Captain - An Oliver Wood Fanfiction

Chapter 16 - This time she'd make sure he'd remember it.

It took Erin a couple of days to get over the events of that weekend. Wood being angry for losing the game definitely helped though. He didn't talk to her, barely even looked at her and definitely didn't feel remorse for telling his team about Erin's move. Erin had asked for a different partner in her apparition classes and could partner up with Anthony and Michael. She knew it was a little immature of her to ask for a group switch, but she needed full focus for apparition and that simply wasn't possible around Oliver anymore. There were too many emotions involved.

At the beginning of the week, Erin felt sad, but as the days passed, all she felt was anger. She knew that she was a ticking time bomb and that as soon as Oliver would try to talk to her, she would explode. He was going to get the full blow, because Erin wanted him to know how much he had hurt her. She didn't tell him last year and he completely forgot about her date proposal. This time she'd make sure he'd remember it.

Erin was pretty much back to the very beginning of the year, when she only had Beatrice and quidditch. Beatrice started hanging out with Meredith more and more though, so Erin spent that time hanging out with her other quidditch friends. She hung out with Anthony the most, but she also had a fun time with Michael and since they had gotten close with the new Keeper Jonathan, it was a pretty tight group. It would for sure help them during games, so Erin had only positive thoughts about the remainder of the quidditch season.

And that was good, because just three weeks after their match against Gryffindor, they would play against Ravenclaw. Erin knew that the Ravenclaw team was clever, so their normal tactics wouldn't work. They had to use moves that would allow them to score quickly and have a one-on-one defense strategy so the Ravenclaw team couldn't pull out all their tricks. It was a good distraction for Erin.

Oliver had a harder time keeping his mind off of Erin. Even though he genuinely thought that Erin was a good team captain, he hadn't expected to lose against Hufflepuff. At first he blamed it on Erin, as hanging out with her had distracted him quite a bit, but he knew that was nonsense. They had never trained as hard as they had this year. He did ignore her for about two weeks because of it and that didn't really improve his situation. He had known immediately that they had won fair and square, which is why he didn't want a rematch, but the loss still hurt. He was quite a sore loser, mainly because he blamed himself. He should've prepared better for such weather conditions. He shouldn't have expected Hufflepuff to only play defensively. He was team captain and the loss was his fault, not his team, not Harry and not the Dementors.

And although Oliver was a little mad at Erin first, just for the sake of it, she was furious. He could tell by the way she clenched her jaw when she heard his voice, or the way she clenched her fists when he walked by. He didn't like her hating him and he thought it would pass after a few days, but it didn't. She probably figured out how Angelina knew exactly where to be to block her shot. It wasn't nice of him to tell his team about her move, he knew that, but the Hufflepuff team was catching up to them and he couldn't think straight during a match. She would forgive him, right?

When over two weeks had passed since their match and she still hadn't even looked at him, he knew he wanted to talk to her. She was always around that Anthony kid from her team and Oliver didn't like it. He missed their banter, the way they shared information about the Slytherin team and the smiles she'd give him in the hallways. He just made a stupid mistake, but he could fix it.

Another problem was that Oliver wasn't the best at human interaction, let alone with a girl. He wanted to talk to her, but what could he say? Hey Erin, nice weather out? He didn't have any more Slytherin tips to tell her, updates on her brother or anything else that was important enough to mention after not speaking to her for two weeks.

So it was the day of the Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw match that he finally gathered the courage to talk to her. He saw her leave for the Quidditch pitch, over an hour before the actual match would start, and decided that this was his shot. She was finally without Anthony or Beatrice - because Beatrice always looked at him as if she wanted to rip out his intestines.

"Oi, Erin!" he called out for her, trying to keep up with her fast pace. She turned around confused. Her expression hardened immediately when she noticed who was calling for her. She turned back around and walked on.

"Erin, wait up!" he shouted again, but she didn't even slow down. He decided to pull a little sprint. He would talk to her today.

"What do you want?" Erin asked aggressively as Oliver had finally reached her. She didn't seem pleased at all with his company.

"I- uh... I just wanted to wish you good luck today", Oliver stammered. Erin rolled her eyes.

"Sure, thank you so much", she said bitterly.

"Come on Erin, don't be like that", Oliver sighed, receiving a nasty look. Erin was angry and he could tell.

"Look, I'm sorry about telling the team."

"Just stop it", Erin mumbled, gritting her team. She just had a couple more yards to go before she reached her changing room, where she could shake him off.

"Winning the match was just all that mattered at that point and I didn't think it through."

"Wood, drop it and leave me alone."

"Come on, Erin. You won, right? So what's the big deal?" Erin had had enough. How oblivious could this boy be? He had absolutely no sense of empathy and Erin was sick of his excuses.

"NOT A BIG DEAL?" she snapped, pushing him against the corner of the Hufflepuff stand. "You promised me, Oliver! You told me you wouldn't and I trusted you!"

"Yeah, and I'm sorry for that", Oliver said quietly, shocked by Erin's reaction.

"Yeah well sorry is not going to cut it! Do you even realise that people have feelings? Do you know that your actions can have an effect on people?"

Oliver was silent, but Erin wasn't long done. The time bomb had run out of time and the explosion was inevitable.

"I trusted you Oliver! I thought that I meant at least something to you. I thought I meant enough for you to just keep the one promise we made." Erin couldn't help tears from staining her cheeks. She needed him to see how much he had hurt her, again.

"Can't believe I was so naive", she chuckled through her tears. "Should have expected it after last year. Should have expected that you'd just hurt me again, because it's a fact, Oliver. It's a bloody fact that you don't care the slightest about other people's feelings. It's always just you and your stupid quidditch and I can't believe I thought it'd be different this time." Erin knew she was being a little harsh, maybe a lot harsh, but she needed to get the message through his thick skull. He needed to realise that he had hurt her.

"What do you mean, last year?" Oliver asked confused, which was the final drop. Here she was, pouring out all the anger and sadness she felt towards this boy, and all he could do was bring up how he didn't remember her asking him out. She hated him.

"Just leave me alone! I don't want to have anything to do with you!" Erin shoved him away before entering the Hufflepuff changing rooms, finding a corner to break down and cry.

Erin didn't cry often. She was a pretty emotional person, but most of the time it had nothing to do with her. She cried for other people, when they went through hard times, but rarely for herself. She had cried a few times about her dad and she had cried when Oliver turned her down last year, but other than that, she had never really cried as badly as she was doing now, sitting in the corner of the Hufflepuff changing room. She had piled up so much anxiety ever since the first day of school that it all needed to be released.

She had just lost a friend. She just told her friend to never speak to her again. She needed to though, as real friends didn't break promises like that. Real friends didn't ignore the other for three weeks. But then why did it feel so wrong?

To say that the match against Ravenclaw didn't go so well was quite a big understatement. As soon as the other team members started arriving, Erin quickly dried her tears and tried to act as if nothing had happened, but it was no use. The others could tell something was completely off, but the last thing she wanted to do was talk about it. Her mind was not with the game that day. She even dropped the Quaffle, twice. When Madame Hooch blew her whistle, declaring Ravenclaw's victory, all she could do was apologize to her team and head to bed. She had had quite enough of this day.

At least Oliver would be happy. Since they lost, Gryffindor still had a shot at the cup. Erin hoped he'd choke on his stupid Quidditch Cup.