Oliver could see the Qudditch field burning through the corner of his eye.
This held his attention for less than a second before he guided his broom around a curse that had been fired into the air. Oliver scanned the ground with his hawk-like eyes to find his attacker. It was a futile effort in the chaos raging down below; for all he knew, it could have been a stray attack from his own side. Shaking it off, Oliver yelled at a few of his followers to head to Hogwarts's port side.
Again, the fire blazed in his peripherals. Again, it was quickly forgotten.
"Dementors at eight o'clock!" Katie Bell cried from somewhere behind him, her voice shrill with adrenaline. Oliver spun immediately, whipping his wand from its holster at his waist.
Though the three dementors were still too far for the chill to have set in, they were advancing quickly. Oliver rushed through his mind for a happy thought before their despair could overwhelm him. The first thing he latched onto was at the end of his seventh year at Hogwarts, when he'd held the Quidditch Cup trophy in his hands for the first time as captain.
With the thrill of that moment clear in his mind, summoning his Patronus was child's play. With a gleam in his eye, Oliver charged at the dementors, wand raised. His white, ethereal hawk shot forth in a burst of light, scattering the dementors and forcing them to retreat. Nearby, Angelina Johnson, trying to keep spirits high in the madness, whooped at the small victory and somersaulted her broom. Oliver tried to smile at his successor, but he barely succeeded in twitching the muscles near his lips.
Again, he noticed that the field was on fire. He began to refocus his attention elsewhere before it finally hit him.
Quickly, Oliver whipped his broom to face the Quidditch field. For the first time, the former Gryffindor Keeper focused his whole attention on the devastation of what he had once known as a second home.
Only a few short years ago, Quidditch had been everything to him. In all honesty, it had been everything up until just a few weeks before. For Oliver Wood, former Gryffindor captain and current Puddlemere United reserve, life was not worth living if it wasn't on a broomstick. So how in Merlin's name had he noticed this three times and ignored it the first two? And nearly had the third?
The answer raged beneath Oliver in a flurry of curses and hexes, a cacophony of screams and moans and voices uttering those two fatal words. It rushed around him with the fireballs being launched at the school, invaded his nose with the smells of ash and death, breathed beside him in flesh and blood on broomsticks.
It was because right now, he wasn't leading the people beside him in a match with a referee. He wasn't fighting for the Quidditch Cup. Hell, he wasn't even fighting for a world where Quidditch could peacefully continue.
He was fighting for his life.
And even if it meant losing his life, he was fighting for a better world.
Suddenly, Oliver was overwhelmed with a longing to go back to the days where all that mattered was Quidditch. He wanted to go back to arguing with Madam Hooch over penalties, dodging stray Bludgers and blocking Quaffles nearing his goal posts, yelling at his team and trying to whip them into shape. He wanted to go back to when the only things important to him were wiping the cocky grins off the faces of Slytherins, advising Harry to knock Cho Chang off her broomstick, and holding that trophy in his hands.
But as much as he hated to admit it, those days were gone, and unless he performed at the very best he ever had, they would never come again.
Just as he was about to return to the battle, Oliver felt a fist connect with his shoulder. The soft punch was almost comforting. Oliver looked to see Angelina trying to smile at him, her fist still held out. Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet hovered behind her, both clutching their broomsticks in one hand and their wands in the other. All three women were ready to chase at his command. Somewhere in the chaos below, the Weasley twins were doing the best beating Oliver was certain they ever had.
And, of course, Harry Potter was seeking that famed golden snitch to secure Hogwarts the victory, sending the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters packing.
It seemed that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Oliver smiled back at Angelina and gave her a single nod. "We'll circle around to try and find a large concentration of Death Eaters," he called to his team. "Once we have one in our sights, fire at will. Make sure to keep an eye out for friendlies. Robins, you still got some of those explosives?"
As a Keeper, it was his job to protect the home court.
Self-declared or not, Oliver Wood was the best Keeper Gryffindor had ever known. And he wasn't about to let anyone forget it.