Title:  When We Were Little
Author name: Allie-Marina
Category: Romance
Sub Category: Humor/Angst
Keywords: Oliver Katie flashback
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: First three books
Summary: Two different parts of the story are going on. One half preHogwarts, the other at Hogwarts. A childhood friendship is abandoned, but someone needs to fix it before they miss their last chance. Not a companion piece. Oliver/Katie
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. May included lines from Friends, Dawson's Creek, Everwood, Smallville, As Told by Ginger, the Great Gatsby, The Confessions of Georgia Nicholson, to name just a few.
Author notes: I know that I have done the whole Katie/Oliver thing before, but I was hit by the idea the other day in my car. I came home and hopped on the computer. Thanks to Araanaz for the BETA and encouraging me to post it!

Very loosely follows the third book. Katie is a fifth year along with Angelina, Alicia, Fred and George; Oliver is in his seventh and final year. And I assumed that Ancient Runes was not a mandatory class. So, a wizard could start the class any of the years, as long as they have three years of the subject before leaving the school.

I can't believe this is happening, Oliver thought. On the other hand, luck was never on his side.

He hated her.

He hated her even more when Professor Terentius declared them partners in Ancient Runes class that day. "Katie Bell and Oliver Wood," said Professor, and then read off the next pair.

His eyes narrowed as he cast an angry glance over to Katie, two seats to his left. He watched as her face frowned and she hung her head, disappointed that she wasn't Fred Weasley's partner, one of her very best friends.

"Please sit with your partners!" Professor Terentius called. Oliver groaned, hating Professor at the moment.

Katie remained at her seat. She wasn't moving. Stubborn little girl!

"Bell!" Wood called over to her. She didn't look up. "Bell!" he called louder. She blankly looked up at him and narrowed her own eyes in the hard glare that Wood had grown accustomed to seeing.

"What the bloody hell do you want, Wood?" she bit out.

"Don't be dim! Partners are supposed to sit together," he said matter-of-factly, his mood decreasing even so.

"And?" Katie asked. "I don't see a problem."

"You haven't moved, Bell."

"Neither have you," she retorted.

"Hell, Bell, get up!" he ordered.

"Don't order me around, Wood!"

"Simmer down!" Professor Terentius barked at them. "Mister Wood, would you please move your seat next to your partner?"

Cursing under his breath, Wood picked up his books and sauntered over to where Katie had been sitting. He slammed his text book on the desk in front of her.

She looked up at him with wide annoyed eyes and her jaw hung open. She rolled her eyes once and turned back to the parchment that sat before her. The answers to question one and two were filled out and Wood hadn't even gotten to see the blasted assignment yet.

"You started without me?" he demanded, plopping into the seat next to her. His fingers were near trembling.

"You're such a killjoy, Wood. I know these answers, so why not answer them?" She threw her purple quill on to the desktop and leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms.

"It was supposed to be a partner assignment!"

"You'll still get the credit!"

He really couldn't stand to be around her. "Fine then! I'm just following instructions, you know."

"You can answer the next two if you want!"

"I wanted to answer those two!" he said, pointing to the first two questions.

"I can't believe that she put me with you!"

"It's no picnic having to work with you, either! Just do the assignment then, for crying out loud!"  He was sure was going to start banging his head on the desk if he had to spend any more time within a five foot radius of this girl.

"No! Now you do some work! And don't tell me what to do, this isn't Quidditch practice!"

"If it was, you'd be sitting out right now."

"Oh, deary me, I'm so hurt. I think I might shed a frickin' tear!" she ground out.

Cool down, Wood. She's just a silly fifth year girl, cool down. You're a seventh year! You never should have started with this class as a fifth year, Katie's third. At the time she begged him to take it with her. "Look, let's just finish it and not talk, okay?" he sighed, extremely frustrated.

"Perfect."

***

He hated her, and yet he loved her. Rather, he hated her because he loved her. How it made sense, Wood didn't know. But it just did.

He spent so much of his time thinking about how he hated her, and he hated that, too. He hated when she bit her lip in concentration, he hated how the sun caught in her hair when she played Quidditch, he hated how her eyes twinkled, how her cheeks blushed when talking to Rhys, how she laughed, how she was the only person in the whole universe to have command over his emotions, and yet she had no idea.

He didn't want to hate Rhys, but in a secret way, he kind of did. Rhys, Wood's best friend. Rhys, Katie's boyfriend.

Life just wasn't fair sometimes. Or all of the time.

***********

A nine year old Oliver Wood stood on the top of his lookout tower his father had built for him in his backyard. He had been pretending that the role of parchment in his hand was a telescope.

He had been surveying the yard, pretending he was looking out over the open sea, when he heard a rustle in the wood behind him. He took a step back. "Who's there?" he called.

More rustling. "I'm not kidding, who are you?"

Now there was silence. Little Oliver grew scared. But he was captain of the ship! He had to be brave!

