Hey everyone! Sorry for the three week lapse between updates. I was at camp and I completely forgot to mention it.

Many thanks to: dahlia, GredAndForge4President, BrownEyedAthena, Spexy, fleur137, TooSweet4Words, LPLC, Joaniekins, Laura, FirstDays of Summer, Eruaphadriel, Star of the North, birdsofmorrigan, Gallon of Firewhiskey, bubblishness, WILD-JAGUAR, Giddyupgal, Girl with the Evil Computer, and Nathifa Femi.

Just to answer a few questions people had:

Star of the North- I guess it kind of is AU because it doesn't correlate to any of the books.
birdsofmorrigan- sheesh, Rhi, you always have to be so nitpicky. ;)
BrownEyedAthena- well considering Mr. Davies isn't Katie's biological father, no. Katie and Roger were born before Katie's mum and Roger's dad got married. Hope that clears things up for ya.

This part is for everyone: if some of you were puzzled about the whole Roger and Katie relationship, it was created as a whim of mine. I just thought it would be cool to have them related, but that's just me being random like that. Also, Zacharias Smith is such a random character that I still have no idea how I came up with him and Katie being together. But as I said, that's just me being random like that.

omg omg omg has anyone here read the Half-Blood Prince? (well, obviously you all have by now...) I must say I was absolutely shocked by the ending. But I won't give it away just in case someone here hasn't read it yet. And wasn't that whole Katie incident involving the cursed necklace weird? I'm soooo glad she came out of it alive, otherwise I would've given up on this story just because I would've known in the back of my mind that she's supposed to be dead...

Ahem, but on a more positive note, here's...

Chapter 2

"It seems Mr. Wood believes catching up on his sleep is of more importance than my Potions class. I must say I'm rather offended."

You know when you're sleeping but you can kind of hear what's going on around you? That's what was happening in Snape's class. (A/N: ARGH! I hate Snape!) I could hear his voice but my eyelids refused to open...

"...Perhaps if he was awoken with a douse of Veritaserum? It isn't the most pleasant of experiences to awake spewing all of your innermost secrets..."

I heard snickering from the Slytherin side of the room. A loud chainsaw started buzzing louder and louder and I thought my eardrums would explode and I was thinking Who the hell has a chainsaw at Hogwarts? when I opened my eyes and realized it was just Marcus Flint laughing.

"Ahh, he is awake. Wood, would you care to explain how to create the potion I've just been discussing?"

"Mrfla?" The class started laughing and I couldn't help but grin. I'm not the most lucid of people after being just woken up.

"You seem to be pretty confident," Snape sneered. "Since you are, why don't you come to the front of the room and give the class a demonstration on how to create today's potion?"

Shit. Oh shit. Snape has always been exceptionally talented at embarrassing people. I stood slowly, darting a quick glance at the board to get a few pointers from today's notes before making a complete fool out of myself... Shit. Oh shit. The bastard. Snape had already erased the board. I looked down at my notes, but no help there. I only saw a doodle of me single-handledly beating up the Slytherin Quidditch Team, plus a little spot where I'd drooled during my nap. Lovely.

"Wood, we don't have all day." I dragged my feet to the front of the room, where Snape had laid out all the ingredients already. He gave me a smile, one of those smiles that you see in the Muggle movies when the executioner is leading the convicted to the gallows. Or one of those smiles in those nature films when the snake is about to devour a mouse whole. Or one of those-

"Ahem."

I grabbed the first bottle. "Ah, Wood." That smile again. "Surely you must have known that you do not put in the wolfsbane until after the potion has simmered."

Oops. Let's try again.

"No, I'm afraid not. Clearly you've been too busy gallivanting around in your daydreams to listen to my lecture."

Clearly. I picked up some weird powder stuff.

"Why even bother looking at that?" Snape smiled. "That ingredient is never used in this potion... or is it?"

Bastard. Trying to trick me, eh? I grabbed my wand and started a huge, roaring fire under the cauldron. I threw in ingredient after ingredient, mixing the whole mess counterclockwise. I even threw in entire boxes and bottles. The flame was turning dark purple and the whole of the cauldron's contents was turning blacker and blacker. Finally I threw in the powder that wasn't even supposed to be in the potion (or was it?) and there was a loud explosion. Sparks were flying everywhere. I grabbed a ladle and shouted at Snape, "You wanted a potion? TAKE THIS!"

I tossed the whole thing in his face, which crumpled immediately. His features started melting and sliding off his face, then he started shrinking...

"I'm melting, I'm melting!" he shrieked in a voice two octaves above normal. I only laughed and laughed and laughed until there was only a pile of black robes on the floor where Snape had previously stood...

"Wood, you're absolutely hopeless. How you even managed to sneak your way into NEWT level Potions is beyond me."

