I know, I know, ANOTHER one-shot. Who knew these things were so much fun to write? Don't worry, I already have the next chap for LAAB (life as a bell, I was just too lazy to type it…) but I was bored and had to write something while I waited for the reviews to come in. AND it's in third person. Gasp- I know, but I think I got a lot better at it. so here ya goes!
Oliver Wood sat in what to him was a very uncomfortable fold-up chair in a very sterile hospital wing. It was a few days until Christmas Eve and normally he would be sneaking out to Hogsmeade, running around not doing some last minute Christmas shopping but all his last minute Christmas shopping. But instead he was sitting in a rigid chair and watching the steady breathing of his chaser laying on the hospital bed in front of him.
Who knew that a stray bludger in practice would not her out for a solid week?
He sighed and ran his hands through his perpetually-messy hair, watching the steady breathing of his long time chaser and friend. Oliver smiled to himself as he thought about how mad Katie would be when she woke up. He knew he hated the hospital wing more than anything else. Laying in ironed-to-perfection sheets for a week would drive her up the wall and she would rant for ages, telling them that they could've left her in her own bed, that'd she be better off that way considering her fear of the hospital wing.
As Katie's brow began to furrow, Oliver found that his was mimicking hers. He was starting to wonder if she would ever wake up which, quite frankly, scared him. If Katie didn't wake up soon, he wouldn't need the help of Professor Treawely to tell him that practices would be torture.
Katie was very much the glue to the team. Sure, he was the captain and sure, she was two years younger than him-but she managed to make his job easier. She could handle Alicia during down practices when her mouth used her vast vocabulary of cuss words to it's fullest extent and she could keep Angelina awake through his team meetings where he rambled for god knows how long. Actually, she was probably the one who held out the longest during those meetings. But Katie could also keep Fred and George in check without them realizing but diverting their attention and she was also able to calm Oliver himself when 'the chips are down'.
Yup, practice was definitely going to hell without her.
Oliver gave her sleeping form a small smile as he pushed hair back off her face. He stared at her hair and realized, that just like it, he couldn't decide whether it was a deep golden blonde or a light brown. His eyes wandered over her knocked out face and had an extreme urge to run his fingers over the bridge of her nose and play connect-the-dots with the sun freckles that where scattered there from millions of practices. He smiled faintly as he held her hand and was not surprised at all to find that they were callousy and worn hard.
He glanced out the window over the nightstand next to her cot and his smile held as he saw bits of snow tumbling down in the early morning light. And as that morning light cascaded through the window, Oliver came to the conclusion that the fifth year's hair was indeed a dark blonde. His smile grew at how he always told her that she wasn't doing the blonde stereotype any favors and he had to stop himself from laughing as he could mentally hear her telling him that he wasn't doing the jock stereotype any favors either.
Letting go of her hand, he rubbed his face with both hands, calculating the time he had spent in the hospital wing. Last night he couldn't sleep and wandered down here before light had even started to streak the sky outside. He tried to get some rest, he really did. But the past week he hadn't been able to catch any decent shut eye. Oliver supposed that it was because one of his chasers were lying in the hospital bed with a bump the size of a bludger on the side of her head.
The seventh year dropped his hands away from his face and let them sit in his lap. But this has happened before. The whole team had spent their share of time in the hospital wing. Alicia had to spend two weeks in there when she broke her jaw last year but he remembered sleeping just fine then. Looking back at the sixteen year old laying in front of him, he wondered if the bump on her head was truly the source of his lack of sleep.
As this was their fourth year together on the team and as friends, he knew almost everything about Katie. Katherine Ann Bell was outgoing, outspoken, and out stubborn with a very large splash of sarcasm. She had a wonderful tendency to make people smile and laugh without trying while her own was contagious.
But like every other person on the planet, she had her faults. Like he said, she was stubborn. If she didn't want to go to practice-which was rare in it's own retrospect-Oliver would half to physically carry her 5'7" athletic frame down to the pitch. Oliver knew that the best way to get her to do something was to challenge her. He would challenge her day after day on the pitch and she would rise to it with pure stubbornness and a drive to prove him wrong-which she was now doing on a daily occurrence.
