A/N : Hey, everyone, thank you so much for the positive feedback. I'm going to be home alone for most of the day which means noone's gonna be here nagging at me to GET OFF THE COMPUTER FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL WITH YOUR LIFE!!! Ahem. Well. I'll just get on with the chapter for now. Bon – er – however you say read in Italian? P.S. Please note that I can't be damned with disclaimers, so if anyone wants to take legal action against me I will say for the last time that IT'S NOT BLOODY MINE, please refer to chapters one and two for your beautiful disclaimers. OK? OK. Oh, and by the way, a little warning for the sake of any Asian readers out there : there is a reference to an Asian girl Katie dislikes in this chapter, she is called a bitch etc. etc. etc., and I have received several complaints about this from people who have taken offense. So PLEASE, people, no offense is meant by this. Note : I am Malaysian myself! I've edited that bit slightly for minimum damage, but this is just a safety net. Thanks for your cooperation!

Chapter Three : A Bona Fide Hunk

It was a Tuesday.

Thank God.

I was spending my free period lazing around in the common room, nursing my sore muscles from the previous day's Quidditch practice.

Hadn't Oliver ever heard of easing yourself back into the game?

Apparently not.

I was just grateful that I wouldn't have to tutor him that night, and as I lay there, sprawled out on a scarlet and gold carpet in a corner of the room, I silently thanked my guardian angels for that fact.

I mean, really.

I keep asking myself how anyone can be so magnificently thick.

Maybe it's because of all the Quidditch he plays. All the Quidditch he reads, eats, talks and sleeps. I'm surprised Quidditch doesn't flow out of his ears. One day his head will probably explode with all the Quidditch in there.

Wow.

QUIDDITCH KILLS.

Freaky.

But you're not going to see me stop playing Quidditch. It's one of those things you can keep doing three hundred times a day for all of your life and never get sick of.

Not that I've tried it, but you get the picture.

I started as Lene lay herself down next to me with a tired sigh. She groaned and rolled herself over onto her stomach lazily.

"Ice monkey," she mumbled sleepily.

"Huh?" I asked. Lene was prone to talking about utter nonsense, but she didn't look very much like she was in a joking mood. Maybe she had meant to say something like 'diced porky'.

Although when I thought about it, that didn't make sense. either.

"What she said. Ice monkey," another voice explained, and a shadow fell over me as Angelina walked up to us.

I didn't even want to ask.

"How was class?" I asked Angelina, as Lene looked like she had fallen asleep.

"Lene got kept back by Minervie because she turned Cordelia Mey into an ice monkey. Minervie demanded that she turn Cordy Mey back before she left class, but Oliver got in the way and he got turned into an ice monkey as well. Lenie kept trying to turn them back but nothing worked, until Minervie finally realized they were both beginning to melt and transfigured them back herself. Cordy was mighty pissed, I can tell you that," Angelina replied, rolling her eyes.

"That bitch...what did she do to Lene?"

"Nearly cursed Lene with one of those family curses Orientals are brought up with...Oliver stepped in to ensure World War Three didn't start right then and there."

Wow.

Sometimes Lene's life was more exciting than a soap opera.

Cordelia Mey is Lene's arch enemy. They HATE each other. Especially since Cordy has had a crush on George since our first year. She's from Malaysia, this country in Asia where witches and wizards are extremely revengeful if you piss them off in the slightest. Different families bring up their kids with different extremely powerful family curses, so woe betide you if you ever get in the way of a Malaysian witch. Cordy is a complete bitch, and neither I nor Angelina can stand her.

Right then, though, I was concentrating on the fact that Oliver Wood had been turned into an ice monkey.

For some reason, I found that thought extremely amusing.

"Hey, Katie, move over. I have got to lie down for a while. I'm sore to the bone," Angelina ordered and nudged me with her foot.

I moved over slightly to allow room for Angie on the carpet.

