Chapter 13

The week before the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match went down slightly differently. Oliver did what he usually does, trapping his players in corners and assailing them with speeches combined with late, early and I don't know what practises.

Me on the other hand, I had decided with my friends that we were going to have a lot of practises during the weeks before the game, and on the last week we were going to slow down and only do two, hopefully this would help the team feel less stressed and worn-out. It also meant that I had less of a chance of bumping into Oliver on the pitch. Because bumping into someone who you're avoiding out of sheer awkwardness can be seen as counterproductive, at least in my book.

I wasn't sure about this approach, but it seemed more efficient than what Oliver was currently doing. He wasn't just wearing his team out but also himself. I would often see him just staring at his plate of food in the Great Hall or being fast asleep in classes. Whenever he tried talking to me, I could see that his eyes were red from sleep deprivation. But we didn't get to talk much, hence me trying to appear like I wasn't interested in him and therefore keeping conversations brief.

"I don't get it." PJ had said. "You seemed determined for you two to be friends. Now every time he talks to you, you appear to want to run in the opposite direction."

Listening to their constant confusion was frustrating. I wished I could explain to them about the kiss, I'm sure they would understand if I told them. But I wasn't the type of person who talked to anyone about that sort of stuff.

"It's sad is all, he's different now. He's nice to you. 'Doesn't seem to think you're plotting murder or anything, which is a big development." Bianca joked.

Since I wasn't going to spend much time at the pitch I figured that it might be a good idea to spend that time in the library instead, and so I did.

It was when I was sitting peacefully in the library with my books trying to get all my papers finished that Oliver slouched down next to me.

"Mind if I sit here?" He asked when he saw that I was eyeing him from behind my stack of books.

"No, it's not a problem." I dug my nose back into my book.

He carelessly threw his books up on the table. He then proceeded to try and organize his surroundings by clumsily trying to sort out all of his parchment and dropping his pen on the floor several times in the process. After a while everything stilled from his side of the table and we sat quiet for a few moments.

"If we win on Saturday, and I'm not saying that we will." He quickly added. "Would you still come and celebrate with us after?" He broke the silence by saying.

I hesitated before I laid my book down and reluctantly met his tired gaze. He looked drowsy and he was lying down on his closed book with crossed arms. "I'm not sure, actually. My team and I would probably be pretty bummed about losing."

"Yes, of course..." He kept quiet for a while and I was just about to pick up my book again when he said, "I would have come to yours."

"Would you though?" I doubted.

"Yes!" He sounded convinced. "I would be devastated. In fact, I would probably cry even. But I would still come, as the good sport that I am." He looked me dead in the eyes. "In my humble opinion." He added and smiled widely.

I tried not to smile back. "Hm, okay." I answered. "I believe you." I said and returned to my book, hoping this would cover the potential smile playing at my lips.

"I would've thought you'd would do the same." He continued.

I sighed. "What exactly is it that you want, Oliver?"

He kept smiling. "I think you should do the same for me."

"For you?"

"Yes for me. I'm over here saying that I would set aside our rivalry and still come and celebrate your hypothetical win, why wouldn't you do the same for me? That's not very Hufflepuff of you." He pointed at the table with his full hand as he said this, passionately making his point in his most team captain manner.

"So you want me to say I'll come to your party on Saturday, if you win?" I inquired confused.

"I think we should make a deal. A deal that when one of us loses, that person should still come to the party, to clear the air. No hard feelings." He declared determined.

"Fine, I can do that, no problem." I stated confidently.

He swiftly slid over to where I was sitting and extended his hand. "Deal?" He asked, looking me intently in the eyes. I wondered then, if this was some sort of a challenge to see if I really was the civil opponent I had made myself out to be.

I was a little startled by his sudden close proximity. But I shook his hand and flashed him a polite smile nonetheless. "Alright, good thing we got that out of the way. Now I'm heading back to my dorm." I stood up, packed my books into my backpack and made a quick exit, leaving a confused Oliver.

I hurried down to the crowded common room and made myself comfortable in one of the sofas in the middle of the room. I figured that this might be a more of an unobtrusive environment for me to study in, without Oliver distracting me with his deals and handshakes. But as it turns out I was probably better of in the silent library.

