Chapter 2
Hermione hoped that was the end of the matter but soon learned otherwise the following morning when she was called into the office of her Head of House, where she was summarily informed that Oliver would be contacting her very soon to arrange a time to begin their tutoring sessions.
Hermione could tell from Professor McGonagall's tone and posture that Oliver had also been made an offer that he was unable to refuse.
Not trusting herself to speak without sounding rude to a member of faculty, the girl simply nodded her understanding before making her way to the Great Hall for breakfast. She was just finishing her meal when an owl dropped a note by her plate that had the words, "Astronomy tower. 8 o'clock" hastily scrawled on it.
"Imagine that. It would seem the use of the words 'please' and 'thank you' are beyond his capabilities as well," Hermione grumbled as she shoved the note in her bag before heading off to Herbology.
She arrived at the top of the Astronomy tower at quarter of eight. At five past, she was irritated. At quarter past, she was angry. When the clock tower struck the half hour she was furious. She had just finished packing up her belongings and was heading down the stairs when she was almost run over by the speeding figure of Oliver Wood.
"Where are you going?" he demanded. "We had an appointment."
"We did have an appointment," snapped Hermione. "At eight o'clock. It is now precisely eight thirty six. If you can't be here on time I can't help you."
She tried to step around him but he blocked her path.
"Not my fault. Quidditch practice ran late then I had to go the long way round to get here."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you have to go the long way round to get here?" Hermione asked.
"I can't very well let anyone know I'm meeting with you now, can I?"
Hermione's eyes flashed. "And why is that? Ashamed to be seen with a muggle born?"
"No!"
"Then why?" she challenged.
"Because it's bloody embarrassing to need tutoring by a third year, that's why!"
Hermione glowered as she pushed past him. "Well I'm terribly sorry that my age bruises your fragile ego, Oliver, but my time's too important to have you wasting it. Come find me when you're serious about something other than quidditch or your precious reputation!"
She stomped back to her room, swearing to herself that she'd put an end to this entire fiasco with a visit to Professor McGonagall first thing in the morning.
xoxoxo
At the crack of dawn Hermione marched into the Transfiguration Professor's office only to find Oliver Wood already standing silently by the fireplace.
"Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall said with a forced smile. "How fortuitous. I was just about to send for you. I need you both to take a seat."
Oliver and Hermione took the chairs furthest from each other, scrupulously avoiding looking at each other as they did so.
Just as Hermione opened her mouth to speak, McGonagall abruptly raised a hand to cut her off.
"It would seem that you are having issues working with each other. I am here to tell you that you are going to find a way. Or else. The pair of you will sort out your differences or I will sort them out for you."
The students could tell from the Professor's tone that this was not an idle threat.
Hermione couldn't restrain herself. "I'm sorry, Professor but I don't have time to waste on someone who isn't serious about their studies!"
Minerva McGonagall's eyebrows lifted at this statement.
"I have had every faith in your ability to properly manage your time in the past, Miss Granger. Do not make me regret that decision now."
Hermione fought the urge to clasp the small hourglass which hung from her neck, hidden underneath her robes.
Oliver was next to protest but their Head of House replied sharply in Scots Gaelic and while Hermione didn't speak the language, the boy's chastened reaction and contrite response told the girl all she needed to know about the message that had been conveyed.
The meeting ended with Professor McGonagall reminding the duo that they had one day to work out their issues or face dire consequences. The details of said consequences weren't spelled out but neither Oliver or Hermione dared ask for clarification on that point.
They parted with an obligatory handshake and an agreement to meet that afternoon for their first tutoring session.
This time Oliver arrived promptly at the designated time in the Astronomy tower where the two grudgingly agreed to be civil with each other before getting down to business.
They'd worked for about half an hour when Oliver snapped his quill in frustration. "Bollocks! What's the point of this nonsense anyway? There's nothing here that's going to help me become keeper for Puddlemere next season."
"Oh, honestly, Oliver!" Hermione fussed. "Can't you find anything to care about other than quidditch?"
Without thinking Oliver blurted out, "Yeah, well, find me something else my father cares about and maybe I will!"
Hermione could tell the young man immediately regretted the outburst. He summoned another quill and quickly turned his attention back to his parchment as if nothing had happened.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"Nothing. Forget it," he muttered, keeping his eyes fixed on the book in front of him.
"It's not nothing, Oliver."
"I said forget it, okay?"
"Oliver..."
"Shut up and leave me alone!" he barked, causing her to jump.
"But..."
"That's it! I'm leaving!" Oliver shoved all his books and parchments into his pack and bolted towards the exit. "I'm done with this!"
