If we're going to die, bury us alive
(Maybe you should stick around)
i.
It was the autumn after the war that they began to talk more. She ran into him at Quality Quidditch Supplies, knocking over a display and quite literally falling for him.
He recognized her on first sight - the high cheekbones and thin lips. Her hair was different, he noticed idly - it was a dull brown instead of the strawberry-blonde it had been in school.
"Katie Bell," he said, astonished.
"Oliver Wood," she replied mockingly, with that little half-smile of hers, and that was all it took for them to begin talking again.
ii.
She had nightmares and so did he.
Nightmares of falling, dying, terror so real and vivid he'd wake up sweating, legs tangled in the sheets.
Katie would always be close by. To comfort, to reassure. Oliver'd never been good at expressing emotions - ever - but with her, it just seemed to come naturally.
They would always be together. Side-by-side. When he was young, Oliver had sworn up and down that his one true love would always be Quidditch. And that he'd be a brave, gallant, Gryffindor warrior when the time came around. Time wouldn't be able to touch him.
It was to no surprise that his naive, eighteen-year-old self was wrong.
iii.
The spring came quickly, and the memorial snuck up on them so fast he woke up one day next to her and suddenly they were outfitted in dress robes, sitting in chairs and listening to speakers.
He hadn't hated anything more than that, right them.
When the speaker spoke her sister's name, calling her a brave fighter until the end, he gripped her hand, and could tell she was grateful for the support.
When the speak called out his best mate's name, she gripped his hand, and never had he been so relieved for someone to be there. He didn't need talking, pity, or to become some sort of charity.
She agreed with him when he voiced his opinion after the memorial: all he wanted was someone to be there.
iv.
The winter was bitter and quick, sweeping them away in the Prophet's announcing of marriages and births - the Boy Wonder, as Oliver teasingly called his former protegee, was all over the news, with his marriage to Ginny Weasley - Katie had played Quidditch with her, and they went to that wedding.
Months later, Katie stood in Angelina's wedding, and something deep inside of him got tangled when he saw her walking down the aisle in front of the bride. Walking to the altar. But she wasn't in the white dress.
It was the first time he ever gave serious thought to that.
v.
The ring was glittering and small, a beautiful fit on her short, delicate hands. Initially, he'd been a bloody wreck - made Lee Jordan and the recently married George Weasley listen to his proposal five times, insuring he'd gotten it right.
Oliver had been quite worried when he'd gotten down on one knee, held the ring out to her, and she had started to cry. He'd only ever seen her cry twice - right after the Battle of Hogwarts, when they weren't together, and after the memorial.
"Katie?" he asked, unsure. "If you don't, I und-"
"Of course I do," she choked. "I just… yes, Oliver. Yes."
The ring was slipped on her finger, and instead of kissing him, she hugged him, laid her head on his shoulder.
He knew it was hard for her to give and receive love - she'd even admitted it to him.
"I love you," she said, and it was tied for the first time he'd flown on a broom for the happiest moment in his life.
vi.
His wife. His beautiful, quirky wife.
Oliver hadn't expected to get married when he was a boy - why girls when you could have Quidditch? - but at that instant, when she turned to him, beaming and rolling her bottom lip underneath her teeth, he'd never been happier.
He had been meticulous with the honeymoon plans - "Isn't this the bird's job?" quipped Lee, and George agreed with him, smirking and stating that it was "just like Hogwarts again - Oliver and his planners."
He rolled his eyes at his mates and asked them one more time if they thought she'd rather go tropical or city.
vii.
Katie had said the whole idea seemed so unnatural to her. Oliver hadn't given it much thought, either, and Katie had wanted to wait a while and think it through.
It was an accident - really, he could of swore he casted the contraceptive charm.
"It's bloody unnatural, that's what it is," Katie groaned. "What genius came up with the idea of having another human being growing in your stomach?"
She'd later state that quite honestly, it was all her fault that she was in this position - bed-ridden with fat ankles.
He'd tried to protest that she was beautiful, the prettiest thing he'd ever seen, but fiery Katie had come out of hiding and swore at him, telling him that she was second behind his Firebolt he'd gotten when he joined Puddlemere United.
Oliver shook his head at her and told her his broom couldn't even hold a candle to her.
viii.
It was ten months to the day they got married when they rushed to the hospital. It had been a normal morning, until she'd doubled over and told him he'd better get her to St. Mungos this instant or Merlin help him.
Oliver caught snippets of the conversation the Healers were having - this couldn't be right, they were all frantic and worried! This wasn't what it was like when his sister had her baby.
"- allergic to the chloroform -"
"- umbilical cord around the neck -"
"- too dangerous, it's high risk -"
He had never been as terrified as he was then - standing in the waiting room, refused entry. He wasn't allowed to see his wife.
The words she had told him months ago came flashing back into his head - it was all his fault. The reason she was in this kind of pain. She had to suffer for months because of him.
There was no kind of empathy, or sorrow, or even care when the Healer came to talk to him.
Oliver had always had a temper, one that he had tried to suppress, but right then, it had flown to the surface.
The Healer didn't care. Just another ordinary day at work for him.
"Where's my wife?"
The Healer said nothing, but rearranged his face in what must have been a well-practiced mask of sorrow.
"We're sorry, Mr. Wood."
ix.
When his daughter first opened her eyes, years later when he couldn't remember simple things like what day the post came on, he would swear that it was Katie looking up at him.
She was her mother's daughter - beautiful, just as her mother was.
Was. The past tense made his heart clench, and he always had to look down and take a few deep breaths.
Oliver Wood had never known what it was like to be lonely, but in an empty, cold bed and a newborn daughter down the hall, crying without a mother to attend to her, he thought he had some idea.
x.
Years later, and Cassandra Wood was as beautiful as Oliver always said her mother was - the same sharp cheekbones and odd dimple on her left cheek, and the blonde hair Katie had hated but he'd adored.
She was lively, happy, and no one had any idea where she'd gotten her adaptability for cooking - Oliver was pants at it. His baby girl, who had grown up so quickly - he was forty, now, and she was fifteen.
The details were fading, but the terror, the grief, the sorrow - they all remained, still inside of him. They had been inside of him for fifteen years, since the birth of his daughter and death of his wife.
Every time he'd look at her, he'd see his wife instead of her. It was a civil war, a battle with himself. Oh, he was trying so hard to see the girl his daughter actually was, but it was his wife, with the eyes and the hair and the face and Merlin, he couldn't take it, it was everything.
His sister had always said the things they lose always come round in a different form.
Oliver Wood knew that better than anyone else.
a/n - Angsty Katie/Ol. For the Ultimate OTP Competition, genre: angst. Lyrics at the top from Dark Doo Wop by MsMr. (Great song, listen to it!) Let me know what you thought on your way out! Not my best work, but I'm pretty happy with it.