AN: Here it is! I'm keeping up my promise, see? A one-shot or an update every day until August 17th. Sure I maybe only three days in, but there is still plunty more ideas that need to be written up. Hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Katie Bell or Oliver Wood. I don't own pretty much anything involving Harry Potter. If I did, Fred would be alive still.
There are days in Katie Bell's life where she can look back upon her life before the war fondly and there are days where even the mention of her past will set her off.
Some days she doesn't mind remembering when she didn't walk with a limp and cane or have to cover up the left side of her face. Days where she grins and laughs at how clueless and eager to please she used to be. But sometimes there are days where just the word "quidditch" can get her into a frenzy of anger and tears, days where she hates her younger self for not noticing the signs and not asking any big questions. It days like those that show her deepest scars.
Before the war, Katie had plans to be involved in professional Quidditch. She had try out dates for late august with eight different teams. At the time that the war started she already was far into following her own training schedule to get back in shape. She was, and still is, living with her old Hogwarts Quidditch captain and old friend, who helped her train when he wasn't too busy with his own team practices. Before the war started Katie Bell still had dreams.
Once the war started though the quidditch world fell apart, just like everything else. All of her tryouts where canceled, meaning she would have to find other work somewhere. She watched, as Oliver's practices became shorter and shorter, no longer did he spend his day practicing with the team. If lucky the team would spend only a third of their day practicing and all Saturday and Sunday practices were canceled. Katie and Oliver ended up nearly spending a month in the their flat with little to do until finally Katie managed to get a job in a small shop that sold various things in muggle London, not far from where the lived.
When December came around both of them were asked to prove having "legally" gotten their magic. For Oliver it had been simple, his grandmother went in and showed the ministry officials their family tree, which traced their family all the way back to ancient pureblood one. For Katie things had been harder. Her father is muggle, and her mother had been a witch, but had passed away during her first year at Hogwarts and after searching her family's home, she found nothing. It wasn't until she had spoken to Oliver's mom, who had gone to school with her mom, a mere two days until she had to report to the ministry, did she finally get the evidence she needed. Mrs. Wood herself went with Katie that day and presented thus said evidence.
The last few months, up until the battle, were as hard as the first. The only difference was there were more whispers about Harry going around, which made things seem a bit more hopeful.
Katie got word of the battle while she was drinking tea in the kitchen with Oliver. They had been talking about what might possibly come next, with Voldemort's control of the ministry when she felt a burning sensation in her back pocket, which caused her to at first curse before pulling out the old DA coin. After realizing what it meant she quickly explained to Oliver before apparating along aside him to the Hog's Head. It was after that that things began to fly by.
Evacuating the students.
Get groups assembled.
The first sounds of fighting.
The crumbling of brick as one of the towers fell.
Dueling a Death Eater.
The sight of Oliver dueling another.
A sharp sudden pain in her left leg.
Falling to the ground.
Voldemort speaking.
Oliver helping her limp to the Great hall.
Fred lying dead on the floor.
News that Harry's dead.
The fight breaking out once again.
More pain, this time on the left side of her face.
Harry turning out to be alive.
Finally Voldemort falling to the ground, completely dead at last.
With the battle and war finished they tended to the dead. Katie felt broken during it all. Once released from St. Mungos she went to the funerals of Fred, Collin Creevy, Professor Lupin and so many others, feeling as though she should, even though she didn't have to. The weeks after the battle, Katie was a disaster, a mess of tears that haunted the flat. With her leg injury she had to completely let go of her dream as a professional Quidditch player, with being unable to stand on it's weight with out a cane made the old dream impossible. With the mess that the left side of her face was, working in the shop became hard, people were now afraid to approach her. Two months after the battle she was finally able to find a job at the Daily Prophet, writing whatever was needed at the time, but always refusing to write about Quidditch.
It's been seven years since the battle and the war, and Katie Bell has good days and bad days. Her wedding day was a good day. The first Quidditch match she went to since the war was a bad day. When she got asked if she would be willing to work at Hogwarts as their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was a bad day. The day she gotten her picture taken with Oliver, with no hair covering the left side of her face, was a good day. And the anniversary of the battle is almost always a bad day.
But still, in between those good and bad days, as broken as she may be, Katie Bell never forgets to live…
Hit or miss folks?