CHAPTER ELEVEN
eighty percent

BY SATURDAY, NOTHING HAD BEEN ACCOMPLISHED.

             Rio and Jeremy hadn't pressed Sawyer about Dumbledore's latest discovery. It's been more than half a week, but she still hadn't spoken a word about it to anyone. Nothing miraculous happened. She's still the same. Still hopeless at words. Even though the label's taken some of the weight off her shoulders, even though she knows she's not naturally stupid anymore—never was, according to Dumbledore—she doesn't feel any different. Like, okay, she thinks, so they've found out that I'm dyslexic. What can they do about it? How can they fix my brain and rewire the part that's constantly fucking up the way I see and hear things?

              Still, some feeble part of her clings to the useless hope that, someday soon, she'll wake up and everything will fall into place.

             At four in the morning, Sawyer wakes to the whine of an electric guitar plucking at the air. Turning over on her bed, Sawyer presses her pillow over her head in an attempt to block out the noise. But her efforts are futile. The screech of the guitar solo punctures the cotton and stabs through her sleep-hazy brain. With a sharp inhale, her teeth gnash together savagely, and her fingers tremble with the urge to throw a punch through the brick wall her bed's pressed up against.

           Irritation boils the blood in her veins and her first instinct is to hex the inconsiderate moron who evidently doesn't understand the concepts of time to Hell and back—until she realises she knows the song that's playing. A smokey woman's voice growls through the static silence and with the darkness blanketing the room in pitch and shadows, the grit of the bass guitar digs into her eardrums. When it's quiet, it's easier to filter through her thoughts, when it's quiet the other senses are heightened. Back home, Sawyer used to lie awake at night, past two a.m. listening to her cassette tapes through the Walkman her father had gifted her for Christmas while the rest of Bristol rocked itself to sleep in the darkness. Those nights, the music cut deep into her skin, wove through the threads and sinew of her muscle, the only thing keeping her tethered to Earth. It's different in the daytime, when the sun's up and everyone puts their masks back on.

             What was it about two a.m.?

            Sawyer had left her Walkman at home by accident. These nights she falls asleep with much difficulty. Too much thinking, too much chasing her own thoughts into exhaustion, too much wishing she wouldn't wake up in the morning. And yet, she wakes up and nothing's changed. Everything is as it was yesterday. Unsolved and frustrating and impossible. She makes a mental note to write to her father later in the day. For now, she rolls out of bed, cracking all of her joints without ceremony, wishing she were dead.

              From the other end of the room, the song changes. It's coming from the record player near the window that one of her roommates had brought in, Sawyer realises. True enough, someone is sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the record player, a crate of vinyl records nestled at her side. From the scant slivers of moonlight slanting gin through the glass, Sawyer makes out curly dark hair, brown skin and a slight build outlined by a silver halo as she approaches.

           "You like The Runaways?" Sawyer asks, pulling the sleeves of her thick hoodie down, and rubbing the grogginess out of her eyes.

             Startled, the girl glances up at Sawyer with a sheepish smile. "They're one of my favourites, yeah."

            Even though they've been rooming together for all of the five years they've been attending Hogwarts, this might be the first time Sawyer has ever spoken to Quinn Comet. As far as Sawyer knew, Quinn was the quiet type, one of the more average kids who didn't really socialise with other people outside of her small circle of friends—much like Sawyer, except more invisible and measurably less explosive.

              "Sorry, did I wake you?" Quinn asks, brows furrowing. Even in the dead silence of night, permeated only by the sounds of the wind outside and the snores of the three other roommates, Quinn's voice is a ghost, quiet enough not to put a dent the background lullaby. Sawyer doesn't know if it's because Quinn's naturally soft-spoken, or if she's just afraid of facing Sawyer's notorious wrath. "I just couldn't sleep and I've been meaning to—"

             "I don't care," Sawyer says, shrugging. She settles down beside Quinn and gestures to the crate of vinyl records between them. "These are all yours?"

           Quinn nods. "You can take a look if you want."

          Raising a brow, Sawyer flicks through the records, slowly reacquainting herself with the muggle bands no one else in this school seemed to listen to. Judas Priest, Pearl Jam, Rainbow, Motörhead, Joan Jett and the Black Hearts—each name that she read off in her head brought forth a burst of delirium. Got her blood moving in her veins, got her heartbeat kickstarted again. In all her years here, Sawyer concluded that witches and wizards had shit music tastes. It's why Sawyer had more friends back home than here at Hogwarts. Muggles were better company in this department than the stuck-up pricks in this school who only cared about blood purity and house points and the next Quidditch match.

