Hey guys! Sorry this took about a week longer to put up than I intended. Family issues came up and I was away from fast internet for awhile. Hope you all like it though. (Ps: i cried like, 4 times while reading Deathly Hallows. Anyone else?)

EDIT: realized i had forgotten to post like, 3 pages of the story...hopefully this makes way more sense now...sorry guys!

Disclaimer: only the storyline and a few minor characters

Chapter 12: Before You Tell Him Goodbye

From inside his room Oliver heard her knock and saw the slim leather bound book slide under the door. He heard her retreat and the front door open and close and then peaked out his window. He watched her descend the stairs to the street and worried for a moment about her safety on the streets at ten o'clock at night until he saw her wand sticking out of her back pocket. He looked back at the book and his curiosity took over. Oliver walked across his room and picked the book up.

The cover was smooth maroon leather with Plays printed in gold italics across the front. Callused hands traced the letters and then lifted the cover. Quidditch through our ages, Ollie, the inside cover read in Katie's handwriting. Below the inscription was a picture of the old Gryffindor team after a practice. The twins and Oliver, being the tallest ones on the team were in the back row. The keeper watched as his younger self batted at the hands of Fred and George who were attempting to make bunny ears behind his head and give him wet-willies. The girls and Harry, hanging on each other out of exhaustion made up the front row.

Oliver grinned and turned the page. He stopped. The page was headed with the words "Tricky Triangle" and outlined the play that he and the girls had worked on for about a week. It played on their strengths and weaknesses and had won them many games. His head swam as he flipped through the pages. Each page held step-by-step instructions, a diagram and the date it was first performed. Every page had a play, and every play was one that he had thought up. These were his plays. These were every single play that he had ever worked on. The second-to-last page's play was titled "Dust off the Television" and the last page was titled "No More Paper". He laughed and sank down on his bed.

"I don't believe her," he finally breathed. Oliver rubbed his face in his hands and glanced at the clock. Almost an hour had passed while he stood studying the playbook. With a smile on his face, and his plan to tell Katie that he loved her back in his mind, Oliver opened the door of his room. He heard thunder crack up ahead and expected to see Katie wrapped in a blanket staring nervously at the fire like she normally did during storms. He saw instead a dark living room and an empty couch. Katie hadn't come home, he realized.

"Way to go, Oliver!" he said to himself as he grabbed his wand off his bedside table and stormed out the door. "She could be anywhere by now, stupid. Think." The rain was coming down in earnest and Oliver hoped Katie had found cover. "Which way did she start out? No, wait. That doesn't mean anything: she likes to wander. Okay, than where would she go? Donkey! Dancing Donkey. Yea, probably walked down to the pub to have a nice drink and get out of the rain."

She had, but she had left before the storm set in.

"Okay, one place down," Oliver said as he left the Dancing Donkey a short while later. "Where else would she go? Where would I go if I were a woman scorned? Woman scorned? Where did that come from? Shut up, Oliver! Think! Where – Angie's!"

She wasn't there either, but Oliver did gain two more helpers as both Angelina and Fred insisted on helping to look for her.

"What about Alicia's?" Angelina asked.

"I'll check George's!" Fred said. "Don't worry, Ange, she'll turn up. She's a tough girl." Angelina nodded, but it was apparent that she didn't trust her boyfriend very much. The storm was getting worse and they all knew that thunder was one of the few things that made Katie really nervous.

"Check Alicia's than Amelia's. I'll ask Daniel, Matt and Leo if they've seen her. If you find her, send up green sparks and send 'em high." Oliver apparated to first Daniel's flat, than Matt's and finally Leo's. Half an hour later, eleven witches and wizards were roaming the city of London searching for the brunette chaser without attracting too much attention from the muggle police for wandering the streets at near midnight in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Oliver was becoming more and more frantic. He racked his brains for everywhere that Katie could have gone. In his mind, he ticked off the places that he had already checked, brushing the rainwater out of his eyes as he stood in front of the pub leading from the muggle world to Diagon Alley. Stadium, dressing rooms, team's homes, Donkey, Diagon Alley. Where else? As he stood quietly on the street corner, wishing that Katie wasn't so stupid for going out by herself at night, a cat appeared on a stoop nearby. It meowed once and then spoke.

"Oliver, sweetie," his mother's voice came from the woman sitting where the cat had been on the dirty stoop. She was a petite woman with short straight white hair and a tendency to mother anyone who got within twenty feet of her. Her voice was as sweet as sugar, tinged with a Scottish accent softer than that of Oliver's. She waved her wand and cast a spell to keep the rain off of both of them. Thunder boomed ominously in the background again.

