Katie and Michelle had spent most of the day away from the farm house and in the heart of southern France's finest shopping establishment. Every now and then they would stop and look at a couple of things they thought to be nice, and Michelle had to drag her cousin away from the window of a Quidditch shop, in order for them to continue on with their little shopping journey.
"You are really obssesed with Quidditch aren't you? I've never seen anyone just stand in front of a shop." Michelle opened the door to an old icecream shop, and allowed Katie to go in first and pick out a booth for them. She settled down across from her cousin, "So did you play at Hogwarts? Quidditch, I mean."
Katie nodded, then dove into telling the story of how she got her start at playing Quidditch. Michelle thought it was a brilliant story, and laughed at every single appropriate moment.
As the two girls continued to sit there and talk while eating their icecream, some sort of commotion started up outside the shop. They were able to ignore it for a while, until the people from the icecream shop started to mutter about who it was that was causing such a chaotic scene.
"That's the new Puddlemere United keeper. Well, he's only the reserve keeper, but he's supposed to be much better than Cash, and according to my daughter he's terribly easy on the eyes," the woman running the shop was saying to a man trying to place an order.
At hearing this, Michelle perked up, "Want to take a look?" Katie grinned and nodded.
Quickly, each girls wolfed down their icecream, collected their things, and hurried outside into the thick crowd, most of them young women waiting to catch a glimpse of the new seeker for one of the top Quidditch teams in the eastern conference. Michelle and Katie had been able to push their way through the crowd easily, until reaching the very front where they would be able to see this supposedly handsome new keeper.
"Oh! He is a cutie!" Michelle whistled in approval.
Katie; however, stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the young man and a bright blush krept up on her cheeks. Her blush deepened several shades when she realized that he was just as transfixed on her as she was on him.
The day before, Oliver Wood had been a normal former Hogwarts student, just barely surviving in the real world, and trying to make it one day at a time without the aid of his parents.
And now, Oliver Wood was popular, not even for being an unbeatable keeper, but for being a handsome reserve keeper. Though the practice season hadn't yet started for Puddlemere United, there were agents looking to market Oliver, and make tons of galleons for not only themselves and Oliver, but for the team as well.
Or so they said.
Oliver was seated in a black carraige trimmed in silver, and lead by thestrals, or at least, he assumed, being that he couldn't really see what was leading the carriage. The two people who were seated across from him was the star chaser of Puddlemere United, Crystal Fletcher, from somewhere in America, and a man seeking to be Oliver's agent, Christopher Knowels.
"You are definately are marketable young man," Knowels was saying, "So what I'm proposing is that you do a little bit of advertisment for the Dorfman's Quidditch Apparel. It's a great photo opportunity for you and I'm sure you'll cause quite an uproar, especially amongst the young ladies." Knowels grinned as Crystal rolled her eyes.
Shifting in his seat slightly, Oliver felt a little uneasy, "But I haven't even played yet, and no one outside of Hogwarts has ever seen me play." Knowels frowned at him while Crystal remained politely uninterested in what the young man was saying. "So how, could I possibly make an effect on anything if I'm just a reserve keeper?"
"You have got to lot to learn, kid," Crystal said rolling her eyes and smirking at the newest member to her team. "No one cares if you can play well during the off season, and furthermore, you wouldn't have even made it to the team if you didn't have any skill worth talking about."
Oliver fell silent and resolved by nodding.
The rest of the carraige ride was a silent one, until they reached the plaza where Oliver would be making his first professional appearance. He wasn't quite sure if he was comfortable with this or not, but he would soon be finding out.
The moment he stepped out of the carraige, he was surrounded. Smiling politely, and trying to get through, he tried to part the rather noisy crowd of girls, and make his way to Dorfman's, but the task was a bit harder than he thought it would be. Crystal and Knowels didn't make the situation any easier. They would stop him every five seconds to allow a photo to be taken.
Five minutes had passes and Oliver still had been unable to get to the shop, but someone in the crowds had captured his eye, and for a moment he was frozen, as was the girl staring at him.
Crystal noticed where Oliver's gaze was, and rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, "You're already adopting the habits of celeberity. Oogling at the fans is a no no, Oliver, now let's be off." She tugged his arm quite forcefully and pulled him toward the shop, but Oliver pulled out of her grasp and headed toward Katie.
"Katie what are you doing here?" Of all the places he would expect to see Katie, France definately wasn't one of those places. It seemed that things had been terribly cliched lately, not that Oliver was complaining or anything.
