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DATING IS OVERRATED

act one ━ chapter four

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━ KIRA FLEET ━
september 1993

          YOU COULD CUT THE TENSION WITH A KNIFE. But it wasn't that kind of awkwardness that made the air all stuffy and made you fumble your words. It was the kind of awkwardness that was sheer enough for you to see the friendliness behind it, but also thick enough for conversation to not flow.

          Morgan and Oliver had managed to get a carriage for just the two of them amidst the usual rush at Hogsmeade train station and strangely enough, the fact that the carriage was pulling itself, wasn't the weirdest part of their journey.

         Morgan didn't know what was wrong with Oliver ─ and she didn't want to compare their emotions right now ─ but, at least it seemed to her like they were both at a similar level of feeling shitty.

          She hoped that a conversation would stop the rough swaying of the carriage from where the wheels were grinding against the unrefined gravel path beneath them from being the most exciting part about this ride they agreed to share.

          "You excited for the new season?" Morgan asked. She didn't know a lot about Oliver Wood, but everyone knew at least one thing about the boy ─ that he was obsessed with Quidditch ─ and so she felt that was a safe option for now.

          Oliver was sat on the opposite bench of the cart and a little to the right, closer to the door, as if he was ready to make a quick getaway (untrue, but he was very unsettled right now). His back was hunched over and he had a Gryffindor scarf flung carelessly over his shoulder, so lose it seemed that he was too sad to even both tying it. It was going to serve as no help with the way the weather was turning outside ─ rain splattered so hard on the window, Morgan feared it would shatter any second.

          At the sound of her voice, his head sprung upward, almost surprised to learn that she wanted to make conversation. And upon digesting the content of her question, Oliver felt the insides of his stomach churn. For once in his life, the answer to that question was no. No, Oliver was most certainly not ready to coach a team his ex-girlfriend was on.

          Putting on a weak smile, Oliver nodded, "Course." It seemed like the right answer ─ "of course". Because of course, he, Oliver Wood, would be excited for the new Quidditch season, his last one as a student at Hogwarts. If he answered Morgan like that, no one would ever suspect that he was crumbling on the inside.

          "Is Jason?" Oliver asked as his contribution to the discussion. Oliver was also just going off of the little he knew about Morgan Samuels ─ that her brother plays Quidditch too.

          "Oh yeah," Morgan heaved a chuckle. "Won't shut the fuck up about it actually. Never wanted Gryffindor to beat his arse more, to be honest."

          Oliver's eyes fell into his lap, where he started picking at the fraying fabric of his gloves. He was smiling; laughing too, actually, at her comment. That was all she wanted, in all honesty.

          "Where's that house pride been these last five years then?" He spoke quietly as if his voice was going to break and he didn't want her to notice. His Scottish lilt was almost gone, his voice was but a whisper.

          She had never seen a Scot so shy.

          Laughing off his comment, Morgan could feel the tension in the air slowly start to scatter despite his current demeanour. "I don't think you'd want to hear the answer to that."

          Jason always said that the reason Morgan never got that worked up about the Inter-house Quidditch Cup was that she knew she'd never hear the end of it if Ravenclaw won (she was still only just starting to hear less of the Eagles' victory from two years ago).

          Oliver winced and although the timid air to his character still remained, the hunch in his back seemed to loosen, and his chin lifted ever so slightly. "That bad?" He winced playfully.

          Morgan bashfully nodded and once their humble chuckles died out, she felt like now was the best time to ask the question that had been playing in her mind for what seemed like a while now.

          "Oliver?"

          "Hm?"

          "I don't mean to pry," Morgan shuffled a little to the right so she was closer to him, and softened her voice almost to soften the heaviness of her curiosity. "Like really, I wouldn't want you to think I'm a nosy bugger but . . . would you ever share why you were sitting alone or is that classified information?"

          Oliver took a deep breath in, his chest rising and falling with the movement, and just as quickly as they had opened up, his eyes shot to the floor of the carriage again, his voice just as low as it once was. "I'd rather not talk about it," he said. "Or think about it for that matter."

          The last thing Morgan wanted to do was pry. She barely knew the boy but for now, she was comfortable with knowing that whatever happened to Oliver that caused this saddened mood, was obviously bad on a titanic level because he was sitting with her of all people, when he should, in retrospect, be spending it with his friends. Not a girl he had only met once before.

