The Chaser : A Fred Weasley Fan Fic

One: Wood

"You've never played Quidditch before!" Oliver practically leapt off his bed and on to his feet, shaking his head furiously at me.

He'd gone red in the face as he paced back and forth, acting as though I'd called his mother an awful name. I knew he took the game seriously but not quite like this.

"I'm muggle born, Oliver. How many times do I have to remind you that?" I sighed, glancing back down at the book he'd been showing me, Flying with the Cannons.

Oliver Wood and I had been meeting like this for some time now, since the end of my fourth year. I'd been somewhat taken by him at the end of year common room party and threw caution to the wind, deciding it was finally time I got my first time over and done with. He was drunk and sloppy but more than made up for it with his enthusiasm. Let's just say, he is the same in bed as he is on the pitch, quick and rarely misses.

I'd fallen in to a comfortable routine after that, coming to his dorm every Friday night before his Quidditch practice. It wasn't that I liked him and this was hardly a relationship, it was convenient and the opportunity to sneak into an older boy's dorm was far too exciting to pass up. Though my dorm mate sorely disapproved.

I quickly realised Quidditch really was all he cared about and often our nocturnal activities would be interrupted by him wanting to go through a play-by-play of his most recent practice, but I found I could easily tune it out if I just smiled and nodded along, patiently waiting for him to get to the good bit.

"Tilly, you have to give it a go!" he grinned, sitting back down on the bed next to me. I rolled my eyes at him, but couldn't help looking down at the moving images in the book longingly.

I was a fair flyer and I had always thought I'd be rather good if I had given it a try in the beginning. But I was a fifth year now, it hardly felt like there was much time to make a real impact on the Gryffindor team.

"I was good at sports when I was at a muggle school you know, on the girls football team" I mumbled, flicked to another page.

"When you were at school...so when you were ten?" Oliver asked, furrowing his brows at me. He was an insensitive git sometimes, unable to see much past his own obsession with that game. But I didn't let it get to me.

"Yes, but- I don't know I thought it might transfer" I muttered, feeling rather embarrassed I'd brought it up at all.

"Football is a bit like Quidditch isn't it? But they use their- what do they use again?" He asked.

"Their feet..." I stared back at him blankly and he nodded, as though he was taking in new information.

I had never quite got used to how little pure blood wizards knew of the muggle world, but Oliver was something else. He had been completely sheltered from everything outside of the Wizarding World, I'd once been told that when the topic of Basketball had been brought up, he'd never even heard of it.

"Right, their feet" he repeated, "Well, come with me to practice I'll be going soon, it's just a solo one tonight so nobody will be there to watch if you fall off your broom"

A big toothy grin stretched across his face and I knew that he meant well, but I had been looking forward to doing another strenuous activity tonight that didn't involve going outside or getting on a broom. But he wasn't going to take no for an answer so I did the polite thing and nodded along, sealing my fate.

"Alright then! Put your robe on and we'll go" he said, clapping his hands together and getting to his feet to put his Quidditch jumper and robe on.

I shuffled down the steps of the boys dorm and out into the common room after him, wary that I wasn't really meant to have been up there in the first place. Luckily the head boy, Percy Weasley, was preoccupied, trying to stop his brothers from throwing Exploding Snap cards into the fireplace to see what would happen.