Late Autumn, 2019

Oliver was living in a perpetual state of suspense. Well, really it was more like suspense bordering on full-out panic.

He and Katie were currently in the midst of week three since he accidentally let slip to the press that he had a wife named Katherine Wood. By some stroke of luck (or cowardice, where Oliver was concerned anyway) Katie was not yet aware of his slip-up. However, that was mainly due to the fact that the morning after the private after-party (no press allowed in, thank Merlin) the Woods left the country for a planned extended vacation.

But tomorrow they were finally going home. And after nearly three weeks with absolutely no contact with the Wizarding world, Oliver was terrified to learn what the press was able to dig up in that time. Hopefully nothing, but realistically probably absolutely everything.

Overall, there was one thing of which he was absolutely certain: tomorrow was the day Katie would kill him.

"Oliver?"

Oliver was brought out of his reveries by the sound of his wife's voice. He looked across the breakfast table to her with an easy smile.

"Yes, love?"

Katie frowned. "Are you alright?"

Oliver felt the smile slip from his face. She knew something. She had to know something. What did she know? No, stop panicking; remain calm. It was an innocent question; everything was fine. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I just said your name ten times," Katie informed him, "Literally ten times. I feel that it is completely valid for me to be concerned when it takes you as long as it did to notice something like that."

"Oh…" Oliver trailed off shortly. Damn. He really needed to stop letting all of his worries overwhelm him to the point he stopped paying attention to the world around him; multi-tasking was a good thing that he needed to learn now.

"So, I'll ask again," Katie began pointedly, "Are you alright?"

"Ah…er…yes?" Oliver offered, cursing himself internally for how uncertain-sounding his answer came out. There was no way Katie was going to believe him now.

Sure enough, Katie merely looked at him for a moment, her expression blank save for her raised eyebrows, before uttering a short, "I see."

Well shit. He was screwed; officially and completely screwed. He'd been keeping his slip-up secret from her for three weeks now, and he would be beyond lucky if he somehow managed to keep it for another five minutes. His wife would be positively terrifying when she wanted to be, after all (basically the reason why he kept it a secret from her in the first place).

And, for the record, that was 'terrifying' in the sense that he loved her to death and hated to refuse her anything she really wanted, which she knew full well and was not afraid to use to her advantage if she felt the situation warranted it enough.

Funny thing, though, the situation always seemed to warrant it enough…

"Oliver," Katie began slowly, "Wh—"

"Okay, fine!" Oliver interrupted suddenly with a grimace, causing him to completely miss the satisfied expression that flitted across his wife's face. "The press knows we're married. Now stop pressuring me!"

There was a beat of silence following his outburst, then…

"Can you say that again, please?"

Oliver gulped nervously. Katie was too calm. If there was any doubt before (which, admittedly, there clearly hadn't been if all of his constant worrying was anything to go by), now he knew it wasn't going to end well.

"It was after the game," Oliver said in a rush. "I er I may have accidentally let slip that I would be joining my wife in the day-to-day dealings of the Wood Foundation and then I may have mentioned you by name as the current head of operations. And, well, I know I messed up because we each managed to keep our marriage a secret for twenty years, but I really couldn't help it. The reporters kept asking me questions about retirement and what I thought I would enjoy most about it, and obviously I'm most excited about all the time I'm going to get to spend with you, Katie. I love you and I love Quidditch, but I think we all know I love you just a bit more, so of course I was excited enough to let slip we're married, because I'm just so glad we're going to get to spend so much time together and please just don't hate me for this."

All of this was said very quickly, and judging by the slightly overwhelmed look on Katie's face she may have missed half of what he said, as a result. Oliver was gearing up to attempt to reiterate everything he'd just explained by in a calmer and hopefully more coherent fashion, when Katie finally spoke up.

"You love me more than Quidditch?" She questioned, her expression unreadable.

Oliver frowned. Was she daft? And was that really the one thing she was going to pick out of his sincerely apologetic (if a bit rushed) monologue?

"Of course I do," Oliver replied, reasonably affronted. "You know that." A horrifying thought crossed his mind then. "Wait—Katie, you do know that, right? Of course I love you more than Quidditch! You're my wife!"

