It should have been raining, yet the night was oddly still. - Not even a breath could be heard, not even the howling of the wind. Tears, where they fell were silent, the wounded being tended to lacked the energy to complain, and the grieving saved the strength, pulled from God knew where, to enact their revenge. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, except perhaps for the feeling of loss.
Everyone felt it, it dampened everything and everyone, pushing them into the quiet, eery silence. The few sounds heard were of those few bodies being dragged here and there. More to be buried, how many exactly? Nothing gripped quite at Oliver's stomach like when he recognised the face from his own Hogwart years. There was Colin Creevey, he stood as still as a muggle picture. How many times had he appeared only to be shooed away? In their two years together as Gryffindors Oliver had been very insistent that he didn't want his tactics leaked by way of photographs with their routines.
What use was Quidditch now? What use had those screams at young Colin, who sat still, immobilised, and almost calm in his sleep, been in the end? He wasn't 17, yet he had still fought. Bile threatened to rise up Oliver's throat, but he couldn't quite push himself to rest, to lower his arms and let himself be consumed. The dead deserved a burial, they deserved to be recognised.
It was only fair. It was the least he could do. Though versed in combat magic - something he had had quite a good time with, Professor Lupin giving him his NEWTS, an actual decent teacher for once, things still threatened to turn sour.
He thought to have seen Lupin's face amongst the dead, along with some young woman he had never seen. He wondered if it had been love or fate that had placed them together in their resting places.. This war was senseless - it was fought for hate - yet Oliver couldn't quite bring himself to care. He had stood for Harry, as he had many times. He had not only provided him with the biggest triumph in his life - one that rang hollow upon the desolation he saw, he had also been a determined young boy. If what he heard was true then he surely was their only hope.
Reminding himself of the boy who had fought through spells, broken arms, and even blackouts and had always managed to do his best to capture the snitch and guarantee them their victory some of that cold damp feeling went away. Oliver dared not hope that they had a chance, but Harry had pushed the odds so far. He had actually been team captain. And they had done a remarkably good job, the youngest Weasley's making their time on the team well earned.
But then life was not a game of Quidditch, it was not kind, it wasn't fair, and it wasn't like there were sudden recoveries from the underdogs. He only had to look at Young Colin Creevey to remind himself of that. And not even the thought of Harry Potter, the boy who lived could clear away the doubts. In many ways the fog in his mind clearly reminded him of the Dementors in his last year at Hogwarts.
The weather was cold, befitting Britain, yet in all of this Oliver couldn't help but think.
It should have been raining.
_
Cold sweat coated Oliver Wood's brow as he opened his eyes. For a few moments the remnants of the dream held with him, haunting him, but then he realised the time, and the place where he sat.
The Keeper protective gear he wore in his day job still adjourned his torso. "Day Job" being a relative term of course. Nobody could ever predict how long a match was going to go, and so what was supposed to be a day job sometimes turned out to be a night job. Not that yesterday had been one of those nights, he had stayed between the hoops, being pushed to the limit as chaser after chaser came at him, trying to trick him into letting balls fly by.
At some point his back must have started to hurt from being hunched over, flying and trying to cover all three hops at once. Just because he had been riding brooms for nearly his entire life did not mean his back did not feel the need to complain about it. The practice had finished, and he had been complimented. It looked like the Daily Prophet sports page's rumor of a buyout of Oliver by the Chudley Cannons might have been wrong after all. Or maybe the compliment was just sweetening him up for when it was inevitably revealed. Wood did not know, what he did know was that the Cannons were the last place he wanted to be.
Not that it would be an inconvenience, as a wizard he could pretty much just apparate to wherever he desired - Hogwarts excluded, yes he had read Hogwarts a History eventually, it actually managed to sound interesting when Binns wasn't the one teaching it. He could still maintain his home, his possessions, and it wasn't like he was living in grandeur so the inevitable pay cut wouldn't hurt his finances too much - at least in the short run, retirement might be an issue.
It had more to do with the fact that the Cannons had been stuck dead last in every last league they had participated for the past 27 years and running. Wood had seen them play. He had played against them. It wasn't a Keeper they needed - Though his team had inevitably gained an advantage over them by scoring, it was a whole rooster change. They held the record for most games without a Snitch capture.
The thought of him being transferred there was depressing. And not the way Wood envisioned his morning, he didn't quite want to sulk. Besides, by the cold sweat in his brow he could tell that he had had the dream again. That alone was more upsetting than being relegated to a minor team.
