Well, if you checked my home page, you'd know that I didn't update last week due to extreme stress and fear of failing life outside of Fanfiction. I'm more sorry than I can say, but I got up a chapter this week in spite of pressing scholarly concerns and a sickness so bad I'm willing to kill whomever gave it to me.

Anyway, I was asked a question two weeks ago I thought it better to answer publically: No, this does not follow the story line as set out by JK, though it was a brilliant story line, past the sixth book. In my version, the trio graduated from Hogwarts and they've spent the duration of this story looking for Horcruxes. Mkay?

To make up for the lost chapter, I've made you guys a chapter. *squeel*

I took a few deep, calming breaths as I stood outside Oliver's office, my eyes closed and my heart pounding. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but God was I torn. I could still see the rubble in my mind, watch the battle happen as men in skull masks attacked students I'd sworn to protect and lead as the Head Girl. Tom was somewhere, fighting, though I didn't know who for.

And that was what Oliver was supporting; the war, the purebloods, all of it. Or at least, he was inadvertently supporting it. I hate to have the absolutist 'If you're not for us you're against us' mentality, but he's making it hard to forgive it. Had he even been fighting? I'd looked, but I couldn't be sure.

I shook my head, my hands lacing through my hair painfully. Maybe he hadn't been there; maybe he didn't know. Sure, he'd been going to more meetings lately, and that seems suspicious, but the Dark Lord is probably just angry because he hasn't turned me in.

I froze, suddenly quite unaware of my nails digging painfully into scalp; what if he's already told them? What if Oliver told them and they're in there waiting for me? Waiting to… kidnap me and brainwash me or… something. But he loves me. Or does he? I shook my head again, this time my hands flying from my hair and falling awkwardly to my sides.

Tears came to my eyes as a vision of Harry rushing to Ginny played for me, their love almost tangible it was so beautiful. I wanted that so badly with Oliver, but I'm not about to run into the enemy's hospital-area just to hold Oliver's hand while Draco Malfoy resets his shoulder that one of the Weasley brothers had to knock out while they were dueling.

In the midst of my shaking my head rebelliously, the door to Oliver's office opened and, mindless of whomever it was opening the door, I fell into their arms. I was grateful for the familiar sweater, chest, and arms that wrapped around me, Oliver's face buried in my hair as he caught me, "Aly?"

Before I could respond or pull away, Oliver stepped back into his office and slammed the door behind me, one arm holding me up and the other reaching for my hand and squeezing it comfortingly. I continued to shake my head into Oliver's shoulder, all too aware of what I had to do. I couldn't spend the war worrying about who I was casting a spell at just because the love of my life wants to please his father.

"I can't do it, Oliver…"

"Shh, shush Aly, you don't know what you're saying." Oliver laid a quick kiss on the top of my head, "You're just tired, come to bed." I shook my head into his shoulder again, tears painfully squeezing from the corners of my eyes.

"I just… I can't." I pulled away at that moment, too tired and worn out to force my way out of his grip entirely, "I love you too much; it's getting in the way, Oliver."

"What?" Oliver was very obviously confused at what I was saying, and the most heartbreaking fear was written across his face. "I didn't know they were going to attack, Aly, you've got to believe m-"

"It doesn't matter," I gasped a little for breath, my nose too stuffed up for me to breathe properly, "It's a war, Oliver, and we're on opposite sides."

"So?"

"So haven't you ever heard of Romeo and Juliet?" I know he has; some muggle culture had to eventually break through to our world, and Romeo and Juliet were tragic enough to make the cut. "It never ends well, and I don't want that for us."

Oliver shook his head, just a little, "I…"

"I'm a Ravenclaw, Oliver," I cut him off; anything he says, even if he's agreeing with me, is just going to be an excuse to not do this, "And that means I'm logical and I use my head. And logic dictates that this won't work." A pause. Uncertainly, I took a step away. "I can't spend the rest of these fights wondering whether if the Death Eater I'm trying to paralyze and attack is actually you."

"So you're scared?"

"Yes." Another pause. I could leave now, but I don't think I physically can. I need to know that this is what he wants, too, or at least that he understands. "You knew this was going to happen, Oliver, remember? You broke up with me back in January because you knew it wouldn't work-"

"I did it because I knew I was putting you in danger," Oliver cut me off.

"It's the same thing!"

"No it's no-"

"Do you know how Ginny got hurt?" Oliver glared at me during this pause. "She got hurt because the damn Death Eater sounded like you!" By this time I'd gained enough strength to step away from Oliver, but I'm considering stepping back so he can hold me again. I think I'm going to be sick.

"What?"

"I went to help her and the Death Eater called her love, and he had a Scottish accent, and I thought…" I shook my head, trying to shake the memory out of my mind. "I thought you'd turn and run away, but you didn't, and I thought I was hurting you but I had to and it broke my heart!"