Katie also had her old habits, which Oliver knew too well, that die hard. The day or two before a match she would bite her nails down to stumps and if anyone even hinted that she was nervous one of two things would happen: 1. She would smile it off and say 'no way' and 2: she would bite and snap your head off for thinking such a thing. Her quills were also stumps. She had this thing of mistaking all quills as sugar quills. If you looked over at her during class or when she was doing homework, Oliver would bet money that she was gnawing her quill away.
Oliver smiled thinking of her habits and couldn't forget how she could debate anything. Katie used the drive she had in Quidditch to prove him wrong on anything-even if she knew he was right. She would rant for hours, saying how it is logically possible for purple hippogriffs to use spoons and have a nice sit down tea party wearing top hats. Oliver knew she knew she was wrong, but her stubbornness would never allow her to admit it until the fight was forgotten a month later and she would suck it up and say she was wrong.
He gazed back out the window and stared at the rays of sunshine that were just creeping their way up in the sky through the small flurries.
"…mercy Mary, mother of God…"
Oliver snapped his head forward to see Katie awake and mumbling. She was sitting up, propping herself on one hand as the other rubbed her face.
"What in the name of Merlin hit me?" she asked Oliver, her hair redefining the word 'bed head'. "A chest?"
"Katesie," Oliver said happily as he stood up and engulfed her in a hug.
"You know I hate that name," Katie mumbled at the nickname the twins teased her with since five years back, somewhere under his hug, "And I didn't mean that kind, captain," she said, managing to just place a hand on his chest.
Oliver laughed before letting her go and pushing her back against the pile of pillows behind her.
"You know I would fight back if I wasn't starving beyond all belief?" she asked as she let him force her back against them. "Right?" Oliver nodded before he sat back down in his too-rigid, fold-up-visitor's chair. "How long was I out for?" she asked, running a hand through her tangled hair and wincing as it past over the knot on the side of her head.
"A week to the day," he sighed, "Practice has been hell."
"You've been having dawn practices without me," Katie smirked, leaning towards him a bit, "Oooooh, 'Lic couldn't keep a hold of her mouth, hmm?"
"Up until yesterday I thought there were only 7 curse words," he said, trying to relax in his chair, "Now I know that there are in fact 13."
Katie's green eyes danced as she laughed, "Yeah, Alicia tends to bring out the best of situations."
"George thinks so," Oliver laughed before adding more seriously, "Did you know they were together and-you know…snogging?"
"Oliver," Katie laughed, "you say it's like it's a crime."
"Well did you?"
Katie bit her bottom lip in her funky-teal-hospital pajamas as her brow began to furrow. After four years Oliver knew that Katie was a terrible liar. She could make up a great story to go with a lie but she could never deliver it face to face.
"So how long?" he sighed.
"2 months," Katie smiled faintly, relieved that she wouldn't even have to attempt telling a lie. "So remind me how I ended up in here and why you couldn't just dump me in my dorm instead of bringing me in here?" she said, her nose scrunching up in displeasure as she looked around the hospital wing.
Oliver smiled at her before telling her about how Fred had accidentally hit a bludger and miss guided it to the side of her head, how he knew that she would be mad about the hospital wing but said it was for the best, how he carried her up here in his arms while Angelina kept a warm compress against her head, and how miserable practices have been without her.
He would've loved to tell her that she was causing him sleepless nights and that even with her old faults that he knew would never go away he was starting to realize something more may come out of a four year friendship. He wanted to tell her he wanted things to work out like that and that he didn't care if he was graduating at the end of the year.
He'd love her to hear these things instead of the meaningless stuff she missed while she was out cold for a week.
He'd love to hear her say the same instead of just smiling her usual contagious smile and making him smile back without even trying.
Hmmmmmmmmm, yes, I think I'm on the fence about this one-all my stuff can't be great. It was totally different from how I started but I think it turned out decent enough….maybe. I think I might even turn it into a few-chapters-long story. And I'm not to sure about the ending either. I dunno, you tell me and drop me a review.