Hey, oh dear I'm sorry for neglecting this story but I had lots of assignments (feeble excuse I know) and then fanfiction kept giving me error messages and not letting me upload. Thank you to everyone who's reading this and reviewed!

I don't own Harry Potter, I just wish I did.

Chapter 6

November fifth arrived and William was still alive, I didn't kill him but I did ask Percy to assign him a detention with McGonagall, oh to have friends in high places. He wasn't impressed. To be honest I thought he should be grateful I could have gone for a ban on Quidditch but that would annoy Oliver as well.

I received a letter from my parents; they were going out to a huge firework display. The wizarding community didn't celebrate bonfire but that didn't stop the Weasley twins from trying, any exscuse to let off fireworks inside. I have to admit they were quite pretty to look at so I let my prefect duties fall by the way side and pretended I couldn't see or hear them or the crowd that had gathered.

Talking about bonfires wasn't the full purpose of the letter; it seemed William had wasted no time in bringing them up to date on my love life. The letter was full of lines like 'I hope he's a nice young man' and 'you should invite him over during the Christmas holidays'. Inviting Oliver to meet my parents, oh dear that was not going to end well. Outside of Hogwarts William and I lived a relatively magic free life at least when our parents were around. Sure they were proud of us but we didn't want to rub it in their faces that we were different. After reading the letter I tucked it away in my trunk and ignored it. I didn't have a problem with inviting Oliver it seemed strange to inflict our magic life onto my family, if they didn't have a problem with it I certainly did.

"This weather is awful," Oliver moaned as he wondered down from his down dressed in his Quidditch robes.

"Is that the sound of an Oliver not wanting to hold a Quidditch practice?" I grinned at him.

"No," he replied weakly, we all took that as a yes.

"Afraid you'll ruin your hair?" Lauren teased causing giggles to erupt from around the table. Poor Oliver, he was being ganged up on by girls.

Oliver manned-up and shouted for the team to follow him to prove us wrong. Oh he was too easy to pick on sometimes. Amy's boyfriend Matt dropped down in the seat next to her, "are you picking on Oliver again?"

"It's not our fault he's easy game," Amy replied as she kissed Matt.

"Ellie, how can you sit by and let this happen?" Matt asked. I shrugged, I liked how Oliver could be so over dramatic at times. He wouldn't be Oliver if he didn't. Matt left grumbling something about women.

When the returned from Quidditch practice they traipsed mud and water all over the common room. Sighing I stood up and shouted for them to hurry up and get changed otherwise I'd start taking house points. Oliver was horrified that I would take points from him. I'd politely; well okay maybe not that politely, told him to quit his moaning being my boyfriend didn't give him special privileges. The same went for my brother.

November saw Ravenclaw flatten Hufflepuff at Quidditch and a particularly tricky transfiguration essay courtesy of McGonagall. Not to mention the rain hadn't let up and the winds howled through the castle at night. It seemed that Christmas would take forever to arrive.

After a busy week of care of magical creatures homework and yet another nasty essay from Snape I was more than willing to sneak off with Oliver on the Friday night to a deserted part of the castle where tucked away in an alcove we were hidden from the world. It wasn't past curfew but it was still pretty late. Neither one of us wanted to stay out of the common room much longer with the threat of Sirius Black still looming. "Ellie, are you still intent on becoming a healer?" Oliver asked.

"Absolutely," I replied wondering why Oliver was becoming serious so sudden after we had spent the last merlin knows how many minutes in each other's arm with our lips locked, "Just like you are still so intent on playing Quidditch professionally."

"We both have to work hard for the jobs we want," Oliver said somewhat solemnly. It was beginning to unnerve me.

"Oliver," I reached out and put a hand on his arm, "what's bought this on?"

"Something McGonagall said that this year we really have to knuckle down and work hard. I can't lose the Quidditch cup, if I do then no team will accept me and if you don't do really well in your NEWT's then you can't become a healer. I don't want our relationship to affect our futures," at least Oliver was open and not bottling this all up.

I frowned at him, "you're worrying about nothing. You'll get into a team, hopefully Puddlemere, right?"

"Yeah," he didn't sound convinced.

"And St. Mungo's will take me on as a trainee healer, end of story," I was fairly confident of getting in; my grades in the past had been pretty good.

"I don't want to be the reason you don't get good results," Oliver seemed torn.

"Oh shut up will you," I shoved him lightly, "I've spent all day in the library working, now is my time away from studying and I want to spend it with you. So long as we have a balance between working hard and spending time with each other I don't think it matters. Now are you going to carry on talking or are you going to kiss me again before we head back to the common room?"

Oliver smiled, "If you insist."

In the run up to Christmas all the seventh years were swamped with work. We'd all taken up an almost permanent residence in the library with each house occupying a table, or rather several pushed together. Snape was Scrooge, only way to describe him, he had no Christmas spirit. After double potions I had double herbology, thankfully it was a fairly laid back lesson which compensated for the awful potions.

