Summary: It was a broken down old building in an age of space travel and flying cars to every Muggle that saw it. It was nothing special, except to one curious girl with no past or future.
Katie sat in the magical library of Hogwarts flipping through random books the ghosts and Oliver had picked out for her.
"You must read this one!" Oliver exclaimed. He tried to pull a thin green book out from beneath the ginormous pile of volumes on Wizarding world history, Herbology, Ancient Runes, Potions, and Astronomy. The stack teetered dangerously and began sliding toward the oblivious figurine.
"Look out!" Katie snatched Tiny Oliver away from the books as they crashed onto the table. She gave him a look before moving the heavy books aside and picking up the small book.
Across the cover in gold lettering was the title.
"Quidditch through the Ages." Katie read out loud. She gave Oliver another look before opening the book. The first thing she noticed was the list of people that had checked out the book. At the very top of the list in an untidy scrawl was O. Wood, 9 April. As Katie scanned down the list she recognized A. Johnson and F. Weasley as people who had also been on the Gryffindor team according to the picture in the Common Rooms. But what caught her eye was the K. Bell on 19 October right in the middle of the list. She opened the book and began reading.
She burst out laughing when reading about the Hollyhead Harpy captain Gwendolyn Morgan braining Captain Rudolf Brand with her broom after he'd proposed to her. Oliver looked at the page she was reading and just smiled.
The moment Katie closed the book Oliver was urging her to go outside. He directed her to a shed. With a creak and a groan the door to the shed fell open, revealing four racks of brooms and three trunks stack against the back wall.
"Grab that broom," Oliver told her, pointing to the nicest looking broom in the pile. Katie picked up the broom with a dubious glance at the broken tail straws but followed Oliver's instructions to a large, open field.
"Okay, so you really need to learn to fly," Oliver told her bluntly. He instructed her to mount the broom and kick off from the ground.
When she first tried, the broom refused to do more than hover a centimeter or so above the ground. On her second attempt she managed to coax a bit more height out of the old bundle of twigs. Before she could try again, the broom took off in a jerky, zigzag flight pattern. Katie hung on for dear life as the crazy thing twisted and turned as if purposely trying to knock her off.
"Stop it, you stupid bundle of kindling, or I'll light you on fire," she snapped at it. The jerking stopped immediately and she was able to glide gently to the ground.
"Well," she said bluntly, "that wasn't the most fun I've ever had, but it wasn't bad enough to warrant never trying again."
"You simply must keep trying," Oliver insisted. "Every morning you should go for a fly. It would do you a lot of good."
"Right, if the broom doesn't go homicidal on me again, I'll try again," she told him. Katie stashed broom in the closet and started to leave the pitch.
"Wait!" Oliver cried.
"What?" She gave the figurine a displeased look. Oliver seemed to be considering his next words.
"Never mind," he said quickly. "You should probably wait." He gave Katie a smile. With a sigh she headed for the castle to finish the homework assigned to her by her ghostly teachers.