It's Not My Fault I Fell For Your Stupid Accent

Disclaimer: I'm tired and in an un-creative mood, so make up your own interesting disclaimer along the lines of 'I don't own any of this'.

A/N: Yes! Another chapter up! And it's longer than the others too...


Chapter 3: If You Really, Really Like a Girl, Just Ignore It

Katie:

The Great Hall looks amazing. There's hundreds of candle-filled pumpkins and live bats (scary huh?) and orange streamers floating across the ceiling. And the food is delicious; I would help myself to thirds but after Wood's comment about me getting fat, I'm restraining. He has been watching me rather closely all night and I really don't want to be kicked off the team. I'm not actually fat am I? He seems a little…crazier than usual. Never mind, I probably just forgot how insane he was over the summer break. He's never mentioned anything about people's weight before, though. Granted, those Chocolate Frogs I scoffed on the Hogwarts Express have given me a bit of a stomach, but nothing so bad that Wood has to ––

"Bell, I'm sorry I have to say this but—"

"No, wait!" I interrupt his obvious speech that he wants me off the house team. "I'm sorry, I swear I won't eat another Chocolate Frog in my life! And I'll throw out everything I bought today, apart from those sugar quills, I really do need them. But, I've only got a little bit of a stomach! Nothing to throw me off the team for! I mean, Alicia's not any better," I glance at Alicia and she's looking at me like a wounded puppy. "Sorry Alicia, I only speak the truth," I'm about to continue but Wood holds up his hands for me to stop.

So what, I don't even get an appeal?

"Katie," (Oh my god he just called me Katie? Yep, definitely off the team, he always calls us team members by our last names. Well, apart from Fred and George, because that would be ridiculous. Oh and he calls Harry 'Harry', but that might be because Potter sounds like 'potty' and he might have some kind of weird phobia of potties. And actually, he calls Angelina and Alicia by their first names; so really, it's only ever been me. Oh god, I was never really part of the team in the first place! Hang on; I thought he was talking to me…)

I look up to find Oliver humming patiently as he taps the table. Whoops. I did the zoning out thing again.

"Sorry," I say meekly. "You were chucking me off the team?"

"For the last time Katie Bell you are not off the Gryffindor team!" he growled at me.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you so much! I knew you'd understand! I would hug you right now, but you're kind of across the table and that would be a little hard because there's this giant tureen of soup right in the middle of the table and, knowing how clumsy I am…" dammit. I'm babbling again. He's doing the whole humming-whilst-tapping-on-the-table thing.

"Sorry," I apologise again. "You were re-accepting me onto the team?"

Oliver sighs. "You're not fat I didn't say anything about chucking you off the team," he says in a deadpan voice. "You can eat as many Ice Mice and Whizzing Fizzbees as you like. I was just going to say 'I'm sorry I have to say this but Marcus Flint seems to be trying to get your attention'."

Oh.

Right.

I glance surreptitiously towards the Slytherin table and what I see makes me jump, hit my knee on the table, send my potatoes flying into Alicia's plate and scream "Oh sh-indigity do!" in a rather pathetic manner, because I was about to say "Oh (expletive)! " but then I realised Professor McGonagall was eyeing me suspiciously, and I couldn't think of anything else that started with 'sh', so it ended up sounding quite lame.

Anyway, the reason for all those shocked reactions is because Marcus Flint is grinning at me in what he must think is a seductive manner, his hair all greased back, with a baggy lime green t-shirt that reads 'I Heart Katie' on the front, and has a blown-up picture of me on the back. Luckily, my printed self is trying as hard as she can to disappear behind the baggy folds of the t-shirt, so all you can really see is a mop of curly brown hair and the left arm of my robes.

