As she sat with her friends nursing a glass of rather strong firewhisky, Katie noticed through the gap between Lee and Alicia that two others were joining the party. The party itself was a celebration of Harry Potter's twenty-first birthday.
Before she let herself get carried away with her feelings of the taller of the new arrivals, Katie looked away and made a special attempt to listen to exactly how Lee Jordan had snared Hermione Granger's heart. It apparently had something to do with Trevor Junior, one of the three hundred and forty-seven offspring of Trevor the toad, or rather Trevette – the toad had come out of the closet when Neville had discovered flourishing tadpoles in his back garden pond.
"And then," Lee continued, "she just couldn't keep her hands off me!" Lee looked in the direction of Hermione who was greeting the new guests.
Joining the conversation, Katie tried to sound unsurprised about the couple, "well, however you managed to snare her, I'm sure she's keeping you in line. I have missed rather a lot haven't I?"
"Well you have been off gallivanting about with the Harpies since you graduated Katie, I can't believe you've stayed away for this long!" excalimed Alicia.
"Oh you know you're just jealous Leashie"
Laughter followed and the sound was heard across the room.
--
Oliver had noticed Katie almost immediately on arrival. Noting how her blonde curls – with a nice purple streak near her ear that sparked some old memories – bounced as she joked with some old Gryffindors. He made to say hello, but was cut off when his companion grasped his arm and led him towards Hermione Granger. Oliver pretended not to see the look of disgust Hermione directed towards his date. The looks were becoming more and more common among his friends, and had first begun when Katie left for the Harpies.
"Bianca! Oliver" Hermione greeted, smiling jovially at Oliver, "It has been much too long, where have you been?"
"Well we are awfully busy, you know, I've got my column to focus on and Ollie," the 'Ollie' in question winced noticeably, "and I have been quite, ahem, busy", she looked at Oliver with eyes full of unconcealed lust, "Haven't we Olliebear?"
"Uh, yeah – look, I think I'll say hello to everyone alright? Nice seeing you Hermione" Oliver tried to move away, but the forceful hand pulled him away from the particular group he wanted to see. Instead he was led towards the table full of food, but Bianca discreetly pulled him to an empty corner of the room and wouldn't let him leave without a ten minute long exercising of mouths. After which he left without as much as a goodbye.
He had no idea how he'd managed to get himself in this situation. Actually he supposed he did. He could blame the whole thing on his lower anatomy. Bianca was beautiful, exotically so, a distant relative of Blaise Zabini he'd been led to believe. But how on earth had he stayed with her for this long!
--
Meanwhile Katie was thinking the exact same thing. The two had been friends since she was three and he was six. They had played together and been best friends for as long as she could remember. In fact when Oliver went to Hogwarts before her, she cried for weeks until her parents organized for them meet in Hogsmead as soon as possible.
When she got onto the Quidditch team, she remembered being so happy that she could share it with him, of course it was always handy that she took to it like a duck to water. People at Hogwarts always spoke of Oliver's intense love of the game, but for some reason they never noted that Katie was usually right beside him preaching the exact same thing. It had been a long standing question in Gryffindor house to when the two would declare they would finally take the plunge and 'just make out already'. Whenever they were asked they'd laugh or scoff or do something and swear they were 'best friends, the only thing we're in love with is quidditch' and that would be the end of it.
Although truthfully, Katie was a bit unsure if that's really what she thought. Thinking about, she figured that line between friendship and something more had blurred in her mind around about third year, when she'd started to notice that Oliver looked more like a man than a boy and that she was starting to grow bits that little girls didn't have. The two would often sit together after dinner and just look into the fire not always needing to talk. Oliver would often sling a friendly arm around her shoulder and play with the unruly curls that Katie had cascading down her back.
