Disclaimer: Recognize it? Not mine.

Betrayal

Only after Katie decided to ditch practice to be with Diggory for the third time in a row did Oliver realize that she was trying to send him a message.

Maybe he should've realized it sooner. Maybe he should've known something was wrong with Katie. But just why and how he was supposed to notice? Girls were so complicated! They would put on a smile then talk behind your back. They would say that everything was just fine with that snappy tone that clearly hinted the contrary.

And then there was Katie, who threatened to leave the team on a weekly basis, but kept talking about how she wanted to make Slytherin bite the dust and just kept coming back.

Until she didn't, that is.

What was worse, her excuse was none other than Cedric Diggory. It had started after they lost the match against Hufflepuff, and Katie had been keen enough to check up on Diggory. Which was fine. Katie said that he was genuinely guilt-ridden and upset about the outcome of the match.

Two weeks after that, Katie said to an envious Angelina that Cedric was quite the good kisser and that she couldn't wait to go with him to Hogsmeade. Oliver knew because she said it within earshot, and a fight had ensued after that.

"You can't date him," he'd said. "He's the enemy."

But date him she did, and he begrudgingly recognized that she wasn't wrong in doing so. It wasn't like she was spilling team secrets to him. It wasn't like she wasn't genuinely interested in Diggory, like Alicia had patiently made him see, or just dating Diggory to spite him.

It still bothered him though, and when Katie decided that Diggory was more important than Quidditch, all his fears were proven right.

She can date whoever she pleases, he thought. But choosing him over us is betrayal and it can't go on any longer.

Katie didn't even look his way when he plopped down on the sofa she was occupying. The Common Room was at its fullest, so sitting down next to Katie would've seemed just natural either way. But he had important matters to discuss and it irritated him that she was obviously ignoring him.

Oliver wanted to snap at her, but considering how irritable she was those last few weeks, he thought it wiser to try the friendly approach.

"Why weren't you at practice today?" he asked tactfully. She turned around to look at him. The grave expression she wore told him that he was not welcome.

"Excuse me?" Her caustic tone was enough to make him drop all pretenses.

"Katie, I've cut you some slack, but this is the third time you miss practice and-"

"What? I thought I'd told you that I'm off the team."

He rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to tolerate a temper tantrum. "What do you mean, you're off the team?" he asked impatiently.

"I mean that you should get another Chaser. I've heard Ginny Weasley say she'd love to try out once Angelina and Alicia are gone, so you're not out of options. But I'm not playing anymore. I'm done."

She's serious, a voice in his head told him, and something is terribly wrong.

"Why?" he could only ask.

"Because I'm sick of it, Oliver!" Katie exploded. "I'm sick of suffering through every single practice! I don't care anymore!"

"Rubbish," he said, knowing he was right. "You want to win the Cup as much as I do."

"Well, I do. But I'm not good enough, am I?"

"What are you talking about?" he demanded.

"Every single practice I try my best, and every single practice you let me know I'm not good enough. It's exhausting."

She really is sensitive, he thought. Katie was prone to tears and fits of anger and joy, more than anyone else in the team. However, he never thought she'd take criticism personally. It was part of the game, and she knew the game too well.

"You shouldn't let criticism get to you, Katie. You know it's essential for-"

"Shut it, Wood." She never used his surname. It was always Oliver, even Ollie when she was teasing him about whatever. Not even in her angriest moments had she called him Wood. "Criticism I can take, but you've overstepped the boundary of constructive criticism. You motivate everyone but me, and it was about time I took the hint."

"What hint?"

"That I should leave."

"I've never wanted you to leave!"

"Well, you've had a fine way of showing it!"

"Wait, Katie. Is this Diggory's idea?"

"This is not about Cedric!"

Oliver had never seen Katie so angry. By then, the whole common room was staring at them. He ran a hand through his hair nervously, not knowing what to say next, but just wishing that everyone would just look away.

She seemed to wish the same thing, because when she spoke again, her voice was contained in a low hiss. "I don't want this anymore, okay? Go force your high expectations onto someone else."

