Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Katie Bell has been alone for the last four years. After the wedding of her best friend, she heads to the Leaky Cauldron. After she gets drunk, will she make some mistakes that she'll regret later? Oliver Wood/Katie Bell
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the stereo set up for my entertainment as I write to my heart's content.
Chapter Fourteen: The Daily Gossip
I put the finishing touches of the second baby's room. A dark hue of blue on the ceiling and the walls a lighter shade of robin's egg blue. I pushed a wisp of born hair out of the way of my eyes, only for it to come back in my face again. I waved my wand at the walls and muttered a simple drying spell at the walls. That way, the smell of paint wouldn't be forever in my nostrils whenever I walked into this room. I crindged slightly as I felt a pain hit my stomach. "Stop that." I said to my stomach.
It had been a week since I had gone to see Oliver, and he hadn't owled, and the WWN wasn't giving anymore information except for coverage of Puddlemere United's Quidditch matches. I clean out the paintbrush out with another simple spell and placed it next to the paint bucket, looking satisfactorily at the walls. I went over to the window, arms crossed, staring blankly out. It has started snowing five days ago, and a blanket of white had begun covering the ground. This was the latest that snow had ever come that I could remember. Winter was my favorite season, ever since I was a child, I loved the idea of a person that could give presents to every child in the world in one night. Even if someone tried to convince me Santa wasn't real, I would always just laugh in their face and wondered why they tried so hard to get rid of someone so kind and good.
"A Knut for your thoughts?" A voice piped up from the doorframe. I turned to see Susan standing, leaning against the door.
"Save your money." I said, with a grin. "You know I'll just tell you anyways."
I had told Susan, Hermione, Erica and Ginny that I had told Oliver of his children when they came to my house for lunch the day after the fact. They all had been sympathetic and supportive.
Susan came up next to me, staring out the window as well. "What are you doing here?" I asked her. "It's only..." I checked my watch. "8:30. Won't Kevin get mad at you?"
Susan smiled slyly. "I took the day off. I thought that you could use the company."
I smiled watery at Susan. I really liked the way she always put others before herself. "Have you had breakfast? I can make you some." I said, moving to the doorway.
"That would be wonderful." Susan said, following me.
We walked down the stairs in silence. Susan didn't speak until we reached the kitchen. "Any word yet?" She asked me as we entered the kitchen and I muttered the Brightening Charm.
"None." I shortly. I moved around the kitchen, taking out some eggs from the refrigerator and a bowl out of a cupboard. I cracked one of the eggs and started mixing it with a fork.
"I can't believe him!" Susan exclaimed angrily, sitting down at the table in the middle of the kitchen. "You'd think he'd be a little more supportive of his eight-month pregnant girlfriend..."
"He's got every right." I said quietly firm. "I kept the biggest secret of his life from him. I wouldn't blame him if he was angry at me for a long, long time." I stared to fry the eggs, using a spatula to turn them over when they got hot. Soon they went onto two waiting plates. I moved to grab some bread pieces and stuck them in the toaster, and turned back to Susan.
Susan stared intensely at me for about a minute while I moved around the kitchen, fixing breakfast. "You've changed." She said evenly. "Eight months ago, I met you, and you've changed so much."
I laughed sadly. "I guess it's the hormones, eh?" Then I drew a deep breath and turned my face into a serious expression. "Things change. But things are always changing. I have changed from eight months ago, and in eight months I'll look back at this moment and think how much I've grown from now." I said, waving my wand at two pieces of toast that had popped up and they flew onto the plates. I grabbed two forks and placed one on each plate. I gave one plate to Susan and I sat down across from her and began to eat.
"You're so wise too." Susan said with a mischievous grin, through a mouthful of toast.
"Close your mouth when you're eating." I scolded her automatically.
"You're going to be such a great mother." Susan said, swallowing and wiping her mouth.
The fire in the fireplace suddenly roared green and Hermione jumped out of the flames, looking panicked. "Mya!" Susan exclaimed. "What are you..."
"Did you see the Daily Prophet this morning?" Hermione interrupted Susan abruptly, locking her dark brown eyes with mine.
"No." I replied, surprised at her white face. "I stopped getting it when my allergies got too bad... Mya? What's wrong?"
"This." Hermione said, pulling out a copy of the Daily Prophet from her robes and laying it face up in front of me. I gasped as I laid eyes on a picture of me and Oliver in our Hogwarts days, conversing before a Quidditch Match. It was a picture that Colin Creevy had shot and it had made it into the yearbook. I hurried to read the article below it.
KEEPER, OLIVER WOOD PREPARES FOR FATHERHOOD!!
