The Pair of Them
There were very many things that Oliver Wood hated. For instance, he hated homework, particularly potions homework, because they were always undoubtedly not fun (he was going to be a professional Quidditch player anyways, what did it matter if he knew the properties of moonstones or not?). Oliver also hated Snape, mostly because he was a greasy git who docked points that had been hard-earned by the Gryffindor Quidditch team for the stupidest things. By extension of Snape, he also hated the Slytherin Quidditch team, who always managed to slither their way out of a properly scheduled match and gets really good brooms for absolutely no reason other than that Malfoy's father has the bucks. You know what? Never mind. Oliver simply just hated the lot of them—by extension of Snape or not. Out of all the things that Oliver hated, one of the things that top his list, though, was arguments.
Oliver hated arguments. He hated yelling until he was red in the face. He hated the rawness that he felt in his chest afterward. He hated arguing with people who were obviously unreceptive to his opinions. Most of all, though, Oliver Wood hated arguing with Katie Bell, who always ends up making him feel like a big, fat dolt.
It was because of arguing with said girl that had landed him out here, in the pitch, in the snow, in the middle of February in the first place. Oliver chucked a bit of the stupid, white precipitation at the stand as he stewed. He had never been this mad before…ever. Oliver and Katie have had their occasional differences, but they have always made up. Today, though, he's just so angry that he could barely see straight. He chucked some more of the snow at the stand, thinking maybe that if he chucked enough of it, he'll feel better. However, after two hours' worth of snow-chucking, his anger had not cooled off as effectively as his core body temperature has and he, nearly an icicle, is still, to put it crudely, very much pissed-off.
He just didn't understand why she had made such a big deal about it. All he had asked was that Katie simply not date Roger Davies until the end of the Quidditch season—not that he would have exactly been happy about it then either, but at least Katie wouldn't be all mushy and distracted during practice by Davies. Come to think of it, he really would just prefer that Katie didn't date during any time of the year. If they had dated during off-season, Katie would be distracted from her studies, and that would be equally bad. Oliver knew that Katie wanted to be a healer more than anything else in the world, and being distracted, particularly by Davies, would not help Katie get top marks—which she would need! So really, Oliver was just thinking about it in her best interest. Even then, though! It wasn't as if Oliver had been asking for a lot, and he had even said "please" out of respect because they have, according to his mother, "known each other since diapers" (Oliver never understood this either, because he was almost three years older than her. Surely, by the time Katie was born, he wasn't still wearing diapers). Maybe it was the way he said it, maybe phrasing it as "fraternizing with the enemy" didn't help his cause, but Oliver didn't know how else to phrase it. Because that's exactly what Katie going out with—with—with Davies would have been: fraternizing with the enemy.
Roger—stinking—Davies with his grades and his flippy hair. Katie just didn't see pass Davies' front like Oliver did. Sure, Davies volunteers, he's captain of Ravenclaw's team, and he's really easy to talk to. But Oliver could see through it all. It was all just show, so that innocent people—like Katie—would fall into his trap, hooked and suckered. Oliver huffed, almost pouted, and, yet again, flicked some more snow at the stand. He couldn't help but notice how large his pile of chucked snow was getting; it probably looked really strange to people walking by, but Oliver didn't care. He was content with chucking snow and stewing—even if neither of those activities necessarily made him feel better. He just didn't understand why Katie didn't understand that this was important to him. This was the Quidditch Cup, for Merlin's sake! He wanted his last year at Hogwarts to have meant something…and he wanted to win. All right, so mostly, he just wanted to win. But he wanted to win with Katie. He wanted their last year together at Hogwarts to be memorable. After all, when he had graduated, they won't be able to hang out like they have for the past fourteen years anymore. Oliver had already signed onto Puddlemere United's reserve team, and that means that Katie-Oliver time for the first few months after graduation would be drastically lessened—almost inexistent—while he was at training camp. Oliver didn't like this; he didn't like this one bit. And as sappy as this sound, even in Oliver's mental monologue, it was like he was losing his best friend and childhood all within the same one month period, a one-month-period that was coming faster and faster. It was like his future was dangling in front of him, and even if it was a pretty darn good future for someone just coming out of Hogwarts, Oliver can't help but be a little bit weary of it. What if it was all too good to be true? What if Puddlemere United really just wanted a water boy or something and decided to give him a glorified title? What if, after Oliver left, the Gryffindor Quidditch team fell to smithereens because there was nobody to run it? Who was going to make sure that the Weasley twins don't try to blow up all the toilets in the locker room? Who was going to make sure that Alicia and Angelina actually wake up for morning practices? Who was going to make sure that Harry eats his breakfast before games? Who was going to catch Katie when she falls?