In fact, Katie had grown quite irritated, in a purely loving way of course, that she'd have to spend an hour brushing out all the snarls that Oliver had managed to tangle into her hair. Sometimes she'd make him brush them out, to teach him a lesson, though admittedly, she liked to feel his hands caressing her scalp and hair. On Christmas Day in her fourth year, Katie had found herself sitting on the end of Oliver's bed, demanding he pick his favourite curl. She'd then come down later sporting a shock of purple in her hair.
"That's yours Ol', you can have that one. Happy Christmas!" She'd said to him and he'd smiled brightly at her and made her feel all funny inside.
After that, Oliver stuck to that one curl; pulling it lovingly and watching it spring back into its natural spiral. She'd charmed it purple (it was her favorite color at the time) and it had been that way since. When she was upset, Oliver would pull her close, and never minding what particular style her hair was in, he'd pull out that one purple curl to the left of her right ear and tug it. It would always make her smile, she'd look up at him and tug his ear in return; and then that would be the end of that.
Three years after Katie graduated; she'd thrown a birthday party, and told Oliver that Madam Hooch had contacted her on the behalf of the Holyhead Harpies asking her to join the team as a substitute chaser. Oliver had been speechless, she would have to move away, and she'd be far too busy training and playing to come back very often.
In fact, she hadn't been back at all. Not since her twentieth birthday, so as of last week it was the first time she'd stepped foot in England not to play quidditch in about three years. In fact she still wasn't quite sure why she'd accepted. Oh, now she remembered. She had given in to her inner Oliver and come to see him.
In truth it had been about five months prior to her twentieth birthday that Madam Hooch had approached her and she had all but refused, not intending to be away from Oliver, they were best friends after all and she didn't think their friendship could survive it.
She'd changed her mind quite easily when Bianca came into their lives.
--
Oliver thought back on his days at Hogwarts, only three girls at Hogwarts had ever been able to catch his attention besides Katie, and they'd all been distrusting, assuming at the drop of his broomstick he'd leave them and go snog Katie in a conveniently located broom closet. After the third time, it had sounded like a good idea.
When he met Bianca it had been a night out for the boys and he was dreading the hang over he'd have in the morning. She'd been kind enough to help him home, but in hindsight he realized he wasn't quite sure it was kindness that had provoked her to aid him. The following morning he woke with a splitting headache, a mouth that felt fuzzy, bleary eyes and covered with a naked woman.
Said naked woman didn't leave his London apartment for a week, and it was only when Katie visited one day and had yelled at him that he convinced her to leave. Oliver and Katie were very exclusive when it came to visiting each other; they had declared no women and no men besides them were invited. So she'd given him a what for and given Bianca looks that could kill and threatened to cut off her purple curl. Oliver immediately pushed Bianca out the door, the thought that he could lose that curl was unheard of. It made him feel like he had a piece of himself with her all the time. It reminded him that there was no one in the world that made him feel so giddy and confused at the same time. He didn't realize for a long time that that wasn't exactly a notion friends had for each other.
In the months that followed, Bianca kept trying to get Oliver into a relationship with her, while he time and time again refused. Katie was amused at first, but when Bianca kept shoving Katie out of Oliver's life –successfully mind you – she got noticeably angrier. Their tri-weekly visits had disintegrated to weekly, than bi monthly, than monthly, till eventually Oliver rarely saw her. It was obvious to everyone around them that Bianca was in it for the money, although Oliver just thought she wanted to be known as his boyfriend, after all he was the star player of Puddlemere United. Oliver thought this a little smugly.
Katie had come to him one day, and he'd told her that he'd accepted Bianca, and they were together. He didn't tell Katie that there hadn't really been any other choice, Bianca was if anything, persistent and although he had been starting to figure out his feelings for Katie he'd just given up and told Bianca that he'd agree to see her. Three months later was the last he saw of Katie. Katie had announced she was leaving, and he couldn't help but think it was his fault.
