Escaping [Oliver]

[Tamara Lynn Davis]

The tower was probably the best place to seek refuge at, when trying to escape from Slytherins. People might have been more understanding if she were some unfortunately untalented Hufflepuff student or Gryffindor, that they were trying to curse. Tammy Lynn had no such luck. She was a Slytherin, had been since her first year at Hogwarts and that was three years ago. She sighed, pressing her back against the cool stone and closing her eyes. Peace. Quiet. She did not understand what she was even doing in Slytherin house.

All her life she had tried to prove that she was better than her stuck up mother and her deluded older brother. She had directly defied her mothers' orders by playing with Christopher Zhou and Oliver Wood. She had skipped numerous tedious lectures about her family history and the oh-so-noble family tree to swim in nearby creeks and build wooden boats, that they would then set off down some narrow stream. She would play fort with the boys and even play war, using "wands" that they had created from knobbly twigs. She had never felt inferior to her best friends just because she was a born a girl and not a guy.

And then, after all of that, she was still sorted into the hateful Slytherin house. She sat down on the window sill, staring out at the grounds. It was getting colder now, gradually approaching autumn.

[Oliver Wood]

He was wandering around, not exactly sure where he was going and not picky about where he ended up. He did know that he was bored. The Ravenclaws had booked the pitch for the day so calling a Quidditch meeting would be pointless unless they just had a locker room thing which was difficult considering the attention span of his beaters. He carried with him now a book on advanced strategies for Quidditch players. They were going to win the cup this year. By all rights, they should. They had the best team from what he gathered.

He climbed the stairs to the tower. He didn't know why and he didn't really examine why either. It just seemed like the thing to do. When he reached the top, he looked around, was going to turn and go back the way he came, and then noticed her. "Oh," he said, bracing his hand on the wall and pushing himself back to look at her. "Almost didn't see you there." He hadn't seen her in a while. Ever since their first year, they'd seen one another only a few times. He didn't want to say it was because of the house rivalries but that didn't make it less true.

[Tamara Lynn Davis]

Speak of the devil... Tammy saw his surprised face and she could not blame him for it. Things had been awkward ever since she had been sorted into slytherin. He had always hated the house, she had known that even as a child and she had vowed, had promised that she would not be a slytherin. That had worked out perfectly. "Oliver!" She attempted to sound less enthusiastic, but failed by a long shot. "What are you doing here?" She scanned the title of the book he was carrying and suppressed a smile. Quidditch, of course. "How are things... how are things going?" It was a strange question. She had always called him her best friend and now she was asking him something as trivial as how are you? She bit her lip nervously. "I mean, if you're busy, I understand perfectly that you don't want to talk or..."

[Oliver Wood]

He felt the unfamiliar pang of guilt when she exuberantly greeted him. It only reminded him of what a poor friend he'd been to her so far. It wasn't her fault that she was sorted into Slytherin, was it? Maybe it was. The hat had tried to put Oliver in Ravenclaw but he'd insisted on Gryffindor instead. She could have done the same thing but she didn't even though she knew how opposed Oliver and Chris were to the house of green and silver. "I was just walking around," he said. In their speak it meant that he was bored and just couldn't figure out what to do.

"I can talk," he said. Why was she so nervous? With a smile that was not forced at all he walked up to sit with her. "Things are going good. I can't wait for Quidditch to start. I think my team is going to do well this year." With Harry and the Weasley twins they'd be pretty hard to beat. "I missed you this summer. Chris and I went by your place a couple of times but we were told that you were out of the country. I figured it might be a lie but we never could get passed your front door. Did you get any of our owls?"

[Tamara Lynn Davis]

Tammy Lynn nodded and gave a fleeting smile. She automatically scooted a bit to the side when he moved to sit next to her. "I'm pretty sure that you will win," she said seriously. Hell, even though she wasn't a horrible flyer and Christopher was pretty damn good at Quidditch, Oliver had always won against both of them - even when they teamed up against him. It took a while, much longer than it should have taken, for his words to sink in. She sat there, open-mouthed, staring at him with a look of horror on her face. What had she done?

"I... you came by? Both of you?" She racked her mind for that having happened, but she couldn't recall any of it. "I thought that you had..." would saying forgotten about me sound a little melodramatic? She guessed that it would and decided just to trail off and leave it there. "What owls?" Suddenly it all made sense, of course. It was all Lance's doing. "I have a step-father now." Her voice was low and odd. "He's been forcing all these rules on me..."

Which meant that she had jumped to conclusions all this time? "Oh my God. I'm so stupid! I - Oliver! I just did the most stupid thing I could've done." She wasn't sure if she could tell him. He was a friend, or at least, she hoped he was. But still. She knew Oliver.