Oliver began to dry heave. It wasn't very manly at all, but he couldn't help but hyperventilate just a little bit. What if Katie fell after one of her spectacular goals? From fifty feet in the air and no one caught her? She could break her neck! She could become paralyzed! Her brain could become addled! Oliver decided. He decided that after he has finished dry heaving, he was going to go straight to McGonagall's office and tell her that he's staying another year until he could find a suitable replacement for himself. And then Oliver smacked himself in the forehead.
He can't do that! He can't stay another year! What was he thinking? For one, what would he do at Hogwarts for another year? He's already taking his N.E.W.T.'s this year. For another, he's already signed to Puddlemere United, and they would probably fine him for millions of galleons if he decided to drop now. Oliver felt like stomping the ground, but thought better of it. Stomping the ground was decidedly childish, and after all, he was already seventeen—a man. But still, Oliver couldn't help but feel like the world was suddenly his biggest opponent, like there was an evil Oliver twin somewhere out in the universe, cackling wildly, while trying to flush Oliver's life down the toilet.
Enough was enough, though, Oliver decided. He wasn't going to sit here in the pitch and try to make a second Himalaya anymore. For one, he was freezing and worried that he might have lost his pinky toes. Secondly, Oliver just realized that sitting out here gets nothing done. He was going to have to do it. He was going to have to apologize to Katie, and she was going to have to accept it. It was silly to lose one of Oliver's most precious people to dating, even though he was sure that men greater than himself has fallen folly to romance before. And it wasn't like he was losing her permanently: they would break up eventually.
And so, Oliver, with his school bag in tow, left the snowy Quidditch field and trekked indoors. He wandered the school looking for Katie, leaving large puddles and drips in his wake. He looked for her in the Great Hall and the common room and in the kitchen. He even tried to walk up that blasted staircase leading up to the girls' dormitory while ignoring the sniggers of some second-year girls as he slid rather unceremoniously to the bottom after his attempt. His fellow Quidditch team member, Angelina Johnson, had then rescued him from another shot by letting him know that the girls' dorm was sadly Katie-less. It was clear: Katie was nowhere to be found. Oliver sighed. Maybe he could catch her later. Corner her during dinner, because Oliver knew that she would never, ever, ever walk away from dessert. Defeated, he sauntered into the library toward his favorite desk in the back with the funny grains in the wood that was shaped like snitches. But there she was. Blonde hair tied high in a ponytail and eating Nutella, Katie's favorite Muggle food, out of the jar with a spoon. After he apologized, Oliver decided, he was going to chuck that nasty jar of unhealthiness out of the window—but he should patch things up between the two of them first before doing that.
Oliver walked towards his table, plopped his book bag down, and sat in the chair next to hers. As soon as Oliver's bottom touched the chair though, Katie moved a chair away. Oliver looked at her perplexed, blinked, and moved to sit next to her again, but Katie scooted down another chair. Oliver kind of wanted to laugh, because it reminded him of when they used to play musical chairs as children. Katie had always cheated, but he had always given it to her anyways because she was younger and he had liked hearing her twinkly laugh. They kept moving down the line of chairs until Katie was sitting right up against the window. With her spoon in her mouth, Katie glared at Oliver through squinted eyes, as if daring him to do something about the chocolate currently melting inside her mouth. And it was like Oliver was seeing Katie for the first time.
Oliver was almost taken aback. When did little Katie Bell become so… well…not little? That's not to say that she was old-looking, but when did she stop looking like a little girl? The one that he used to blow up slugs for with his mother's stolen wand? The one that he used to carry home on his back after a long day in the make-shift Quidditch field at the Burrow? The one with the messy hair who would insist that she tag along to play like big kids do and cry when she eventually ended up scrapping her hands and knees? This—this person in front of him can't be that Katie Bell, because the one in front of him right now was a young woman. A young woman with a willowy figure and high cheekbones and long eyelashes and bottomless hazel eyes and—and—and—well, things that Oliver shouldn't be looking at. Oliver blushed and looked away. Now that he was sitting right next to her, Big, Fat Dolt has returned and he didn't know what to say so he settled for scratching dried ink bits off of the library table.
Katie, spoon still in her mouth, looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. She could tell he had come to say sorry, because he had his "I'm sorry" look on his face; the one where his mouth is cocked to the side and his eyebrows are furrowed while he fidgets with whatever he can get his hands on. She also knew that, from years of falling off of her toy broomstick when he accidentally-on-purpose played rough during a childhood scrimmage, he had a hard time with saying things like "I'm sorry" or "that was my fault" or, her favorite, "I was wrong." So, Katie pulled the spoon out of her mouth and dropped it into the half-eaten jar and challenged, "Are you here to tell me off some more about Davies?"
