Knickers

Chapter 11 Part 2- New Beginnings Part 2

Katie rolled over, trying to get comfortable in the unfamiliar hospital bed. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t like hospitals very much. This, coupled with the emotional pain that came with the fact that she and Oliver were now nothing but acquaintances on a Quidditch field made it all the more difficult for her to fall asleep.

The door creaked slightly, interrupting her from her imsomniatic musings. “Oliver,” Katie said in a surprised voice. He was the last person she had expected to come visit her, especially after the massive fight they had had earlier in the evening.

“Hi,” he replied shortly, stepping into the room and shutting the door, “Look, I’m sorry to bother you but I need to talk to you about something.”

“OK,” Katie said awkwardly as she sat up in her bed. For the first time since she had met Oliver she was becoming uncomfortable. She didn’t know what to say. In lieu of words, she cleared her throat, not knowing if she was prepared to be chastised once again for the part that she had played in she and Harry’s manipulative plan but willing to take it if she had to. “Come in then. I’m assuming that this is about what happened tonight?”

“Yes and no. A little of both but mostly the latter,” Oliver sighed, running a hand through his hair and sneaking a look at Katie as she sat in the bed. He felt bad for his behaviour earlier, however warranted it might have been. The truth of the matter was that, at the moment, he needed to talk candidly with his best friend and now wasn’t the time to be holding grudges and feelings of ill-will. Putting these thoughts aside though, he spoke, “For the moment, I’d like to pretend that it didn’t happen because right now I need Katie Bell, my best friend to just listen to me for a moment.”

She paused, considering the fact that, based upon this encounter there might be hope for she and Oliver yet-at the very least to continue their friendship.

“Katie?” he cut into her thoughts, unsure of what she was thinking and slightly scared by the look on her face. She looked….lost and unsure, words that he had never before associated with his best friend but that were now at the forefront of her emotional range. “Should I leave? Is this a bad idea?”

“No, Oliver,” Katie murmured, all the while resigning herself to the fact that if she wanted to even share friendship with Oliver again that she would have to start atoning for her manipulative games. “It’s just that I really didn’t expect you to ever speak to me again except on a Quidditch field after what happened tonight.”

He looked at her wryly, smirking slightly, “Well I considered not talking to you about this but that didn’t seem like a good option.”

“And why is that?” she asked quietly. She was genuinely curious about why he was here.

She watched as he shifted uncomfortably, as if what he was about to say was physically crawling its way out from beneath his skin, “Well, I kind of found Fleur tonight in be with Victor Krum.”

“WHAT?!” Katie spat out, suddenly furious at the cheating ways of the woman who had been the reason she had had to formulate such an elaborate plan with Harry. “You found her in bed with Victor Krum?”

Oliver simply nodded, suddenly hesitant, “She and I are over. And, based on what I found tonight, I really think it’s for the best. I had suspicions but…I didn’t think she’d actually do something like that in our own bed. The point is not that I found out that she was sleeping with other men thought, or that I moved out….”

Katie felt as if she had fallen off the edge of whatever was left of reality. After everything that had happened tonight- Ginny breaking off her engagement, Ginny rejecting Harry after he told her he loved her, and then finally, Oliver and his reaction to her manipulation, she just couldn’t believe that he had then gone home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man. “Then what is the point? After everything that happened tonight you went home to….that!! I mean, I just…I just…and where are you staying then if you moved out!?” Katie interrupted, spluttering her last question out as it suddenly breached the thick reactionary moment she was having. Later, she would reflect on the trivial nature of the question itself and laugh.

Oliver ignored her though, continuing on as if she hadn’t interrupted him at all.

“….but the swiftness of a reaction I felt when I caught her with Krum.” He paused for a breath and raised his head so that he caught Katie’s eye, “I was angry, but only at first. Then I was…almost relieved.”

Katie furrowed her brow in confusion. “I don’t understand. I thought you and Fleur…”

“Had something that might last, I know,” he finished her sentence for her. “But the more I thought about how fast I made the decisions in the flat….to leave her and end it the way I did, the more I realized that the reason why I could even let myself do that had a lot to do with a lack of feelings that I had for Fleur,” he paused, not sure how to say what he had to say to Katie without sounding like a complete twit. “And an abundance of feelings I suddenly realized I had for someone else.”

