A/N : And here I am, back from the universe of the Order of the Phoenix – and I've finally hit 100 reviews! Yay! Thanks muchly to everyone who liked my story! =) Well, I don't have very much to say about this chapter – only that our favourite panda-loving buffoons have gotten to work and Katie is about to be severely mortified...*evil laugh* R&R!

Chapter Eleven : Going Once, Going Twice...

"Where are they?" I muttered to myself, poking my head into the library and still not finding a sign of my friends. Right when you need them, they just never to seem to turn up. In fact, I hadn't seen anyone for the past fifteen minutes that I had been walking around, which was really quite unusual for a Sunday night in Hogwarts.

"Katie!" a familiar voice suddenly called, and I spun around in relief to see George jogging up to me.

"Where on earth have you been? Look, I need to borrow – hey!" George had taken a firm hold on my shoulder and begun steering me in the direction of some God-forsaken place I didn't even want to think about. I mean, if George Weasley was dragging me some place, this couldn't be very good.

"George – oy, George, let me – where are we – what the –"

"Look, Katie," George finally said urgently, stopping and turning me around so I could face him, "something terrible's happened. We need to get to the Great Hall straight away, Professor Dumbledore's orders. There's been an attack, and – just – come on."

At first, I thought he was pulling some kind of joke on me – until I looked into his eyes and saw the urgency there.

"It's…it's not Lene?" I whispered, horrified.

For once, George appeared to be at a loss for words. "Come on," he finally said in a strangled sort of voice.

A few minutes later, I stumbled through the doors of the Great Hall with George tumbling to a halt beside me, expecting the worse.

I got the shock of my life.

Because for some reason, Lene looked perfectly healthy and was currently standing on top of the Gryffindor table, together with Alicia, Angelina, Fred, and a mountain of Butterbeer.

All eyes in the hall landed upon me the second I walked in, and the only thing my brain seemed able to process was, "Fire bad. Tree pretty."

That tends to happen when I experience an information overload.

"Sonorus!" I heard Lene distinctly say, pointing her wand at her throat; she now said, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, presenting our entertainment for tonight – Katie Bell!"

Is my name Katie Bell?

I think I'd better owl home and check.

You know, just in case there was some sort of birth certificate-swapping crisis.

Slowly, I turned to face George, who was currently looking extremely cheerful. "Alright, so I'd say you've got about three seconds to tell me how Lene managed to make such a miraculous recovery," I snarled.

"Oh, just joking, thought I'd give you a scare," he said quickly.

"Try again, Weasley."

George gulped. "Er...magic?" he shrugged, and quickly ran off to join the others on the Gryffindor table, which had now apparently become some sort of stage – it even had a little podium on it.

"Miss Bell, if you would kindly proceed to step onto the stage?" Lene said graciously, flashing me one of her gorgeous smiles. I swear I saw a couple of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff boys sit up straighter after seeing that demonstration.

For some reason, everyone was looking at me in a strange sort of way – like they all knew something I didn't. They all had these huge grins on their faces...especially the boys.

"Katie? Are you with us?" Angelina now said, her voice magically magnified. A few people sniggered and I knew I was blushing like...like a cooked lobster.

You know, this is happening too much to be considered a coincidence; note to self : ask mom whether there is lobster blood in our family.

"Wingardium leviosa!" Fred said, swishing and flicking his wand, and I was immediately lifted off my feet and plopped onto the Gryffindor table on my bum.

Right, I know this isn't the most flattering pose for a girl to be in, but why is everyone looking at me like I'm about to be auctioned off?

Why?

Why??

Then I caught sight of the gavel on the podium and thought, "Ah, feck."

"Fellow students," Alicia, who apparently was acting as auctioneer for the night, announced, "The bidding will start at five Galleons."

"And remember," Angelina chimed in with a twinkle in her eye, "this auction is not limited to the boys only – young Miss Bell here would gladly spend the night with one of you ladies as well –"

"WHAT?" I bellowed when I finally realized what was going on. "You can't just auction me off like this! I'm off!"

I tried getting off the table, but Fred and George quickly yelled, "Colloportus!" and I collided with an invisible barrier.

I will curse you into oblivion.

"Looks like she's got spirit! Six Galleons!" I heard a voice suddenly yell, and I spun around in shock – if I hadn't been mistaken, the bidder's voice had sounded remarkably like Draco Malfoy's. Sure enough, he gave me a roguish grin and winked the second I made eye contact with him. You are four years my junior, and you're WINKING at me?