I tried to get as much as possible done anyway. Soon enough I got lost in my work and the room fell quiet. After a long while when I sat up straight and stretched I realised that I was completely alone. It took me a while to figure out why not a single person was in there with me, but when I got around to having a look at the time it all became clear. It was way over dinnertime and everyone would be in the Great Hall by now. I decided that there was no point going down there as it would close soon, so I engrossed myself back in A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration. I sat like that, thinking this had always been me, spending twice as much time studying, but getting half as good grades as my friends. I then heard someone entering the common room, so I looked up only to see Oliver, once again un-expectantly appearing before me.

He just stood there awkwardly for a moment, looking at me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, and it came out sounding more frustrated than I had intended. It was just too hard being around him. Trying not to smile at him in that vulnerable way, trying to seem disinterested, trying not to look at his hair or eyes or mouth. And here he was and I feared I would be doing all of those things in a matter of seconds.

"Did you know that your door doesn't have a lock?" He asked randomly. He actually sounded quite agitated himself.

"It does. You just tap the rhythm."

"'Just tap the rhythm.'" He imitated with a roll of his eyes. "I meant a real lock."

I was a little taken aback with his sudden sass. "How is that different from a password?" I asked.

"It's not so much the password, if you want to call it that, I guess, and more the fact of how I got hold of it. I've never been here before you see. And so I thought, how can I get in there? But as my luck would have it, Cedric happened to walk past me, and I thought it a shot in the dark, but I asked him for it." He paused for dramatic effect. "And he sodding just went ahead and gave it to me!" His eyes were wide with frustration. "Not even a 'why do you ask?'" He sighed. "Without a moment's hesitation!"

"So what?" I asked, finding it hard to believe he could be this upset by something like that.

Oliver looked genuinely baffled at this point. He threw his arms up and down again in utter frustration. "Well, what if I sodding went in here and sodding stole all your stuff?" He almost shouted.

I couldn't help but laugh at his absurdness. "Yeah but why would you do that, Oliver? You're not making sense. It's really not that big of a deal."

"Nothing's a big deal to you it seems!"

My eyebrows flew up. I felt like there was subtext to what he was saying now, but I couldn't catch what it was. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked suspiciously.

"What I mean is, how can you be this aloof about everything? For once in your life will you have some sense?"

I had remained calm throughout this conversation so far, but there was only so much of Oliver that I could take until inevitable anger would arise in me. It was doomed to happen. "Well, you are too damned uptight about everything! You just walk around, heckling your own team about practises to the point where they hate you!"

"My team does not hate me!"

"I sure know I would." I mumbled without thinking.

"What?!" Oliver's eyes turned dark at that point but I didn't care, I had tried so hard not to have to see him and he made it so damn difficult.

"I said I would hate you! It's impossible not to really, with your early practises and your 'talk' after every practise and you just simply have to have it or the world will inevitably crumble and how you always make everything into a competition and just LOOK AT YOU, can't you dress right, ever? Why do you always have to walk around like that with your cloak hanging off your shoulder? Bloody tidy up for once in your life!"

He looked at me, puzzled. "You're so weird." He stated, calmer now but still mildly annoyed.

"You're so frustrating!" I retorted. He'd gotten closer I realised, or maybe I'd gotten closer to him? There was an unexpected calm over us where we just stared at each other.

"Willow." He said. I didn't reply out of confusion as to what just happened. He was walking closer and closer to me. He looked determined. During the first second I started to wonder why, in the next I wondered if he was going to kiss me, and in the third and final second, when he did, I was astonished to find that I was prepared for it. He sunk his lips into mine and I kissed him back vigorously. There was an itch that has not been scratched for the last few weeks, and I finally realised that this was that itch. And it felt wondrous to scratch it.

We were both kind of inexperienced an clumsy in our kissing, but it felt special. Like nothing else. I wanted to do it more.

Oliver stepped closer and closer to the edge of the couch behind me until my legs were pressed against the armrest. With one last push I fell back and landed on the couch. Thank god that was there, I thought, but then realised that it was probably his intent from the beginning.

He got on the couch as well and was leaning over me. He looked happily down on me and I finally allowed myself to smile back at him. His hands were on either side of me and he leaned down to continue our adventure.

"You're so great." He mumbled between kisses and I got this strange feeling in the bottom of my stomach, a good feeling.

"I love your untidiness." I mumbled back. "You're so cute when you lean on things." I said as my hands ran through his hair, I was hoping that it would look extra Oliver-unruly when we were finished.

He kept mumbling absentmindedly. "You're hot when you're angry." His hands were on either side of me, leaned against the couch cushions.