The blonde was simply going to try to ignore him, but the girl she was obviously with, pushed her forward, grinning like an idiot. She muttered something to Katie, causing Katie to turn a bit pink, but she finally spoke. "Uh-- Hey, Oliver. Fancy meeting you here, huh?"
Why was it that Katie was the queen of lamesness? Uh-- Hey, Oliver. Fancy meeting you here, huh? How more stupid could she have possibly been, not to mention the fact that her cousin was right there watching her make an idiot of herself! And if things could become even more worse, she was several shades of pink!
UGH! Why was life so cruel to Katie! What did she ever do to deserve complete and utter humiliation?
Michelle pushed me forward again, tempting Katie to answer Oliver's question as to why she was there. Katie bit her lower lip, "I was just shopping with my cousin. Michelle, this Oliver, Oliver, Michelle."
"Nice to meet you," Michelle extended a hand which Oliver accepted, but his gaze was fixed on Katie.
Ever since their little-- uhm-- Ever since their last encounter, Katie had been purposefully avoiding anything to do with Oliver Wood, which had been relatively easy since he had practically been doing the very same thing, but now it was inevitable to avoid him, being that he was about one yard infront of her.
"Well, uhm, nice to see you," Oliver supplied weakly, mentally bashing himself for such a lame greeting.
"Oi! Oliver! Can we continue this little reunion of your's inside the shop?" Crystal called, her hands on her hips, an annoyed expression on her face. "I do prefer cool air to the sun, like any normal person."
Oliver turned to Crystal and waved her off, before turning back to Katie and Michelle, "Care to join me for a while?"
While Katie quickly shook her head, finding it the perfect opportunity to escape, Michelle piped up with a, "Yes! We'd love to, wouldn't we dear cousin?" Grabbing Katie's arm, Michelle followed behind Oliver through the crowd of somewhat silenced girls, and in to Dorfman's Quidditch Apparel.
Crystal watched as Oliver laughed with the two girls, mainly the little blonde one. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, tuning out whatever it was Knowels was saying. It was probably something about making Oliver Wood the new teen idol for Quidditch.
The little blonde girl, oh sorry, Katie, for the first hour or so of her and her cousin being with Oliver, would try to take any opportunity possible to escape from the boy, but now she was buckling down and joking with him. Oliver had explained to Knowles that Katie had been on the house team at Hogwarts, that she was a relatively good chaser and good friend of his. There was only one thing that Crystal could properly conclude from all of this.
She did not like Katie Bell.
Dear Oliver
I had a wonderful time in the plaza with you. Michelle had fun as well. If you want to meet up again sometime and go shopping or something like that, send me an owl. It would be fun to hang out again. Sorry if I was a bit distant with you at first. You know I was still kind of thinking about-- Well, you know. Anyway, I'll have to make this letter a short one, dinner is in a few minutes and I suppose I'm to help serve. Take care of yourself.
Katie
P.S - Congratulations, on making the Puddlemere United team. I suppose the only bad part about being on the team is being around that Crystal Fletcher. I've read in several magazines that she's not exactly the nicest person to be around, though she is a great chaser.
Katie was a little disappointed that she hadn't been able to spend anymore time with Oliver while in France. Apparently, Knowels had his schedule full and he had to make about several trillion more appearances elsewhere as well as go to the official signing.
But, while in France, Katie learned how to do things the old fashioned way, though she didn't really appriciate all the extra work she had to put forward.
After two weeks, Katie said goodbye to her new found family, and promised to visit more often. "When I become a famous Quidditch star, I will come here to get away from the stresses of the celeberity life." She had told Michelle in a joking manner, and Michelle stated that she couldn't wait to see the day.
The two cousins hugged, and Katie promised to get Michelle Oliver's autograph as well as a picture, though Katie wasn't sure if she would be able to. Hopefully Oliver wouldn't be too busy to help out a friend.
"I wish I could stay longer, but summer seems to get shorter, and if Robert takes off anymore time from work, they're going to really get on his case," Mrs. Bell was saying to her brother, giving him a long, tight embrace. She wiped a lone tear from her face and sniffed. "Look at me," she muttered, shaking her head and grinning.
Uncle Drew laughed openly at his sister, "Despite the name change, your like every other Renolds woman, you're too sensative for you own good." He laughed even harder when his little sister smartly pinched him. "And vicious too!"
Katie's father stood in the doorway shaking his head, watching the parting of ways and grinning to himself. "Well, Cnythia," he began slowly, crossing his arms and leaning heavily onto the door way. "I can go to work on my own, I don't really require a babysitter."