          Nodding along, almost in time with the bumps of the carriage, Morgan stared out the window to where the rain was building and the night was growing darker. Hogwarts stood calmly in the thick of a brewing storm. "Classified. Got it."

          When the carriage eventually came to a sharp halt, Oliver got out first, sparing Morgan an appreciative smile that told Morgan he valued her gesture even if it wasn't the cheeriest of environments. A second later, he was swallowed by the crowds, his hair dampening with every second.

          Shrugging her robes closer to her body, Morgan braved the imminent tempest and hopped out of the carriage to join the throng of people where she hoped her friends would magically find her before the feast.

          Casper was already attached to her side before the rain could soak through her hair completely. "Where did you disappear to missy?" He asked, just as the others hurried over, their feet disrupting puddles, causing the rain to fly up from the ground and splatter them all.

          Thankfully the walk to the castle wasn't too far and Casper's body heat was already benefiting Morgan. "I shared a carriage with Oliver. He was lonely."

          Morgan wasn't sure whether this was entirely true or not but no matter if he was the cause of his own loneliness and the reason for his own isolation, sitting alone on a train full of his friends could definitely be deemed as lonely in Morgan's opinion.

          "And why is that your problem?" Kira was holding her bag over her head to shield herself from the rain. It beat down on the leather satchel and Morgan could still see the droplets race down her cheeks so she wasn't sure why Kira was sacrificing her bag for nothing.

         "The fact that you can't seem to understand why I did what I did," Morgan replied, "says a lot about your personality, Kira."

          "Thank you?"

          Huddled together like penguins and waddling forward a few steps at a time, the group finally made it to the castle, where the crowds of students were beginning to thin out, giving everyone much-needed dry breathing room.

          Unfortunately for Morgan, the more available space just meant it was easier to identify people and there was one person Morgan did not want to be able to identify hanging about over by the staircase with his Hufflepuff friends as he wrung the water from his hair.

          "Oh fuck."

          Morgan came to a standstill and all it took was a quick glance in the direction of her eye-line for her friends to learn why they were now halted in the corridor when all they wanted was food.

          "You are aware you were going to have to see him at some point right?" Edie winced, the six of them collectively staring at Herbert Fleet while people continued to barge past them to hurry off to the Great Hall.

          "I was sort of hoping that could be avoided," Morgan said. Her eyes were transfixed on him and his smile and the way he carried himself and how perfectly fucking fine he seemed. When all she wanted to do was break down and cry. Maybe the rain could be a good coverup.

          "You go to school together." Greg pointed out. He understood that seeing her ex-boyfriend for the first time after their breakup was in no way going to be easy for Morgan, but he at least expected his friend to anticipate it sometime in the near future.

          "Yep, I hadn't figured out a way around that yet."

          "There is no way around it." Casper was the first to break away from their pact stare. He broke off and swayed in front of Morgan so that her view of Herbert was cut off. She shook herself out of her trance.

          "I also hadn't come to that conclusion yet," Morgan sighed.

          Bea slung an arm over Morgan's shoulder, ushering her in the direction of the Great Hall so that they could escape the drizzly draft that was floating in from the entranceway. "This is why you need constant supervision and support."

          "I'll pass on the supervision," Morgan said to Beatrice, "but the support would be nice."

❋❋❋

          OLIVER WOOD HAD NEVER BROKEN THE SCHOOL rules so quickly than when he walked into the Great Hall on the first day of his seventh year, spotted his now ex-girlfriend perched right in the middle of the Gryffindor table and immediately swerved to the other end of the hall.

          "I never thought I'd see the day when Oliver Wood willingly and enthusiastically sat down with the entire assembled Slytherin house."

          Trying to come to terms with the fact that Katie had broken up with Oliver, the news still feeling very fresh and no doubt raw for the dumpee, upon finding Oliver where the carriages dock outside of the castle, Fred, George, Bianca, Adrian, Leo and Alicia vouched to stay quiet and do whatever Oliver wanted.

          And apparently, that meant sitting at the Slytherin table so Katie would be as far away as possible. Oliver figured that if Adrian sat with them, it wasn't that bad.

          They all hung back as Oliver walked over to the green table, watching with worry and no doubt a hint of annoyance that this breakup was evidently going to disrupt their school lives.

          "So now he's going to subject us to sitting with the enemy?" Fred scowled as they all began to follow him, taking up seats at the wrong table. Adrian tried to diffuse the awkward tension by greeting the Slytherins that were sitting near them, just to make it clear that he approved of this hoard of Gryffindors sitting at their table.