[Oliver Wood]

He was too. He was actually so sure that he was going to win that he already started bragging to Chris about how unbeatable Gryffindor was this year and how they were definitely the contenders to take the Quidditch Cup. "How is Slytherin's team this year?" he asked. It might be underhanded to inquire but let's not pretend that Marcus Flint was above sending his own little spies to see how Gryffindor was doing. It was one of the unwritten rules that was hated but accepted. Everybody spied on everybody. Captains just had to learn to deal with it.

It fit into place now that she made it clear. Somebody had actually married her mother? He actually felt bad for her now. She never really seemed to belong with that family which was yet another reason he was surprised that she was sorted into Slytherin and not into another one of the houses. She could be one of those people who secretly sought the approval of her parents without realizing it which almost made sense he guessed. "Well we're not in Torridon now so he can't really force those rules on you here."

He flinched when she suddenly shouted and his eyes went wide. "What are you talking about?" Now he was worried. How did she go from I have a new step-father to I'm so stupid. There had to be a correlation between the two and whatever his mind could jump to wasn't good. "Are you in trouble? What did you do?"

[Tamara Lynn Davis]

Tammy shrugged when he asked about Slytherin's team this year. "I guess Slytherin isn't bad, but not brilliant. I think what is missing is team work, Flint is all out on fouling the opposing team." She never really liked Flint. His idea of playing dirty wasn't what she was used to, after all, she had learned how to play Quidditch from Oliver. "Slytherin has no chance," she added then. She determinedly never used to term "we" when speaking about Slytherin, prefering to distance herself from her own house.

She shook her head when he asked. "You don't understand... Oliver, please," she wanted it to sound less like begging and more like... like what? Like maybe a plea for understanding? She did not want to be shunned, quite clearly Christopher had already given up on her. "What I did you wouldn't forgive me for. I can't tell you." Her mouth felt dry and her voice was shaky. She did not want to lose him and yet it seemed inevitable that she would. "I assumed the worst, Oliver." She broke off there to take a breath before continuing. "I thought - Merlin, I thought that Chris and you, I thought that you did not care about me anymore, 'cause I'm a Slytherin." Sudden tears sprung to her eyes and she hung her head. "Oliver, my new step-father, he's Lance Clemens, he's a Death Eater." She looked back up and wiped at the stray tears that had somehow escaped her desperate blinking. "Don't hate me, please."

[Oliver Wood]

That was not news to Oliver who knew all too well about Marcus Flint's quidditch strategies. For them the game started well before the actual day. It was a slew of scare tactics and he wasn't exactly innocent when it came down to it. For every offense committed against his own team Oliver was sure to repay Slytherin for it. It helped that he had the Weasley twins on his side. "Well, the fact that they all have Nimbus 2001s doesn't hurt their chances," he said with a bitter tone. "I still stand by the claim that Gryffindor has the best team this year." A Nimbus 2001 could not compete with Harry Potter as a seeker. Especially since Sirius decided to spring and by him a Firebolt for his birthday. That never was a bad thing. Too bad he couldn't buy them for the whole team though. He had told Oliver that McGonagall had forbid him to give such an advantage to one team but that if a parent wanted to make such donations it was fine. Too bad the kid with the richest parent was Harry Potter and James worked for Hogwarts too.

Her going on like this confused him. Starting off an explanation like that never was a good thing either. Not moving he watched as she pedaled and back pedaled not sure which tangent to follow. "You seem so sure," he said in a flat voice. "You don't know what I'm capable of forgiving. So I guess you've been making more than one assumption about me lately." It pissed him off that she'd just jumped to that. "You really thought you'd lost us and your response was to go off and do something unforgivable? I would think that your first response would be to come and talk to us to see if your assumptions were correct. Though I guess Christopher and I have both wondered why it was that you let the house sort you into Slytherin. It's just never made sense to me for all the hatred you have for it."

She was crying. Now Oliver was starting to feel uncomfortable. He could not take it when a girl cried in front of him. He looked towards the exit so that he could escape but when she said that her step-father was a Death Eater he froze. "Your step-father is a Death Eater.. That would make me hate him. Not you. So I guess my next my next question is if he's a Death Eater what does that make you?"

[Tamara Lynn Davis]

"Hell, Oliver!" Her shout surprised even her and she pressed a hand to her mouth in an attempt to stifle it. "I've known you and Chris for... forever and I knew - I know - how you two felt about Slytherins. We discussed that enough back in Torridon and I said, I promised that I would never become a Slytherin. Remember?" Maybe he didn't, but she certainly did. She had hated, she still did, the house of green and silver, even as a child. To her, it had been a composition of everything she hated about her family. She shook her head, thinking of the right words to explain herself. She had never been very good at talking about her feelings or her family history for that matter. At the mention of the sorting, she smiled a sort of slow, sad smile. "And I never quite forgave myself for that. I never told you about what happened then." Her mouth felt dry as she spoke. "I was a first year, I was scared and excited and happy to be at Hogwarts with my best friends, all at once. The second the sorting hat was on my head, I was only scared. I didn't want to be in Slytherin. I was so terrified that I would be forced to be one anyway. But... the sorting hat said that I would do good in Slytherin and that I would see in time. I couldn't say anything. I think I was too shocked." She still remembered the dazed sort of way in which she had walked over to the Slytherin House table. And then both Oliver and Christopher were sorted, both into different houses...

