Chapter 4
The next morning when Hermione awoke she knocked Oliver's letter to the floor as she turned off her alarm clock. Puzzled she picked it up, wondering why she didn't remember leaving a piece of parchment on top of her alarm clock.
When she glanced at the bottom line her heart began to pound. She settled back into bed whereupon she noticed that Oliver's cat Kimba was curled up with Crookshanks at the foot of her bed. Smiling at how cute they looked she began to read the letter.
Dear Hermione,
The comment I made about Crookshanks was only meant to be a joke but I see now how easily it could be misinterpreted and I apologise for upsetting you. The comment was also rather inaccurate as I am well aware that Crookshanks is by no means a common alley cat.
After making some inquiries during my search for a suitable mate for Kimba I discovered that Crookshanks is indeed the only other half Kneazle cat at Hogwarts. I had intended to ask you if you would object to Kimba bearing him a litter, but it seems that our cats have skipped that particular formality!
I hope that next time we speak we can manage to do so without falling out, especially as we may now have to speak more often if our cats are going to be parents. I apologise (again!) for not saying all of this to you in person, but when I came up to your dorm to do so you were already asleep.
Regards, Oliver.
Hermione dropped the letter with an expression of absolute shock. She was finding it rather hard to believe that Oliver Wood was actually reasonably eloquent. Let alone the fact that he had been in her room while she slept.
She may have had a crush on him for quite a while, but she'd never considered him to be even vaguely intelligent, she'd always assumed that any brain cells he may have had were reserved for Quidditch. Well Quidditch and girl's maybe, but there had been little doubt in her mind that he was just a run of the mill handsome Quidditch jock.
She'd always consoled her self that her crush was merely a physical response to an attractive male and she'd been quite happy to believe that her feelings for him were purely a result of over active teenage hormones. Now however, he'd proven that he was at least intelligent enough to write an eloquent apology and heaven help her she'd always found intelligence attractive.
What in Merlin's name was she going to do? Ignoring her attraction to him had been hard enough when she'd thought him just some dumb Quidditch jock. Now that she knew that he was at least reasonably intelligent it was going to be damn near impossible.
But by far the absolute worst thing about the whole situation was that she knew that there was no way that he would ever return her feelings. Not only was he two years her senior but the boy had his own fan club for Merlin's sake!
She groaned aloud when she realised that would have to talk to him more often now that his cat was most likely pregnant by Crookshanks. At least before this fiasco she'd been able to ignore her crush on him by avoiding him wherever possible.
It wasn't as though it had been difficult either considering that they had little to do with one another. Sure they had Harry and the Weasley's in common and they were both Gryffindors, but other than that they really had no reason to talk.
She was being harsh she knew, because he had always been friendly toward her, but it was easier to pretend that he was an ignorant jerk. If she were honest with herself though she would have to admit that if anything, she had been the ignorant jerk of the two of them.
Every time he'd attempted to talk to her she'd made some excuse to be elsewhere or pretended to be too busy studying to talk. It had been really rather rude of her now that she thought about it, but avoiding contact with him had been the only way she'd known how to deal with her crush. And in spite of her normally polite and friendly nature it still seemed like a pretty good idea.
Yep that was exactly what she was going to do. She'd talk to him only when she absolutely had to and avoid any and all unnecessary conversations with him. And if she came across as a bitch? Well so much the better, at least that way he might start avoiding her too.
Yes, making him want to avoid her was definitely a plan. She was sure now that this was the most sensible course of action. So why did the thought of Oliver avoiding her make her want to cry?
Out on the Quidditch pitch Oliver was similarly preoccupied with his own thoughts of Hermione. Unfortunately for him he wasn't snuggled up in a warm, safe dorm room bed, but out on a cold, wet, Bludger filled Quidditch pitch.
As another cannon ball-like Bludger whistled past his head in his third near miss of the morning Angelina finally lost her temper with her perilously preoccupied captain.
"Oi Oliver! Are you actually trying to get yourself killed or is it just a happy coincidence?" she hollered at him across the pitch.
"You'll have to forgive our dear captain Angel." Fred cut in, bellowing over the buffeting winds. "You see the poor boy's gone and fallen in love."
Oliver glared daggers at him, if looks could kill George figured that his twin would be six feet under right about now.
If Oliver was hoping that that would be the end of it he was sorely disappointed.
"Ooh who's the lucky girl?" Alicia asked as the team converged on their irritated captain.
"She must be pretty special if she caught Oliver's eye" Katie mused. "Half the girls at Hogwarts have been trying to get a date with the elusive Oliver Wood for just about forever."
Oliver didn't answer so his team ploughed on. "So do we know this girl or is she from outside of school?" Harry asked, thoroughly enjoying the chance to embarrass poor Oliver in retaliation for all of the cold, wet Quidditch practices his fanatical captain had subjected them to recently.
"Oh yeah you definitely know her." George grinned.
Harry's stomach dropped. He hoped like hell he didn't mean Ginny. Fred saw Harry's stricken look and hastened to reassure him.
"Don't worry Harry he doesn't mean Gin."
Harry grinned weakly and the poor boy's relief was almost palpable. Fred and George grinned at each other, both pleased that their sister's boyfriend so obviously adored her and eager to see whether Harry would be quite so happy when he found out who they were really referring to.
