Cowboys and Angels

moment thirty: the little things (September 1992.)

It was perhaps his sheer messiness that drove Percy to the point of distraction. Around Oliver's bed, clothes were clumped together, almost organically. Probably organically, considering Oliver often dumped them there after practice and just wore them again. It was like he didn't know the meaning of 'laundry' or 'house elves'. Behind his back, Percy would invariably go through the pile, remove the most offensive items and place them in the hamper for the house elves to launder. Now that they were in sixth year, it was after all just the two of them sharing a room, and Percy wasn't going to have the place crawling with fungus because Oliver lacked the sensibilities of other people.

After a week of doing so, he was caught in the act, so to speak. Oliver had gotten back after a practice that evidentially had been played in the rain - his Quidditch robes were covered in mud and soaked. Percy had been going through the pile, and he'd looked up, stunned by Oliver standing over him, and before he could admonish Oliver for dripping on the carpet, Oliver had started stripping, placing the wet, dirty garments over the pile laid over Percy's arms. Once he was down to his boxers, he'd grabbed a spare set of robes from his wardrobe and quickly donned them, offering his bewildered roommate a brief smile. "Thanks, Perce. I was wondering how they were getting cleaned."

Percy had been very tempted to throw the clothes at Oliver and storm out, but Oliver had smiled at him again, soft and genuine, and Percy found something within him making excuses for Oliver, and besides, all he had to do was leave the hamper outside their dorm, it was hardly a big ask.

So he did it, and added it to his list of grievances against one Oliver Wood, despite the smile.

Another nagging thing was Oliver's intelligence, which as Percy had discovered, was hardly small. Despite that (or perhaps because of his self-assured confidence when it came to academia), Oliver would usually concentrate solely and wholly on all things Quidditch-related which invariably meant that he would leave assignments, essays, and studying till the last minute, and beg Percy's help to go through things with him. Just in case he had been too busy designing new Quidditch plays during class time to actually know what he was supposed to be learning.

And then with a mixture of his own ability and Percy's help - and Percy didn't mind helping him, after all, it gave him a chance to go over things again, and what most tested your knowledge of any subject was teaching it to others, and it was a way of demonstrating he was capable - Oliver would then make it through the test or essay at the last minute, and get fairly decent marks for his trouble. Which suited Oliver just fine. He didn't need to be a swot, but he didn't want to fail.

Because then one of his Professors might protest about the time he spent on Quidditch, and make him cut down, and Oliver couldn't ever allow that, oh no.

That kind of attitude was just frustrating. Percy put in time, dedication and the utmost effort and someone like Oliver was abusing the gift he was given and merely coasting through.

Oliver also kept his desk in a similar condition to his floor; that is to say, no great state at all. Parchment, quills, ink pots and textbooks were all piled in clumsy stacks. The vast majority of useable space (and the definition of that was debatable) was taken up by diagrams for Qudditch plays, and cut out articles from the sports pages of the Daily Prophet were affixed everywhere, showing all kinds of players whose names Percy was glad he didn't know.

It was these little things, and a host of others that made certain Percy Weasley worried over Oliver Wood for the vast majority of his day.

Of course, when he actually realised he was in love with Oliver, the little things didn't seem quite so important.