          "Never pegged you as the hardcore type," Sawyer muses, plucking an AC/DC, a Black Sabbath, and a Blue Oyster Cult album out of the crate.

            "I don't dress according to what I listen to," Quinn points out, a tiny smile playing on her lips. "I also don't worship Satan or whatever."

          "Stereotypes." Sawyer waves a flippant hand as she scans the records currently in her possession. She taps the AC/DC record with a finger. "But not bad, I mean, Powerage used to be my favourite until Flick of the Switch."

           "As opposed to Highway to Hell?"

           "Great, but overrated. Pass," Sawyer scoffs, pulling a face and rooting through the vinyl collection with hungry eyes and greedy hands. "Christ, what do you not have in there? I'll be damned if you're missing Iron Maiden—"

            "You listen to Iron Maiden?"

             "Fuck, yeah," Sawyer nods, a smirk slashed across her lips. For the first time in a history of never, she feels alive, but in a way that won't bring about horrible consequences. The safe kind of liveliness where she feels the chains melt off her back. A vibrance that didn't come from swinging fists and blood on her hands or broken cartilage. A refreshing change for someone who's spent all her life searching for breathing room but only ever being able to get her calcified heart beating in the ferocity of violence. It feels strange, and the world is all sorts of tilted right now, but Sawyer thinks it's nice to speak to someone (other than Jeremy, Rio, or Marcus) whose face she didn't want to smash her fist into. "I like the concept they'd created around the band. I mean, my dad and I went to one of their shows a couple years back, and they're really committed to the whole spirit of fearless creative independence. I have this Walkman back home—"

            At Quinn's baffled expression, Sawyer realises she's probably unfamiliar with the muggle contraptions, as with most of the pureblooded students. "It's this portable device that lets you listen to music anywhere, and it fits in your pocket. You put in these things called cassette tapes, then you press the play button, and your music starts playing and you an listen to it on the go. Way more convenient than a whole record player like this."

            "Interesting," Quinn hums, dark eyes sparking. "Did your dad get you into rock?"

             Sawyer nods, slipping the albums back into place. "My dad's a muggle, so he knows all of this stuff. He used to play these for me on our radio when I was little. He's kind of cool. For a dad, I mean. What about you?"

             "Same as you, but with my uncle." Quinn tucks a wild curl behind her ear and folds her hands atop her knees, a nostalgic grin on her lips. "My parents are both of magical descent, but my uncle's a muggle. He visits, like, every Christmas, and he gives me all these vinyls for presents. The last one he gave me was 7 Year Bitch. Do you listen to them?"

              Sawyer slants her a deadpan look. "Of course I do, I'm not an uncultured swine."

              Quinn laughs, a soft sound, like the tinkling of bells in the summer breeze. "Good to know."

              It's quiet then, as they regard each other with gleaming eyes shining in the afterglow of a pleasantly surprising connection that neither would've thought they'd ever share. For that awkward moment, paused in a pocket of time where Hogwarts existed in a separate dimension to this newfound unity of two people who didn't quite know what to make of each other, Sawyer contemplates Quinn. Contemplates staying to keep this conversation going for a little while more. Forget Oliver. Forget her promise to Violet. It's nice, she thinks, to speak to someone who she had no chance to hurt for a change. Someone who hadn't acquainted themselves directly with her anger.

              "Well," Sawyer says, suddenly remembering the time. "I've got to wash up."

               The other girls haven't stirred yet, but she had to leave before Oliver threw a fit about her tardiness. Not that she cared much about what he had to say, anyway. Straightening to her feet, she wrestles her tangled hair into a haphazard ponytail and cuts Quinn a tentative smile. It isn't a happy smile by far, but it isn't the smile she wore to a vicious war of fists and hurt and flashes of anger either. Sawyer isn't sure it remotely resembled a smile. A price to pay for someone who hasn't had much reason to wear a proper one in years.

               "Where are you going?" Quinn asks, cocking her head. "I mean— Not that it's any of my business, but," she scratches her neck pensively, face twisted in a way that suggested she was picking out her words carefully. "Sometimes I wake up around this time and I see you all changed up and sneaking out the door. Just out of curiosity, where do you go?"

              Sawyer's smile turns lackadaisical. "Ask no questions and you'll get no lies. Nice talk, though. See you around."

          Flummoxed, Quinn frowns at Sawyer. Like she's trying to decode something. But there's nothing to decode in a girl made of black ice and ages of empire-crumbling rage who just wants to be and be left alone. And Sawyer decides that she's tired of people trying to figure her out and looking in all the wrong places, coming to conclusions she's already found out for herself. She doesn't have time for this. Life goes on, the world still sucks and so do the people in it.

