A/N: This story may make some readers uncomfortable and/or may be unsuitable for those under sixteen years of age (particularly chapters two/three)...
it contains coarse language, implied sex scenes and a shirtless, soon to be pants-less Oliver Wood.

All I Ever Intended.

Part One:
'I Haven't Thought of You Lately At All'

'

Startled awake by the shrill cry of her alarm clock, Katie lay still underneath the comforting warmth of the several layers of bedding that covered her. She stayed like that for a minute or so before habitually glancing at the time on the clock. Groaning loudly, she reluctantly pulled herself out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom, immediately turning the hot water of the shower on full-blast.

She'd just stumbled out of her closet only half-dressed when she heard the characteristic crack of someone apparating coming from the tiny kitchenette, and she hastily shoved her arms into a white blouse. Hurrying out into the kitchen, still buttoning the blouse, she smiled as soon as she saw not one but two visitors – the forever mischievous and brilliantly redheaded Weasley twins.

They greeted her in unison with a chiming "Hallo Kates!" before engulfing her in two consecutive bear hugs.

'Haven't seen either of you in ages!' Katie remarked as she tucked her blouse into the high-waisted business skirt she had dressed her bottom half in.

'Been frightfully busy –' Fred said, playing up his accent to make it sound ridiculously obnoxious.

'What with the children and wives –' George continued in much the same fashion.

'And all.' they finished simultaneously with identical grins.

Katie laughed.
'Can I make you both a coffee or something?'

'Nah,' answered Fred, leaning his lanky frame back against the kitchen bench, 'we're here on orders from the wives.'

'Ah.' Katie said, trying to disguise the tiny twinge of disappointment she felt: everyone was so busy these days they had little time for their younger, twenty-two year-old spinster friend.

'Ange and Alicia are organising some kind of reunion,' George said with a roll of his large blue eyes, 'they're getting all the old Gryffindor gang back together… you know, us all, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Harry… uh, Oliver…'

Katie flinched quite visibly, but said nothing; she merely nodded with slight interest. 'Oh, sounds good.'

'They're also insisting on inviting Davies and a few of that crowd too,' Fred said with distaste, before hastily adding, 'and why they felt the need to invite Wood I have no idea, after everything that's happened…'

Katie nodded stiffly again and busied herself with making a mug of strong coffee. 'He was part of the gang, there's no reason why they shouldn't.'

They both smiled sadly at her, seemingly unable to find the right words to say.

They stood around the tiny kitchenette for a few tension-filled minutes, before Fred coughed awkwardly and George grimaced.

'Well, we'd best be off,' Fred said with a yawn, 'have good day at work Kates.'

'Oh, Alicia said to tell you to come over tomorrow night, too,' George said as they both pulled their wands out of the pockets of their jeans, 'we're having a few people over and she said to say sorry that we've been neglecting you a bit.'

Katie smiled.
'Sure, I'd love to.'

There was another awkward pause before Fred nodded genially to her and apparated, George soon following his lead.

As soon as they left she sighed loudly, leaning back against the counter, feeling as if she needed another eight hours sleep, so exhausting was the effort of keeping up appearances around people these days.

Truth be told, even though she was slightly bitter at being left out of their "happily-married" circle, she liked spending most of her spare time by herself – she could shroud herself in her misery as much as she liked. Although, now that she thought about it, it was ridiculous really, the amount of misery she still seemed to endure considering the nasty fight between herself and Oliver had taken place nearly three years ago now – it was well and truly time that she got over herself.

With that somewhat disconcerting thought she trouped back into her bedroom and slipped a pair of medium-high heels onto her panty-hosed feet, tapped her face with her wand to instantaneously apply a slight touch of make-up and charmed her hair up into a shining, simple knot at the back of her head; a grimace on her face the entire time.

Keeping up appearances… oh, how she hated it.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Come tomorrow night, Katie was sort of wishing she hadn't taken up George's offer of dinner at his and Alicia's.

She'd had a hell two days at work, trying to keep the peace between the ever-obnoxious Vladimir Pinch, the ridiculously successful writer she was agent for, and the publishers at Mills & Ray publishing house, who were insisting the author's latest books contained too much sex and violence and not enough plot. In her own humble opinion, Katie privately agreed – Pinch's books were famously swamped with overly-horny heroes and submissive heroines, both of whom were subjected to altogether too much tragedy for comfort, tragedy usually involving horrific violence. However, Pinch always won, and now Katie was stuck finding him a new publisher, amongst trying to fix the damage he'd made to his own reputation… and publishers were few and far between in the wizarding world.

What she really wanted to do right now, instead of readying herself for a night full of happy couples and noisy kids, was to lie down on the lounge with two family-sized chocolate blocks and immerse herself in the latest trashy love novel she'd borrowed from her cousin Moira.

However, for the sake of appearances – and the free alcohol she was likely to be supplied with – she stripped down to her underwear and wandered into the closet to try and find something to wear to George and Alicia's.

Teetering on her tip-toes to reach the top shelf where she stored her winter dresses, she squeaked when the small pile of clothes came tumbling down upon her, covering her in an assortment of different coloured garments.

'Bloody hell.'

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

'Kates!'

Smiling warmly, Alicia ushered a shivering Katie inside their comfortable family home, closing the door quickly on the blustery, snowy weather outside.

'Merlin!' Katie exclaimed as she took of her snow-covered cloak and hung it on a hook in the hall, 'its bloody freezing out there!'