Oliver turned around quickly and asked, "Mum! What are you doing here?"

"Katie showed up at home. Don't worry, she's all right. Your dad gave her some tea and her nerves calmed right down."

"You charmed the tea, didn't you? She's going to be angry at you if she finds out. She hates charmed food."

"She seems a little preoccupied with being angry at you. What did you do to her, and why are you shooting green sparks out of your wand? Do you want the muggles to know you're here?" She patted the step next to her and crossed her legs at the ankles.

"No, Mum, but I want the rest to know that she's been found," Oliver said, ignoring her invitation to sit, as ten people appeared around him. They hurried under the spell, wringing out hair and robes and performing drying spells.

"Oh my! The whole team's shown up!" Ms. Wood said excitedly.

"That's not Katie! That's your mum, Ollie!" Daniel exclaimed, holding his wife's hand.

"Oh, thank you, Danny. I was confused!" Ms. Wood said, obviously used to dealing with the Wasps. "Katie has shown up at my home and in between her bursts of anger at our dear Genghis here – yes, Ollie, I know your nickname. Not a very good one though, you might want to work on that. Maybe go for something sweeter. Like a St. Something—"

"Mum!"

"Oh right! Well, she decided that people might be worried about her whereabouts, especially seeing as how worried she gets during thunderstorms. This is a big one isn't it?I bet she didn't know that so many would be though. Eleven of you are there?"

"But…wait… why would Katie go to your house, Ms. Wood? Erm, no offense," Angelina asked.

"Angie! Is that you hiding back there behind – Fred and George! And Alicia! How are you all? You know, you should all visit more. Oliver, why haven't they been visiting more? They were such a lovely group of people to have around the holidays, and I always–"

"Mum!" Oliver said, moving his head into her line of vision.

"Oh, right!" she said, smoothing her skirt. "Well, when Katie was in school, she came to me a lot when she was angry at Oliver. She didn't tell you because I suspect that even though she was angry at him, she would have felt bad if Oliver knew it was his own mum who gave her the charmed bra idea." Ms. Wood giggled to herself, and Oliver flushed red. "Now then, Katie is safe and sound and you all look exhausted. Especially you, Justin. Has Oliver been working you too hard? You can tell me if he has. I know some great tricks for making him relax."

"He's fine, mum!" Oliver quipped before Justin had a chance to open his mouth.

"I wasn't asking you, Oliver. I was asking Justin," Ms. Wood stated.

"Like the captain said, I'm fine. Amelia and I have just been redecorating and it's taking a lot out of us. I think we'll be heading home, if Katie's all right, then. Tell Puppy that if she goes wandering again, we're putting a leash on her." He grinned, and disapparated with Amelia.

The rest followed shortly behind, leaving Oliver and his mother in the street with rain pouring down around them and thunder booming above their heads.

"Now than, Oliver," Ms. Wood said, her voice much more stern than before. "Either you make that sweet little Katie happy, or I will make you miserable. She loves you, you big stupid git, and you obviously love her if you're stressing out so much because she's wandered off."

"I don't love her, Mum. She's just one of my really close friends!" Oliver protested, but his mother ignored him and apparated to her home.

&&&&&

"Glad to see you found the lug, Midge," Oliver's father said pleasantly, getting up from the table as the other two members of his family landed in the kitchen. He handed them towels and used his wand to dry the water they were spreading on the floor.

"It's not like it was that hard!" she said, kissing her husband on the cheek. "I'll just make sure that Ollie starts talking to Katie and then I'll be up to bed."

Mr. Wood smiled, and left the kitchen. His footsteps up the stairs in the front hall could be heard as Midge Wood roughly grabbed her son by the shoulders – despite the eight-inch difference in their height – and marched him down the hall to the guest room. She opened the door and smiled at Katie, who looked up surprised as they entered.

"I was just admiring this vase," she said quickly, setting it down on the shelves between a myriad of sculptures and vases.

"Oh, that's alright, dear. I've always hated that vase, but you know mothers-in-law. Actually, the only things I like in this room are the painting and the lamp," Midge said with a wink. Katie smiled understandingly, picking up the blue and red vase again. Ms. Wood closed the door on her son and Katie and waited until she heard the vase smash against it. She nodded matter-of-fact, dusted her hands together and followed her husband up the well-worn stairs, knowing that the silencing spell on the parameters of the room would mute any other crashes and yelling.