           Without a glance over her shoulder, Sawyer walks away.

* * *

WHEN THE SUN RISES, Oliver kicks everyone off the pitch.

          Despite the bitter chill of fall biting into their skin, the rush of wind battering their exposed skin as they'd flown around, running Quidditch drills non-stop for two hours with a furious precision, they were sweat-soaked and flushed in the heat of the thrill. Violet and Harry slap congratulatory high-fives as they land in the grass. Oliver's mouth twists into a grimace as he watches after them. Sawyer dismounts beside the bench that she'd left all her things on, dumping her bat and broom on the ground without ceremony and lifting her water bottle to her lips. As she shoves the sleeves of her hoodie up until they bunch at her forearms, a taller shadow eclipses hers. Refusing to acknowledge Oliver, she unscrews the cap on her water bottle and dumps the last dregs of her water onto her head. Cooling droplets slide down her face and she wipes them off on the hem of her hoodie.

             "Okay, so here's our game plan," Oliver says, entirely oblivious to the cold shoulder she was practically shoving in his face. "According to Violet, she's got almost one and a half weeks left to get her up to competition standard for a Beater, which is, honestly, a hopeless case by this point, but we can make do with what little time we've got. At least she's stabilised her flight and is gaining confidence on her broomstick. But it's still not good enough. She's still got miles to go when it comes to her swing. Harry's getting quicker—thanks to you—" he scowls; she doesn't have to turn around to know that he's doing it; she can feel the intensity of his irritation searing holes into her spine as she pulls her hoodie over her head, leaving her in a black Aerosmith shirt and grey sweatpants, still pointedly ignoring him— "and your bludgers and I know you can hear me, so you can stop pretending I'm fucking invisible."

              Unfazed, Sawyer pivots round to face him, a combative grin on her face, staring him down with vacant eyes. "I see you." Her voice is dead. Not even a glimmer of the usual edge in there, not even the hint of a cautionary tale prognostic of a fist to the face.

              Its absence doesn't unsettle Oliver. He lets out a sigh. "You're still mad at me."

              Bland amusement twists her features. Sawyer shrugs. "Am I?"

                Did he even have to make such an obvious statement? It'd been days but his words still bounce around the echo chamber of her head. She hasn't forgotten how he'd said it: If I'm being honest, I don't think you're really trying at all.

               What did Oliver Wood know about trying? What did he know besides the perfect plays and game strategy constantly consuming his every waking thought, all these equations no one else would know what to make sense of filtering through his brain? What else was Oliver but his obsession with a pointless sport that would never love him back? Did he think he could actually read her like she was see-through? Did he think he knew what was going on inside her head? All the ugly, twisted monsters in the Labyrinth of her brain?

              Brows pinching together, Oliver slants Sawyer an annoyed look. "Yes, you are. You're shutting down on me. Stop that."

            "You'd prefer if I went explosive on you?"

            "I'd prefer if you stopped acting like you don't care about anything."

            "I don't act. I care about nothing, and I want nothing."

            "Everybody wants something."

          A breeze tickles through the air, raising the little hairs on the nape of her neck and running its invisible fingers through his artlessly mussed hair. In the silence, permeated only by birds chirping the joys of a Saturday morning, Sawyer lets out a shattered laugh. The many shards cut through his ribs and shred his skin to ribbons, tugs his mouth into a wince. Though the moment elapses, and his face is a stone mask of solemnity once again.

             "That's funny," Sawyer says, musingly.

              Raking a hand through his hair, Oliver rolls his eyes. Frustration wicks off his broad shoulders in waves. Waves that sting her skin in the strangest way.

             Sawyer arches a brow. "Oh, you're being serious."

            "Of course I'm being serious!"

            If Oliver could read her patterns as well as he thought he did, he would've known to make himself scarce eons ago. Glacial smile frozen on her lips, Sawyer takes a step forward, not missing the sharp intake of breath that hitches Oliver's chest, and presses a finger to the base of his throat. A warning prod. Against the pad of her index finger, his skin runs warm and she can feel his pulse quicken, thrumming vehemently against her finger. Despite his elevated pulse, Oliver doesn't move. Doesn't flick her hand away. Doesn't even so much as flinch from her touch.

            "Get out of my face."

            Oliver's jaw flexes, but his face bears no trace of irritation or anger. Only exasperation at her blatant refusal to cooperate. Half of her expects him to launch into some tirade about opening up to people and to stop treating them like dirt. The other half doesn't know what to expect. Anything but the next question out of his mouth: "Are you doing to Hogsmeade later?"

            Sawyer blinks at him. Not quite sure what to make of the random question.

