Oh, Professor!

AN: Sorry! Been too long... But here it is... (un?)lucky thirteen. Responses have been great, keep it up! Thanks for reading.


CHAPTER THIRTEEN: FOR YOU


Lainey walked into the Great Hall that morning for breakfast, her left hand\'s knuckles bandaged. She\'d kept her cool until she\'d gotten into her shower and couldn\'t contain her rage. She screamed and slammed her fist into the tiled wall of the shower, breaking the smooth skin on her knuckles. She chided herself for being foolish and impulsive; if she hurt her hand so badly that she couldn\'t play quidditch over one little -

But this wasn\'t little. This was beyond humiliation and suffering. This was her at her weakest, completely at the mercy of a boy she now was growing to hate, for someone who didn\'t even care about her.

\"Lainey, over here,\" She turned and saw him. He sat there so innocently, aloof and carefree with his friends and he had the nerve to save her a seat. He quirked a warning eyebrow at her, gave another wave, and she sighed. She\'d have to play along. Forcing a plastic smile on her face, she approached David and his friends.

\"Saved you a seat, baby,\" He whispered.

\"Please don\'t call me that. You know I hate pet names.\" He knew this was completely untrue, but he couldn\'t make a big deal of it now. Not in front of everyone. He let her sit down and slid an arm around her waist. He felt her breathe in harshly and looked at her close her eyes and force a smile.

\"So you two are back together then?\" A sixth year blonde named Tina asked.

\"Yeah, I guess so, huh, Lainey?\" David asked her as she grabbed a coffee. \"Yeah.\" She said in the least enthusiastic voice she could muster.

\"Not a morning person, are you, Lane?\" He teased. She shot him a glare, then remembered the deal, and smiled.

\"No, I hate them.\" She said cheerily before throwing back the cup. Her eyes darted up to the professors\' table at the head of the room, and met Wood\'s. She couldn\'t read the expression on his face. But it hurt to look at him, so she turned back to her cup of coffee. She could stare into the depths of her mug without having to look at David or Professor Wood. It was the one place she wanted to look right now.

David had occupied himself talking to some of their Quidditch friends, and she just stared into her mug, occasionally closing her eyes and taking a long drink. Every few minutes, a refill. She was dreaming of ways to wipe the smug look off of David\'s face. Wishing he\'d never found out, kicking herself for being so irresponsible and getting caught. It really was her fault, the whole affair. She had only herself to blame. And now she was the only one suffering.

\"What about Adrienne?\" Tina asked me. Oh wow. I\'d completely forgotten about that. I turned to David.

\"I don\'t know, what about Adrienne, Davey?\"

\"Wasn\'t working out.\" He told Tina. Then he looked at me with those intense eyes, \"There\'s nobody quite like this one.\" I felt eyes burning from the other side of the room. Professor Wood. Then I felt David\'s lips on mine. He tried to kiss me deeper, I didn\'t move. My eyes open, and looking into his.


~*~


Oliver stalked back to his office. He couldn\'t think about anything but Lainey, his Lainey, and that little prick. She\'d throw away what they had for a stupid little boy? Nobody used him. Ever. He should have seen this coming. He shouldn\'t be caring if she kissed other boys. But he looked at her, watched the boy touching her, kissing her, her eyes were open with every kiss and he saw her close her eyes and bite her lip with every touch. What was going on?

He needed something to calm him down. He couldn\'t drink, he had classes to teach and he\'d be sacked. Instead he pulled out of the top drawer of his desk a pack of muggle cigarettes. He liked smoking them when he was stressed, but not regularly, as they were poor for his lungs and he couldn\'t afford a lot of After Smoke Lung Settlers, as they got rather expensive in the wizarding world. He pulled out a Parliament and lit it with a match from a little matchbook in his desk. He breathed in the smoke gratefully, and exhaled. He stuck the cigarette back in his mouth, holding it in place with his teeth while he opened a window. Closing his eyes, he exhaled and tried not to think about her. Anything but to think about how cute she looked just innocently staring into her coffee mug, or her big, pretty eyes. Oliver groaned. He hardly knew this girl. She was off limits, illegal, beautiful, talented, sexy as hell- and he felt so strongly for her. There were other sexy girls, but none of them had that fire and that mystery.

