Oliver Wood just stepped out from the Leaky Cauldron on to the packed street of down town London. He had just finished visiting the Weasley twins in their new joke shop, which had taken off like a storm. Diagon Alley was unusually quiet that day compared to London. So just as he got on to the jumbled sidewalk he rammed into a moving muggle that was oblivious to the little pub that wizards knew so well. Quickly he helped the young girl up, whom he made fall.
"Sorry 'bout that," he said with his distinct Scottish accent. The girl just smiled at him unable to say anything at the moment. Oliver scanned over her quickly. She was quite pretty. She was about his height, with medium brown hair that had blond and red streaks. Her eyes were big and gorgeous and seemed to be a mix of green with blue and her voice was,
"That's ok," she finally spoke, "didn't see you. It's like you appeared out of no where!" and her voice was, American! Oliver liked American accents. He barely got to hear them. He suddenly found himself attracted to her but shook the thought out of his head. She was a muggle! It would be too hard to date her and she was American as well. She probably was just visiting and would go back to the US some time soon. She smiled then nodded at him.
"Well I must be going. It was nice running into you …Gryffindor," she said noticing the gold writing on his old team sweater from school. Before he could correct her she was already walking away,
"Maybe we'll run into each other again," she said disappearing into the crowd. Oliver could only hope. He wanted to give her his real name and more importantly get hers before she left London. Shaking his head he walked through the crowd to get to his apartment just down the road. The wizard complex was three blocks down from the Leaky Cauldron and looked like and old wore down building from the out side, but inside was much different. It was a nice snazzy place with oak paneling and deep red carpet. Oliver lived on the third floor in a flat, which he was able to afford with his professional quidditch money. The only bad thing was that the terrible two, the Weasley twins lived right below him and they tended to do all their experiments at night. He didn't sleep well at times because of this but he liked his little flat too much to move. Quickly removing his garments, he pulled on his practice robes and grabbed his firebolt to go to practice. Making sure he had all that he needed he apparated to Puddlemere stadium. He landed in the locker room at the same time as his teammate Tom Alary did, both crashing into each other. Oliver laughed as they got up off the floor.
"I gotta stop running into people today,"
"What do you mean by that Wood?" Tom asked.
" Oh London was jammed this morning with muggles and I slammed into a muggle girl coming out of the Leaky Cauldron,"
"Ooh! Was she pretty?" Tom cooed only concerned with the girls' appearance.
"Smashing sexy!" Oliver found himself saying, " and she was American too!" Tom winked at Oliver,
"Your favorite huh Oliver?" he said as they walked out onto the pitch.
"Oh course," Oliver said.
"Did you get her name?" Tom asked as he and Oliver got on to their broomsticks and flew up to do their laps.
"No. She called me Gryffindor though," Oliver said as he laughed a little at the thought.
"Gryffindor?"
"Yeah. I was wearing my old team sweater from school." Tom laughed as well. The two finished up their laps and headed back down onto the pitch where most of the team was. A few others were still up in the air doing their laps. All together there were fourteen players, seven starters and seven reserves. Oliver was on the reserve side along with Tom. He played reserve Keeper while Tom played a Chaser. While Oliver was tall with brown hair that he tended to spike up, Tom was short with blond hair that was always neat and parted, at least before practice it was neat. There other two reserve chasers were girls, Carol Diggens who was a tall, lanky girl with long blond hair and Lira Limmas who intertwined her short, brown hair and appearance with her long running of the mouth. Mike Gasery was one of the reserve beaters. Quiet that boy was and very charming as well. Nicci Taern was the other beater. Loud like Limmas but not quite as obnoxious. Lastly there was Nick Carey the reserve Seeker. He was middle height and donned long strawberry blond hair that the guys hated but the girls seemed attracted to. As for the Starters, there was Chaser and main captain Rich Felty who was real tall and fit with dark hair and light blue eyes. Casey Ray was a chaser as well. She was about the same height as Oliver and had long brown hair. What made her stand out from all the other girls, though, were her intense green eyes. The last chaser was Jordan Hagle. He was a lot like Tom in appearance, maybe a little more built, but everyone agreed that he could do with some classes in temper control. Megan Soren was the main Seeker. She was tiny and small with dark, curly red hair. She never was a big talker though. People always went to her with their problems cause they knew she would listen. Lindsey and Lara Bolt where tall, dark identical twins who were the Beaters. Talented those two were. Could think what the other was going to do it seemed like. Luckily they weren't mischievous like the Weasley Twins or Oliver could bet Rich would have his hands full. Last there was Orion Davis, Keeper. He was getting quite old and in the past few months Felty had been hinting towards Oliver that he might get the chance to be a starter, which Oliver was thrilled to hear. Oliver did, however, hold one important title at that time. While captain had to be a starting player, the co-captain could be whomever the captain felt worthy. Oliver was instantly made co-captain cause Rich saw talent, skill, and leadership in Oliver. Not to mention Rich trusted him the most out of all the other team members. The only person who seemed to have a small problem with this was Jordan. He felt that co-captain should be for a starter as well but Felty didn't think that. The whole team, minus one, huddled together to begin practice,
"Today will be an easy day. I got a lot of paper work to fill out. As you all can see Orion is out today. That last hit on Tuesday's game really did him in so I have to put him on temp for a while. So as far as drills go for right now, Oliver you will take Davis' spot. Carey I want you to do speeding and diving tactics today. Alary, Limmas and Diggens, I want you three to run as many passing drills as you can. Gasery and Taern I would like it if you two would aim bludgers at the starting team while we go through drills. You know give Bolt and Bolter-More here something to do," Rich always thought it was funny to address Lara and Lindsey in some sly manner. He got a few laughs with that one. The reserves understood there positions and headed off to practice. Three hours latter the team was heading off to the showers but just as Oliver landed Rich pulled him aside.
"Oliver. I need to see you."
"Sure Rich," Wood said as he followed Felty into the coaches' office. The thing was that the coach wasn't there. Actually he was never there. Rich did all the coaching. The only thing Greg Bunner did sense the start of the season was hand out forms to sign and sheets to when practices and games would be held. It was nearing April and the last time the team had actually seen him was on there first day back in October. No one really cared for Greg, especially not Rich who prayed daily for Bunner to get fired. Oliver stepped into the office with Felty and sat down on a wooden chair. It was just then that he noticed the troubled look on Felty's face.
"You ok Rich?" Oliver asked. Rich hastily scratched his head. Wood assumed he was working out how to word things.
"I've been telling you for ages now that you would get a shot. Well I think this is it. Davis doesn't want to go but this last injury was brutal on him and he's not getting any younger either. Basically I think Greg is going to drop him and if I know Greg the responsibility of finding a new keeper is on my shoulders. So this is what I'm planning on doing. Obviously you'll fill in for Davis on Thursday's game against those Spanish Rushing Bulls and next Wednesday's game in Australia. I have to hold tryouts; I'm guessing that following Saturday, but between you and me the only thing we're holding tryouts for is a reserve keeper. As far as I'm concerned you have the job as starting keeper. For Greg it will be for any possible keeper position. Great lug doesn't think you have what it takes to be starting keeper but if that stupid git ever came to a practice he would see how incredible you are. So any questions?" Wood snapped out of his daze and realized Felty was done talking.
"Just one. How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Talk like there's no tomorrow?" Felty she gave a sheepish grin,
"Cause when you're in my position you wonder if there is a tomorrow,"