"Oh, no you're not!" Hermione shouted as she leapt to her feet. "McGonagall said we had to..."
"Sod her and you!" Oliver yelled over his shoulder as he reached for the door. He grasped the doorknob and quickly pulled back, hissing in pain at the static shock the contact produced. He whipped around to find Hermione brandishing her wand.
"Let me out!" he demanded.
"No!"
He dropped his book bag and produced his own wand. He cast several counter spells at the door, growing increasingly irate as each one failed to undo Hermione's handiwork. He finally rounded on her and screamed, "Open the damn door!"
She shook her head vehemently. "I can't afford for my marks to suffer and I'm certainly not insane enough to deliberately incur the wrath of Professor McGonagall! Besides..." she said, taking a defensive stance. "I want to know what I said that's so terrible that it turned the great Oliver Wood into a quitter!"
Oliver's entire body tensed at that word. "I am NOT a quitter!"
"Really? Leaving the first time someone questions you? Sounds like a quitter to me," she challenged.
Oliver's eyes narrowed. "Why you little..."
He fired off a disarming curse which Hermione easily deflected.
"Oh, come on, Ollie," taunted Hermione. "I would've thought you could do better than that."
"I was trying not to hurt you," replied Wood.
Hermione adjusted her wand and arched an eyebrow. "You? Please! In the three years I've been here I've faced trolls, basilisks, a gigantic three-headed dog and a bloody dementor — not to mention the Draco Malfoy and the entire Slytherin Quidditch team. You don't frighten me, Oliver Wood."
"Fine. Have it your way," he sneered before sending a volley of various hexes and jinxes in her direction. Hermione had to work at it but she successfully countered them all.
"Is that all you've got?" she panted.
"Oh, I'm just getting started," he snarled.
"Well, come on then. Don't waste my time. Give me your best shot. "
He fired off another barrage that she managed to deflect.
"My, my..." she said as they circled each other cautiously. "All this fuss and bother over a simple question. I must have really hit a nerve to make you this angry."
"I'm not angry. I just want to be left alone."
"Oh, I beg to differ."
"Of course you would. It would be utterly unthinkable for the all knowing Hermione Granger to be wrong about something now wouldn't it? Sitting up on her high horse, sneering at anyone that isn't her intellectual equal."
"You're a fine one to talk! You're no better than the rest of the athletic pure bloods around this place! Flying around on your fancy brooms, looking down upon anybody that can't catch a snitch or isn't registered on the sacred twenty eight."
"I have NEVER judged anyone by their blood status!"
"Then prove it!"
"How?!"
Hermione took a step towards him. "Tell me what you meant about your father."
"It's none of your damn business!"
"Well it would seem that for the foreseeable future you are my business Oliver Wood, so either you start talking or we find out the hard way what consequences Professor McGonagall has in store for us."
By this time Oliver was almost blind with rage. Hermione took another step and began carefully lowering her wand.
"Talk to me, Oliver. Please...Tell me about your father...Tell me why the word 'quitter' does this to you..."
She held her breath as she waited to see if the boy was going to explain himself or curse her into oblivion.
"You want to know about my father?" Oliver spit the words out through clenched teeth. "Do you mean the man that abandoned me the same day my Mum died giving birth to me? The man that only came calling when I was five years old — and only after my Gran told him that I showed promise on a broom? The man I've only ever seen at quidditch matches?"
Oliver approached her menacingly. "Of course I don't see him at ALL of the matches, mind you. It's not enough to play well. Oh, no. The old man doesn't stick around to talk if you don't WIN. And the only way to WIN is to focus on one thing and one thing only and that's the game, lass. If not, you get reminded of how you'd better concentrate on being the best keeper out there because it's the only thing you've got going for you, because you're certainly not good enough for anything else. Is that the father you're asking about?"
The pair stood breathing hard and staring each other down until Hermione's expression softened and she spoke in a quiet voice, "Oh, Oliver. I'm so sorry."
"I don't need your bloody pity!" the boy scoffed.
Hermione tipped her head and fixed him with a defiant stare. "Good. Because you aren't getting it."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I reserve pity for people that have no options and nothing else going for them. You, on the other hand, have every privilege at your disposal, Oliver. I'm sorry that your father can't see beyond this one facet of your life but that doesn't mean that you don't have other talents or other avenues to pursue."
"No. I don't, Granger. As you quite recently pointed out, I have one thing to offer the world. My services as a glorified broom jockey."
Hermione averted her eyes. "I didn't mean that."
"Yes, you did! You meant every word of what you said that day."
