The point of this story isn't about them falling in love, it's about what happens after all that.
Isabella interlaced her fingers with Olivers as they walked to their classes, their first day back. No one seemed shocked by the revelation that Oliver and Isabella were together (though there had been several comments of "finally!" and "about time!" from many seventh and sixth year Gryffindors). It was something that was just inevitable.
"I guess I'll have to enjoy this moments with you," she said, sighing wistfully.
"Why's that?" he asked seemingly perplexed, looking down at her. Oliver was a good four inches taller than her.
"Quidditch starts soon, doesn't it?" she asked, looking down. Quidditch was Oliver's great love. She had grown used to spending much of her time alone during the Quidditch season while he trained and practiced, and now that he was Captain she was guaranteed to spend even less time with him than usual.
"It'll be fine," he assured her. Oliver felt like a man in a daze, he couldn't believe his good luck that he finally had Isabella, the girl he had been pining over for seven years. When the had stopped kissing, and were able to talk again, she told him she had realized she liked him their third year, but always assumed he was just friends, so she never persued it. He couldn't believe he had wasted so much time, time that he could have spent being with her, and now that he had her he wanted her to be sure that she was number one in his life without coming off as clingy or needy.
She just smiled and took her seat in Herbology, and he sat next to her. Their seating arrangement hadn't changed since first year, they were partners in everything unless a teacher split them up. She wondered if dating your best friend, and in her case one of her only friends, would be a mistake, but the idea was quickly banished from her mind. Being with Oliver felt right. She even felt, if her dad were to meet him, he would approve.
Which brought about another worrisome point. Her family. Her actual life. Hogwarts felt like summer camp most of the time, a fun distraction for the life that waited ahead, a life that didn't involve magic. She didn't know how she could hide something like working at Gringotts, or whatever the Danish equivalent was to that, the Danish royal family was always in the public eye. When she graduated she would have to go off to college, probably Oxford, which meant she could spend more time with Oliver, were they still together, and get a degree in Philosophy, and then dedicate her life to helping others who were less fortunate. That's what being a princess in the modern age was really about, being a woman other girls could look up to. Could Oliver respect that? He came from pure bred witches and wizards and wanted to play Quidditch professionally. Could she even ask him to take a royal title? She pushed the idea from her mind, after all, she was still only seventeen, she had time to figure all this out.
Their first day passed in a blur, and before she knew it she was sitting alone in the Gryffindor Common Room, composing a letter to her parents. Oliver was out on the pitch "testing the conditions" as he put it, and she left him to it. She looked over her letter, written in Danish, checking to make sure it was grammatically correct, and also didn't leave anything important out. She debated on telling them about Oliver, but chose to leave it out, for now. It would only make them worry.
The month of September flew by before Isabella knew what hit her, and there were brief moments in between the bliss she felt of being with Oliver where she began to feel panicked. How was she going to keep up this charade when she left the safety of Hogwarts? Sooner or later her lies would catch up with her and Oliver, and there were many times when she was tempted to just tell him everything and let the chips fall where they may. However, despite her being a Gryffindor, she took the cowardly approach and kept it to herself, deciding she would worry about it when the time came, and pushed all such thoughts from her brain.
Indeed, telling Oliver at this point would have been nearly impossible as he began training the team at the very beginning of October, and when he wasn't training them or himself tirelessly, he was putting together strategies, sometimes into the early morning, so her time with him was becoming very limited. A Hogsmeade visit had been posted on the board, and she was determined he was going to take a break and go with her and spend several hours of uninterrupted time with her. When she was saw him come in through the portrait, trailing a tired and muddy looking team, she walked up to him.
"How was practice?" she asked bravely, knowing that once he got started he might never stop.
"It's going better, this is our year Bells, I just know it, as long as Potter keeps himself alive and out of trouble we're going to have it!" he had a maniacal look in his eyes, but she knew better than to be concerned.
"Yes, I'm sure it is. Oliver, there is a Hogsmeade visit on the board..." she followed him up to his dormitory.
