Serendipity: An Oliver Wood Fanfiction

Chapter 13

Oliver was sitting on one of the beds when Alhena arrived at the hospital wing the next morning. It wasn't unusual for Quidditch players to go for a quick check up after a game, but Alhena hadn't expected to see Oliver so soon. 

"Hello." She spoke, and he looked up at her as Madam Pomfrey fussed over Draco on the bed opposite them. The word felt foreign in her tongue. She wasn't sure if she'd ever greeted him like that. With a hey, hi, hello, or anything of the sort. 

"Hi." He smiled half heartedly, and Alhena sat beside him, putting a bit of distance between them. "Will you say no?" He spoke after a moment. "I don't know." She whispered. "You told me you wanted to disappear when you graduated." 

She nodded. "You don't want to say yes because your family could find you, but so could mine." He shrugged. "Don't invalidate my own fears and plans for the future just because we have similar experiences." She growled. "Sorry, I didn't-"

"It's fine." She shook her head. "Do you have a plan on where you'll go? What you'll do? Who you'll be?" He asked her. "I don't, I never got past the embarrassing my family part, to tell the truth. I had a few ideas, but.."

"You could use a stage name, you know. You could tell Puddlemere United to call you sonic, they already think it's your name." He chuckled, and the sound warmed her slightly. At least one of them didn't feel totally hopeless. "What if it doesn't work." She mumbled. "What if it does?" He counteracted. 

Madam Pomfrey came over after that, and Alhena had no time to discuss it further with Oliver, before he was ushered outside, and Alhena was tended to. 

----

When Alhena left the hospital wing, a bandage covering a minor cut on her left arm, Oliver was waiting for her. He sat beside the door, on a stone edging at the wall. Alhena sighed, and he looked up from his wand which he was polishing. 

"Alhena." He stood to his feet in a moment, his eyes darting to the bandage on her left arm. "Just a cut." She clarified, before he could ask. "You want to pester me about my decision." It wasn't a question. "And you want to be pestered." Oliver grinned. 

"I do not." She lied, but she did. She couldn't sort through her mess of a brain on her own. "You would've walked straight past me if that wasn't the case." He shrugged, sitting back down. She joined him. 

"Snape is furious. He told my parents what happened, and they're coming themselves to pick me up after we graduate in two weeks." She told him. It was weird saying it, that they were actually graduating so soon. She'd somehow evaded Easter break with her family, but after the stunt she pulled yesterday.. 

"I got a howler." Oliver chuckled. "It was from my step mother. She's furious. She doesn't know about Puddlemere yet, though." He turned his foot out, bumping her own shoe lightly. She slid away from him. 

"What will you do?" She asked him, and he took a moment to respond. "I think I'll just go for it, no plans, no nothing. How will they get to me anyway? It's not like they'll set an assassin or some horrible creature on me. They won't follow me around the world, either, as we-- as I play Quidditch with Puddlemere."

Alhena knew he was subtly trying to convince her to follow what his own plan was, but she still wasn't convinced. "I suppose a stage name wouldn't be so bad." She began. "However, my parents are in a place of authority in the Ministry. I feel they could somehow manipulate me off the field, or get others to do it for them. Disappearing to a foreign country is-"

"The easy option." Oliver cut her off. "You're not even willing to try? What if you just gave it a go, and waited until the season was over when they would decide if we'll be permanent members of the team? If things go wrong before then, then you can run away to France or Italy, or wherever it is you want to go. Though I'm not sure how you'll manage that without a visa."