Title: When We Were Little
Author name: Allie-Marina
Category: Romance
Sub Category: Humor/Angst
Keywords: Oliver Katie friendship
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All Books
Summary: Katie walks in on Alicia and Oliver's argument. Attempts at friendliness come from both parties, and the Ravenclaw match (little detail). Flashbacks and the meaning of friendship.
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 Raincoat 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, Love Story to name just a few.
Author notes: Thanks to Avi, Laura, Christina, Araanaz and Kristin for all of your input! It really helped a lot! I LOVE MY REVIEWERS!!!!!!!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!!!

Katie walked leisurely to the locker room that same evening, her arms crossed, and deliberately dragging her feet. On her way there, she heard the Great Hall filled with animated chatter and laughter, but she did not go in. Instead, she walked right by it.

When she approached the locker room door, she heard voices from inside. The wooden door was too thick to hear anything, but she heard two different voices, arguing. She didn't want to deal with anyone at the moment, but curiosity got the better of her.

She flung the door open to reveal Alicia in her 'angry' stance, standing with her hands on her hips, facing Oliver Wood who had been sitting on the bench, glaring up at Alicia with his fists clenched.

Oliver's eyes widened and his hands relaxed when Katie walked right up to the pair. The two looked like they were in the middle of quite an argument and she took the opportunity to break it apart. Alicia's stance relaxed and she cast a furtive look to Wood, whose ears were quite red.

"Oh, Katie!" Alicia smiled, throwing her arms around Katie's neck. "You're back! When did you get here?"

"Just a while ago. Half hour, maybe?" Katie answered, when Alicia had stopped hugging her, glad that Alicia was not bringing up the subject of Gram in front of Wood.

"So, then you haven't eaten yet?"

Katie shook her head in reply, carefully avoiding Wood's eyes, but his own eyes happened to be doing the same from Katie's.

"Well, come on then," said Alicia, brightly, smiling encouragingly as she took Katie's hand. Katie was halfway out the door when her Gram's plea came to her.  Her heart began to beat rapidly. 'Make up with him, will you, dear?'

Katie stopped in her tracks, a pace behind Alicia. Alicia turned around when she had felt a tug on her hand when Katie stopped. "What are you stopping for?"

"I'll be right back," Katie mumbled, just coherently, eyes suddenly wide, looking slightly alarmed.  She turned around to face Wood, who hadn't stood up from his seat on the bench, head down, staring intently at the tile flooring.

Heart beating unusually fast, she attempted to get his attention. "Ol --?" she tried to say his first name, but her throat had gone suddenly dry. She bit into her bottom lip at the failed attempt to call his name; she was inexplicably nervous. But he looked up anyway, red at the ears.

"Huh?" he said, as he looked up to her with parted lips.

"I -- I --" Katie croaked, trying to get the words out. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes tight and blurted out, "I don't hate you."

His eyes widened even larger and he stared with his mouth hanging partially open. He watched as Katie stepped backwards, clumsily into the closed door and fumbled with the handle, her cheeks growing pinker with each failed attempt to grab for it.

When she had finally managed to clutch the handle, she threw the door open and vanished.

Katie took off down the corridor at a jog, hoping she wouldn't be caught by any prefects for running and caught up with Alicia.

Alicia heard her quick steps and turned around, eyebrows raised. "Katie, are you alright? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

It took Katie a second to realize that Alicia was just using the popular Muggle phrase, as she had indeed passed the Grey Lady while her run to escape the uncomfortable situation with the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. But it was true.  Katie was looking rather pale.

"I'm just hungry," she lied, shaking her head. She hadn't been hungry for days.

"So," Katie joked, shrugging the seriousness off. "Has Wood and the team missed me much?"

"Wood?" Alicia laughed and answered in a devious tone that made Katie inexplicably uncomfortable. "You have no idea..."

***

Wood stared as the door closed. She didn't hate him. And she had called him 'Ol', something that had disappeared with their friendship. His whole cover would have been blown to smithereens had she opened the locker room door any earlier.

But hey, she didn't hate him.

A wry grin spread across his face, and he wiggled his eyebrows smugly at a mirror on the wall. He gathered up his things and made his way back to the common room in Gryffindor tower, grinning inwardly the whole way.

He threw himself into an oversized leather armchair and stared into the fire, thinking to himself. 'How can she say that to me?' he thought. 'After every pratty thing I've said, how can she say that she doesn't hate me? I haven't even apologized yet for being a royal idiot.'

Just then Harry Potter walked through the door with a new, sleek Firebolt held proudly over his head. The Firebolt replaced his smashed Nimbus 2000, which he lost in the first game of the year.

The grin on Wood's face stretched into a proud smile, as having a Firebolt on the team surely meant the Quidditch cup was his.

