Harry Potter, Woke Up in the Hospital a Week Later

Title: Woke Up in the Hospital a Week Later [Oliver, Percy]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for sports violence
Summary: Oliver doesn’t understand what Percy is on about when there’s Quidditch to be played.
AN: Written for the 24-Hour Ficathon. sociofemme wanted to see Oliver’s first game, the one where he takes a Bludger to the head five minutes in. I was going to look up the real quote, but it turns out it’s in the movie, not the book.

Woke Up in the Hospital a Week Later

Oliver Wood stopped breathing the moment Tracey Midgen asked him to join the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

He knew it was out of desperation, he knew it was only because they’d set a school record for number of players lost to injury, academic suspension, and spontaneous broom combustion in a single season.

He knew he was only a Second Year, and he’d never played on a real team before, but none of that mattered because he was going to be on the pitch Saturday as a Gryffindor.

“But Oliver,” his friend Percy said worriedly when he’d broke the news at dinner, “you aren’t even a Beater, you always play Chaser!”

“They don’t need a Chaser,” Oliver shrugged, too excited to actually put the mashed potatoes in his mouth rather than stir them around. “I’m only a replacement, Perce, I can’t be picky.”

“It’s dangerous,” Percy said, eyes wide behind his spectacles. “You could take a Bludger to the head and get put in a coma!”

“That doesn’t happen that often,” Oliver scoffed, covering his shiver with a bright grin.

Oliver daydreamed his way through the rest of the week, staring out the window during classes and hardly sleeping at night. The only time he paid attention to anything was during Quidditch practices, where he devoted so much energy to catching up to the others that Tracey actually scolded the others for not being able to keep up with a Second Year.

The morning of the game, Oliver could barely keep still long enough to bolt down a few pieces of toast.

“Oliver…” Percy tried to issue a last minute warning.

“I’ve got to go!” Oliver cut him off, standing up quickly. “Wish me luck!”

“Be careful,” Percy said instead, mouth tight.

Oliver waved him off and all-but skipped to the locker rooms.

* * * * * *

Oliver’s heart was pounding so hard he felt sick as he waited with his teammates beside the pitch, but he kept a brave smile plastered onto his face the entire time, clutching his bat so tightly his fingertips were numb.

“Remember,” he heard Tracey say to Brigit, their Seeker.

“Catch the Snitch or die trying,” she finished along with her Captain, laughing. “I know, Trace, I know.”

I can’t believe I’m here, Oliver thought as he came out onto the pitch and mounted his broom. I can’t believe I’m playing Quidditch for Gryffindor!

Oliver’s nerves lifted as soon as he was in the air, and he felt perfectly at home flying in formation with the other Gryffindors just as he’d always dreamed. He even found Percy’s pale face in the crowd and waved happily.

Ravenclaw wasn’t fooling around though, they took possession of the Quaffle immediately and pushed downpitch, passing the oddly-dented ball in a pattern that made Oliver’s head spin. Oliver concentrated instead on watching the Bludgers driving them down towards the Ravenclaw Chasers.

Ravenclaw’s Beaters evidently had plans of their own, however. When Oliver managed to get a clean shot off at one of the Chasers, one of the Beaters zipped in from nearby and deflected the shot neatly at Gryffindor’s Keeper. The Keeper couldn’t dodge in time and keep her eye on the Quaffle; the Bludger clipped her shoulder and knocked her down into a spiral towards the ground.

Oliver urged his broom forward without thinking, knowing only that the hoops were undefended and Ravenclaw’s Chasers were bearing towards them with the Quaffle in hand.

The lead Chaser hurled the Quaffle at the hoops, and Oliver stretched forward on his broom as far as could go, but still wasn’t sure he was going to make it…

…his arm was just long enough, and he slapped the Quaffle down only a few feet from the hoops, right into the arms of a Gryffindor Chaser, who winked as he zipped by with it back down the pitch.

The crowd roared and Oliver glowed with pride, even as he was twisting around on his broom to make sure their Keeper was still all right.

He never saw the Bludger that smashed into the back of his head moments later.

* * * * * *

Oliver woke up with a throbbing headache, no idea where he was.

He pried open his eyelids painfully and saw the wide, stone windows of the Infirmary and realized with horror that he had missed the rest of his first Quidditch game.

“Oliver?” Brigit’s face came into view and Oliver blinked in confusion. “Oliver, are you awake?”

“I’m fine,” Oliver tried to say, but it came out as “Iiungh.”

“He’s awake!” Brigit shouted, leaping off her chair. Oliver tried to follow with his eyes and found it extremely painful. With a great deal of effort, he managed to flop his head to the side to see the entire Quidditch team come roiling into the Infirmary.

In the ensuing hooting and shouting before Madam Pomfrey came to sternly clear everybody out, Oliver gathered that he’d been unconscious for the better part of a week.

“Out!” Pomfrey was roaring. “He needs QUIET!”

“Please, Ma’am,” Tracey pled, “can’t I at least tell him how the game turned out?”

“All right,” she said grudgingly. “But only you may stay, and only for fifteen minutes, no more!”

“It was bloody brilliant!” Tracey told Oliver when Pomfrey had left them. “The way you blocked that shot! You’re a born Keeper!”

“I am?” Oliver said dazedly. “I always played Chaser before…”

“There won’t be any more of that!” Tracey cut him off with glee. “You’ll have to finish out this year as a Beater, obviously, cause that’s where we need you, but you can train with Jenny and she’s graduating, and by next year you’ll be aces…”

By the time Tracey was forced out by Pomfrey, Oliver’s head was filled with Quidditch Cups and glory, and he was still daydreaming when Percy came to visit him that afternoon.

“I knew it!” Percy said immediately.

“That I’d be terrific?” Oliver asked. “I was, too!”

“No, that you’d get brained by a Bludger!” Percy said in exasperation. “I hope you’ll be sensible now and give it up!”

“Give up Quidditch!” Oliver looked horrified. “Percy, you’re off your nut! That was the greatest game ever!”

“It was five minutes long!” Percy exclaimed. “Oliver, I thought you’d been killed, you fell off your broom and hit the ground and you weren’t moving…”

“Oh, dry up!” Oliver snapped at last. “You sound like my mum, always needling me about something. Go away and let me sleep if you’re just going to nag.”

Oliver rolled onto his side, completely missing the look of hurt that crossed Percy’s face. Biting his lip, Percy left Oliver alone, soft footfalls echoing through the infirmary.

The next day, Percy refused to look up when Oliver asked he could sit with him at lunch. From the other end of the table Tracey and the others on the team called Oliver to come and join them.

Oliver joined their group without looking back once.

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