"So, practice got to you too, huh? You'd better rest up fast because we've got practice again tomorrow," I told her.

"I'd rather die," Angelina declared melodramatically and flung herself down next to me.

The both of us lay there in silence as Lene slept on.

"Why is she so tired, anyway?" I finally said to Angelina.

"She was having a nightmare last night. I don't know what about. She woke me up with all her screaming, but I didn't want to wake you up, as well," Angelina responded in a hushed voice.

I turned slightly to look at Lene.

"You know, I didn't notice this before, but she doesn't look very well, does she?" I said slowly. "In fact, she's looked like this ever since our trip to America. Look at her – she's far too thin to be healthy. Maybe we should talk to her."

For some reason, I hadn't noticed it before, but Lene was much, MUCH thinner than she had been in our sixth year. If she got a bit thinner, she would be skin and bones.

And what had happened to her hair?

As far as I remembered, her auburn hair had always been thick and lustrous, flowing down her back in waves and tangles that I had always been jealous of.

Now it seemed that her hair was much thinner than usual, and now that I thought about it, I seemed to recall a lot of reddish-brown hair in the shower recently.

What was going on?

The evening was cool as I strolled along the lake's edge by myself.

Fred and George had volunteered to come out and walk with me, but I had declined their offer politely (or at least I hoped so). All the calamity brought on by the first few days of school re-ensuing had gotten to me, and this walk alone was helping me relax.

The silence was shattered suddenly by a girl's laugh, followed by another deeper one.

I looked up from the ground to see a couple's silhouette chasing each other in the distance. I blushed and quickly looked away.

As long as they didn't start making out then and there, I was happy.

"Geroff me! Cedric!" the girl squealed as the boy finally tackled her, and I was clued in to who the happy couple were.

Ahhh.

Alicia and Cedric.

I watched with a twisted curiosity as they rolled around on the grass a few times before finally coming to a laughing stop. I could make out the outline of Cedric playing with Alicia's pale-blond hair as the two quietened down, still lying in the grass together.

Gosh.

It was like a scene out of one of my novels.

How utterly sweet!

In a way, I felt sort of guilty that I was intruding on what looked like a 'private moment', but it wasn't like they owned the place. Besides, I could feel another feeling inside of me – was it loneliness?

Merlin.

Maybe it was.

"Katie," a voice suddenly said quietly, and I felt a hand rest on my shoulder.

Startled, I spun around, giving a small scream.

It was Oliver.

"You idiot!" I gasped. "You scared the life out of me!"

My God, was he trying to kill me? I had probably lost ten years in that one second.

"Sorry," he replied, his hazel-brown eyes crinkling as he smiled.

Something happened to my heart at that moment – it began to beat faster. Because for some reason, I had thought about what amazing eyes Oliver had.

"Um...yeah, alright," I said, suddenly feeling very strange all over.

A laugh from the direction of Alicia and Cedric made Oliver look up at them and then back to me.

"Shall we give the happy couple a little privacy, then?" he asked, giving me that Look of his.

I jabbed him on the shoulder and elbowed my way past him back to the school building, hoping that he wouldn't notice the furious blush that had appeared on my cheeks.

Why on earth was I blushing?!

Maybe I was mutating into a cooked lobster.

That would explain it.

"Hey, wait for me, Katie," the ice monkey called as he caught up with me.

Hopefully, the evening was too dark for him to notice my lobster transformation.

"Are you wearing makeup?" Oliver asked curiously.

No such luck.

"What?" I asked him distractedly, pretending not to know what he was talking about and speeding up my steps to the front door.

"You're all red. My mom gets all red when she puts on makeup," he responded with all the innocence of a little boy.

Maybe he had a little boy's brain, too.

Which would explain the extreme stupidity of He-Hu-Woz-Da-Supah-Iyce-Monkay.

YES.

The door.

I was saved!

