Chapter 11
"Penderghast!" Oliver called from somewhere behind me. I gathered the entire cool I had in me before he caught up to my pace.
Knowing what this was about I figured I might as well set him straight right away. "Sorry Oliver, you can't join. I don't have the time to tutor both you and Roger." I replied before he'd asked.
"Why are you tutoring him, anyway? I mean… you're not friends… are you?" He looked at me searchingly while dodging oncoming students of the opposite direction.
"We are friends. I like spending time with him. He's nice." I gave him a meaningful look. One of which he didn't seem to realise meant anything. The more time I spent around Oliver the more I realised he had a frustrating way of never catching hints and communicative signals.
Oliver didn't seem to agree with my view. "Really? Roger?"
I had to feed myself the cool I had gathered up before to stop me from cursing at him. "Roger? Really?" I instead settled on uttering. His first name you gladly use, I thought to myself. Oliver once again didn't catch what I meant, as if he hadn't been here to witness these past few months and our endless row.
"You have to agree with me that it's suspicious." Oliver said.
I knew immediately where he was going with this before he'd even said it out loud. "No Oliver, I don't agree with you that it's suspicious. And frankly I find it insulting that you do. If I was spying on one Quidditch captain, why would I decline that another joins?" I gestured at him. "Furthermore, I find it degrading that you would suggest such an idea. I don't see you going around doubting your other fellow captains!" We had both stopped in our tracks. The hall had cleared up which was a good thing because my voice had gone distinctly louder.
"None of my other fellow captains are fraternizing for no apparent reason!" Oliver too had gotten riled up by now.
I took a deep breath and stared at him. "You're friends with Roger as well!" I half shouted. Why I even bothered with a deep breath is beyond me.
"I've been friends with him for a long time, I didn't a couple of months before our match suddenly decide to befriend him!" I found it odd to see Oliver get this riled up; he usually kept his cool during our arguments, seemed indifferent even. Not this time however.
"I didn't decide to befriend him, he asked me for help! So I did the nice thing and provided him with that help. I don't see why you're antagonizing me when there is in fact more evidence to suggest that he's the one spying!" I paused and looked at him with contempt. "You really don't have a lot of faith in me as a captain, do you?" And with that said, I stormed off, happy to find he didn't follow. Instead he shouted after me:
"I think you're a great chaser and I believe you have a lot of potential as a captain of your team."
Where did that come from? I thought. "Then why all this doubt?" I turned and shouted back. He didn't seem sure of how to reply. I stopped a couple meters ahead of him and waited.
"I just don't see why you would want to hang out with him."
"I don't see why you suddenly detest him. He's your friend." I said and turned around and left.
As I walked the lone corridors later that night, I began to feel on edge. I didn't usually feel this way while roaming the castle, in the way most people probably would. Abandoned stone corridors, an enormous castle. It was intimidating. I kept glancing backward to see if anyone was following me, an irrational thought. I tried not to think about it. I tried to think about how irrational this all was and that I should instead be worrying about Mr. Filch catching me, or something.
I wasn't even sure what floor I was on. But it didn't matter, that's what I was striving for, I wanted to be lost for some reason. I pondered if other students usually do this when they can't sleep.
I surely felt lost. I looked around and tried to orient myself as to where I was. But I simply couldn't, it was as if I was in a part of the castle I had never been before. Of course I had heard rumours about this sort of thing. It was a common saying about Hogwarts. You never know what you'll find as you roam. Some people claim they've been to every bit of the castle. But a fair few, and I include myself in that statement; hold the belief that no one really knows just how big Hogwarts really is, and I don't think anyone can know. You think you know. You take the same paths you always do when getting to your classes. But then, when you mindlessly roam, you suddenly find yourself lost; at a place you're sure you've never been.
After a long while of walking without spotting anything but stone bricks. There was suddenly a wooden door. I got excited and rushed up to it. I tried to open the heavy door. It seemed stuck, but I kept pushing and finally got it open.
Upon entering the room I was sort of disappointed at first glance. There was barely anything in there. Just the same heavy stone brick walls. I had expected something more. But the more I took in of it, the more I saw that it was actually quite a beautiful room. It didn't have any form of artificial lighting, but I think it turned out to be a service as the room had many beautiful big windows instead. They were of stained glass and at first glance they looked like they were randomly tinted in all sorts of colours. But then as I widened my focus and took in all the windows as a whole, I could see that all the windows made an image when joined. The image was of Hogwarts itself, but it was from the Black Lake's perspective and the castle, while not being the centre of the image, towered above it.
