There Ain't No Moonlight, After Midnight

"OH MY GOD!" Vicki heard a familiar voice shout towards her, and she turned around to see her black haired best friend run towards her and engulf her into an enthusiastic hug.

Whilst Sarah was her best muggle friend, Stephanie Fawcett was her best friend at Hogwarts. Stephanie lived in the same magic housing community as Vicki's father, so whilst they didn't spend a lot of time together over the summer, they did see each other occasionally.

Sarah was the friend that Vicki could do muggle things with, such as going clothes shopping and watch trashy television soap operas with. Stephanie on the other hand was someone she could do witch things with. They traded beauty spells and gossiped about fellow witches and wizards. After spending the last couple of months living an (almost) muggle lifestyle, Vicki was ready to dive right into wizard culture again. That was the last summer where she wouldn't be allowed to use magic outside of school, but it seemed to go slowly. She was looking forward to using magic again.

"Hello Stephanie. Did you have a nice summer?" Vicki's mother, Maureen asked her friend.

"Yes I did, Miss Smith," Stephanie said as she put on a sweet smile and correctly used Maureen's maiden name "Did you enjoy having Vicki at home?"

Vicki smirked at her friend as her mother answered Stephanie's question. Stephanie and Vicki were very similar, but unlike Vicki who wore her heart on her sleeve, Stephanie Fawcett was a master manipulator. Even though Steph had no sinister motives on speaking to Vicki's parents, she still managed to put on a sweet smile to wrap the parents around her finger. Vicki was a quick thinker and was always on her feet, but Stephanie was quite the actress. The two girls gained a lot of popularity the previous year and it was by no fluke.

"It's five to eleven. We really should jump onto the train and gain our seats." Vicki stated as she broke up the conversation between her mother and her best friend.

Every year both of Vicki's parents, as well as her mother's partner Alfred came to see her off on the train. It was a cute tradition that her parents treasured, as they both did miss her while she was away. So Vicki bid farewell to her parents and her mother's partner – she did respect Alfred but both Alfred and Maureen decided to go against the title of 'stepfather'. Vicki wasn't sure whether they felt too old or because Alfred was previously Vicki's teacher and it was weird, but he would always just be Alfred.

Vicki promised to write weekly to her parents and with a kiss on the cheek and a hug she boarded the Hogwarts Express with her friend.

"Aw, that's cute." Stephanie teased her, her sarcastic manner taking over now there were no adults around to fool.

"Where were your parents?" Vicki asked, crossing her arms across her chest defensively.

"They couldn't wait to see the back of me. They dropped me off at ten and quickly left. So prefer that, less sappy." Stephanie grinned towards Vicki.

Vicki grinned back and shook her head. It sounded sad that Stephanie's parents dumped her and left, but she knew that's what the Fawcett family were like. Vicki knew that Stephanie's family loved her dearly, but had a different way of showing it.

A few minutes after Stephanie and Vicki boarded the train, the Hogwarts Express began to chug slowly out of Kings Cross.

"C'mon. Let's go grab a compartment whilst these chumps are waving goodbye to their families. They'll all be full in the next two minutes." Vicki said to Stephanie, tugging on her arm to pull her away from the crowds gathered around the windows.

Steph smiled at her friend, trying to hide a small smile. Vicki knew what was coming, she had only briefly caught up with Steph and she was about to get ditched.

Steph knew her friend had already caught on. She got on the defensive immediately.

"Remember last summer when you spent the whole train ride with Roger, who you had only started dating? Yeah, I'm cashing in on that. I started dating Stebbins, the Hufflepuff over summer, so I'm going to pull a Hartwell and ditch you for him." Steph joked, taking a few steps from Vicki, as a lot of their fellow students started walking around them to secure a compartment.

"I have to spend half the ride in the prefects compartment, I did not willingly ditch you!" Vicki complained.

"Whatever. Your fault for deciding to be a prefect. Anyway, I'll see you when we get off the train. I'm going to go snog Mr. Kyle Stebbins so catchya on the flip side!" Stephanie laughed at Vicki, sending her best friend a wink as she ran down the train corridor in search of her fling.

Vicki shook her head. She wasn't angry at her friend at all, in fact she was almost happy her friend had found romance, there were many times she had genuinely ditched Steph for Roger. Vicki had someone she had to see herself anyway, and was almost glad that she now had the excuse to go do so. She felt in her pocket for a piece of paper she needed to show a certain set of twins, and slowly made her way down the corridor to find them.

She looked into the compartments and after weaving her way through crowds for five minutes, she saw the two she was after. They looked like they were up to something no good as the door was closed and they had their heads together, quietly speaking amongst themselves.