By Rita Skeeter
Oliver Wood, 23, the injured Keeper for Britain's world renowned Quidditch team, Puddlemere United, has been thrown for the biggest loop of is life. He's going to be a father.
Katherine Bell, 23, is going to be the mother, an employee of the Ministry of Magic (Magical Catastrophes Division) According to this reporter's sources Bell only recently disclosed to Wood of his soon-to-be offspring. "She didn't want to tell him." Says an anonymous friend of Bell's. "Personally, I don't think she would have ever told him."
Bell's plan to keep his children a secret was shattered when Wood was injured during his world tour and was transported back to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Bell supposedly ran to Wood's side in true romantic-novel style. It was there that Wood discovered that Bell was eight-months pregnant. "Oliver got very mad from what I heard." The same friend stated. "He told her that he didn't want to see her again."
Bell and Wood both refused comment.
My mouth was wide and I had no idea it was open when I finished reading the article. "Who..." I whispered. "How..."
"I don't know." Hermione said honestly. "But it was all people were talking about this morning at my office and I just wanted to make sure you knew before..."
"Ms. Bell?"
We all turned to the fire place and saw an unfamiliar head stick its way into the fire. "Hello there!" He said brightly. "How do you feel about bearing Oliver's children?"
"What the..." I asked astonished. I reached for my wand and waved it at the fireplace, and the fire was put out, the reporter's face gone.
"That happened." Hermione finished, still staring at the fireplace. She looked back at me. "You might want to consider keeping the fire out all day, and for a while."
"What is this about 'an anonymous friend'?" I asked Hermione. "Who is that?"
"I don't know." Hermione said truthfully. "But I've talked to Ginny. She's pulling a couple strings at the Daily Prophet to get someone to tell who Rita Skeeter has been talking a lot to lately. It's hard for her though. A lot of reporters use many different kinds of magic to cover who they talked to. Me, I'm on my way to the Improper Use of Magic's Office. I've let this go too long." She Apperated with a crack leaving me bewildered and confused.
"What has she left too long?" I asked to Susan, who was looking just as astonished as I was. Wait a minute, I wasn't astonished. Furious and murderous were the adjectives I was looking for.
"I don't know." Susan said, shaking her head. "But I've never seen Hermione so determined...and that's saying a lot."
"Daily Prophet." I scoffed. I threw the paper across the room. "The Daily Gossip is more like it. Does the Wizarding World have nothing else to do but read about my personal life?!"
*+*
By about mid-day I had received exactly 157 letters. Almost every single one was from teenage girls from around the world, telling me how much they hated me for staining Oliver Wood's good name, or telling me that I was a slut that only slept with Oliver for his money. I stopped reading them and just throwing them away after letter number 12. It was a pure waste of parchment really. They were cutting down trees and using them to tell me how much they hated me. Great use of their time, really. I must congratulate them on their stupidity. I personally would have found some better adjectives in my thesaurus before sending an atrocious letter with no imagination.
Hermione had popped by to tell me that Rita Skeeter had been arrested for being an illegal Animagus. Turns out dearest Rita had the ability to turn into a beetle and used that ability to eavesdrop on people for her stories. Hermione had found out when she was 14 and kept the secret if only to get Rita's help on several occasions and to stop writing horrible stories about Harry. But this showed her that even a beetle can't change her spots, and she had her Animagus power taken away and was sent to Azkaban. I was too tired to celebrate. I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. This was too much for me to handle. First being pregnant is enough stress, add the father to my children is angry at me, and so are countless teenage girls, plus I have become front-page news. Not very good. Not good at all.
I deserve a vacation, I really do. I dare anyone to say otherwise.
If they did, I'd hex their arse into oblivion.
A loud popping noise alerted me to another person entering my house. I looked down the stairs, as I was upstairs, trying to clean my room at the moment, and I saw Ginny and Erica in the hall. Ginny was looking livid beyond words, and she had Erica's upper arm in a vice like grip. Erica looked ashen faced and wincing due to the pain that she was in from Ginny's hold on her. "Katie?" Ginny called out. "Where are you?"
"I'm right here." I said, hurrying down the stairs. "What's wrong, Gin?"
"Ask her." Ginny spat, pushing Erica towards me, who was looking to the floor. "Tell her what you told me, Erica." I had never realized that you could hiss out the name Erica with so much venom, but Ginny managed to do it.
Erica looked up at me, tears in her eyes. I had a sudden bad feeling. "I was the one that talked with Rita Skeeter about you and Oliver." She said, tearfully. "I was the one that told her all those quotes..."