          "Why do you care?"

           A surreptitious smile ghosts Oliver's lips. "No reason."

* * *

WHEN SHE GETS BACK TO HER DORM, Sawyer remembers that she needs to write to her father to ask him to mail over her Walkman. At the same time, she decides it's as good as any day to open up the rest of her mail and face the onslaught of her mother's letters. Letters she's been ignoring for the past month and a half. All for good reason, though. Plus, she can already deduce what her mother's writing about. It's always the same thing:

              - Unsatisfactory grades
              - Detentions
              - Dumbledore's recent findings
              - "You have to try harder, darling. You can do this!"

              That last one, Sawyer held in the deepest, most savage corners of her harboured hatred. Let it stew and fester until those damnable words became ugly blisters. So she throws her mother's letters into the fire flickering hungrily in the hearth and doesn't stick around to watch them burn. Curled up on her unmade bed, Sawyer pens a quick letter to her father, the main gist of which comprises of a request for him to mail her Walkman over, along with the shoe box filled with cassette tapes under her bed. Her handwriting is crude, a mash of sloping words—no doubt misspelt and barely legible, but passable enough so her father would understand. After all, his handwriting wasn't the epitome of stellar penmanship either.

             Once she's done, she seals it in an envelope and drops it on her pillow, before swapping her Quidditch practice attire for a pair of black jeans, a faded AC/DC shirt—an old relict of Jeremy's, stolen from his room a couple summers ago—and a pair of ratty sneakers.

              An hour later, Sawyer finds herself waiting in The Three Broomsticks, a charmingly cluttered pub bustling with the daily hum of business. Seated in the back corner at a circular table with Rio and Marcus sipping at their butter beers, Sawyer wrinkles her nose at the honey-stung air and the engulfing warmth that would've been smothering had it not held the endearing ordered chaos of a hastily orchestrated family gathering.

              Orders were being shouted from one end of the bar to the other as drinks shook themselves and floating beverages prepped by magic for convenience's sake. Cups and mugs knocked against wooden tables in harmony with the scrape of chairs dragging against the floor as wizards and witches of varying sizes and shapes huddled together in odd clusters, laughing and talking and murmuring amongst themselves without consideration for keeping their noise level down. Still, because the cacophony wasn't academic, wasn't of Hogwarts despite the many students populating miscellaneous tables around the crowded pub, Sawyer found herself relaxing into the loose clutches of freedom from marble hallways and musty classrooms.

                Moments earlier, Jeremy had disappeared into Spintwitches Sporting Needs to inspect Quidditch supplies while Rio boastfully campaigned for a butter beer chugging competition. Without arguing (for sake of pissing Marcus—who'd already been adverse to the idea since he always lost—off), Sawyer had clutched four enormous paper bags stuffed to the brim with her sugar-infested spoils from Honeydukes to her chest and followed Marcus and Rio to the Three Broomsticks Inn.

           "You can't challenge someone who doesn't want to be challenged to a chugging contest," Marcus grumbled under his breath, plucking one of Sawyer's paper bags from her struggling arms.

           She cut him an annoyed look. "I had it."

            "You look like a dwarf trying to power-lift four boulders, come off it, Lee."

             "Just because you're taller doesn't mean I won't hurt you." Glowering darkly over the top of the paper bags in her hands, Sawyer regretted not bringing a backpack enchanted with the Extension Charm. At least that would've been more manageable than suffering heaving three bags—each at least a quarter of the size of her body—through the ceaseless tide of a Hogsmeade crowd.

              "No, you won't hurt me because I'm your best friend." Marcus smirked, making a point of craning his neck down to look her in the eye. "Also, what're you going to do, huh? Bite my ankles?"

            Scowling, Sawyer grappled with her bags for a solid minute before managing to stick her middle finger up. A boisterous laugh exploded from his chest as Rio dragged them into the Three Broomsticks. And so here they are, waiting for Jeremy to return, with Rio slamming his fists against the table as Sawyer and Marcus chug their butter beers. Some butter beer sloshes over the sides of Sawyer's mouth and spills onto her clothes, sticking her shirt to her stomach.

            "Fuck's sake," Sawyer snarls, setting her mug down with more force than necessary.

          "You look like you just pissed your pants," Rio snickers.

            Sawyer flicks him a dark look and digs through the pockets of her coat for her wand. To her annoyance, the realisation that she'd left it back in her dorm by accident dawns on her. Judging by way of their wicked grins, it didn't look like either Marcus or Rio wanted to be particularly helpful at the moment.

            "Shut the fuck—"

              "Merlin's sake, I've been gone half an hour and Sawyer's already pissed her pants?" Jeremy says, nose wrinkling.

