Prologue
When Oliver Wood entered the Rearing Unicorn Inn for the first time in what felt like – and actually had been – ages, he was just glad it wasn't as run-down and grown-up it had seemed like back in school. The one or other relative had stayed there in order to meet him during a Hogsmeade-weekend… and while his family was pure-blood, they weren't exactly the old-money type. They weren't the new-money type, either, for that matter. They were the okay-money type who was glad to stay in one of the cheaper, albeit comfortable inns. Which was also what Puddlemere United had agreed to pay for its players while their stadium was being rebuilt. One should think rebuilding a quidditch stadium with magic shouldn't take very long, but… it still did. It made Oliver wonder how muggles got anything built at all.
He arrived with the other players at the inn that was to be his home for the most of the season, on the outskirts of the wizarding village Hogsmeade. As they were shown to their separate rooms, he noticed one that seemed to be buzzing with magic: he slowed down as they were passing it until he realised there were lots and lots of protection spells cast on that room, almost sealing it off completely. With the Great War just five years back – it felt like an eternity and nothing at all at the same time – he was just praying the room was protecting nothing more but the family safe.