"What?!" I screamed. "Erica, how could you? I...I...HOW?" My eyes went budging and I wanted to strangle her.
"Do you know how hard it is to keep a flat with the pay as a Personal Assistant?" Erica said, her tone suddenly menacing. "Ms. Skeeter offered me a sum that would get me rent for the rest of the year. I wouldn't have to worry about how I was going to eat next week."
"I trusted you!" I yelled. "I trusted you not to go running to the Daily Prophet. My privacy has been violated, I've been getting death threats and the father of my children still hasn't forgiven me!"
"At least you have someone who cares!" Erica screamed. "I have no one!"
"Get out." I said deadly quiet, feeling fire burn behind my eyeballs. I knew that if she didn't get out of my sight soon, I would do something I would definitely regret. "Just get out of my house."
With a dirty look, Erica Apperated out of my house with Ginny left behind, still looking like she was liable to kill someone that came off on her wrong side. "I'm sorry about this, Katie." She told me. "If I had known that Rita was doing that article..."
"You have nothing to be sorry about." I said, looking appalled. "You figured out who got interviewed. I appreciate that."
"No problem." Ginny said stiffly and she pulled out her wand.
I grabbed her arm, figuring what she was going to do. "No Unforgivable Curses on Erica, Ginny, promise me."
Ginny managed a weak smile. "I was thinking about it, but I'll leave her to her guilt. I, for one, will never talk to her again. I'm just off to soothe Hermione's nerves. She's manic about who leaked the story. Did Susan leave?"
"Yeah." I said. "They needed her at the Magical Catastrophes Division, there was a huge commotion at St. Mungos." My voice deceived my face and turned sour.
"Hey." Ginny said, her expression softening. "It'll be okay, I promise."
"Thank you, Gin." I said.
She smiled one last time and Apperated out.
I groaned and walked to the living room and plopped myself down on the couch. This day had to be the worst day of my life. I didn't want to handle it. I wanted to believe in what Ginny said, that everything was going to be okay. But for some reason, I couldn't. It wouldn't grasp in my mind. I felt like someone else was controlling my body, while I was an innocent bystander. Is this what it feels like to be under the Imperious Curse? I wondered. I winced as I felt the pain my abdomen again. I cursed a couple words under my breath before calming myself.
A loud popping sound came from behind me. I sighed. "Ginny, look, I'm fine..." I stood up and turned around and saw, not Ginny, but Oliver. My vocal cords cut out completely.
I hate it when they do that. I really do.
Oliver looked much better then when I had seen him in the hospital. The only reminder that his head had been cracked in two was a faint scar on his forehead and his hair had been cut shorter than I had ever seen it before. My heart nearly stopped when I saw him. "What are you doing here?" I asked quietly.
"I came to see you...to say I'm sorry." Oliver said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "They just released me yesterday and I saw the paper this morning. Kates... What that so-called 'friend' of yours is wrong. I do want to see you again. I would kill myself if I couldn't."
At this, I nearly stopped breathing. "Please don't kill yourself." I pleaded. "Then I'd have to kill myself and that would be a little too Romeo and Juliet for my taste...as much as I love Shakespeare."
Oliver laughed. "You're the only one I know that can do that." He said brightly. But then his expression went serious again. "Kates. I love you."
Tears started in my eyes. Oh for heaven's sake! I was turning into a human water faucet!
"I love you." Oliver repeated, crossing across the living room and taking my hands in his, holding them to his heart. "Nothing will ever make me stop loving you. I will get very, very, very pissed off if you ever do something like this again," I giggled slightly, "But I will always love you." He placed a hand on my stomach, protruding out from my shirt. "I promise to love and care for them always."
A tear pushed its way over my eye and down my cheek. Oliver leaned in and kissed the tear away. Then he moved and pressed his lips to mine. It was sweet and beautiful, the kiss that I had been longing for over five months away from him. I clung to him, hoping I had enough strength to hold myself up, but I knew if he kept kissing me like this, then I wouldn't in a minute or two. I felt his hands move to my face, caressing my cheeks with his rough but gentle hands.
Without warning, I felt a trickle of water between my legs. I pulled away from Oliver quickly, feeling my heart beat faster again. "Kates, what's wrong?" Oliver looked worried at my mental sanity.
I continued to feel the water coming down my legs. I didn't have to go to the bathroom, and I haven't wet myself since I was five...that could only mean...
"Oliver..." I croaked. "I think my water just broke..."
A/N: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! I know you all hate me dearly! *ducks all the rotten fruit that about to be thrown at her* I love you all still, but I know, I know this is worst cliffhanger. Or not... *wiggles eyebrows* I'm off to write Chapter Fifteen!!