A/N: So, a village has helped me raise this baby. I would like to thank my beta, Leafia. I "met" her through Project Team Beta and she has been amazing. She has not only cleaned up my story, but pushed me to be a better writer. Also, check out PTB, it's pretty neat.
Thanks to PJ Hope, my friend and "pre-reader." Go check out her work, particularly Dumbledore's Army and a Collection of Days, and leave lots of nice reviews!
And keeptheotherone for her advice and humoring all my chatter about process. Go read everything she's written, you won't be sorry.
A/N2: This story is finished. Normally, I will be posting one chapter a week (because I'm mean like that, ask my kids), but this week I'm sending out a little sneak peak.
Warning: Conversations of a sexual nature.
Disclaimer: The world and characters (most of them) belong to JK Rowling. The story title belongs to the Cure. (Go check out the song if you haven't heard it already.)
Chapter One: Bloke Talk
Late October
London
"Here," Dougal Wood ordered as he plunked down a tankard of warm butterbeer in front of his little brother, Oliver, "try this and tell me if I got it right."
Most people assumed that Oliver Wood ate, slept and breathed Quidditch. This was, admittedly, mostly true. There were times even Oliver believed it. So, it was a good thing, then, that his oldest brother bullied him into family dinners on a regular basis as it reminded Oliver that there was life beyond the pitch. And that is how Oliver found himself sitting up to the island in his brother's kitchen on his off day one cold and blustery October afternoon.
"Five years of failure about to come to an end?" Oliver asked with a grin. Dougal had been trying to duplicate the Three Broomsticks butterbeer recipe for ages without success. It was becoming a running joke in the family.
"Now, Ollie," his sister-in-law Catriona chided, though it was ruined by the mocking twinkle in her eye. "What would a Wood man be without an obsession and a drive for perfection?"
"Shut it, you," Dougal teased, wrapping his arms around his wife's bulging midsection and nuzzling her neck. "My drive for perfection has benefitted you a time or two, if I recall."
She laughed that throaty laugh that seemed to be reserved for Dougal alone. Oliver rolled his eyes. He was always reduced to an eleven-year-old anytime those two got started with one another. Oliver couldn't count the number of times he'd caught them snogging in the corridors at Hogwarts over the two years that the brothers were at school together.
"Ugh." Oliver grimaced. "It's like watching Mum and Dad kiss."
"Drink up!" Dougal demanded, still rubbing his wife's pregnant belly. "No point in trying warm butterbeer if it's cold."
Oliver did as he was told and shrugged. "Not quite there, mate."
Dougal's brow furrowed. "What is it missing, do you reckon?"
He reached for the tankard as if to take it away, but Oliver held it out of reach.
"I said the recipe wasn't right," Oliver retorted, "not that it wasn't good. I'll just be drinking this, then."
"So, do you think it needs more nutmeg?" Dougal asked.
Oliver's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "What the bloody hell is nutmeg?"
Catriona grabbed Dougal's wrists, laughing up at him. "Does that tankard look like a Quaffle to you, you great ogre? What would Ollie know about it?"
"There's more to life than Quidditch," Dougal responded good-naturedly.
"Merlin's pants, Catriona!" Oliver sputtered, setting down his tankard with a thump. "What have you done to my big brother? Next thing I know, he'll be tending a garden."
"I was always good at Herbology," Dougal agreed with a grin.
"Don't listen to him a minute," Catriona scolded. "He's already talking about getting a nice little cottage back home so this one," she spread her hands across her belly, "can fly about and learn to be a first rate Chaser."
"Second rate, more like, if Dougal's doing the teaching."
A new voice heralded the entrance of the middle Wood brother, Fergus. His dark hair was windswept and his cheeks rosy from the cold, but he was grinning madly. Fergus was the tallest of the three at six foot five, though only by inches. Oliver and Dougal both had burly builds with broad shoulders and chests, making Fergus look like a string bean. Otherwise the three shared the same dark hair and eyes. They'd even have the same Roman noses if Oliver's hadn't been broken so many times that not even magic could realign it properly.
"I thought you were holed up with some bird near Surrey," Dougal grumbled by way of meeting.
Fergus gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Lost interest."
"You or her?" Dougal shot back.
"Both," Fergus replied with a chuckle.