With all the lessons finished for Christmas we trudged outside where for the past day there had been intermittent snow showers to enjoy ourselves. We didn't go inside till we were thoroughly chilled to the bone. I'd made a point of whacking Oliver across the head with a rather large snowball problem was my aim was awful and Oliver had Quidditch reflexes. A few of the other seventh years from other hours joined us until eventually it was all four houses competing; even Percy joined us which was the biggest surprise of the day.

Filch moaned as we entered the castle and made a large puddle on the floor. A wasn't paying attention, I was frozen to the bone and just wanted to get changed, have a hot meal and sit in front of the fire in the common room. A large mass collided with the back of my head, "what the hell?" I spun on my heel to find the culprit, I can't believe Filch didn't see that, frozen snow inside would have tipped him over the age. The culprit was Marcus Flint.

"Oi!" Oliver shouted, drawing his wand, attracting the attention of those stood close by. This really wasn't going to end well, typical males.

I reached out and lowered Oliver's wand, "forget it, he's not worth it." Oliver wanted to protest but I silenced him with a grin, "Flint, I think you'll find I'm a prefect. So that will be twenty points from Slytherin." A small cheer erupted from the Gryffindors and a few Hufflepuff's. Flint muttered as he walked away and I was greeted with a few high-fives.

After getting changed we headed for the Great Hall for some food, I was really hoping for shepherd's pie, something warm and filling. "We're you really going to enter into a fight with Flint?" I asked Oliver as we walked into the Great Hall.

"Yeah, he attacked you," Oliver replied still fuming.

"He threw some snow, hardly crime of the century," I nudged Oliver and assured him I was perfectly okay.

"I had to defend you," Oliver replied.

I blushed, "well in that case I'm flattered but please don't do anything that might land you in trouble." With Oliver's assurances I cast my sight onto the array of food, my stomach letting out a grumble at the mere sight of it all.

With classes ending on the Friday it left us with a Saturday in Hogsmeade before those returning home for Christmas were due to leave. Everyone was eager to get their last minute shopping finished during the Hogsmeade visit; I for one was one of those. I still had to pick up Oliver and William's Christmas presents from Plumpton's Quidditch Supplies both were getting books. Oliver was getting A History of Puddlemere United and William was getting A History of Quidditch. Easy shopping. The only other bits I had to get were supplies from Honeydukes for Christmas.

I was going home for Christmas so the following morning, having stuffed everything in my trunk last minute; I made my way through the corridors with the hordes of students and my friends towards the carriages that were to take us down to the station.

Thankfully the journey back to London wasn't as eventful as the one at the start of term. Everyone was quiet, most of us too exhausted to speak. I knew for a fact that Amy and Lauren had saved their packing till the last minute, after hearing them clatter about the dorm I ended up getting up. Oliver was talking away to Matt and Phillip about the Quidditch game we were going to see between Christmas and New Year, I forget which teams were playing and should probably know. Maybe I should have been listening but I'm sure by now you have realised I am not the words most avid Quidditch fan.

Once on the platform we said our goodbyes for a few weeks until school started up again. William, Oliver and I walked down the platform looking for our parents. "Hey Oliver our parents are over there so I guess this goodbye for a few days," I stopped in my tracks and bit on my lip worrying about saying goodbye in front of my parents. I'm not sure I was quite ready for parents to meet Oliver.

"Nonsense Ellie, c'mon Oliver," William dragged him by shirt over to our parents leaving me to hurry along behind. Well this was certainly one way of doing things. Fighting off embarrassment I battled with my mind to come up with an impropriate introduction somehow 'Mum, Dad, meet the person I spend most of my time snogging in corridors' didn't quite cut it.

"Parents, Oliver. Oliver, Parents," William introduced.

"Nice to meet you Oliver," my Mum greeted warmly. My Dad on the other hand was glaring daggers at Oliver, oh wonderful.

"Nice to meet you too Mr and Mrs Newham," it was odd to hear Oliver so polite, I was used to him cursing when things went wrong and addressing people, particularly Slytherin in a very colourful language.

"There you go Ellie, absolutely nothing to worry about," William grinned. It was a grin that screamed I'm not done embarrassing you. Hopefully he had enough sense to leave until Oliver had gone.

"William!" my mum cautioned she'd long since given up scolding him for it never did any good.

I really loved my Mum she was perfect at engineering situations, she had started up on the topic of Williams school grades thus distracting both him and my Dad leaving Oliver and I to talk. We stepped away from them, "so there you go my wacky family."

"They aren't that wacky," Oliver reasoned.

"You wait until you come over, you'll see," by then my Dad will have accepted that Oliver was boyfriend and would instead quiz him on the magic world so long as he wouldn't be too embarrassing I'd be happy.

After saying goodbye and kissing him on the cheek, the lips would have been too much in front of my Dad who still saw him as threat, I found myself in the back of the car heading out of the city and to the village I lived in.

"Oliver seemed nice," my Mum commented once we were home. I was helping her prepare dinner the muggle way, nearly slicing my fingers off with a knife in the process.

"Yeah I really like him," I confessed.

"I can tell," she smiled knowingly. At that moment we were interrupted by William who was claiming that a Quidditch player needed his food.

