Chapter 6
"I'll see you guys later." Katie waved and disappeared behind the portrait. Oliver grumbled subconsciously in his seat by the window.
"Hungry
there Oliver?" Fred raised an eyebrow at his friend.
"Eh?"
"Eh? Eh? Is that all you Scots ever say? Eh? But what was with the deathly growl anyways?"
"What? Oh, nothing, hungry like you said." Fred rolled his eyes, not believing Oliver's poor attempt at an excuse in the least. What clued him even more than the lame excuse was the fact that Oliver had no retribution at Fred for making fun of his accent, something that normally sent him dangerously close to over the edge.
"Let's get going then, I don't want to be late and have McGonagall chew us out." Alicia got up, donned her cloak and started for the portrait hole. Her friends, all except Oliver, grumbled and followed. When they were almost out the portrait hole, George noticed that Oliver was still sitting in his chair, supposedly thinking.
"Oy, Oliver! We're leaving now!" Oliver looked up, startled.
"Oh, sorry, I umm zoned out." George rolled his eyes and the five of them started downstairs. They reached the courtyard to find almost all of Hogwarts waiting for carriages. After a half an hour of looking, they finally managed to find an empty one.
"Finally!" Angelina sighed exasperatedly and they were all about to climb in when Oliver gave them a strange look. He looked at Angelina's hand, entangled with Fred's, and at Alicia's arm, twisted around George's. He chuckled to himself and decided, for the sake of remaining emotionally unscarred, that he would use the day to get some quality "me time" as Katie loved to call it.
"I'll see you guys later. How about 5 at the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer?" They gave him confused looks, but nodded and clambered into their carriage. It was practically impossible for anyone to convince Oliver Wood to do something when he had already decided against it, save for one person; Katie. So they felt that since Katie wasn't there, it would be better for everyone and would waste less energy if they didn't argue with him. Oliver walked off and, after another half hour of searching, found another empty carriage. He sighed, relieved, when he climbing into it; he hadn't run into Katie and Cedric.
Hogsmeade
"So you've got one older brother?"
"Yeah, Paddy. He's great; one of my best friends. He's starting with Pudlemere United this season." Katie smiled proudly and willed herself not to blush as Cedric took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers.
"I bet he's preparing to have his little sister join him there in two years?" Katie blushed openly at this and rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, you know you'll get scouted. It's practically common knowledge." Katie giggled rather girlishly, much to her disgust.
"I don't think so, but even if I do who's to say I would accept?"
"Ohh, Katie Bell turning down Pudlemere United? Now that's an intriguing idea." Cedric flashed Katie a charming smile.
"What about you? Any siblings?"
"Yeah, baby sister, a year old." Cedric smiled proudly as he pulled out his wallet and showed Katie a picture of a baby girl crawling around on a pink blanket.
"Oh! She's adorable! What's her name?"
"Elizabeth, but we call her Beth." Cedric smiled again as he put away his wallet and pulled Katie into Honeydukes. "Now what's your favorite candy?"
"Hmm ... well I'm afraid of Ice Mice because Fred charmed a huge box of them to chase me." Cedric laughed heartily and Katie swatted his arm. "It's not funny! It was dark and I couldn't see what they were!"
Cedric shook his head smiling and said, "So Ice Mice are off the list. What else?"
Katie glanced around and, leaning closer to Cedric, whispered, "If you promise not to tell anyone – I get enough shit about my muggle stuff as it is – I'm in love with Zero bars!" Cedric gave Katie a very confused look. "Here I'll show you." She pulled him out of Honeydukes and started walking, quite rapidly, to the opposite end of Hogsmeade.
"Where are we going?"
"I found this tiny little shop on the outskirts that sells muggle candy. You have got to try a Zero bar!"
Zonko's Joke Shop
"What was with Oliver this morning?" Fred asked his twin over the shelf of Exploding Snap cards he was looking at. Angelina and Alicia had gone to Madame Malkins (A/N: sry, dunno the right spelling and too much of a lazy ass to go look it up) and to avoid any increased amounts of estrogen rubbing off on them, Fred and George had decided to go to Zonko's.
"I don't know ... I reckon he's still pissed about the whole Katie Cedric thing. He's always hated Diggory before this. It's probably just intensified all of those old Quidditch rivalries now that Cedric's got Kaite." George furrowed his brow thoughtfully and continued to look through some wet-start fireworks.
"Well, he doesn't have Katie yet ... especially not if we have anything to say about it." Fred smiled mischievously at a box of Exploding Snap cards before picking them up.
"Oh, no. I'm not getting Alicia, or any of them for that matter, pissed at me. We'll just have to deal with Oliver ... Katie would kill us if she found us messing with her love life." Fred nodded in agreement; knowing Katie, avoiding meddling in her love life also meant avoiding castration.
"Wonder how long it will be before they have a row?"
"I give it two weeks." George picked up several fireworks and started towards the counter.
"I think he's got more control than that ... I say three weeks." Fred chose a few more items and started after his brother.
"OK, you're on."