She managed to control herself and wiped at her eyes hastily. "With you two as friends, I was just afraid that everything would be different between us now, and it was - though not for lack of trying on my part," she admitted quickly. "I'll admit that I was a coward," she added, almost choking on the word. It was no easy thing to admit, after all. "I don't suppose you understand, but I thought that maybe if I asked you, my fears would be confirmed. I thought distancing myself would somehow be... safer."

Oh, Merlin, the inevitable. She couldn't believe she had even brought it up now. She turned to face him, the look in her eyes sincere and serious now. "I - please listen to me. You can be angry all you want afterwards, but give me a chance. Please." She took a breath and felt an odd sensation of triumph for not breaking out in tears again. She vowed that she would stay strong for this and if it was for him. "If my step-father is a Death Eater, then I am a traitor," she finished for him. "I met Bellatrix Lestrange. Well, the first time was accidental. My step-father forced me to go to Knockturn Alley with him, said he had to buy something. She talked to me, Oliver, she told me horrible things. She seemed to understand, or at least know, how I was feeling. I felt lost, Oliver. I don't sympathise with the Death Eaters and if you know me at all, you would understand as much... but she was practically throwing my turmoil back into my face. The second time," now she paused. She felt like breaking down again, but she had promised that she wouldn't. "The second time was no accident. I wanted to... ugh... I don't know what I wanted, but it wasn't that. She thought I was going to sign up, but I didn't. I couldn't. I'm sorry."

[Oliver Wood]

He jumped not expecting the sudden outburst but afterward sat perfectly still. "Are you finished?" he asked. "I sure do appreciate you telling me how I believe. It's not as black and white as it sounds coming from you. No I don't like the general mass of Slytherins but because of the collective belief the represent. Most do believe that those of muggle birth are beneath them. Can you deny that. Chris and I knew you were different so you were an exception and always have been. The door swings both ways though Tammy. If we've become distance you're just as much to blame as we are." He sighed. "Yeah I remember. I guess that makes sense that you were shocked and didn't ask for something else. For me it was always Gryffindor. I knew before I walked through the doors that this is where I wanted to be. You weren't so sure. You let your fear win out but that's okay because we were eleven years old and you were only doing what you were advised to do. I'm not going to hold that against you. What offends me isn't that you're a Slytherin. It's that you automatically assume that I wouldn't like you anymore because you were."

He let his head fall back against the stone and said, "That was stupid wasn't it? You're upset because of a situation you had control over but chose inaction over action. You cannot blame Christopher or I for how the cards were dealt and that you chose to presume what we would think of you poisoned what we once were. I happen to be more understanding then you give me credit for and I can safely say the same for Christopher. We aren't so blind that we didn't know who you really were and that being a Slytherin wasn't what defined you. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe it was your shame of being what you became that began to make up who you were. You let that turn you against us."

She worried him all over again and he sat up straighter. "Tammy calm down," he said as he reached for her hand. He did however pull it back when Lestrange's name was mentioned and his eyes locked with hers and he made his displeasure apparent. "You wanted to meet with her again?" he asked slowly. "I don't understand. If you don't sympathize why would you do that?" He realized his voice sounded accusatory now. "Sorry? I guess it's something that you didn't sign up but you make it sound like you seriously considered it. Am I wrong? Tell me that I'm wrong."

[Tamara Lynn Davis]

Suddenly she couldn't take it anymore. Why did he always have to go and be so smart? She would have preferred it if he yelled at her, at least then she would have the chance to yell back. "Stop analyzing me, Oliver, I'm not a book." She sighed and stood up, wanting to put as much distance as she could between herself and Oliver. Maybe then it would hurt less. She realised then that there was nothing left to save. Four years apart had done enough damage. She did not want to make it worse for her or for Oliver with false pretences. So instead of saying 'NO, no I never truly considered it', she smiled sadly.

Instead of saying what she really wanted to say, she shook her head. His reaching out to her and pulling back again had felt like a blow to the stomach. "I'm sorry, Oliver... I can't do that. I can't tell you that you're wrong." Maybe this was for the best. She told herself as much, kept thinking it, over and over in her mind. There was nothing tying her to her former friends anymore except some blurred childhood memories. "Well, this is farewell then." It was true. The next time they met they would most likely be enemies. The way everything was destined to be. Slytherin versus Gryffindor. She turned and left the tower for the dungeons.