Fred and George are busy pretending to be me and Flint making out (at least they're not really making out) and my two supposed friends are pissing themselves, every so often coming up for gasps of air before choking out "I Heart Katie" and collapsing again. Only Oliver Wood seems to be taking pity on me, he is just staring at his haggis (honestly, who eats that stuff?) with a rather odd expression on his face. He's kind of turning a mixture of red and purple (I think you could call it puce) and his hands are clenched again. And he's muttering something under his breath, what is it?

"Think nice happy thoughts. Of quaffles and bludgers and pretty Golden Snitches. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it…"

And so on. Whoa, our beloved Quidditch captain really has cracked.

The ghosts have started some sort of entertainment which has at least shut everyone up and diverted attention from Flint's outrageous get-up. They're doing some weird formation gliding, and Nearly Headless Nick has decided to re-enact his own beheading. I can't help noticing that Wood is still doing the staring thing. If he doesn't want to chuck me off the team and he doesn't think I'm fat, what is wrong with him?

It doesn't matter, he's stopped staring. Mainly because we're traipsing up to the Gryffindor tower and he's standing in front of me, so there's no way he can look at me unless he has another set of eyes that he hasn't told anyone about. Actually, I wouldn't put it past him…

"What's with the hold up?" Angie grumbles. The way to the portrait hole is blocked by at least fifty students. "Just get in the bloody hole, I want to sleep."

"Let me through please," comes Percy's pompous voice. "What's the hold-up here? You can't all have forgotten the password – excuse me, I'm Head Boy – "

Suddenly the whole corridor is silent, and Percy's voice has lost all its pomp as he says quickly, "Somebody get Professor Dumbledore. Quick."

"What's happening?" I ask, trying to peer around Wood's burly frame to get a glimpse. He moves slightly to grant me a view, and I draw in a sharp breath. The Fat Lady's canvas is a mess. It's as if somebody has slashed away at it with a knife; bits and pieces of the canvas litter the floor, and the Fat Lady is nowhere to be seen.

Professor Dumbledore has swept towards the portrait, accompanied by Professor McGonagall, Lupin and Snape.

"We need to find her," he says. "Professor McGonagall, please go to Mr Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady."

"You'll be lucky!"

Oh dear. Once Peeves is involved, it can't be good news.

"What do you mean, Peeves?" Dumbledore asks calmly.

"Ashamed, Your Headship, sir. Doesn't want to be seen. She's a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful," he sounds quite happy, and adds "poor thing" in a very unconvincing afterthought.

"Did she say who did it?" Dumbledore asks this quietly, as if he knows the answer.

"Oh, yes, Professorhead. He got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see. Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."

Oh.

"Shindigity do."


Oliver

I can't believe this. The entire school is lying in the Great Hall in squashy purple sleeping bags whilst the professors search the rest of the castle for Black. I don't think Dumbledore expects to find him, but to be totally honest, my mind isn't really focussed on Black at the moment. It's instead focussed on the rather more delightful yet painful subject of Katie Bell. To be exact, I'm focussing on not focussing on the fact that Katie Bell's face is less than three inches away from mine. Unfortunately it's not because she's suddenly fallen for my wit and manly charms, it's because the zip on her sleeping bag got stuck and I, being the gentlemanly young man that I am, offered to help zip her up.

"Er, Oliver?"

"Katie?"

"Thanks for the help, but is there a reason you're staring at me like that?"

Blast.

"Er, you have a smudge on your cheek," I reply, wiping off an imaginary spot of dirt before lying back down in my own sleeping bag, moving my head away from hers but not relinquishing my stare.

"Oh, good. For a second there I thought I had another Flint on my back." She laughs and I force one out too. Haha. I'm so screwed.

Katie turns around to gossip to the others about Sirius Black's break-in, but I'm not in the mood. See, I'm contemplating a very drastic turn that my life seems to have taken.