"She was having a baby, idiot!" the chaser yelled, hurling the ugly little vase.

"Oi!" Oliver yelled as shards of pottery ricocheted past his head. One hit him in the neck and he reached a hand up to feel a small about of blood.

"I'm sorry," Katie said sarcastically. "Did I hurt you?"

"Nothing I can't handle," Oliver said, dabbing the blood.

"Well, then," Katie said as she picked up a tacky figurine, "I guess I'll just have to aim better."

Oliver nodded, "You're aim always is a bit off," he quipped.

She launched the figurine at his head with a growl. He ducked and Katie smirked. "Gee, Ollie, I think I know why we lose so many games," she said, devilishly innocent. "You see, the job of the keeper is to get in the way of things flying at him, not out of the way."

"There's only so much I can do when my chasers never touch the quaffle!"

"You're a prick, you know that?"

"And you're crazy!" Oliver said, gesturing at the broken shards around him.

"Because of you!"

"Oh, Katie," Oliver scoffed. "You're kind of crazy isn't my fault." His anger at her annoying tendencies had returned after the vase had hit him in the neck.

"Want to bet?" Katie growled, reaching for something else to throw at him from the shelf behind her.

"You threw a vase at me! Who does that?"

"People who have been driven crazy by spending too much time around you!" Katie yelled and threw another porcelain figurine at his head. He ducked and it shattered on the wall above his head. She launched another figure right after, and smiled when he let out a shout of pain. He wiped the cut that had appeared on his cheek and stared at his hand.

"Are you honestly this angry?" he asked.

"Yes, Oliver, I am honestly this angry!" she said and threw a clay sculpture at him.

"Oi! I made this!" Oliver protested, catching the sculpture of a pig.

"No wonder it's so ugly!" Katie sneered and grabbed at a small puke-yellow vase.

"You aren't seriously going to throw all of that crap on those shelves at me, are you?" Oliver asked, straightening out of the fighting stance he hadn't even realized he'd adopted.

"Watch me," Katie said darkly. She threw the vase across the room and hit Oliver in the shoulder.

"Katherine!" he protested, grabbing his shoulder with the hand not holding the pig.

"This is what happens when we get mad at people for no apparent reason, Oliver!" she snarled, launching yet another item off the shelves.

"I'm sorry!" Oliver cried, holding up both hands. "I love you if that helps!"

Katie's hand froze with a small apple carved out of stone in it and narrowed her eyes. "It doesn't!" she spat. "Drop the pig."

Oliver rolled his eyes. "No, Katie I'm serious!"

"Troll dung!" she said. "Now, drop the pig or the apple flies."

"Is that really necessary?"

She threw the apple at his stomach in answer and the pig crashed to the floor as he buckled over.

"Good. Now that you know how I felt earlier, I'm going to explain some things to you. No, Oliver, don't speak. Sit." The burly keeper sat quickly on the bed, rubbing where the apple had hit his stomach and attempting to catch his breath. "Here's what's up. The bra was on your towel because I had spilled honey on it and washed it. I didn't perform a drying spell on it because when I do that, the clothes end up smelling like salt, and I'm sorry if I forgot to move it after it had dried. People forget things, Oliver. You have to learn to accept people in all their imperfections. To love people for who they are, not in spite of it.

"To address the products in the bathroom," she continued, "I'm sorry. There's not much room and I figured it was okay to leave all that stuff out considering you've been using my face wash and shave gel anyway. Oh, yes, Oliver. I know that you've been doing that. They're fragrant for a reason." Oliver swallowed and dabbed the blood from his neck and cheek on his shirt. He hadn't seen her this angry with him since he charmed her lotion to stain her purple in third year.

"The fighting my own battles thing?" she said, stalking around the bed to stand in front of him. Her voice had been hard, but here it changed. " You're right. I like fighting my own battles, but I also like having you around. I'm capable of fighting by myself, but I prefer to have company, and you're the best company I've ever had. What you said really hurt, and announcing 'I love you' doesn't fix that. "

"I'm sorry. None of it was true. I mean, the love part was but –"

"Shut it, Oliver. I don't care if you love me or not. All the rest of it has to be how you really feel. You wouldn't have said it if some part of you didn't believe it. I don't know. Maybe this whole living together thing just doesn't work with us. Maybe I should move out." She sat next to him and sighed.

"No," he said immediately. "I don't want you to move out."

"I think it's the best thing right now. I can't go back to that flat with you tonight."

