A Tale as Old as Time (Harry James Potter x OC)

Chapter 8...Quidditch

This was it. Today was the first Quidditch game of the season, and Oliver Wood was not playing around.

He had already warned his Seeker, Harry Potter, that he better pull his head out of his ass and get his shit together, because the team captain was anything but happy with the Potter boy's most recent performance. It was as though the boy had completely forgotten everything he ever learned!

They had been back at Hogwarts for a few weeks now and fall was well underway in the cool Scotland air, but Harry still seemed to be having trouble...focusing? And Oliver didn't have to be a genius to figure out why, though he still considered himself one with his Keeper skills.

Harry Potter would not and could not keep his eye on the snitch because half the time they were on another prize: Rosemary Stevens. Gods, how Oliver Wood positively loathed the girl!

Of course, it was not her fault. The Quidditch captain actually found her to be quite nice to spend time with, but she was distracting his best player, and Oliver couldn't have that.

Every practice, while Harry was supposed to be searching for the snitch, his eyes were instead following a certain blonde girl jogging along the trails with her long hair tied back in a messy braid.

During one particular practice, Harry completed neglected his duties and flew down to meet her, him ignoring his captain's warning calls.

"Go out with me, Stevens, or I'll jump off this broom and crash to the ground," he had pleaded desperately. The spectacled boy had been asking her out at least ten times a day, and every single time, she said no.

"Then Crash, Potter," she had said and continued on her way. "See if I care."

The Potter boy simply winked at her and said some terribly flirty comment before flying back to the field.

And while Oliver admired the boy's courage — and well, determination? — he needed Harry in tiptop shape for this match against the Slytherins, so he refused to encourage the behavior. To his surprise, the stubborn boy actually seemed to have put his game face on this morning.

The day prior, Harry had overheard Malfoy bragging to Rosemary about how he was going to squash the Gryffindor team at the next match. Knowing Rosemary to be an avid fan of Quidditch, Draco smirked smugly at Harry as the blonde clapped her hands in support and began giving him some pointers so as to help him keep his head in the game.

Jealous, Harry "accidentally" poured his cereal milk down Draco's back, a small amount landing on Rosemary's hand that had been rested there. "POTTER, you tool," she had screamed, to which he simply kissed the fluid off her hand.

Leaving behind a flushing Hufflepuff and scowling Slytherin, Harry made his way to his dorm and ground his teeth together in concentration. He needed to win tomorrow, he had thought to himself. He needed to beat Malfoy and show Rose with whom she truly belonged.

And so, the next morning, the Potter boy rose bright and early, gathered his belongings, and made his way to the Quidditch fields ready to kick that bleached bigot's ass. Oliver Wood was more than pleased.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Sitting in the bleachers clad in her yellow Badger apparel sat Rosemary Stevens alongside Candace and Amanda. As the blonde waved a sign reading "GO DRACO! KICK SOME GRYFINDORK ASS," her two friends watched their friend's eyes trail over to a certain "Gryffindork" Seeker every now and again.

Rosemary Stevens did not consider herself a "romantic," so to speak, but she did, nevertheless, hold men and people in general to a certain standard she expected them to meet. From a very early age, the girl knew that the one thing she could never settle for was being treated as a second choice.