--
Katie looked upon the entwined couple and her eyes reddened. This was the reason she left in the first place. Bianca and Oliver were sickening; they had been all over each other like rashes. She couldn't even see him without Bianca stuck on his arm. She'd been hurt every day she saw them, eventually it got too much for her and she remembered Hooch's offer and she accepted, glad to stop being around them.
The years she was gone she didn't date, although her female team mates tried to set her up almost every weekend, even game nights. None of them knew how she felt about Oliver, no one did, not even anyone from back in England. Although they never tired of asking about why she had a streak of purple in her hair, she never explained. It became somewhat of a legend in the team. Tonight's party was the first she'd seen of him since she'd left England and Katie was nervous as hell, she'd planned to admit her true feelings, but when he arrived with Bianca her heart jumped into her throat and she felt that plan slip away.
When Katie noticed Bianca tugging on Oliver's robes, pulling him into the middle of the room to dance she couldn't help but watch in a kind of grotesque interest. Oliver moved slowly but surely to a song she long remembered, a slow song by the wizarding group called A Few Hexes.
"Witch you've gone and put a spell on me
My heart is charmed for you and now I see"
When Oliver's back was to Katie, Bianca looked over at her and narrowed her eyes; she took Oliver's hands and pulled him closer, while she kissed him thoroughly. It was the look of utter triumph that Bianca sent to Katie that set her on edge, the following squeeze of his backside made her feel ill. But when Oliver made a little noise in the back of his throat she just wanted to get out of there.
"I'm just gonna go get some air" Katie told the group,
"You alright Kates? You look a bit pale, want some company?" said George winking, or Fred, she could never tell.
Katie laughed, "S'Alright, I'll be right, just a bit stuffy in here" she didn't notice the look between the other guests as she exited through the back door, breathing in a sigh of relief as she walked with the moon lighting her path towards the swinging chair at the back of the garden.
--
Oliver had been irritated at forcing to dance, but when he was forced to kiss her in the middle of a crowded room that had been too much; he made a growling noise of protestation in the back of his throat before he could get her off him.
"Bia! What are you doing? We need to talk." His voice was angry as he pulled her towards the front door. When they got outside, he told her that it was over between them, he didn't want to be treated like a gigolo, complying to all her sexual urges even if he didn't want them. Ignoring her completely he went back inside. Oliver figured it would be good to talk to Katie; but upon entering the door again, he found she wasn't there. He walked over to the group he had seen her sitting with before. Before Oliver found himself with them a shy hand on his elbow; following the pale arm he found himself face to face with Luna Lovegood.
"Have you finally realized you're in love with her then?" said Luna curiously.
Confused beyond reason Oliver stayed silent trying to work out what she was going on about.
"Katie I mean" Luna continued.
"I – uh – what?" verbally stumbled Oliver.
"You're in love with Katie Bell, star chaser of the Holyhead Harpies, remember her, curly blonde hair with a purple bit near her ear, about so high-" here she gestured to a height a few inches taller than herself, "green eyes, your best friend since forever, remember? You're in love with her."
"I- I- I- am?" he tried to reply.
"Yes", Luna said this with such seriousness that Oliver thought for a moment that perhaps she was someone else polyjuiced. But the lopsided smile that followed was one that only she knew how to achieve.
Trying not to sound curious Oliver spoke with a voice slightly deeper than was natural, "What makes you say that?" he inquired (hopingly) innocently.
"The fact that she was the first person you looked at when you walked in the door, the first person you always look for whenever you enter a room, besides, I can hear your heartbeat basically skip a beat every time you hear her name. Don't worry Oliver, she likes you too." This last was said slightly, as if it was only there to put him off balance.
Despite the fact that Oliver had already come to this conclusion – about himself being in love – he was dumbfounded by the bluntness of Luna's declaration, he didn't even notice that she'd said Katie liked him too.
