When Fate Has A Say

Katie wasn't home whenever Alicia awoke the next morning, and she quickly made the connection- maybe she would be there at practice. While she was changing into her robes, Katie's large tawny owl swooped in the window with the Daily Prophet in claw. "Thanks, Uric." The owl looked at her with his cross-eyed gaze, and then flew up to his perch, ruffling his feathers.

The headline (thank God) was not about the defeat that the Cannons had suffered yesterday, but the sports column caught her eye. 'Cannons Score Highest Game Against Falcons in 27 Years.' She almost laughed at that- surely sixty to two-seventy couldn't be that impressive of a score for the Cannons.

Her eyes skimmed the article, noting with interest that there was a mention of "Spinnet and Bell, the two new Chasers, scoring sixty points", and later on "Spinnet scoring forty points, and assisting greatly for the other twenty". That was almost laughable- she had been so nervous that she hadn't done half as well as she should have. And it didn't help that the Falcons had the most vicious beaters in the entire league.

Had she really done that well?

No, she told herself firmly, trying to banish thoughts of being drafted for the Arrows. At best, she might move up to the Prides, or maybe, if she was lucky, the Wasps. Not the Arrows- Harry was on the Arrows team, and that would be too good to be true.

So you admit that you want to see him again?

"No, no, no," Alicia said to the silence. "I do not want to see him, I had a little bit of a crush on him in sixth year, that was all, that was all. If I'd really liked him, I would have gotten up the nerve to ask him to the Yule Ball. And I didn't. I went with George. So to hell with that."

If that was so true, why was her stomach tied in knots at the prospect? The Arrows were bound to play the Cannons at some point in time. Would Harry remember her? Of course he would, she thought. But would he be happy to see her? Excited? Would he say anything more than "Hi, Alicia, how are you? I'm doing well, hope to see you again"? Probably not, she told herself.

She scratched the smoky-colored Circe on her head, then disapparated.

Katie was already in the locker room, looking tired but glowing. "Did you have a good time last night?" Alicia asked her jokingly. "I noticed that someone didn't even bother to come home..."

"It's not like you wouldn't have done it if it was you and your boyfriend of three years," Katie retorted, a smile on her face. "Did you see the article about you in the Prophet?"

"Please," Alicia groaned, trying to fight a smile. "It was hardly about me- it was about the two new chasers recruited by the Cannons that scored every point that the Cannons made. If I remember correctly, one of them was named Katie Bell."

Katie smiled proudly, then shrugged. "It was about you, and you know it. So quit acting so high and mighty. Maybe the Arrows will draft you."

Alicia tried not to look too stunned at Katie's remark, and coughed loudly. "Just so long as it's another team. It doesn't really matter which one it is, as long as you get drafted to it, too."

"Oh, but I think it does. I can get drafted to the Prides, and be on the same team as Oliver, and when you get on the Arrows, then you'll be on the same team as Harry." She shot a mischievous grin at Alicia. "You know you want to."

'God, please say that I'm not turning red. Not now.' Alicia rolled her eyes. "Of course I do, because he's so amazingly hot." She attempted to force sarcasm into her voice.

Katie raised her eyebrows. "I guess you didn't look too hard at that picture of him in the paper, because he is pretty damn hot. Not as good looking as Oliver, of course," she added quickly. "But definitely not bad."

"Where did you two go last night? Other than to bed, I mean."

Katie flushed deeply. "We went out to a nice diner, and then to a cinema. You wouldn't believe how used he's gotten to those things since I started picking where we went. If you'd ever told me that I would be dating a wizard with no idea what a movie and a phone were, I wouldn't have believed you."

Alicia just grinned. "Thank god for being a half and half, huh? I couldn't imagine life like Oliver has it- I require microwaves to live. And freezers, for that matter."

"That's because the entire list of foods that you cook can be found in the freezer and cooked with the microwave." Katie pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and then handed the brush to Alicia.

"Thanks," Alicia muttered, attempting to have her hair lay in some semblance of order. "At least I get off of my lazy arse and cook."

Grinning, Katie tapped her foot on the floor. "We're going to be late if you don't move your lazy arse out here now. Your rather unattractive arse, I might add. It's because you sit on it too much, and it makes it flat."