              At the sound of Jeremy's incredulous voice, the three of them glance up at him—Rio and Marcus in villainous amusement, and Sawyer, in flat bemusement. Over his shoulder, Sawyer spots Wyatt, Oliver, and their usual group of Gryffindor friends hovering behind Jeremy. Almost like they'd tailed him. Either that—which was highly unlikely, considering Jeremy Knox could never be at the butt end of anyone's ill wishes—or Jeremy had deliberately brought them here. At the sight of the Gryffindors, Marcus' spine goes ramrod straight, and he jerks away from Rio's side. Rio's eyes narrow, and a dark look thunders across his features.

                 "I. Did. Not. Piss. My. Pants." Each word, Sawyer grinds out. Irritation prickles under her skin, and her nerves light on fire. Peeling the bottom half of her shirt away from her stomach, she slants Jeremy an incendiary glare. Just the mere sight of her brother and his annoying posse of friends was enough to fan the flames of resentment deep in her soul.

             Procuring his wand without prompt, Jeremy mutters an incantation, taps the tip of his wand against her shirt, and the stain instantly dries off her clothes. His bright grin returns, and it's like the sun's just walked into a dingy pub filled with smoke and terrible lighting.

            "What are they doing here?" Marcus sneers, jabbing a finger in Oliver's direction. But Oliver isn't looking at Marcus. A mask of boredom settles in the sharp lines on his face, but his pale eyes are fixed on Sawyer, who snatches Rio's mug of butter beer and sips idly at the stolen drink, just to avoid looking anywhere else. At anyone else.

             "Relax, Flint," Oliver says, coolly, the unbridled hostility of the Slytherin-Gryffindor house rivalry chilling his tone. "We're just here to hang out."

               "I found this crazy fool and his friends at Spintwitches Sporting Needs," Jeremy pipes, and despite his Slytherin association, slings an arm around Oliver's shoulders as though they've been friends for ages. They share charming grins, tinged with the sort of humour as though they've shared enough inside jokes to last lifetimes. "We were just talking about the new edition of Nimbus 2000s."

              Not even a trace of animosity is evident in Jeremy's tone. It's friendly, and Sawyer's mind struggles to keep up. Her gaze is steel and ice as she sets the empty mug down, knuckles blanched as her fingers tighten around the handle, muscles wired for a fight. Seeing rival houses with this sort of camaraderie almost knocks Marcus out of his chair. Though, Sawyer supposes it's Jeremy's effect. Everybody wanted to be friends with Jeremy Knox. And Jeremy somehow had the capacity to reciprocate.

               "It's okay if we join you guys for awhile, right?" Wyatt asks, fingers knotted together.

              Nervous habit, Sawyer notes, flicking her dispassionate gaze over her twin brother. He fidgets on the spot and the other Gryffindors standing around him exchange communicative glances, sneaking alarmed glimpses askance at Sawyer. They're still lingering, standing around and shifting in the air of uncertainty clouding the odd clashing of company. Balanced on the tip of her tongue, the barbed word 'no' burns with a venomous rancour but she swallows down the vile taste.

                "Just sit down," Jeremy says, dragging over two chairs, planting his hands over Oliver's shoulders and steering him to the empty seat next to Sawyer. "They're fine with it."

              Oh right, Sawyer thinks, bitterly, as Oliver affects the most convincing smile and shifts closer to her, but not close enough to touch. They still think we're a thing. She eyes Marcus' sweating mug of butter beer intensely.

             An almost unbearably terse moment of silence stretches between them as Wyatt and the three other Gryffindors drag over chairs and gather around the little table. There's this wall of ice and neither side is willing to be the first to break it. The five Gryffindors, out of uncertainty and wariness; Marcus, Rio and Sawyer, out of grudging reluctance. But Jeremy orders a round of butter beers anyway. Someone coughs awkwardly into their fist.

            "So," one of Wyatt's friends begins, hesitance sticking to his tone like tar. Ashton Lonsdale, a boy with dark hair and brown skin who's sitting beside Wyatt, adjusts the glasses perched atop the bridge of his nose, and surveys the group curiously. "How are we all this fine afternoon?"

              "Swell," Rio drawls, reaching over to rest a hand over Marcus' knee, fingers picking agitatedly at the loose threads in the rip in his jeans.

          "Same," Jeremy says, flashing his friends a warning smile. Behave. Then, he turns to Sawyer. "What'd you get from Honeydukes?"

            "It's easier if you saw rather than listened to the whole list," Marcus scoffs, gesturing to the four bags under the table.

