Hi everyone, hope you like this one :) any comments would be much appreciated. I've switched on anonymous reviews so if you'd like to put your two cents in but don't want people to know who you are, go for it! - Tria x
Fred and I were late to our first class the next day. We woke the next day on time, but we could hear everyone walking and talking in the common room. There was no way either of us was letting Fred leave when there were people everywhere.
We often slept together. Not slept together, but slept together. Fell asleep together. It was nice to have someone to talk to until I was asleep. There was only one problem; Fred was starting to feel like a best friend, not a boyfriend. I loved Fred, but it was more of a friendly love, not a romantic love. I think Fred was feeling something different too, we were kissing less and being 'sickly cute' as George had put it. Every now and then there were awkward silences and we'd never had that before.
One night in the beginning of December, Fred and I were sitting on my bed.
"Jem," Fred said, looking at the ceiling, "I was thinking…"
"That's never good," I laughed, "but please continue."
Fred smiled a sadly and looked at me, "Do you ever think that you and are..." he trailed off awkwardly, a look of concern on his face.
"Better off friends?" I offered.
Fred's face flooded with relief, "Thank Merlin. You think so too?"
I sighed, "I mean, we're really close but it's kind of been a bit like you're my bestfriend… not my boyfriend…"
Fred laughed a little, "I completely agree." He sighed heavily, "I love you, you know that right? You're like the best friend I've had… aside from George, of course."
"Of course. How could I beat George? I love you too Freddy." There was a silence, "Is that a big weight off your chest?" I asked and seeing him nod, I laughed, "Me too."
We sat on my bed for a little while longer, talking like friends. The awkward moments and silences were gone and we were more relaxed.
"Do you think anyone is outside?" he asked, looking towards the door.
"Why?" I asked feigning hurt, "Are you going to leave and never talk to me again?"
Fred laughed, "No," he patted my face affectionately, "You're adorable and I love you but if my stomach growls any louder, it's going to burst out of me and eat you and anyone around us."
"Wow," I said, laughing, "That's quite a hunger."
I walked to my door and opened it bit, seeing no one in the common room, I walked out and motioned to Fred to do the same. Just as Fred walked out, someone came walking down the boy's dormitory stairs.
"Oliver." I said, shocked that he was still here and not at dinner.
"Jem, why are you not at dinner–?" Oliver stopped, seeing Fred exit my room, "Oh – I'll see – I'll see you later." He walked to the portrait hole and left the room quickly.
"That wasn't at all awkward." I said shaking my head, Oliver hadn't spoken to me since Fred and I had started going out. He was almost ignoring me completely; unless he was barking an instruction to me in Quidditch practice or games.
"I wonder why?" Fred said sarcastically as we headed out of the portrait hole to have dinner.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked, bewildered at the small smile forming on Fred's lips.
"Oh, as if you don't know. Oliver has fancied you since the moment he saw you."
I practically tripped, "What?" I baulked.
Fred and I arrived in the Great Hall to see our friends waiting for us to join them, Oliver was sitting elsewhere with Harry and his friends, "How could you not know that?"
As we sat, George spoke, "Not know what?"
"Nothing." I said quickly, just as Fred spoke as well.
"Oliver fancies Jem," he said and George nodded.
"We're allowed to talk about this now?" Katie asked.
"What?" I asked, "How does everyone know about this but me?"
Fred, Katie, Lee, Alicia and George were ignoring me and continuing with their conversation, "Jem and I have broken up." Fred explained.
"Aw," Katie and Alicia said together.
"We're better off friends." I explained, having them finally pay attention to me.
The five of them continued to talk about Oliver and me as if I weren't there.
That afternoon, Oliver and I were in Defence Against the Dark Arts [sitting together because none other of my friends were in the class], when he spoke.
"How're things with Fred?" Oliver asked, not looking at me.
"Not bad. He's thinking of asking Katie out." I said casually, Oliver whipped his head around to stare at me.
"What?" he sounded shocked.
"Oh. Have you not heard?" I asked, knowing he didn't know about our break up because he was too busy ignoring me, "We broke up this morning."
"Oh." Was all he could say, "Are you…ok?"
I chuckled a little and looked at him, "I'm fine Obi, thank you for your concern. We're still good friends. We were better friends than when we were together."
"Well," Oliver said, looking at me, "if you ever need to talk about anything, you know where I am."
I smiled, "Thanks Obi. If you ever need help with your Quidditch work, you know where I am."
The bell rang, signalling class was over.
It was the day of the final Quidditch match before Christmas break. Once the game was over, I would be packing my bags and getting ready to leave for the Weasley's house the next day for Christmas break. Fred was adamant that he wanted me to come to his house still; I was his best friend and he wanted to celebrate the holidays with me.
Oliver had given his pre-match speech and we were heading out to the pitch. We were playing our first match against Slytherin and I was more nervous than the Ravenclaw match. Slytherin played dirty, I'd seen their match against Hufflepuff and it was frightening. The Hufflepuff seeker was almost decapitated by a Bludger; missed them by milliseconds.
We were about twenty minutes into the game when it happened. Harry had seen the snitch just behind the Slytherin keeper, Fred and George were pelting bludgers in the directions of Slytherin players left and right and I was heading for the goal post to distract the Keeper with the Quaffle so Harry could zoom past and snag the snitch. I raced up in front of Harry, making sure the slick-haired Keeper was focussed on me and allowed Harry to sneak behind him. The snitch was about a meter away when I reached out to throw the Quaffle at the hoop. Harry caught the snitch just as I threw the Quaffle.
