It's Not My Fault I Fell For Your Stupid Accent
A/N: Aha! You all have proof that I am a liar! So yes, I said I was sticking to oneshots for the present, but I love Katie and Oliver so much I couldn't help myself. I wanted to do a whole long fic from the start of first-year right til the end of seventh-year (for Wood) but I know with exams coming up I wouldn't have done it justice, so for the present I'll have to be satisfied with this very short fic of Katie's fourth year. But this prologue starts in her first year, just to give background info. I've made this canon with all the HP books so everyone should be in their correct years.
Enjoy!
Prologue: The Start of a Grand Adventure
There are some people in the world who will tell you that it's impossible to feel hatred without love, and vice versa. They say that those emotions are so strong that they must ultimately stem from the same source. To me, that's a load of codswallop. To the best of my knowledge, I'm not conducting a steamy love affair with a couple of brussel sprouts, yet I reckon I hate the stuff about as much as anything else. And there's absolutely nothing I hate about my Mum – I love her to death. Even right now, while she's embarrassing me by squeezing the life out of my lungs, I still love her. I mean, she has a perfectly good reason to be hugging me the way she is. I'm about to start my first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and, although we've been preparing for this since July, it's a little scary for both of us. We're all each other have ever really had, and Mum's especially teary because she thinks this is the start of some phase called 'growing up' and that soon I'll be getting boyfriends and moving out on her. I laughed when she told me that the other day – I'm not even a teenager yet! But Mum said I look uncommonly old for my age and in a few years time I'll be using my wand more to keep the boys off me than for spellwork.
I start to giggle, just picturing an older me jabbing an army of boys who are swarming just to get a glimpse of me, and Mum straightens up, wiping her face hastily with her sleeve.
"Owl me every day," she says with a sniff.
"Mum!"
"Okay, every week then. And try not to break any bones if you insist on flying around on that awful broom of yours."
I grin. Mum hates Quidditch; it's the only thing we really disagree on. Apparently it's all my Dad's fault that I'm any good, and Dad isn't really a welcome subject in our house.
The train starts to make noises as it gets ready to pull out of the station, and Mum pushes me towards it.
"Go! Before I decide I don't want you to," she grins lopsidedly, the one she does when she's trying to hide that she's sad. We share that sad-lopsided-grin trait.
I startle her with a brief hug before jumping, trunk and all, onto the carriage just as the train pulls away.
As the nervous pangs in my stomach settle down, a broad grin engulfs my face. It feels like I'm on the start of some great adventure, and I've always been a sucker for adventure.
Hogwarts is…wonderfully crazy. From the moving staircases and the Giant Squid to our eccentric Headmaster, there's nothing not to love. Apart from the stupid rule saying that first years aren't allowed to join house Quidditch teams. Not that I was really expecting to get in this year, but it's a stupid rule all the same. My house, Gryffindor, hasn't had the best of luck with Quidditch lately. Hopefully when I make the team that might change. Madam Hooch says I'd make a great Chaser; in our flying lessons I'm still the only one in our class who's managed to score a goal past her and she says I have a good eye for the ball. The Weasley twins, Fred and George (I just call them both 'Twin' because I can't tell them apart) are really the only other Gryffindors in our year who are any good, but Madam Hooch doesn't like them because they're always doing some prank or other in class. We're becoming good friends though – ever since they caught me shoving a toad down some Slytherin's back they've stopped trying to hex me anyway.
The girls in my year are okay, but a little bit, well, girly for me. Not that I'm a tom-boy (not really), it's just I don't see the need for make-up and hair potions when they haven't even developed boobs yet. I think the girls also think I'm a little weird because of my Crazy Eyes. The rest of me is fairly normal – I have brown hair (my Mum says 'chestnut' sounds less common, but really it's brown), I'm kind of titchy...and I have Crazy Eyes. They're not actually that crazy really, it's just my left eye is blue, and my right eye is green. I call them Crazy Eyes, Mum calls them Cupid Eyes. 'Cupid', you ask? She says it's because my Dad had green eyes, whilst hers are blue, and my eyes are from Cupid, who brought them both together. Then again, she only ever says that after she's been too hard at the Firewhiskey. It's the only time she brings Dad up; when she's drunk. She was only seventeen when she had me, fresh out of Hogwarts. My Dad was some Muggle from Scotland who she fell for whilst on holiday there. But when she told him what she was, he fled, leaving her pregnant with his child. Ever since then, it's always just been the two of us, and we're as close as sisters. It's no wonder I was feeling lonely right now. I guess adventures are only really fun when you're sharing them with people you love.
A/N: Very short I know, but it was meant to be. Reviews anyone?