"Fine! At the time I may have meant the sentiment but I'll admit that I expressed myself poorly. It's just..."
"Just what? Didn't think I could understand words larger that those?"
"Yes! I mean, no! I mean...Ugh!" Hermione grunted in frustration as she began pacing in front of him. "It's just...Do you remember what happened the day I said that?"
"Aye. It was after the game against Hufflepuff. We played in a bloody great downpour then a bunch of dementors showed up. Harry fell. Ended up in hospital. Then you hunted me down and gave me a right telling off in front of the whole bloody school."
She stopped and looked at him with a pleading expression. "Have you ever been near a dementor, Oliver? I don't mean from across a quidditch pitch. I mean, close enough to really feel its presence."
There was a prolonged silence before he hesitantly admitted, "Nay...I haven't."
"Then you don't know what it's like..." She struggled to find the right words before finally saying, "Close your eyes."
"What?"
"Close your eyes."
He regarded her suspiciously before doing as he was asked.
"Now I want you to imagine —really imagine — what it would feel like if you could not only never play quidditch again, but if you could never fly again. Ever. Picture that if you can. Truly feel what that would be like."
A visible shiver went down Oliver's spine. "I...I can't."
"Why not?"
He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Because, regardless of what I just said about my father, I genuinely love this game. More than that, I love flying and if that was taken from me then...then my life wouldn't be worth living, Granger."
"Okay. Now...that feeling you had there — just for one second? That's what it was like being around ONE dementor on the train, except it lasted far longer than a second. It seemed like it went on forever... like you'd never feel happiness ever again."
She swallowed hard before continuing. "So when I saw dozens of them appear at the game that day and I remembered what happens when poor Harry is around them..."
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't he tell you?" she asked.
Oliver shook his head.
Hermione sighed. "Whenever Harry is around a dementor he relives his parents' murder. He actually hears You-Know-Who killing his mother."
Oliver rubbed the back of his neck. "Damn. I...I didn't know that..."
"Yes, well...now you do. And that's part of the reason I went off on you in such a rage. It was bad enough to see my friend relive that experience but when I found out his own captain didn't ever care enough to check on him..."
"It wasn't that I didn't care," said Oliver.
"What was it then? Why didn't you show up to see how your precious Seeker was doing?"
"Because! I...I don't do well in hospitals."
"Why?"
Realizing she wouldn't let it rest until he told the whole story, Oliver confessed, "My Mum died not long after giving birth to me. Soon after that my father abandoned me so I was raised by my Gran."
He turned and stared out of the tower window in the direction of the quidditch pitch. "She was the best. Took care of me, gave me my first broom, taught me to fly then signed me up for quidditch lessons when I was just a wee thing. She made me think anything was possible."
"What changed?"
"What changed was she died my first term at Hogwarts. And it was my fault."
"How so?"
"She was sick but didn't tell anyone. But if I'd been with her instead of at school then I'd have noticed. I could've done something...Could've saved her."
"That's not your fault, Oliver," said Hermione, laying a hand on his arm.
He shrugged off her touch and moved away.
"Anyway, as I watched Potter plummeting towards the ground that day all I could think was that I'd not only been responsible for the deaths of me Mum and me Gran but now I'd gone and killed the bloody Chosen One on top of everything else."
He gave his book bag a sharp kick before leaning against the wall and sliding to the floor.
Hermione approached slowly and lowered herself next to him. They sat like that for a long time until she finally broke the silence.
"While I never had the privilege of meeting your mother or your Grandmother, I think I'm on pretty safe ground when I say that I'm sure neither of them holds a newborn or an eleven year old responsible for such life altering decisions as who lives and who dies, Oliver."
She nudged his knee lightly with her own. "As a matter of fact, I'd wager that both of them loved you very, very much and the last thing either one of them would want is for you to carry around that sort of burden for the rest of your life. I'm certain that what they'd want most is for you to let go of all that emotional baggage that's weighing you down so you could fly — fast, free and unencumbered by anyone else's expectations — simply because you love flying."
She gave him a soft smile and added, "I know if I had a child, that would be my wish for them."
Oliver looked at her and shook his head. "You know what, Granger? When you're not being a overbearing swot, yer a half decent lass."
Hermione clutched an imaginary string of pearls around her neck and exclaimed, "Why, Oliver Wood! I do believe that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me!"
They both laughed then Oliver tentatively extended his hand.
"What do you say, Granger? Give it one more go? Start over with a clean slate?"
Hermione smiled as she accepted his handshake.
"Why not? Third time's the charm, right?"