"So stay here tonight and come back tomorrow!" Oliver exclaimed.

Katie shook her head. "No Oliver. My mum has an extra room and she'll let me stay there for a few days while I look for an apartment. I'll uhm…pick up my stuff tomorrow."

"Katie!"

"Oliver, it was a good temporary place, but come on. Did you really think that it was working? I can't keep sleeping in the living room."

"So I'll sleep in the living room and you can have my room!"

Katie bit her lip. "That still doesn't change the fact that deep down you think I'm immature and –"

"Katherine Bell," Oliver interrupted. He had almost made her go the first time, this time he wasn't going to let her.

"Could you stop, please?"

"No. No I can't. Yes, what I said was hurtful. I was a prick. After I finished looking at that amazing book," he smiled as she blushed modestly and continued, "and I realized you hadn't come back, I was really worried. I knew you had taken your wand, but still. The storm was getting worse and I know you don't like them and … you're my best friend and if anything happened to you, I wouldn't forgive myself. You're a pain in the butt and stubborn as a mule, and you have a heck of a good arm, but I wouldn't have anyone else living with me. No one else would have taken the time to copy down a play drawn in dust on the television before cleaning it off. You're the only one who calls me on my crap besides my mother, and even if I resent you for it sometimes, she adores you because of that."

"Your mother adores everyone, Ollie," Katie said, smiling in spite of her anger.

"True, but she likes you the best. Look, Katie, I really am sorry. I don't know what got into me this morning, or…this evening. Everything I said is nullified. I was an idiot and a jerk and a prat and a pig and a butthead and if you want this in writing, I will not only do that, but I will carve it in stone if it will make you forgive me."

"Why though? Why forgive you? You're just going to hurt me again in a few weeks! I can't keep this up! I'll be by to pick up my stuff tomorrow, and then I'll be out of your hair." She said this quietly, looking at her lap.

He stared at her for a moment. "Is that what you really want?" he asked, hurt.

She nodded, still avoiding his gaze. "Fine," he said, standing. "Fine. I'll just…go back and pack your things so that you don't have to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary there tomorrow," and with a loud crack, he was gone.

Katie broke down, crying for about ten minutes before finally drying her eyes and choosing to floo to her family home.

The green flames let her out into the familiarly homey living room. The room was dark, but light from the kitchen spilled onto the couch, making the burgundy fabric look warm, rich and inviting. Katie wound her way around the coffee table and peered into the kitchen where she saw her mother sitting at the island in the center digging the last remnants of a milkshake out of the bottom of the glass. She dropped the spoon, picked up her wand and spun towards the door as Katie's foot caused a floorboard to creak.

"Mum!" she whispered. "It's me! It's Katie!" she walked into the kitchen and joined her mother at the island.

Ms. Lydia Bell looked confusedly at her youngest, but picked up her spoon again. "What's wrong, dear?" she asked, going back to scraping the glass. Her brownish-gray hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and she was wearing comfortable navy blue sweats. The fact that she was plopped in the center of the kitchen in the middle of the night was something that Katie was not unused to. Her mother was an ex-auror and the tradition of midnight milkshakes had stemmed from her need for comfort food after returning home from a day of work.

"Can I stay here for a few days?" Katie asked, swinging her leg around the back of a stool and plopping down on it.

"No," Lydia said frankly. Katie and Kelsey had similar personalities to their mother, who in her day had made men much stronger and bigger than her cower, simply with words. The Bell women rarely danced around a subject, and never with each other.

Katie looked shocked. "But Mum!" she protested. "I'm your daughter!"

"And in love with Oliver and you need to get over this stupid little fight that you're having and get married already so that I can win the betting pool that we all have set up." As she talked, she walked to the freezer and got more ice cream out.

"You're betting on me?" Katie exclaimed loudly. "Are you allowed to bet on your daughter's love life?"

"Shh, not so loud! You'll wake your father up and he has an extremely early meeting at the ministry tomorrow! I don't see why I shouldn't be able to bet on your love life: it's there – sort of. The betting was Alicia's idea, and before you get angry at her, she said it as a joke; your father was the one who actually set up the pool." She retrieved another spoon from the drawer and sat back down in front of her daughter. "You can stay here one night, but then tomorrow you will walk back into that apartment, grab Oliver's adorable Scottish face and kiss him like he's never been kissed before. If you're too chicken to do it, I will do it for you, is that clear?"

"Mum, you're married!" Katie squawked.