I erupted into tears as Oliver stepped forward, catching me again. Only this time I knew he understood completely as to why I was crying and why I was doing this. "Shh," he hummed, one hand wrapping around my back again and the other twirling into my hair, forcing my head into the crook of his neck. "It's alright, it wasn't me."

"But it could be next time."

"I'd never attack your or Ginny."

"Then what about Harry? Or Fred and George?"
"You know I woul-"

"I don't know what you would do," the response tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it. "So..."

I stopped, my breath caught in my throat; I had to say it. Every muscle in my body was fighting it, but I had to. I had to break up with Oliver. I couldn't, but I had to. Like how I want to turn around and walk out, but I can't. My body and my mind are fighting each other hysterically to the point that I feel like a three year old.

"So we're going on a break." The word kept tumbling, and even though they weren't what I wanted to say exactly they comforted both my mind and my body, "Until… until you tell your father and the Dark Lord that you don't want to be a Death Eater anymore or the war ends and somehow we can be together again."

"That's not fair, Aly." I knew exactly what he was talking about – the fact that I've just got to sit and wait for him to come back to me while he changes.

"Well do you want me to do, Wood," I stepped away from him, possibly for the last time, "This isn't some difference in opinion we can work through if we talk about it enough – this is a war. And the next time I pause because I think it's you out there someone could die. We ran out of time for talking about it and now…" My voice broke, tears fighting their way back to the surface, "Now.. now one of us needs to change drastically or this can't work at all."

Oliver's face was hard, but that was all I needed to know that he understood. He knew this was for the best, that much I was sure of. At least, I had managed to convince myself so thoroughly of it throughout the course of the argument that I wasn't going to be swayed. This was for the best; Oliver and I were going on a break.

And I'm walking out the door. I'm walking, I'm walking, I'm walking…

Time, after that, seemed to pass fairly quickly. After the battle, which was dubbed by the press 'The Battle of the Forgotten Exit", Ginny and her friends decided that I was officially a part of their group of friends and I was let in on the most intimate details of the Order of the Phoenix and other parts of the war. Not to mention all the random inside jokes and the general good time that comes with any group of friends.

I told Ginny that Wood and I broke up, and that was it. She didn't dig into any why or how; my bet is that she caught enough of the argument that he and I had while I was taking her up to Gryffindor Tower that she knows why we had to break up. She probably also knows why Fred and George couldn't be friends with Oliver anymore. They saw the same thing I did – a very confused boy who put family pride above what he knows is morally right.

Before I could completely register that it had been a month and a half since Wood and I had started break, with every week making it less and less likely that we'd get back together, But with the NEWTs, classes had essentially ended and every night I sat alone in my room cramming in the information I should've been learning throughout the year but couldn't due to other… obligations.

I never fully accepted that Wood and I were done, mostly because occasionally I hear him moving around in the bathroom while I'm studying or trying to sleep. It's distracting and it brings back very painful memories to remember that he and I once shared that bathroom… openly. But then he pauses by my door and I know he's thinking about it too, and I want to cry about it but at the same time it helps to know that he at least hasn't forgotten. And it's the fact that I know he hasn't forgotten, that he thinks about it, that makes me sure that we're not really done.

But NEWTs passed and when they did and I found out what I'd managed to pass and that I could get a job handling dragons for the Ministry and then graduation was coming on all too soon. We got a week at Hogwarts to pack up and say goodbye, and I got a sinking feeling that once I said goodbye to Hogwarts, if there was no sign from Wood, that I'd be saying goodbye to him too.

And that was horrifying, because just like I hadn't let go of the idea that eventually Wood would come back to me I hadn't let go of loving him. It's why I didn't fall into that horrible depression that I'd lived through back in January when we broke up. And if I leave and he doesn't promise that he's at least going to try and come back to me, I… I don't know what'll happen.

I took a few deep breaths as I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, my hair curled and pinned painfully, making it even more tempting to run my hands through it. As Head Girl, I'm required to make a speech that's supposed to inspire my classmates to strain to essentially reach my form of perfection. Yeah right.

With a shocking thump, Oliver's door swung open. I jumped and gasped, trying simultaneously to run out in embarrassment at having been caught staring at myself and also gather all my makeup together so that Wood doesn't know how much work I had to put into looking nice.

"Aly-" I froze halfway to the door, hunched over the makeup in hopes of holding it all into the makeshift basket my arms had made. "Aly, you don't have to leave, I don't really nee-"

"I was leaving anyway, its fine." In spite of my vain hope that Wood and I would get back together, we hadn't actually talked.

"Aly," he called out again, and I'd only made it another step towards the door. He sighed, "I'm trying, Aly." My heart stopped, and my chest started to suck at my heart in a deliciously familiar way. "It's hard and it's scary, but I'm trying."