A bit late posting this, sorry. Katie was stubbornly refusing to talk to Wood about All The Feels. But we got there in the end.

Also, I am going to thank my new reviewers individually because THEY'RE WORTH IT, and also I'm the author and I DO WHAT I WANT, OKAY? If you don't want to read that bit, skip down to the line break and have-at-it.

CelticFire32, I love the Celtic knot picture/avatar thingie.I think I may have mentioned I am obsessed with anything Celtic, so High Approval.TakenByFandoms818 – I hope you have an Even Epically More Betterer Day (so there)!Also, thank-you for making me feel less-crazy about my story-attachment-issues.MelodyPond77 – Grammatically incorrect reviews are the best kind of reviews, like all the seriousness.I personally take a perverse pleasure whenever the squiggly green waves underline my sentences in MS Word.I love it, I live for it.AlyssaB – aw shucks, make me blush.I'm glad some sort of structure presented itself, because this was a little fly-by-the-seat-of-my-trousers.And no such thing as an 'obnoxiously long review' – I love hearing about how and when people read this story, because it makes it so much more real, and I know I'm not just uploading a bunch of binary into the vast, empty expanses of the Internetz.

Name: Katie Bell.
Age: still the same age as this morning.
Hair: it's dark, it's hard to see, but it's probably still there, doing hair things, unsupervised.
Current Mood: taken back.
Current Location: looking for Oliver. So of course, the Quidditch Pitch.

Ugh. Wood does not make it easy for a girl.

I'd tromped over the cold grass to the Quidditch Pitch, half in darkness, trying to think of how I'd explain myself to Wood. I'd never had to do this kind of thing before. Well, actually, I had, whenever I'd done a dangerous dive or something stupid during a game, and he'd glower at me from all the way across the Pitch. Sometimes I would hear his hoarse curses and he'd zoom back and forth on his broomstick, pretending he was defending the Hoops when he was actually doing the equivalent of pacing like a caged animal.

But whenever I'd done something stupid during a game, it worked out fine because he'd been stuck at the Posts all the way over there, and I was safely over somewhere else, and once Hooch blew the final whistle, the game was over. Oliver would have calmed down, maybe even express happiness if we'd won the game, and the means justified the ends. It was a great pattern of Katie does stupid things, gets told off, then it's all forgotten, and ultimately no real consequences.

As the round curve of the Hoop tops swam into my wand light, I began to feel nervous. I didn't know how Wood would take the whole kiss things. I reviewed my options. I could spin it as a Quidditch tactic, then I'd get a gruff, "Don't do that again," lecture Wood served my way every other time I happened to let go of my broomstick because I didn't have enough hands, or barrel too close to a Bludger, or swing under another broomstick.

Or I could... I don't know...maybe...say...? You know what; I'm not the one who makes alternate plans and elaborate strategies – that's Wood's job.

But as soon as I saw a silhouette cut through my Lumos Charm I had a feeling tonight might go a little differently.

Wood was all scowly when he got out of the Change Rooms, which didn't make sense because the Quidditch Pitch was his go-to Happy Place. When my light fell on Wood's face I saw the flat angle of his dark brows, and the way his eyes weren't a warm brown but burning. Oh, he was in a right strop. I froze under his half-shadowed glower. I very nearly Nixed my wand, preparing to run away under the cover of full darkness. I opened my mouth, ready to apologise or explain or maybe Confund him into forgetting that stupid kiss, I don't know-

"-What did that on the Quidditch Pitch before mean?" Wood growled, low and deep and sinister in the half-light cast by my Lumos Charm. It sounded so like him, angry that I'd made some play he hadn't predicted in his training scenarios. So normal, it was as if nothing else had happened involving our lips, or our fingers or bodies touching. Like his hand hadn't teased the back of my neck; like he hadn't felt my hair trail over his skin; like I hadn't scored my fingers down his chest. Just business as usual.

Which maybe made it easier for me after all.

I crossed my arms, tense. "It means, I'm still waiting."
"Waiting? For what exactly?" His brogue was gravelly and deep, and in the darkness it shivers raced through me, tingling wherever I ran out of nerve endings, making my limbs shake.
"For you to admit it." I bit my lip. I was being deliberately obtuse, talking in very broad, general terms, giving him an in. Or an out. Let him make of that 'it' statement what he will.
"Admit what?"

So, he wanted to feign ignorance and go back to what we were Pre-Hottest-Kiss-Of-My-Life. I wasn't sure if I could play that game, but despite the sinking despair in the pit of my stomach, I'd have to give it a go. I'd only have to play it for a few more hours anyway, until school finished for the year and Wood went off to Puddlemere and I could lick my wounds all holidays and pretend he was just a Scottish Flying Bastard and nothing with anymore meaning than just my Captain.
"Admit that I'm a good player and I'm not sloppy. That was the terms of the challenge you set this afternoon. And I won."
"Always a competition with you, Bell."