              One of the Gryffindors laughs. Jun, Sawyer recognises the Korean boy and his smiling eyes. He's in her Astronomy class. He blinks in surprise at the Slytherins and Sawyer. "These are all yours?"

           "All Sawyer's," Rio says, a snide smirk on his lips.

            Oliver shakes his head. "Seriously?"

              "What, you don't know your girlfriend's a major sweet tooth?" Dylan Kapoor snorts. He props his foot against Ashton's chair, all gangly limbs and posturing swagger. Dylan smiles apologetically at Sawyer. "Sorry, Sawyer, we all know you can do so much better than this idiot."

                 "He's always, like 'Oh! My one true love is Quidditch!' we didn't expect him to have a secret girlfriend this year." Jun snickers, shoving Oliver in the head. "Guess you cracked him early, huh?"

               Sawyer scoffs, deciding that there's no harm in playing along with their stupid game. "He's alright, I suppose."

             Groaning, Oliver buries his face in his hands. She doesn't miss the tinge of red creeping up his neck. "Can we not?"

            Rio smirks. There's the glint of the devil in his face, the look he always wears when he's feeling antagonistic. the look he'd given many people in the past before his fist sailed towards their faces. Before he'd walked away from his parents at dinner tables in public because of an ugly dispute between himself and his diplomat of a father. Before he'd done something reckless and impulsive. This look—equal parts danger and menace—is the dead silence before the hurricane hits, seconds before gravity is pulled out of the room. Sawyer knows better than to let him say anything, but she's also not particularly inclined to care about the aftermath because she still hasn't forgiven Oliver yet.

              "Y'know, if you're so uncomfortable talking about you and Sawyer around us, do you really deserve her at all?"

            Sawyer lifts a brow.

           Oliver flashes Rio a flat look. When he lies, it's so convincing Sawyer almost believes he means it. "It's not uncomfortable for me. I could talk about her all day if I wanted to. I'm thinking she'd more likely punch someone than entertain this talk."

            Eyes shining with pride, Jun thumps Oliver on the back with his fist. "You're all grown up now, my boy. Finally taking other peoples' feelings into consideration."

              "I told you Oliver was a solid," Jeremy says, smirking at Rio. "You owe me five galleons now."

               "Wait till the end of the month," Rio says, coolly. "We'll see."

               A waitress levitates all their butter beers onto the table. And from then, the conversation flowed too easily. In the soft bustle of the afternoon crowd in the pub, Jun, Dylan and Rio had begun a suspiciously intense discussion of sneaking Firewhisky into school. In symphony with the harsh clinking of cups against saucers and the discordant scrapes of chairs grinding against the hardwood floor, an increasingly passionate debate on professional Quidditch teams had sparked between Marcus, Wyatt, Oliver, Ashton and Jeremy. Teams of which Sawyer knows nothing about since she doesn't follow sports. Neither does she care much for whatever the boys are talking about, except that her friends aren't being antagonised. So she hangs back, watching and listening to little snippets, content to observe and spectate.

                Figuring that this particular group of Gryffindors aren't ones to judge, Marcus slowly leans into Rio once more, and though he doesn't make an effort to converse, he's more at ease than he was in the beginning.

               At some point, Oliver's arm makes a daring venture around the back of Sawyer's chair, and rests mere inches from her, careful to never touch, careful to only imitate the image of a relationship. She toys with her half-empty mug of butter beer.

             "Can we talk?" Oliver murmurs, leaning closer to Sawyer. "Look, I know you're angry for some reason, and I think I've figured it out, but I'll buy you whatever you want from Honeydukes if you're willing to listen. Deal?"

            Sawyer considers saying no because it's fun refusing people, also because she doesn't really want to talk to someone who would most likely push the notion of talking things out with her brother. But the Honeydukes deal sounds pretty solid, so she tells him, "whatever. Lead the way."

            Oliver's eyes light up in surprise, and it's almost strange how satisfying it is watching him scramble for words until he remembers that his feet are on the ground. Plastering on a small grin, he clears his throat, catching curious eyes from his friends as he picks up Sawyer's coat and straightens from his chair. "I'm taking Sawyer to Honeydukes for a bit, we'll be back in twenty minutes."

              "Oh, take your time," Dylan snickers as Wyatt cuffs him on the back of his head, face twisted in disdain at the implication of Dylan's statement. "We can wait."

                Oliver ignores him and follows Sawyer through the crowd and out the door.

               The walk to Honeydukes is silent, up until someone in the crowd hip-checks Sawyer. Seeing red, she almost rounds in on them, but Oliver grabs her elbow before she can even snarl.

              "So," Oliver says, letting her go immediately. "Jeremy's... nice."