Luna pulled him into a hug, where she whispered in his ear, "She slipped out the back door, try looking in the back of the garden." Luna then let go of Oliver and gave him a bit of a shove in the appropriate direction. Oliver stumbled before gathering himself up clumsily and walking out. He heard a vague voice in the background as the back door swung shut behind him;
"Five galleons says they're together by the end of the night".
--
Meanwhile Katie had seated herself shakily on the lounge swing, breathing in deep and letting out shuddering breaths. She was stupid, she knew it. For some stupid reason, she'd thought that, tonight, she would finally give in to her stupid self and tell Oliver her feelings, now though, Katie thought it might go a little awry: "Yo, Ollie! I'm in love with you mate, have been for quite some time – oh hi there Bianca". It just wouldn't work.
Laughing harshly at the cruelness of her own thoughts she pulled her feet up underneath her. Truth be told, she was hurt beyond reason. Oliver was just so… Oliver. Katie looked down at herself, taking in her appearance. When she'd gotten ready the only thing she thought of was somehow trying to look like she hadn't tried hard to look nice, while still looking good. She'd braided her hair; it had become habit since she first started flying, the long hair clasped in a hair tie. She was wearing a pair of comfortable, but well fitting jeans and a t-shirt which stated proudly, "I'm a chaser!" with the logo of a girl on a broomstick flying after a boy. Katie knew it was a silly shirt when she bought it, but thought it was worth it anyway.
Now she felt like an idiot, she'd put more makeup on than she ever had, though that wasn't much, just a bit of eyeliner and lip balm. 'I give up' she thought, 'I've had enough', but she didn't want to have had enough, she didn't want to give up. But what else was there for it? Oliver had his strumpet of a girlfriend and she didn't look to be wanting to let her talons go yet. Biting her lip, Katie struggled to contain a cry and she felt the first of many tears well up and she flicked out her tongue to taste the salty apparition. Letting out a groan of frustration she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand, smearing them across her face, silently glad her makeup was waterproof.
Upon realizing she couldn't stop the tears she curled up into a ball and held her knees to her chest. Somehow this gave her the security to let out ten years worth of unshed 'Oliver' tears. Katie figured that if they all came out now, she could move on – finally – and start afresh. Sob after sob wracked her body and her quiet desolateness pierced the air around her.
Suddenly, warm, comforting arms surrounded Katie. She didn't want to think about whose they were, because really, she knew and just didn't want to face it. Katie just wanted comfort, and this embrace was giving it to her. Her cries became louder and she just wanted to bury herself here and forget everything.
--
Oliver found himself holding a distraught Katie. He'd wandered into the garden intending to find her and divulge all, but somehow, it didn't seem to be going that way. The minute he saw her curled up tightly his heart had clenched and he'd all but ran to her. He looked desperately up at the night sky, as if it could answer the age old question of how to calm a distraught woman. Then he remembered when they were kids, the song. He began humming a tune he remembered her Mum used to sing her, before the war. Unconsciously as he began humming he also began working out the braid in her hair, the shock of purple finding its way into his hands. The hair was curling around his fingers like a fog on a winter's morning, as if it remembered him.
--
Katie hated what he was doing to her, and yet loving it at the same time. Oliver knew how to make her feel better, and it was working. But she didn't want to feel better. She wanted to just crawl up and obliviate herself into St Mungo's. Okay, she lied, she wouldn't want to be there for the entire world, but how could she have let it get this far?
As the humming started Katie calmed, not purposely, it's just the way the song works. Her mother never told her, but Katie believed there was some kind of charm in the words and tune able to put anyone's soul to peace.
When the distant tugging of a familiar hand was loosening her braid she tensed, and Oliver paused. Then she thought she may as well give into the feeling of his fingers parading around her head, soothing the headache she didn't know she'd had. Looking up at him, Katie's breath hitched. He was just so Oliver. That's why there were never any other men, Oliver was her one and only. It seemed like it was too late for her to be his, but she somehow contented herself with the knowledge that she had accepted what her heart was telling her.