I'M BLIND!

"Seven Galleons!" a Ravenclaw sixth-year yelled.

Alicia's face broke into a huge grin. "Seven Galleons for Miss Katie Bell! Do I hear eight Galleons?  Eight Galleons?"

"Eight Galleons!"

"Brilliant, do I hear ten? Ten Galleons for this fine young lady's company and a dinner sponsored by The Three Broomsticks – yes, you, young Slytherin! Ten Galleons! Do I have eleven? Katie, come on now, show them what you can do!"

I had begun to shake my head in protest, but George said, "Tarantallegra!" and I immediately began doing some sort of dance that seemed to be a cross between a cha cha and ballet – my feet didn't seem to be able to make up their mind which. Everyone laughed and Lee Jordan called, "Fifteen Galleons for the lady!"

Fred winked at Lee and finally said, "Finite incantatem!" Before I could even begin to catch my breath, however, he waved his wand again and I immediately found myself starting to strut across the Gryffindor table as if I was on a catwalk, complete with hair-flipping and hip-sashaying.

The catcalls began; I could see Oliver (with his cheeks back to normal again) laughing his sorry arse off as three Hufflepuffs and a Slytherin yelled, "Sixteen Galleons!" at the same time.

Right, Mr Wood, it's easy for you to laugh – you aren't stuck up here parading around like a drunken house-elf that's had one too many Butterbeers. In heels!

What is the point of all this, anyway? What are they hoping to achieve, other than completely mortifying me in front of the entire school?

"Now join us as Adelene Sullivan tells you the story of a little Irish girl named Katie Leigh Bell..." Alicia said seductively, and I felt like strangling her as I struck a pose and gave everyone a huge smile.

"Once upon a time," Lene began, "in the heart of Dublin, Ireland, there lived a very happy couple by the name of Andrew and Leighanne Bell. Andrew and Leighanne were the proud – well, maybe not so proud – parents of three beautiful children : Karé, Katie and Aderyn Bell."

"Eighteen!"

"Twenty!"

"When she was merely four years of age, Katie could already recite the Ten Commandments without a problem – although she was having slight bladder complications at the time. Er, but they're gone now!" Lene quickly added to the relief of the Hogwarts boys, judging by the sighs that were heard.

When you are posing like a hyperactive donkey with the entire school watching you while your bladder's life story is being revealed to the world by your very best friend, life officially sucks.

"An avid fan of romance novels, just like yours truly, Katie has always said that her most embarrassing moment happened when she and her well-endowed self accidentally flashed her grandfather."

Nonononono.

"In fact, she was so well-endowed by the age of eleven that everyone in our neighbourhood teased her of having implants."

One thousand pair of wide eyes were now staring at my – assets, which I was currently thrusting out thanks to Fred's spell. I noticed Oliver staring at me as well, the smile gone off his face now but his eyes following my every move, er, thrust; and all of a sudden I felt a hot blush creep up my neck. Oh, God, did they have to make me do this right in front of him?

No, wait…why do I even care?

At around this time, I gave a particularly vulgar thrust, which sent a roar of bids through the hall.

Despite the extreme mortification I was currently experiencing, for a split second I was really quite pleased that I was currently going for fifty-eight Galleons. By now, I wasn't sure whether the bidders even had the money they were offering Alicia.

"Of course, Andrew Bell did not approve of all these rumours, which meant that the boy next door got –"

"Lene, we're getting just a tad too graphic!" Angelina, who also knew the story of the cute boy next door, quickly cut in. Good move, Angie, not many people want to hear about botched circumcisions.

"I'm having her tonight!" a loud voice suddenly called, and I cringed at his phrasing as he continued, "Eighty Galleons!"

There was a stunned silence for a few seconds as everyone turned to regard the speaker : Marcus Flint.

Please excuse me while I projectile vomit.

"Do you even have that sort of money, Flint?" Alicia asked brusquely into the silence.

None of us like him – and you can't blame us, because he looks like a constipated toad.

"I have about half of it, but I can pay in installments," he said, grin growing ever wider, probably knowing that no one would dream of spending more than eighty Galleons on me.

How overpriced can you get??

"We don't accept installments, you –"

"Hush!"

Fred seemed to realize I as still prancing up and down the table; he quickly waved his wand and muttered, "Negate," and I slumped onto the table, out of breath.

"Well – er – do I hear more than eighty Galleons? Anyone?" Alicia continued weakly.