Oliver scratched at the ink flakes some more before saying, in a crushed voice, "No." He paused, "Katie, I'm—er—well—you know—the whole Davies thing." Oliver blamed Big Dolt for making him sound like an idiot.
"I'm sorry." He said it, and once he started, Oliver found that it was a lot easier to speak afterward. "I'm sorry, Katie. I didn't mean to call Davies 'the enemy.' I just—I just want to win the Cup. It's my last year here—it's our last year together. It's my last year with you and the team, and we've deserved to win every year since we've had Harry. We've worked so hard. We've had rotten luck with injuries and the tournament being canceled, but, Katie, we deserve to win. I have to win." He looked up at her and bore into her eyes, maybe if he looked at her intensely enough, she'd get the message and he wouldn't have to say it aloud. "I want to leave something behind at Hogwarts. It's what we've always talked about when we were kids, remember? We talked about it after changing Mr. Corrigan,"—the Wood's family cat, there was no need to go into detail of how much trouble they were both in afterward—"to Gryffindor colors right after I got home after your second year? That we would win the Cup together when you came to Hogwarts and that it would be the best ever?"
Katie looked at him for a few seconds, eyeing his sincerity. Maybe it was because he had sounded so earnestly passionate and utterly dejected about the prospect of the Quidditch Cup or the fact that he was starting to blabber, but Katie had to forgive him. The Oliver she knew since childhood was the same, always passionate and fiery and big hearted. She understood how important the Cup was to him, because it was just as important to her. Oliver always got tunnel-vision whenever he wanted something badly. Take for example, in the beginning of this year, when it was absolutely storming out (hail, snow, thunder, lightning, and pouring rain), and Oliver had expected every one of them to practice regardless of the fact that they couldn't see their hands and feet due to the rain that soaked all of them to their bones. Katie knew that, to Oliver, winning the Quidditch Cup was more than just a victory; it was sort of like a tribute to all of Oliver's time at Hogwarts. Katie smiled. Oliver knew then that she had forgiven him, and suddenly maybe he didn't hate snow that was glistening on the windowsill that much—in fact, it threw a lot of pretty light on Katie's blond hair that made a kind of halo around her.
She laughed and her laugh was still the twinkly laugh that Oliver remembered from their youth. "You sound like an old man, Ollie. You make it sound like you are going to die tomorrow."
"We might though, Katie, we might. You never know. I'm leaving Hogwarts after May. Who knows what's in store out there for me?"
And she knew that maybe it wasn't the Cup that Oliver was so scared of losing, but it was the prospect of having to move into adulthood that frightened him the most. Katie had an inkling that it wasn't merely about being successful at Puddlemere United either, but the fact that they both knew darker days were coming and neither she nor Oliver knew what to expect. The unpredictable future that must be shouldered by the budding witches and wizards coming out of Hogwarts; the burden of it all was great and would leave anyone uncertain.
"But you'll be all right, Ollie, I know it. You'll figure it out. You always do. Just like when I couldn't figure out how to turn Mr. Corrigan back to his original color, you fixed him. The future doesn't have to be so scary." Katie leaned forward so that at least their eyes were leveled. Her pony tail fell forward, too, and her long hair tickled Oliver's nose. He didn't move though, because now that he was back in her good graces, Oliver was quite content to stay exactly where he was. Besides, Katie's eyes were really quite pretty now that he was looking at them up close. They were twinkly—just like her laugh. "You'll be all right, Oliver."
Maybe it was because she used his full name this time or because Oliver knew that Katie knew his worries lay outside of Quidditch without his saying it (which can happen, but people are always surprised. It's not as if he was a simpleton, even if Oliver didn't think about much else often, he was perfectly capable of thinking about other things besides Quidditch too—thank you very much). Katie had always been good at reading Oliver, understanding what he was trying to say without words, that he sometimes wondered if his mind was simply a book in Katie's hand. A book of his thoughts and desires that she simply had to open and read. Galloping gargoyles, Oliver hoped that this wasn't the case—he would really prefer that she didn't know that he thought that she was pretty or that her laugh was twinkly or that she smells really nice today, kind of like honey and flowers. Oliver was sure that these were relatively creepy thoughts for guy friends to have about their friends who were girls. On the whole though, it probably wouldn't matter if she knew, they told each other everything anyways. Katie was always honest to him about what she thought of his appearance, too. One time, in their youth many, many eons ago, Oliver had tried to magic his hair into a mullet because he wanted to look like his favorite Quidditch player and Katie had promptly told him to "cut the disgusting curtain of doom" off because it made him look like Snape. Well, who wants to look like Snape? So Oliver cut his hair back to way he had always had it and that was that.