"Relax, Oliver," Katie immediately reached across the table and placed a calming hand on her husband's arm. "Of course I know that. It's just nice to hear you say it; I've always known it, but it's not really something you verbalize very often. And…well, I like hearing it."

Oliver sighed in defeat. "Well I suppose it's good to know that my failures as a husband stretch back more than three weeks ago."

"Oliver, we both know any legitimate failures you may have as a suitable life partner actually stem from your inability to remember to put the cap back on the toothpaste," She reminded him with a small smile. "That's something we've both known since before we were married. Now," Katie continued, suddenly stern, "You're going to stop moping about right now. You're a perfectly wonderful husband and you know it—any and all recent slips of the tongue included—and you certainly shouldn't need me to remind you of that."

"So, you forgive me for telling the press about us?" Oliver clarified, daring to hope. Clearly he'd been worrying over nothing for the past three weeks if things were getting resolved so easily now that they were finally talking about it.

"Of course," Katie said simply. "There's really nothing to forgive…well, alright, maybe there is. But that's alright because I'm over it…basically."

Oliver frowned suspiciously. While he was fully aware that all of the imagining he'd done about Katie actually being legitimately angry with him was definitely an over-exaggeration on his part, there was still something off about her reaction. She should at least be a bit upset. She was taking it much too well that he'd basically blabbed their most closely guarded secret—their only secret—to the world.

"How are you so calm right now?" He questioned.

"I was wondering when you were going to question that," Katie informed him, an amused look passing across her face. "I'm calm because I've known about this for a while; I've had some time to get used to it."

"You've—what—how?" Oliver spluttered indignantly. "What?"

"I've known about what you said since basically a few hours after you said it," Katie replied easily. "It basically caused a complete shit storm at the office—I fully expect you to send my secretary flowers as an apology, by the way. And I may be on vacation right now, but when something that big happens—and reporters constantly harassing everyone for information and not letting them do their work is definitely big—then I'm going to find out about it; I am the chairperson after all. Also, my assistant forwarded something to me her that would be pretty hard to miss and…well, it pretty much speaks for itself."

And reaching into the bag she'd been carrying around all vacation and that was currently draped across the back of her chair, Katie pulled out a rolled up newspaper and handed it over to Oliver.

A quick glance at the date showed it was from two weeks ago, and then he unrolled it and his eyes widened in alarm at the blaring headline taking up half the front page:

OLIVER WOOD AND KATIE BELL

Their Love Affair Spanning 3 Decades

His eyes travelled further down the page and they narrowed in distaste when he spotted what he was looking for.

By the Daily Prophet's Gossip Correspondent, Rita Skeeter

The woman was a bloody menace.

"I can't believe you've known about this for so long as you didn't say anything," Oliver finally managed to voice the thoughts running through his head. "I don't know how you did it."

"Watching you agonize over keeping it from me was rather therapeutic…not to mention entertaining," Katie admitted easily. "Plus, it gave me time to think."

"Think?" Oliver questioned, pushing the newspaper away from him. "What about?"

"Payback," Katie stated with a smirk.

"On Skeeter?" Oliver brightened immediately.

"Don't be so daft," Katie replied instantly. "She might be misguided and completely horrible on a good day, but Skeeter is still just a journalist. No, she's not important right now—no matter how distasteful her 'reporting' is. I've been plotting my payback on you…or have you forgotten the deal we made when we agreed to keep our private lives private?"

Oliver's eyes widened in alarm once more.

"Oh good, I see you haven't," Katie remarked serenely. "Excellent. Well, you'll be pleased to know that it's actually nothing too horrible."

"I really do think you and I have very different definitions of 'horrible'," Oliver informed her promptly. Katie merely laughed.

"It's simple, really," Katie told him. "Your team may have won the All-Star Game, but I'm the one getting bragging rights for all eternity. That seems like a pretty fair trade-off to me."

