Oliver Wood and the Muggleborn's Wand
Chapter 7
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Not For Profit work. Harry Potter and related materials © J.K. Rowling.

The second he opened his eyes, Oliver knew he was dreaming.

It was nothing so trivial as having a lucid dream, of realizing what he was seeing couldn't possibly be real simply because it looked impossible. He was, after all, a wizard. It was hard to surprise a wizard with impossible things.

He simply knew it as a dream. As he watched the people pass to and fro in the Great Hall, he wondered what he was doing here. It was just like during the battle, with people scurrying about, trying to handle the dead. He saw Neville Longbottom carrying a dead Colin Creevey on his back, and he knew that was wrong.

Neville walked right by him, in fact. Or at least, he was going to. Oliver watched as Neville stopped, slowly turned his head, and stared at him for a goof five seconds, eyes growing wider.

And then, Neville screamed, as he dropped Colin in an undignified manner off of his back. It was horrible, blood-curdling, his mouth was moving but Oliver couldn't understand him beyond the wail. It was much more horrifying when he realized his right arm was coming up, pointing his wand straight at Neville's heart. "Avada Kedavra."

His own voice was all he heard. The rest of the room sounded like it was underwater; distant and muffled. Neville fell, his eyes still staring up at him. Others now turned. Some screamed, some pulled wands. Oliver turned to George Weasley; the redhead was practically lunging for him, the beginnings of a spell coming from his lips.

Oliver beat him to it. "Avada Kedavra!"

His sister Ginny had been right next to him. Oliver felt horror; real, absolute terror as he realized all of his efforts to move in some other fashion, to do something other than point his wand at her were absolutely fruitless. He tried to keep telling himself he was only dreaming. It didn't help.

"Not my daughter, you bastard!"

Breifly, he was thankful when his arm diverted from Ginny. Less so when he realized it was now aiming for her mother, who, much like George, simply could not manage to act faster than he did. "Avada Kedavra!"

The dreamscape shifted just as green light hit Molly Weasley dead-on. Gone was the great hall, replaced by the dark trees of a thick forest - the Forbidden Forrest, he wondered? - where a solitary man stood in a single patch of light. His head was turned down, so Oliver couldn't see his face despite the illumination.

Bodies were splayed out around him in a rough circle, but Oliver couldn't see any faces. Try as he might to look at them, his eyes would always go back to the man standing in the middle. When that man looked up, Oliver felt himself jump; he was staring at himself, but it wasn't a mirror image. The red of his double's Gryffindor Quidditch robes was darker than it should be, and the eyes...the eyes were solid red. The Not-Oliver thing was holding Katie's wand. "What's the matter? Don't you like it here?"

Unable to answer, Oliver found himself backing away in sheer terror. Close to screaming in fright, Oliver bolted away from his Other, seeking refuge in the forest He didn't get more than ten steps when the crack of an inbound apparration echoed off the trees and red eyes were staring at him again.

With a yelp, he turned ninety degrees on the spot, felt his feet slide on the dirt, and ran in the new direction. Again, he didn't get far, but his Other didn't appear from nowhere, he was simply keeping up, leaping towards a tree as Oliver ran by it. It called after him, and Oliver was less scared by this than by the fact that its voice sounded no different from his own. "You can't run from me, Oliver!"

When Oliver woke up, he bolted upright, screaming the whole way. His throat was trying to get out the word "No!" and failing miserably on account of being dry. He felt so thirsty it wasn't even funny, and he'd sweat through his nightshirt.

He was not in bed like he expected to be. The blankets were hanging halfway off, a result, and Oliver was sitting up on the floor. Trying to catch his breath, he realized his arms felt sore, and when he looked down, he saw why. They were crossed so tightly over his chest that the muscles were strained. His knuckles were white with the grip his fingers had on Katie's wand. How...how did I...did I sleepwalk...

Something else worried him beyond all of that, though. Before he even tried to figure the nightmare out, before he even thought of changing his clothes, he forced his legs to support his weight, though he ended up wobbling a little. Unable to tell if he was unsteady from the fact that his heart was beating so fast or if he was just plain scared, Oliver nevertheless replaced Katie's wand on the bureau and made it to the living room, where his phone sat on the table. Clicking the menu button frantically, he searched through for Percy's number. He'd never saved it; he had to find it on the 'received calls' list.

Finally finding it, he clicked the 'Call' button and held the phone to his ear, desperately impatient with every sound of the tone. "C'mon, c'mon, Percy, answer, answer for Merlin's sake..."

Eventually, the ringing stopped, and a groggy "Hello?" came over the phone.

Oliver could've jumped for joy already, even though he never saw Percy in his dream. His voice sounded "Percy! It's Oliver! Just listen to me, is your family okay?"

"What," Percy began. Oliver cut him off, violently.

"Is your family okay, dammit! Check, you have to check!"

"Oliver, what," Percy was now fully awake, "Wait a minute." Oliver heard a sound that must've been Percy putting the phone down, followed by Percy getting out of bed. The delay was maddening, but Oliver took comfort in the knowledge that Percy must've been at the Burrow, that he was just sneaking around so as not to wake anyone. He was greatly releived when Percy finally picked the phone back up. "Everyone's fine, Oliver. What's going on?"

"N-nothing," Oliver said. Now that there was no crisis anymore, as if there'd ever been one, he had no idea what to do with his adrenaline high. "I'm sorry I woke you, I...I just had a bad dream, freaked me out, I...I'll let you go back to sleep, I'm sorry."

Hanging up, Oliver was relieved when Percy didn't try to call him back. He went into the bathroom to splash water on his face, then back into the bedroom to look at his alarm clock. It was four in the morning; he had to be up in an hour to get ready for the first day of practice.

Deciding that he wasn't going to let a nightmare get the better of him, Oliver reset his alarm to five-thirty. After chugging down the contents a water bottle from the fridge, he refilled it before moving on. Setting his Puddlemere robes out in the living room so he wouldn't have to spend time on it later, Oliver set off to shower now instead of going back to sleep first.

"Just a nightmare, Oliver." Stopping in front of the bathroom mirror before getting that far, Oliver spent a good, long time staring at the reflection. He looked into his own eyes, trying hard to see any indication of his Other from the dream, fearing that with any random blink, he might open his eyes and find red ones staring back. "Just a nightmare..."