A/N: Oliver’s blood status is unknown in canon, so I took liberties. Harry Potter is not mine.

The Myth of the Girl Next Door

The Woods had been best friends with their neighbors, the Sutherlands, since before Oliver could remember -- likely since before he and his brother Padraig had been alive. The two families celebrated every holiday together, went on minibreaks together, had suppers at each other’s houses. Oliver considered Moyra and Ross Sutherland like a second set of parents, and their three children like siblings.

His parents, however, did not consider the Sutherland children Oliver’s siblings, as he learned at the tender age of five. Well, only one in particular was not a sibling -- that, of course, was Muriel Sutherland, who was one year younger than Oliver. When he was five and she was four, at their annual Easter supper, Moyra Sutherland had plopped Muriel down on the carpet beside Oliver and gazed at them fondly, the both of them dressed in their stiff holiday finery.

“Oh, look at them, Bridge!” she said to Oliver’s mum. “Aren’t they just adorable together?”

Oliver had suffered for years afterwards for that single remark. Padraig and the Sutherland boys, Boyd and William, teased the two of them mercilessly, singing taunting songs about kissing and sitting in trees that Oliver thought were just ridiculous and completely untrue. Their mothers did absolutely nothing to dispel this belief, for Oliver found himself thrown in with Muriel holiday after holiday, year after year. Half the photos in the family albums were of the two of them, standing awkwardly beside each other and giving the camera wide-eyed stares.

“Ever snogged anyone?” Oliver had asked once, when he was ten and Muriel was nine, determined to get to the bottom of what everyone was talking about.

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

Oliver reckoned there was a first time for everything. No one told him, though, that often the first time didn’t quite measure up to expectation. And that sometimes one’s older brother was nearby and had caught the entire event firsthand.

The business with Muriel Sutherland came to a screeching halt, however, when on Oliver’s eleventh birthday, a middle-aged man wearing odd jewel-toned robes appeared at their modest little house outside Perth.

“Your youngest son is a wizard,” he explained gently to the Woods.

Padraig’s jaw dropped. “Does that mean I am too?” he asked.

The stranger -- likely a wizard himself -- shook his head. “Only Oliver here,” he said. “Certainly you all have noticed inexplicable things happening whenever Oliver shows some strong emotion?”

“Well,” Bridget said thoughtfully, her eyes still wide in disbelief, “there was the time when I sent him to bed early for being naughty, and his voice...amplified.”

“And when your aunt’s china cracked in the cabinet, when he got a football for Christmas,” Aidan Wood added.

“These kinds of magical influxes will continue to occur unless young Oliver learns how to control his powers,” the wizard went on, pulling out a creamy parchment envelope. “To do that, he has been offered a place in one of the world’s finest wizarding schools: Hogwarts.”

They had taken some convincing, obviously, and the wizard had needed to pull out a wand and produce a bouquet of flowers for Bridget in order to show them that this was not some sick joke, but by the end of the day, Oliver had accepted his place at Hogwarts. He had attended the local comprehensive school until then, and had never been away from his family for longer than a day at a time. Needless to say, he was incredibly anxious about spending more than half the year living away from his parents, in a strange world that was completely unfamiliar.

“You won’t be far away at all, darling,” his mum said soothingly, the night before he was to leave. “Mr. Kettleburn told us it’s just two hours’ drive for us, and as long as we let them know in advance, we can come see you if you need us.”

Oliver’s parents didn’t tell the Sutherlands about Hogwarts. They simply said that Oliver had been accepted to an exclusive boarding school for gifted children and left it at that, and the Sutherlands didn’t ask any further questions. Bridget, however, was not entirely comfortable leaving Oliver alone with anyone anymore, and so he was no longer forced to “enjoy” Muriel’s company.

Oliver had thought that nobody would like him when he came to this exotic, peculiar magic school, and that he would be hopelessly behind the rest of his class that had grown up knowing they were magical. That, however, had all fallen to the wayside the first time he sat on a broom and flew. The freedom! He had written pages and pages of letters to Padraig describing it, or trying to, just the feeling of being free and above the ground with nothing holding him back.

At one of their flying lessons in his first year, an older boy with a head of shockingly red hair had sat in the stands watching them, making notes on a crumpled bit of parchment. Afterwards, once everyone had returned to the ground, the older boy had a quick chat with Madam Hooch and then headed straight for Oliver.

“You looked pretty good out there,” he said, grinning easily, hands on his hips. “You’ve flown before?”

Oliver shook his head. “I’m a -- you call them Muggleborns, right?”

