Title: When We Were Little
Author name: Allie-Marina
Category: Romance
Sub Category: Humor/Angst
Keywords: Katie Oliver friendship
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, QTTA
Summary: They get stuck together again. And summer ends.
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.
Author notes: Hi! I heart my reviewers with all of my heart. Haha. Joke, I'm good. No, but really. Thanks to Laura again for the BETA. Anways…

Ancient Runes. Great.

He planned on avoiding Katie by sitting in the back of the room, but her voice was loud enough so that he could hear her talking with Fred.

"So what?" Katie demanded of Fred. "Are you calling me a prude?"

Wood looked up. A what? But didn't he hear...?

George grinned, sitting on Katie's other side. "No, not exactly. But come on! It's been nearly a year and what have you two done? Nothing!"

Angelina said smartly, "Even if she had, do you really think she would tell either of you?"

"No, I wouldn't," Katie said. "What I do should be of no concern to you."

Strangely, Wood felt relieved. Then again, he also felt a little guilty about jumping to conclusions about her. That, and it wasn't polite to eavesdrop.

Professor Terentius glided into the room, her robes flowing behind her. "I've corrected your group assignments, everyone."

"Who did the best?" a Slytherin, Bletchly, asked.

Terentius quickly flipped through the papers, looking for the highest score. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "Here! Katie Bell and Oliver Wood!"

Katie felt her face go hot, as the eyes of the class fell upon her. She put a palm on her cheek, and averted her eyes from the smirking Weasleys. "They got all the answers correct plus the bonus! Fifteen points to Gryffindor."

"Now," Professor Terentius went on. "You will get with your same partners--"

"What?" exclaimed Katie a little too loudly. The class looked at her again.

Wood rolled his eyes. Not this again.

After the class scattered into their respective groups, Katie silently walked up to Professor Terentius's desk. She cleared her throat, demanding the teacher's attention.

"Yes, Miss Bell, Mister Wood?" she asked.

"Mister Wood?" Katie asked, confused, and looked to her left, where indeed, Wood had appeared.

"I was, I mean, he and I were both wondering if we could change partners?" Katie asked, sweetly. "Please?"

"Yeah, please?" Wood added.

Professor Terentius looked from her favorite fifth year to her favorite seventh year and back again. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

Katie frowned, "Well why not?"

"Yeah, why not?" Wood mimicked.

Professor Terentius looked past them to the students at their seats. "Everyone has already started working. It wouldn't be fair to pull them out of their groups now."

"Then can I work alone?" Katie pleaded.

Wood gave Katie a sideways glare.

"I don't understand," continued the Professor. "You did such a great job on that last assignment. Obviously you work very well together."

Wood froze. They worked well together? Very well?

Katie scoffed at the Ancient Runes Professor. "No, we don't! I ended up doing all the work!"

"What!" objected Wood.

"I don't want to hear it!" the Professor exclaimed, raising her hands in protest. "Either you work together or you fail."

Katie and Wood quickly shut up.

Katie took the paper back to her seat and wrote the heading at the top of it. She looked up at Wood who was standing over her. "What? Do you like to fail or something?"

Wood glared at her. "No."

"Then sit down for Merlin's sake."

"Say please," Wood told her.

"What?"

"Say please or I won't sit down," he said defiantly.

"If you don't sit down, then you'll fail," she stated.

"If I don't sit down, we'll both fail," he reminded her. 'How hard is it to say please?' he thought.

"Then sit down," she said bluntly.

"Not until you say please, Bell."

"Please, Bell," Katie repeated with a sarcastic tone.

He would have smirked if she hadn't been looking at him. "No. Don't be daft."

"I'm not daft. You're being daft. Making me beg you to sit down? Honestly!"

"Then I won't sit down, and we'll both fail," he grinned, relishing her torment.

"What is your problem?" Katie demanded. "Is this good enough for you: Dearest Mister Oliver Wood, you have been cordially invited to take a seat by Miss Katie Bell. She would very much appreciate it if you would plant your arse in this chair here, so that you and she can complete the assignment that the Professor has assigned, please?"

Wood was smirking evilly at her. "Well?" she prompted impatiently. "Good enough?"

Wood snapped out of his gaze. He had been amused by the expressiveness in Katie's emerald eyes, as she spoke emphatically, sarcastically. "Great," he managed to mutter, before lowering himself into the chair next to her.

They managed to answer and translate some of the questions with out arguing about them. They disagreed over some of the symbols' meanings, and Katie argued that the context showed that it meant otherwise, while Wood went on about how she was an insufferable know-it-all.

That familiar urge to leave the room appeared as the class packed up. Katie had been twirling the necklace she was wearing around her fingers as she thought. She was interrupted when Professor Terentius came up behind Katie and Wood and told them that class was over, they could leave now.

