Name: In Big Trouble, as always
Age: 17
Hair: Tousled and sexy, as always (surely you people would know by now)
Current Mood: Rather stroppy, to be honest
Current Location: McGonagall's office.
I made it back from the trials in a daze. As I was walking up to the Common Room, Fred and George flashed past me.
"Hi Wood." George said cheerily.
"Hypothetically, if I were you, I wouldn't go to the fifth floor hallway." His brother cautioned.
"Hope your trial went well." They both chimed before running full pelt into a tapestry and promptly disappearing from sight.
I shook my head and trudged up the stairs. When the Fat Lady swung open to admit me, who should be in the Common Room but Harry and Ron, looking distinctly put out.
"Hi Wood." Harry offered. "How did the trial go?"
"Yeah, it went okay." I was too tired to offer them a blow-by-blow account of my fabulousness. Next practise session perhaps. Besides, Harry looked like he'd been robbed or something. "Did I miss anything?"
"Only Harry getting a Firebolt." Ron offered.
"A FIREBOLT?!" Harry jumped about a foot in the air, and they both regarded me like I was a stark raving lunatic. Okay, Wood, calm down some. "A Firebolt?" I clarified, my voice hoarse from trying to keep it down a few decibels.
"Yeah." Harry muttered glumly.
Angelina and Alicia, their heads tightly braided with miniature plaits, poked their heads around the corner from their dormitories.
"Did we hear Firebolt?" said Alicia.
How did the trial go, by the way Oliver?" Angelina asked.
"Harry, Firebolt. Team. Practise. Now." I could barely form cohesive sentences, I was so ecstatically impatient to get out on the Pitch to see what the Firebolt could do. No-one was moving, so I went to haul Harry off his feet, but Ron interrupted.
"He doesn't have it anymore."
"WHAT?!"
Harry looked at me reproachfully. "McGonagall took it away."
Oh, she did not.
I stormed out of the Common Room. Was the World purposefully trying to ruin my last remaining chance at winning the Quidditch Cup?
Taking Fred's advice, I dodged the fifth floor corridor by taking a Weasely short-cut to the Great Hall entrance. I had clamoured out of the armour and made a beeline towards the Great Stairs.
"Hey Wood, how was the trial?" Asked some random (but very gorgeous) fan-girl. Merlin, had Bell posted up some fliers to tell the whole school? Something familiar about the girl's voice made me turn. Holy sweet Merlin's beard: Bell? I was momentarily at a loss for words.
"…Harry…has a Firebolt…a Firebolt…" I told her. "We'd blow the competition out of the sky…and McGonagall took it away… I've got to go and convince her…what was she thinking…hard to believe she champions Gryffindor, with that kind of attitude…nice hair by the way." And it was nice; she was nice. Correction, she was utterly knock-me-out gorgeous. But she didn't look like my Bell anymore.
Bell's new look wasn't enough to distract me from my mission, or dispel my rage towards McGonagall. I pushed past her and continued up the stairs to confront the Professor.
I barged into McGonagall's office on the first floor without even knocking. The Professor was sitting at her desk, quill in hand. Probably putting the final flourish on selling off Harry's broomstick. I stood in the centre of her room, scanning the bookcases and floors for any sign of Harry's Firebolt. I looked under the empty chairs, wondering how far I could go without getting a detention. Probably overturning her desk would classify as 'too far'. But this was a Liberation, a jail-break.
"Mr Wood. Looking for something?" McGonagall put down her quill in annoyance.
"Firebolt." I stated simply.
"I gave it to Professor Snape." She countered. She didn't even try to deny it.
"How much did he pay you?" I asked hotly.
"Oliver Wood! Whatever reason you may think I gave Professor Snape Harry's Firebolt, you are misinformed."
"So Snape didn't bribe you to sell him the broomstick."
"No." came the sarcastic reply. I pulled out my wand.
"Mr Wood, what half-baked idea are you forming in your thick skull now?" McGonagall asked testily, warily eyeing my wand.
"I'm just going to test whether Snape's put you under the Imperious curse." I said matter-of-factly.
"OLIVER WOOD!" The castle went deathly silent for several long seconds as McGonagall's voice echoed throughout the stone corridors. To say McGonagall was pissed off would be a tad bit of an understatement. She was livid. Her wand was smoking faintly and her nostrils flaring. I'd say I was well and truly in the dangerous detention zone.