The point here though, Oliver says to himself, is that it was always the pair of them. Oliver nodded to himself and Katie, thinking Oliver was acknowledging her words of wisdom, leaned back and returned to her jar of Nutella. Oliver knew that no matter how rough things were or how poorly they played in a match, at the end of the day, it was okay because Katie was there to tell him exactly that. And he would believe her. He believed her even when it was the most ridiculous thing. During the last Quidditch season, Katie said that the Chudley Cannons would make it to the nationals. Oliver knew that the Cannons were unlikely to win a single match, but he believed Katie (and subsequently lost twenty five galleons to Lee Jordan). He believed Katie because he wanted what she wanted.
"So…I guess…you should accept that date with Davies," Oliver said with a smile which was clearly meant to hide a scowl that he couldn't quite keep off his face. He really, really, really didn't like the thought of it, but he supposed ruining a fourteen-year friendship because of a boy is as silly as…Well, he really couldn't think of what it would be as silly as because he didn't think it was silly at all, but he'll keep that to himself for now.
"Nah," Katie waved her hand, "Davies isn't really my type anyways. I don't think he cares so much for me after I beat him on our last transfiguration test. D'you know? I scored three marks higher than he did—top marks in the class!"
A light bulb lit so brightly in his head that his eyes squinted and watered—and it probably had something to do with the fact that Katie had just moved off of the windowsill and the sun was streaming directly into his eyes. "Oh, sorry, Ollie," Katie said when she heard the little "ah!" that escaped from his lips and she moved to close the blinds of the window. As she stood up, Oliver watched her and understood. He was a big, fat, and oblivious dolt. Even though it doesn't exactly come as a surprise to him, he has been told many times by Angelina, Alicia, Fred, and George (basically… his entire team, with the exception of Harry—but Oliver supposed Harry had enough to be going on with without obsessively watching Oliver and Katie like a hawk) in an extremely and annoyingly superior voice that he was oblivious. Oliver had always just thought they were talking about the gifts that he received from other students. He couldn't exactly turn them down, they were being nice.
At long last, Oliver knew what everyone had been talking about all this time. He didn't care about Davies. He cared about Katie. He didn't want her to date anyone because it was always the pair of them. The pair of them. Oliver and Katie, they have been like that, well, to borrow his mother's aptly-put phrase, since diapers. Lately, though, he had admittedly started to think of the pair of them in his head as Katie and Oliver—Katie first. It was always Katie first. Everything made sense just then, and it was like a "eureka" moment inside his head that he must keep to himself for now. Oliver almost wished Katie hadn't pulled the blinds down because sunlight streaming to his head would have made the very important revelation seem so much more dramatic in real life. Oliver laughed to himself, and Katie glanced at him but shrugged it off. Nothing could bring Oliver out of his reverie once he entered the world inside his head, Katie knew that much. After fourteen years of being together, Katie was used to Oliver's many (and often very long) mental monologs which was often accompanied by a very blank stare—sometimes his mouth even opens a little. She was sure that Oliver would probably like to think he looked very pensive during these moments, but it nearly almost always take every ounce of Katie's self control to not laugh at his vacant expression. Today, though, his expression was vacant of a different kind. His eyes certainly had a blank stare-ish look to them, but his mouth was open in a very surprised "oh" sort of way.
"Ollie, what's so funny?" Katie asked.
The look of surprise left Oliver's face and a smile replaced it. "Nothing," Oliver told Katie and stood up. He offered her his hand, and said, "Fancy a stroll?" She took his hand and packed her things away. Oliver made to grab the offensive jar of hazelnut spread but Katie got there before him. At times like these, Oliver sometimes wished momentarily that Katie wasn't quite so good at reading his mind, because during Katie's stay i n the library, she had eaten at least a third of the jar. Oliver was sure that it would take at least fifteen laps to burn it all off, and he still had a mini-Himalaya in the pitch to un-chuck. Right now, he really couldn't care less though. Katie laughed her twinkly laugh, and he just kind of wanted to hold her hand and not let go. Because like Katie said, the future doesn't have to be so scary—it wasn't scary at all when Oliver knew that Katie would be in it. The team might even win the Quidditch Cup this year. And who knows, maybe one day, he would represent England at the Quidditch World Cup! All Oliver knows is that, ten or twenty years from now, wherever they were at, he would be all right because it would still be the pair of them—Katie and Oliver—taking on the world together.