A knock on his door. \"Come in.\" He called, exhaling. So what if Dumbledore or McGonagall saw him smoking. Who gave a shit. The door opened, and it was her.

\"Hi,\" She said very softly. \"Can I talk to you, Professor Wood?\"

\"What do you want, Lainey?\" He asked her. He just felt so irritated. Ge didn\'t want to hear what she had to say, but he had to.

\"Um,\" She sighed, closing the door behind her, \"David, he-\"

\"He\'s your boyfriend. I noticed.\" Oliver spat. She looked down, a flash of hurt and sadness through her eyes. I immediately felt guilty. He wanted to go over and hold her- but he couldn\'t. Instead, he inhaled a mouthful of smoke and blew it in the direction of the window.

\"No, Professor, you don\'t get it. He knows.\"

He choked on his smoke. \"What?\"

\"I don\'t know how, but I guess he saw us go into the locker rooms last night after detention,\" She said very softly. \"He was in my room this morning and said if I didn\'t cooperate with him he\'d tell.\"

\"So you\'re what, his sex slave until you graduate?\" He wanted to grab this kid and bash his head into the wall.

\"I- I don\'t know. I can still see you, but I don\'t want you to get fired and I don\'t want my parents or anyone else to know. I don\'t want to be expelled, I can\'t take that kind of risk for my future and I don\'t plan on messing yours up either.\" He looked at her and wanted to hold her. He thought it was the first time she\'d ever looked small to me, a complete child.

\"I- Merlin, Lane, I don\'t know what to tell you.\" The man mumbled.

The very soft sound of her shoe on the wooden floor as she stepped toward him, the smell of his cigarette and the taste of hate.

\"I - I know it\'s not fair, but I needed you to know the truth. And if you don\'t want to keep... If you don\'t want to risk it with me anymore, I\'ll understand. But I don\'t want to stop, I can\'t stop now. I don\'t want to be with David. I really really don\'t. I feel so used, so low. This is me at my most vulnerable. And I want you. If you don\'t want me as badly as I want you, please just tell me now because I can\'t keep myself in this place where I-\"

She\'d started to shake, her fingers trembling and twisting in one another and her voice quivering as she walked toward him, this enigmatic figure she wanted to badly to take control and hated to show how weak she was.

He stood up and put out his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk, and stepped close to her and pulled her into a warm hug. Lainey tried so hard not to cry, she\'d gotten it all over with in the shower she thought but she felt a fresh new flood of tears break against her skin. He stepped back and held her face in his hands before leaning down to give her a chaste kiss. Lainey felt like she was melting into his body, everything else just fell away when they stood like that. Too soon, he pulled away and looked down at her. She was so beautiful, he thought.

\"I don\'t know why, but I feel like I have to risk it,\" he told her in a very low voice.

\"S-so...\"

\"I\'ll watch you with that boy during the day. But at night, you\'re mine. And when it comes down to it- I don\'t like it, but if he ever does anything to you that you don\'t want, tell me. I don\'t want you to be unhappy because I\'m selfish.\" Lainey threw her arms around him, and he squeezed her close to him.

\"I\'m late for class,\" She whispered into his chest.

\"Go.\"

\"Okay. I\'ll see you later?\" She asked hopefully. He nodded, and watched as a soft smile crossed her plagued face before she darted out of the office, as quickly as she\'d come in. She was so sexy and sure of herself most of the time- yet she could walk in here and look up at him with those big eyes and be the cutest, sweetest thing in the world that he just wanted to hold and protect. He loved her when she was nervous. And he wasn\'t happy about what they\'d decided on, per se, but he\'d have to make the best of it. He realized it was as good as it was gonna get for them right then, and he\'d have to do his best to not be selfish, to not knock the lights out of David when he saw him put his arm around her waist.