              "I didn't know you had the ability to befriend someone on the Slytherin team," Sawyer says, in a voice barbed with frost, still prickling, still seething.

               "Weird fact, I've always liked Jeremy," Oliver says a pleasant gleam in his otherwise neutral expression. "He's a stellar Quidditch player, and I can respect his phenomenal sportsmanship and spirit. That's something to admire. Even if he's from the rival house."

               A bell chimes as Oliver holds the door open for Sawyer, and smiles when she thanks him. Instantly, the scent of sugar perfuming the entire candy shop engulfs them. Since it's lunchtime, the store is far less populated now that the crowd's subsided, headed off to somewhere else to get food. Only a handful of customers linger by the shelves stacked with sweets beyond the average sweet tooth's dreams, some sort of sweet heaven, a paradise stacked with fat, honey-coloured toffees and lemon sherbets, barrels filled to the brim with Every Flavour Beans, racks upon racks of Ice Mice and various peppermints and Chocolate Frogs. Every candy imaginable, Honeydukes has in store.

             "Back again, Sawyer?"

              Sawyer turns to face the counter mid-stride to face a plump, bald man standing behind the cash register. Ambrosius Flume beams down at his favourite regular with a grandfatherly twinkle in his eyes.

              An amused smile traces Sawyer's lips as she regards the old man. "Don't worry, sir, I'm not here to rob you blind your sweets."

             Ambrosius lets out a hearty laugh. "Comforting." He peers at Oliver, hovering close behind Sawyer as he took in the shelves of sweets with a disapproving frown. "Who's that with you?"

             Sawyer tugs at Oliver's fingers. He starts at the contact. "That's Oliver," Sawyer says, smirking. "He's supposed to buy me some Sugar Quills. See you in a bit. Oliver, we're going."

              Pulled from his reverie, Oliver blinks, flummoxed. "Sugar what?"

             Sawyer rolls her eyes, dragging him past shelves stocked with more sweets. Along the way, she conveniently plucks handfuls of levitating sherbet balls and a box of Chocolate Frogs off the shelf and shoves them into his arms. When she waves a giant lollipop in his face, he gives her a look so scandalised she almost laughs. "They're amazing. They look like regular quills, but they're edible. You can eat them in class and no one would know. i.e., Almost every class."

              "That is disgusting," Oliver drawls, wrinkling his nose at her macabre sweet tooth and struggling to hold onto her haul. He flips over a box of Chocolate Frogs and reads off the nutrition facts on the back. "Important Allergy Information: Our products may contain Peanuts, Almonds, Cashews, Hazelnuts, Macadamias, Pecans, Walnuts, Wheat, Milk, Egg, and Soy Products. Merlin, these would absolutely kill me."

              "You're allergic?"

               "Walnuts, remember?" Oliver says, glaring at a small child that'd chosen that moment to dash past them, nearly tripping him up.

               Sawyer does remember. When they were eleven, she'd kept a bag of walnuts in her room, and each time Oliver tried to climb in through the window to get her to play Quidditch with him and Wyatt, she'd throw the bag in his face. That bag had gone missing sometime in the summer of 89', and Sawyer had a sneaking suspicion either Wyatt or her dad had something to do with it.

               "Right," Sawyer says, snatching a couple Sugar Quills from another rack in the back of the store, where they'd wandered into, and found themselves conveniently alone. "What did you want to talk about?"

              "I wanted to apologise," Oliver says, lips pursing. Sawyer meets his unfaltering gaze and he swallows, Adam's apple bobbing nervously. "What I said that day on the pitch about you not trying to change at all, that was out of line. I didn't mean it."

            "So why did you say it?"

             He sighs through his nose. "You know I tend to be kind of an idiot when I'm mad."

             "Never knew you were mad all the time."

              Oliver pins Sawyer with a deadpan look. "I'm trying to be a mature person here, Lee. Will you let me finish or not?"

            Sticking a Chocolate Wand atop the pile of sweets in Oliver's arms, Sawyer gestures for him to carry on.

              "And I'm sorry for pushing you about Wyatt." Oliver purses his lips. "It's not my business, I know, but I don't have any siblings, and Wyatt's the closest thing I've got to a brother, and I do care about him a lot, so I suppose I just wouldn't understand how you can hate him like that. Look, I know we've both never seen eye-to-eye on pretty much anything except that Violet and Harry make it on our respective teams, but I'm here, y'know, if you decide you want to tell me."

              A beat of silence passes. Oliver's hopeful stare is searing. Is heavy with anticipation. Is equal parts tentative and intense. Sawyer takes two boxes of Chocolate Frogs back and puts it on the shelf to lighten the load in Oliver's hold.

