Chapter 1
Broomstick Polishing Kit
A/N: This is a 2024 rewrite of something I wrote as a literal child. Timeline of the books is messed with a bit for the plot.
Oliver Wood's POV.
It was a miserable sort of day. The rain that relentlessly tapped against the roof of the North Tower was interspersed with glass-rattling thunder. Quidditch practice had been canceled, which meant I was trapped in the common room with half the Gryffindor house. I felt a slow, heady sort of panic start to grip me as I mulled over this missed opportunity to drill our latest play before our upcoming match against Ravenclaw. We were looking sloppy, and it was likely that Ravenclaw's overly-coiffed Captain, Roger Davies, had been able to fit in an extra practice for his team before this week's foul weather rolled in.
I was sprawled at a desk beneath a bookshelf with my Captain's notebook open in front of me, Quidditch plays messily mapped out on the parchment. A napkin or two were shoved in between the pages from moments where inspiration had taken me at various pubs or coffee shops and I'd had a quill handy to jot down my ideas. I ran the feather of my quill against my lip absently, scanning a book of Quidditch tactics that my mum had gifted to me over the holidays for anything I'd missed the first few times I'd read it.
A particularly loud clap of thunder split through the dull murmurs of chattering students in the common room, and I glanced up.
As I did, I met the eye of Katie Bell, who was sitting on the floor by the fire with a few of the other members of the Gryffindor quidditch team. Her expression was fleeting. An emotion I couldn't quite detect - not that I was Merlin's gift to figuring out what a woman was thinking. She gave me a little close-lipped smile and looked back at Angelina Johnson, who was regaling the group with a story about being violently ill during Potions last month. I looked back down at my book, heart skipping stupidly.
"I swear Snape was going to lose it," Angelina said, a grin stretching her voice, "gave me detention for a week. Had me scrubbing cauldrons for hours."
A few of them chuckled.
I flipped through my notebook, suddenly incapable of finding any meaning in the scribbles. I glanced back up at my team, strewn comfortably around the coffee table in front of the hearth. My eyes rested again on the brunette chaser with a full bottom lip, whose eyes lit up as Angelina continued to describe her detention. I didn't know what it was that drew me to her, my gaze seeking her out like a habitual crutch.
It wasn't that I was intentionally staring. For some reason, the panic that gripped me about the future of the Quidditch team abated slightly when she was in sight. As if she felt my eyes on her, she looked up again and met my gaze. It was suddenly extremely warm in the room. I gave her a small nod - curt, I'd like to believe, but professional - and gathered my things to head up to the seventh-year dormitory.
As I turned around, Percy Weasley breezed past me, stopping at the foot of the stairs.
"I do hope you've moved your Broomstick polishing kit from the middle of the floor," Percy said icily.
While there were many conversations happening at once in the common room, the tone of this one drew a few onlookers. I felt the back of my neck flush with irritation.
"Aye."
"Good," Percy raised his eyebrows pompously, "I would hate to have to confiscate it."
As he flounced up the stairs I resolutely turned back to the portrait hole, having no desire to spend the next few hours in Percy's sole company. I shuffled my papers in hand and walked toward the door.
"Captain," a voice to my left interjected. I paused and looked down to see Katie, who was holding in an outstretched hand one of my napkin scribbles that I must have dropped in my haste to leave. She leaned over the coffee table, jumper raising to expose a slip of tanned skin as she tossed the item toward me. I caught it, barely, mumbling something unintelligible.
"Don't forget to pick up your Broomstick polishing kit, Ollie-poo," Fred Weasley said, his arm slung comfortably across the back of the couch behind Angelina.
Git. I looked at him with a half-hearted frown.
"You lot had better be ready for the game on Saturday," I said stiffly, "rest up."
"Yeah yeah," Alicia muttered, glancing out the window at the storm.
"Cross my heart," George crossed his heart earnestly. Git.
It took everything in me not to let my eyes wander back to Katie as I forced myself to leave Gryffindor tower.
As I walked in the direction of the library, I thought about Percy's condescending tone. Git.