          "This is why you don't do in-friend group romances," Fred muttered, as he readjusted his seating position, well aware of the level of scrutiny he was under from the Slytherins he was sitting beside.

          George didn't like this one bit either. "Yeah, thanks, Cap," he moaned. "Now look at us ─ it's like some twisted Romeo and Juliet shit."

          Bianca was quick to kick George under the table. Trust the Weasley twins to express absolutely zero sympathy for Oliver's situation. She tried to do it in a way that Oliver couldn't see, but it didn't quite work as well as she had hoped.

          The wordCap repeated on a loop in Oliver's head. Great, another tally on his I-hate-my-life chart. Quidditch. Not only was he supposed to navigate captaining his team while heartbroken, but Katie was also on said team. He couldn't kick her off, could he? That would be petty and a strategic fuck-up. The one thing he had left was Quidditch and now he dreaded even thinking about their first practice session back.

          But George was right ─ this was like some twisted Romeo and Juliet shit. Twisted in the sense that romance was dead and there were the two rival troupes, sitting on different tables, picking a side in their best friends' break up.

          Oliver appreciated that his friends had decided to follow him over here instead of completely neglecting him and he did feel guilty that he had split their friend group in half. It was their final year at Hogwarts ─ with graduation right around the corner, he couldn't let his friends have a shitty year because he and Katie broke up. But then, isn't this Katie's fault? He didn't break up with her and make this terribly awkward. And he never would have done. She broke up with him, thus breaking up the group. Why should he be the one to feel guilty?

          Still feeling uncomfortable that they had taken up shelter at the Slytherin table by way of Adrian, Fred and George, Bianca and Adrian, and Leo and Alicia all had their backs to Katie, Lee, Angelina, and therefore her girlfriend, Maxine, who were sitting at the Gryffindor table. Maxine had told Bianca that she did actually feel sorry for Oliver (Angelina too) but was too hungry to fight Angelina on the topic of sitting somewhere else. Katie and Angelina were best friends after all and Maxine didn't want to mess with any of it.

          A tense silence fell across the group, which was only amplified by the fact that the rest of the hall was upbeat and noisy.

          "Dating is overrated anyway."

          All eyes fell on Fred ─ not because he had broken the edgy lull but because he had absolutely zero experience in that department.

          But all Oliver could think was said no one ever. It isn't dating that's the problem ─ it's his fragile heart and the fact there is something wrong with him that scared Katie away.

          "You've never dated anyone," Leo pointed out with a creased forehead and a sour expression at Fred's attempt to make Oliver feel better when he was the number one jokester in the school (alongside his twin brother). Surely, there was another way to try and bring a smile to Oliver's face?

          Fred crossed his arms on the table and stuck his chin out. "Yeah," he said, in a tone that read duh. "Because it's overrated."

          "I agree," Adrian chimed in, looking right into Oliver's eyes as if he was implying Oliver should take Fred's statement truthfully. He hoped that even by putting his relationship at the expense of a joke, humour would lighten the mood. "Worst thing in my life, to be honest."

          Adrian now questions whether by joking about dating being overrated, it just proved that it really really wasn't.

          Bianca slowly turned to look at her boyfriend. "Cheers."

          Adrian mouthed just trying to make him feel better back to Bianca with wide eyes and a quick head shunt towards Oliver. Bianca was suddenly very worried as to how this was all going to plan out in the end for this friend group if her boyfriend had to be the one to lighten the mood.

          Oliver was almost grateful that it was seconds later that Dumbledore made his way to the front of the hall to welcome everyone back to Hogwarts for the new year. It meant no more Katie/dating talk.

          He could hear the hushed voices of nervous first years outside the door and watched as his friends and other misplaced students hurried off to where they were supposed to sit.

          By the looks he received from the redheaded twins, Oliver knew they assumed he was going to follow them back over to the Gryffindor table where he was supposed to be, just while the sorting ceremony happened at least, which is why he willingly let them all go.

          Oliver couldn't face sitting at the same table as Katie. He figured that if he didn't look in the direction of McGonagall and the soon-to-be-arriving first years, he might just get away with it.

          Adrian gave him a puzzled look, but since the chatter was dying down and since Oliver didn't have the courage to tell Adrian that he didn't have the strength to face them all together, he just shrugged, and Adrian sent him his best sympathetic look.

