A/N: Wow. I am SO sorry, guys! I'm not going to make excuses, just apologize and thank you for being so patient! You guys are the best. I know you waited forever for this chapter, and I hope you like it. It's a little boring, but it'll get better, I promise. Thanks again. I love each of you!

Misguidedangel: Thank you SO much for your consistent reviews, especially your one in early June reminding me to update; without that review, this chapter wouldn't have been posted.

Chapter 9

Concerts & Quidditch

The band rose to the stage, greeted by a roar from the crowd, and powerful music flowed freely from the speakers. My body relaxed to the melody of the songs and my mind was lost to the meaning of the lyrics. However, I was ever mindful that every time my hips moved to the beat, they ground into Oliver's pelvis, and each time this happened, his body moved closer to mine.

How could I not notice?

The concert was just as astounding as I had expected it to be and afterwards I was in a drunken stupor brought about by the amazingness (yes, I know that is not a word) of the night. I was so high on life that I couldn't walk a straight line, and after buying some Beautiful Abyss memorabilia, I ran outside into the streets of England. My arms were thrown out of the side of me as I spun around in the cold night air, enjoying the essence of the darkness. I had always felt safer in the dark, as if no one could see me there. No one could recognize my faults or blame me for anything I had done wrong because I was all alone. I couldn't see them and they couldn't see me, so they couldn't hurt me.

Okay, so I overanalyze darkness. Give me a break.

The stars spun around me as the circles I made grew in speed, and my eyes closed to stop the world for an instant. However, it was my feet that stopped, not the world, and that brought a horrible aching to my head. The city lights and buildings spun around me as I stumbled blindly down the road. Just as I was about to fall flat on my face, a pair of strong arms caught me around the waist.

"What in heaven's name are you doing?" Oliver questioned.

"I was pretending no one else existed until you showed up and ruined it for me," I spat out.

In truth, I was sort of angry with Oliver for ruining one of my few moments alone. That time to myself was the only time when I could pretend that he didn't exist and my attraction for him didn't exist and the impossibility of it all couldn't haunt me every time I pictured his face. It was certain: Oliver Wood would be my downfall.

"Are you okay?" I felt his breath move closer to my ear with the question and the now familiar, yet no less effective tingle shot up my spine.

"I'm fine," I sighed and turned to face him. "I just have a lot of crap going on lately."

My willpower to hate him is pathetic.

"Anything I could help with?"

His genuine concern was touching, really, but he was the PROBLEM! I wish I could tell him; I wish I could make him see that the only thing he could possibly do for me was GO AWAY – or love me.

It was at this point, when I was staring into Oliver's warm brown eyes after one of the more confusing nights of my life, that I realized the human condition: loneliness. I also realized that my heart craved for that condition to be cured by only one person, and he was standing in front of me.

Every nerve in my body, every inch of my skin, every emotion in my heart yelled at me to tell him - or better yet to show him. My hands ached to grab his face and pull it to my own and my lips begged to finally accomplish what they had desired for weeks now; those weeks had dragged on for what seemed like decades and my soul wanted me to put them to a stop.

But then, of course, that pesky thing called a brain kicked in and I hesitated. What would Oliver think of me if I went through with those things?

In the few seconds it took my brain to process that thought, Oliver had turned away.

"Come on, Kates. We better get back to Hogwarts before McGonagall finds out what we're up to."

"I'm right behind you, Oliver," I sighed. "Always right behind you."

We walked back to school in silence, the quiet of it all was almost echoing in the halls, begging me to say something. But I couldn't. My mind still reeled at the thoughts that had crossed my mind when Oliver held my waist- would I have kissed him? How would he respond? Would I be good at it?

By now, I was pretty sure that I would've kissed him. Like I said earlier, when I'm around Oliver, I lose the privilege of rational thought. My emotions control my mind and he controls my emotions. I was so lost in the moment, in his warm eyes . . . I would've kissed him; I know it. The other two questions, however, I was totally unsure of.

Oliver's response – well, at that point, I wasn't sure if I'd EVER know the answer to that question. Oliver was so unpredictable in the first place, and in this situation, the mystery of everything just added up to be one big enigma. This enigma's name was Oliver Wood.

After the trek up to Gryffindor Tower, the two of us parted ways and I went up to my bed, though the night held little chance of sleep for me.

The next day, we had an early Quidditch practice. My remembrall started beeping at me at 4:45 in the morning, shaking me from this wonderful dream about Disney World. I ignored the incessant noise, however, and tried to drift back off to sleep.

"C'mon, Kate," I heard Alicia yawn. "We need to get ready for practice."

"Just ten more minutes in the Magic Kingdom," I muttered into the pillow before covering my head with the heaven-sent down comforter that covered my bed.

"Nope, Oliver will murder you if you make us miss even two seconds of this practice. Ten minutes and he'll make it slow and painful," Angelina pointed out brightly as she came in through the door of the dormitory.

My reluctance to argue won over me desire to stay in bed, and I forced myself to pull myself to my feet. "I wonder if wizards designed the MAGIC Kingdom," I muttered incoherently as I padded to the bathroom. "Or those silly magic-might-be-real muggles. . ."