Oliver frowned thoughtfully. "You aren't going to make me sleep on the couch, too, or anything, are you?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Katie responded instantly. "The point of you retiring is that I don't have to sleep without you ever again; I'm not about to give that up. Though…if you do insist, I really wouldn't mind some groveling from you, love, since I know how sorry you are. Also, Margie really does deserve dozens of flowers from you. But I really think that's it: flowers, groveling, and bragging rights for all eternity going to me."

Oliver sighed in equal parts relief and resignation.

"Well, a bet is a bet…" He agreed.

"Yes, it most definitely is."

"And I supposed bragging rights is no longer exclusive to Quidditch abilities?"

"Oh, it has most definitely extended to secret-keeping abilities, too," Katie confirmed with a grin.

"You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"

"Definitely not."

"Should the groveling start now?" Oliver questioned.

"If you like. You certainly won't get any complaints from me. Actually, though," Katie said suddenly, a thoughtful look appearing on her face, "While I've got you here, willing to do basically anything for me, there's something that I want to know that's been bothering me for a while," Katie admitted. "And whenever I think of it, you're never around to ask."

"Alright…what is it?" Oliver questioned.

"Well, it's about something Fred and George said in my second year," Katie began, only to be interrupted by Oliver.

"Your second year?" He repeated. "At Hogwarts? I'd say that's going back a fair bit farther than 'a while.' And you're thinking of it now?"

"Yes, well, sometimes these sort of things just stick with you and they pop up at the most random times," Katie retorted. "Anyway, in the locker room before our first match of the season, they basically said something to the effect that they knew your entire pregame speech because they were on the team with you the year before, too."

"Alright…" Oliver said slowly, his recollection of the specific event admittedly incredibly vague—twenty-eight years passing by was a good excuse for that. "And that's been bothering you ever since?"

"What's been bothering me is their implication that you were Captain in your fourth year," Katie stated. "Because that would have been Charlie Weasley's seventh year, and I don't know why he would ever step down from being Captain in his last year, especially in favor of a fourth year, no matter how much said fourth year hero-worshipped him."

"Ah…" Oliver said lightly at the end of her mini-tirade of confusion, and Katie was intrigued to see that his ears had gone slightly pink. Was Oliver blushing?

"Oliver?" She prompted when he didn't continue.

"Ah…you see…there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that…"

Katie looked at her husband expectantly.

"It is entirely possible that I may or may not have convinced Charlie to, er, let me give pep talks before the matches because, well, I was completely obsessed and it is entirely likely that my perfectly reasonable obsession may have scared Charlie into agreeing."

Katie continued to stare at her husband for a long moment—a very long moment that made Oliver exceedingly more nervous for her reaction the longer it got.

And then she burst into laughter. Deep, full laughs that made her clutch at her stomach and gasp for breath.

"I can totally see that," She finally managed to get out once she had herself back under control. "Great, big, burly Charlie Weasley, completely unafraid of any creature he comes across in the Forbidden Forest, but terrified for his life because of little, fourteen-year-old, Quidditch fanatic Oliver Wood. Oh! That visual is so completely hilarious!"

And she descended into laughter once more.

"I forgot that ever happened," Oliver admitted after a moment over the sound of Katie's continued giggles. "Merlin, I must have been insufferable."

Katie crinkled her nose in disagreement. "Not insufferable, but definitely dedicated with a hearty side of over-zealous. Besides, everyone in Gryffindor knew that Charlie was excited about getting to work with dragons once he finished school more than anything else that year; I'm pretty sure you played a major hand in keeping that team from completely falling apart, even if Slytherin did end up winning the Cup again."

Oliver sighed heavily. "Dragons…he could have played for England…"

"Speaking of England, though," Katie began, suddenly serious. "All jokes and bets aside for the moment, are you prepared to go back there tomorrow? You may technically be retired now, but you're still a public figure, and your public has been waiting weeks for a comment from you on this story."

"Never mind me," Oliver said with a wave of his hand, "What about you? Are you prepared for whatever we're going to face once we get home?"

Katie smiled. "With you by my side? After twenty years of marriage, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get through anything the press or the public throws at us together."

Oliver grinned. "I love you, you know."

"And I love you."