The word 'expectations' made him too aware of his role of a Captain. True, he expected amazing things from Katie, but she rarely failed to deliver. She was good, and he was confident that she could be better.

But one thing he didn't get – just why was she acting up? Was it because of his expectations of her? Was that the message she wanted to send? He understood the urge to rebel against parents and teachers;he wasn't a rebel, but Merlin knew he sometimes wanted to throw it all away and break every expectation that was set on him.

Is this what she's feeling? He wasn't the most sentimentally aware person, but he did know that he didn't want Katie to feel that way.

"You're my friend, Katie," was all he managed to say. Why would someone want to rebel against a friend?

"No. I'm your Chaser. You're my Captain."

What? His six teammates were his only friends. The fact that Katie was openly denying him confused him, and stung to no end.

"I-I don't want you to view me as just an authority figure. I thought-"

"Well, too fucking late."

The swear word seemed to float in the air and enhance the eerie sense of wrongness he was experiencing. Katie never swore. Katie was sweet and compliant. Katie could be stormy, then sunny within ten minutes. Her moods came and went, so he had no idea she could be driven to the point of desperation like that.

"What's going on?" he asked weakly. It took her a few seconds to answer.

"You treat me differently than you treat anyone else. Don't you see? You praise Angelina and Alicia endlessly and I'm as good as they are, but you only tell me I can do better."

"But you can!" was his only defense. He regretted his words immediately.

"Maybe I can't. Oliver, can't you see that you're not being fair? Have I done something to make you dislike me?"

"What? No!" The assumption baffled him.

"Then why are you so hard on me?" She didn't sound so angry anymore – just tired. "You're making me feel bad, and as if I should just give up on Quidditch. I really don't want to feel like this anymore."

That was the opposite effect of what Oliver had wanted to achieve. He wanted to say you should've told me, but hadn't she argued with him more than once? Hadn't he told himself that she shouldn't be taken seriously? Hadn't he thought that girls were complicated and that he shouldn't give it any importance?

"You never told me any of this," he said anyway.

"I never felt like I could. You would've told me about how I'm just being lazy, and how you just need to win the Cup this year, and guilt-trip me into staying."

Oliver opened his mouth to answer, but he couldn't come up with a retort. He wanted to be angry at her and to tell her that she was wrong. But she was right.

All of their fights had ended with him telling Katie one thing or the other, never mentioning her excellent play or her ability to execute exactly what he had in mind for her. He thought that praise would get to her and hinder her play.

But it never occurred to Oliver that lack of it could achieve the same effect, when he only wanted – needed - her to be great. But he remembered the weight he placed on motivational speeches and felt like a hypocrite. I want to motivate them – then why don't I do the same for Katie?

His Chaser – his friend - was unmotivated, and he was the only one to blame. He remembered how full of life she'd appeared to him in her tryouts, how he'd known right away she was the best one for the job.

And then, he remembered the consequences of his choice. And it all made sense.

"When I chose you for the team, people talked," he confessed. "You were a second-year Muggle-born girl – it seemed to people like suicide. But you were good – so good - but still, some of the people that lost out to you made my life hell for a while."

Katie didn't answer, and instead, seemed eager to hear more. He didn't quite know how to tell her what he meant. He could tell her that he chose her himself, and that he considered her his Chaser in a way no other member of the team was his and that when it came to her, he took things personally.

These feelings seemed too strong to him, so he couldn't confess them as easily. But Katie's gaze was still on him, so he knew he had to say something. "I always wanted you to be the very best because of that – to prove them all wrong."

"I'm sorry to disappoint, then." Her tone was back to sarcasm, letting him know he'd chosen the wrong thing to say.

"That's the thing, Katie! You haven't. You're fantastic and I think - I think I haven't given you any credit because you - because I'm afraid you'll lose the motivation to be better if given praise."

"No, that is the thing. I don't slack – I keep it up. Or at least I try. Angelina and Alicia are the ones to tell me when I played flawlessly, but will I ever be good enough for your standards, Oliver?"

