Acquaintance - Oliver Wood/OC

Chapter 10: Herbology Tutor

The next couple of days everything seemed to have slowed down. I had decided not to bother with Oliver anymore as I found that figuring him out took up too much headspace and I didn't have the energy for it, I mean how can it be this hard to just be friends with someone? So I decided upon avoiding him.

Quidditch practises were nothing out of the ordinary; we were up to speed again, which felt good. The same couldn't be said for schoolwork however and I would often find myself rushing back to the common room after having spent hours in the library, barely making it back before curfew.

I mostly spent time with Graham and my Hufflepuff mates, and more often than not, we would actually hang out all five of us. My friends seemed to enjoy having Graham in our company, and he, likewise, seemed to enjoy theirs as well. Seeing Graham laugh as much as I did in their company took a weight of my chest. Knowing Graham, he could get really stressed out over his matches. He puts this massive pressure on himself that he has to be perfect to the last detail and it's not doing anything good but making him morbid. He wasn't the only one. For Roger Davies and me, this week was like no other. But for the remaining Quidditch captains at Hogwarts who had a match this Saturday to prepare for — this week was hell. It didn't help that the Gryffindor/Slytherin matches had some sort of frenzy surrounding them. I couldn't imagine what pressure that must put on the teams to perform well. I hadn't heard much from Oliver lately. I'd mostly seen him around the Great Hall looking sullen. Once or twice I'd seen him in our shared classes, where he saw it fit to catch up on sleep. He had tried to talk to me once or twice after class, and he'd seemed on the cheerier side. But I still thought it better to not bother with him as he only caused much unwanted confusion in my life.

While walking down the hallway from one of these particular classes came Roger Davies up to me from behind.

"Enjoying watching the other captains succumb to the stress?" He asked sadistically.

Startled I twirled around to look at him only to quickly relax thereafter. We walked together. "Yes, very much. It's times like these we can truly appreciate not being put in the notoriously competitive houses. We never have to put up with all this madness." It was true that the same kind of tension had thickened distinctly in the way that it does every year around this particular game. I had witnessed two duels break out this week, and heard about two more.

"Things have gone a bit crazy. But we're lucky. We're on the outside looking in." He said and gave me a smile, which I returned.

We sauntered on in silence until Roger said, "Tutor me."

"What? Why?" I asked confused.

"I'm falling behind in herbology. Further and further every week. I have decided to seek help... from you." He said it as if he wasn't really all that certain of it himself.

I broke out in laugher and stopped walking. "You want me to help you out in herbology?" He gave me a quizzical look that told me he apparently had no idea of why I was laughing, which is odd given how obvious it felt to me. "First of all: that's a stereotypical view of my house. Even though generally Hufflepuffs might have a knack for herbology, that doesn't make us all into sodding expert gardeners and certainly not into equipped tutors in herbology. Especially not me!" He merely folded his arms, looking amused at my reasoning. "And secondly: you're a Ravenclaw. Shouldn't you be equipped to handle something as fairly simple as herbology?"

He leaned himself against the stone wall casually and gave me a challenging look. "Who's being prejudiced now? Sometimes even Ravenclaws need help you know."

I thought about this for a moment. "Fair enough. You know what? I think I will help you out. I know a thing or two about herbology. And it might be good for my ego." I began walking again.