"I want to listen to your talk." I said but regretted it when it caused his lips to leave mine.

He looked at me and said, "You can't. It's classified." He leaned down and gave me a close-mouthed kiss.

"Then you can't be in on our Hufflepuff routines." I retorted.

We had completely stopped kissing each other by now and he was just staring at me disbelievingly with raised eyebrows. "What routines do you guys have?"

"Shut up." I said breathlessly and leaned upwards toward him and kissed him again. I pulled him down onto me and he breathed heavily, seemingly having forgotten about anything we just said. "I want to play Quidditch with you in the middle of the night." I continued as I was having a lot of fun with this routine of complementing each other.

"I love that your door doesn't have a lock." He said.

"It has a lock."

After an awaited response he said, "I love that too."

"I want to see you in a bowtie." I whispered out of nowhere.

"Weird." He breathed.

"Bowties are cool, you know."

"I always know where you are when we're in the same room, it's embarrassing." He said and I couldn't help but smile against his mouth, knowing very well that someone else was having a similar experience, me. I kissed him deeper and let out a moan, which in return made him go wild. He moved down and kissed my neck. "I have a knack for finding you." He whispered against my neck.

"Maybe you've got a bit of Hufflepuff in you." I said with a tremble, thinking back to when he, much like now, appeared out of nowhere in a remote room somewhere even I couldn't find if I wanted to. "Why did you come here by the way?"

He stopped kissing me and sat up. I cursed myself for making the warmth he had brought to my body go away. He looked startled, like he didn't know what to say. I moved to sit upright as well and he took this as a cue to get off of me. He sat away from me, suddenly self-conscious, suddenly blatantly aware of our situation.

"I guess I just-" He started saying before the door opened and my friends popped inside, interrupting him. I thanked Merlin they hadn't walked in just a minute earlier. Oliver looked me deep in the eyes. Before my friends greeted us he quickly whispered, "I needed more."

I hope my lips aren't swollen was all that crossed my mind before all thoughts were interrupted by Bianca's anything but dulcet tones.

"We brought food for you!" She trilled and barely started skipping toward me before she spotted Oliver. "How did you get in here?" They all looked confusedly at Oliver and I as they approached us.

"Did you let him in, Will?" PJ asked.

"Doesn't seem like a thing she would do." Bianca snorted.

"Oh come off it." Oliver said. "It's not exactly the department of mysteries down here, is it? You've barely got a password!"

They all stared at Oliver, probably wondering what gave him air.

"So you've settled on barely now, have you?" I asked with a smile that was probably wider than I'd care to admit.

"Wait, so did you or did you not let him in Will?" PJ asked.

"Why would she not let me in?" Oliver demanded defensively.

"Because…" PJ tried.

"You's don't really get on do you?" Wright sang sweetly and slouched down in a chair.

I mostly stayed quiet. The only thing I could think about was whether my lips did or did not in fact appear swollen.

Oliver seemed quite upset by now though. "We do get along!"

I figured I should probably say something. "We get on plenty." I said reassuringly.

"No we don't!" Oliver burst quickly.

"Well that was a sudden change of heart." Bianca said.

Oliver's cheeks turned red. "Never mind… I thought you said get it on." He looked around the group once, trying to gather how big the damage was, everyone stayed awkwardly quiet. The weight of his mistake slowly dawned on him and he buried his face in his hands. "I should go now." He stood and said in a monotone voice, "This has been fun." Then turned and marched toward the door.

"Don't mind him, he's just had an intense day it seems." I said to smooth over the whole ordeal.

The girls just sort of shrugged. They probably assumed that this was plain old Oliver Wood acting up before a game. Although I was still in a state of utter shock as to what had just happened. My stomach was fluttering like a butterfly.

I left the common room for my bed and my friends tagged along. I sat down on the bed, eating the dinner they had brought me. Again, they didn't seem to think much of what Oliver had said or anything relating to it. Which was a relief. My lips probably hadn't been noticeably swollen. I wished I could tell that to Oliver right now though as he was probably worried about it and he really didn't need the extra stress right now.

I stared out the rain-prickled window beside my bed as I took another bite of my food. It was so dark outside already.

I needed more.

The words were floating in the air around me. I put away the food, drew the curtains of my bed and lay there, unable to force my wide smile back. I went through the kiss in my mind over and over again, praying for every detail to remain, until darkness ensued.

11 October 2018

A/N: Did you like/dislike anything about this chapter? Please let me know!