"But we aren't done, Professor!" Katie exclaimed.

"Well, if you hadn't been arguing with me and Mister Wood all class, maybe you would have gotten some work done, yeah? Finish it tonight, hand it in tomorrow."

Katie was about to object again, when she was tugged out of the room by Wood, who had grabbed a hold of her wrist. When she was out in the hall, she broke out of his grasp. "I didn't say you could touch me, Wood."

Wood rolled his eyes. "There's no Quidditch tonight, we can do the work in the common room."

"Fine," Katie relented.

Wood lingered for a moment in the hallway with Katie. Then he sighed and started walking away.

***

"I don't know," Katie said to Alicia in the common room before she was supposed to meet Wood to finish the assignment. "I'd rather be doing anything else then Ancient Runes work with Wood right now."

"When is he supposed to be here?" Alicia asked, sitting on the couch and putting her feet up on the coffee table.

Katie glanced at her wrist watch. "That's really nice of him to be late," she said in a sarcastic tone. "If he actually shows up, I'm in my dorm."

Alicia nodded as she watched Katie run up the dormitory stairs.

Behind her, the portrait opened and Wood walked through. 'He's got horrible timing,' Angelina observed.

Wood bounded right up to Alicia. "Hi," he said in friendly tone. "Have you seen Bell around? I'm supposed to meet her here for-"

"Ancient Runes?" Alicia finished for him. "Yeah, she was here, she's just gone up to our dormitory."

"Great," Wood muttered. He set his books down on the coffee table next to Alicia's feet.

Just as he was about to go up the stairs to Katie's dorm, she came hopping down the steps in casual clothes. She'd put her brown hair into a ponytail at the top of her head and was looking rather comfortable in sweatpants and a long sleeve t-shirt that she had gotten at a Holyhead Harpies match.

"You're late," he told her.

"I am not," she retorted. "You were the one who was late, so I decided to take advantage of the extra time."

"Whatever," he murmured, throwing himself back onto the couch.

"Now, which questions do you want to answer?" she asked him, sitting on the floor, next to the coffee table.

"Why are you asking me?" Wood asked.

"Simple. If you don't have everything go your way, you have a temper tantrum," she stated lightly.

"Do not," he objected.

"Do too," she replied, as an instinct. 'This seems oddly familiar,' Katie thought.

"Fine," he said. He took the paper that Katie had been holding out to him and quickly glanced over it. "There's only eight questions left, so I'll do the odd numbers. You can do the evens."

"Fine," Katie said.

"Fine."

They had started working quietly again. Wood hated the silence. He'd much rather be arguing with her then pretending to get along with her. But, Katie didn't notice. She had been twirling her ponytail as she was concentrating on the task at hand.

He watched her as she was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed. Her concentration was disrupted, and she looked up at Wood, who quickly looked away.

She stared for a second, looking bothered. Wood casually glanced up at her. After a few moments of her staring into his deep brown eyes, he's begun to feel… funny. "What are you staring at?" he demanded.

She bit her lip nervously. "I need help," she stated quietly, embarrassed to be asking Wood's help.

"What?" he asked surprised.

"I just can't read this symbol here, it looks like it's drawn wrong," she said.

"Let me see," he told her.

Katie got to her feet, and walked over to where Wood was sitting. Without hesitation, she sat right next to him on the couch.

"This one here," she said quietly.

He took the paper from her, careful not to look into her eyes. As she sat peering over Wood's shoulder, he began to feel a little too warm. She was sitting too close to him. He couldn't think.

He turned back to the paper where the symbols he had been looking at suddenly became ordinary squiggles on the paper that meant nothing to him. He was quickly losing concentration.

"Well?" she prompted impatiently.

"I'm working on it!" he said, frustratedly. He looked again. He could just make out two separate symbols linked together by a meaningless line that must have been a mistake.

"It's a horse symbol and a lake symbol linked together," he finally concluded.

Katie took the paper back from him. "That's odd," she said, getting to her feet.

It was suddenly a lot easier to breathe and think for Wood. "What's odd? That's what they are, Bell."

Katie sat herself on the floor again. "I know. I'm not challenging you on this one. It's just that..." she trailed off. She looked worried.

"What?" he demanded.

"You do know what they mean don't you?" Katie asked him.

Wood hesitated. "Partnership...and love," he managed to mutter, feeling warm once again.

Katie nodded. Then she exclaimed a little too brightly, "It's just Divination by Runes. We shouldn't rely on it. You know how McGonagall feels about Divination..."

"Yeah," he agreed quietly, avoiding her eyes again. "Anyway, I'm done."

"Me too," Katie answered. "I'll just take your paper, and we'll hand it in tomorrow."