Alicia grinned, having grown used to the ridicule from the other girl, who happened to be rather attractive to the males. She picked her Cleansweep 11 out of the rack where all of the brooms were stored, thinking sourly that they really needed new brooms.

The chill wind whipped her practice robes around, a few strands of hair freeing themselves from her ponytail.

She kicked off from the ground, letting her broom carry her far away from the field below. The wind whipped at her face, playing a wonderful melody against her skin. Alicia breathed deeply, letting the full exhilaration sweep through her, feeling no longer like she was earthbound.

Harry.

Why couldn't he go haunt some other girl's mind? Maybe some other girl like those Patil twins, or Granger. Or even Cho.

Cho.

Alicia steadied her broom in midair, thinking back to third year- the Gryffindor team heading out to the Qudditch pitch, brooms in hand, ready to win the cup that they had been denied so many times. Harry had been right there, standing next to her- he probably hadn't even realized it.

And then, there was Cho's voice, rising above all of the others. "Good luck, Harry!" She had waved, and Alicia could still remember Harry blushing. What was so special about her? Just because she was a Ravenclaw, and Alicia wasn't the brightest as far as schoolwork went, she suddenly wasn't as good as Cho?

She tilted her broom towards the ground, and leaned over the handle, letting the wind whip her hair and robes around her face as she sped to the ground, adrenaline rushing through her veins.

When the ground was yards away, she pulled up on the handle of the broom, face flushed with excitement. She had forgotten about Harry, about Hogwarts, for one blissful moment in time.

No, Alicia realized. She had not forgotten Harry. She had merely pushed aside any thoughts of denial of her feelings, pushed aside thoughts of being good enough. She had done what made Katie look so beautiful whenever she returned from a night with Oliver.

She had fallen in love.

# # #

"Alicia, what's going on?" Katie demanded as the two girls walked out of the locker rooms, Katie dressed in peacock-blue and Alicia in charcoal-gray robes. "You're all quiet and serious, and you practiced wonderfully. But your heart wasn't in it."

She laughed lightly; trying to stop the smile that she was sure was plastered on her face. "I'm just having a good day, I suppose." She checked her watch and her eyes widened. "I've got to go to Diagon Alley, before Quality Quidditch Supplies closes. McGaffin told me I should go look at those new Nimbus 3000s and see if they're anywhere in the Cannon's price range."

"You don't need good brooms to loose," Katie laughed back. "Oliver's got a game today, and I think that you should come along. We can go look at the brooms tomorrow." She grinned. "Please? You need to get out more. All that you do is stay cooped up in the flat."

Harry.

"Yeah, sounds good." Alicia offered a small smile. "But don't we have time to go to the Quidditch Supply before we go to the game? I mean, when does it start?" God, who knew, Harry could be at the Quality Quidditch Supply, and she could miss her chance of seeing him again.

She shook her head, trying to get all of the crazy thoughts out of her mind. Yes, the chances were definitely for it that she would meet up again with Harry some day. In fact, it was almost impossible that they wouldn't, because their teams had to eventually play each other. All of these daydreams were things that she did back in fourth year about George, and now was definitely not the time to start with Harry.

"An hour and a half. But I want to stop by and talk to Oliver, and we still have to get good seats." She glanced at Alicia pleadingly. "Please, you know that you want a night away from home. Please?"

"Fine." Alicia rolled her eyes, smiling. "Race you there!"

The two girls disapparated, Alicia apparating outside of the large stadium a split second before Katie did. "Let's go find Oliver," Alicia joked, nudging Katie with her elbow. "You know that you only came to see him." Harry.

Now it was Katie's turn to roll her eyes. "No, I came to study the Pride's tactics to give the Cannons the edge when we play them. Because the competition between our two teams is so close, we just have to beat them."

Alicia laughed as Katie grabbed her arm and started dragging her to the field. "Wait up, I think that two minutes won't matter." She straightened her robes, and began to walk to the Quidditch pitch at a slightly slow rate. "And besides, you don't want to look all flushed whenever you meet up with Oliver, with your hair going everywhere."

"Oh, like yours isn't!"

