Subject: Care of Magical Creatures
Task: Write about someone being extremely calm before losing their cool.
Chocolate Frog: Silver - Katie Bell - Challenge - Write about Katie Bell
Word Count: 752
Six Little Words
Hey Katie," Oliver said, prompting her to look up from her book. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure," she answered, closing her copy of Intermediate Transfiguration and giving Oliver her full attention. "Sit down."
She motioned to the seat across from her and struggled to keep a hopeful expression from creeping up onto her face. She was certain that this would finally be the moment that Oliver asked her out, and with the first Hogsmeade visit of the year just around the corner she couldn't imagine a more perfect way to begin their relationship after more than a year of longing looks and dancing around each other.
Katie smiled at him, taking in his nervous and restless disposition and bit her bottom lip
Oh come on Oliver, spit the words out—just six little words—will you go out with me? It's not that difficult!
"Well," Katie said eventually, growing tired of the long silence. "What did you want to ask?"
"Oh yeah, so as you know the big Quidditch match against Slytherin is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to get your opinion on the game plan I've devised for the Chasers," Oliver stated in a matter of fact voice. "I'd have asked Angie, but you know how she can be—she'd have bit my head off as soon as I brought it up."
Katie nodded her head slowly, forcing herself to keep a smile on her face and trying her best not to cry. It shouldn't come as any surprise to her that he had sought her out once again to talk Quidditch again; it was all he ever seemed to want to talk to her about. Katie had suspected that there might have been something more to it, but it was becoming clearer to her that there was not.
She couldn't believe she had been so foolish as to believe that Oliver Wood would ask her out—he could have the pick of any girl he wanted.
"Yeah—sure," she answered, keeping her voice even whilst she continued to internally berate herself.
"Great," Oliver said, oblivious to her pain as he placed the first of several moving diagrams in front of her.
She sat there for the better part of half an hour, listening to Oliver prattle on and on about numerous tactics and moves that he wanted the Chasers to master and put into practice against Slytherin.
If Katie was honest, she found the whole thing mind numbingly boring, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything because she loved the sound of his voice when he was so excited about something—even if it was Quidditch.
So she sat and she listened, nodding her head in all the right places until he suddenly trailed off mid sentence when Jodie Brown entered the Common Room.
It was the final straw and whilst she couldn't bring herself to express what was really bothering her out of fear of embarrassing herself, she found she wanted to scream at him about something, and so she chose Quidditch.
"Oh for crying out loud Oliver, do you hear yourself?" Katie cried loudly, running her hands through her hair.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Oliver said, turning his attention back to Katie with a look of pure confusion written across his face.
"I'm talking about your pathetic obsession with beating Slytherin—it seems to be all you care about these days and quite frankly it's annoying. Yes it would be great to beat them, of course it would, but the way you go on about it, anyone would think that it was a life or death situation. Every other day you have more tactics, new ideas and it is exhausting. And rather than have faith in our ability as a team, all you seem to think is that I'm not good enough—"
"Katie, calm down," Oliver said, leaning back in the chair.
"Don't you tell me to calm down, Wood! I have been waiting for you to ask me out for the last year, and every time I think you're going to, you bring up Quidditch. Well enough is enough. Go and find someone else to nod and agree with everything you say, because I'm done."
Katie jumped up from her seat and grabbed her bag, fleeing up the stairs to the girl's dormitory as she realised that she had said too much, and leaving Oliver behind in a stunned silence with a lot to think about.
