Chapter 11

Prats, Pricks, and Prats with Pricks

A/N: Swearing and horniness.

Katie's POV

If Nemesis, goddess of retribution, was tasked with punishing men for their pride and vanity, I was her acolyte.

I seethed as I all but ran up to Gryffindor tower, avoiding any conversations from my concerned teammates after practice. I didn't have it in me to explain the complexity of emotions I could barely parse through myself.

Oliver Wood didn't get to have it both ways. If he wanted me, why the fuck did he reject me? If he didn't want me, why did he give a flying fuck about Roger? And why the fuck did he kiss me?

My head hurt.

I climbed the staircase to the fifth year dormitory with heavy footfalls, breathing erratically. The latch of the door caught, and I growled, ramming it open with my shoulder.

This would all have been a lot easier if I hated him. It would be simple If I didn't get a toxic shiver of pleasure from the fact that he was so blindly jealous of Roger, or if he hadn't had me pressed deliciously up against the wall at this time yesterday.

Undermining me in front of the team was uncalled for. I wouldn't stand for it. But the traitorous want that also rose up in me was increasingly hard to tamp down.

I found myself absently sifting through the skincare and makeup products that littered the vanity and sorting them back into their drawers. Tidying the dormitory was something that was reserved for only my foulest, most fraught moods.

"Did you tell him you'd cut a deal for him? Throw the match for a special favor?"

I scoffed, Oliver's pointed words ringing in my ears. I slammed the vanity drawer shut.

I didn't understand him, and that was a problem. I had no idea what it was he wanted from me, and I could hardly admit what it was I wanted from him. Anger and desire coursed through me in the same breath, intertwined and heady.

I tucked my sheets beneath the edges of my mattress, straightening the crimson duvet for good measure.

When Leanne entered our dorm half an hour later, I had moved on to sorting through my textbooks scattered on the empty desk in the corner. Upon seeing me picking up the room, her brow furrowed in concern.

"Katie, what's going on?" She approached me as though I were a feral cat at a bus stop, palms up and steps quiet, "You only clean the room when something is terribly wrong."

"Sometimes I clean proactively," I countered sullenly. I was now folding the pile of half-dirty clothes that I'd only worn once and could get away with wearing again before washing.

Leanne hummed dismissively, tilting her head from side to side as she considered this. Git.

"What's bothering you? You've been in a state since before the exam yesterday," Leanne perched on the edge of my bed, watching me shove a hanger through the neck of a sweater violently, "Is it Davies?"

I grunted.

"What did he say to you?"

I paused my folding to consider her for a moment. Leanne was probably the least judgemental person I'd ever met, but this was a severely messy sort of entanglement.

With a sigh, I conceded.

As I began talking, the vice-like grip of anger loosened around my chest, and I took deep breaths for the first time in what felt like hours.

"Davies broke it off," I began.

"Right before the exam?" Leanne said, offended on my behalf, "Stupid prick."

"I know, yeah, and I'm pretty sure he was making out with someone right before that conversation," I said, "But it would all have been be fine if Oliver hadn't kissed me when I was walking back to the common room after that stupid Charms exam."

"Oliver what-"

"I was kind of going at him before it, actually," I continued, "I was really pissed at him for ignoring me after the whole Hogsmeade fiasco, especially with him giving me shit about Roger. He just doesn't know what he wants and I'm the one who keeps getting hurt."

Leanne gave me a commiseratory frown.

"Then when he kissed me I was so overwhelmed. I'd wanted it for so long, but not like this, you know?" I shook my head, "It was instinct, I didn't mean to do it, but one second he was snogging me and then I slapped him."

"You slapped him?" Leanne sounded impressed, "I'm sure that gave him a solid awakening, snogging you without asking."

"Then today at practice he was a complete ass," I concluded, not wanting to get into the subject matter. Leanne squeezed my hand.

"How was the kiss? I mean you slapped him, so I'm assuming it can't have been that good," Leanne said dryly.

My mind jumped back to his hand on my chin and his burly warmth pressing me into the cold stone wall. The way his mouth caressed mine. Merlin.

"It was…" I tried to find a good word, "Passionate."

"Tongue?" She prompted.

"Tastefully, yes," I said.

Leanne raised her eyebrows, "And to be fair, you've waited how many years for that kiss?"

"Long enough that he could have waited for a more opportune moment," I said irritably.

"Touché," she said, "Have you spoken to him about it?"

"No."

"Katie," Leanne looked like she had aged forty years as a tired, maternal exasperation began creasing her forehead, "You-"

The door to the dormitory banged open and Alicia and Angelina spilled into the room.

"Kates, darling, I love you but what the hell was that?" Angelina said by way of a greeting. She marched over to the armchair by the window, folding herself into it.

"Oh my god have you been tidying your room?" Alicia looked around, mouth agape, "What happened?"

I scowled, defensive, "What is with you all? I do clean the dorm sometimes."

"Sure, love," Angelina said, "You should know, Oliver wants to talk to you. He asked us to tell you to meet him in the common room this evening. Anything you'd like to share?"

"I, for one, would love some details," Alicia perched on the edge of my bed eagerly, "So at least we'll know if we need to hex Oliver's balls off."

