Title – Foolish Pride

Author – Venus Diablo

Rating – T

Pairing – OW/OC

Summary – After Harry's defeat of Voldemort, Medea Malfoy runs into the last person in the world she ever wanted to see again, her ex-boyfriend Oliver Wood.

Disclaimer – Medea Malfoy and various Quidditch groupies belong to me. Everyone else is the intellectual property of J K Rowling. I make no money from writing this and no offence is intended to anyone.

Chapter 2 – Prophet and Loss

I awoke from a fitful sleep, just as the sun was setting, The sounds of jubilant shouts and music from beyond my window, let me know in most certain terms that the previous nights events hadn't been a dream as I had half hoped half feared they had been.

My sleep had been frequently interrupted by a high cold voice; no prizes for guessing who that belonged to. I sighed. Mostly I had dreamt of what happened to poor Colin, a part of me wished I had never asked Oliver what had happened.

That thought caused a stab of emotional pain to run through me as the memory of the dream that had woken me came back, I was duelling a death eater, there was a flash of red light everything began to fade until all I could see was my killer stood over me their wand pointed at my heart, It was no death eater though, but Oliver. A flash of Green and my eyes had opened onto the new world, the Voldemort free world.

I longed to go and join the revellers in the streets outside but somehow my heart wasn't in it. Truth be told, since seeing Oliver again I had no idea where my heart was, all I did know was that it was a damn traitor. Oliver wood had smashed it into a thousand pieces and still it seemed it was eager to go back for more punishment. Well I wouldn't let it, there was no way I was ever risking that kind of pain and humiliation again.

I still remembered it as if it were yesterday. When we had sat together on the Hogwarts express on his final journey home from Hogwarts, he had promised to write while he was off having trials and attending the Quidditch world cup, even gave me his captains badge, told me it meant nearly as much to him as I did, lying bastard, it turned out I didn't really mean that much at all, though he made a good show of pretending whenever he apparated down to see me during the holidays.

Once I returned to Hogwarts I received at least two owls a week from him, saying how much he missed me and couldn't wait to see me next Hogsmeade weekend. Then the Thursday before we were due to meet in the village the article appeared in the gossip column of the prophet. A lovely little piece about Puddlemere's up and coming new star Oliver Wood out on the town with his girlfriend it even had a picture of them with their tongues stuck down each others throat. Upon seeing it I ran from the great hall, partly to avoid being seen crying, and partly to avoid throwing up on anyone's breakfast. As soon as Lunch time rolled around I sent an owl to Oliver, there was no letter in the envelope, I didn't know what to say, so I simply returned his captains badge, and tried to forget he had ever existed, no easy task when your least favourite cousin and the rest of his Slytherin house mates seem to revel in reminding you that you've been traded in for a more glamorous model.

In the weeks that followed Oliver had sent numerous owls, Katie frequently tried to convince me to read his letters and give him the chance to explain, but I never did. If it had been just a written piece then maybe I could have kidded myself that it was a great pile of dragon dung, but even Katie had to admit that there couldn't be any explanation for the photo other than the obvious. After a while he got the message and stopped writing.

In a way I suppose the Prophet did me a favour, the weekend we were supposed to meet was valentines, and the thing I'd decided to give him was… well lets just say I could never give the same thing to anyone else and it wasn't a present I could have ever gotten back. If the article had come out just a few days later it could have been a lot worse. As it was I resolved to forget him, if he wanted to spend his time with Quidditch groupies who's only real interest in him was how many times they could get their names and photo's in the Prophet, it was his loss. I would just have to get over him, but I couldn't, and as much as I hate to admit it, when I saw him again last night I realised I never have.

This was ridiculous; I reasoned with myself we had had no contact with each other for almost four years until last night, I had sometimes come close to running into him in Diagon Alley, but luckily there was always an abundance of shops to duck into to avoid him, anywhere other than quality Quidditch supplies was always a fairly safe bet. And then there were the increasingly frequent articles in the prophets gossip pages, normally about Oliver being seen somewhere or another with some fame hungry socialite who was beauty charmed up to the eye balls (usually, I noted charmed the same cornflower blue colour) Their hair almost always charmed the same pale blonde I had been stuck with until I mastered the art of making the serum that would turn it black when I was 12 years old. I didn't understand why it was such a desirable shade personally, I had always felt that my natural hair was something to be ashamed of, I might as well just have had the fact that I was a Malfoy tattooed across my fore head, anything that associated me with my dark wizard relatives always made me queasy. For years I had tried to convince myself that it was the definite Malfoy-ish quality these women had that made me dislike them so much and not the fact that they were with Oliver, until last night I had made self deception into an art form.

I wandered into my small bathroom and gazed into the mirror, the charm I had placed on my hair yesterday had worn off, Staring back at me my reflection mimicked my scowl at the white blonde curtain of hair that fell across my shoulders, I looked disturbingly like aunt Narcissa.

"Bit off a crappy genetic break wasn't it?" My mirror questioned. I rolled my eyes in response, "oh by the way," the mirror continued, "you're out of blackening serum, I'm afraid you're going to have to leave the house like that."

Bloody marvellous, I thought. I quickly brushed my teeth, washed, and pulled my hair back into a tight pony tail, at least that way I didn't have to look at it. Dressing in my least favourite bottle green robes (the only thing I had clean at the moment) I grabbed my bag, threw my wand into it and apparated to Diagon Alley.

A/N: I already have 8 chapters of this written out, I know Oliver seems like a bit of a tosser right now, but all will become clear eventually I promise. Please leave reviews if you would like to read more, concrit welcome, flames always seemed kind of pointless to me but if you really feel the need to post them go ahead, I've got a thick skin ;)

Venus Diablo