The image brought me back to when I had been a first year student, on the first of many days I would spend here. We all travelled by boats on the lake from the platform to the castle. The memory seemed distant from me now as I was in the middle of my last year. Right there, right then, I was overwhelmed with emotion at that fact. I don't know why exactly, but I didn't cry, I just stared at the image, my face felt frozen, every muscle tensed.
I eventually had to snap myself out of it. I felt like I wanted to stay here forever, examining the picture. But reality awaited.
I approached the window and stared out. It was hard to see anything as the glass was stained in dark shades. But I could still see the castle unravelling itself beneath me. I was quite far up I noticed. I could see quite a few towers pointing at me from underneath. I had no clue what any of them where. I instead imagined they were specific places that I had specific memories of. I imagined one tower to be the divination stairwell where Wright, PJ and I had all comforted Bianca as she was sitting there crying after a Slytherin boy had called her an attention seeker because she had been talking a lot during class. It was back in first year when we hadn't become friends with Bianca yet. Wright, PJ and I had all become friends immediately through our appreciation for Quidditch. This was the day we had first become friends with Bianca. We had told her she should never shut up during class. Never to submit to the boys' desire to have all girls be shy so that they can have all the attention and glory. Never to let a boy tell her what she can and cannot do. I wondered what Bianca would have been like now if we hadn't become friends.
I imagined one tower as the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom where I had disarmed my first opponent in third year. I don't even remember who it was, just the joy I had felt. I wasn't nearly the first one in my class to be able to do it. I was just so happy I hadn't been the last. I had written home that day. Telling my family about it. But I had to do it in secret, as I didn't want anyone to know that I wrote home about that sort of thing. I recalled that we all had a different relationship with writing home back then. It was one of those things that were uncool. We all thought it made us seem weak, missing family. Thinking back, it seemed so silly now. Of course we all missed our parents. We still did sometimes, but not as much. I found it more common to miss Hogwarts nowadays.
I stood there quietly, studying the grounds of Hogwarts. The harsh wind vibrated against the windows. The room felt spooky. It was old and disregarded in an eerie way.
A rumble awoke me from my trans like state. Someone was trying to get the door open. My heart started beating, I had no time to think and I immediately looked for a place to hide, but there was none. A head poked inside and looked at me as I stood frozen. My heart relaxed as I saw that it was Oliver Wood. Obviously. I don't know why I expected anyone else at this point.
"Wood." I greeted him. Folding my arms.
He whispered something and pointed his wand at a piece of parchment. He stepped inside. "We're using my surname now are we?"
I ignored his question. "What is that?" I said and pointed at the parchment in his hand. But he didn't hear me as he had begun to take in the room.
"What is this place?" He asked mesmerized. He looked around the room in awe, I envied the look on his face and also stepped back a bit to where he was standing so that I could take in the image the windows created once again. The moonlight was shining on the window creating a light that lit up the floor and Oliver with blotches of light in different colours. "I've never been here before, is there usually a room here?" He whispered, not taking his eyes of the image.
"Not sure." I replied absentmindedly, tracing the glass up and down, taking in every small detail of it, as I knew that I would probably never find this place again upon leaving.
"I'm sorry." Said Oliver, he was looking at me, but I didn't look back. I kept tracing the glass with my eyes.
"What do you mean by that?" I finally asked.
He seemed confused by the question. "What?" he asked.
I refused to look at him. "What do you mean when you say you're sorry?"
He paused to think. "It means that it makes me sad to see that you are upset by something." He said cautiously.
Suddenly I got a bit emotional again, thinking about all the stress I'd been feeling, stress about Quidditch and enemies and wrongly imagined platonic intentions and grades and the staggering notion that everyday that passes is another day less that will pass at this wonderful place.
"It makes me feel sad too." I said. In an impulse decision I decided to sit down on the floor. Oliver followed my lead and sat down next to me.
Oliver's tone took on a hint of optimism then, "I figured it out though."
I spared him a fleeting glance, a suspicious one at that. "Figured out what exactly?"
"Why you're clearly upset with me." He said confidently.
"I have to say I'm impressed you even figured out that much."
Oliver continued in a hurry to get the words out, "Well of course you are, upset with me I mean," he gestured with his hands like he had just discovered the cure for vanishing sickness, "you use my surname, you've been ignoring me lately, those are signs that you are upset, right?"
I looked blankly at him, startled by his intensity.