"Katie, calm down, you're resembling a chicken with all this squawking. And if you want to save my marriage you will do what I know is good for you," Lydia remarked, spooning a mouthful of ice cream into her mouth.

"You're manipulative," Katie muttered, digging her spoon into the tub of ice cream.

"So are you, and you learned it from me!" she punctuated her sentence with her spoon.

"Yea, but I don't threaten my daughter with my marriage!"

"That's because you don't have a daughter or a marriage!" Lydia said matter of fact.

"Mum! I'm not one of your enemies, stop ripping me apart!"

"I'm not ripping you apart, I'm merely forcefully putting into your head the idea that you and Oliver would make a very good couple and that it should happen sooner rather than later to insure that I get the coins instead of Oliver's father, who's next in line, by the way."

Katie glowered at her mother much the same way she did when she was five and Kelsey had just stole her dolly. Lydia raised her eyebrow sardonically and pointed her spoon at Katie. As she swallowed another mouthful, she said, "Stop looking at me like that. You know I'm right. Oliver's a pain in the bum, but he does love you."

"How can you tell though?" Katie asked, licking her spoon.

"When you walk into the room, he gets this teeny tiny smile on his face and if he's talking he'll pause for half a second to watch you. When you were falling after your hand got hurt, he looked like he was going to throw up, and not in the 'oh no, my chaser is hurt' but in the 'oh crap, that's my Katie.' So what if he fights with you and pushes your buttons? Make-ups are the best part of a relationship," Lydia said with a wink.

"Ew! Mum!"

"It's true," Ms. Bell said with a shrug.

Katie rolled her eyes. "Yes, but you're my mother! You're not supposed to talk about sex with your daughter!"

"Yes you are."

"No, no you're not!"

"Sweetie, it's called the sex talk," Lydia Bell said gently and smugly.

"I mean after that!" Katie practically yelled. A quick sound reduction spell performed by Ms. Bell caused Mr. Bell's sleep to not be disturbed though. "And I'm not having sex with Oliver, ever! I'm not! I'm moving out of that prat's house and if you won't let me live here, I'll just be forced to get my own apartment, except on my salary it will be an ultimate dive and I'll probably end up dying of cockroaches and little buggies eating me alive in my sleep! And my death will be on your shoulders, Mother! Just imagine it, the Daily Prophet's headline: Mother Kills Daughter By Not Letting Her Live At Home!" She ate a spoonful of ice cream victoriously with a 'humph' sound.

Lydia snorted and grabbed the carton of ice cream away from Katie as she reached out with her spoon. "You need to work on your headlines, Kates," she remarked. Katie's mouth fell open and then closed in a pout. The two Bell women stared across the island at each other, the younger attempting to stretch across the tall island to get at the ice cream, and the older holding above both of their heads. "One night, and then home," Lydia instructed.

"Two nights," Katie bargained.

"Katherine."

"You don't understand what it's like!"

"I don't have to. You're living your dream, Katie! Do you remember when you were little and I would ask you and Kelsey what you wanted for Christmas, and every Christmas, what would you say?" her mother's gentler side was beginning to show, despite the ice cream still being held above her head.

"Ice cream," Katie grunted.

"Wrong. C'mon, if say it, you'll feel better."

"Give me the ice cream, and I'll feel better." Lydia stared at her daughter until Katie finally sagged and grumbled, "I always said I wanted to be a professional chaser."

"That's a good girl," Ms. Bell said, and set the ice cream down in front of Katie, who made a small noise of happiness. "Now, as I was saying, you're living your dream and you have one of the leading keepers in the league wandering the streets of London in a thunderstorm for you, but what do you do? You throw a vase at his head!"

Katie paused with her spoon half way to her mouth. "How did…?"

"Ollie's Mum owled me while you two were fighting," Lydia said. "You have had that boy wrapped around your little finger since you were a scrawny first year still wearing pigtails. And trust me, dear, that was not a good look for you. Ever since you walked onto that field hauling that gigantic broom, he's been sweet on you."

"How did you know my broom was too big for me?"

"I paid Kelsey twenty galleons to keep an eye on you your first year."

Katie looked shocked for a second and then rolled here eyes. She should have known that her auror mother wouldn't have let her go off to school without someone keeping an eye on her. "So who was keeping an eye on Kelsey her first year?" she asked finally.

"No one. "

"Are you serious?"

Ms. Bell nodded and Katie sighed. "I hate being the youngest," she grumbled.

