"Gaia!"

"C'mon, wake up!"

Two male voices pulled Gaia out of her dreamless sleep. She cracked one eye open and scowled at the two faces hovering above her before turning and burrowing herself into the blanket of the bed. She heard snickers before the cold air hit her skin.

"Hey!" Gaia frowned, curling up into a tight ball as she opened my eyes slightly, not moving from her position.

"C'mon Gaia! It's Christmas!" Fred grinned.

"And Christmas can wait a few more minutes for me to get up. Besides, the sun is barely out," Gaia grumbled as she shut her eyes once again.

"Ryker wasn't kidding when he said she'd be hard to wake up," George muttered.

Gaia's eyes snapped open when she felt herself being lifted from the bed. Her vision flipped upside down before going back to normal as George lifted her up to his shoulder and slung her across.

"Wha- Hey! George! This can be considered harassment!" Gaia complained as the twins laughed and walked out of the dorm.

"Harassment's a bit extreme, don't you think?" Fred grinned from in behind George as he crouched down slightly to be eye level with her.

"I'm barely wearing anything!" Gaia reasoned as she wriggled in George's grasp.

Fred raised an eyebrow and stepped around to look at Gaia observantly. She felt her face heat up as she suddenly became conscious of how she looked. Gaia was clothed in a big black shirt, not too long but obviously too big for her body, and only wore white cotton shorts underneath.

"What's wrong with what you're wearing? We're not seeing anything scandalous," George commented as they kept walking.

"It's cold!" Gaia complained, a shiver running through her as her body registered the cold air biting at her skin.

"You'll be fine in front of the fire," Fred answered Gaia with a shake of his head.

Gaia grumbled before relaxing against George and letting them take her to Rowena knows where. She yelped when she felt a rush of air around her as George let her down, letting her land on one of the couches. She turned around to face them with a scowl.

"You could handle me a bit more gently, you know," Gaia huffed as she tucked her legs underneath her and fixed her clothes, pulling slightly on the hem of her shirt.

"Good morning."

Gaia turned to see Lele looking at her amusedly from beside her, Hermione sitting to the other side of Lele, being used to her older sister's attitude in the morning. She was wearing a Hufflepuff sweater and a pair of jeans, her hair pulled up into a ponytail.

"Morning sis," Gaia greeted with a wide smile as she moved to hug her sister.

Gaia glanced down to see Harry and Ron sat on the ground around Lele and Hermione's feet. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Ron gazing up at Lele with a small smile, his eyes glazed over. She pulled away from Lele and slapped him lightly on the head.

"Wha-" Ron blinked a few times.

Ginny Weasley sat in front of Hermione as her eyes followed George. George plopped down on the ground by Gaia's feet, letting his head rest against the surface of the sofa as Ginny scooted immediately closer to her older brother. Gaia huffed when she felt Fred fall on top of her unceremoniously. She pushed him down to the ground with her hands, making the tall redhead make a sound of surprise just as he hit the ground.

"Gaia! That hurt!" Fred whined as he looked up at her.

"Yeah well you should know better than to lie down on me," Gaia answered, sticking my tongue out at him. He let out a playful gasp and clutched his chest as he settled down beside George.

Eventually, everyone adjusted to form a sort of circle with piles of gifts surrounding each person.

"Who wants to start then?" Lele asked with a grin, her eyes twinkling excitedly.

"Why don't you start? You're always the most excited to give out gifts." Gaia nudged her with a smile.

Lele nodded excitedly and pulled out the first gift from her pile. Ever since they were children, Lele always loved Christmas. She especially loved giving out gifts. She even used to throw a tantrum when our parents would give out the gifts instead of handing it to her so that she could give it to whomever it was for.

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Gaia sighed in content as she slipped on the big royal blue knitted sweater with a big mustard 'G' in the middle. Mrs. Weasley always did make the best jumpers, Gaia thought.

"We match!" George grinned as he wore his own sweater that was nearly identical to Fred's, the only difference being the letters. He wasn't wrong though. The twins' sweaters were a pretty blue with bright yellow letters.

"I wanna match too" Fred frowned as his eyes darted between the two of them.

"Oh, you'll be fine Freddie," Gaia cooed as she ruffled his hair and put her arms around his shoulders from his behind him.

"I think breakfast might be available now. Should we go down?" Hermione suggested.

"Let's go!" Ron answered as he pulled up Harry, who pulled Hermione with him, who pulled Lele with her.

"C'mon Gaia. We should join them," George said as he stood up and stretched, pulling Ginny up with him.

"I'll follow after. I just wanna bring the gifts I got to our common room," Gaia answered.

"I'll help you," Fred offered as he stood up and held his hand out to Gaia.

"I won't," George added making Gaia gasp playfully.

"Rude!" she gasped.

"I'm hungry! I'll see you two downstairs." George grinned before walking out of the common room with his arm around Ginny.

Gaia was left pouting at the direction George went while Fred laughed at me from the side.

"Let's go. I'm actually quite hungry myself," Fred said.