"You are!" He realized his tone was anxious, so he lowered his voice. "You are," he repeated calmly. "One doesn't need to set standards to realize that you shine. But that's the thing with Quidditch. One can always be better, and one should always want to be better…"

"I want to be the very best, but you're making it lose its fun because you cannot recognize my progress. Frankly, it's not worth it anymore. I did want to think of you as a friend, but friends just don't do this to each other. Hell, good teammates don't do this to each other!"

Katie's voice revealed to him that she was hurt, and that made him hurt as well. The fact that he was to blame only made it worse, and the knowledge that she was right was impossible to ignore.

He'd taken her behavior as betrayal, but he should've realized he was the one betraying their friendship and their work as a team. It was hard juggling the two aspects of their relationship, but he couldn't be blind to the fact that he was doing it wrong and that he'd hurt her in the process.

Yes, she was the Chaser he'd single-handedly chosen for his team. Yes, he'd dealt with rumors when training her and he needed to prove them all wrong. But wasn't it unfair of him to demand that of her? Wasn't it selfish and ridiculous to utilize a dear friend just to make a statement?

I've been an idiot, he realized. And for the first time, he found himself regretting the way he treated her. He knew now he was wrong, and betrayal weighed on him more heavily than he thought it could.

"I'm sorry, Katie." He wished he could express himself more eloquently, but he had the nagging feeling that nothing he could say would be enough. Still, he knew he had to try. "I haven't been giving you enough credit, and you really do deserve more than an apology. You're an extremely talented player and I… and I think of you as a friend. Just - well, next time you're unhappy with the way I'm running things, please let me know."

"I'll try. Just remember to take me seriously."

"I will. I should have. I'm sorry," he repeated. "I learned my lesson."

She examined him, and his heart skipped a beat when her dark eyes stopped on his. To that day, Katie had seemed to him like a youthful, innocent girl who couldn't even speak ill of anyone. Her stare revealed something harsh and intense he couldn't place, and that he'd never associated with her. Guiltily, he realized that he should've known better than to underestimate and undermine her.

"Okay," she said again. But the pained tone was gone, and he was glad that the Katie he knew seemed to be back. "Just promise you'll be unbiased when it comes to criticism."

"Deal." It was only fair.

"And you will stop pretending we all care about Quidditch the same way you do."

This took him time to process, because he just had Quidditch. He knew the twins had their pranks and Alicia her grades; Harry had his friends and his little escapades, while Angelina's popularity mattered to her just as much as Quidditch.

Katie had never displayed these marked interests. Her best friends were her fellow Chasers and she was an average student. Diggory was her first boyfriend, and who was he to tell her not to be happy with him? He wished she could've chosen a nice bloke from Gryffindor, but as long as Katie kept her mouth shut about Quidditch, it was none of his business who she chose to date as long as she was happy.

It wasn't betrayal, he realized. Betrayal was that he'd neglected her as a friend and forgot that she was her own person. True, he wanted her to be happy both for her sake and for the team's, but he suspected he shouldn't tell her that.

"Deal," he finally agreed. "But you will stop ditching practice for Diggory."

"Deal," she quickly responded.

"And you will stop seeing Diggory altogether."

"Oliver…" The faint smile she wore indicated that she took his words as the joke they were. He was glad to be back on Katie's good side. Just seeing her smile made his heart soar, and he smiled back at her with an enthusiasm he didn't know he possessed.

"Well, it was worth giving it a try!" he exclaimed, making her giggle. "Then I have only one thing left to ask."

"Ask away."

"You will think of me as a friend."

His tone was soft, inviting, and he didn't know what about it made Katie look away. When she looked back at him her eyes were watery. But she was still smiling. Girls are so weird.

"Deal," she whispered.

Notes: For the Fanfiction School of Imagination and Creativity (Maths 2 - write about a missing moment or potentially-canon moment) and the Three-part Series Canon Competition (Pairing: Katie/Oliver. Moment: A betrayal.)

Thanks to Jess (autumn midnights) because she doesn't tire of checking the stupid little mistakes I make!

Thanks to you too, reader!

-Karyn.