Remind Me To Breathe

By Christelle

Legal Disclaimer: Life is good, but I'm still not J.K. Rowling. Go figure; some people have all the luck.

Author's Note: Oooh! Oooh! This chapter is dedicated to my loffly friend, NITA, a.k.a. Averna!! She's written some beautiful Kel/Dom (*cheer*) fics in the Tamora Pierce section so check 'em out. And—er—this chapter was supposed to be her Christmas present... oooh! I know. I'm one of those people who celebrate Christmas really late in the year, because then they can take advantage of all the after-Christmas sales to buy gifts for people. Much love and hugs, Nita! Many thanks to all who reviewed!

Author's Note B: Aha! Dad finally fixed the HTML converter on MS Word. I lost it when I had to reinstall my operating system... ::blush:: Enjoy!

Chapter Five

"Building a Mystery"

You're so beautiful

With an edge and charm

And so careful when I'm

In your arms.

~Sarah McLachlan, "Building a Mystery"

The sun.

It is a gift and a curse. Woken by its luster, an optimist would have been grateful and remembered its essentiality to life.

But I'm not an optimist. At least, not in the morning. So I cursed its name and the imbecile who'd opened the curtains this early. I rolled over, slammed a pillow over my eyes, and tried to get back to sleep.

"Katie, wake up."

Someone pried my fingers off of the pillow and removed it. I moaned piteously and opened my eyes, but only to glare at the pillow-stealer, who happened to be Alicia.

"You," I growled. "You, you... waker-upper! On a Sunday!"

She sat down on the edge of my bed and set the pillow in her lap. "Can't help it," she said. "It's not my fault."

Angelina waltzed out of the bathroom, toweling her hair dry. "That's right," she said. "Blame Oliver."

I nearly jumped, then chided myself. How paranoid was I? They couldn't know.

"Why?" I said, to cover for my shock. "Have we got practice?"

"When don't we?" Angelina said, just as the door banged open and the Weasley twins swaggered in.

"What are you guys doing up here?" asked Alicia incredulously. "Guys aren't allowed!"

"The staircase!" said Ange, indignant. "How'd you get past that?"

"Ah, but that would be telling," said George.

"Trade secrets, ladies," said Fred. "What? What's this? Miss Bell, still abed?"

"Time to get up!" George yelled merrily, waving a Dungbomb threateningly under my nose. Feeling that this was the best incentive in the history of incentives, I leapt up, glared at everyone present, and stalked into the bathroom.

After a five-minute shower, I dressed and used a spell to dry my hair. Then I opened the door. Steam billowed out.

"My God," said Lish. "It must have been like a sauna in there."

"What's a sauna?" asked Fred.

"It's a really, really hot place," said Alicia wearily.

I ignored them and went to find an elastic for my hair. There was a knock on the door, and glancing at the Weasleys, Ange called out, "Who is it?"

The door opened without an answer and Wood stalked in, fully clad in Quidditch robes and carrying his broomstick.

"Oh, damn," said Alicia. "Are we late?"

"No," said Wood shortly, closing the door. "Have you been downstairs at all this morning?"

"No," said George. "Fred and I spent the night."

"Shut up, Weasley," said Angelina. "Fred and George must have gone through the common room. Katie and Lish and I have been upstairs all morning."

"Actually, we haven't," said Fred. "Shall we tell them, Forge?"

"I thought I was Gred!" said George.

"Oh, are you? I thought I was Gred," said Fred. "Well, shall we tell them, Gred?"

"I think I like Forge better," said George. "You can be Gred."

"I'm going to slap both of you if we don't get some answers in the next thirty seconds," said Ange calmly.

"Hmm," said George, "I think we'd better tell them, Gred."

"You're right. Oliver probably knows, anyhow," said Fred. "How else would he have gotten up here?"

"We flew, ladies," said George, turning to the rest of us. "There's an open window on the dormitory landing."

"So no one's been downstairs," Wood said. He sat down heavily on Alicia's bed.

"What's so interesting downstairs?" I asked, finally locating a hair tie and pulling my hair back.

"The hourglasses," said Wood hollowly.

"What about them?"

"We're down a hundred and fifty points."

I blinked.

"What?" said Ange. "How can... I don't—"

"I've been to see McGonagall," Wood continued. "I thought it was a mistake. But it's not."

"Wait," said Fred, shaking his head. "Who lost a hundred and fifty points?"

"Harry. And some other first-years."

"Harry?"

"They were out after curfew, according to McGonagall. She's still furious."

It felt as if someone had died. We sat in silence for a while, slumped and dejected, and more than a little resentful.

*

I half-expected Wood to cancel Quidditch practice that day, but he didn't.

"Points are points," he said matter-of-factly as we all trooped out to the locker rooms. "But Quidditch is Quidditch."

"Really?" said Fred.

"I always thought Quidditch was unicorn snot, myself," said George.

"Me, too," said Fred.

Sometimes Fred and George are difficult to understand.

We sort of ignored Harry all through practice. Wood silently handed him the Snitch once we were out on the field, but the interaction stopped there. I was irritated with him, just as the others were, but twinges of sympathy kept disrupting my annoyance. He was just a kid, after all.

But I didn't say anything to him or anyone else about it, and when Wood finally called quits I flew back to the changing rooms with Angelina and Alicia without a backward glance.

"I want to get that Charms homework done before lunch," said Alicia. I could tell she was trying to lighten the atmosphere. "Who's with me?"