There was some muttering to be heard, but no one spoke up. I noticed Lene and Angelina shooting desperate looks at a certain Oliver Fransisco Wood, who was doing a very good job of ignoring them.

"Okay…well…I guess we can sort of…let Katie go to Flint for eighty Galleons…" Alicia was looking uncertain now, picking up the gavel.

Oh how the Slytherins were loving this.

Lene and Angelina looked at each other, panicking slightly.

Alicia shot me an apologetic glance as I fumed silently, watching her. "Last chance, people," she called out, knowing as well as I did that her efforts were highly futile.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

If I'm going to have a romantic session mano al mano with Marcus Flint, I'd better begin preparing myself. Step one : Blind self. Step two : Destroy all sense of hearing. Step three –

"AAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

My eyes flew open to see Oliver's left cheek swelling at an alarming rate, now making him look like a lopsided panda. It appeared that George had marched right over to him and…oh. Kicked him in the face.

"What the heck do you want?!" Oliver yelled. "I've just gotten out of the hospital wing, and I wasn't looking forward to going back there in less than a day!"

"Why aren't you bidding for Katesies?" George roared.

"I only have three Galleons with me, I spent the rest of my money on a new broomstick servicing kit!"

BANG.

Alicia had slammed down the gavel.

"Sold to Oliver Wood for three Galleons!" she declared, slightly on the frantic side.

"What the –" Marcus swore.

Oliver just looked around at everyone in bewilderment, clutching his cheek. He now not only looked like a lopsided panda, but a lopsided panda that was chewing on a Quaffle.

I was about to get up and check how Oliver's cheek was when Marcus suddenly came running for Oliver, who was still innocently seated at his spot at the table. "Oliver, look out!" Angelina shouted.

There was a huge bang and a purple flash; people were yelling and when the smoke cleared, I realized I had pulled out my wand.

Did I mention my best subject is Transfiguration?

"Negate," I said crisply, pointing my wand at the invisible barrier that had blocked me from getting off the table. I climbed off carefully and immediately pulled Oliver to his feet.

"Katie, what –"

"We're going back to the common room. I've got something that should help the swelling go down."

Both of us walked out of the Great Hall, leaving everyone to stare at Marcus Flint – the amazing piece of toast.

"That vicious, cold-blooded piece of toast," I muttered angrily, dabbing more of Madam Mungo's Reducing Cream onto Oliver's cheek. It was late, and we were the only ones left in the Gryffindor common room. Everyone else had avoided us and gone straight to bed, very wisely I might add, except for Fred – one of my looks immediately sent him off packing. "Merlin knows what they were even trying to do…"

Oliver winced as I touched a tender spot.

"Yes, well, I sort of got the gist of what they were doing, but I couldn't do anything to make them change their minds," he said helplessly.

I stopped mid-dab and sat back to look at him properly, astonished.

"See…they had gotten it into their heads that I would bid for you, and then…well, you know, we'd have dinner and they wanted you to maybe…er, fall for me," he finished. He wouldn't even look at me; his eyes seemed to find the scarlet carpet extremely interesting.

I felt a bubble of anger rise in me, but it quickly evaporated when Oliver finally looked at me.

"Look, thanks for this…whatever this is," he said, gesturing towards the bottle of cream I held in my hand. "We should get to bed now or we'll never be able to get up tomorrow…"

I was about to agree with him but something inside me stopped me from saying anything. I felt like I had to do something – anything, to stop him looking so sad about…well, whatever it was that wasn't making him smile…because I would give anything to see him smile his beautiful smile again…

No.

"Uh, right," I said, jumping up from the sofa, suddenly feeling extremely flustered. "I'll…see you tomorrow, then, at practice."

I didn't wait for a reply.

When I got back to the dormitory, bottle of cream in hand, I knew they were all pretending to be asleep.

I didn't care.

I didn't care that I hadn't changed out of my robes, either.

I didn't even care that I hadn't finished any of my schoolwork that was due to be passed up tomorrow.

And you know what made things worse?

The only thing I did care about, as I tried to fall asleep, was Oliver Wood.

I woke up the next morning, extremely disgruntled, to find three pairs of staring eyes looking at me apprehensively.

"You three," I said coldly, turned over and tried to go back to sleep again.

"Oh, Katie, we're sorry, we really didn't mean for anything bad to happen, honest –"

"Oh, hush up, Lish! Katie, come on, we know you're awake…if you don't turn around and face us how on earth are we supposed to apologize to you?"