"I'm glad you could make it, Ferg," Catriona intervened, kissing her brother-in-law's cheek.
"Of course you are." He stooped down to talk to her belly. "And what about you, baby boy Wood?"
Fergus stood and shot Dougal a cheeky grin. Oliver sat back and made himself comfortable; he knew where this was going. Fergus had never been able to resist the opportunity to stir the caldron.
Fergus wrapped his arm around Catriona's shoulders, giving her a flirtatious smile. "I still say you should have taken up with me instead of my great ox of a brother, Kit Cat."
Oliver watched Dougal, who folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the kitchen island. Well, this was not a good development for Fergus. If Dougal wasn't going to intervene, that meant he was going to leave it up to Catriona. Oliver grinned.
"One of these days," Catriona said tartly, her green eyes flashing, "some lass is going to get her hooks into you and lead you on a merry chase. And I look forward to the day the great lover falls."
"Come now, Catriona, think of the fun we would have had. I certainly wouldn't have got you fat and pregnant."
Catriona's wand was shoved in Fergus' face so fast she nearly took out an eye. "Out of my kitchen, Fergus Wood, before I hex you into next Tuesday."
Oliver and Dougal were laughing as Fergus held his hands up to shield his face.
Catriona whirled on the other two. "Out, the lot of you! There are too many Wood boys in my kitchen."
"Get used to saying that, love," Dougal smirked, attempting to rub her belly again and having his hands swatted away. "This is the first of many times you'll be shooing Wood boys out of the kitchen."
"Could be a girl," she reminded him heatedly.
"No, no lasses in the Wood family."
Catriona managed to push Dougal and his brothers into the sitting room. Tankards of butterbeer came zooming after them and only their Quidditch skills kept them from being banged in the head.
"'Fat and pregnant?'" Oliver asked. "Really, Fergus, even I know better."
Fergus smiled unrepentantly. "I was just winding her up."
"You'll be apologizing for that later," Dougal said gruffly, eyeing his brother dangerously. "She's sensitive about how much weight she's gained and still has two months to go. You'll lay on the full charm, too."
"Okay, you're right," Fergus acquiesced. "But she looks amazing still."
"She looks like she has a Quaffle stuffed under her shirt," Oliver commented mindlessly, earning him incredulous looks from his brothers.
"Do you ever speak to girls, mate?" Fergus asked.
Oliver rubbed the back of his neck, staring into his tankard. Now that the subject was brought up, he reckoned he should talk to them about what had been on his mind a lot lately.
"Well," Oliver started hesitantly, "there's this girl…"
"Whew! That's a relief!" Fergus exclaimed.
"I thought you were going to say 'there's this Quaffle,'" Dougal laughed.
"I thought he was going to say 'there's this Percy Weasley,'" Fergus added.
Oliver's head snapped up to look at his brothers. Dougal had stopped laughing, and they both wore sheepish expressions. Merlin's pants, they were serious about Percy. Oliver made a face. Granted, he was no lady's man, but he did all right with the fairer sex. Although, the whole lot scared him out of his wits. But Percy?
"Percy?" he demanded disbelievingly.
"Not that we would have minded," Dougal was quick to say. "We like Percy."
"Even if he is a prat," Fergus added.
They were all perfectly aware of Percy's split from his family.
"I like girls," Oliver insisted.
"Good to know," Fergus said. "I thought maybe after Dougal's stag party you might have been turned off witches for life and I couldn't live with that guilt."
"Oh, but you can live with the guilt of getting our baby brother raped, can you?" snapped Dougal, his glower turned on Fergus and his neck turning a ruddy red.
"It wasn't like that," Fergus was quick to say. He shifted in his seat, and having a hard time looking either brother in the eye. "Oliver was more than happy to go off with that woman after I pointed him in the, er, right direction."
"He was too damn drunk to make that decision," Dougal countered angrily.
Oliver sunk down in the sofa in shame. He hated it when the two of them would bring this up. It was a point of contention between them all of these years later and the cause of more than one fist fight. But it was all just a bad memory for Oliver.
"He was no more pissed than I was," Fergus retorted.
"He was fifteen," Dougal shot back, pointing at Oliver for emphasis.
"And you were sixteen when you lost your virginity, what's the difference?"