          When the sorting ceremony and the feast ended (a more than depressing one for Oliver ─ Adrian's friends weren't the biggest fan of the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain), the students started to trickle out of the hall, which is where friend groups would rejoin before being separated by their houses once again. While that is not what happened with Oliver and co (the Weasley twins were the only ones to catch up to him) it is what happened with Morgan and her cocktail of houses.

          Morgan was hoping that the floods of students and masses of crowds would mean that the others wouldn't be able to find her and Bea among the flock. Bea, she could handle, but right now, Morgan wanted alone time before classes stuck her and her ex-boyfriend in close proximity again.

          "So, I've been thinking." The drawl of Kira Fleet, followed closely by an arm being flung over her shoulder told Morgan that she had not escaped her friends for the night. Casper, Edie and Greg followed closely behind.

          Morgan threw her head back and groaned just as the sea of students started to part ways and break off in different directions giving Morgan a bit more room to breathe. If it weren't for Kira squeezed up to her side, that is. "I hate it when you think."

          "How about we throw a party in the Hufflepuff common room tonight?" Kira beamed and Morgan no longer had it in her to moan, sigh, cry or all of the above. This was going to be a discussion until Morgan said yes. "You know, liven your spirits, drink your pain away, that kind of thing?"

          Morgan found it curious that Kira said we. How she supposed a Gryffindor would have any hand in throwing a party in the Hufflepuff basement was only slightly confusing. It was probably Kira's way of trying to make Morgan feel included.

          "Will your brother be there?" Morgan asked tiredly.

          "I can't dictate everything Herb does, you know, Em?" Morgan didn't like how Kira got to be the annoyed one right now when Morgan was the one nursing a broken heart and about to be forced to attend a party she didn't want to go to. "Believe me, I've tried."

          "Then no thanks," Morgan said. "I'll stick to a box of chocolates and an early night."

          "I'd do the same, if I were you, Fleet."

          Before Morgan could hurry off to the Gryffindor tower where Kira couldn't follow her, two redheaded brothers, who happened to have the same final destination as Morgan, made themselves welcome on the girls' sides.

           "See, we're throwing a party tonight," George Weasley had to bend down so that Kira could see his smug expression, "and yours couldn't possibly top ours so you might as well just give up now."

          Kira Fleet had a knack for making herself known to the entire student body. So did the Weasley twins. Whatever year, whether it be via friends or family, at least somebody in a three-metre radius knew who Kira was. It was the same for Fred and George. Morgan had barely spoken to the ginger brothers, but Kira had become well acquainted with the mischievous pair over the years despite the age gap and house difference. Morgan imagines their friendship is because of the shared trait of always desiring attention.

          "Plus, too much noise makes the teachers suspicious," Fred added to the list of reasons why Kira shouldn't host a party tonight and honestly, Morgan was hoping they'd keep going.

          A Scottish voice from behind them stopped that from happening. "I thought you said you weren't gonna do that tonight?"

          Morgan and Kira followed the two boys' gazes, where they were met with a much larger group than the one they knew to have been following them.

          Greg was now waving goodnight to them both and following his Ravenclaw friends back to his common room. Edie was standing beside Maxine O'Flaherty, no doubt waiting for Kira so they could escape the bustle. Casper was long gone and Beatrice had her arms crossed, yawning as she waited with a hoard of Gryffindors, whom Morgan knew to be the twins' friends.

          Among the mixture of friends, the person who asked the question was muddled in the middle ─ exactly where he didn't want to be. Oliver Wood seemed just as down in the dumps as he had done when Morgan had left him when they arrived at the castle earlier. She'd send him a friendly smile if he wasn't so preoccupied with Fred and George's betrayal.

          George scoffed at Oliver's question. "Surely after five years of knowing us you'd have learnt not to trust anything we say?"

          Sighing with heavy shoulders, Oliver rolled his eyes at his own foolishness. "Yeah, that's on me."

          Dismissing Oliver's interruption, Fred and George continued walking down the hallway, speeding ahead of Morgan and Kira.

          "Good luck with your little party, ladies," Fred beamed from where he was now walking backwards.

          His brother turned around to walk backwards alongside him. "But just know, a better one is right around the corner," George winked before the pair were lost to the crowd and Morgan was left with Kira's incoming train of complaining.

          But the moaning Morgan was expecting didn't come. Instead, Kira came to a halt, relaxed her hands in front of her and asked confounded: "Sorry, but which one is which?"

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞'𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫!

not loving this chapter, but
it's an update so can we
move swiftly along pls x