--
As Katie's arms freed her from the tight position, he took note of the slightly bedraggled appearance, which seemed not to have come from this bout of emotions. Knowing her as he did, Oliver understood that his friend was stressed, worried, nervous and many other feelings all in one. He'd never understand how girls could feel all that. He let a soft imperceptible chuckle pass out as a breath through his lips, remembering the memorable occasion when Hermione Granger had told Ron Weasley, his emotions were less adept than a piece of cutlery.
Oliver smoothed down her hair and felt nothing, took in nothing, except the purple hair that was wound around his fingers.
"You still have it" Oliver mumbled, almost questioningly, he'd figured since they'd parted ways that the hair would have parted with them.
"Permanent charm, remember?" said Katie conversationally, still being held warmly by Oliver, who wasn't noticing the fact that her tears had dried up and a little of the old Katie was peaking out through the edges of this break down.
Oliver tugged gently on the curl watching it with endless fascination – as he always had – that it would always twist back up into one of the many becoming spirals that had always adorned her head. He looked down at her, watching her, finding her beautiful beyond all measure. He couldn't quite figure out when he had thought of Katie as anything more than the most amazing friend he'd ever had in his entire life. Oliver assumed since he was calling her the most amazing, that, perhaps, he had always loved her. Loved. Now there was an emotion worth explaining to Ron Weasley.
The gentle tug on his ear which reminded him where he was, who he was with and Oliver didn't want to be with anywhere else. He thought back to what Luna had said. She'd implied Katie felt the same. 'Oh Merlin! What if she did?' He'd just spent the most awful years of his life chained to a woman who used him for his body, fame and money, while all along, the one woman he'd loved but never realized it, had loved him. Oh what a right idiot.
"I'm sorry- I'm sorry- Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry Katie" he whispered into her ear, pulling her tightly against him, Oliver's hand still entwined in her hair and Katie clearly didn't mind a bit.
--
'Oh shit', thought Katie. 'He knows! How in the name of Morganna did he know!? What did it matter anyway?', came the more logical side of her brain, which sounded oddly like Oliver's mother. 'He's apologizing, he thinks he's done something wrong' Mrs Wood said to her. Okay Katie, step one, find out what's wrong to make him apologize, step 2, tell him you love him more than you could possibly love anything, so far there was no step 3, perhaps she would make a vague inquiry to the clingy girlfriend who should be back at the party.
"How could I have been so bloody ignorant and blind?" Oliver asked himself in obvious wonder.
Katie was just about to reply when a voice shot into their conversation. If that's what this was.
"HOW COULD YOU!! OLLIE BEAR!! How could y-" Bianca seemed to finally realize that Katie was also there, she stifled her yelling and traded it in for some quiet, threatening words.
"You, BITCH!!", okay, so the beginning of it was quiet and threatening, the end part, was a bit more vocal, and came with the movements of trying to drag Oliver away. However, the mission was doomed from the start, Oliver's hands were still tightly engrossed in Katie's blonde tresses, and Katie seemed to have been shocked into holding onto him for dear life. 'Oh Merlin, what have I done to her?' Mrs Wood's voice pierced through the cobwebs of her brain. 'Dearie', it said, 'you've got your arms around her property'. That made sense. But Katie realized she wasn't planning on letting go.
Oliver seemed to have more control over the quiet threatening tones than Bianca did, and he made full use of them. Katie was a little worried he'd been taking lessons from Professor Snape.
"That's enough. You have no right to speak to Katie that way. We aren't together anymore Bianca, and even if we were, you can't come between us. We've known each other longer than we've known how to read or write.
"Please leave. Now"
The speech shocked Katie. All sorts of thoughts were running through her head. Two sets of eyes followed Bianca's forced steps away from the swinging lounge and then those same two pairs of eyes, one green, one blue, met up in the middle.
