AN: Hello and welcome! I make no guarantees about my updating schedule, content quality, sense of humor, or devotion to canon. I hope you can forgive me my failings and just enjoy the story. Thanks for reading.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of this. I'm not making any money off of any of this. Please don't sue me.

She went to every game.

She loved to stare at him longingly as he played. She loved the way he blocked Quaffles. The way he always just laughed when the other team's Chasers yelled angrily at him. They way his navy blue Quidditch robes looked on him. Most of all, she loved the fact that he didn't know.

Didn't know she watched him every time he played, followed him around Britain and Ireland to watch him. Didn't know how much she loved him. Didn't know anything.

She supposed that made her a stalker.

Barely out of Hogwarts, and already developing extraordinarily creepy tendencies and obsessions with men she barely knew and who were much older than her. In fact, so much older than her that it wasn't even legal for them to date. She supposed, at seventeen, most men who were older than her couldn't legally date her. Trouble was, she didn't particularly care for any of the ones that could. In fact, she didn't care for most of the ones that couldn't.

Just one.

The one she was currently stalking.

She supposed if any normal girl had found herself in this situation, she would have smacked herself in the face, given up on him, and gone home. Really, any normal girl wouldn't have followed a man seven years older than her to Kenmare, Ireland, (just to watch him play Quidditch for a couple hours) in the first place.

But Natalie MacDonald wasn't normal, so she stood in the stadium in Kenmare, sopping wet from the rain that was currently sheeting down, and watched as Oliver Wood attempted to save the day.

Puddlemere United had scored exactly 150 points. The Kenmare Kestrels had scored zero. But if they got even one goal, and then they caught the Snitch, they would win, and all of Oliver's fantastic Keeping would have been a waste. So now, as the Kestrels best Chaser, fairly recent addition Demelza Robbins, pelted her way up the field for a penalty shot, Oliver had to stop the goal, or risk losing the game.

The crowd cheered excitedly. One violently green portion of the crowd screamed Demelza's name in a sort of ritualistic chant. The rest of the Kestrel fans cheered for their team, while the Puddlemere fans who had bothered to show up roared for theirs. Only Natalie was yelling for Wood himself, because only Natalie believed a Keeper had any real importance to the game. Most of the wizarding community seemed to think they were sort of background people, people you didn't need to bother caring about. They knew the best Chasers, and almost all the Seekers, and the Beaters if they were particularly violent, but Natalie could not think of a single famous Keeper. They were like lawn ornaments. Sometimes endearing, and they could have nostalgic value occasionally, but usually you either didn't particularly care for them, or you forgot they existed.

Not Natalie.

"Go, Oliver!" She screamed as loudly as possible, hoping to be encouraging. If he could even hear her through the rain and the enthusiastic cheering of the Kestrels most adamant fans.

Several people turned to look at her as she screamed. Obviously, her intensity startled them. But it was like her mother always said. 'If you love something enough to be that intense, then there's not shame in it.' Her mother was not a woman who was afraid of intensity. She would have loved this.

As Demelza swooped towards Oliver, Natalie could hear the commentators shouting into their microphones. "Looks like a win for the Kestrels, as Robbins is almost sure to get this shot, and everyone knows their Seeker, Terence Higgs, is absolutely superb. Too bad for Puddlemere, though, they've been doing quite well recently."

Of course they have, thought Natalie. They've got Oliver. He prevents anyone else from ever scoring. He's fantastic.

But even she wasn't sure how he thought he was going to block this.

Suddenly, everything seemed to slow down. It was as if Natalie's brain was processing everything much faster, so as not to miss the important things. She saw, clearly, each drop of rain. Through the rain, she saw the emerald green Chasers' gloves Demelza wore. She saw the shiny red Quaffle in those gloves. She saw it leave them, gently, and begin soaring through the air towards Oliver, almost lazily. And she saw Oliver's face, tensed in preparation.

As Oliver started to move (very slowly) words she had read years previously on a rainy day like this in the Hogwarts Library flashed back to her. The place, the time, they slipped away, and left her a girl of barely eleven, checking out a book on quidditch from the library. Madam Pince had glared at her irritably as she did so, muttering something about 'sports more important to them than books.'

In fact, Natalie had never been much for sports before that. Her mother, Mary, did not like them much, and her father was a Muggle, and therefore only watched Muggle sports. These could not hold her interest. But she had started Hogwarts, and she had seen him,sitting there, more suggestive than ought to be allowed in educational establishments. When the Sorting Hat had placed her in Gryffindor, she had not really known what that meant, but saw him cheering for her, and decided she agreed with the placement.

As soon as she had learned he played a sport, she decided she had to go and learn as much about that sport as possible. She had gone to the library and asked Madam Pince for a book about Quattatch. As soon as Madam Pince sussed out what it was she wanted, she had handed her 'Quidditch Through the Ages' disapprovingly and sent her on her way. But Natalie had curled into a ball in the library chairs, and read the book straight through right there.

The words on page 52 were still as fresh in her mind as the page number itself, as the smell of the library, the giggles from the Ravenclaw girls studying near her. They had come right between the Dopplebeater Defense and the Hawkshead Attacking Formation (which, coincidentally, had been invented by a former member of their current opposing team.)

It had read:

Double Eight Loop

A Keeper defense, usually employed against penalty takers, whereby the Keeper swerves around all three goal hoops at high speed to block the Quaffle.

It was very dangerous, very difficult, and did not have a guaranteed rate of success. Oliver would know it was a stupid move. He had to.

But her heart sank as she remembered how he had had his team out on the Quidditch Pitch at all hours of the day and night, practicing Sloth Grip Rolls and Wollongong Shimmies until their arms fell off or they fell off their brooms.