But if she had sex with him- he couldn\'t handle it. He couldn\'t know something like that, he knew he wouldn\'t be able to cope or to do it anymore, knowing that some other guy was touching her where only he should. Oliver had never felt so primal and territorial in his life- not even over the Quidditch pitch his seventh year for practices when Slytherins tried to take the space from them.


~*~


Lainey managed to keep steady in her classes in avoiding David, yet he\'d walk down the hall with his arm slung over her shoulders possessively. She felt like dirt- but her heart was soaring from what she\'d talked about with Professor Wood. He understood! He wanted to be with her no matter what and he respected what she was doing and he was incredibly worth a lousy arm clinging to her body. She was still mad, so so SO mad, but she also felt this need to be with him- and it overpowered her anger with David.

At dinner that night, she sat next to David and some fifth year girl. She tried to avoid David by making conversation with the sweet younger girl. She learnt her name was Virginia, she was a pureblooded girl from Ireland, adored Charms class and planned to be an inventor of some sort. She was a nice young lass with dirty blonde hair that fell midway down her back in waves, and stood a bit shorter than Lainey. But David\'s hand was distracting, squeezing her waist around her and his other hand slipping up her thigh when he\'d finished eating. And she looked up at Oliver and smiled, and he gave her a weak attempt at a half-smile. It hurt him too, to see this. At least they were both hurt together.

\"David, I feel a bit tired, I think I\'ll go up to bed early.\" She told him.

His dark eyes looked at her suspiciously. One eyebrow raised, he scanned her face. She really was tired, and he believed that- but was she going off to bed with a certain older someone.

\"Are you sure?\" He asked, remembering their classmates around them.

\"Yes. I\'m still tired from being up late last night, detention and all.\"

\"Well, with the workout Wood gave you, who wouldn\'t be?\" He smirked, a suggestive tone in his voice.

\"Yeah, that really was hell, wasn\'t it? Now I\'m going up to bed. Night, all.\" She smiled at the table. He grabbed her tie and yanked her down to kiss him. She complied and pulled away before catching her professor\'s eye. She then turned and walked out of the Great Hall, towards the stairs to the common rooms.

Lainey ascended the stair quietly, the only noise in the spacious hall of portraits the soft echo of her shoes padding up the marble slabs. She kept her eyes on the soft sole of her black converse sneakers as it touched lightly each light coloured stone. She felt herself near the top and looked up- right into his face. She jumped and caught her balance on the railing of the staircase. How did he get up here so quick? She asked herself as her heart continued to beat fast.

\"God, you frightened me!\" She exclaimed, instantly chiding herself for saying so and jumping. He looked down at her darkly.

\"I\'m sorry,\" his low voice rang.

\"It\'s all right,\" she replied, calming down a little. She wanted to lean up and kiss his soft mouth, to wrap herself in his warmth instead of bear the chill air of the hall of portraits. They were in the middle of the school, easily seen. She\'d have to play her proper role.

\"Could I have a word? I noticed a few flaws in your playbook and haven\'t seen your co-captain about.\"

\"S-sure.\"

\"The book is in my office, so if you\'ll just follow me, Miss Heller,\" he said quite simply. She cursed him for being so collected, so cool and able to pretend like nothing was there.

\"Of course, Professor.\" She replied as calmly as she could muster, knowing what really awaited her in that office. She followed him down the corridors to his office, her heart pounding and her body itching to touch him. When they finally reached the door, he opened it, stood aside and held it for her to step in first. She
looked up at him and did as he motioned, and watched as he closed the door behind him and locked it. She licked her lips and looked around the room, doing her best to appear aloof.

\"So what is it you want to discuss?\" She asked him, looking up at him innocently. She watched him swallow hard and try to keep his composure, biting her bottom lip to keep herself from smiling at him.