"You can go ahead if you'd like. I can carry these around myself. You know our common room's a bit far from yours," Gaia said.

"It's fine." Fred waved her concern off.

"Let me just grab my bag from your dorm," Gaia said as she climbed up the stairs to the boys' dormitory.

She ruffled through my bag and pulled out a pair of pants. She quickly pulled off my shorts and put on the pants. Nothing in the world was going to be able to convince her to walk all the way to the Ravenclaw common room wearing those shorts in the freezing weather. She stuffed the shorts into the bag and slung it over her shoulder. She did a once over of the room and nodded to herself when she was sure that she hadn't left anything behind.

"Come on, then," Gaia said as she took a few gifts from the floor while Fred scooped up the rest.

They stumbled out into the cold air of the Hogwarts castle. Gaia looked out of the widows as they passed them, the snowy terrain of Scotland visible from where we were. The pair walked silently for a while before Fred broke the silence.

"You feeling better?" he asked.

"Hm?" Gaia hummed in reply as she looked back at him.

"George and I know that you're really upset about Aisha. And we know you're really worried about someone else getting petrified. It's why we went to Snape's at Christmas Eve, remember?" Fred elaborated.

"Oh," Gaia answered as she stared ahead, "I'm fine."

Despite all of the distractions that the twins provided, Gaia still couldn't completely push down the thought of another one of her friends being the victim of whatever it was. She could still feel Fred's gaze on her, so she turned to look at him and saw a look that told her he didn't believe her.

"No, seriously! I'm fine!" Gaia laughed lightly as she flashed him a small smile, "Spending Christmas with you lot really lifted my mood. But I can't just completely forget about everything that's happening."

"I get it. I'm worried too, you know," Fred admitted.

"Why? Your family's pure-blooded. If anything, I'd be in more danger than you," Gaia said.

"But we're considered blood traitors among other pure-blood families, Slytherins particularly. If there really were an heir of Slytherin in the school right now, we could be targeted too. Especially Ginny. She's the youngest, probably the most vulnerable right now out of all of us," Fred explained with a frown.

Gaia felt her stomach turning at the sight of Fred's frown. Sure, he and George always did it to tease her, but it was different when the frown was genuine. She didn't like it, not one bit.

"I'm sure she'll be fine. She's got 4 older brothers in Hogwarts at the same time as her to protect her," Gaia said as she nudged her shoulder against his arm lightly.

Fred laughed and shook his head.

"You're probably right. Thanks Gaia. You always know what to say," he answered.

Gaia couldn't stop the larger smile from spreading across her face as she saw Fred's familiar grin. She let herself observe him a bit longer as he kept his eyes ahead. Then, she turned to look forward as well, the smile still on her face.

"Don't ever frown," Gaia said, cutting the momentary silence between them.

"What? I'm not allowed to be sad?" Fred asked teasingly.

If it were up to Gaia, she would've said yes. She would've told him that the very last thing that was supposed to happen was Fred being sad.

"I don't like seeing you frown," Gaia answered as she turned to face him.

Fred gaped at her for a few seconds and she stared back at him. The two were in the middle of the corridor, staring at each other with maybe a foot-long distance between them. Gaia felt herself panic slightly when she registered the tingling of her scalp as pink started to seep into her roots.

"I-I don't like seeing anyone frown," Gaia hastily added as she looked away, immediately taking control of her hair.

"Right," Fred mumbled as he looked away as well.

Gaia cleared her throat and adjusted the items in my arms. They stood there for a while, in front of each other but looking anywhere but at each other.

"Let's keep going?" Gaia suggested sheepishly as she finally let her eyes land on Fred.

He looked at Gaia, staring for a second before letting his familiar grin appear on his face.

"Before George and Ron eat everything," Fred joked. "Race you to your common room."

Before Gaia could even answer, Fred was already running away. She sputtered pathetically, her eyes followed after him before shaking her head lightly.

"You're going the wrong way!" Gaia shouted as he turned at a different corner, "Idiot," Gaia whispered fondly to herself as she walked after him.

He reappeared from the corner he turned at and smiled sheepishly as he waited for her.

"Alright, maybe I should let you go first," he said.

"Let's just go Freddie," Gaia laughed as they walked side-by-side again.

Soon, they were walking up the staircase to the Ravenclaw common room while they talked about anything they could think of – as if nothing happened earlier, like they never stopped in the middle of a corridor to stare at each other. Deep inside, Gaia found herself irked at the fact that he was acting like nothing happened. Then again, she was acting the exact same way. But was it really so wrong to want Fred to be the one to make the first move?

"Gaia," Fred whined. "C'mon, you know I'm rubbish at riddles!" he grumbled.

Gaia blinked a few times and noticed that they were already in front of the knocker.

"I don't know. Maybe I should just leave you to your misery of trying to answer a riddle," Gaia teased.

"Gaia!" Fred whined even more.

One thing was for sure, though – Gaia was set on making sure that Fred never found a reason to frown again.

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Edited 09/06/2020