The Dream was what he called his memories of the Battle of Hogwarts. A battle he had passed through unscathed .- being more lucky than most. Faces often flashed by in his dreams. And he had done his best to show up in as many funerals as possible. Fred's had been a particularly hard one. He had recruited him, along with his twin, to his Quidditch twin when they were two mischievous twelve year olds. They had been trying to enchant the bludgers. Probably saved them from a detention. He had made it so that they pushed the bludger to strike elsewhere using clubs - not wands. And he had to sit still as Mrs Weasley cried and Percival eulogized him.
Nail marks had been left in his gripped firsts, something he wouldn't realise until later. Nothing that a quick magic couldn't fix - he had seen enough sprains, and other small injuries to last him a lifetime, enough to take the initiative of learning some healing charms, for when the medi-witches were still away.
The dreams hadn't started until things had begun to settle down. They never affected him during the day, or when he was practicing Quidditch, but they did affect his overall reliability as a Keeper. The sweat soaked mattress, the cold damp brow, and the after-thoughts about it would cut his sleep short and even when he managed to get some sleep, meager as it was he didn't rest. He sometimes wondered if any of the other classmates of him who had fought with all their strength in that battle had similar symptoms. He dared not ask. Afraid of reopening old wounds.
Everyone else had seemed to move on from it. The few other Quidditch players from back at Hogwarts he met in the Quidditch pitch seemed perfectly settled and comfortable in their skin, even Ginny Weasley. She would playfully make rude gestures at him when he blocked one of her swipes at the Quaffle with the tip of his broom. Had least he sure hoped they were friendly gestures. He had never really interacted much with her.
Everyone had begun to get married and move together, some of his former teammates included. George and Angelina? Who'd have thought? All those years back when he had heard that they had almost gone to the Yule ball together he had chuckled. Just more Weasley Twins' tomfoolery right?
His body felt hot, and it did him no good to dwell on his past - in fact such memories were dangerous territory. He contemplated what he had for breakfast, and moved to find out, in the process removing some of that keeper gear. He had taken his helmet off, but little else. Maybe letting his hair grow had been a bad idea, the pasted clumps against his brow spoke volumes about it. Especially with this night terrors he had been having.
Sluggish in his walk he made his way to a cupboard to check what he had in hand for food. There wasn't much. Either to the place where he lived or to the cupboard, he had some snack-food, which boldly proclaimed to be fit for an olympian, and recommended for an athlete. Cursing under his breath at his laziness he grabbed two of those things. He really should feed himself better, he really shouldn't have such a crummy breakfast, and he really should talk to someone about his nightmares, yet those were all things Oliver had no plans of doing. Shopping was something that he only did as a last resource, not because he lacked the money, though he wasn't ostentatious about it he was well paid, and he had family money, but because it was a wasted day. A slog of trekking through crowds to catch all of the things he wanted, didn't matter if he went for muggle or magical stores. In fact if it weren't for Gamp's law of Elemental Transfiguration he would withhold all non Quidditch related human contact from his schedule.
It wasn't like he had the biggest amount of fans. Oliver had to admit that Keepers never quite the "Rock Star" status that Seekers had, something which he could understand - seekers made or broke the game, but which he resented. Yet still his face had been in enough photo-ops from the Daily Prophet's sports section that he was occasionally recognised. And while he doubted than the wizarding population in his native Scottish village was composed of more than his family - from where he had moved a short distance away upon graduating Hogwarts. It was still something that daunted him.
The image of Colin Creevey's cold, lifeless body still hung in his mind for some reason. Maybe because he had seen his fair share of young boys with cameras, documenting the exploits of their favorite Quidditch players, much as Colin had documented everything about Harry Potter. Oliver growled, or perhaps it was his stomach, he couldn't tell. Opening up his jaw he shoveled the nutrition bar down it. He had no proper food to cook in his home. Luckily his mother was a short distance away.
His mother's food had always cheered him up. And she didn't even question why he hadn't searched for a partner, be it male or female to live with. Every time she saw him paler than usual her eyes shined with pity, or perhaps it was intuition. Mothers always knew, it was a kind of magic that Oliver couldn't explain.
At least he had his mother, for some unforeseen reason his mind was cast to Harry Potter once more. Potter, as he had called him had been a great seeker and an even better listener. Now faced with an equally overbearing coach as he had been he could see he might have overdone it, just a tad. But then it had worked they han won the Quidditch Cup and beat Slytherin's smug arse.
Perhaps it had been due to his earlier thoughts about Ginny since she was in a relationship with Harry. Yeah that must have been it, Oliver decided. It wasn't as if Harry had been particularly easy to interact with, he was no longer the boy who lived. He was now the savior of all of magical Britain. The youngest seeker in a century. Now that Oliver thought about it, Harry Potter had had a lot of qualities to him.
Munching and swallowing the second energy bar, he apparated at his mother's home. He would have to endure the bratty yells of his little brother, but at least food was guaranteed, and so was a distraction. His little brother would make sure of that.