"She never made the bigger kids angry by playing tricks on them." At Katie's cheeky grin she smiled, knowing that her daughter's troublemaker side had come from her. "Go make sure his cuts and bruises are healing and tell him that you'll make him the happiest man in the world as long as he promises to not act like a prick."

"Are you sure that's possible for Oliver?" Katie asked.

"I think it would be if he knew you loved him back," Lydia remarked quietly. She laughed as Katie pouted yet again. This time though, it was a different kind of pout. It was a pout that showed Katie knew her mother had won. She wasn't sure how though, but she knew that she would spend one night in the guest room and then try talking with Oliver in the morning.

"Thanks, Mum," she said, and stood.

"Anytime, Kates. That's what I'm here for. Give me a hug and I'll have bacon and eggs for you in the morning, okay?" She held out her arms, and when her youngest daughter was safely enveloped in her arms, she whispered, "I love you, Katie. You're an amazing girl, and you deserve the best man possible." She felt Katie nod, and pulled away. "Oliver's that man. You two just have to learn how to give a little. Stop sweating the small things and start appreciating the people who wander around in storms for you. You're a good girl, Katie. I know you'll make the right decision. I love you. Goodnight." She kissed Katie on the forehead, gave her another quick squeeze and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Katie whispered, "Goodnight, Mum," and walked out the other doorway in the kitchen and down the hall to the guest room.

&&&&&

When Katie woke the next morning, she could tell by the sun shining through the window that her father had already left for the ministry. She pushed the covers off and padded towards the kitchen. She started to hear the sounds of bacon frying and she paused in the hallway to listen to Lydia talking quietly to the cat. She grinned, reminded of the nonsense her mother used to talk to her in the mornings before school. Lydia walked by the hallway on her way back to the stove and paused in the doorway.

"Good morning, sleepy," she said.

"Hi. Do you um, need any help with breakfast?" Katie asked, walking the rest of the way down the hall and sitting at the island again. She leaned down to pet Sawyer, the sleek gray tabby cat stretching up the leg of her stool, begging her for food.

"He's been fed, no matter what he tells you," Katie's mother remarked, scooping the bacon out of the pan. She handed Katie a plate and a glass of fresh orange juice. "Did you sleep well?" she asked, sitting down across from her daughter, who had already begun to eat.

Katie nodded and swallowed. "Mum," she began. "Erm, when did you know you loved Dad?"

Lydia Bell smiled, remembering back to a spring day many years before. "I was a fifth year, your father a sixth, and I had just gotten out of O.W.L.s. I entered the common room, and there was your father, playing wizards chess with your Uncle Edwin."

"He was playing chess with your younger brother and you knew you loved him?" Katie asked, skeptic. Her mother grinned again and shook her head.

"Nope. He was letting Edwin win and I knew I loved him. It's not often that you see sixth years letting first years beat them at their favorite game – especially in the middle of the Ravenclaw common room. Doubly especially when it's the little brother of the girl who had just recently dyed your hair pink."

Katie choked on her orange juice. "You dyed Dad's hair pink?"

Lydia shrugged. "He deserved it," she explained simply. Katie raised an eyebrow in response. "He took the last piece of cheesecake at dinner."

Katie laughed. "You always were irrational when it came to deserts."

"I love you too, Kates," her mother said with a soft smile. "When did you know that you loved Oliver?"

Katie froze. "I – I never said that I –"

"A mother can tell, Katie. Even a mother who's as tough as I am. We're really good at telling when our children are in love. When did you know?"

"I …I think it was when I found out he begged Dumbledore to let him watch the last Gryffindor game I played in and then came up to me afterwards and said 'Great job, Kates, but next time remember to extend your arm fully on your left handed throws. You looked a bit weak,'" she said slowly, as if she had just realized it.

Lydia smiled maternally and reached across the table to grasp Katie's hand. "Go get him, Katie," she said.

Katie looked up at her mother and bit her lip. "What if he won't accept my apology?" she asked quietly.

"Than you grab his face and snog him for all he's worth, and he's worth quite a lot from what I can tell. And if worse comes to worst, just send him on over to me, and I'll talk some sense into him."

Katie laughed and stood up. She walked around the table and whispered, "Thanks, Mum, for everything," giving her mother a hug in the process.

Lydia patted Katie's arm and kissed her forehead. "You're welcome. Now, get out of my house," she said jokingly. Katie nodded and apparated on the spot.

Hope you liked it. Read and review please -- even if it's bad. Title is from "Listen To Your Heart" by DHT