Damn. Too bad your fantasies never come true. Snape was still staring at me, the Slytherins were laughing at me, and the cauldron was still empty.

BRRING! Saved by the bell. I hurried over to my desk and grabbed my books, but just as I was about to leave, Snape grabbed my arm and snarled, "Detention. Tonight starting at seven. Be here, and be here on time."

Needless to say, I was very pissed off as I stormed through the door. At least Snape hadn't taken any House points from Gryffind...

"Fifteen points from Gryffindor, Wood!" Snape's voice roared down the corridor. Great. Just great.

It seemed that day was destined to be horrible for me. Turns out I wrote my fifteen-inch Transfiguration paper on Animagi instead of Metamorphmagi and had to redo it. I accidentally poured extra-rich dragon manure fertilizer on the monster Devil's Snare in the greenhouse and it took Professor Sprout an hour to get it under control. After spending a half hour cleaning up the mess with her, I was late to lunch and just missed the last course as it vanished from the plates, and I stomped to Quidditch practice with a growling stomach and a raging temper.

"There's no time to be fooling around!" I roared at the twins, who were chasing each other around the field chanting, "A llama's got your arse!" I was in a foul mood all throughout practice.

"No, Harry, for the last time," I snapped, "keep out of the sun. There'll be a glare and you won't be able to-- ARGH!" A bloody Bludger just missed my head. "Merlin!" Both Bludgers were pelting after me and I was forced to circle around the field dodging both of them. Below me I could see the twins guffawing, rolling around on the grass as if the situation was actually funny. The bloody prats had charmed the Bludgers to chase me around.

"I'll show them," I said through gritted teeth. I flew this way and that until both Bludgers were coming toward me from opposite sides, then I swerved up...

BANG

The Bludgers crashed into each other and started falling downward. Hopefully one will crash down on each of the Weasleys, I thought grimly as the Bludgers picked up speed to meet the ground when suddenly a streak of long hair was flying by...

"KATIE WATCH OUT!" I yelled, but one of the Bludgers crashed down on top of her and then both Bludgers and Katie were tumbling toward the ground...

xxx

"Where is she? I want to see Katie immediately," said an awfully pushy voice. I looked up from my chair beside Katie's bed and saw a sixth year storming into the hospital ward. I recognized him as none other than stuck-up, obnoxious, holier-than-thou Zacharias Smith.

"What happened? Is she okay? Tell me now or I'll press charges."

"Please, calm down," Madam Pomfrey scolded as she bustled in with a bottle of suspicious-looking fluid. "Katie's had quite a nasty blow to the head but she'll be out of bed in a week or so."

"Good." Smith crossed his arms. "Hey, what's that?"

"It'll relieve the swelling in her head." Madam Pomfrey took a spoonful of that icky looking stuff. She went over to the still-unconscious Katie, tilted her head back and opened her mouth, and was about to pour it in when-

"Are you sure it'll work?" Smith was closing in and peering at the spoon's contents. "Has it worked before? Have you actually seen it relieve swelling in the head?" Dude, how can you see it working when it goes on in the head, I thought sarcastically.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "I'm a professional, young man," she said patiently. "I know what I'm doing."

"Has it been tested by officials?" Smith said suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes, but right now you're testing my patience. Step aside, please." Yeah Madam Pomfrey! I thought. You're the man! Er- woman...

"There," she said when she was finished. "Now you two will have to be quiet and let this young lady here sleep or else I'm booting the both of you out the door." She left, leaving us in silence. Smith pulled up a chair beside Katie's bed and took her hand.

"Er, so..." I said, trying to break the silence. "How is it? Dating her, I mean."

Smith raised his eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

"Isn't it weird? I mean, especially when our teams are playing against each other... the both of you being Chasers and all."

"No, it's fine."

What a conversationalist. Seriously, what did Katie see in this guy anyway? Was it at all for his looks? I looked closer at him.

Nope. I mean, I suppose he's decent compared to Goyle or Crabbe but compared to myself, Oliver Wood, owner of the titleship "Gryffindor Heartthrob" for four consecutive years? I think not.

Perhaps he's intelligent? I looked at him again. No, he didn't give off one of those intelligence vibes. So what the bloody hell did Katie see in this kid anyway?

"Look," he snapped, breaking into my thoughts. "I'd appreciate it if you stopped staring at me. Or better yet, you could leave."

Huh. Fine, be that way. I stood, threw him one of my nastiest glares, and left the hospital ward. But the mysterious question of the day refused to stop nagging me-- what did Katie Bell see in Zacharias Smith?

xxx

"To tell the truth, I don't get it myself."

It was the next day, after Quidditch practice. Angelina had wanted to practice scoring and I'd agreed to play Keeper for her. I tossed the Quaffle back and said, "So you've never talked about it?"

