disclaimer : JK Rowling is the proud owner of Harry Potter and his cohorts
"…this is an ingredient…" The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrell, was droning on about something or another that I didn't give a damn about. Even if I had I wouldn't have been able to understand a single word the stuttering twit said.
"Professor Quirrell, excuse me, excuse me may I borrow Wood for a moment please?" I knew that voice anywhere, and I was out of my seat and halfway to the door before I could finish my sentence. She had been getting me less and less lately, and I really needed this.
I could still remember the first time she pulled me out of class to bring me into her office, sit me down and ask me to talk. About everything.
She asked how I was dealing and I told her. "Fine, thank you. It's part of life, part of the game. You get used to it. It's not like I loved her or anything. It's not like there's anything to stop and think about. She's gone. And that's all there is to it."
She smiled in that sad, pitiful way she does. Because she knew I was lying. Just like I knew I was lying. And anyone else that looks at me knows I'm lying because I'm a fucking mess without her.
And I cried. And cried. And cried. Because I was so tired of waiting and I was so tired of wishing and I' was so tired of pretending that everything I loved wasn't just gone and I wasn't just falling apart and tearing at the seams. Because I was tired of acting like I didn't care when it was killing me inside and I was tired of saying it wasn't a big deal when it was breaking my fucking heart.
And when I was done with the tears, I actually opened up. Looked for something to get me through to the next time she decided to take pity on me and remove me from a class. "The funny thing, Professor, is nobody ever really know how much anyone else is hurting. We could be standing next to someone that is completely broken, and we wouldn't even know it."
The tears come again. "She wasn't supposed to feel this much to me. I wasn't supposed to fall so hard. But you know what, Professor? I did and that's the truth, that's what keeps me holding on, because it hurts like hell to let her go. I can't possibly explain how painful it is to wait on something that never comes though, and it's taking its toll on me. It's taking its toll on me because I don't remember what I ever did with myself before she was a part of my life."
She was crying now too, tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks in waves. I didn't need a mirror to know I looked twice as bad. I didn't mind anymore, I just let them come. I felt an ache in the space where she used to be, where my heart used to be before I gave it to her. It ached, oh God, it ached.
It felt like held-back tears and swallowed words and stinging eyes and burning throats. It felt like emptiness in the cavity of my ribcage. And it hurt.
"Mr. Wood, there is a story, behind every person. There is a reason they are the way they are. They aren't like that because they simply want to be, something in their past created them. And sometimes, it is impossible to fix them."
I remember sitting in that chair with my head in my hands as she spoke, tears plopping shamelessly onto the thick carpet beneath my feet. I remember the images that flashed through my head as she spoke; the scars, the bottles, the pills, the cigarettes.
I couldn't have fixed her. I knew because I had tried. I tried to love the sorrow away, tried everything I possibly could to keep her hands from the bottle and blades from the wrist. "She was so broken." Sobs wracked my body, and unable to control them, I let them come.
"I know Mister Wood, we all did."
"I've been waiting. I've been searching. I've been hoping and dreaming that she would come back. But this isn't one of those fairytales where everything is all right in the end, because I know she's never coming back. Never."
She had paused, like I had told her something she hadn't been expecting. And slowly, as if she had to think out each move before she made it, she had gotten up, walked toward me, and hugged me. I remember tensing, not wanting any contact lest I forgot that which I had received from her, but I didn't pull away. Because deep down, I knew I needed it. "You have to forgive."
I was shocked. "I was never angry with her in the first place Professor! Don't you get it? I loved her! I still do, more than I could ever hope to love myself!" I wrenched myself from her motherly grasp and stood before her, feeling betrayed.
She looked at me with the patience of one dealing with a grieving toddler. "Oliver, I am aware of those facts. You must forgive yourself. I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes - it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self."
She stood and walked out, leaving me to my thoughts. My traitorous, blasphemous, thoughts.
Honestly, there is not much I would not give to go a single day without thinking of her. Hell, I'd even take an hour. I could still remember every detail of her.
Of Titania Schylar Romanova.
I assure you, the goodbyes will never hurt half as much as the flashbacks. I promise.
I could remember the feel of her porcelain skin beneath my rough ones. The smell of that ivory skin, that grass green hair, the smell that lingered in my sheets and my clothes long after she had gone. It was the smell of cherry blossoms and firewhiskey. I hadn't ever found it attractive before I met her.
I could remember the day she told me she wanted to be a Dragonologist because she felt she could understand them better than most, because nobody really understood her either. She thought she could save them, and I didn't doubt her for even a second.