Out from the wood stumbled a little boy in a plain black sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. He tripped on a tree root and fell. His baseball cap flew off his head and landed in the grass next to him.

But, boys aren't supposed to wear long, brown, French plaits with red ribbon holding them together. The he was a she.

"Ow..." she grunted, pushing herself into a sitting position. She looked at her hands, they were all dirty and scratched up.

"You're a girl!" Oliver said lowering the 'telescope'.

The little girl looked up at him. "I'm bleeding!" she squeaked, watching a small trickle of red run down her ring finger and form a pool in the palm of her hand. "Oh yuck!" she said, getting to her feet, rushing over to the lookout tower. "Look at it!"

Oliver climbed down the ladder and jumped the last few steps to land on the grass. Oliver grimaced. "Ewww. You are bleeding. You should get that fixed."

The little girl looked back down at her hand. "But it doesn't hurt anymore."

"So?"

"So, it will stop soon," she said putting her other pointer finger into the little puddle.

"Don't touch it!" he shouted. By this time, Oliver realized that she wasn't from around here. The way she spoke didn't sound like anyone he knew.

The little girl jumped and looked up wide eyed at Oliver. "Why not?"

"Because!" he said. "Who are you?"

"My name's Katie. Are you Oliver?" she asked, momentarily forgetting about her cut.

Oliver straightened up. He had never been recognized before in all of his long nine years. "Yes. Yes, I am. Why?"

"My Gram told me about you."

Oliver watched as a tiny drop of scarlet liquid dropped to the ground through Katie's fingers. He looked back at the little girl. "Who's your Gram?"

"Clarisse Bell --- Ow!" she said, her cut suddenly stinging.

"Come on..." Oliver said, grabbing Katie by the wrist of her clean hand and tugging her along to the house.

"Where are we going?" she asked, trying to keep up.

"You need to be fixed."

Oliver yanked the back door to his house open, and pulled Katie into a white, alarmingly clean kitchen. "MA?? Mum!" Oliver called when they got inside.

Katie looked around; the house was so...clean! She held her palm like a bowl, carefully, as not to let herself drip on the white tile floor.

Moments later, a woman came into the kitchen. "Yes, love?" she asked her son. He pointed to the little girl who was staring at how high the ceilings were.

"She got hurt," Oliver said. "Can you use magic and heal her?"

Mrs. Wood froze, she bent down to her son's ear and whispered, "You're not supposed to say the 'm' word in front of the other 'm' words! Muggles!"

"But Mum," Oliver whispered back. "She's a Bell."

Mrs. Wood stood up and nodded. "Oh," she said. "I see."

"Bell, come here." Oliver waved her over.

The little girl frowned. "My name is Katie Bell."

Mrs. Wood lowered herself so she was eye level with Katie. She gingerly took Katie's wrist. "Oh, that's a nasty cut," she whispered, smiling at Katie.

Mrs. Wood couldn't believe how alarming little Katie's eyes were. They were emerald green with a cinnamon color around her pupils. "How did you get it?"

Oliver sniggered. "She tripped over a tree root."

"It tripped me!" Katie defended, sticking her tongue out at Oliver, as he giggled, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. "It did!!"

"Should we fix it?" Mrs. Wood asked Katie. Katie stopped glaring at Oliver and turned back to Mrs. Wood.

"Please, it hurts."

"But, you said it didn't hurt"! Oliver interrupted.

"Well, it does now!"

"Shhh," Mrs. Wood hushed them. She took her wand out and whispered some words that Katie had never heard before. "All better."

Katie looked at where her cut had been. It was gone. Magic was so cool. "I'm not allowed to do magic," Katie pouted. "Not until I go to Hogwarts."

Oliver suddenly appeared at Katie's side. "When I'm eleven, I'm going to go there!"

"That's a loooong time for me," Katie said.

"How long?" Mrs. Wood asked. "How old are you, Katie?"

"Seven-and-a-half," Katie said, holding up eight fingers. Oliver reached over to her hand and bent half of a finger down.

"I'm nine," Oliver bragged, smiling.

"Where do you live?" Mrs. Wood asked, asking all the important questions.

"We live in Manchester. That's in England. I'm half of a muggle and half of a witch," she said. "But my Gram lives down the road. I'm staying for the summer."

"I know your Gram, she's a very nice lady," Mrs. Wood smiled.

"Yeah, she gives me candy!"

"She has a bunch of candy. But she can't give any to baby Ryan," Katie said, placing herself in a seat at the Kitchen table.

"Baby Ryan?" Oliver asked.

"You have a younger brother?"

Katie smiled. "Yes. He's almost two. He's really cute. But, he doesn't do much. He eats, cries, sleeps and poos."

Oliver giggled again. Katie went on, "I tried telling him about Quidditch once, but he fell asleep."

"Quidditch?!" Oliver asked, smiling widely.

"Yes, what?" Katie asked.

Oliver pulled out the chair next to Katie and sat himself in it. "Mum?" he asked. "Can Katie stay for dinner?"