"Sure we have. In full detail. Yet I'm still unsure." She swerved to the left and tried to score but I caught the Quaffle. "Damn."

"Sorry." I threw the Quaffle back. "So what is it about him?"

"He has this sarcastic sense of humor that she really loves," she explained, narrowing her eyes as she looked at all three hoops, as if trying to decide which one to go for next. "He's a bit down-to-earth, always questioning things. He's hard to trick. I think Katie has fun trying to think up ways to surprise him but he being such a skeptic and all, it's not easy..." She tried to score a goal but I blocked it. "Damn!"

"Sorry." I threw the ball back.

"Anyway, she likes that side to him, thinks it makes him seem perceptive. But I don't know, I think it's annoying."

"I see... so what else?"

"They're both into poetry, I guess," she shrugged. "That's how they met. In the library."

I stared at her. "Katie's into poetry?"

"You'd never expect it, right?" she laughed. "Her being such a social butterfly and all. But she's a hardcore Keats fan; she digs him more than Chocolate Frogs... well, almost as much, anyway... damn, stop blocking the bloody hoops!"

"Sorry." Wow. You learn something new every day. Since when did Katie Bell like poetry? I shuddered. Ugh, imagine me reading that stuff...

"And she says he's sweet. I suppose he is. He takes good care of her. But..."

"But?"

Angelina sighed. "I don't know. It just doesn't seem... right; it's just so... weird. I mean, you have Zacharias- or Zach, as she calls him- on one side, then you have... Katie. And you know Katie..."

Right. Pretty, popular Katie. The same Katie whom I've noticed has been getting quite a bit of attention from the guys lately ever since she grew out of her tomboy phase.

"Why are you so curious, anyway?" she asked, giving me a sly look. "It couldn't be that you... fancy her, could it?"

"Merlin, no!" I shuddered.

"If you say so..." Then, very calmly, she said, "She used to like you, you know." Shocked beyond belief, I missed the Quaffle hurtling toward me. It rammed into my stomach and I flew backwards into one of the goals.

"Oof!"

"Ohmigosh Oliver are you okay?" Angelina flew over to me.

"I'll be fine," I wheezed, sounding like an emphysemic, and she started laughing.

"Sorry, can't help myself... But did that count as a goal, I wonder?"

I made an effort to grin. "You wish."

"What I said..." Angelina began curiously. "It surprised you?" Hell yeah. "...Because she used to be infatuated with you for the longest time... Four years, I think."

Four years? Holy shit!

"Then she realized that there were other guys out there, so..." She shrugged. What? So I'm not good enough for her anymore?

"Hey, I never said that. I'm just saying..." Shit, I should really learn not to say my thoughts out loud... "But anyway, what does it matter to you? You're one of Hogwarts "most eligible bachelors," as your stupid fan club calls you. Heck, you even used to date Elizabe-"

"Please! Shall we not?" I said, wincing.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Very sensitive subject, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"Clearly you don't, since you brought it up."

"My apologies, dear Captain."

I glared at her and she grinned. "Bitch," I muttered.

"Egotistical prat."

Angelina Johnson had never been one to be at a loss for words.

xxx

I visited Katie again that afternoon but she was still unconscious. I looked around at all the balloons, flowers, and get well cards around her and I felt this horrible sense of guilt that was just eating away at me because I couldn't help thinking it was all my fault...

My head was swimming with pessimistic thoughts. Suppose the medicines or Madam Pomfrey's care didn't work. Suppose she never woke up again. Like those people you hear about on Muggle news that stay in comas for seven years. Hogwarts would have its very own Sleeping Beauty...

She was pretty though. I looked down at her face, with all her dark hair splayed out around it. You know there's something special in a girl who still manages to look pretty even when she has a huge purple bruise on the side of her face...

Damn Angelina. I almost wish she'd never told me about Katie. Now that I knew, I was looking at Katie in a totally different light...

Bloody hell. Did I just say that? Me and Katie? No way!...but what's wrong with that?...she's Roger's little sister... so? ...not to mention she's with Smith...

Oh. I'd forgotten about that. Damn.

I heard the rustling of the bedsheets moving. I looked up in time to see Katie's eyes opening slowly, and she blinked a couple times as if trying to figure out where she was. She must've realized it soon though, because before I knew it those green eyes were focused on me and Katie was giving me a heart-stopping smile.

I, Oliver Wood, hereby admit that I am a goner.

A/N: I know this chapter was all dialogue and Oliver's thoughts, but it'll get better, trust me. I just need to set up the situation so that Oliver starts getting interested in Katie when he'd never thought about her before.

Also, to Gallon of Firewhiskey: You might have noticed that I used the very idea I gave you for your story. (You know, about the whole bewitched Bludgers and all.) I hope you don't mind!