Vicki awkwardly tapped on the door, hoping they were open to the fact she wanted to join them for some of the train trip. They both looked up suddenly and then the two broke out into huge grins. George immediately hopped off his seat and opened the door for Vicki, letting her sit next to Fred as he shut the door before taking a seat.

After the day they had spent time with Lee and Vicki in Diagon Alley, George finally had confronted his twin. At the World Cup George could see the chemistry between Vicki and Fred, but he didn't speak up until last week when they were alone one night.

Fred barely spent any time denying it and launched into the full story, telling his twin he used to stare at her from across the Great Hall at meal times or sometimes from across the classroom during the classes they spent together. Fred explained that after his interactions with Vicki at the tail end of summer he now had true feelings for her.

That was it. Once they had the discussion that Fred had strong feelings for Vicki, George dropped it. Although they had very linked lives, girls were still uncharted territory for the two, as up until now they had been too busy scheming to pay attention to girls. For the first time in his life Fred felt uncomfortable telling his brother about something, and George understood Fred's discomfort.

Besides, they were too busy scheming about how to get their money from Bagman, they barely had time to discuss anything else. Little did they know help had just arrived.

"Crappy weather." Vicki opened up with, pointing to the gloomy weather and rain drops hitting the window hard outside.

Fred opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment about the mundane topic that Vicki had mentioned, but not wanting to be rude he shut his mouth and agreed with her.

"Don't you need to be in the prefects carriage?" George asked her curiously.

"We're allowed to quickly roam the carriages with you commoners before we're due to be in the prefects carriage." Vicki joked.

The twins smiled at her joke, but didn't laugh which made Vicki feel a bit awkward. She needed to show them something she had received in the mail, but what if she wasn't close enough to them to share her problem, and what if she made it really weird?

She decided to push ahead and share what she wanted to share with them. They were present at the World Cup and witnessed first hand the dilemma she needed to share with them. They were definitely better than anyone else to share this with.

"So um... do you remember Ludo Bagman?" Vicki began.

"I don't know Fred, do we remember Ludo Bagman?" George asked his brother sarcastically.

Vicki bit her lip awkwardly. She forgot that Fred and George Weasley were Beaters on the Gryffindor team and that Bagman was a former Beater. They probably worshipped Bagman and here she was about to dish out dirt on him.

Fred noticed Vicki's body language when she mentioned Bagman, it wasn't showing positivity. He remembered the way Bagman tried to take advantage of Vicki. He was also very mad at what Bagman had done to him and his brother, so his response was harsher than George's simple sarcastic question.

"How could anyone forget twat of the year?" Fred responded with pure venom in his voice.

Vicki sighed in relief but smirked as she dug the letter she had received the previous morning. She made no further comment aside from "read this" as she passed the letter to the twins.

Dearest Vicki,

Although I hopefully will be seeing you soon, I can't get you off my mind. I had to write to you.

How are you enjoying your summer? It's been very busy here at the ministry, not only due to the World Cup but for the fantastic events that soon await you at school, the events which will bring me to you.

I would love to hear from you, so I urge you to write back.

Faithfully yours,

L. Bagman

Vicki bit her lip as she watched the two twins read the letter. As they read she saw looks of horror flash on their faces, and then amusement. The two emotions seem to play on their faces until they had obviously reached the end. There was a silence that lasted a few moments until Fred spoke up.

"Really? If you're going to be a creep, at least spit out what's happening at Hogwarts this year." Fred spat out angrily, speaking as if he were speaking to Bagman directly. Fred was annoyed his family were keeping hushed about the events this year, but now even Bagman was teasing him indirectly.

Vicki rolled her eyes but smiled and shook her head at Fred's comment. She was happy he was being his sarcastic self and described what Bagman did as 'creepy' – that was the exact reaction she was hoping for, and the main reason why Fred and George were the only two she had told.

"Well are you going to write back?" George asked, although he was being playful she could tell there was also a truthful curiousity in his question.

"I think I'm going to-" Vicki began but before she could finish her sentence the compartment door slid open and Roger came bustling in.

"Oh Vicki there you are, I've been looking for you everywhere. I thought you'd be with Stephanie but I saw her snogging some Hufflepuff boy." Roger stated.

Vicki quickly stuffed into her pocket the letter that Fred inconspicuously handed back to her without Roger noticing. She only sent Roger a quick smile.

"Hello Davies." The two twins chorused together, sounding polite but Vicki could tell there was a sarcastic undertone to their greeting.

"Hi," Roger responded stiffly before turning back to Vicki "Come on, we better get to the prefect's carriage. We're already running a bit late."

