Late Autumn, 1996

Oliver Wood adored Quidditch. It was his life. Literally. Oliver had been able to fly before he could walk. And after nearly twenty years, playing the sport was practically a natural reflex. Unfortunately, however, reflex does not translate into perfection, which Oliver found out the hard way one blustery November day.

Of course, in his defense, this particular instance in which he lacked perfection wasn't technically his fault. This time, at least.

"Bloody beaters," Oliver muttered to himself as he pulled his sweater over his head.

"That's awfully rude, you know," A voice said from behind Oliver.

"Incredibly rude," A second voice, almost identical to the first, agreed. "I may never recover."

Oliver pulled the sweater the rest of the way on, spinning around on his heel as he did so. He knew those voices…

"Fred! George!" Oliver exclaimed, his accent thicker than usual in his surprise at seeing two of his former teammates standing in the doorway to his hospital room.

"Ollie!" George—or, at least, Oliver was pretty sure it was George—replied just as enthusiastically.

"Now, what's this blasphemy my dear brother and I just happened to hear you swear against beaters?" Fred demanded of his captain, a grin upon his face.

"Nothing against the two of you, that's for sure," Oliver informed the pair, walking over and shaking each of their hands. "It's just thanks to one of the reserve beaters on Puddlemere that I'm here right now…and with the most massive headache."

"For fear of being ashamed of one of our kindred beaters," George stated in a serious voice, "I believe I won't be asking any further questions."

"Good," Oliver replied. "I'd hate for you to be embarrassed on behalf of one of your…er…kindred."

"You always were too kind to us, Ollie," Fred said cheerfully.

"So," Oliver began, pulling his slightly muddy practice robes on over the rest of his clothes, "What brings the two of you here today? Or, better yet, are you two stalking me?"

"Not a chance, dear former captain," George said, the smile fading from his face. "We were just on our way to visit a friend and we happened to overhear one of the trainee healers mention that you were up here. You just have stalker fans everywhere you go, Ollie."

"Thanks," Oliver said dryly. "What friend were you visiting? Anyone I know?"

Fred frowned at this. "Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?" Oliver asked, frowning slightly himself now at the uncharacteristic seriousness the twins were suddenly displaying.

"It's Katie," Fred stated. "Katie Bell. She was cursed a few weeks back; she's been in St. Mungo's ever since."

Oliver suddenly felt as if time was standing still. Katie Bell? Injured?

"What?" Was all Oliver could manage to get out. "How?"

"She hasn't regained consciousness yet, so all of the details aren't very clear," George said slowly. "But from what they've put together, she was put under the Imperius Curse while in Hogsmeade a few weeks back. Whoever did it gave her a package with a cursed necklace in it, which she accidentally touched. They got her to St. Mungo's pretty quickly, but she hasn't been showing much improvement. The healers…they aren't sure whether or not she's going to make it."

Oliver found himself sitting back down on his hospital bed in shock at the news that George had delivered so hesitantly. Katie Bell? His former chaser?

"We were just heading up to visit her," Fred told Oliver, "If you'd like to come with."

It really wasn't a question. The twins could both plainly see what his answer would be. Without another word, Oliver stood back up on shaky legs and followed the twins out of the private room and through the hospital, thinking hard the whole time.

It had been more than two years since he had seen Katie Bell, which he now regretted. Actually, he had pretty much regretted it constantly for the past two years but had made a concentrated effort not to dwell on the matter. You see, for just about as long as Oliver had known Katie, he had been in love with her. Naturally, he had never acted upon his feelings for her, mostly because there was a bit of an age difference between them; an age difference that had been so very obvious back at Hogwarts. Case in point: when the pair first met, he had been fifteen to her twelve.

In his defense, though, he had fallen in love with her Quidditch abilities first. Something that was perfectly natural, considering that he was Oliver Wood. Quidditch was his thing. And Katie Bell was fantastic at it. In all honesty, his feelings hadn't progressed to more than a friend and teammate until his final year at Hogwarts, when she was fourteen and he was seventeen. But that's not to say that he actually noticed when, specifically, his feelings for the younger girl had changed. It was just something he woke up one morning and realized was different; something that had been different for quite some time now.

