i appreciate them alot. -smiles-
and yeah, contrary to evidence presented in the last chapter i'm okay, just lots happening.

anyhow, hopefully this one was less.. sad.
Ash x