Wood had this Look he shoots me. He can call my moves pretty well by now, even though I don't think I hesitate before an outrageous dive or telegraph a Chaser manoeuvre, somehow my eyes always find his and he just locks his gaze on mine and gives me this dirty look of 'Don't Do It, Bell'. His whole face goes squinty – not just his eyes but his eyebrows and mouth flat line too: it's a very involved process – and waves of frowns roll over his forehead and sometimes it's enough to stop me in midflight and reconsider. It's a little warning bell that I'm heading down the path marked 'Stupid'.

But this time... this time... The storm of emotion crossing Wood's face cleared, the fog lifted, the squinty hardness around his eyes disappeared. When he looked at me, he looked... almost... hopeful?

Maybe the lack of light was playing tricks with my eyesight.

Wood moved closer into my wand's light and I flustered, because the New Look was definitely there on his face, just as intense as his old look, but different.

I wetted my lips nervously as I tried to coax words out. Wood's gaze dipped to them instead. Distraction. His own lips twisted up at the ends in a little smirk, and a tiny impression dimpled beside his smile. Huh. Who knew Wood had dimples? No-one I think, because he never usually smiled.
"If I recall," I spluttered on, "it was your idea. You laid down the challenge. Don't be a sore loser because I won."
Wood reached out his hand gently and wrapped it around my wand wrist. Then he carefully pushed his weight down on my arm so the Lumos ineffectually illuminated our feet, stretching out our shadows and silhouetting spikes of grass.
"Wood," I near-whispered, because the lack of the light suddenly signalled that my voice should be softer. "What are you doing?"
"Seeing if I can do better," he murmured. His breath ghosted across my ear and swept down my neck.

I felt the heat of his body, magnified in the cool night air. I drew closer to him, enjoying the radiating warmth. His eyes widened a little at that, and I saw honey-maple irises, unguarded and invitingly open for once. His gaze wasn't burning in anger, I realised. It was smouldering with want.

Then his lips swooped in on mine. I dropped my wand and it was all darkness and I didn't care because all I could feel was Oliver's lips, crushing against my own. I surrendered completely and wrapped my arms around his neck, wholeheartedly captured in his embrace, for once glad not to be thinking of scoring points or winning arguments or making goals.

It was just me and Wood alone on the empty Quidditch Pitch, wicked quick panting breaths and hot touches in the dark.

I felt the largest surge of vertigo I've ever experienced with two feet on the ground. I tunnelled my fingers through Wood's windswept hair and pressed further into him to steady myself. Wood gave a low murmur of approval in his throat, somewhere between a contented hum and a possessive growl.

The air around us thrummed in the night.

I shuddered, cool air biting my bare arms and Wood's palm splayed hot on my lower back, pulling me tighter against the heat of his body. I pressed closer into him. His lips felt like windburn against mine – at times his kiss fluttered and other times they were scorching.

I broke the kiss because if it went for any longer I was either going to fall down or start floating away. I caught a flicker from Wood's dark eyes and a curve of his playful smile, a shadow pooling into the crease of his dimple.

"Merlin, Oliver," I panted. "Give a girl some warning." I tried valiantly to speed up my breathing and also slow down my heart rate. And convince my legs to do their job properly.
Oliver drew back, smirking. "What do you call that?"
"Hmm," I said, pretending great consideration. I even tilted my head. Then I called on my best Scottish, pompous judge accent. "Good technique, great charisma, definitely sparky. Shows great potential."
He laced his fingers between mine and I felt the harsh scrape of calluses and the warm heat of his palm. He drew my hand, still entwined with his, to rest back up on his shoulder. He draped his free hand around my waist and leant forward, forehead to forehead, voice low and rumbling.
"And what would you call us?"

I'd like to think my kiss won because it was the first, and an unsuspected sneak attack, and by Merlin's tangled beard, I put a lot of me out there on the line with that kiss. So Katie Bell scored some points for originality and daring. But Wood's kiss won points for sheer... effectiveness.

"I'd call us... even."

(A/N: coz they're evenly matched: geddit? In Quidditch and in love? Omfg PUNS and wordplay. My God, how I spoil you: You get all the mod-cons in this FF. Also, newfound Respect for romance authors out there. I only wrote one (very chaste) kiss scene and I was both mentally exhausted and in dire need of a cigarette. And I don't even smoke.)