How odd it was that minute's before hand Wood was wallowing in self-pity in the locker room, and now he was happier than he had been in a long time.

Maybe it was the beginning of a new era, he pondered to himself. The weather was perfect for the match Saturday, and with Harry seeing clearly, they would surely win. Harry was on a Firebolt, and all three of his Chasers attending.  There was no doubt in his mind that they would win.

No more losing, no more bad luck. And even the possibly of the beginnings of an old friendship relived.

After Harry let Wood hold the Firebolt, Oliver made his way up the boys' staircase to his own dormitory. He was feeling rather content and tired, but wasn't ready to sleep just yet.

He opened his black trunk with his initials O.W. stamped in gold on the top. As he knelt down to rummage through it, he picked up something soft.

It was that old Montrose Magpies hat; the one he'd gotten that summer when he was nine. The same one he'd always considered burning, but at the last second, chickened out. It was the one he threw in the dustbin, just to pace in front of it for minutes, only to pick it out in the end and throw it back into the far reaches of his trunk, to be mulled over in the future.

It was the hat he'd gotten the first time he ever met Katie Bell, as she stumbled out of the woods behind his house.

But tonight, he didn't attempt to ruin the old hat in any way, shape or form. In fact, he stuck it on his head with fervor, as it barely fit him anymore, and crawled under the covers of his bed and looked forward to practice with the Firebolt, and everyone attending, and fell into a restful sleep.

***

The day crawled by before it was time to practise. Inspired by the Firebolt's presence, the team practiced the best they ever had. And for the first time, to everyone's surprise, Wood had no criticisms at all.

When the match came, Wood assured the team that they would win, the Firebolt acting as a good-luck charm.

With one of the heaviest burdens lifted off Katie's shoulders, she played expertly, only slightly frustrated at Wood. In Harry's chase for the golden snitch, Wood had called out to Harry to stop being a gentleman to Cho Chang and knock her off her broomstick if he had to. For a second, Katie was thankful not to be opposing Oliver Wood at Quidditch; she would be the first girl that he would not knock off her broom.

After watching with baited breath as Harry's fingers closed around the Golden Snitch, and the team had changed out of their Quidditch robes, did Katie actually get up the nerve to try talking to Wood again. With Alicia by her side, she began as she was packing up her Quidditch pads.

"See Wood?" she said in a less than friendly, matter-of-fact tone, as it was hard to be nice to someone who isn't quite friendly to you in the first place. "I told you that I wouldn't forget how to play Quidditch over three days."

That tone always stirred something in Wood, making him search for a comeback just fitting enough to throw back at the ice princess. But when he started to speak in a similar tone as Katie, he felt a sharp pain in his left foot.

"Ow!" he said, looking up to see Alicia glaring daggers at him. "Damnit, Spinnet."

"Be nice," she muttered, still glaring at Wood, arms crossed authoritatively over her chest.

Wood sighed in defeat and fear that Alicia would kill him if he didn't follow her directions, and turned around to Katie who was still wrestling with her duffle bag. "Right," he said, in a forced sort of voice, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Good job today, Bell."

Katie dropped her bag, mid pack, and spun around so fast to stare at Wood, that he actually took a step back. "What?" she asked, utterly confused, her eyes narrowing. "Did you - did you just give me a compliment?"

"Looks like it," he replied, turning red at the ears, but glaring at Alicia, who was looking smug, and left the locker room with his own duffle bag over his shoulder.

Katie watched him go, stunned, before turning to Alicia. "Is that some kind of joke? What's gotten into him?"

That smug look didn't leave Alicia's face as she claimed she had no idea, trying desperately to stifle a giggle.

***

Thoroughly confused by the behaviors of Alicia and Wood, Katie climbed all seven staircases, eight including the one in the entrance hall, up to Gryffindor Tower. It seemed to her that the two of them had an inside joke about her. It was unnerving to think that her best friend, and her...what was he to her, anyway? Certainly wasn't her friend. And he certainly wasn't her enemy, anymore. It was unnerving to think that her Quidditch Captain and her best friend were having private discussions about her. What was there to talk about anyhow?

When she said the password and entered the common room, a party, led by the Weasley twins, had already begun.

"That was an amazing performance," Rhys told Katie, as he hugged her and pecked gently at her cheek, when he had come through the portrait hole just minutes after.

Never her lips anymore, Katie noticed. The short gentle pecks on the lips were few now, and it started bothering Katie. With boldness carried over from winning the Ravenclaw match, she folded her hands neatly and asked Rhys abruptly, "Rhys, why don't you ever kiss me?"

He stared in stunned silence for a second, and then let her go. This isn't good, Katie told herself.

"This..." Rhys started, "isn't going to work."

