CHAPTER FIVE
the devil, the dad friend
ONE AND A HALF HOURS into Quidditch practice, Oliver kicked them off the pitch for a break.
Since it was a Saturday, breakfast would be served at a later time, so they still had room in their tight window of opportunity for a fifteen minute interlude before Oliver forced them onto the pitch again for another hour. One-by-one, students rose with the sun rays splaying over the lush hills surrounding campus. Sawyer could see clusters of them milling about the lake, skipping stones and rousing the birds nesting in the trees, indistinguishable in their homogenous Hogwarts uniforms.
Six forty-five in the morning and the sky was already bleeding light. The sun glowered at them from its shelter behind a tiny, pathetic excuse of a cloud. Basking in the rare warmth, Sawyer, Violet and Harry sat on the grass, stretching their legs and resting. Face flushed from practice, Violet had her knobby knees hugged to her chest as she watched the clouds float by in the sky. Harry mirrored her stance. Sawyer gazed at the silhouette of the Whomping Willow somewhere in the distance, legs splayed out before her as she braced her palms behind her, fingers digging into the grass.
Instead of going over more plans and tactics, Oliver had flown over on his broom to the stands to sit with Wyatt, leaving the two Hufflepuffs and the small Seeker to their own devices. Until then, Sawyer had almost forgotten her brother had come to watch. She wondered what could possibly have possessed him to be able to wake up this early and drag himself to a practice he wasn't even a part of. But then she remembered that Wyatt had always been a morning person just like her parents, and he was always the more active one out of the two of them.
"It's not true, is it?" A voice at her elbow spoke, tinged with curiosity.
Sawyer turned to face Harry, whose eyes seemed to bug out behind those round spectacles. "What is?"
"What they say about you," Harry explained, and then held out a hand to which he began to tick off the incidences and rumours on his fingers, "that you nearly shattered someone's skull in your first year. That you have uncontrollable anger issues. That you broke a teammate's arm because they body-checked you in practice. There are way more, but they start to sound a little ridiculous from there."
Sawyer gave it a moment's thought.
"The first one is true," she said, mildly aware of Violet's pressing stare, the widening of her doe eyes in abject horror. Sawyer decided to save recounting the gory details. They didn't need to hear the entire story. "It was one of you Gryffindors. But the annoying git deserved it, honestly. Second one is also true. I do have anger issues. Dumbledore says it's not an excuse for my behaviour, which is, like, fair, but I've given up trying to fix it. Third one is just a rumour, but I'll tell you something. I hit your team captain in the head with a bludger during his first game. Knocked him out cold. Did he ever tell you that story? Not yet? Shame. It was a glorious moment."
"He seems to trust you."
Even after that, was what Sawyer knew Harry wanted to say. Even after your impulsive behaviour that should never present itself on the pitch.
"He's delusional." Sawyer said, flippantly. "Always searching for the perfect game, always thinking in formulas, angles, and equations. Nothing is enough for him, and he ignores the rest of the world in the face of Quidditch. You can admire his dedication, you can emulate his plays. Just don't be another copy of him. You'll drive yourself mad."
Harry nodded, mouth drawn into an 'O' shape.
"You're not friends, are you?"
"Our families are friends," Sawyer pointed out. "My brother's basically attached to him twenty-four-seven. I'm not."
"Why do you hate Quidditch so much?"
"I never said that."
"Oliver told me when he was ranting about your tardiness earlier."
Scoffing, Sawyer involuntarily let her gaze drift to Oliver, sitting in the Quidditch stands with Wyatt, who had his head thrown back in boisterous laughter at something the former boy had said. Still reeling with amusement, Wyatt smacked Oliver so hard on the shoulder that even Sawyer felt a phantom twinge in her own. Sawyer's fingers knotted mindlessly in the grass, snapping a handful of dirt and roots and green stems.
Watching them from afar shook loose a lost memory wedged in the crevice of forgetfulness. A memory from last night's dinner, and—later, while they were taking their time in the hallways heading off to their respective common rooms—Marcus Flint's voice in her head: Everyone thinks there's something going on with you and Wood since Pansy told everyone in the Slytherin common room and their mothers she saw you guys come out of that classroom together. Just saying, the entire team thinks you're copulating, or whatever.
Oh, shit, Sawyer thought, a rush of dread pooling in her gut. But she had to soldier on with her day, she could ignore it just like how she ignored everything particularly detrimental to a reputation she didn't build for herself on purpose.