Angelina however was tired of her boyfriend and his twin's antics.
"So who is it then? Come on Gred don't keep us in suspense!" she demanded excitedly.
Fred took one last look at Oliver's furious expression and grinning like a Cheshire cat said; "Hermione."
Oliver looked ready to kill but poor Harry was utterly confused.
"Sorry Fred could you say that again because I could have sworn that you said Hermione."
"He did say Hermione." George clarified with a grin that was rivalled only by his twin's.
"Yep, our favourite bookworm is the poor unsuspecting soul that's got our beloved captain's head all in a spin." Fred confirmed.
Oliver groaned and put his head in his hands in an effort to hide from the tsunami of questions that his team were undoubtedly going subject him to.
Unsurprisingly it took all of five seconds for one of them to ask the inevitable.
"Wow! Is this true?" Katie questioned him incredulously.
"Of course it's not true." Oliver gritted out through clenched teeth once he could finally bring himself to lift his head from his hands and stop employing the Ostrich method of dealing with his friends.
"We can't even be in the same room without getting into a row. Those two are just bloody barmy." He told her, pointing accusingly at the twins who just beamed as though he had paid them a compliment.
Angelina however was unconvinced, she'd seen the way Oliver had looked at the petite bookworm when she'd saved their hides during a Quidditch match two years before and had been convinced at the time that he was going to kiss her.
"You know sometimes when two people are attracted to each other but don't know how to deal with it they can end up having silly misunderstandings. Are you sure that's not what's happening with you and Hermione?"
"No we just don't get on. And since when did become a bloody psychiatrist?" Oliver demanded, gripping his broom so tightly in his temper that the wood of its shaft was audibly creaking under the pressure of his large, strong hands.
"O.K, O.K no need to get defensive." Angelina said quickly, holding up her hands in surrender, hoping to pacify her furious captain.
"I'm not getting defensive." Oliver insisted angrily.
"I was just trying to…" he trailed off as he caught the poorly hidden grins on his friend's faces.
"Oh bugger the lot of you." He exclaimed angrily.
And with that final comment on the subject he flew off back to the castle without even changing out of his Quidditch kit, leaving his team to stare after him in shock.
Finally George broke them out of their collective reverie.
"You know that's the second day on the trot that he's stormed off after I've tried to gently broach the subject of his crush on Hermione." George said, oblivious to the glares this drew from the team's three chasers.
"Falling in love has apparently turned our captain into a right girly drama queen." Fred agreed, equally oblivious.
"You call that gentle!" Katie bellowed at her boyfriend. "That was about as gentle as a bloody Bludger!"
"We were only trying to help." He replied sheepishly.
"Yeah we were only trying to help." Fred argued.
Then he caught the daggers his own girlfriend was shooting at him with her eyes and decided to shut up before he got himself into anymore trouble, something that his Mother would have considered a miracle.
"Look boys we know you were trying to help. Well that and embarrass poor Oliver, but he's a lot more subtle about these things than you two are." Alicia told them, hoping to head off the argument that was threatening to erupt between her friends.
"It's been ages since he's even shown an interest in a girl and I swear to God I will kick your arse all over this pitch if you screw up his chances with the one girl he might actually like." Angelina warned the twins.
"All right, all right we'll be good." Fred promised.
"Besides, I'm as pleased as you are to see him taking an interest in the opposite sex again, 'cause I was beginning to wonder if he was batting for the other team."
"Not that it would be a problem if Oliver was gay." George quickly amended on his twin's behalf at the angry glares Fred's comment elicited from the girls.
"The problem," Alicia began, glaring pointedly at the twins, "is that he's had so many girls after him simply because of his position on the team."
"Well, that and the fact that he's not exactly hard on the eyes." Katie added.
"Hey!" George protested.
"Well he's not." Angelina agreed.
"Angelina!" Fred exclaimed.
"Oh shut up, it's not like you two have anything to worry about. Just because we think he's good looking doesn't mean we'd contemplate dating him, he's like a big brother to us." Angelina replied.
"Anyway, as I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted," Alicia began, "was that Oliver was put off of dating any of the girls at school because most of them just want to date a Quidditch captain and don't really care what Oliver's like as a person."
"That's pretty crappy." Harry sympathised, knowing exactly what it felt like to have people only want you because of what you were rather than who you were.
"Are you mad? That's like every teenaged boy's fantasy! I don't what the bloody hell he's complaining about." George exclaimed, earning another furious glare from Katie.
"Yes well Oliver is obviously a lot less superficial than you." Katie hissed at him condescendingly.
The arguing going on around Harry faded into the background as what the twins had told him finally began to sink in and he began to panic about how to handle the situation. For one thing he wasn't entirely sure that he liked the idea of Oliver hitting on Hermione, being as over protective of her as he was. For another he didn't like the idea of keeping things from either of his best friends, but was pretty sure that Oliver wouldn't him to let Hermione in on this.
Finally the incessant bickering of his team mates brought Harry back to reality and immediately managed to get on his last nerve.
Eventually though he managed to surprise them all into silence when he shouted: "Could you lot shut up arguing long enough to tell me what I should say to Hermione about this?"