Outside Honeydukes
Oliver looked down at his half-eaten Cockroach Cluster, disgusted, and threw it in a nearby trashcan. This day had been a complete waste; between avoiding the love birds (Fred, George, Angelina, and Oliver) and avoiding Katie and Cedric (he refused to acknowledge that it was even possible for them to be 'love birds'), he hadn't had time to do anything. He shook his head; why did it bother him so much that Katie was out there having fun with Cedric?
She's had boyfriends before ... I've never wanted to murder one of them so badly though, he thought. He had tried to convince himself that all the extra hatred was due to the fact that he and Cedric were Quidditch rivals, but he knew that it had nothing to do with Cedric. Katie had changed a lot over the summer ... and apparently so had Oliver. He knew that even if Cedric were the most deserving person of Katie in the entire world he would still be having this same conversation with himself.
The Outskirts of Hogsmeade
"This is fabulous!" Cedric said through a mouth of candy. Katie laughed and wiped a bit of caramel off his chin with her finger, and then licked it off her own finger.
"I told you! It's my favorite!"
"But I don't get it." Cedric swallowed and continued. "Your Mum and Dad are both pure-bloods, how do you get exposed to all this muggle stuff?"
"Well my Mum's a Squib, so my grandparents sent her to a muggle school and she lived with some distant, muggle relatives for a good part of her life. So she might as well be a muggle; she knows everything a normal muggle would know, but still lives and knows about the wizarding world." Katie smiled proudly, thinking of her mother. "So I've got the best of both worlds; muggle culture and all this other good stuff," Katie held up her unfinished Zero bar, "and I can still do magic. What about you? Your parents pure-blood?" Cedric hid a smile; his parents were not purebloods, but he knew someone like Katie wasn't going to take the "Malfoy way" and begrudge him for it. He knew she would look at him no differently; hell her best friend, Oliver Wood, wasn't a pureblood.
"Nah, Mum's muggle-born and my Dad's got wizarding on both sides of his family, but he's not a pure-blood by any means." He smiled as Katie wrapped her arm around his. "So what do you want to do now?"
"Well we've hit almost every store except ... oh! Let's go to that new Quidditch shop! Please?!" Cedric laughed at Katie's pleading expression; as if he was honestly going to deny her requests to go into a Quidditch store.
"Of course! I've been dying to go there, but I wasn't sure if it would be rude to ask." He grinned sheepishly as Katie rolled her eyes.
"You've got to remember that my dad and my brother are absolutely obsessed with the game, besides all my friends. So I'm about as obsessed with Quidditch as is healthy." They both laughed and Cedric couldn't help thinking how perfectly they fit together. Besides the obvious personality complements, her slender hands seemed to fit perfectly into his larger, callused ones.
The Three Broomsticks
"Oy! Oliver!" Oliver smiled as Fred waved him over, but his smiled soon faded as he noticed that sitting at the table, along with Fred, George, Angelina, and Alicia were Katie and Cedric Diggory. He almost stopped, but for appearance's sake put on a fake smile and strode over.
"Hullo!" He sat down across from Katie, but avoided her eyes. "How was your day?"
"Besides the shrieks that nearly busted our ear drums in the bookstore, okay." Seeing Oliver's confused expression, Fred decided to elaborate. "The girls found a new book ... something they'd been waiting for. Bloody hell, I don't know what it was. All I know is that they saw it, shrieked louder than you'd think possible, and then bought about seven copies." Oliver, Fred, and George laughed heartily; their laughter was increased even more when Angelina and Alicia looked up from their conversation with Katie and gave the three of them confused expressions.
The multiple conversations continued, but Oliver found himself removed for the moment. He glanced at Katie; apparently all that searching the girls had done for the perfect outfit had paid off. She was wearing a pair of tight, but modest, black pants, and a red, cashmere sweater. Accompanied by a trench coat and black boots, she definitely stood out, something Oliver knew Katie would be immensely happy about. He watched her for a little longer, but forced himself to look away as Katie and Cedric shared a fond glance.
Outside the Gryffindor Common Room
"Thanks, Cedric. I had a really brilliant time. I hope the twins and Oliver didn't give you too much trouble the other day." Katie looked at the floor and smiled sheepishly.
"Well I can't say I wasn't surprised, but ..." Cedric put a finger under Katie's chin, pulling her up to look at him, and stepped closer, "you were definitely worth it." He smiled and, with his finger still under Katie's chin, pulled her face closer to his. He leant down and kissed her gently, cupping her face in one hand and pressing the other to her hip. Katie smiled against his lips and slid her arms around his shoulders. She pulled back after a moment, smiling. She gave him another quick kiss and then turned around, said the password, and disappeared behind the portrait.
A/N: Well how did you all like it?? Please, don't flame me for making Katie and Cedric get together ... it has to happen for the plot to work, just trust me! Anywho ... I hope I was as humorous in this chappie as I have been in the past, but with all this Arthurian Legends stuff (for English) invading my mind, I dunno how well that worked out. You tell me! The next chapter is all planned out and all I have to do is write it down ... so it should be up before the end of the week. Please review!!
Debby: Mucho thanko, I will go back and fix those errors ... eventually, haha. I'm so flattered that you think my humor is similar to the amazing JK's!! Merci beaucoup!
Skybluepink: Haha, yes. I'm assuming you liked those lines? Anything amusing in this chapter?