So she recovers quickly, and tells Harry, who she realised she'd left hanging, "Dumbledore and Professor Sprout thought Quidditch would be a good outlet for my anger. A therapeutic extra-curricular, is what they called it, I believe. At first, I tried out because a friend thought I should give it a shot, but I never expected to get in. Imagine the shock when everyone found out I was actually good at hitting flying objects with sticks."
"Was it working?"
Sawyer shrugged, trying for indifference even though her skin prickled in discomfort. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I've had less outbursts since I joined than I did back in first year."
"But you never tried to get out of it?"
"No. Quidditch is boring, but less boring than life."
Harry cocked his head thoughtfully. "You're not actually a psychopath, are you?"
"I never said I was."
"But you don't correct them."
"Waste of time."
Brows furrowing, Harry opened his mouth to fire off another question. But before he could get another word in, Sawyer was already on her feet, brushing off blades of grass from her clothes. Without so much as a look back over her shoulder at the fresh-faced underclassmen, she stalked off towards the pitch with her broom in hand. With a practiced ease, she mounted it and rose into the air until she was level with where Oliver sat with Wyatt, who were captivated, mid-conversation, about something Sawyer didn't think she could stomach listening to.
"Wood," Sawyer called, impatience already crawling under her skin, nerves sparking, veins singing. Oliver's eyes cut to hers and the surprise that registered in them almost knocked him off his seat. Nonplussed, Wyatt could only blink at his twin sister, who pointedly ignored his pressing gaze. She locked her eyes on Oliver's, knuckles blanching paper-white from gripping her broom with murderous intent, as though it were a neck and she was putting it in a chokehold. She cocked her head towards the other side of the stands. "A word."
Though it sounded more demand than request coming out of her mouth, Oliver only grumbled in mild irritation before getting up and seizing his broom off the seat beside him. He turned to Wyatt with a tight smile. "Give us a second, yeah?"
Then he followed after Sawyer, who landed on the far end of the stands—as far as she could get away from Wyatt.
"Let me guess," Oliver drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and arching a brow. "You want to pull out of the deal because you hate that Violet kid, and this is a total waste of time because you realise that Gryffindor's going to wipe Hufflepuff's arses on the field one second into the next game anyway."
"What? No." Sawyer scoffed. "No, I don't hate Violet. She's missing a little spine, but she's more tolerable than most."
"So you're not denying that this is a total waste of time and Gryffindor's going to shred your entire team?"
"I'm not pulling out of the deal, moron," Sawyer sighed, scrubbing a hand down her face. "I stick to my promises. You know this firsthand."
Like the sunshine breaking through the last dregs of a thunderstorm, the clouds of tension in Oliver's face melted away to a flash of relief. There for a second, gone the next, replaced by the infamous scowl of distrust reserved only for her presence.
"If this is you implying what you did to my fucking hair back in first year—"
A toothy grin stretched her lips, sharklike and predatory.
"Cut me off again, and you'll damn well get a repeat," said Sawyer, in a voice made of fangs dripping venom and menace.
"I hate you," Oliver grumbled, shooting her the stink eye. Though, the sheer mortification warping his features from that old memory hindered all traces of resentment. Instead, his face was a comical hybrid of mild constipation and traumatised discomfort. He reached up to rake a hand through his dark hair.
"The entire Slytherin team doesn't seem to think so."
Oliver's arm froze in mid-air.
When he spoke, his voice had grown so dangerously quiet, it cut through the air like a knife. "What are you implying?"
"I said—"
"No, no, I heard what you said," Oliver hissed, eyes blazing. "Who the fuck— You know what? Just give me a rundown of the damage."
"Marcus—"
Oliver threw his hands up in exasperation. "Of course you're friends with that narcissistic tit."
"—told me some first year kid saw us walk out of that classroom after we made that deal," Sawyer said, slow and calm, like coaxing a bull back into its pen, ignoring Oliver's disgruntled dig at her friend. "Apparently she told her friends, who told everyone in the Slytherin common room, and obviously—"
"They twisted it so it sounded like we were doing shit," Oliver sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. If Sawyer were anyone else, she might have been deeply offended by the cutting distaste in his tone. But since she shared the same sentiment, it barely made a dent in her ego.
"According to her, you were smiling like a fool when you walked out," Sawyer mused, picking lint off her sleeve. Half a coffee ring she hadn't noticed before staining the grey material frowned back at her.
"Oh, that's just great. First, I'm apparently snogging you, then—according to her—I actually enjoyed it."
