The rest of the week had rolled by pretty fast, fortunately. Florence did not at all like the heaps of homework that she had to do every night, and was finally thankful to have atleast some time to rest, seeing as she had finished all her work on Friday night.

She had completely forgotten about the Hogsmeade weekend, Nicolai took it upon herself to remind her in a rather harsh way. Let's just say that she was woken up with her mattress on top of her, clearly off of it's bed frame.

"Nicolai! Alexander!" she shrieked, hearing their muffled laughter as she struggled to push the mattress off of her. She flailed momentarily, untangling herself from her duvets before using all of her strength to kick the heavy foam off.

"I—" she gasped, rising from the pile of blankets and pillows, "I'm getting back at you two for that."

"Hey, not me," said Nicolai a matter-of-factly, "I was just getting back at you for last time. Xander, however, you should get back at him."

Florence huffed as she heaved her foam back into the bed frame with the help of Alexander, "So, any reason why you two decided to invade my sleeping hours?"

"Uh, duh," said Nicolai, who picked up her pillows and duvet, "It's hogsmeade weekend. Fred said he had something in store for both of you—ow!" she wailed, as a pillow smacked into her face.

"And he specifically told you it was a secret, nitwit." Alexander said, arms crossed over his chest.

Florence chuckled at this, picking her pillow off of the floor, "It's okay, Nic. You tried. Besides, that didn't really spoil any details so it's okay."

"And while you're going with Fred, the Franssons are joining Xander and I," said Nicolai excitedly, "I can't wait. I haven't really seen Julien around lately, but boy will I enjoy all those hours with him."

"I'm sure you will," Florence mused, "Now Xander, out! I need to take a shower and change."

"Aye aye," he said, giving a brief salute before exiting the room.

She had prepared fairly quickly, Florence throwing on simple clothes—she didn't want Fred to think hat she was getting too ready and was actually looking forward to something. Not that it's a bad thing. She was going to keep it a secret that she had changed her outfit several times.

Julien and Alanna were there, surely, at the Ravenclaw with Alexander and Nicolai. Julien's head turned as she sat down, greeting him with a smile. "Ah, hello, Florence, you look lovely."

"Er," she said, looking down at her shirt and pants, "Thanks. I didn't think I'd fish any compliments with this—"

"He likes your shirt," Alanna said, pointing to the Wizarding band that was imprinted on it, now fading due to the constant washing.

"Oh! Well, I don't really listen to this band. Infact, I don't even know who this belongs to. I found it in one of the boxes at home. Must be my mum's."

"My mother liked the band too," said Julien, "She is very fond of music, so much that we still catch her trying to dance discreetly while she played her records."

"Does your mum listen to Muggle music, though?" asked Nicolai, recalling the possibly hundreds of Beatle records her mother had tucked away in a shelf, "My mum loves muggle music."

Soon they were very engrossed in the topic of music that Florence stood up from her seat, wandering around the corridors near the entrance to the Great Hall, eyes skimming the Gryffindor table frequently in search for a redhead...

"Agh!" she half yelled, as soon as her vision was blocked by a pair of hands. "Guess who?" an obviously altered voice said in a sing song manner. "I need a clue," Florence replied, for the sake of dragging it on longer.

"Your favorite person in the world."

"George, then?"

That made Fred remove his hands fairly quickly, a feigned look of hurt on his face, "Why must you cause me unbearable pain, Florence Price?"

"Why must you clamp your abnormally large hands around my eyes to greet me and not do it like a normal person, Fred Weasley?"

"Because normal is boring." he said in a matter-of-fact "You should have known that by now....and my hands are definitely not abnormally large."

"Yes they are."

"No," he insisted, "Yours are just tiny."

She rolled her eyes, "Whatever you say." Fred chuckled at this, lacing lz his fingers with hers. "You want to get out of here?" he asked.

"To where?" she asked, for the sake of not revealing that Nicolai had single-handedly ruined the element of surprise. Fred was surely going to prank her if he did find out.

"Remember when you told me that I owe you a date? I'm paying that debt now. I have something planned. And I feel like you're going to love it."

"Where's George, though? Is he not coming with us?" she said, the other redhead nowhere in sight. Fred frowned at this, "Do you really want George to be an audience—or do you want any audience at all—when we snog?"

When we snog.

Color flooded up to Fred's face, realizing what he had just said, "I—didn't—you know—I can't, I mean—was I suggesting it? Pfft no—you know, we don't have to—It's just—uh—word vomit."

Florence laughed at this, making Fred frown once more, although still slightly embarrassed.

"I figured just as much. Shall we go then? Onwards to our day's agenda, Mr. Weasley?"

"Onwards to our day's agenda, Ms. Price."

"Although I liked how you used when rather than if. Very confident, if I do say so myself." Florence teased, which was enough to make Fred go pink on the ears again, "You're going to hold that against me forever, aren't you?"

"You guessed right."

She had expected that his surprise was going to be somewhere in Hogsmeade, to make use of their weekend pass to the wizarding village. But instead Fred had led her to an all too different path, Florence not quite familiar with where they were going.

"Don't worry," chuckled Fred, noticing the look on Florence's face as they trekked in to a much more bushy path, "I'm not going to murder you or anything."

"Let's hope not," she mumbled, halting to a stop as Fred did so too. He pulled back a tree branch, gesturing for Florence to go first. She did so without question, and was extremely marveled by the sight that was infront of her.

It was a patch of grassy land, just at the shore of the Black lake, overlooking the cloudy blue sky and the greener side of the lake. She had not noticed Fred move in after her, and only noticed when he had stood infront of her, a white sort of blanket folded neatly on top of a picnic basket that he held in his arms.

"Really?" she chuckled, Fred looking at her skeptically. "You don't like it. . .?"

