The Picket Fence Dream
By Rubber Band Ball
Prologue
He was graduating this year. Graduating. Next year he'd be off to play for that Puddlemere United team. It wasn't that she wasn't happy for him. She really was. She wasn't stupid or anything— she knew that playing for Puddlemere United had been his childhood dream.
Inside she too secretly dreamed of the perfect future. First she would become the Gryffindor Qudditch Captain, then she would graduate with outstanding marks from Hogwarts, and then get drafted for a famous Qudditch team (preferably the Tornadoes, but she would take on any decent team). After years of being a successful Chaser, she would retire (of course by then she would be buried in money), meet the perfect guy, marry him, have kids, and settle down.
It was the perfect picket fence dream.
She had thought up all of this quite early on—before she had started Hogwarts, even. She even had recurring dreams about it. About the summer nights where she would just sit with her husband out on the porch swing, gazing at the starts. They would be all cuddled up, and they would talk in soft voices to each other. About the kids they would have, and how she and her husband would read bedtime stories to them. About the exciting Qudditch matches that would take place, always with her scoring (at the bare minimum) forty points.
There was only one thing that bothered her. In her dreams she would never see her husband's face. Curiosity was killing her quite easily. Yet every time she came close to seeing his face, he would either back away or she would wake up.
Talk about life being unfair.
But one night during the past summer…she finally saw the face she waited so long to catch a glimpse at. Dream Husband had turned around to plant a quick peck on her cheek before heading off to work when she saw his face. It was kind and warm and loving. She couldn't help but love him more than ever before in that one moment.
The face she had seen was his face.
And the strangest thing of all was that she wasn't surprised, disgusted, or even shocked. She was overjoyed. It seemed as if she could live the rest of her life just knowing that he loved her and he was hers forever and ever…
God, did she scare herself sometimes.
But ever since that night, in the back of her mind, she knew that she was in fallen in love with him. She wouldn't admit it to anyone or even herself, but that didn't change the fact that the feelings for him were there. She was in love with Oliver Wood. The only problem was, he didn't have a clue.