“Really? Wow.” The older boy chuckled in surprise. “You’re a natural, kid. Charlie Weasley,” he said, sticking out his broad hand. Oliver shook it reverently. “I’m the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. You’re welcome to tryouts, we’ve got an open Chaser position.”

He hadn’t made the team -- Charlie said later that he hadn’t expected him to, he had just wanted to see how Oliver worked in a team environment. “And I think you’d be a better Keeper anyway,” he said. “But we’ve got Abernathy right now in that position, and he’s very good, so maybe next year after he graduates. Watch our games, and learn as much as you can from watching us play and reading Quidditch books.”

Oliver devoured everything he could find about Quidditch after that, until he even dreamt about it at night, and his dorm mates teased him for spending so much of his time reading Quidditch Through the Ages and Quidditch Weekly and Which Broomstick. Others, however, were jealous of the time Charlie Weasley devoted to him, teaching him tricky broom maneuvers and helpful charms for keeping his seat. And in his second year, with Abernathy safely out of school, Oliver was made the Gryffindor Keeper.

The Woods just couldn’t grasp what Oliver loved about Quidditch, though, neither when he wrote them long letters nor when he went home and tried to draw diagrams with X’s and O’s to demonstrate different plays. Even when he reached his fifth year and finally made captain, with Charlie’s blessing, they didn’t appreciate the nuances of the game. “It’s an art form,” Oliver cried, waxing poetic one evening over dinner during Christmas break. “Players flying through the air in perfectly executed plays, throwing the Quaffle back and forth -- there’s nothing else like watching a well-done Porskoff Ploy.”

“That sounds nice, darling,” Bridget said carelessly, passing around the potatoes. “But you know who was asking about you the other day? Muriel Sutherland! She’s become such a lovely young lady, and she would love to see you while you’re home.” Oliver choked on his broccoli, but when his mum asked said he had just swallowed too quickly.

Muriel actually had grown up very nicely, as Oliver learned the next day when they went over to the Sutherlands’ house for supper. She was fourteen now, and into jewellery and makeup and boys like they were going out of style. Oliver had had to pry himself out of her clutches when they left, and had made excuses not to see her until he went back to Hogwarts for the spring term.

Somehow or other, his Chasers Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet had found out about his female troubles -- probably from Fred and George Weasley. Oliver didn’t care if they were the younger brothers of his idol, he was going to thrash them for spilling his secrets.

“How does she put makeup on without a wand?” Alicia wanted to know.

“Um, I don’t know,” Oliver said, frowning and blushing furiously.

“Is she pretty?” Angelina asked.

“I -- suppose so, but --”

“Does she know you’re a wizard? Ooh,” Alicia said, clasping her hands together, “I bet she doesn’t. And then when you tell her, she’ll run away and turn up seven years later with a husband --”

Oliver completely lost the thread of the conversation at that point. “Wait -- what?”

“Alicia’s just read Confessions of a Muggle Girl too many times,” Angelina explained, rolling her eyes. “This Muggle girl falls for the boy next door, who then reveals that he’s a wizard. Trashy romance novel.”

“It’s all a myth anyway,” Oliver blurted out. They both stared at him. “There’s no such thing as the boy or girl next door. Our mums have been trying to get me and Muriel together for years, but it’s never going to happen.”

“Because she’s a Muggle?” Alicia said sympathetically.

“No -- she’s -- I don’t like her like that! Now get back on your brooms, we’re still in practice!” He blew hard on his whistle and kicked off the ground.

But now, thanks to Fred and George’s big mouths, Oliver’s love life became the favorite topic of Quidditch practices, before, during, and after. Fred and George sang that idiotic song that Padraig and the Sutherland boys used to chant when he was younger, and Alicia and Angelina came up with “helpful” relationship tips -- he’d even received Wizards and Muggles: A Dating Guide from them for his birthday. Only Harry Potter, the new Seeker, seemed unconcerned and uninterested in who Oliver did or didn’t kiss in trees or elsewhere; him and the third Chaser, Katie Bell.

“It’s none of my business,” Katie said to him bluntly, after witnessing him suffer another attack of unwarranted advice from Angelina and Alicia. “She sounds like a nice girl, but if you don’t like her, then you just don’t like her.”

“Cheers,” Oliver said tiredly. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that at least one of my players couldn’t care less about Muriel.”

She grinned at him. “I’m not a believer in the myth of the boy next door either,” she said. “No one ever just happens to spend their childhood growing up next door to their soulmate.”

“Excellent,” Oliver said, nodding. “Then I can count on you to back me up when they start with all that ridiculous nonsense?”