"So?"
"So," Oliver said, looking up at her with a grimace, "we get a body bag, we track down the little shithead who's spreading all those lies—"
Sawyer snorted. "That was my first thought too. It's Pansy Parkinson, by the way, if that name means anything to you."
Oliver slanted her a scathing, deadpan look. "I'm glad we share the same sentiment. We have a name, now we have a head-start."
"If it makes you feel any better, your Seeker's still a secret. I don't think Marcus has caught on yet."
"I guess, that's one less thing to worry about," Oliver said, fidgeting with the hilt of his broomstick with a faraway look clouding his expression.
Sawyer cocked her head. "For someone who might catch hell on the pitch about this, you're taking this awfully well." It was beginning to freak her out just a little.
Pursing his lips, Oliver glanced over his shoulder at Wyatt, who was too engrossed in a book to recognise the strange shift in the air. He turned back to her with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye, a lightbulb going off between his temples.
"Faking a thing between us won't work out," Sawyer said, caution edging her tone. "My brother—"
"Will be told you wanted absolute confidentiality about our relationship, which I respected because I'm such a good guy," Oliver interjected, with a lambent smile every bit the maniacal genius Oliver thought he was—a smile that made Sawyer want to whack him over the head even harder than she already did.
"I'd rather ferment my own organs," Sawyer drawled. And, truly, her insides already felt just about fermented at the sheer notion that she could ever be caught dead in a relationship with Oliver Wood of all people.
"Listen," Oliver snapped, "there's no avoiding the amount of shit we're going to be getting on the pitch. I mean, how else would you explain the classroom situation?"
"If you ignore the problem, it'll go away eventually. What you're trying to do with this batshit insane plan of yours, is spoon-feed them more entertainment. It's stupid and unnecessary."
"Yeah, but if we're going to be visibly hanging around each other four times a week with training both kids and going over theory in the library—"
"No."
"What are you going to tell your friends when they ask you why you're spending so much time with me when, last semester, you wouldn't so much as even look me in the eyes? Bit of a drastic change, isn't it? And if you say we settled our differences over the summer break—which you'd never bother to in a million years—nobody would believe you. Four years in this school and your only friends so far have been Jeremy, Rio and somewhat Flint." Oliver's eyes were blazing, boring into hers with a messianic intensity. With the challenge scribbled all over the wired tension in his shoulders, in the sharp cut of his clenched jaw, in the frustration smouldering in the fierce lines of his features, it came to Sawyer as a shock how he managed to keep his tone so level.
"If we wouldn't even settle for a friendship, how would a relationship work?"
"You know what they say about attraction." Oliver shrugged. "Shit's blind."
A surge of indignation pricked her veins, setting the blood beneath to a slow boil. How did he not see her point—that playing pretend at a romantic relationship wouldn't fox anything, especially with all the plotholes in their desperately fabricated tale? How did this complete moron not see that they were grasping at straws here?
In the same vein, though, he did make a solid point. Which annoyed her even more because he was right. At some point, she was going to have to give Jeremy and Rio something. Just not the truth because she honoured every promise she made, and this promise in particular meant she couldn't tell them about Harry Potter. Plus, there was no other way around it. Telling them about Violet's training was a half-lie they could swallow, but a half-lie that would eventually backfire because Oliver's presence was suspect enough to raise the unnecessary questions. Why did he have to be the one making sense this time?
"God fucking dammit," Sawyer growled, slanting him an incendiary glare. "Why can't you be the complete idiot I need you to be today?"
A smug smirk tugged at Oliver's lips.
"Say it, Lee. Oliver Wood is the most amazing wizard-slash-genius—"
"I already have to pretend I find the idea of your tongue going anywhere near my body somewhat enjoyable. Do not push it."
"We don't have to do anything, really, it's just a cover story. Nor do we need to announce it to everyone immediately," Oliver explained. "Like, only if they ask, we'll just tell them this bullshit. Once we put Harry on the pitch for our first game of the season, we'll coincidentally 'break up'."
Sawyer pulled a face. "Fine."
"Okay. Seal the deal."
"With a punch? I can do that."
"Kinky," Oliver scoffed, but the self-satisfied spark in his eyes was unfaltering. "I meant, you have to say it—Oliver Wood is the most amazing wizard-slash-genius."
"Oh, eat a dick."
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
it took me WAY too long to churn out this shit but it's hERE and i tried not to make the trope sound stupid and unnecessary and cliche which i probably did but i couldn't give a fuck anymore