An Oliver/Katie story.
Not a (an?) one-shot.
It was cold. It was foggy. And it was raining. None of these things were very out of the ordinary down in London, but Oliver Wood still wished that it wasn't raining today, because, today, of all days, of all hours of that day, of all minutes of those hours, of all seconds of those minutes, Oliver Wood couldn't stop thinking about Katie Bell. Yes, Katie Bell, the girl two years younger than him, chaser for his former team, a good friend of his, and the most amazing woman he had ever met. In other words, someone so completely and utterly out of bounds that it hurt. She was intelligent, well rounded, rich, beautiful, funny, and all around perfect while he was so stupid, poor, ugly and pathetic ( (at least HE thinks so… Heheh…). Here he was, living his life-long dream; playing on Puddlemere United, and he missed them. Merlin's Uncle, he'd only been gone for half a year an already he missed everything, Hogwarts, his team, his friends, which were technically the same thing, and Katie. Especially Katie.
He couldn't believe it took him so long to see how beautiful she was, sure, a large part of his subconscious had played images of her through his mind every night for five years, but he supposed that he was just too dense to ever figure out the obvious.
She had been his friend, nothing else, or at least, not for a while. She was always Katie, Kates, Kat, or his favourite, Kate. She was always the girl who loved to work, who loved to learn, and draw and write and sing and dance. Who loved to be happy. The girl who had to unwittingly captured him.
He had finally noticed her near the end of his last year at Hogwarts, (took him long enough!) at the end-of-finals-and-Quidditch celebration, partly because she looked so different, and partly because, well, everyone noticed it.
Katie was not one who wore makeup all the time, and if she did, there was barely any. Her hair was always up in a ponytail or French braid, and if Oliver thought about it, he never actually saw her hair down apart from that night, She always wore nice clothing, but nothing particularly interesting. At all.
But that night, oh that night was amazing. She had gone down with Angelina, Alicia, and Ginny, to the Three Broomsticks to get cases of Butterbeer and copious amounts of snack food. At that point nobody but the women of Gryffindor had seen her.
George and Fred had really outdone themselves in regards to the setting up of the common room for a party. Outdoing them selves meaning that they had done some pretty impressive magic, and had managed not to blow anything up. Usually they just managed to do impressive magic and still blow things up.
Anyway, the common room had been enlarged and the carpet replaced with a ballroom style dance floor. A dimmed chandelier hung from the ceiling, which didn't appear to exist, as it had been modeled after the Great Hall's ceiling. Candles floated in the air, giving the room a romantic sort of air. The lightest part of the room (that being the center of the dance floor.) was only a little lighter than a fire.
Small, round tables dotted the edges of the room, and three much bigger tables awaiting food and drinks. Lastly two doors that hadn't been there earlier that day opened out onto an enormous balcony and garden which DEFINITELY hadn't been there earlier.
Fred and George had come up behind him, "hullo, Ollie!" Oliver winced, not the name! "Hello. Listen, this is an amazing job you two did, you gotta show me how you did it sometime!" Fred and George exchanged looks and winked at Oliver, "Sorry, Ollie, but great magicians never give up their secrets!" With that they walked off, whispering about their latest torture instru- er –invention.
It was only after the party/dance/thing had started that Katie showed. She had been off levitating the last bin or so of food from Hogsmeade to the common room. She had drawn the hood of her cape over her face, and Oliver didn't recognize her until she looked up….
You're falling… falling… falli- okay, forget that. Go back in time to Oliver's last year, at this party thing.
Oliver's mouth suddenly went very, very dry, "Katie?" He croaked out, 'I can't breath!' "Is that you?" 'Stupid,stupid,STUPID!' Katie smiled shyly, she never was one who liked to draw attention, "Hey, Oliver." Oliver didn't reply, he couldn't reply, he was too busy staring at her. Her cheeks were still flushed from the cold, and her eyes were bright and curious, staring right back into his. She was obviously wearing makeup for the occasion, but still far less than any other girl in the room. Her lips were formed into a sort of smile, and she had never looked quite so beautiful as at that moment. "Oliver, Oliver… OLIVER!" "What! Wha-? Oh, sorry, Kates, I wasn't paying attention. What do you need?" Katie rolled her eyes-which was adorable in all of Oliver Wood's books- and answered, "I figured that much, and I was asking if you would help me get the last of these-" she waved towards the two enormous bins of food outside the portrait, "things in." Oliver stared blankly at her for a second more before, "Oh! Right, ahem, of course." Katie smiled her thanks to him and stepped out of the way. As Oliver helped her lift the bins through the portrait hole he might have looked like he was thinking very deeply on something of incredible importance, so intense was his face, but his thoughts were more along the lines of, 'beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, prett- no, not pretty, that's not good enough- lovely, amazing, outstanding. Real.' They brought the bins to a small room behind the food tables, and Katie shed her cloak, sighing contentedly. A knee-length sky-blue dress greeted Oliver's eyes, a large leather belt was slung casually around her hips, and a pair of black heels accentuated her long legs. Delicate pearl earrings, a singular chain of pearls around her neck, her watch, which never left her wrist, a sapphire ring on her right hand, and her long, curly hair flowing down her back in shining masses completed the utter state of awe that Oliver was in. "Gaah…" Katie glanced up sharply, "What?" "Uh, nothing…" Katie gave him a strange glance, but shrugged it off, "okay.. Anyway, you want to dance?" Oliver started rubbing the growing stubble on his chin, a sure sign that he was nervous, "um, well, see, Katie, I… Um, I have to go... Go and… Um, well, I have to go!" With that he escaped. From Katie and from his mind's rebellion against normal feelings for a friend.
Heheh, that was fun! Okay, please review!