We'd won. Harry was grinning wildly and I was doing flips on my broom. It felt good to win against the slimiest team in the school. I was searching the sky for my other teammates when Oliver flew over to me and pulled me into an on-broom hug. As we parted, I saw something flying towards us. I thought it was another member of the team coming to join in the festivities but I was wrong. A bludger, having been hit by one of the Slytherin beaters, came whizzing towards us. Oliver and I tried to get away, but it collided with my left arm and his right as we parted. Madam Hooch's whistle blew furiously and three quarters of the crowd was booing. The game was over. The bludgers were supposed to be coming back to Madam Hooch, not being hit into other players anymore.
The pain was excruciating. Oliver had hissed and looked in pain, but I was a mess. I'd always been nimble enough to escape on coming bludgers so I'd never felt this pain before. My vision became blurry as I began to cry. Fred and George came alongside me and guided me down to the ground so I could dismount. Oliver met us on the ground and we were both sent off to the hospital wing.
The rest of our team had been told my Professor McGonagall that they were to change, shower and head straight back to the common room, the Slytherins were told by Professors Snape and McGonagall that the points they had earned in the match would not be awarded to them and each of them would be serving detention for the entirety of next term.
Oliver and I had been given numbing charms on our arms from Professor Flitwick and we headed towards the infirmary tower. When we arrived, there was no one there.
"Where's Madam Pomfrey?" Oliver asked out loud.
A young woman, dressed in nursing robes came bustling out of a room the left, looking a little shocked to see there was someone in the hospital wing.
"Oh," she said, her voice high and strangly, "I didn't realise anyone was here. I'm Nurse Weaver and I'm looking after the hospital wing while Madam Pomfrey is out on family business. What seems to be the problem?"
Oliver and I looked nervously at each other. If this woman couldn't see that Oliver's arm was swollen as hell and mine was dangling at a strange angle, how was she supposed to heal us?
Nurse Weaver looked at us strangely for a moment, "Oh my! Look at your arms. How did this happen?"
"Bludger." Was all Oliver said as Nurse Weaver led he and I towards the beds.
The woman took Oliver's injured arm tentatively and pointed her wand at it. An eery green colour irrupted from the wand and coated Oliver's arm. Weaver looked like she was looking into Oliver's arm.
"Good news for you young man," she said merrily, "You've just snapped the ulna. Easy fix," she waved her wand and there was a sickly cracking sound.
I shivered slightly and watched as Oliver flexed his fingers, "Perfect." He said.
"Your muscles will be sore for a while but the bone is fine again." Weaver smiled sweetly after she had wrapped Oliver's arm in bandages. She walked over to me on the other bed, picked up my hand and cast the same eery green spell. She looked confused.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked, Oliver joining us at the end of my bed.
"Well," Weaver started, sighing slightly, "I can fix the broken bones but there is a tendon wrapped around the broken bone." I shuddered, "I'm too young to have been taught that magic yet. To fix that you'll either need to wait for Madam Pomfrey to return after the Christmas break or go to St Mungos Hospital."
"Will I be in pain the entire time I'm on holidays?" I asked, not wanting to ruin my holidays by going to the hospital or being in pain.
"Well, it won't hurt as much as it does now, but you won't be able to bend your wrist without damaging it more, so I'll need to put what muggles call plaster on it." Weaver explained.
I sighed, "It's ok. If you could please fix the bone and I'll wait until new year for Madam Pomfrey to fix it?" Oliver nodded at me and Weaver waved her wand.
"All done. Now keep the wrist straight, so I can get set the plaster."
I sat obediently and waited for Weaver to return. Oliver scooted closer to me to look at my arm.
"Just like you," he laughed, "Can't just do something small. When you do something, you do it big."
I reached out, with my injured arm, and swatted him. I immediately regretted it. A sharp twinge emanated from my wrist and spiked all the way to my elbow.
"Holy crap," I shuddered, "remind me never to do that again."
"It was a pretty stupid thing to do." Oliver agreed as Weaver returned with what looked like wet white clay.
She patched my arm up and flicked her wand to solidify the plaster. Weaver told us we were good to go back to our common room so we thanked her and left. We were almost back at the common room when Oliver stopped.
"Obi?" I asked, turning to see why he'd stopped, "Are you ok?"
"Before we go back to the common room, I wanted to tell you something." Oliver said, "I want to say I'm sorry. I've been weird around you lately and I'm sorry. I really am…"
"Obi," I smiled, "it's ok. I know you've been stressed out wi–"
Oliver raised his hand to stop me, "Please let me finish?" I nodded and Oliver continued, "I want to be honest with you. You and Fred… I didn't like it. It made me mad. I didn't like seeing him hold your hand. Or touch your cheek. Or kiss you." Oliver took a step towards me and my heart started pounding, he reached up and touched my cheek, "I didn't like seeing him do it because I wanted to be the one to do it. I wanted to be the one coming out of your room that morning, not Fred. You're beautiful… and funny… and talented… and…"
"And what?" I whispered, not wanting to ruin the moment that he had started by being so quiet and intimate.
"And," I swallowed as Oliver bent his face down to mine, "I really want to kiss you now."
"Yeah?" I asked, and Oliver smiled.
"Yeah." He said and bent down, connecting his lips to mine.