"Everyone's balls should remain firmly attached to their bodies, thanks," I said, giving Alicia a warning look.

Leanne chimed in helpfully, "Oliver kissed her."

There was a long stretch of silence in which I was certain Angelina's eyes were going to fall out of her head and Alicia was going to die of shock. Then they both started talking at once.

"He kissed you?-

"-was it good?-"

"-Oh Merlin, was he a mess at practice because you broke his heart?-"

"-he could do with a good heartbreak, the authoritarian prat-"

"OI!" I shouted, holding my pillow to my chest like a shield, "Shut it, will you?"

This was too much for a teenage girl with minimal romantic experience and mild sleep deprivation. I rubbed my eyes tiredly.

"Did he say when to meet him?" I asked Angelina.

"Nah," she said, rolling her eyes.

Of course not.

I decided to wait for Oliver on the couch by the fire, thumbing through my Transfiguration textbook absently. It was 9:00, but he hadn't showed yet and I had another stupid practice O.W.L. the next week, so in typical form I pretended to study. I was the last person in the common room as the fire died down shortly before 11:00, by which time I was diligently fighting off sleep.

I could feel myself drifting off. How typical of him, to make me wait up. Surely I could rest my eyes for a few minutes in preparation for this conversation. I leaned my head back against the plush cushion that rested against the arm of the sofa, closing my eyes for all of ten seconds before someone entered through the portrait hole.

"Hey," a deep voice roused me from my half-sleep. I blinked around warily, eyes landing on Oliver's face. I glanced up at his full lips, at his under-eye circles, and the crease between his eyebrows that I thought might become a permanent installation on his stoic face. He had his book bag slug over one shoulder, as though he'd been at the library till the lamps dimmed and he could no longer read. Given his lack of interest in his academic endeavors, this was an unlikely scenario, so I took this to mean he'd been hiding in the locker rooms since practice.

"Wood," I said stiffly, Transfiguration textbook sliding off my lap with a dull thump.

Oliver bent down to pick it up, his hand running over its beaten spine.

"We need to talk," he murmured, not rising from where he squatted. His face was at eye level, and I sat up quickly so I was looking down at him.

"What's there to say?" I asked shortly, bordering on petulant. His left sneaker was untied, and for some reason it made me want to kiss him so badly I bit my tongue until I drew blood.

"I'm sorry, Kates," he said, "I haven't been thinking straight. I shouldn't have had a go at you at practice."

I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows, encouraging the apology to continue.

"I'm sorry for shutting you down like that, at Hogsmeade," he added, setting my textbook on the coffee table, "It was cruel."

"If that was what you wanted, I would have gotten over it," I said, not meeting his eyes, "But then you kissed me and how could I possibly know what's going on?"

Oliver's mouth pressed into a thin line, jaw ticking. I could see him working through something, but I had no idea what.

"I wasn't fair to you, about Davies," he said finally, "You should be able to date who you want without judgment."

I glared at him. So we were avoiding discussing the kiss, huh? The fog of my sleepiness lifted, replaced with a righteous irritability.

"Considering that's not really a problem any more, you can piss right off," I snapped, my leg bouncing restlessly with the energy of my rising frustration.

Oliver's hand came up and gripped my knee, stilling the movement. I felt a rush of heat up my leg, pooling in my stomach. Damn him.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly again, shaking his head, "You deserved better."

"Oh don't give me that crap," I snarled, "I already said I knew what I was doing with Davies."

Oliver looked pained for a moment, but the expression passed and he searched my face for something. What he was looking for, I couldn't say. Every conversation with this chaotic man made less and less sense.

"Was that what you wanted to say?" I asked, "This is why you wanted to meet me on a weeknight when I could have been unconscious?"

Oliver's thumb caressed the inside of my knee in a mirror of how he'd caressed my textbook. Unthinking. Casual.

I tried not to burn alive. Good Christ.

He seemed to realize at the same time as I did that my breathing had hitched, and his eyes widened. He removed his hand from my leg and I felt every cell of my body protest.

Embarrassing, frankly.

I stood up quickly, putting a few meters of space between us.

"I'm not doing a very good job of explaining myself," Oliver said quietly, standing up to his full height and scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

"No, you're not," I said.

He sighed.

"This has been riveting, but I'm going to bed," I grabbed my Transfiguration book off the table and brushed past him. As I passed, his hand caught my wrist and I paused, turning toward him.

"I'm leaving, Kates," he said finally, "In five months I won't be here."

He was right, of course. It would be stupid to give into the magnetism of the moment and crush myself against him, no matter what the gooey innards of my body wanted. But fuck him for deciding that for both of us.

"You keep making these decisions for me, Oliver," I voiced the thought, tugging my arm out of his grip, "Can you imagine what would happen if you let me make my own?"

Something in his eyes darkened, and they darted to my mouth. I made a show of letting my eyes roam over him for good measure, just so he knew what an absolute idiot he was, and what he was missing out on. I hoped he would think long and hard about this moment for the next five miserable months.

"Goodnight, Captain," I said, leaving him standing by the couch, an unreadable expression on his face.