"No, no! I do, I love it. How did you find this place?" she asked, walking closer and closer to the Black Lake, seeing the rocks that led down straight to the water. She picked up a smaller pebble, making it skid across the water leaving ripple after ripple.

"Well, George and I found it when we were trying to befriend this Grindylow... Din't really like us, for some reason."

"Wonder why?" Florence mused, "So, is this your definition of an extraordinary, better than a Hogsmeade date?" she questioned, expecting much more than a picnic from him. After all, they did a lot of unspeakable things. Fred had simply smiled, putting the basket down.

"You underestimate me, Florence, ofcourse this isn't the only thing I have planned for today. It's only part one" he had went over to the same place where they had came in to, bending down to pick up a rope. He tugged on it, revealing a small boat from behind the trees and leaves.

"This is part two."

Florence looked alarmed, staring horrifically at the boat that looked exactly like the one that the first years used to cross the lake. "Please tell me you didn't nick that."

"I didn't," he said truthfully, "Under other circumstances I would have, but knowing how much you freak out about getting in trouble—I asked Hagrid if we could borrow one."

She helped him drag the boat into the water, loading in the picnic basket and securing that the oars were there. After a strong push, Fred climbed into the boat, rowing themselves farther away from the shore.

"This is beautiful," Florence said, a marveled expression on her face as she watched the shoreline shrink smaller and smaller. The redhead smiled, pleased that she was happy.

"Have you ever been on a boat before? Aside from when every first year student had to?"

She shook her head, "I always asked my mum before, though. When I was eight I wanted nothing more than to go on a tiny boat with her. Ofcourse she didn't really like the water all too much."

"Good." Fred smiled, "I was a bit unsure really, boat ride dates seemed a bit over-used but then I thought: no one's ever went on a boat date on the Black Lake before. I'll admit that I was a bit cocky when I told you I'd plan an extraordinary date for us." he said sheepishly."Apparently I'm not as spontaneous when it comes to planning dates."

"Don't worry, Fred, it's fine. I've never actually been on a date myself before, but this is brilliant, I promise

George and I always tried to sneak one of the boats out. McGonagall always caught us though," he chuckled, "So this, too is my first time on a boat, you know, aside from our first year."

"I trust that despite your lack of experience, you know how to get us back to shore?"

"Back to shore? I dunno, I was planning on just staying here for the rest of our lives—"

"Fred!"

"I'm kidding. I will get us back to shore." he placed the oars into the side of the boat, opening the picnic basket that he had brought along.

Fred uncapped a bottle of butterbeer, handing it to Florence, before uncapping one for himself. She took a long swig, before looking up at the clouds, pointing at one of them, "Does that look like a turtle to you?" she asked, Fred looking up as well.

He squinted his eyes, "Yeah, it kinda does look like a turtle. Oh! I see a bird over there." he pointed excitedly, at another cluster of clouds that looked nothing like a bird to Florence.

"You know what it looks like? A rabbit, with skis, flying in mid-jump."

Fred chortled, "Why would a bunny be on skis?"

"Because," she started, "the bunny probably likes skiing. Not all bunnies lie around and eat carrots all day. It's a special bunny."

"Well, even if your answer was, admittedly, much creative than mine was... It still looks like a bird to me."

The two had spend a fairly good amount of time cloud-gazing, as Florence had called it. They were well engrossed in each other's company that they had not heard the splashing in the water the first time. Fred was the first one to hear it, after a couple of other times the water had made noise. He immediately looked on each side of the boat, silencing Florence.

"Wait, what's wrong?"

Splash

"Uh oh," Fred breathed out, hurriedly lifting an oar and plunging the blade into the water. Florence watched him, panic-stricken, "What do you mean uh oh?"

He gulped, "I may or may not have seen a couple grindylows near our boat."

"What?"

"I know, I—" he was cut off by Florence grabbing the other oar, the two rowing back to shore for their dear life. Sure enough, one of the Grindylows had their heads stick out of the surface, sneering at the sight of the two, which only made Florence and Fred row faster and faster.

Once they were near enough, the two had splashed out of the boat, the bottom of their jeans soaked as they hurriedly pulled the boat into the surface.

They had completely forgotten about the picnic basket, as they had ran far away from the shoreline as they possibly could after securing the boat to safety.

"Merlin's beard," Fred huffed, panting as he leaned against the tree, "Did you see that Grindylow? That was bloody terrifying! I-I was honestly not prepared for that!"

"I—" Florence breathed, before panting again, "I did."

The two had stayed in silence for a few minutes, both of them trying to process what just happened. Fred looked immensely guilty for not even thinking of the possible disastrous things that would have happened. The worst case scenario he had thought of was dropping one of the oars into the water.

"I—I'm sorry, Flo," he sighed, "Today is a total flop. I should have planned something else aside from that stupid boat ride."

Florence laughed at this, confusing the redhead altogether. "It wasn't a flop, you twit. Don't be so negative about it. I had fun, Fred! Sure, we got chased by Grindylow but getting away from them made the experience more fun."

Fred looked at her, surprised, "Really?"

"Really," Florence assured, "I mean, it's not everyday that you get chased by grindylows, right? That was awesome."

"Are you—" Fred said, over-analyzing the situation, "Are you being sarcastic."

"No," she insisted, "I mean it. Today was amazing, Fred. Really."

"Really?"

"Really!" she smiled, "Now stop worrying about it, dummy. I loved it."

He grinned, "Well I'm glad that you loved it, Ms. Price."

"Only," she said, "I think I have something in mind that we could do to follow up this amazing date." Florence said.

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Why don't we get to that snogging part that you were so confident with awhile ago?" a playful smirk appeared on her face, making Fred's cheeks burn yet again.

"Oh. That part."