After dinner William and I were tasked with the dishes. As William slaved away at the kitchen sink the muggle way I had charmed the tea towel into drying the dishes and then the dishes themselves went flying into their homes so that I could flick through a newspaper on the table, catching up with the muggle world. It thoroughly annoyed William which is exactly why I did it. It was time like this that made really love magic.

We had a quiet family Christmas stuffing our faces with turkey and Christmas pudding. My grandparents visited and we sat around watching Christmas specials and munching on various chocolates placed at strategic points around the room. It was a real pain when all the ones I liked were gone from the bowl closest to me. I had to make some serious effort to grab a bowl from the other end of the room. It certainly made me feel very fat.

Having overindulged over Christmas I was keen to get out of the house and thankfully three days after Christmas that opportunity arrived although it would mean sitting in ice cold Quidditch stands. Wrapped up head to toe, complete with hat and scarf, I waited for the Oliver near the front door ready to make a dash when the doorbell rang. I didn't have to wait long and was thankfully soon outside with Oliver ready to apparate, something I'd done very little off since passing my test. Oliver's father was also with him. Within in minutes I'd discovered where Oliver got his Quidditch obsession from.

Over the cause of the morning I'd had a very awkward conversation with my Mum. There was no guarantee what time the game would end so I'd be spending the night at Oliver's. I'm sure you can all guess what conversation that was. I was just glad that William was out of the house saving me from even more embarrassment. After assuring her that Oliver had a guest room I'd darted upstairs to let out my owl, desperate for something else to do. At least hidden away in my attack bedroom I was safe from any further questioning.

The game saw the Montrose Magpies defeat the Holyhead Harpies by three hundred and twenty to two hundred and ninety. It was the first professional game I'd been to and it scared me. The players were so fast and the bludgers seemed more viscous than the ones at Hogwarts. Despite this I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Oliver was outraged at some of the referee calls, I just agreed with him trying hard not to laugh.

It was eight o'clock when the game ended, within minutes we had apparate to Oliver's house where his mother was waiting with steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Oliver's Mum, Anne as she had asked me to call her, busied herself in the kitchen making sandwiches for us to snack on. "Here, something to warm you up," Oliver's Dad tipped a bit of firewhiskey into our mugs, "Don't tell your mother."

It was definitely strange being in a wizarding household, there were so many strange objects and no TV but it still felt like a home. Their house, from what I could see in the dark, sat tucked away in a valley not far from Hadrian's Wall or so Oliver said. Where they lived was secluded from muggles allowing him to spend his days on his broom. I guessed that was from an early age. Oliver's parents were nothing like mine, bother eccentric in a wizarding sort of way. His mother worked for the ministry of magic in the department for the regulation and control of magical creature and his father worked in the department of magical games and sports also in the ministry. That in itself supplied enough explanation for Oliver's unhealthy Quidditch obsession.

After eating the sandwiches, leftover turkey from Christmas, Oliver and I settled down at the table to flick through his Puddlemere book. I hadn't actually had chance to look at it so it was an education. There was an entire page dedicated to their greatest keepers and I hoped that in a few years Oliver would be joining them on the page. His cheesy grin looking up at us as he expertly deflected a shot.

We sat for ours flicking through the book, Oliver spend ages pouring over each page even though he'd informed me he'd already read it twice. His parents had long since given up and gone to bed. It was getting pretty late and Quidditch was beginning to get to me. "Oliver can we maybe go to sleep?" I asked whilst stifling a yawn.

"Huh? Oh yeah it's pretty late," apparently Quidditch renders a person incapable of recognising the time. I wasn't annoyed by this; I'd learnt to accept that Quidditch and Oliver were one.

Oliver and I quietly made our way upstairs; the guest bedroom was opposite his room. "Thanks for tonight, you didn't have to subject yourself to more Quidditch," Oliver leant against the wall and whispered quietly.

"I need to know who Puddlemere are if you're going to playing for them," I answered.

"Yeah if," Oliver said quietly to himself.

"Hey," he looked up at me, "you will."

"You really believe that?" he straightened up.

"We've been through this already, of course I do. If you think otherwise then it won't happen," since when did I become a sucker for motivational speeches? Shows what being home with my Mum for Christmas can do to a person.

"Hmm, you might be on to something there," Oliver stepped closer to say goodnight.

"You'll shout me if you need anything?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied lamely.

"Good night then Ellie," he leaned forward to kiss me. I can't explain what happened next, it was if something ignited inside of me and I returned the kiss eagerly causing Oliver stumble back into the wall.

"Ah sorry," I surprised myself. Both of us looked to Oliver's parent's door down the whole hoping they hadn't heard the dull thud. After a few moments with nothing happening we assumed that we'd gone unheard.

"You're going to get me into trouble one day," Oliver grinned and took my hand dragging me into his room.

I panicked, "Oliver what on earth are you doing, you're parents are just down the hall."

"Just relax okay?" I nodded feebly in response and as Oliver said slowly relaxed. Needless to say that the spare bed didn't get slept in.