"It slipped your mind???" hissed Oliver. "How could it slip your mind to tell me that…that she was back in England?"
Neither Cedric nor Harry said anything and the silence seemed to further infuriate Oliver. He clenched his fists in anger and Cedric wondered how close Oliver was to punching either himself or Harry.
"What were you thinking? How could you think I wouldn't find out about it? If nothing else, I would have seen her at the final tomorrow. How could you NOT tell me?" Oliver growled, his eyes boring unrelentingly into first Cedric's and then Harry's.
"We didn't want to upset you…" replied Harry calmly.
"I'M NOT UPSET!" Oliver yelled.
Both Harry and Cedric looked quizzically at him. Ignoring them, Olive continued to rant.
"I'm going to have to give some sort of press conference. This is the last f**king thing I need."
"Then why don't you just pretend she isn't here? Just go about your business as usual. You don't even have to talk to her if you don't want to" reasoned Cedric.
Oliver looked at him with an inscrutable expression on his face. Then, without a word, he turned and walked out of the room. Cedric collapsed onto the bed, sighing with relief.
"That went a whole lot better than I thought it would," said Cedric.
Harry, on the other hand, looked slightly worried. Turning to Cedric, he asked, "Do you think there was another man, like that interviewer suggested?"
"I don't know…" Cedric replied, "but I find it hard to believe…Alison loved Oliver. I don't think she ever looked at another man–," he hesitated and then said, 'then again, I didn't think Oliver would ever stop loving Alison…but now–"
"I think Oliver still loves Alison as much as he ever did. That would explain why the only women he ever sleeps with are brunettes. I don't think that's a coincidence…there must have been another man…betrayal is the only thing that could have separated them" said Harry.
The two fell silent and absent mindedly, Harry turned on the WWN to hear the end of a news bulletin.
"In other news, Puddlemere United seeker Brett Lee has been rushed to the hospital after he fell some 63 feet from a broomstick during an exhibition match at Puddlemere. The latest reports from the hospital state that Lee is still in a state of unconsciousness and although all his breaks have been mended, he is to keep off the Quidditch field for at least 3 weeks..."
Harry and Cedric murmured sympathetically, but didn't pay too much attention to the rest of the bulletin. Miles away, Alison sat upright in her chair at this news and made up her mind to go visit Brett as soon as possible.
*****
Oliver couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned in bed, getting increasingly frustrated as time went by. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, he threw off the covers and rolled out of bed. He walked to the windows and groaned to himself. The skies were laden with ominously dark clouds that told of the violent downpour to come. From where he stood at his window, Oliver could see far off flashes of lightning and prayed that they would come no nearer. He breathed in the chilly morning air and reflected on this, his day of reckoning, on how far he had come since Hogwarts. At exactly six o'clock, the WWN came on, in accordance with commands that Oliver had issued a few days earlier. His attention wavered as the news broadcaster told of the trouble in the Americas as the Dark Lord conquered a continent with a smaller magical community. He sympathized with them, and knew that it was only a matter of time before He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named returned to England, his country of origin, but to Oliver at that point in time, the only thing that mattered was the World Cup.
Oliver snapped to attention as the newsreader finished up with the latest on the Quidditch World Cup finals to be held later that day. He listened in dismay as she predicted a violent thunderstorm that night and cautioned the listeners to prepare themselves for more than a little bit of rain. But his dismay turned to apprehension as the newsreader added, almost as an afterthought, that Brett Lee was conscious again. Not having heard the previous bulletin concerning Brett's injury, it took Oliver a few minutes of frantic hunting in the previous day's newspaper to find a small article on the incident. He skimmed through it and all the feelings of betrayal and rage that he had suppressed over the past five years rose to the surface like a blinding cloud. Alison was back, and now Brett was in the news. It was as though his past that he had been running from for the past five years was finally closing in on him.
He thought back to what Cedric had suggested, that he avoid Alison at all costs, and again, felt the same pang of hurt that he had felt in Cedric's room the previous night when he had first heard the suggestion. Whatever he might say to the rest of the world, Oliver could no longer deny to himself that the prospect of seeing Alison again set his pulse racing. He could no longer deny to himself that he wanted, more than anything else, to see her again. But deny it, he must, for the sake of his sanity. But within the reaches of his soul, he knew that he was sanest when he stood side by side with the only woman who had ever touched his heart.
*****
Alison drew in her breath, and then began to sing the last stanza with all the passion that she had felt when she had initially written the song. And for this last stanza, the whole stadium joined in as the music reached its crescendo.
"And they say that a hero can save us,
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I hold onto the wings of the eagles,
And watch as they all fly away.
And they're watching us (watching),
They're WATCHING us, (watching)
As we all fly away…woaaaahh"
Wild clapping ensued as Alison walked off the makeshift stage before the start of the finals of the Quidditch World Cup, having sung her latest single. When she had first stepped onto the stage that night, the crowd had screamed with delight, and now as she left, the crowd was screaming again, but this time with disappointment at the fact that she had sung only one song. Alison didn't smile, though. When she had walked onto the field, she couldn't keep herself from scanning the field, with something akin to hope burning within her being. It took her a minute to realize that the neither the England team nor the Chinese team for that matter, had come onto the field yet. And with that realization came a sinking depression in the pit of her stomach.
She jogged off the field to the resounding applause, not stopping to watch the display by the team mascots. She felt the compelling desire to leave the stadium. Paul had instructed her to come up to the Top Box once she had finished singing, but watching the match was the last thing that Alison wanted to do. On a sudden impulse, she decided that she would visit Brett. After all, she had, through various sources, found out the name of the hospital where Brett was admitted. She also knew that he would be there, as he had been given strict instructions not to move from his bed for at least two weeks.
*****