He frowned as he peeled off his dirty, muddy shirt before replying, "Yeah, I saw that, but I don't think I'm going. I think I'm going to stay and work on Quidditch tactics."
She sighed, looking at the wall so she wouldn't be distracted by him shirtless, which was an impressive sight. She knew it was not for nothing that he woke up every morning at six to go running on the grounds, Oliver was in great shape. "Oh. Well...I was kind of hoping you would go with me."
His head snapped up when her heard the tone of voice in which she said her last sentence. She sounded disappointed, which was the last thing he wanted. "Well...we can go. I can work on that some other time."
She smiled and sat down on his bed watching as he continued to change. "It has been a while since we spent any time alone together."
Oliver almost tripped and feel over at her words, hurriedly putting his other leg into his shorts and then joined her on his bed. She looked amazing, he reflected, almost regal, although she protested when he called her his little princess, but that's exactly what she looked like to him. Even the way she lounged was elegant, every movement she made incredibly graceful. He knew he was just biased, blinded by the way he felt for her so he put her onto a pedestal, and he didn't think too much more into it.
"Yes it has," he agreed, putting his hand on the back of her head and kissing her, but they were immediately interrupted by his dorm mates walking in. There was a chorus of "Awwws!" and "Yeah go Olivers!" causing Isabella so much embarrassment that she ducked out before they could say any more to her.
"Nice job," Oliver commented, throwing a pillow at Neil, a fellow dorm mate. "Way to scare her off."
"Awww, c'mon, you know it was intentional, just some good natured ribbing," Neil grinned back, tossing Oliver back his pillow.
That Saturday Isabella was waiting on Oliver, who was late. She was sitting on the edge of a chair, jacket draped over her arm and tapping her foot impatiently for a good fifteen minutes until he practically flew down the stairs looking harassed. "I'm so sorry I'm running late Bells!"
"It's alright," she said graciously, standing up. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah, I'm ready," he replied. The two walked downstairs, passed by Filch, and entered the village in complete silence. Isabella kept trying to think of things to say, but everything sounded stupid in her head. She wished he would say something to break the icy silence, but Oliver seemed distracted at best and bored out of his mind at worst. Finally, when they were standing in the actual village, she had to say something since it was obvious he wasn't going to say a word. "Where do you want to go?"
"I don't care," he replied, obviously in his own world. Awesome. Isabella sighed, hating herself for what she was about to say.
"Oliver...do you want to go back to the castle and work on your Quidditch tactics?" Finally, she thought as his whole face lit up.
"Would you mind?" She wanted to slap him, hard, because she obviously minded or she wouldn't have asked him to come out with her in the first place, but she didn't want to sound like a needy girlfriend, so with a cheerfulness she did not actually feel, she responded, "No, not at all."
"Excellent, you're the best Bells," and he turned on his heel to head back towards this castle. Isabella just stood there, watching, and was mildly surprised when he stopped and came back over to her. "You're not coming?" he asked, looking torn.
"No," she forced out a small smile. "I'm going to stay...I haven't been here in a while, and I'm tired of the castle."
"Want me to stay...?"he trailed off, looking disappointed at the prospect of having to walk around the village when he didn't want to. Isabella felt tears starting to prick her eyes, because she desperately wanted him to stay with her, but she wasn't going to force them, so she told him, "No, you go. Honestly, I'll be fine. Really,"before he could notice how sad she really was.
Watching him retreat towards the castle compounded the miserable feeling, and several tears slipped down her face before she could stop them. She felt foolish and unprincessly, but she was still a teenage girl, and with that somewhat comforting feeling in mind she walked off, her steps slow, trying to make the tears, which weren't falling hard, but were still slipping out, stop before someone noticed and commented on it later. The last thing she needed was for Oliver to feel like he let her sit in Hogsmeade and cry for several hours. 'Well you did..' a voice in her head said viciously, but she pushed it to the side and walked into Honeydukes thinking that something sweet might cheer her up.