The doors magically opened as Oliver and I neared it, and I sped up my steps even more, practically running up the marble stairs to get to the Fat Lady's portrait.

"Katie?" I could hear Oliver yelling.

I looked back over my shoulder for one second to look back at Oliver – big mistake – and managed to somehow lose my footing and tripped, rolling down the stairs painfully.

Before I could go very far, though, I felt two warm arms cradle me, stopping me from rolling and injuring myself any further.

Once again, Oliver was there to watch me completely humiliate myself.

It must have been a sodding curse.

"Katie? Are you alright?" Oliver asked, with this really concerned look on his face.

"Yes, yes, I'm good," I replied, still a little disorientated and dizzy from my fall.

Oliver must have known I was lying, because slowly, he began to walk up the stairs carefully, cradling me in his arms as if I was something as delicate as his mother's china – which, I supposed, ought to be pretty delicate.

At first, I was about to protest, but all of a sudden a voice in my head just snapped to me, "SHUT. UP."

So I did.

And for that minute or two that he carried me, I just felt so safe and warm and loved like I had never felt before, or at least not for a very, very long time.

I sighed contentedly and snuggled into his chest further.

Which is when I realized what I was doing.

I WAS SNUGGLING INTO OLIVER WOOD'S CHEST?

Oh, eeeeeewwwwwwww.

Yelping, I moved so suddenly that I managed to make Oliver lose his balance, and the both of us fell with two startled cries onto the floor.

By some miracle, I had made us both fall down just after he had gotten off the flight of stairs - I hated to think what would have happened if we'd both still been on them.

I mean, OW.

That didn't mean that I was in a considerable amount of pain, though.

You tend to be in a considerable amount of pain when you have just rolled down an entire flight of stairs only to be sat on by an extremely heavy boy who is a head taller than you.

This meant that I was currently smacking Oliver wherever I could reach him, yelling, "GEROFF ME! GEROFF ME YOU FAT, UNFASHIONABLE BUM!!!"

Oliver sprang off me as fast as he could (this was probably because I was smacking his bum) and started mumbling a thousand and one apologies.

"Just help me get up!" I snapped.

I admit I wasn't being very nice to him, but I wasn't exactly in the best of moods.

Oliver, however, didn't even respond to my nastiness. He just offered me his hand to help me up, and then offered to take me to the Hospital Wing, and took me there, anyway, even when I refused.

He did hesitate for just a second when I warned him, "I won't be able to come to practice tomorrow," but miracle of miracles, he just gave me a brief smile and said, "Then we're going to miss our best Chaser."

This really shocked me to the core, because I knew how important Quidditch was to Oliver.

However, before I could even thank him for his kindness, Madam Pomfrey shooed him away, saying that I needed my rest, and that he could expect me back at practice in a few days.

As I lay there in the Hospital Wing that night, my thoughts kept flying back to Oliver.

How nice he had been to me, and what a gentleman it turned out he could be.

And I had also noticed something when he was carrying me up the stairs : Oliver had muscles.

From what I could feel, I was certain he had at least a four-pack hidden inside those robes of his. And it wasn't even like they were those hugely and grossly disfigured muscles you see in bodybuilding competitions, because he was all slender-like and...well, very attractive.

Somehow, I had only noticed this after more than six years of us schooling together and being friends.

Lying there that night, I realized with a shock what every girl around me had seen, but what I had been completely blind to until that night : Oliver Wood was a hunk.

A total, complete, one hundred percent bona fide hunk.

That I was going to be tutoring for the entire year.

OH MY GOD.

A/N : Okay, I hope this chappie wasn't too short. Well, I know that compared to most stories it's pretty long, but I guess it's kinda short compared to the other chapters. Sooo sorry if you're not happy with that. But whether you loved it or hated it, please review and tell me how I'm doing (even flames are welcome)! Also, props to Yannie for her "I'd rather die!" line. Okay, that's it from me for now. Hope you liked the chapter! =) Au revoir!