"Well, what was I supposed to think?!" I bellowed. I was having some difficulty gaining full control over my voice projection levels.
"Just because I confiscated a broomstick does not mean Snape has cast an Imperious spell over me, or that I accepted bribes from the Slytherin team to sabotage your game." McGonagall said tersely.
"Well, if you're not being brainwashed, why else did you confiscate the broom?"
"Did it ever occur to you I confiscated the broom because it might be dangerous to Potter?"
"I'm sure Potter can handle a broomstick, Professor." I scoffed. Her wand started smoking again. This was bad. If it started shooting sparks, I knew I was in deep trouble. To put just how much trouble I was in in perspective for you: in their entire life at Hogwarts, the Weaselys have only made McGonagall's wand shoot sparks twice. The first time their detention was so bad they came back ashen-faced and totally silent, and didn't play a single prank for almost a whole month. The second time they didn't come back from their detention until a week later.
"Could he handle a jinxed broomstick?" McGonagall snapped.
"Well, Potter came up against one of those two years ago, so I don't really see how that would be a problem."
"Unlike you seem to be, Mr Wood, I am looking out for Potter's life. Heaven knows the boy's had enough close-calls over the past years. Or would you rather your prized Seeker, the Boy Who Lived, die needlessly for the sake of a mere Quidditch game?" You'd think I would have learnt after seven long years: McGonagall has the ears of a bat. But no, Oliver Wood has to get the last word in.
"Who cares, as long as he catches the Snitch before he bites the dust." I mumbled. The Professor's self control smashed.
"OLIVER JAMES WOOD!" Sparks flew from the wand. Merlin's yellowed teeth, I was a goner.
"For starters, Mr Wood, that was a rhetorical question; the answer should have been so painfully obvious it goes without being said. Secondly, if that's your attitude to the lives of your team-mates, I'm going to seriously re-consider your Captaincy!" Fudgestickles.
"There are times, Mr Wood, when you're maturity levels would have difficulty competing with that of someone five years of age. This argument would be a chief example."
My brain made some more smart answers, but I tried to quash them before I voiced them aloud. Even then, a few forced their way past my mouth.
"No, I'm not hearing any more of it Oliver." McGonagall stated evenly. "Incidentally, I have some more news that relates to your team, but I think I'll wait until you've calmed down sufficiently. You can wait outside me office until you're remembered yourself." Me? Forget myself? Hello – I'm not the one that gave a Firebolt, our team's best chance of winning a game, to the ENEMY, in cold blood.
Still furious, I strode across her room in two steps and retched the door open. And almost bowled straight into Bell, who'd had her ear pressed to the door.
"Having fun eavesdropping?" I asked coldly. Any other day of the week, I would have found in endearing; it was just a Bell thing to do. She was just as concerned over the state of the team as I was. But today I felt she was doing it to listen to McGonagall go rank at me, and to have her laugh. And today I was just not in the mood to put up with an immature thing like eavesdropping.
"God Oliver, way to write the 101 of how not to get a Firebolt back." Yeah, that made me feel a whole lot better. I regarded her with cold fury, trying to avoid the impulse to hex her. Or at least pull her hair.
I pushed past her, trying to be the mature one and end the confrontation. After all, I knew what Bell was up to; she did it enough during practise. She was winding me up. "Butt out Bell; this doesn't concern you."
Bell returned my shove, giving me a rather non-playful shot to the shoulder. "It's about the team; it bloody-well concerns me." Hippogriff droppings; she was baiting me, trying to get me to yell at her and attract McGonagall's attention, so she could yell at me some more, and Bell could listen to McGonagall yell at me some more, and it'd be just like old times.
I squared my shoulders and narrowed my eyes. If that's the way she wants to play it, fine. I shoved her back harder. It was probably a lot harder than what was really necessary to be honest, but she wasn't playing nice to begin with. "It's a Captain thing." I replied snidely. "I'm Captain."
"Perhaps not for much longer, by the sounds of it." She balled her hands into fists and stared at me, flinty-eyed.
"Well, for now I'm the Captain, and I'll handle it my way." I said through my teeth, my own hands contracting into fists of their own.