\"This isn\'t a game, you know.\" He said. \"You can\'t just think that you can toy with me. I\'m a grown man and we really ought not to be doing this. Even though I\'m taking the risk, you can\'t look at me like that in
public, you can\'t flaunt your little boyfriend in my face and you can\'t endanger exposing this. It could bring about what, one year of unpopularity for you and a lifetime of failure, humiliation and disgust for me.\"

\"I know, I won\'t and I\'m not,\" She insisted, growing frustrated. \"Why do you keep acting like this is all my fault?\"

\"It\'s not, but... Merlin, Lainey, do you have any idea what you do to me?\" He asked. For the first time, she saw his walls down. He was not cool and collected. He was not an authority figure. He was young, scared and desperate for approval.

\"I- I\'m sorry. I\'m just not sure what I\'ve done in the past hour that has made you so angry.\" She said softly.

Wood sighed and looked at her, she was, in fact, the victim of subordination and malice... a bright star that continued to shine in the night sky even after they\'d long burned out.

\"It\'s nothing you\'ve... fuck. I just don\'t know what I\'m doing here. I don\'t even know how to deal with you. With everything in my life that I\'ve done, I\'ve never been so inexplicably connected to something, I\'ve never taken a risk like this. I\'m just as scared as you are, and to me it looks like this will just be some story you tell a future boyfriend when you pass me on the street. You have too much ahead of you for me to ruin it.\"

She wanted to scream. It wasn\'t true at all... but she couldn\'t let on how connected she was. She had to keep him at arms length... or he could be another David.

\"You don\'t need to pretend,\" She began very quietly, \"That I\'m anything more than a notch in your bedpost. A blemish on the impeccably clean slate of Oliver Wood\'s conscience, another girl. Only I\'m not one you can brag about to your friends or run screaming my name to Witch Weekly to gain publicity. I\'m a temporary distraction, a fun perk to your job here at Hogwarts who cares more about her own self image than her dignity- so she\'ll never say a word. Nothing you can say will ever make me feel anything different, so who are we kidding? The only connection that we have with one another is physical- and a mutual understanding of silence.\"

Said silence followed. He looked down at her, a mixed expression of shock, anger, offense, resentment and incredulousness on his face. He quickly wiped it off and gave her a tight smile. \"Then why did you let me?\"

\"Excuse me?\" She asked.

\"Why did you let me be your first? If that\'s what I am, why not let David have it, or any of the other boys here who clearly matter more to you?\" She couldn\'t answer that, but anger boiled up inside of her. How dare he?

\"I figured you\'d make it better, with all your experience. I didn\'t want my first time to be a two minute quickie in a storage closet, hoping that Peeves or Filch wouldn\'t find me.\"

How entirely selfish of you, he thought. It\'s written in her face, that she\'s lying... but why? He thought.

\"Well I\'ll take that as a compliment then.\" He said, a little too coldly with a smirk on his face any Slytherin would have trademarked.

\"You would, wouldn\'t you?\" She sassed back. She sounded near like a child, he thought to himself. What is her damage?

What is his damage? She thought to herself. I thought he\'d be relieved I wasn\'t another swooning member of his fan club, even if it is a blow to his already enormous ego.

\"Well, since you feel that way, I suppose I\'ll call on you when I\'m in the mood for a quick fuck in a storage closet.\" He said snidely. She looked up at him with so much hurt in her eyes that he instantly regretted saying it. He\'d preyed on her weakness, let down his guard and sounded like a child. She let out a short breath of air, a wry smile on her face and looked directly up at him, her gaze penetrating his pupils.

\"I\'m not your whore. That leverage isn\'t yours to toy with.\" With that, she brushed past him towards the door and plastered a standard, sweet smile on her face. \"Good evening, Professor Wood. Thank you for your generous assistance.\" She tried to open the door, and failed. She turned back to him, a blush in her cheeks. Way to ruin the moment, door. \"The door\'s still locked.\"

His temporary rage settled down. \"Oh. Sorry.\" He unlocked it with his wand, and watched her step out.

\"Good night.\" She said very simply, casually, like... like a student would say to her professor.

