DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JK Rowling.

Hello, i'm back with the as-yet-unnamed sequel to Coping With Fame.

And I want you to tell me if you liked this. Please, please, please let me know

-x-

-Eoin Malan -

New season, new league and new opponents.

The IQC had been working on opening new leagues across the world, moving along and being weird in general, trying to generate new revenue, because we were about to be hosting the Quidditch nation's cup - like the world cup, but only in the northern hemisphere, and all of our stadiums were in need of new facilities.

Danny, Oliver and I had been working hard for the local Quidditch-endorsed charities - we were the English poster boys for the sport and we were extremely proud of the fact that everyone was so willing to… well, for want of better phrasing, pay for our services.

We were at our first England training session for the new season - the team had come together and we were all set and ready for the epic workout we'd be getting - the local teams were no match for countries such as Ireland, France, Lithuania and Bulgaria. We weren't terrified of them, we were easily better than at least three quarters of the teams involved in this trophy.

At this point in time, we'd been running laps for about two hours and it had started to pour down with rain as only the weather in England could. We'd been running. Running in the rain. Our coach blew his whistle to get us to stop, and I skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding crashing into Oliver's back by trying to step sideways mid-slide.

As usual, my luck didn't hold out, and I ended up careering face-first into the ground and skidding about thirty feet on my face, coming to rest about six inches from Oliver's feet. So it wasn't thirty feet then. More like five.

I looked up at him.

"Fuck you, Oliver Wood." He smirked down at me in that way that only Ollie Wood could. His lips curved up slightly but it was his eyes that told the full story - he was genuinely excited to have pissed me off.

"Ah, fuck yourself, Mr. Malan." He offers me his hand and I take it, pulling him down into the mud to lay beside me. "I don't like you." He wipes the mud from his face and looks at me.

"I know," I jumped to my feet and he rose too, shaking his head at me.

"Can't believe you'd do that."

"Well. I was in the mud. You looked like you could do with it's cleansing properties…" He laughed again, shaking the mud from his hair. "How's Katie?"

"Pregnant. Very pregnant, to be honest with you."

I rolled my eyes and pulled out my wand, cleaning myself off within about three seconds and turning to brandish the Holly and Unicorn hair contraption at Oliver.

"Don't you point that thing at me, Eoin." He laughed and looked at me, cocking his head slightly.

"What's up?" I knew the conversation was going to shift very, very quickly, and I wasn't sure if I liked the way the tone sounded. "Something wrong?"

"Uh…" He looked at me for the longest second and then let out a sigh. "What was it like when Calli had Amber?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, did she get really distant? Katie's not well, I don't think, but she won't let me in, Eoin… she keeps going to Molly and George… and I'm scared I'm losing her."

I hadn't seen her in a while, I had to admit, but it had been tough for Cal' to get around when she was that far gone, to be honest. I made a mental note to talk to Danny, and make sure he went to see her, to try find out what the problem was, and then I looked into Oliver's face. He looked exhausted with worry, and I couldn't blame him.

"Ollie… you won't lose her." But I wasn't completely sure.

I looked at him, and I knew he didn't exactly trust what I was saying either - not that I could blame him - he would have seen firsthand what she was like. I was just getting hearsay.

"But… I just can't seem to get through to her." He muttered as we started to walk back to our brooms. He kept his eyes to the floor and a dark blush was creeping onto his face. "I feel like I'm failing her… like I've done something so wrong-"

"I'm sure you haven't, Ollie." He looked at me sideways and I broke contact with his eyes to look down at the floor myself. His gaze was intense and I was slightly unnerved by it, but it wasn't the usual, content gaze I got from Oliver.

He was helpless and confused and I honestly felt as though he would break if I pushed the question any further.

So naturally, I pushed it.

"What is it then, Ollie?" I asked eventually, and he simply looked at me, considered it for a minute and turned away.

"She's…" He mumbled the last part of the sentence and I frowned slightly.

"Sorry, Ollie?" He looked up at me and frowned darkly.

"She…" He blushed and looked down at the shirt in his hands, "She hasn't slept in the same bed as me for a week." He swallowed and carried on, "She won't let me touch her, and she won't let me do anything for her, and-"

"Don't panic." I laid my hands on his shoulders because he was clearly panicking. "Calm down." I paused and looked at him, "Come with me to lunch, we can talk, yeah?"

"Right." He nodded, then looked into his bag. "Right." He seemed to repeating it to himself, focussed on vanishing all his stuff back home and then he looked up at me and swallowed, loudly and obviously, blushing dark and avoiding my eye.

I looked at Oliver for the longest time and tried to work out what, or perhaps more importantly, why Katie would be hiding something from him. His fingers kept flicking the knife and fork in front of him - we had ordered some decent hot food for lunch, and he seemed to be totally unnerved.

"She's never been like this, Eoin." He frowned and looked up at me, "She's just closed off, and… it's just…" He bowed his head.

"Oliver… she might…" I went bright red, I knew - because my face was burning hot, and I looked down at the tablecloth. "She might have good reason for it."

Because her body's betraying her. Because she can see the signs. Because I've seen it all before. Because Calli went through the same thing. Because…

"What do you think, Eoin?" He looked at me and I frowned darkly. "Please… it's not easy not knowing, you know."

"I don't know what to say, Ollie… I'm not a healer… I couldn't tell you what was wrong…"

The look on his face was pretty certain I was lying. But to be honest, from what I could work out, this was Katie's story to tell, and she didn't seem to want to tell it until she understood it perfectly herself. He watched me for another half a minute, then put his head down and started shovelling the food into his mouth.

Oliver's coping mechanism was quite obvious to anyone that cared to look, really - he ate. And he ate, and he ate, and then he worked out in the gym to make sure he didn't put on fat, and it was all muscle… and Merlin, he was irritating when he was like this. He never seemed to be strong enough to handle anything to do with Katie on his own.

She was everything to him, and it literally broke him in two when he couldn't be as close to her as he wanted. When she wouldn't let him in, it hurt him, it hurt his friends and it hurt the team. Katie was the sort of person who let emotions rule her, and when she couldn't cope, she bottled them up and shut herself off.

Oliver had to watch it. Oliver had to be the one who sat and listened and broke down when she wasn't around because he couldn't cope with being the one that had to shoulder the responsibility and he had to look after her when she refused to let him be near her.

"I'm gonna go home." Oliver muttered after almost twenty minutes of an awkward silence between us, handed me a fistful of galleons and rose from his chair, put his jacket on, and strode purposefully out of the restaurant.

I watched him out of the window as he looked up into the sky, adjusted his black denim jacket, rolled his shoulders to try and stave off the rain and twisted into apparition. I stared after him for a long minute, before realising my fork had fallen into my lap and left mashed potato in an extremely dodgy position on my lap.

"Fuck." I muttered, before frantically wiping it away from my jeans. I sighed, left the right money on the table, and left in the same fashion my best mate had done, only moments before.

~...~

-x-

A/N: SO.

One – Please review. You're all fantastic and I love ALL of my readers. PLEASE review so I know you love me too!

Two – If you've got any wicked names for the new sequel, can you let me know. Titles are SO hard... *eep*

Three- Stick around –

Now, remember the following: I LOVE YOU ALL (but not in a creepy way)

Love ya

xxxx