"To Catriona. Not some slag with twelve different venereal diseases that I had never met before a day in my life. And did you even—"
"Oi!" Oliver bellowed. "First, I was willing enough, so you needn't worry, Dougal. Second, there have been several girls since, so you needn't worry, Fergus. And lastly, I am not your baby brother. Now, let's never talk about this again or I am going to tell Catriona."
"Just like when we were kids," Fergus complained.
"And that's why you'll always be our baby brother," Dougal asserted.
"In case you forgot," Oliver said, "we have a real baby brother up at Hogwarts right now."
Alex Wood was a first year. Considerably younger than his older brothers, he'd been sorted into Hufflepuff, much to everybody's shock. The only person who wasn't surprised was their mother, who was a Macmillan by birth and a Hufflepuff herself.
"You were our baby brother for ten years before Alex came about," Dougal reminded him. "Some things will never change."
Oliver made a rude gesture that had the desired effect of uniting his older brothers in laughter, even if it was at his expense. "So, as I was saying…"
"Oh, aye, the girl," Fergus said, he was leaning back on the sofa, one foot propped up on the coffee table. "Do we know her?"
"Um, you do, actually," Oliver muttered, he was rolling his tankard between his hands. "Do you remember Katie Bell?"
Dougal looked at Fergus and shrugged. The younger of the two, however, had his brow furrowed in concentration. Fergus was obviously combing through every Katie he had ever met. Oliver assumed, given his brother's reputation, it was a fair number. Then, Fergus' brow cleared and he grinned.
"Sparky?" Fergus asked gleefully. "Oh, I should have seen this coming."
"Who's Sparky?" Dougal asked, looking from one brother to the next.
"She was a little first year during my seventh year," Fergus answered. "Used to come out to the pitch for every Gryffindor practice. Charlie made her our team mascot."
"She was my Chaser after that," Oliver said, remembering the joy Katie had any time she was on a broom. "And no one calls her Sparky."
"Oliver thought she was a right pain in the arse," Fergus laughed. "I should have known!"
"I was fourteen and she was a pain in the arse," Oliver defended. "She talked non-stop, she hopped up and down when she asked questions—which was all the time—and…"
Oliver clamped his mouth shut.
"What?" Dougal asked, sitting forward.
Fergus answered, his eyes alight with mischief, "She had nicknames for him and Percy, if I recall correctly. What was it? Kind of a Muggle thing, I think?"
"Is she Muggleborn?" Dougal asked.
"Aye, she is," Oliver replied, grinning like a dope.
"Mud and Arse!" Fergus said triumphantly. "As in 'Stick in the Mud' and 'Stick Up His Arse.'"
Dougal laughed and leaned back into the cushions, crossing one ankle over the other knee. "I like this lass already. And she was only eleven?"
Oliver scowled. "Well, she's eighteen now."
"I should hope," Dougal said. "How long have you fancied her then?"
"Since her fifteenth birthday," Oliver mumbled.
Both of his brother stared at him silently for a moment.
"And you haven't done anything about it in three damn years?" Fergus asked incredulously.
"She was fifteen," Oliver replied. "And I was eighteen. Seemed like an awful big age difference at the time."
"And now?" Fergus asked. He had never been known for his patience or his restraint when it came to birds. On the other hand, he'd never been in love either. "She's been legal for a whole year."
"And still at Hogwarts," Oliver reminded him, "and she has a boyfriend."
"I don't see how any of that makes a difference."
"Shut it, Fergus," Dougal said without heat. "So, what's changed? Is the boyfriend gone? She's still at Hogwarts, isn't she?"
Oliver was staring at his tankard again. The boyfriend was still around according to Angelina Johnson. Angelina had her suspicions—shared by Alicia, no doubt—about how Oliver felt for Katie. Therefore, she was all too willing to share gossip about Katie with him. What had changed?
It was the war, he supposed. The Battle of the Ministry some months ago had made Oliver jarringly aware of You-Know-Who's return. Not that he hadn't believed Harry. Of course he did, the kid was a damn good Seeker. But with You-Know-Who laying low and Oliver's own Quidditch career on the rise, it was easy not to think about it.
But after the Ministry? That was a different story.
Two of Percy's younger siblings had been in that battle. Not to mention the rather rude awakening it had been for Percy to see You-Know-Who in the flesh. Percy had broken off with his family over his refusal to believe You-Know-Who was back. (Although, Oliver had his doubts over that. He suspected that Percy was being stubborn more than anything.)