Katie laughed. “Oh no, you’re on your own with that one, mate.”

She did stand up for him, though, in years to come. Katie was the one who interrupted with, “Can you explain how to do that play again, Wood?” when it looked like Angelina and Alicia were about to settle into a long discussion of how Oliver should ask out Muriel. Oliver would be eternally grateful to Katie for saving his neck so many times, and he made sure that he gave her expensive Christmas gifts every year.

Katie wasn’t there in Perth, though, where the Woods and Sutherlands did not listen to his protests when he was at home. “You haven’t seen her since Christmas!” his mum said, shoving him towards Muriel, now an attractive girl of sixteen. “Be nice and say hello!”

“Ollie!” Muriel cried when she saw him, and she threw her arms around him enthusiastically. Oliver loathed being called Ollie. “How smashing to see you! I’ve missed you so much!”

“Lovely,” Oliver groaned.

Not even the news that he was seeing someone from Hogwarts dissuaded them. “I have a girlfriend,” he said, slowly and clearly, in case they hadn’t understood him the first time. “Her name is Cara Meadowes, and she goes to school with me.”

“You’ll have to invite her over sometime,” his dad suggested. Cara, unfortunately, hadn’t lasted long enough to reach the meet-the-parents stage, nor had Jessica, Siobhan, Maeve, Helen, or Pauline. And when Oliver had dragged his parents to the Quidditch World Cup, and ended up introducing them to Harry Potter when they ran into each other, Bridget Wood became convinced of something completely different.

“You’re gay, aren’t you,” his mum blurted out one night, while he was over for dinner. He’d taken a break from his busy practice schedule with Puddlemere to stop by for a visit. “It’s all right, you can tell us.”

“What?” Oliver cried, dropping his fork. “But -- but I’ve had girlfriends! I’ve told you all about Jessica, and Siobhan, and Pauline --”

“Maeve came after Siobhan, not Pauline,” his dad said helpfully.

“We’ve never met any of them,” his mum said, while Padraig snickered quietly beside her. “Maybe you made them up. Is Harry your boyfriend? You looked so happy to see him at that Quidditch thing we went to, I bet he is. Are you happy together? Does he treat you well?”

Oliver lowered his head to the table, too frustrated to speak.

“Or maybe Percy’s his true love,” Padraig said wickedly. “It was always ‘Percy this’ and ‘Percy that’ when he was at that magic school --”

“That’s not true,” Oliver spat, sitting upright and glaring at him. “If you’d spent seven years in the same dorm as Percy Weasley, you’d complain about him all of the time too.”

“Then I just can’t understand why you don’t spend more time with Muriel Sutherland!” his mum said. “She’s such a lovely girl, you really couldn’t ask for more in terms of personality, looks --”

“If you say her name one more time,” Oliver threatened, “I’m leaving. All right, Mum?”

She sighed sadly. “All right.”

“And I’m not gay. Just thought you should know that.”

To rub it in their faces, Oliver made sure he brought home his next girlfriend, a pretty witch named Lucy who went to all of Puddlemere’s practices. He also made sure Padraig caught them making out on the front stoop.

Then the war had come and put a damper on any romantic feelings in him. He had done his part in the war effort, teaching stealth broom tactics and aerial manoeuvers to Aurors and anyone who didn’t have a Dark Mark, but had suffered for it, being a Muggleborn. His flat in London was torn apart several times, his friends attacked, valuables stolen. Oliver was careful, though, and luckily the Death Eaters never managed to find his family in Perth.

He would always remember where he was when he learned that Harry -- good old Harry Potter, phenomenal Seeker -- had defeated Voldemort once and for all: he had been at the Department of Games and Sports, waiting to meet one of their employees about a controversial call in their last game, when a familiar-looking girl had burst into the room and cried, “He did it! Harry Potter killed You Know Who!” Everyone immediately came to their feet and cheered ecstatically.

“Katie Bell,” the girl said, pushing her way towards Oliver.

“Chaser,” he said reflexively. Then, “You protected me from Alicia and Angelina.”

She grinned. “So you do remember me.”

Katie worked for Games and Sports, it turned out. Ever since being severely cursed in her seventh year, her Quidditch game just hadn’t been the same. She’d gone for the next best thing: working for the Quidditch Statistics office, compiling scores and stats for every single game and player in the League, and reporting them to Quidditch magazines around the world. Oliver was fascinated by her job, and promptly offered her Puddlemere tickets in the pressbox whenever she wanted them. She took him up on his offer a month later, and was able to watch Puddlemere serve the Tornadoes a crushing defeat.