Hmmm. Angie had a good point there.

"Oh, fine," I grunted, sitting up to look blearily at all three of them – Alicia looking thoroughly miserable, Angelina looking frustrated and Lene looking very guilty.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Angelina said, rolling her eyes. "Are you done with your immensely immature tantrum yet? Once you've decided you're not angry at any one of us, we can think about apologizing to you."

Hold on, have I missed something?

"Look, I didn't ask for that – auction, or whatever it was last night; so if I'm not mistaken, you three should be the ones apologizing to me. And I did not throw a tantrum, of all things – that Flint deserved to be turned into wheat."

Angelina looked like she was about to curse at me, but one look at my face probably stopped her in her tracks.

"Alright, alright, I suppose we should have asked you before pulling that stunt," she admitted. It is really quite cool watching her apologize to me, because she hardly apologizes to anybody.

"But, you know, Katie, if you knew what we were up to, you would never have let us do it in the first place!" Lene now said.

"You see, that's the point I'm trying to make here – you do NOT auction off your best friend to people like Marcus Flint! And what was that all about, anyway? I mean, I've never tried auctioning any of you off but nooo, you just had to pull something like that on me with Fred and George no less and why are all of you looking at me like that?"

Alicia cleared her throat nervously

"Well, this was actually Lene's idea, because, er, according to Lene – this being her idea after all, Oliver being so much in love with you – according to Lene, of course, he would, well, bid for you and we – meaning Lene – would immediately let him have you for an all-night talking session – this, of course, also thought of by Lene, and Lene thought maybe…just maybe you two would…well, get together…thanks to Lene, of course, since this was all Lene's idea…Would you like me to further clarify Lene's idea on behalf of Lene if you didn't understand the fact that this was Lene's idea meaning this was all Lene's idea?"

Sorry, Lish, but the only thing I managed to pick up was sort of Lenelenelenelenelene.

"Have you gone mad? About Lene?" I asked Alicia bluntly.

Alicia looked at me with this sort of deer-caught-in-the-headlights look until Lene finally cut in, "Yes, for Merlin's sake, it was my idea, but we wouldn't even have to have done all this if it weren't for you and your immense stubborn streak!"

For once, she caught me off my guard.

"What?"

"You just completely refuse to see that you like Oliver, don't you? Oh, please forgive us for trying to make our two friends happy," Lene said sarcastically, all traces of guiltiness now gone.

This cannot be happening to me.

"No, it's just you people who can't seem to see the truth : that I don't like Oliver that way. He makes a great friend, that's fine, and he's a great Quidditch captain to have as well – but that's all he is to me! The day I fall in love with Oliver Wood is the day he gives up Quidditch for the rest of his life. Meaning never. Got me?"

I meant every word I said, I know I did – but there was a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as I said this.

"Katie, Oliver is handsome, funny and an all around nice guy. He may not be Albus Dumbledore in the brains department, but he's a great catch – don't you see how lucky you are to have someone like Oliver who's interested in you? Most girls would kill to go out with him –"

"Well, I'm not most girls. So will you please stop insisting that the both of us are – are soulmates or whatever it is you think?"

Alicia, Angelina and Lene exchanged glances, and they looked down at their laps as one.

"Fine," Angelina said softly. "Fine."

They got up without looking at me and began to head toward the door.

"No, hold on, don't get mad at me –" I began. This was all going wrong – shouldn't I be the one who's angry, after they embarrassed me in front of the entire school? After they made me use magic on a fellow student? After they made me start feeling something different towards Oliver?

"We're not mad at you, Katie," Alicia said, turning back to look at me for a second. "I suggest you hurry, breakfast will be over in fifteen minutes."

They're lying.

They're mad at me, I know they are.

Everything is going wrong…and it's all Oliver's fault. I know it is.

So that's it. I am going to get myself some Oliver withdrawal – no more Oliver for me.

No more Oliver.

None at all.

A/N : Yikes, this chapter didn't turn out how I wanted it to after all. I mean, Oliver withdrawal? Maybe it was due to me watching Buffy at the time – you know, dark, depressing, wanting to be dead, yada yada yada…gosh I love Buffy, it's so optimistic. =) Well, this should at least buy me a couple more chapters. And it actually kinda works with what I wanted to happen, so that's cool. But since Buffy has just come back on, I'll just quickly apologize if you now hate me. Flame if you want…but please let me know what you think!