She got to her knees and gathered all the papers up and shuffled them into one, neat packet.

She stood in front of him for a second. ' What are you supposed to say to someone who hates you?' she thought to herself. "Bye," she muttered quickly and started up the stairs to her room.

When she got up to her dorm, she walked in to find Alicia and Angelina talking. "How was it?" Angelina asked.

"I'm glad it's over," Katie told them.

"I can never understand why you don't like him, Katie," Alicia mused. "He's always been nice to me."

"Exactly," Katie said, taking a seat on her bed. "He's not nice to me. Ever."

"Ever?" Angelina asked.

"Come on, aren't you exaggerating?" Alicia asked.

"Not really," Katie muttered. "He was nice when we were little."

"But you used to be friends with him in third year and before that, right?" Alicia asked again.

Katie shrugged. "I thought so."

"What happened?" Angelina asked.

"I don't know. When we were little, when nothing mattered, I actually used to spend the summers in Scotland with him."

Alicia stared, disbelievingly. Katie continued, "My Gram lives down the block from the Woods'."

"The summers?"

"Yup. I try not to dwell on it," Katie grinned, standing up again. "But, honestly - and don't you tell him this - but sometimes... I miss him... The old him at least."

"Aww," Angelina and Alicia cooed.

"Shut up!" Katie demanded smacking them over the head with a pillow.

Angelina and Alicia giggled. Katie rolled her eyes at them. "Anyway," she said. "I've got to meet Rhys."

***

Divination by Runes was probably the biggest waste of time in Wood's life, although it had bothered him quite a bit that the words 'partnership' and 'love' were used in the same sentence.

Wood shifted in his bed and pulled back the curtain to read his alarm clock. It was three o'clock in the morning and he was still thinking about that blasted girl. That blasted girl. His best friend's blasted girl to be exact.

***********

That was how it went, on clear summer nights, when the moon was full, Katie would sneak over to Oliver's house. Only on the clear nights, she would climb the trellis until she got to the roof below his window. He never understood how she did it, but she did. Sometimes, if he was lucky, Katie would wake him up and tell him she was leaving, when the sun had not quite risen. They had never gotten caught.

He had gotten used to her climbing through the window, so he would leave his window open for her, and he pushed a table beneath the window so she didn't have to fall into his room anymore. Even when he told her that it wasn't safe to climb the trellis, she would do it anyway.

He was the only person she knew in the whole neighborhood, and without him life around town was boring.

She taught him how to catch a firefly without squishing it, and he helped her learn how to read. She had been confusing 'b' and 'd' and 'p' and 'q' quite a bit.

One day at the end of the summer, Katie and Oliver were kneeling over an earthworm inching along in the mud.

Katie's face was scrunched up in disgust, as it wriggled along. "That's so gross!" she whined.

"It is not!" Oliver objected, picking it up.

Katie quickly got to her feet and backed away when Oliver held it up to her. "You scared of a wee worm?" he sniggered.

"I'm not scared, it's just disgusting," she defended, crossing her arms. "I'm brave enough to climb the roof. Why would I be scared of a worm?"

"Because you're a girl," Oliver said, putting the earthworm back into the mud.

"So? I still climb the roof. Worms are gross."

"Girls get grossed out easily," he said smugly, standing up, wiping his hands on his pants.

"Do not."

"Do too."

"So do boys," Katie said matter-of-factly.

"Nuh-uh," Oliver frowned.

"Uh-huh!" Katie insisted, grinning.

He walked right up to her. "When?"

Just then, Katie put her hands on Oliver's shoulders, hoisted herself onto her tip-toes, and planted a short kiss on Oliver's unsuspecting lips.

She backed off immediately. Oliver stared at her, shocked, with his jaw dropped.

"See?" Katie asked, smugly. She was rather surprised with herself. She had never kissed a boy before, and she wondered if she had done it right.

Oliver just stood there, not moving. He didn't look happy. He just looked bewildered.

"Uh-oh!" Katie managed, before scampering off as fast as her feet could carry her.

As soon as Katie ran, Oliver ran as well. Into his house.

When he got inside, he shouted, "Water! Water! I need water!"

His father who had been reading the Daily Prophet quickly popped up from his seat, and filled a glass for his son. "What happened?" Mr. Wood asked.

Oliver spit out the water into the sink, and wiped his mouth. He looked up at his father, and scrunched up his face. "Katie kissed me! Now I'm going to get some kind of girl sickness!"

Mr. Wood gave a hearty laugh. "It happens to the best of us."

Oliver gave him quite a glare and walked away into his living room.

Katie didn't come over the next day, and she didn't come on the next clear night. It was then that Oliver realized that Katie had gone back to Manchester.

Summer was over.