Author's Note: This is still a teaser guys. Sorry, but I really needed something to take my mind off of Duty, Deceit, Desire, and Destiny. Anyhoo, here it goes...

Chapter 02: DAY 01 - Ghosts of His Past

"Ollie…" the soft lilting voice whispered close to his ear just before she nipped it, making him squirm in his sleep.

"Allie…" Oliver smiled in his sleep. Alicia always knew just how to work him up even before he was good and up for the day.

"Come on, love, wake up. It's a new day, a new beginning. You have practice at eight," she chided while her mouth steadily moved southwards, speckling his neck and shoulders with tiny bites making him moan in his sleep.

Alicia wrapped her hot mouth around his pecs. In immediate response, his hands banded around her waist and he pulled her over him, her legs falling on his sides with practiced ease. With one quick shuffle she had him embedded deep inside of her and they both groaned in unison at the exquisite feeling of thorough completion that filled them at the act.

"You, my love, deserve to be spanked," Oliver shook his head at his witch for her naughtiness.

"Are you into that now?" Alicia asked cheekily and started moving in slow torturous motions over him.

"I am into everything so long as it's with you," Oliver answered and twisted them around, now with him on the top he could control the pace. He grinned at the girl who had caught his attention and captured his heart since Hogwarts. She was the only one who could ever get his mind out of his game and into other things the rest of humanity deemed important.

For her, he'd do anything.

Alicia's hand slowly rubbed the light stubble on his cheek and she smiled in a way that made his heart ache painfully. "You know that's not possible anymore, love."

Oliver shook his head, unwilling to let go. Even after all these years, he was unwilling to accept the irrefutable truth.

"You know you have to let me go."

He stared down at the witch in his arms. Her long silky jet-black mane of poker-straight hair spread behind her while her blue eyes shone with so much love and adoration… how could he ever let go of that? The fact that her features were slowly getting hazy in his mind was bad enough, but let go completely? Was that even possible? He thought not.

"I can't…" he brokenly whispered, pushing his face in the crook of her neck. "It's you, my love. How can I ever let you go?"

"Because I'm not with you anymore, Oliver. I'm not here," she insisted. She said the same thing to him every morning as she plagued his dreams, yet it was only her whoever made it till his dreams. No one ever came that far. He tried to let go but no one ever met her mark.

"You'll always be here. You'll always stay in my heart," he said the same thing to her every morning too.

"I know I will. But you need to make a place for someone else too."

Oliver winced, his handsome features twisting in his grief. It was the same thing she had said to him when she had told him she was pregnant with their child. You need to make a place for someone else too. It had started off as a normal day in the middle of the war and then she'd pranced into the room making Oliver's day brighter just by being in it. She had sat down on his lap and told him he couldn't get possessive about her anymore, that he'd have to learn to share her and make a place for someone else in his heart.

He'd tightened his grip on her side fearfully, his fingers almost bruising in their intensity when he'd asked her exactly what she meant by it.

She'd smiled winningly and whispered the answer in his ear. She was pregnant. He was going to be a Papa. He hadn't known what to do with all that joy in his heart. He was promised another Alicia, or so he had hoped.

A single drop of tear flowed from his eyes.

Alicia grimaced and gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, you know I didn't mean it that way."

He knew. A reality that had given him the push to give his all to the war effort had turned into a distant dream on the day of the Final Battle of Hogwarts. He could feel it right out of his grasp, teasing him every second with the promise of what-could-have-been.

He kept telling her, pleading with her, begging her to stay at home. But with just four months of pregnancy, Alicia had insisted on being a part of the war that would ensure their child's safety. He hadn't been able to talk her out of it, she was just too much of a brave Gryffindor to stay back.

That day he had lost everything when Alicia fell. His love, his child, his life. Everything.

"I died with you that day, Allie. Now only my life goes on," he said, burying his face in her bosom.

"But your life does go on, Oliver. Mine ended, my purpose in life was met. Yours didn't. You still have so much more to do," she smiled encouragingly at him.

He sighed defeatedly. What was the point to it all anyway? Alicia was just a figment of his imagination or so every mind healer told him. He knew it wasn't though. Or he at least believed it wasn't. He wanted her to be true, to be there with him.

"You promised me the World Cup," she said meeting his eyes.

"I did," he smiled, nostalgic of the days gone by.

"And you never break your promise to me."

"I don't," he easily agreed.

She finally bestowed the smile he had been waiting for since the start. The one that lit up his day. It wasn't the sun, it was her and her smile that told him it was a new day.

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get up and get dressed and go practice till the day's end," Oliver dutifully parroted.

"And you're going to be nice to the witch downstairs," she prompted.

"I didn't promise you that," he shook his head.

"No, you didn't, but you will now."

"No, I won't," he shook his head.

"Oliver…"

"Alicia…"

"Oliver!" the banging on his bedroom's door rose him up with a jerk, his heart thudding loudly in sync with the bangs on the door.

"What?" he barked at the shut entrance.

"Get up! We need to be at the pitch in an hour!" Hermione shouted from the other side.

Huffing out a harsh breath, Oliver threw his bedcovers and got out of his bed. He didn't bother looking back at the empty bed. He knew he'd have to wait until dawn the next morning to see his witch again. He suddenly hated Hermione Granger with a new vengeance.

"One of these days, I'm going to hex you real bad, Granger," he angrily shot at the door.

"I would've said try it," Hermione promptly relied from the other side of the thick wooden door, "But Harry says you're important for our team's win. A handless keeper is no keeper at all," she sassily added. "Get ready and be down in fifteen. We'll need to stop over for some breakfast somewhere. I don't function well on an empty stomach."

Oliver glowered at the mahogany door until the tell-tale thudding of the witch's tread subsided. And to think his Allie wanted him to be nice to her. He snorted. As if…