The Keeper

Chapter 31

I listened to I Can See A Liar by Oasis, Writer In The Dark by Lorde and The Story Of Tonight from Hamilton.

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I was on time to my detention. I hated being late so had borderline ran to the library immediately after my last lesson. Madam Pince looked up from her desk when she noticed me.

"Sit," she instructed. I sat on a chair near her. "Your hour starts now. The others' time will start when they arrive. Although I highly doubt the boy will unless the girl does. What are their names, again?"

"Um, Oliver Wood and Gillian Brabbing," I replied. The intense eye contact made me nervous. 

"Is Wood not the Gryffindor quidditch captain?"

I nodded. "Yes, he is."

"And if I'm not mistaken, he is the most devoted of them all, is he not?"

I nodded again. "He really does love the sport."

Madam Pince raised a thin eyebrow. "Yet he seems to have diverted his attention somewhere else."

I sat up a little straighter, despite the sudden reminder about Oliver spending all of his time with Gillian... instead of me. I asked her what she meant.

"Don't act as if I haven't noticed," she said. "One of the most dedicated quidditch players to ever grace Hogwarts with their presence suddenly shifts their life's purpose to something else? Of course I've picked up on it. Most, if not all, professors have done so as well."

"What else do you know? Who else knows?" I asked. My interest had rapidly been peaked. How long had professors, perhaps other students, been suspicious about Oliver's mindset? And exactly how much did they suspect?

Madam Pince dismissed my questions with a wave of her hand and told me to stay silent for the remainder of the hour. "We are in the library, after all."

This left me with plenty of time to actually think about my predicament. And obviously neither Oliver nor Gillian would turn up - so no distractions.

I ran over the situation in my head.

Oliver Wood, an extremely dedicated and talented keeper who has devoted his entire life (and his future) to quidditch, suddenly loses interest. Who would be the first to notice? Well aside from my friends and I, who else spends a lot of time with him?

It took a few minutes for the answer to appear, which in hindsight was very obvious: his quidditch team. I nearly swore when the idea came into my head. I waited impatiently for the hour to finish and almost sprinted when Madam Pince let me leave.

Immediately, I headed for Sasha. She knew the Gryffindor team better than I did anyway. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed when I found her.

"Get up," I said. "We're going to find the Gryffindors."

I told her about my detention with Madam Pince as we hurried to the common room. I could tell she was formulating a plan already.

Sasha knew the Gryffindor password (I didn't ask how) so we managed to get into the common room easily. She spotted Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet sitting together and chatting. Grabbing my hand, Sasha marched over, pulling me behind her.

"Hey, guys!" Sasha said.

The three of them simultaneously looked up and smiled.

"Hey Sasha, Y/N," Angelina replied, nodding curtly. "What's up?"

"I'm gonna cut to the chase, alright? Have any of you noticed anything different about Oliver?"

They shared a glance. I held my breath.

"Anything," I piped up, "anything at all that he's been doing differently."

"Actually," Katie said slowly, "he has been acting... odd recently. He cancelled quidditch practice three times in a row, which is ridiculous - our game against Hufflepuff is less than a month away."

"That's certainly out of character," I remarked. "Did he tell you why he cancelled?"

"He didn't give a single reason for any of the sessions he cancelled," Alicia answered. She paused and I had an inkling as to what she was going to say next. "But we, and the rest of the team, suspected he was going off with Gillian."

"I knew it," I muttered, loud enough for nobody except Sasha to hear.

Suddenly, I felt her hand on my shoulder. "Thanks so much," she said, "but we need to go now. See you later!"

When we reached our dorm, Sasha pulled me onto her bed.

"So," she began, inhaling deeply. "Let's talk things over. We know that Madam Pince is already quite suspicious about Oliver's sudden change in focus. And firstly, she's clever - so how much does she know? Secondly, what other professors know? Plenty of other professors spend more time around Oliver than she does."

"Giving them more time to pick up on the strange behaviour," I said. "Not to mention his quidditch teammates. We only spoke to three. That leaves Fred, George and Harry."

"Although I'm not sure how much time those three actually spend paying attention to Oliver," Sasha mused.

I clasped my hands together. "And so the plot thickens."