No one had ever cut him so deep- no one had ever cut him before, period! He wanted to throw something, to slam his fist into a wall and tear out his hair because she liked to run her fingers through it. He wanted to corner her and make her admit that she was wrong and sorry and that she really did care, that she really was his. That they weren\'t done. They weren\'t, were they? She- what if she went and told? No, that would be impossible. Lainey wouldn\'t risk her own pride for a simple blow to his own career. Right? He\'d only known her a week.

He felt suspended, exposed, he\'d walked into a room with no clothes and everyone was staring. He felt like the time his sixth year when he\'d been slapped by Celeste Tetherfield in the great hall and everyone had stared at him, knowing what he\'d done as she screamed at him in a voice no one had ever heard the sweet fifth year use before, only to then be slapped by seventh year Erica Gowan, the other girl, and then sucker punched by Hannah Bowie, the third party. And he thought that was colossal... this could really kill him.


~*~


Lainey stormed back to Gryffindor tower, thoughts buzzing in her head. She hated herself, she hated him, she hated David, she hated her family and her friends and her life! But most of all she really did hate herself. Everything terrible in her life was all a result of her own defense mechanisms, backfiring and leaving her in an endless Catch 22. She breathed deeply, collecting herself and preparing her story. I was puking in the girls\' bathrooms, on the second floor, the ones inhabited by Moaning Myrtle. I\'d gone for a walk in hopes of getting some fresh air, but felt ill and vomited up dinner. I feel much better now, but I\'d like to go to bed. That\'s good, that\'s fine.

She said the password and entered as the Fat Lady remarked, \"Well, you look a bit green!\"

David was sitting there, surrounded by his usual following. He looked up and smiled when he saw her, and motioned for her to come over. She put on a weak smile and sat next to him, cuddling up with her head resting on his shoulder.

\"I thought you went to bed early, where were you?\" He asked suspiciously.

\"I felt ill so I thought I\'d get some air and have a walk, but then I felt even worse and wound up near puking in the second floor bathrooms. It was awful, but I feel better now.\"

\"Are you getting ill?\" He asked her, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. She looked up at him and wondered why he had never quite been enough for her. She shrugged.

\"Probably just a 24 hour bug, I heard it\'s going around with the first years.\"

\"Well you should go to bed. C\'mon, I\'ll walk you.\"

He took her hand and they went up the stairs as she waved good night to everyone. He walked her up to her bedroom, stopping in front of the door.

\"Is that true?\" He asked her quietly. He looked very young and very hurt for a moment as she looked up at him.

\"No,\" she admitted. \"I ended it.\"

\"O-oh.\" He said, internally ecstatic but seeing the look in her eyes, cupped her face in his hand. \"You okay?\"

She nodded and smiled, \"I\'m glad I did. Today just got me thinking... I\'ve changed a lot, and I think I can now give you what you deserve.\"

He smiled and bent down to kiss her. His kiss was very soft, sweet and non-threatening... This is right,
Lainey thought. But her insides were burning, her hands fighting themselves to keep them from pushing him away. Just do it, she thought. He pulled away and she gave him a soft smile.

\"Do you want to come in? Dwight is still down in the common room. She looked pretty into her reading, so we could be alone for a while.\"

\"Sure.\" He replied.

You want this, she tried to convince herself as she opened her door, her hand lightly tugging on his so he entered. His mouth was on hers as soon as he kicked the door closed and pressed her against the wall, his warm tongue in her mouth. It was like she was watching herself from outside her body, her tongue and her hands going through the motions that she knew would drive David wild. She felt him grow needy, his hand slide under the hem of her shirt and unhook her bra before feeling her breast the way he knew she liked. She hooked a leg around his waist as he he hoisted her up against the wall, his hard on pressing into her thigh. The feeling of it wasn\'t repulsive, it just wasn\'t... right.

Pretend he\'s Wood, she thought. Just- pretend, convince yourself, do this for him, not for you. You\'ve done enough for you.



AN: Tell me what you think... Don\'t worry, this is not the last of it.