Isabella walked through the shop despondently, occasionally fingering things, but nothing looked good so she ended up walking out. A cursory glance at the clock showed she had wasted twenty minutes, and the tears still felt close to the surface. She saw the girls from her dormitory, who were in her grade, and wished suddenly she had worked harder to make friends with them. She had been good at starting relationships with boys, those just required her looks, and the way they looked, but outside of Oliver she didn't really have any other close friends. Until now, that had never bothered her, but she should have known when he owled her over the summer telling her he had been made the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain that things were not going to be the same as they had always been. Of course he would become even more absorbed into Quidditch than before, since it was now his sole responsibility for a win. 'And what happens when you guys graduate and he joins a professional league?' that same nasty voice asked her in her head. 'Maybe it's best to stop wasting your time and go for that British Duke your family is so fond of.'
"SHUT UP!" she shouted loudly to no one in particular, startling several second year Slytherins. They gave her odd looks, like she was crazy, which was about how she felt in that moment. Giving them a small smile she hurried off back to the castle. She gave up trying to have fun here on her own, she would rather be alone in Hogwarts than in the village. Thinking that maybe she'd find something interesting to read in the library and waste her time that way.
Isabella didn't fight for any more of Oliver's time for the rest of the month, and the first time she actually spent longer than twenty minutes with him was on Halloween. Everyone was relaxed, and for once he wasn't talking to her about Quidditch, instead asking her questions about what she had been doing to occupy her time recently. He even apologized, meeting her outside her last class with Orchids before walking to the Halloween feast with her.
"Remember the year a troll broke in?" he asked her as they sat down at the table. She threw her head back and laughed, genuinely happy for the first time all month. "Yes, that was like, three years ago?"
"Nothing exciting like that ever happens anymore," he commented as he began to eat.
"What about the Chamber of Secrets opening?" she demanded, her fork paused halfway to her mouth. That had been a particularly scary year for Isabella, as she was muggle born.
"Eh," he responded before catching sight of the look on her face. "I wouldn't have let anything happen to you anyway, I don't know why you were so worried." This was true, the second everyone realized only muggle borns were being attacked, Oliver followed her everywhere, theorizing that since he was a pure blood, and she was a muggle born, together they were a half and half, and she was safe. Isabella never quite followed his logic, but she allowed him to accompany her everywhere, and indeed she never was attacked, and her parents never caught wind of what was going on. She knew if they had known there was even a remote possibility of her being attacked they would have yanked her out so fast she wouldn't even be able to say stop. So far this year had been undramatic, minus the dementors posted everywhere, but her parents were privy to this information either.
The two enjoyed each other all the way up to the common room until they met with a jam. People were screaming and yelling, and Peeves was floating above them gloating. "Wonder what he did now," Isabella commented as Harry Potter shoved past her, his two friends trailing behind him.
"Something stupid I'm-"
"It was Sirius Black!" Peves cackled, causing Oliver to stop what he was saying and grab Isabella's arm and pulled her against him tightly. "Oliver, he didn't attack me!" she said, but he couldn't hear her over the screaming of everybody else. Professor McGonagal hearded them into the Great Hall, and soon all the houses were down there. Isabella and Oliver grabbed squishy sleeping bags and found a quiet corner.
"I can't believe he got into the castle," Isabella whispered as she grabbed Olivers sleeping bag out of his hand. "I wonder how he got in."
"Why did you take my sleeping bag?" he asked, ignoring the speculation.
"I'm zipping them up together," she responded as she zipped and then setting it down on the floor.
"Clever, where did you learn that?" he asked and he cuddled in with her.
"I grew up as a muggle, this is a necessary skill, all kids learn it," she replied, pushing out the fact that she did not grow up like normal muggle children.
"What is Denmark like?" he asked breathing in the way her hair smelled since she had her head on his chest.
"Safe. Really safe, Denmark is the second safest place to live in the world. The people are the happiest in the world. No, really, they did a survey. We might be behind New Zealand, but still. It's beautiful. I can't describe it, you'll just have to visit someday." Isabella didn't realize what she just said, as she was already asleep. Oliver closed his eyes too and held her tightly for a second.
"I can't wait," he said, drifting off as well.