"Anyway," he continued, "it's because you think I don't think that you're a great Quidditch captain. But you've got it all wrong. When I said all that about how you're using Roger, that wasn't me saying you're a bad Quidditch player, I think you're a great Quidditch player! Roger thinks so too!" He stopped short. "Although, if you ask me Roger doesn't see the star in you that I see."
He looked intently at me. "It was just out of concern for my team that I expressed the distrust. A concern, which I now realise was wrong." His intensity died down a bit. "I was off. I'm sorry."
I smiled. "That's not it. Although I'm impressed you were able to guess so close."
His head fell. "Really? I thought I had it…"
I pitied him, he sounded so disappointed. I watched him bury his face in his hands before abruptly looking up at me again, "It's just I've been at this so hard, but I can't seem to understand what I'm doing wrong. This is so frustrating!" He clenched his fists. He had that same competitive Quidditch look in his eyes he always wore when he went on about Quidditch.
I smiled wider. I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by how cute I found him in that moment. So desperately trying to figure something out that was so obvious to me. Finally I knew that had been in the wrong, as it turned out he did seem to care about me.
"And now you're smiling! I thought you were angry! This is so hard to figure out!" He uttered in desperation.
I started laughing slightly then and smiled widely at him. He looked so cute and confused. And so I kissed him. Only because right in that moment, that late at night, when I was that lost, I really wanted to.
To my surprise, Oliver seized this opportunity without hesitation. Without leaving my lips, he changed the way he sat so to reach better. He pressed his lips harder against mine.
A moment passed until I subtracted my lips slowly, remaining close to his face.
"I enjoy sitting on the floors of hidden Hogwarts rooms with you." He mumbled with his eyes closed. He was completely still.
I looked down at the floor so that our foreheads pressed against each other. I then decided that I needed to let some things off my chest. I spoke in a soft tone. "I'm just tired of this. First of all, don't you hear how ridiculous it sounds? Don't you hear how ridiculous the idea that I would spy on another captain is? Have you met me? This is exactly the thing Oliver; it's what you've been doing right from the beginning. While I've been civil to you, you've constantly antagonized me for these ridiculous reasons that don't seem to have any ground. It makes me think that you, for some odd reason, want me to be some enemy of yours and I can't seem to grasp why."
I let go of his forehead. I needed to look him in the eyes for the next part.
"You're so up and down. Last week in the library I thought 'Oh! Maybe he's changed his mind and decided to act like a decent guy!' but then you suddenly went back to your stupid antagonizing of me and I'm sick of it. So, I decided I wasn't going to bother with you anymore. I mean, you can't honestly believe that you can, time after time, treat me this way without me inevitably getting upset about it?" I then realised I had been talking for quite some time and I was surprised to find that he had let me speak all the way through. I had expected him to interrupt me to try and defend himself.
Oliver seemed to be pondering. What was obvious to me appeared like genuine news to him. "I guess you're right. I guess I have been acting peculiarly." He played with the hem of his robe. "I don't know why though." He said and looked up at me, seemingly wanting me to explain it. However I was as clueless as him.
"And also," I seemed to have more to say, "quit acting like you're the one who decides who's a good Quidditch player or not. I know I'm good, I know I have a great team of players and I don't need you to validate that for me." I laughed humorlessly, "And I won't go around being upset because of the belief that you might not agree. Maybe I'm the one who decides who is a great Quidditch player? And I, Willow Penderghast, am here to declare that Oliver Wood, is quite a fair one himself." He smiled at that, and I returned it.
Oliver folded his legs above each other and placed his elbows on his knees, creating a link between them and his connected hands. He put his chin down to rest on his hands. "Here's what I think. I think that you, Willow, are selling me short. You know what I think, Willow? I think that, while I do apologize for being a blithering idiot, I can be better in the future, after all I did realise that you, Willow, were upset with me."
I raised my eyebrows, although I couldn't hide my smile, I had finally got what I wanted. "You were way off about why though."
"But I was right about you being upset and tried to make it right, which is the important thing in my opinion." He gave me a grin.
I don't know why I had kissed him. He had just seemed so kissable. It was like my mind had deliberated the matter and reasoned like this: basically, I can't not kiss him when he's acting this way and noticing things — and so I must kiss him. My standards have never been lower.
How did it all escalate this way? How did we go from fighting about Quidditch practises and surnames to me kissing him? I should probably pretend that it never happened. I mean he would never kiss me on his own accord. So why should I?
29 September 2018
A/N: Did you like/dislike anything about this chapter? Please let me know!