And if his best mate's family crisis hadn't been enough to distract Oliver from Quidditch, his own brothers got involved. Bill Weasley had recruited Dougal and Fergus to the Order of the Phoenix shortly after the Battle of the Ministry. At first, it didn't seem like a big deal, but after Catriona fell pregnant, the war had come into perspective for everyone. Moreover, Oliver knew it was only a matter of time before he became involved. He was starting to feel like less of man for sitting on the sidelines.
Instead of saying all that, Oliver just shrugged and took a swig of his butterbeer. "I don't know."
Dougal was regarding him seriously. Oliver stole a look at his brother from under his lashes. Dougal seemed to be taking his measure and it was all Oliver could do not to squirm under the scrutiny. Fergus was fun and a great mate, but Dougal had always been the type of man that other men looked up to. He was solid and others craved his respect. Oliver was no different.
"You're in love with this girl?" Dougal asked after some time, but it wasn't exactly a question.
Oliver blushed. "Aye, I think I am."
"Bloody hell," swore Fergus with a roll of his eyes. "Another brother lost to the powers of true love. Well, there's still time to corrupt Alex."
"Don't listen to him, Ollie," Dougal said. "I think—"
But Dougal's thoughts were cut off when a silvery lion materialized before them. It opened its mouth and out came a familiar voice:
"Dougal, you are needed at Headquarters as soon as possible. Bring along your no-account brother if you can roost him from whatever nest he's invaded."
Both Dougal and Fergus were sitting at attention. They exchanged glances.
"That's Bill's voice, isn't it?" Oliver asked. "You are being called onto an Order mission?"
Catriona emerged from the kitchen clutching a tea towel. Her eyes were round and her face pale. Even Oliver recognized the worry in her stance.
"You're leaving," she stated. "But we haven't even had dinner. Surely it can wait."
Dougal went to her, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear. "You know we can't, but keep it warm for us. We'll be back to eat it later."
She threw her arms around her husband, holding him tightly. "Do you promise?"
"I'll be right by his side, Kit Cat," Fergus said, trying for a light tone, but effectively preventing his brother from making a promise he may not be able to keep. "I'll bring his mangy arse home to you, though I don't know why you'd want him. Snores something terrible."
Catriona found a well of inner strength, letting Dougal go. She smiled at him. "Just be safe."
"Of course," Dougal said quietly.
"I could come with you," Oliver offered. "One more wand."
"No," Dougal said. "We need you here."
"I'm pretty good at defense, I can help," Oliver argued. "In fact, I think it's time for me to do more in the war."
Dougal placed a hand on his shoulder. "I appreciate it, Oliver, I do, but I need you here with Catriona and the baby." He looked at his wife and she nodded. "We'd like you to be godfather, if you're up to it?"
Oliver was shocked and humbled. He'd always assumed Dougal would ask Fergus to be the baby's godfather. As different as the two brothers were, they had always been quite close. Closer than Oliver had been to either of them really.
"Me?" Oliver echoed, still stunned. "Dougal, of course. Are you sure?"
Dougal grasped Oliver's other shoulder and said quietly. "We put a lot of thought into it, mate. You and me, we are a lot alike. If anything happens—"
"Don't."
"Listen," Dougal insisted. "If anything happens to me, you'll be there for Catriona and the sprout, aye?"
Oliver wasn't the type to cry, but he felt a weird burning sensation in his throat now. He didn't like Dougal talking about being killed or the possibility that his nephew would be left fatherless. How could he ever fill Dougal's shoes?
"Aye, but are you sure you want me and not Fergus?" Oliver managed around the lump in his throat. "Or Bill even. He's good with kids."
"Fergus is in this with me, isn't he?" Dougal responded. "And I would never ask Bill over my own brother."
"I'll make you proud," Oliver finally answered.
"I never doubted it for a minute."
Dougal went to kiss Catriona goodbye and grab his cloak. It was a matter of seconds and the two older Wood brothers left through the front door. Catriona returned to the kitchen, a pinched look on her face. Oliver thought maybe it was his duty to follow her and try to console her (though he really didn't want to, he didn't do well with crying women). But he found the kitchen door locked and understood that Catriona wanted to be alone.