***

"You've got to be kidding! The Canons never stood a chance against Montrose!" said ten-year -old Katie Bell as she was walking through the door way to the den in her friend Oliver's house.

"Never say never, Bell," the twelve-year old boy, home on summer holiday from his first year at Hogwarts, passing through the door right after her replied.

"Montrose is at the top of the league!" Katie said, turning around to face the boy, with a skeptic look on her lightly freckled face.

"Yeah, and-" Oliver began.

"And the Canons are in last place," Katie turned and resumed her walking.

"And it usually all comes down to the Seeker," Oliver reasoned, following her once more.

"Yeah..." she murmured absently. She was staring at something on the Wood's mantel peice over the fireplace.

"What's that?" she asked pointing.

Oliver followed her gaze to the hearth. "What, Floo Powder?"

"No," Katie shook her head and took several steps closer to the mantel. "That," she said, holding out a small hand and hovering over an hour-glass looking object filled with crystal blue sands, and constellations engraved in the gold rimming it's bases.

"Oh," Oliver said, standing behind her, now tall enough to see over the top of her head. "It's a Time Turner."

She looked up at him over her shoulder. "What's it do?"

"Sends you around in time," he said.

Katie moved her hands to take it off its place on the shelf, next to the enchanted clock. Oliver reached his hand to stop her. "We really shouldn't play around with it," he said in a cautious voice.

Katie dropped her hands to her sides and gave a mournful look to her best friend. "Oh come on, I'm bored! Besides! Anything interesting enough is always off-limits."

He stared at her for a moment, considering her words. He couldn't have Katie bored. He didn't want her to leave again like last summer. She was still staring mournfully up at him with great puppy eyes, and a pouted, quivering lower lip.

He gave in. "Fine," he sighed and reached up and took the Time Turner from its place. "But we can only look at it."

He held the dazzling blue hour-glass out to her so she could get a better look. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, examining every constellation engraved on its rim and reading the Latin words written around the bases circumference, that she could not decipher.

Oliver's own eyes narrowed while watching Katie appreciate the family heir loom that he never really thought twice about until now, when Katie took an interest in it.

He heard a gasp behind him, and his insides froze and Katie jumped back from him as they both turned to see Mrs. Wood glowering at her son.

"Oliver Alexander Wood! What do you think you are doing?!"

Katie glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye, while twisting her hands in knots behind her back. He had on a face of pure terror. She muttered to him, "I didn't know you had a middle name."

As Mrs. Wood bounded up to him, he replied, "I don't," while taking a step back.

His mother swiftly relieved him of the Time Turner, and turned just as swiftly back to him. "What did you think you were doing with this? You know very well that you aren't to be playing with these types of things! What if you had dropped it? It's been in this family for ages! What if you had turned it? You would mess up the chronology of life! We'd never be able to find you! This is very, very dangerous, Oliver! What do you have to say for yourself?"

Oliver had gone from pale to bright red from embarrassment of being yelled at in front of his friend. He opened his mouth to speak, but Katie beat him to it.

"It's my fault," she said, her jaw set.

Both Wood's whipped their head's in the young girl's direction. They were both sporting expressions of surprise, but for different reasons.

"I beg your pardon?" Mrs. Wood asked.

"It's my fault," she said again. "I made him do it. He didn't want to, but I made him. I'm the one to blame."

Mrs. Wood stared at the girl with the captivating green eyes. How did this girl make her son disobey her like that? She had no wand, no magic, hadn't even stepped onto the grounds of Hogwarts yet. So how did she do that? Mrs. Wood looked at the girl who was staring back at her, not even registering Oliver's expression toward her; he was staring at Katie with his mouth hanging open. Mrs. Wood knew the answer to her own questions.

"Oh," she said. "I see. Well, then. Oliver?"

Her son snapped out his stare. "Yeah?"

Mrs. Wood fought the smirk, and decided to be firm. "I think it's time for you to walk Miss Katie here home now. You've had enough for today."

The children nodded somberly and slowly walked out through the backyard. They were quiet most of the way to Katie's grandparents house. When the house came into view from behind the trees, Oliver spoke.

"You really didn't need to do that, you know," he said, hands in his pockets.

Katie had her arms crossed as she looked up at him. "Do what?"

"Take the blame. It wasn't your fault, really," he said in an earnest tone.

"Was too" she replied.

Oliver grinned at her intransigence. "How?"

"You never would have done it if I hadn't forced you into it," she said, honestly, stopping on the first of the white stairs to the back porch, facing him. Now they were even in height.

"Well, you know, thanks anyway," he said, reaching behind her head and gently tugging on her ponytail.

"Hey!" she said, and flew up the stairs, stopping with one hand on the doorknob, the other at the back of her head protecting her hair. "What are friends for?"

*sings* Happy Birthday to meeeeeeee!