Alicia's hands flew up to her hair, pulling it out of the loose ponytail. "Are you serious? Does it look that bad?" Oh, that would be the way to impress Harry- show up with your hair looking like crap after he hasn't seen you in four years.

'Why are you thinking about Harry like that?' another inner voice chided. 'He won't be here, he won't be anywhere, and he's never going to notice you. He's probably dating that Weasley or Granger girl by now. Even if he wasn't, you'd have no chance at all.'

"Calm down, Alicia, it looks fine. Actually, it looks better down than it did up," Katie reassured her. "And anyways, who are you counting on seeing here? It couldn't be that Seeker on the Prides, is it? He's not that cute, but if he's your type..."

The brunette gaped. "You've got to be joking!" she squealed, trying to compare Owen Cauldwell or whatever his name was to Harry. There wasn't any competition at all- plus, she knew that Harry could beat Cauldwell to the snitch any day of the week with his hands tied behind his back.

Katie hadn't waited around to hear Alicia's answer- she had spotted Oliver, and ran over to hug him. Alicia followed, weaving her way around small clusters of fans that had already arrived for the game.

"Hey, Oliver," Alicia grinned as she approached the Pride's keeper. She couldn't help but be a little jealous for Katie whenever she came around Oliver- he was undeniably attractive, even if not so much as...

Harry.

Harry was standing right there, next to Oliver, a grin on his face. "I invited Harry to come and see the game. I figured that the Arrows might need a little bit of help to give us some competition the next time that we play," Oliver explained upon seeing Alicia's face.

Oh my God. Alicia realized suddenly that she had been staring, slack-jawed at Harry, and she quickly changed it into a smile. "Hey, how are you?" she asked after a moment more of staring, her heart flipping over itself. "It's been a while since I've seen you. Well, other than in the newspapers, I mean."

Harry smiled, and Alicia was hoping desperately that her face wasn't as red as she supposed that it was. "I'm doing good. Now that I'm finally out of Hogwarts, and Voldemort is finally gone, I'm finally getting a chance to enjoy life. It's odd, though, because I thought that it would be just the same as it was with Hogwarts. But all of my friends and I went our separate ways. It's just hard not to see them every day."

Katie said something that didn't quite register in Alicia's mind- every part of her was focused on Harry, on how she'd never really expected to see him here, and how Katie had said that her hair looked awful...

A hand flew up to her hair, and Alicia tried desperately to smooth it without being too obvious. She probably looked like she had just gotten off of a muggle roller coaster, complete with the look of nausea.

It took her a moment to realize that Harry was looking at her rather oddly, and Katie was giggling. Alicia's blue eyes widened in horror as she jerked her hands down, and promptly started to fidget. "Um, sorry," she muttered, feeling the sudden urge to deposit her lunch on the pavement.

"Don't worry about it," Harry laughed. "You don't need to fix it- it looks fine the way that it is."

Alicia managed a small grin, and as she glanced at Katie, she saw that the blonde was trying to hide a look of shock, and Oliver with a crazy grin on his face- was this what he had intended?

"I've got to head over to the locker rooms," Oliver announced. "The captain will probably kill me if I'm not there on time." He grinned at Alicia and Harry, gave Katie a quick kiss, and disapparated.

It took Alicia a few minutes to realize that the entire group had fallen silent, and she cleared her throat. "Well, I suppose that we should go get seats?" Oh my God, he was here; he was going to sit with them through a whole Quidditch match...

"Harry!" Alicia, Katie, and Harry all turned to see a pretty blonde curly-haired girl in sky-blue robes hurrying to them, a smile on her face. "I'm glad that you could make it."

The sky-blue robes could only mean one thing- she had to be on the Appleby Arrows, too. Alicia smiled, and was about to hold out her hand to introduce herself, when...

The curly-haired girl rushed into Harry's arms, and Alicia's heart skipped a beat. No, it couldn't be... The blonde kissed him full on the lips, leaving traces of lipstick on Harry's mouth.

Alicia couldn't stop staring, couldn't help the tears from welling up in her eyes. "Well, Mandy, this is Alicia and Katie," Harry said. Pain. An unexplainable emptiness was welling in her heart. "And this is Mandy, my fiancé."