Not that anything ever came of those feelings. He desperately wanted something to, of course, but he honestly didn't think she would feel the same way. Who would want to date him? Plus, he would be leaving school at the end of the year, and she still had three years left. It wouldn't be fair to either of them.

Also, Oliver Wood had a strict no inter-team dating policy. And if there was one thing that could be said about Oliver, it was that he followed all Quidditch-related rules as strictly as possible. After all, Quidditch was what he lived for.

He regretted all of it now.

Who cared about Quidditch when Katie could be dying?

"This is us, mate," Fred said, stopping in front of a door at the end of a hallway. Glancing at the room number, Oliver realized with a start that they were two floors up from where they had started. Funny, he had hardly noticed the trip up here…he had been too focused on his thoughts.

"A private room?" Oliver questioned, surprised.

"They had her in a ward…" Fred said slowly, "But…"

"She screams," George finished when his brother didn't continue. "She has screaming fits, actually. It was disturbing the other patients."

This made Oliver even more nervous than he already was. What had happened to her?

"It helped that Angie had a fit as well," Fred said with a dry smile. "They had her in a ward for the incurably ill. Angie went off on the healers and told them they were all mentally ill if they thought our Katie couldn't pull through this and get better."

"And rightly so," George said with a decisive nod. "So, shall we go in?"

Oliver gestured for Fred and George to enter the room before him, suddenly nervous to see what he would find on the other side of the door. Not only had it been years since he had last seen her—would he even recognize her?—but she was hurt. She was hurt badly. Oliver wasn't sure that he was going to be able to handle whatever he was going to encounter in that hospital room. But he had to pull himself together. Katie needed him. He needed to see her again.

Oliver could not recall a time when Katie had ever been so pale as she was right now. He had never before seen her without that fresh glow that clearly said she had just gotten off her broom. Now, her skin was pale and waxy-looking; he wasn't entirely sure that she was a real person. Her hair was limp and she was also incredibly thin.

"Does she…has she…" Oliver struggled to find the right words as Fred pulled out his wand and vanished the flowers in the vase on the table beside Katie's bed. The redhead then replaced them with a fresh bouquet that Oliver only now noticed he had been holding this entire time. "Has she been getting any food?"

"The healers have tried," George said with a slight frown, his gaze on the girl in the hospital bed before them. "She hasn't regained consciousness, but she tends to get violent when anyone tries to touch her. They have a hard enough time with all of the potions she needs…I think they're all about at their wit's end with figuring out how to cure her."

Oliver pursed his lips.

"He's got that glint in his eyes, Georgie," Fred said, the barest hint of a smile suddenly at the corners of his mouth. "The crazed captain glint. I think the Quidditch Nazi is about to strike again."

"Personally, I always thought the glint got things done quite nicely," George said agreeably.

"They're going to find a cure," Oliver said firmly, taking a few steps forward so that he was standing beside Katie's bed and reaching a hand out to grasp her hand in his larger, much warmer one. "I think I'll be able to instill that…belief in them."

A full-out grin spread across Fred's features, half because of Oliver's words and the other half because Katie hadn't had another one of her screaming fits—as generally tended to happen—when Oliver had taken her hand.

"We really do need to have a word with those Puddlemere beaters," Fred informed his brother.

"Agreed," George replied. "They should have knocked Oliver out ages ago."

Oliver, meanwhile, was too busy staring at the impossibly tiny-looking girl he barely recognized to pay any real attention to what the twins were saying. Katie looked so fragile; she really did look as if she was one step away from death.

But Katie was going to get better. Oliver would do whatever he could to make sure that it happened. And once she did get better again, he swore to himself that he would finally tell her exactly how he felt about her.

It would happen. Oliver was determined.