Alicia laughed.
'It's alright honey, come on in and sit next to the fire, George'll get you a drink.'

'One step ahead of you, my wife,' George said with wink in their direction, walking out of the kitchen with a warmed butterbeer for their rather cold guest.

Alicia giggled and stopped on her way to drag her two sons away from each other to kiss his cheek, making Katie feel like gagging. Instead, she accepted the butterbeer from George and exchanged an awkward hug with him as she juggled her drink and his long arms.

'Katie!'

Startled out of her hug, Katie turned to see Angelina striding up to them, her purposeful walk unchanged from the first time they'd met a long eleven years ago. Katie exchanged a no-fuss embrace with Angelina and then followed her back through the house into the large dining room, where an assortment of adults were sitting around the dinner table, talking pleasantly and sipping their drinks.

'Hey everyone, Katie's here!' Angelina announced to the group, and they all called out greetings and pleasantries to a slightly embarrassed Katie, who took a large swig of her butterbeer, wishing that butterbeers were made of stronger alcohol.

She stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching as Angelina strode over to Fred and sat down next to him, laughing at some joke he'd just told the far half of the table.

'So how've you been Katie?' asked Ginny, who was sitting in the chair closest to the doorway, 'come sit down and tell us what you've been up to.'

Grateful for the invitation but dreading having to talk about herself, Katie sat down next to the beautiful little redhead, exchanging smiles with Harry, Ron and Hermione in turn, all of whom looked altogether too grown up to Katie – the four of them looked older than her, which was quite alarming considering she was at least a year and half older than them all.

'Are you still working for Vladimir Pinch?' Hermione enquired as she sipped at her dandelion tea, 'I hear he has a new book in the works?'

Katie groaned before laughing slightly, startling Ron, who looked at her with a curious expression. 'Oh, Vladimir has a new book all right… the publisher sacked him over it a couple of days ago.'

'What'd he do?' Harry asked, leaning forward and picking up a handful of peanuts, which he shared with Ginny, who picked three up and popped them daintily in her mouth.

'They just had an argument, that's all,' Katie replied, remembering suddenly she probably shouldn't be talking about, but catching the look on their faces which clearly betrayed that the explanation wasn't satisfactory, 'a very nasty argument…'

Ginny laughed.
'That Pinch guy is a bit of a pig anyway, isn't he?'

'Yes, he is actually,' Katie said, laughing also, before taking a swig of her butterbeer, 'so anyway, enough about me, what've you four been up to?'

'Well,' said Hermione, exchanging an exuberantly happy look with Ron, 'we're actually expecting our first child.'

Keeping the fact that she'd already noticed Hermione's swollen belly to herself, Katie offered her congratulations most fervently, trying with all her might to make herself sound like she was happy for them – which she was, of course, but was finding hard to express.

'Harry and I have moved into an apartment in London,' Ginny said once the hype surrounding Ron and Hermione's expectancy had died down, 'last week, actually, so we'll probably run into you a lot more now.'

'Yeah, definitely, that's great,' Katie said, smiling, unsure whether she felt that would be a good thing or not and immediately feeling guilty.

There was an awkward pause, before Ron broke it with possibly the worst-timed conversation starter he could have broken the silence with.

'So, have you seen Wood lately?'

There was a ridiculously loud silence, in which Ginny viciously kicked her brother under the table, before Katie spoke. 'No, I erm, haven't.'

'None of us have actually,' said Harry thoughtfully as Ron leant over the table to grab a handful of peanuts, muttering about his now aching leg, 'nobody's heard from him for months.'

'Living in Scotland again now, isn't he?' Ron said, earning himself a glare from Hermione, who looked quite embarrassed, 'I heard he got signed by a new team from Glasgow.'

'I think so,' said Katie with a sigh, impulsively clutching her butterbeer to contain her urge to either punch something or cry, 'as I said, I haven't seen him in ages.'

'He um, asked me about you, when Gin and I saw him last,' Harry said awkwardly, as if telling her this was against his better judgement, 'he wanted to know how you were.'

'And did you tell him I'm doing wonderfully, thank you very much, and that I've all but forgotten about him?' Katie shot back without thinking before wincing at how aggressive it sounded.

'Uh, something like that.' Harry muttered, before getting up and saying something about getting another round of drinks.

'You know Katie,' Ginny said thoughtfully, rolling her eyes as Ron shot up out of his chair and hurried to help Harry, 'it's been a long time since you and Oliver broke up – I'm sorry to say this, but it sounds as if you're still in love with him.'

'What!' Katie exclaimed, aghast, 'No! No way! Absolutely, no way!'

A stunned silence fell over the entire room, in which most of its occupants stared at her as if she was some kind of head-case. Thoroughly embarrassed, Katie got to her feet, murmured something about needing the bathroom and hurried out, nearly running headlong into Luna Lovegood, who smiled dreamily at her, a blonde, dazed-looking baby on her hip.

Stammering a mixed-up apology and greeting, Katie pushed past her and stumbled down the hallway and into the bathroom, where she closed the door behind her and sank down onto the bath mat unorthodoxly.

What was it with everyone and feeling sorry for her?
Ginny had been right about one thing – things had ended between her and Oliver a long time ago. But still, why did it hurt so much, even now, three years later?

A/N: lyrics used are "We Used To Be Friends" by The Dandy Warhols.