Their moment of unintended tenderness over, they both finally realized where they were, what they were doing, what it looked like they were doing. Oliver and Katie simultaneously tried to jump away from each other like the magnets of the same pole that they'd learned about in Muggle Studies.
Although their intentions were unclear, they couldn't jump apart as was the original notion of both participants. Oliver's hand was more than just a little tangled in Katie's curls now; the poor limb looked like it may have to be amputated. At the force of the pull of her hair, Katie let out an indignant squeak.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, Merlin's flaming underpants! Ow!" Katie thought she said this quite eloquently.
Reflecting back onto the previous conversation Katie jokingly asked; "Were you apologizing for that then?"
Oliver stared confused, and then suddenly, like he'd been hit with a pensieve and then forced to swim in it, he got the joke. He tried to laugh, really he did, but the sound that came out of his mouth was a cross between a snort and a choking hiccup; it sort of wasn't what he'd been planning.
Oliver reeled all his courage. It was now or never.
"No, I was apologizing for Bianca, I was… stupid", and he really believed that. He couldn't fathom it, at the time it had just seemed so normal. But now, he wished he could take it all back.
"Obviously, anyone who'd date her for three years is stupid" said Katie grimacing at the thought of three years with Bianca. She shuddered. Katie was starting to think on where this conversation was going. Was he apologizing for ditching her, or apologizing because it should have been her, not Bianca by his side.
Okay, thought Oliver, this is it; time to suck it up and get it out.
"I should have been dating you. I know you've probably gone off and met some good looking Welsh groupie while you were gone. But I have to know," Oliver paused, "Will you have me?"
Katie smiled softly, Oliver took this as a positive sign and he brought his head closer to hers. His fingers in her hair were still caressing and Katie couldn't feel anything besides the massaging hands, and she couldn't see anything besides him. His other hand had brought itself up to rest upon her cheek and Katie nuzzled it lightly.
When the two were just a hairs breadth away from their lips touching, Katie spoke; "Of course, you're the only one I'll have" as she said this, her lips whispered across his causing his eyes to shut from the unknown sensation. It was never like this with Bianca. I haven't even kissed Katie yet and I'm already feeling like the happiest bloke in the world.
At Katie's words, lips joined as well as hearts, passions and love. Everything Katie had ever wanted to see in Oliver's eyes, was there, laid bare for no one else but her. This was magic; Hogwarts never prepared her for this; this feeling of true fulfillment. She saw her love in his eyes and she claimed it, with kisses that went on for a millennia.
Suddenly their moment was broken by cheers and whoops which poured out of the house – no doubt someone was dancing with the crudely shaped umbrella stand which had become a fixture of Harry Potter's house.
The noise pulled them apart. All hands dropped away and they stood simultaneously. They were ready to face the world now that they had each other. As they walked to the house, both unwilling to let their time alone pass, Katie grasped her hand with Oliver's, both feeling strength from the subtle embrace.
As they stepped into the house the lights blinded them a little. But when Luna looked over at their hands entwined, the usually passive and airy girl jumped up and whipped her exuberant hat off her head and gestured wildly to all in attendance.
"Pay up you hunkypinks. I told you they'd get together tonight!"
The sound of money dropping into the hat was overshadowed by the groans and complaints of the losers.
People came and congratulated them for the rest of the night telling them that it had taken them long enough to realize they were meant to be together. Hadn't they been telling them that since Hogwarts?
Oliver and Katie blushed almost constantly for the rest of the night, but they laughed good naturedly and enjoyed the rest of the night.
It wasn't until the party was well and truly over that anyone noticed that Bianca hadn't ever gone back to the house. No one really cared.
Years later and engagement and a marriage claimed Oliver and Katie. As she had walked down the aisle, Katie's hair had been pinned up with a silver clasp, but a single curl was left to flow down behind her ear down her neck. The one purple curl which would forever remind them of each other was on display for all to see.
And that was that.