I could remember her Animagus, a snowy white fox with sparkling green eyes. I could remember how she told me she didn't really know how to be a Metamorphagus, she just knew how to keep her hair green. Everything else was all natural, and always would be.
I could remember the way she walked, a gentle sway that seemed far too graceful, seemed more like a dance. The smooth curves. The way her robes clung to her tiny form.
I could remember the ease with which I lifted her up and into my arms, the ease with which I carried her up the stairs and into the dormitories.
I could remember every night we spent together.
I could remember the fierceness she showed on Quidditch days. I could remember how she went above and beyond to catch the snitch. I could remember her Parselmouth, and how I had loathed it at first.
Like a disease though, the bad memories found their way in and grew upon my heart. They infected me, infected her memory, infected everything that meant anything to me.
The addiction. Pills and pills and pills. Like she thought they could ease the pain. All they did was delay the inevitable and leave an opening for the terrors she had stowed away in her subconscious.
The alcoholism. Drinking firewhiskey like it was water just to sleep at night. The ramblings and rantings and raving of a heartbroken, drunken little girl who didn't know what to do with her life.
The cuts. Scars, piling up and across each other on her tender wrists. Turning the perfect flesh into a checkerboard of blood and infection. She said she didn't remember how it felt to be alive without them, until she met me at least.
I could remember all of that too. Flushing pills, breaking bottles, grasping her wrists with a crushing force; "Did you think it would fix you?"
She hadn't said anything, just waited for me to let go so she could crawl into a corner and curl up. Like she always did. Because running was all she had ever known. She didn't have the will to fight, didn't know how if she had wanted to, because she was just a girl. A scared girl that didn't let anyone close because they had a way of walking out when she needed them the most.
Which is exactly what I did.
"When you get your life together, find me. Until then, just stay away." And I walked out.
I didn't see her at breakfast the next day. She didn't show up to classes, or Quidditch practice, or lunch. She didn't visit any teachers or talk to any friends. And then, in the middle of the last class of the day, Professor Dumbledore told all teachers to report to his office immediately, and told students to report to the Great Hall as their teachers dismissed them.
She wasn't there either.
I remember sitting at the end of Gryffindor table with the Weasley twins, her only real friends, worrying about her like crazy on the inside and pretending I didn't give a damn on the out. But I knew, from the tears in Professor McGonagalls eyes, from the sorrow on Professor Snapes face, the grief that had Hagrid in tears, that something had gone terribly wrong.
Of course, I didn't think it was her. Maybe some sort of mishap that would require students to be sent home for the rest of term, or the death of a professor. When Dumbledore took his place behind that podium, and made eye contact with me, I knew. I had stood, looking around all the tables frantically.
"Students, it brings me great sorrow, to give you this news. Today, one of your fellow students made a tragic decision - "
"Titania! Where is Titania? Are you in here?" I was going crazy. Fear gripping at me like I had been given a Dementors' Kiss.
"Mister Wood, please take your seat." Vaguely, I could recall Fred and George wrestling me back onto the bench as I cried.
"Where is she? Where is she?" I slammed my face onto the table, and then pounded it with my fists. Anything to get this pain out of my chest.
Dumbledore grimaced, pitying me just like all the others. Because we all knew at this point. She was gone. He cleared his throat and continued. "A student made a tragic decision to take her own life."
And I knew, right then, that I would never really be whole again.
That isn't what this visit is about though. She's got Harry Potter with her. "Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood, I have found you a new seeker."
Is that what she thinks I want? To have a new seeker? Has she gone mad? "Professor!" She was already down the hall, and even if she had heard me she was ignoring me. I glared down at Potter through my red rimmed eyes, neither ashamed or embarassed. He would NEVER be half the seeker Titania had been. "So you want to be a seeker?"
The question seemed to catch him off guard, and it took a moment for him to come up with a reply. "Uh, yeah. I guess so." He chuckled like he had been humourous in some way. It pissed me off.
"We'll see about that." With that said, I turned around and returned to my Defense Against the Dark Arts class, returned to my thoughts where she could forever be with me.
Authors Notes :
1.) i wrote this because of a recent event at my school, in which a co-ed soccer player killed herself.
her boyfriend has been distraught, and the situation made me think of Oliver Wood.
2.) i understand this is not the behaviour exhibited my Wood in the book and movie, but it is circumstancial.
3.) i will consider making an extended, novel length, story about Titania and Oliver if i get enough feedback.
4.) Romanova is the proper name of the Romanov family, last Imperial family of Russia. should tell you something about Titania.
one of the Grand Duchess' names was Tatiana, and Titania is a play off of that fact.