It sank further as she saw Oliver begin the first of many high-speed zipping figure-eight movements. Instead of the raucous cheering she had been enjoying before, Natalie fell deathly silent. The chap next to her glanced at her but said nothing, still watching excitedly as Demelza's perfectly pitched Quaffle zoomed for the goal posts –

And straight into Oliver's broomtail, which it bounced right off, and began to fall harmlessly to the ground. A cheer went up among the Puddlemere fans. Oliver did a few more victory figure eights…right into a Bludger. Natalie heard the sound of a thunk as the Bludger connected with his skull, and she was fairly certain she screamed. If she did, however, it was drowned in the screams of rage from the Kestrel fans and the screams of joy from the Puddlemere fans as Puddlemere's Seeker, Summerby, snagged the Snitch a fraction of a second before the Higgs could get his hands on it, swooping down from above and knocking it away. It was a spectacular Snitch capture, made by her very own favorite team. Natalie didn't notice.

Oliver. Hit in the head with a Bludger. Her Oliver.

Her Oliver? How very…stalkerish…of her.

Her Oliver injured. Maybe dead. Maybe never going to play Quidditch again. She stared in shock at the place where he had landed, though he had long since been carted off by the on-call Healers. She only looked away when a tap on the shoulder broke her attention. She turned round to see a figure in brilliant green, and was all prepared to be disdainful and defensive until she realized it was, in fact, Seamus Finnigan.

"Seamus!" she cried, hugging him. "How are you?"

He grinned back. "Would've been better if your Summerby hadn't got his hands on the Snitch. Hey, I saw you looking pretty concerned when your Keeper got hit, so I thought I'd tell you I heard them say he'll be fine. He was mumbling something about having had worse."

She sighed in relief. "Okay. Okay. Good."

"You really like this team, huh?" he asked as he fell into step beside her and they strolled through the still noisy crowd to exit the stadium.

She smiled. "Since the dawn of time, it seems. You remember I used to have a poster of them up in my room in Hogwarts?"

He laughed. "Yes. Since like your second year. God, that seems forever ago."

"Not forever," she said, smiling. "Just six years."

"That's about forever, yeah," he said.

The two of them reached the patch of shoulder and empty field where the audience members brooms, cars, bikes, portkeys, and apparition spaces had been left. Seamus pulled a shiny key out of his pocket and pressed a button. One of the flashier and more luxurious looking cars beeped in response.

"You own a car?" she asked.

"Sure, and I do," he said. "No point in being the most famous presenter on the Wizarding Wireless Network if I don't get some good cash out of it." He flashed her a grin. "Is there?"

She just smiled and slid into the passenger seat, grateful for the implied offer of a ride. He slipped into the driver's seat next to her and glanced towards her. "Where to?"

"I'm staying at Tara Bed and Breakfast, near the bay," she told him.

"Mind if I stop by my hotel first? I need to tell some people to cancel some things, and then you and I are having dinner."

She laughed cheerfully. "Yes, sir. Dinner with you. Where?"

"Hotel first," he instructed. "Then we stop by your place so you can change. Then you find out where dinner is."

She sighed. She knew Seamus in these moods. After all, they had been friends since she was thirteen. He'd never budge. "Alright. Where are you staying?"

But he never had to answer that question, as his hotel came into view at that moment. It was a gigantic thing, but it was a thing of beauty. She let out a little whoof of air as she saw it. Seamus cracked up. "Yeah, I'm staying here. Pretty rich, huh? The whole Puddlemere team is staying here, too."

She looked round at him sharply. "Really?"

"Yeah. I thought you'd like that. Maybe we can skulk about a bit and see if we can get one alone. They travel in packs, see, with other teammates and security at all times. After their public trouncing of the local heroes, I imagine they'll double security measures." He smirked.

"Yeah…I suppose so," she said.

"Amortentia Warbeck is staying here, too."

"Celestina's daughter?"

"Yep. Actually, I invited her. We've got a kind of close relationship, as I'm head presenter and she's one of our stars. Thought she might like a good game of Quidditch. Her, you can definitely meet, if you'd be interested."

"That'd be really neat. Sometime."

He smiled. "Right. Cancel dinner date. Change. Get you to your place. Change. Dinner."

"If you already made dinner plans-" she began, but was cut off.

"I have dinner plans every night. Since I invited Amortentia, I've been having dinner with her, but I'm sure she won't mind if I go off on my own for one night. I'll tell her to invite one of the Puddlemere boys. Maybe that Seeker who made the spectacular catch right at the end. She'll like that bit." He glanced at her and her casual attire. "Er, no, I think you'd better not come inside."

She frowned at that, and all during his removal of his bright green robes. Underneath that he wore an ensemble that was trying so hard to be elegantly casual she was sure it had cost thousands of galleons. He scurried into the huge building with its lights and its rich people. After a little while he returned, smiling at her. His clothes seemed to have gone less casual by exactly one degree. He slid back into his seat.

"Okay. Amortentia actually seemed quite intrigued by my description of the game. Maybe she'll ask one of those Puddleys after all," he said as he careered out of the parking lot.

She laughed. Her mind kept laughing the whole time, as he drove her home, helped her pick her clothes, offered to help change her clothes, waited patiently until she had done it herself, and then loaded her back into the car.

"Now will you tell me where we are?" she asked, looking around when they stopped.

"Coachman Restaurant at Falls Hotel."

"I've heard that name. That is a fancy, expensive, name. Oh, dear. Nononono. Why do you insist on showing off how rich you are?"

He chuckled. "Because I can. Now come on, we have reservations we don't want to miss."

And he towed her reluctant self inside the building.

End of Chapter One. Hope you enjoyed it, see you next time!