Mrs. Bell glared jokingly at him, slowly understanding where he was getting at. Katie; however, was virtually clueless and cocked her head to one side. "What are you talking about, dad?"
"Well," Mr. Bell began once more, "I think it will be best if I return home alone, to go back to work and all. You and your mother," he jerked his head toward Mrs. Bell, "should stay here for a while longer. Have a real vacation for once, without having the old man around to slow you down."
"Really?" Katie gasped, hurrying over to her father and hugging tightly. "Thank you, daddy!"
Michelle clapped her hands and bounced a little, "You're the best uncle ever, Uncle Rob!" Over the two weeks, Michelle had taken the option of calling Robert, Uncle Rob, after declaring that Robert was far too dorky for her liking. Once Katie released Mr. Bell from his bone crushing hug, he was swept into another by his niece.
goodybad - Hehe.. You're like really really hyper.. Hehe.. Oh! And I hope you had a wonderful vacation and all that, uhm.. Hehe.. I dunno what to say really.. I'm really out of it right now..
snuffles101 - Glad you were actually able to take time out of your busy life and actully read my ramblings. Uhm.. Heh.. Hope you enjoyed this update and that you.. uh.. I dunno.. Review again, I guess? Heh.. Oh well. Thanks for the review!
dreamy-crazygirl - Nah.. You don't have to put up another review, but what made me do that was I was talking about the Harry Potter books to a friend of mine and I was going all into this really descriptive scene and saying how funny and all that, an my friend thought that I was absolutely bonkers. Turns out I was describing a scene from a fic I had read. Heh.. Oh well.. And of course its wierd with the three trouble makers and the three chasers. Make to be an interesting story though.
tagS16 - I wonder what Oliver is going to do as well.. Hmm.. Probably continue to be that adorable Scottsman that we all love and adore while trying to work out his feelings for Katie while he hides his feelings from Katie. Or he could randomly hook up with some chick... Who knows, right? Well, hope you're enjoying everything!
QHLuver - It took me a while, but I was finally able to get this chapter up! I'm glad you're enjoying, and can only hope you didn't ignore anything important from the physical world, such as food and water as well as other essentials. Hehe.. But again, I am glad you're enjoying it so far. Heh.. Well.. Thanks!
TheBrassPotato - If you want to give me some ideas for the farm, I would love to take them, because being the city slicker I am, I know very little about the country, I mean, I do at least want one fact in there. Oh, and incase you're wondering, the ending (staying at the farm and all that) was especially put in just for your review, so you better give me something good to work with. Hehe.. Just messin' with ya, but if you have any ideas, I'm all game.
akawebstergirl - Heh.. You're one of those undecided people. Let's see, Oliver or Lee... At least you understand what Katie's going through. Thank you a bunch for your review and I'm glad you're enjoying, and bearing with my horrible grammar and skipped words and all that ness. Thanks again.
rembrandt - I thought the little Agnus scene would be a nice touch.. You know.. Talk about how good looking Oliver was.. So good looking that women several decades his senior would even want him. Heh.. Heh.. Glad you're enjoying, glad you're reviewing and glad you were one of the brave few who stated that Lee simply had to go. lol
Maria Casey Wood - You know how parents can be some times. They won't tell you about something really important until they feel you're old enough to accpet it or something stupid like that. You know, like in Princess Diaries. Heh.. Wow.. Never thought I'd see the day where I compare a Harry Potter fic to the movie Princess Diaries. Anywho, hope you liked the update!
Depth.of.a.Shadow. - You got a really special acknowledgement, because my mom thought I was going to have a coniption fit when I read your review. Just so funny, it was absolutely great and made my day like ten zillion times brighter. Thanks a bunch and much love.
Marauders-rock-my-socks - Lala, you're awesome and you aren't as insane as some.. I guess.. But anyway, to tell ya the truth, my Ollie doesn't talk to me much, but my Fred and George, they just won't shut up. Talk talk talk all the time. Lots-o-love and thank you kindly for your continuous support and reviews. Kisses!
Eruaphadriel - You're right.. What has gotten into our precious Katie? Hehe.. It's really fun to write.. A chapter usually takes me about a day and a half if I don't have school and everything, with school in session now it's taking me about three and a half days to get through a chapter, but I'm getting through it. Well uhm.. Thanks times ten billion and three, and I hope you're enjoying the updates and all that great stuff. If something sucks, please, let me know. I might not change it, but hey! Hehe.. Nothin' but love for ya!
With that done, I think I'm gonna go to bed. I'm an exhausted little thing right about now, so..
Later Days
Richi Sama