All disjointed thoughts left my head as the ice cold water of the shower hit me. A small squeal escaped my lips as all of the nerves in my body woke up immediately. Suddenly, memories of the previous night invaded my mind and I remembered how every nerve in my body reacted when Oliver's body had touched mine. I recalled the burning sensation that had shot up my leg and the lightheadedness that overcame my thought process.

I tried to make my brain stop processing. All of the idiotic ideas concerning Oliver that had passed through it in the past two weeks were driving me mad. Every day, they became more profound, leading to deeper feelings, of which I was not even sure the reality, much less the reciprocation on Oliver's part. I then had to make my mind move onto something else, so I chose another problem I currently had to deal with: my promise to help Cedric.

During my hours of insomnia the night before, I concluded that the best way to find the key would be to go to the source, which would be Aurora. However, befriending a brainless Hufflepuff didn't appeal to me much. Not to stereotype or anything, but Aurora just didn't hit me as the brightest Crayon in the box, if you know what I mean. Therefore, I decided to keep the happiness with the Huffles to a minimum while possible and resort to more James Bond means of helping free Cedric from his love bondage. Whenever the first opportunity presented itself, I planned on following one of the Hufflepuffs up to their dorms, finding out the passwords, lying to the portrait, and finding Aurora's room before searching it thoroughly. Of course, I could have just ASKED Cedric for all of the above information that came before the searching, but that would take the adventure out of it.

I dressed in my scarlet Quidditch robes after my shower, grabbed my broom, and headed out for the Pitch. The air was crisp and the sun was just rising above the treetops of the Dark Forest. Pink clouds dotted the yellow background of the morning, highlighting the Hogwarts' grounds below the endless sky. I kicked off of the ground on my broom and rose to one of the goalposts, where view of the horizon was the best in the early morning. From my seat in the curve of the Quidditch hoop, all of Hogwarts was visible. The castle's skyscraping towers, the clear coverings of the greenhouses, and the vast acres of perfectly green grass stretched out below me. I smiled, contented in my loneliness and in awe of the immeasurable beauty of this place I was lucky enough to call my home.

Of course, though, this didn't last for long.

A bludger flew into the back of my skull faster than I could say the name Fred. Luckily, though, I had plenty of time to yell Fred's name as I fell from the goalpost to the magically softened ground.

"You prat! Bring me my broom!"

"Sorry, Kates," Fred grinned innocently at me. "Thought you were an oversized pixie on the hoop."

Oliver's new Nimbus 2000 sped up to my side and handed me my broom.

"It's a nice view from up there, eh?," he commented.

I seriously felt like saying, "Duh, that's why I'm went," but refrained and just mumbled and incoherent, "Yeah."

Oliver turned back into Quidditch Captain mode and hopped back on his broom. "Okay, Bell, it's time to practice some Quidditch."

My eyes rolled back into my head involuntarily before I grabbed my broom and flew to the middle of the Pitch. There, I met up with a grumpy George who was lazily flying around in a circle and hitting a bludger back and forth with Fred.

"Bad night?" I questioned tentatively.

"Horrible," George sighed.

"The worst," Fred added.

"We didn't even get to check out Snape's entertaining potion ingredients. We had to clean bathrooms," George gave the bludger a particularly violent hit.

"Without magic!" Fred returned the force to the ball.

"I'm sorry, guys," I tried to apologize sincerely, despite my excitement about the night before. "But, you'll never guess what happ-"

My voice was cut off by Oliver's pesky instructions, "Okay, Chasers, we're gonna practice the three new plays we learned Friday. Fred, you protect the chasers, George, you try to knock them down. Harry, release the Snitch when the whistle blows. Got it?"

I had never felt more tired than I did when I walked off that pitch after practice. After about thirty minutes of sleep the night before, the last thing I needed was two bloody hours of quidditch, especially when Oliver was being particularly overbearing. And, just to add onto it all, I remembered that morning I had an entire roll of Parchment due to Professor Snape on Veritaserum that, naturally, I hadn't done; that was a good 3 hours of detention to anticipate. So, when Oliver dismissed us from practice, I flew straight down to the locker rooms and stormed off to the girls' showers.

The warm water that spilled from the faucets was more than welcome as I stepped into the shower. I watched as the mud from my fall earlier in practice ran from my hair and I felt the muscles in my shoulders loosen. The stress slowly drained from my head. Who would've thought heaven would so closely resemble a 4' by 4' cubicle?

I must've stayed in the showers forty-five minutes before deciding that I had to go get ready for classes, but when I did determine that I should abandon my safe haven, I remembered one minorly important detail: my clothes were still in my locker. Suddenly, all of my previous stress rushed back to me and I snatched the towel outside of my shower off of its hook, wrapped it around me, and crept down the hallway of the girls' showers. Figuring everyone else had been smart enough to leave in time to make it to breakfast, I peeked my head around into the locker room to make sure it was empty. Once I was sure that it was, I tightened the towel around my chest and walked over to my locker.

Sure enough, my clothes sat there on the top shelf, forgotten in my rush to the warm water. I pulled them down and turned to go back to the showers and change.

But, of course, there stood possibly the last person I wanted to be in the locker room as I stood there wearing only a towel.

"Oh, shit."