"Oh, yeah. Well boys, it's been a pleasure but I must love and leave you. I'll see you at school." Vicki stated as she bounced off her seat and headed out, the two twins calling out goodbye after her.

Vicki made her way down the train with Roger, stopping to greet people here and there. She spent most of the time musing on Roger's sudden coldness towards the Weasley twins. Although Roger and Lee were on good terms, Roger rarely associated with the two twins. He never expressed a dislike for them however, and had sometimes laughed at a few of their pranks, and funny comments in class.

But after the World Cup whenever they were mentioned, or now when he saw them in person, he grew cold and stiff. Vicki thought it was unreasonable, but didn't want to start a fight by bringing it up.

They finally made their way to the prefect's carriage and as all the seats besides two were full, it was obvious they were the last two to arrive.

"Sorry. Had urgent business to take care of. We were patrolling the corridors." Vicki quickly blurted out, thinking quickly for a lie.

"That's not the truth and you know it. Never mind, sit. Paul and I aren't going to run you prefects like Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater did last year." Kelly Winters, the head girl from Slytherin smirked.

"That's correct. We do have a duty to the school and need to uphold our duties to the best of our abilities. But we can still have fun once in a while." Paul Greene, the Ravenclaw head boy added on.

"Are you bringing back the pool parties?" Vicki asked quickly, still standing at the door way and not letting anyone speak up.

"You know it." Kelly winked at her.

"Hold on, what are the pool parties?" a newly-made fifth year prefect asked up.

It was common knowledge through the school that one of the main perks of being a prefect is that prefects (as well as house Quiddich captains) was access to the lavish prefect bathroom. It had the nicest facilities made of marble and the most exquisite products to use.

One of the main features was a huge bath almost the size of a pool in the middle. For a long time it was an unofficial tradition for the Head Girl and Head Boy to organise "pool parties" in the bathroom for their prefects to blow off steam and have some fun. However the previous year Weasley and Clearwater had taken the fun away and refused to schedule these parties, meaning that the school prefects used to just organise them secretly amongst themselves.

Vicki had never been to an "official" pool party and was excited to see if it were any different from the ones they used to organise in secret.

As there were only two seats free that were not next to each other, Vicki and Roger were forced to separate as Kelly was explaining the pool party concept. Roger took a seat next to a bunch of grinning fifth years whilst Vicki saw the last one was opposite Cedric Diggory, who smiled at her as she sat down.

"Hello Vicki, did you have a good summer?" Cedric asked politely.

Vicki and Cedric mostly spoke for the rest of the train ride. They spoke about the events that happened at the World Cup and how they survived, and then once that was out of the way they swapped stories about summer.

There was a brief gap as Vicki excused herself to change into her Ravenclaw robes and to pin on her prefect badge but as soon as she sat back down they started chatting again. Vicki thought it was nice and enjoyed his company. Vicki and Cedric had barely spoken over the years even though their parents were friends, but after their chat before the World Cup and their talk on the train ride Vicki realised she got along really well with Cedric. She made a note of talking to him more often.

"Alright, listen up. I've just got word we're stopping in the next five minutes. Each one of you is to pick a carriage and wait for the train to come to a stop. You will then open the door and let your fellow students out." Paul the Head Boy called out to all of the prefects.

"But it's raining!" of the new fifth year prefects complained.

"If it makes you feel better, you'll only get wet approximately five seconds before the rest of the student population does." Vicki pointed out, and she watched Cedric in front of her send her a small smile.

No one else bothered to complain, perhaps due to the filthy look Kelly shot them all, almost daring anyone else to speak up. The prefects then trudged out of their carriage and down the train passages as each one chose a door.

When the train stopped it wasn't a fun time for the students. Not only was the rain bucketing down and making the students feel as if they had stepped into a shower with their clothes on, the rain was icy cold, pricking all their skins as their clothes clung to them cruelly.

This was less fun for the prefects who had to wait for the students to disembark first before they could close the doors and head over to the horseless carriages. Vicki ushered a few second years over to the carriages, as it was their first time using them.

"Do you want me to ride with you?" Vicki softly asked a group of terrified looking second year Ravenclaws.

They took her up on her offer and she was about to climb in until she felt a strong (and very wet) pair of arms pull her away and heave her into a different carriage.

Vicki yelped in shock but once she was tucked out of the rain and had clear vision again she could see she was pulled into a carriage containing both Fred and George Weasley, as well as Lee Jordan.

"You okay, Vicki?" Fred grinned at her, and she realised he was the one who pulled her in.

Vicki then began to laugh. She should be angry that she was taken against her will and those poor second years would be so confused, but instead she saw the humour and laughed.