             "Okay," Sawyer says, simply, because there isn't much else that needs to be said. Because she doesn't have to explain anything to him that she doesn't want to, but there's a strange compulsion to do so now that he's not asking. Now that he's not pressing her to the limit for a why, and, instead, telling her that he's listening.

            Surprise glints in his eyes. A puzzled frown twists his lips. "Um—"

              "It means you're forgiven, dummy." Sawyer takes back more sweets from his arms, but leaves the levitating sherbet balls and Sugar Quills. When she meets his flummoxed gaze, the question poised on the tip of his tongue, a small grin flits over her lips. "I was just shoving them into your arms to piss you off. You didn't seem like you enjoyed indulging my diabetic habits."

             Oliver scowls, but it's lost its usual heat and his eyes flicker down to the upturned corners of her mouth momentarily, so quickly she dismisses it as an accident. "I hate you. Also, your arteries are going to clog. We'll be amputating your legs in the next twenty years."

             Instead of granting him an answer, Sawyer turns to the nearby rack to return the miscellaneous bags of sweets she'd grabbed without a second thought just to make Oliver squirm. But a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision catches her eye. When she turns to look, her gaze lands on a group of girls gathered by the shelf filled with Peppermint Toads. They're all younger than Sawyer and Oliver, maybe in their fourth or third year. But with the way their eyes are fixed on the boy behind Sawyer, she's certain they wished they were older.

             "Those girls behind the Peppermint Toad rack are staring at you, by the way," Sawyer says, cocking her head.

             "What— why?" Oliver asks, blinking in confusion.

               Sawyer fixes him with a dubious look. Giving him a brief once-over, her mouth twists in amusement. There's no way that he doesn't see why. Most guys who look like Oliver—like one of those beautiful strangers you'd meet in train platforms and never see again—would've already headed their way and struck up a conversation filled with flirt and games, pouring honey into their ears and the words of a superficial lover. For all his power and might, for the miles of taut muscle under tan skin and the imposing set of his jaw, for stormy eyes flecked with a little green and a smile made for starting wars and winning them, Sawyer would've thought Oliver would be a little more aware of the effect he had on people.

              Albeit, the discomposure scrawled across his face seemed every inch genuine.

             Sawyer makes a soft 'huh' sound.

           Oliver blinks at her, brows furrowing. "What?"

             "They think you're attractive," Sawyer says, bluntly. "I mean, you've got to notice that kind of stuff, don't you? Ask any girl in school who they think are the top three guys they'd go out with if they asked, and your name would be somewhere between Cedric Diggory's and Jeremy Knox's."

                 "I don't," Oliver says, a sheepish grin stretching his mouth. "I mean, some girls tried asking me out last Valentine's Day, but I didn't think they thought about me... like that."

               "Did you say yes?"

                "No," Oliver says, nose wrinkling. "I'm too busy with Quidditch practice to waste my time like that."

             Sawyer snorts. "You are the worst. One day, you're going to meet someone who's worth more than a million Galleons and you're going to let her slip by because of Quidditch. Then you'll die lonely and sad and filled with regret because you couldn't see that everything you've ever wanted was all there."

             "Thanks," Oliver deadpans sardonically. "You're a real one. And since when did you care about my love life, anyway?"

              "I don't," Sawyer muses, a flat smile on her lips. "You're just so easy to make fun of."

              Then, a devilish glint ignites in Oliver's eyes. He gazes down at her with a malevolent grin. "But you think I'm one of the top three guys you'd go out with if they asked?"

                "I did not."

               "You said 'any girl'. That includes you."

            Sawyer's eye gives a violent twitch. "Eighty percent," she growls, but makes no move to take a swing.

            "What?" Oliver laughs, green eyes shining.

              "Eighty percent of me wants to bury you alive and set your grave on fire."

             Despite the rampant menace in her threatening tone, he has the audacity to smirk. "What about the remaining twenty?"

              "Undecided." There is false cheer in her eyes and a smile that stretches her lips, reminiscent of a serial killer moments before they claim their next victim. She taps him between the eyes with a Sugar Quill. "But you should probably stop talking before you get to the next percentage."

            Oliver raises a brow. "Why don't you make me?"

             "I'll shove your wand down your throat, if that's what you really want," Sawyer grunts. "And that's ninety percent for you."

            To her surprise, Oliver only laughs and drags her to the counter to pay for all her sweets.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
:)

introducing . . .

Laura Harrier as Quinn

we're gonna be seeing a lot more of her later!!!!

my headcanons for oliver wood include him being a total healthnut, not know that he's actually really attractive, and that he's definitely demisexual.