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Harry tightened his grip on the broomstick beneath him, clutching onto it with all he had. Flying had once felt so natural to him, so freeing. It had always felt like nothing could touch Harry while he was soaring through the air on his broomstick, nobody could hurt him while he moved effortlessly through the clouds. Harry had been naive. His love of flying, feeling the wind ruffle his hair as he soared at great speeds, had vanished along with the feeling of safety flying had once provided him.
"Merlin, Oliver would kick my arse if he saw me right now. Harry bloody Potter, terrified of flying." Harry sobbed, his hands clammy as his grip around the broomstick weakened. The war had taken so much from him, but surely he couldn't allow it to take away his first love.
"Did you miss me?" The thick Scottish accent echoed across the Quidditch Pitch. "Trust me, I've missed you and your flying skills."
"O-Oliver?" Harry murmured, swiping at the tears falling down his cheeks with a shaky hand. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be practicing right now? I heard you were trying out for the Scottish National team."
"I am, they need a hard headed keeper if we have any chance of making it to the World Cup Finals. But when I heard my favourite Seeker was struggling to get back on the broom, there was no way I could leave you to suffer. What kind of Captain would I be then?" He made his way across the pitch with long, powerful strides. Harry had forgotten how much of a presence Oliver Wood truly had. It was almost as if he had never left, Harry couldn't imagine him anywhere else.
"You're not my Captain anymore Oliver, remember? It's not your job to try and fix me, flying is just another thing I lost to the war." His voice wavered as he spoke, struggling to contain the emotions that desperately seeked to be released.
"Please, I'll always be your Captain Potter. Just because I graduated doesn't mean you can get rid of me," he scoffed. He walked closer, until Harry could feel his presence behind him, like a safety net he never wanted to leave. "You lost a lot of things Harry, but you didn't lose flying, and you didn't lose yourself. I can't fix you, because I refuse to believe for even one second that you're broken."
It was the final splintering crack in the dam that Harry had been waiting for. His body curled in on itself without him noticing, sobs racking his body as he struggled to catch his breath. It was all so overwhelming. No matter where he was in life, Harry had always considered himself to be broken. The broken orphan who couldn't make friends, the broken child that wasn't worthy of love, the broken teenager that struggled to finally live his life while balancing the weight of the entire Wizarding Worlds expectations. It was a heavy burden to bear, and Harry couldn't do it anymore.
"Breathe Harry, just breathe," Oliver murmured reassuringly, his voice soothing in a way Harry had never noticed before. "Don't think about the war. Don't think about anything, just take a deep breath and allow your mind to focus on how much you love flying, how natural it is to you. Remember all of those times where you found solace in the skies, in the hunt for the Snitch. The war took a lot from you Harry, don't let it take something else."
He cradled the painfully smaller boy in his arms, tightly pressing Harry's tear stained face into his burly chest, finally allowing him to let out all of the emotions that overwhelmed him on a daily basis. Oliver couldn't understand how he hadn't cracked from the overbearing pressure earlier. Everyone remarked on how he had made it through the war relatively well, and physically Harry had, but emotionally, he was a wreck. Everything he had done since he was eleven had centred around a need to end a war, a war that he should never have been forced into. He played the part of hero well, and now he was left to pick up the pieces of who he was and who he could be, and Oliver refused to let him undertake such a task alone.
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