After that, it just seemed that things sort of...happened. Katie’s boyfriend -- thereafter known by them as “the Great Git” -- dumped her and kicked her out of their flat, and Oliver had offered her his spare room until she got back on her feet. Katie ended up moving in permanently two months later, and Oliver would come back from weekend games and practices to find her doing yoga in the sitting room.

She came up to Perth to see his family several times, and snickered when she was at last introduced to the famous Muriel. “Here I was thinking she looked like Celestina Warbeck!” she giggled, once they had returned to their flat. “The way Angelina and Alicia went on about her --”

“But they never even met Muriel,” Oliver said, and Katie laughed even harder.

Despite living together in a small flat that lacked much privacy, they did manage to give each other some. Oliver could bring home his dates without having to worry about them seeing Katie there and thinking the wrong thing, and Katie could have friends over without bothering Oliver. They rowed rarely, and usually only over little things like leaving the seat up or forgetting to put out the trash. Overall, they were ideal flatmates, and Oliver thought the arrangement worked very nicely.

This was all until That Night, as they came to call it. Puddlemere United had played against the Falmouth Falcons that Saturday and the match had lasted three solid days; three days of vicious fouls, brutal injuries, desperate scoring attempts, and taunting glimpses of the elusive Snitch. Oliver had only switched out to let a reserve player in once, so he was thoroughly exhausted by the time Bagwell caught the Snitch late Monday afternoon and Puddlemere won. Katie had to help him back to their flat, where she had insisted they celebrate with champagne before they went to sleep.

“You were amazing, Oliver,” she said, smiling tiredly at him. She had stayed for the entire game. “Your Starfish and Stick is still perfect, even after all these years.”

“You’re saying I’m old?” he grumbled. “I’m twenty-four, Kate. If twenty-four is old, thirty must be ancient.”

Katie laughed and finished off her second glass of wine. “You know what I’m saying,” she said. “I don’t know anyone who is as devoted to the game as you are, Oliver. And I know every player in the League.”

“Cheers,” he said softly, gazing at her. Suddenly she was not Katie Bell, his flatmate, she was Katie -- the beautiful blonde witch lying on his couch smiling at him. He blamed it on the champagne, his exhaustion, the weather, a number of things, but no matter what made him do it, Oliver bent down and kissed her. Katie kissed him back.

But after That Night was only awkwardness. Oliver left the room if Katie entered it, Katie stopped answering his Floo calls when he was at practice, and Oliver stopped offering her tickets to his games. Oliver came home with a date a week later, and he knew that Katie was sitting on the other side of his bedroom wall all night, listening to him shag her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Katie whispered the next morning, after the nameless witch had gone home.

“I’m having fun,” Oliver said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to figure out what’s happened!” she cried. “Oliver, you kissed me!”

“Yes? So? I was severely sleep deprived and more than a little pissed at the time.”

“Then it meant nothing.” Tears came to Katie’s beautiful blue eyes. “You want to pretend it never happened.”

He was about to say it would be best, just to contradict her, before he realized that That Night didn’t mean nothing, and he didn’t want to pretend it had never happened. “You ran away from me after I kissed you,” he said. “What was I supposed to think?”

Katie wiped at her eyes. “Oh Merlin, I haven’t the slightest,” she moaned. “Oliver -- if you want me to move out, I will.”

“I don’t want you to move out.”

She looked at him cautiously. “I don’t want to move out either,” she murmured.

“Then stay,” he said. “Stay and we’ll -- we’ll figure something out.”

“Okay.”

“Want to go to dinner with me?”

She smiled tentatively. “Sure.”

Oliver took her to the nicest restaurant in Diagon Alley, and when they went home they ended up snogging like teenagers on the sofa in the sitting room. Muriel Sutherland never had a chance against Katie Bell, and before long, Oliver realized he had fallen in love with his amazing, gorgeous flatmate.

“It’s not a myth,” Oliver said to Katie, as they walked through the park near their flat. They had been dating for three months by then, and he had never been happier. His mum had stopped giving him a hard time about Muriel, Moyra Sutherland had stopped sobbing each time she saw him -- and Muriel herself had just gotten engaged to a boy she had met at university.

“What’s not a myth?”

“The girl next door,” he said. “It’s figurative, not literal. Falling for the girl next door just means that you’ve been horribly, horribly blind, and the girl that’s meant for you has been there the entire time.”

Katie grinned and took his hand in hers. “And I have been, Oliver,” she said, “and I always will be.”