I've gone crazy. I'm mad. I am totally, utterly insane. I have lost the plot. I'm bonkers. I have owl droppings for brains. Do you get the picture? I, Oliver Wood, am a total ass. Some of my Quidditch players might tell you that I was insane a long time ago, but that's only because they think I'm a little too obsessed with Quidditch. Problem is, I'm beginning a new obsession. It's called 'Katie Bell'. And there's three reasons why this Katie Bell Obsession makes me a total ass:

1). I am imagining what it would be like to kiss Katie Bell. This makes me an ass because, as well as her being three years younger than me, I am her captain and I have made it very clear that I disapprove of inter-team relationships, yet here I am imagining kissing Katie Bell.

2). I am even more of an ass because Katie obviously is not imagining what it would be like to kiss me, which means I have been bitten by the 'Unrequited Love' bug. Everyone thinks people like that are asses. I mean, look at Marcus Flint. Oh Merlin, I may as well ask him if I can borrow that t-shirt he made.

3). But mostly, I'm an ass because I live by the motto, 'If you really, really like a girl, just ignore it'. Forget about Katie Bell? Easy as pie.


You know that comment I made about forgetting Katie Bell being as easy as pie? I take that back. Last night I didn't get one iota of sleep. It wasn't because I was afraid that Sirius Black was about to burst into the room and 'Avada Kedavra' us all. It wasn't even because Fred and George shrank my sleeping bag until it cut off all the circulation in my lower body. It was because, sometime during the early hours of the morning when Katie had fallen asleep, she had somehow managed to end up pressed up against my back. And she didn't move all night. Do you know how hard it is to sleep when an abnormally pretty fourth-year Chaser is pressed up against your back? Suffice to say that I am now on my fifth cup of coffee to ensure I don't fall asleep during classes today. The worst bit is she doesn't even seem to remember (or care) that she was snuggled against me for the better part of six hours. It's really enough to make a man want to feed himself to a colony of Acromantula (though finding a colony would be quite tricky), to know that he really has been bitten by the 'Unrequited Love' bug.

"Oliver, Oliver, earth to Oliver!"

"Mmgrrmphffff." Yeah, that coffee doesn't seem to be working.

"Do we have practice this morning?" Bloody Angelina. Can't she see that I need a little rest here?

"Grrrffmmphtt."

"Er, that would be a 'no' then," she says cautiously.

"No! Wait! What are you saying? Of course we have practice! Are you going to let a tiny thing like Sirius Black stop us from winning the cup?"

Harry's looking at me from down the table with a kind of 'My Captain Is Bonkers' stare. So what? I already knew that!

Now everyone's looking at me like that.

"Well, come on then! I'll see you at the change rooms in five minutes!" I storm off, crashing into a gaggle of first-years on my way and giving Marcus Flint my best death-stare as I pass the Slytherin table. Lime green really isn't his colour.


Quidditch sucks. I give up. I've let in every single goal that Katie Bell has thrown, even the ones where she's done these great looping passes that I could easily block. Why? Because I'm trying so hard to forget that I am imagining kissing her that I also keep forgetting that it's my job to block the ball.

"Oliver Wood, what in Merlin's name is going on?" Katie thunders after she throws one Quaffle straight towards me and I swerve out of the way to let it in.

"Oh, I get it," she says with a nasty glare.

Gulp. She's onto me.

"It's one of your stupid mind games isn't it? You're trying to lure me into a false sense of security about my goal-scoring abilities so that when we play Ravenclaw you can scream at me. Well guess what? You and your stupid mind games can go to hell!"

What, so now I was getting shouted at because she was too darn pretty?

"Katie, wait!" I swerve my broom until I'm in front of where she's just landed and jump off, blocking her exit path to the changing rooms.

"First you tell me I'm fat and now you won't block my shots. Talk to me again when you're sane," she growls, pushing me out of the way and marching off into the rooms.

Unfortunately, I think it'll be a while until I next have a conversation with Katie Bell.


A/N: Well, what did you think? Tell me! (unless you thought it resembled dragon's droppings and then I'd rather not know)