"I am," I said. "Come on, Ange. It won't take that long."

"Oh, all right," grumbled Angelina, slamming her locker door.

"Shall we drag the twins along?" I asked as we sat down on benches to wait for the others.

"They'll be distracting," said Alicia, sighing.

"Exactly," Angelina said happily. "Fred! George!"

The Weasleys sauntered out of the shower room, their hair still tousled from the shower.

"Yes?" said George.

"How may we be of service, ladies?" said Fred.

"We're going up to the common room to do our Charms homework before lunch, and you're coming," said Ange.

"Oh," said Fred.

"Right, then," said George. "But we mustn't leave without saying goodbye to Oliver."

Once again, I had a twinge of apprehension, but again I slapped it down again. Thinking that everyone had read the latest issue of Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Oliver Wood and Katie Bell was merely a side-effect of my overly-suspicious mind.

So we milled over to the shower room, having heard the squeak of a shower being turned off. Rounding the corner, we came upon Wood, insufficiently clad with a towel wrapped around his waist. Harry was standing across from him. From the look on Wood's face, Harry'd just said something as utterly preposterous as, "I think they should replace Dumbledore with Quirrell, don't you?"

"Resign?" Wood thundered, water dripping off of the ends of his hair. "What good'll that do? How are we supposed to get any points back if we can't win at Quidditch?"

Harry looked so unhappy that for a moment I forgot about the points. I opened my mouth to say something in his defense, but then I remembered, and I shut it again.

Wood shook his head and went back into the shower. Without looking at us, Harry slunk out of the shower room like a dog with his tail between his legs. We heard the locker room door close quietly.

"We're going upstairs, Oliver," called Angelina after a minute. "See you later."

"Practice tomorrow at five," was his only reply. I wanted to stay and wait for him, but I knew that it would look bad if I did. So I left with the others, resigned to my fate.

*

We plodded up to Gryffindor Tower. I think Fred and George were purposely lagging to delay the time they had to actually sit down and do work. No, wait—I know they were. Alicia kept shooting menacing glares at them, but they didn't notice.

When at last we clambered through the portrait hole one by one, we found the common room deserted save for a small boy who looked up when we came through and quickly looked back down again.

While we were waiting for Fred and George to climb through the portrait hole, Alicia and I exchanged exasperated glances, until a wet splat startled us out of our irritation. We looked down to see a toad sitting morosely on Alicia's shoe. I reached down and picked it up.

"Trevor!" said the small boy, running over. "That's my toad!"

He rushed away with the toad in tow.

"I know that kid," said Fred, as George tripped comically on his way through the portrait hole. "That's Neville Longbottom. The one who keeps losing the toad."

"Yeah," said George. "Wasn't he one of those first-years stupid enough to get caught out last night?"

"I feel sorry for them," I said decisively, setting my Charms book on a table.

"Me, too," said Angelina. "Still—all those points..."

"Fred, if we'd lost a hundred and fifty points in our first year, do you reckon these fine if mercurial ladies would have sympathized?" George asked.

"No, George, I do not," said Fred. "They would have said, 'Serves you right.' Not very fair, I don't think."

"There's a whole other rulebook for you two," said Lish.

*

An hour later, my Charms essay was finished and I could hear the Hallelujah Chorus in my head. I stretched out my cramped hand and leaned back in my chair. With a self-satisfied sigh, I announced that I was going downstairs, and ignored the resentful glares I was getting from Fred, George, Angelina, and Alicia.

I took my time walking down the flight of stairs. It was too early for lunch, and it was no fun to eat alone anyhow. I tried to think where Wood would be—he could still be out on the pitch or in the locker rooms, for all I knew. Wood has been known to devote entire days to practicing, planning, or reading up on Quidditch.

So I started the long walk out across the field, but all for naught—when I finally arrived, the locker room was entirely deserted, even the captain's "office," if it could be called as such. A more accurate name would probably have been "closet," but there was room for a chair and a desk.

But it was unoccupied, so I trudged back up to the castle. Maybe he'd gone to the library... I changed trajectories and nodded to Madam Pince as I meandered in.

Not seeing him anywhere, I sighed unhappily and started to leave again.

"Going so soon?" Madam Pince inquired.

Surprised, I glanced around. You can usually count on Madam Pince to nod, provided you do first, or even to respond to a "hello," but it's pretty rare that she actually initiates a conversation.

"Just looking for a friend," I said. "You haven't seen Oliver Wood around, have you?"

"You just missed him," she answered, dusting off a thick tome. "Said he was going up to his common room to get some studying done."

"Thanks," I said, heart sinking.

I could have screamed out loud as I traipsed back up to Gryffindor tower. Honestly! He was probably going up because he thought he'd find me there, which was a presumptuous and proud thought but likely to be accurate all the same.

I was about to give the Fat Lady the password when she swung open and (speak of the devil!) Wood came out, looking just as frustrated as I felt.

His face lit up as the portrait drifted shut after him. "I've been looking for you," he said.

"You've been looking for me?" I said. "I went all over looking for you. I went outside again to the pitch and then to the library, where, by a rare phenomenon, Pince actually spoke to me, and not just to say hands off the books."

Wood laughed as we fell into step together. "She's in a good mood today because hardly any books are checked out. She's got nearly a full library."

"That would make her happy," I said. "Where are we going, anyhow?"

"Doesn't matter," Wood said simply, slipping his arm through mine. "Doesn't ever matter."