"You were 'handling' it about as delicately as a five-year-old pitching a hissy-fit." She said spitefully.
"Bell, if there's anyone acting five years of age, it's you."
And blow me down if she didn't just shrink to the size of a pre-schooler.
I stared at her in surprise. I'd just turned my best Chaser into a five-year-old. The world wasn't out to sabotage my team and my chances at the Quidditch Cup: I was.
Well, that didn't faze her for a second. I don't think she'd even realised what I'd done. She just charged right at me and latched onto my leg like static cling. I had to resist the mental image of me sending her flying through the air, her little five year old arms waving madly.
"Oliver Wood, I'm going to kill you!" She screeched, which, just so you know, coming in a high-pitched voice from a five-year-old's mouth, is not the terribly terrifying stuff nightmares are made of.
McGonagall chose that moment to open her door again. Bowtruckle droppings. If she'd opened it any other time before, she'd have seen how much self-control I had, how mature I was being. But no, she had to open the door after I'd turned Katie Bell back into a five-year-old. Well, crap. There goes my Captaincy.
"Good Lord," she muttered, hand at her throat. She seemed to recover remarkably quickly, narrowing her eyes at me almost by default. Sure, blame the Scottish guy. I mean, who's to say Bell didn't just magically turn herself five? She certainly was acting childishly enough for it to be plausible. "Oliver Wood, so help me, if you maim, slaughter or endanger any more of your team-members, I will call this next match off."
Bell struggled into a seat, her robes swamping her, while I struggled not to laugh. Haha –Oliver Wood: 1. Bell: -1.
"What did he do?" Bell asked, but as soon as the words were out her eyes went wide and she slapped her hands to her mouth.
McGonagall set back into her chair and regarded me over her desk. "Oliver Wood, I have seen people magic their noses off, sprout warts and tentacles and other fungi that just shouldn't be grown on the human body. I've seen someone who tried to Polyjuice themselves into a cat." Bell bit back a snigger; all Gryffindors knew who that was; it was the only mistake that Hermione Granger had ever made.
"I have seen Slytherin's and Gryffindor's jinx each other to pieces. But so help me Oliver James Wood, I have never, in all my years of teaching, seen someone turn someone else into a five-year-old." Maybe they'd give me an award or something. Now was the time to act all contrite and apologise. Maybe I'd still make it out of here without a detention.
"I swear, Professor, I didn't mean to do it." At least that part was true. "I didn't even have my wand out." But secretly I was rather pleased with myself: that was a complicated piece of magic to do, especially without a wand. McGonagall must have noticed.
"Mr Wood, you don't have to look so pleased with yourself. You'd think by now you would have learnt some measure of self-control."
"I was trying." I argued. "But Bell kept baiting me."
"I did not!" Bell retorted. McGonagall rounded on her.
"Miss Bell, is this true?"
"Well, he started it!"
"Oh real mature Bell!" I countered. "It's no wonder I turned you into a five-year-old."
"See, see – he admits it!"
"Both of you – stop it!" McGonagall thundered. "You're lucky I don't turn you both into two-year-olds." She stopped and rubbed her forehead, stressed. "It's moments like these when I wonder if we should be handing them their wands at 11… or even 17 for that matter." She sighed to herself, shooting me a venomous look. I'm so close to 18 I shouldn't take offence to that comment.
"Just have her normal before the next Quidditch match." McGonagall finally conceded.
Bell rose off her chair. "Wait, can't you turn me back or something?" She asked desperately.
"No, it's Mr Wood's who cast the hex. The hex will become uncast when Oliver sees you as a mature adult again."
I snorted. "Well, you're screwed then." Bell would be living her life as a five-year-old forever.
Bell made to kick me in the shins, but I placed my palm flat on her forehead, keeping her in place. She looked up at me, her head level with my knees.
"I don't yike you." She lisps. Despite how much trouble I knew I'd be in when the hex breaks, I just burst out laughing.
"Oh, and Mr Wood?" McGonagall asked as we turned to leave the room. "The other news I had for you." I looked back at her.
"Detention. This Friday." I tried to stop a groan. "And there's someone here to see you."
OOhhhhh, I wonder who that could be.
Thanks to all of my reviewers from Katie's last chapter. You awesome reviews and comments inspired me to finish this chapter early.