Katie sat forward, becoming even more confused as he continued to talk. Oliver was NOT making any sense tonight but then again, when had men ever made complete sense to her? Harry was the same way when he was trying to tell her something; he could never just spit it out, he had to wax poetic about it for awhile first. One day she was going to meet a man who was as straightforward (or relatively anyways) as she was.

“Nothing compared to what I’ve been feeling lately,” he sighed, moving a hand through his hair and meeting her gaze head on. “When I think about you.”

Katie simply stared at him in disbelief as he rushed on, words that he had been waiting to say for weeks now flowing out of him.

“At first, it was just…friendship, you know? You were…are…my best friend Katie, and you always will be, despite what you were planning with Harry. In fact, I’m glad you and Harry did what you did. It made me see you in a way I had never thought of you in.” He paused to chuckle. “You have no idea what I was thinking when I caught you and Harry in the changing rooms that day.”

Katie, in fact, did have an idea. Several in fact, ones that Harry had been happy to relay to her during their love making session later that evening after their now infamous brush with the lights of the media when he had systematically murmured exactly what he as a man had seen in Oliver’s eyes that afternoon. She had orgasmed that evening with Oliver above her, not Harry, whether Oliver knew it or not.

She gulped silently, averting her eyes as her cheeks suddenly became hot. “So you want me then? Sexually?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly, not noticing the shocked look on Katie’s face as he continued, “Listen to me. Tonight….has just been one thing after another. I don’t know where I stand anymore and quite frankly I’m scaring myself with my un-Oliver-like behaviour.” He met Katie’s eyes with a twinkle from his own. “I’m behaving absolutely Harry-like. Maybe that’ll make you like me more now that I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that I’ve ruined our friendship with something we probably would have drifted into if I hadn’t fought it. Although Harry also had a large part in that. I have him to thank for making me realize my true feelings.”

“Oliver,” she said, sighing wearily. Why couldn’t he have confessed these feelings to her before she and Harry had concocted their elaborate plan? Now everything was so incredibly complicated that she had a feeling she would be digging herself out of the hole of lies she had dug for months. “Shut up. I get it. You like me. I like you. We’d both like to get to know each other in the biblical sense sometime in the near future.” She cleared her throat, “But, no matter how much either of us want that…I can’t let what we could have be reduced to a fling because you’re on the rebound.”

“For now anyways,” Oliver said quietly, under his breath as he took Katie’s hand into his own. He wouldn’t be on the rebound long. Reluctantly, he looked at the clock on her desk. Katie should be getting her rest. The doctors had told her that she needed to stay awake for at least 3 hours due to the concussion that she still suffered from when she had been re-admitted to St. Mungo’s that evening, and now that that 3 hour mark had passed, he knew that she was tired.

In his musings, he completely missed the hurt look that passed over Katie’s face, only to be replaced by a faint-and if he had looked closer, completely fake smile. If he had asked why at that moment, he would have noticed her misinterpretation of what he had meant to be a statement of declaration on her person, not one of dismissal. “Look, I’ve got to go. You need your rest and I still need to get a room at the Leaky Cauldron for the night. I’ll come visit you tomorrow.”

“Not necessary,” she murmured, putting her walls up again. It was safer that way. “Harry came by earlier before he went to see Ron and Hermione and he told me that the doctors said that he could take me home tomorrow morning. Beyond the hurt head, I’m in perfect health.”

“Oh.” Was Oliver’s only reply to this.

“Maybe we could do lunch sometime next week though. Maybe one morning after practice. My treat for the manipulation I put you through.”

“Alright,” he gave her a half smile and with that, he leaned forward to gently brush a kiss across her cheek.

Girlish delight rose within her and she smiled gently, watching as he withdrew from her and returned the smile. For all of her intentions of letting Oliver get over Fleur in his own time, she had a funny feeling that that course of action wasn’t in the cards for them.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?” he murmured, standing and looking down at her on the bed.

She nodded. “Until tomorrow Oliver.”

And with that, he turned and left. It had been a long and arduous day but somehow, despite everything that had happened, it had still managed to be a good one.