Drawing Places (Oliver Wood x reader)

Duodetriginta

Taylor was bursting with questions. I hadn't even made it off the train before she exploded into a jumble of words about the weather and kangaroos, and houses on stilts.

"Oh my god!" I yelled, almost tripping over her. "Let me get back to our firm first!"
I recounted Christmas to the girls during the start of term feast.

I had three cousins in Australia, all from my dad's side. Nora, whose house I stayed at, and shared a bed with for two weeks, and Toby and Brett, who lived about a fifteen-minute drive away. They lived in Northern New South Wales, and for the entire two weeks, I was wearing shorts and singlets and was completely drenched in sweat. It was sticky and gross, and there were about a million bugs. And for some reason, no one knew what an air-conditioner was?

"Come on, It can't have been all bad?" Michelle pressed, while picking at her food. I noticed she didn't have much of an appetite.

"No, we did go to the beach once, and then Nora taught me this thing called boogie-boarding." I tried to think about it. "And we had a barbecue, and my uncle cooked seafood."

"On the barbecue?"

The conversation continued on for the rest of the evening. After they'd squeezed every bit of information they could about Australia from me, they moved on to everyone else's Christmases. And after that, it dawned on is that we'd have classes in the morning, and couldn't stay up all night talking.

I did my rounds alone, because Percy still wasn't speaking to me. During my rounds, I ran into Marcus Flint, who I hadn't seen much of since the start of school. I'm sure he was around, but we weren't in. the same circles, and he kept to himself in class now, so I guess he'd gone under the radar. for a while.
Still, he was out past curfew, and I couldn't help but wonder what he was doing.

When I asked, he seemed less than happy to share. Having spent enough time around the twins, I knew that didn't mean anything good.
"If you don't tell me, I'll get faculty involved," I threatened.
He still didn't tell me, and elected to shove me against the wall and take off instead. I didn't chase him, just made a note to tell Snape about it in the morning.

~

Oliver woke me up while it was still dark, and dragged me out to the Quidditch pitch. No one else from the team was there, so I was a little confused, but I knew to trust him. There was always some method to his madness... Usually.

This particular morning, he was in the mood to practice blocking goals. I figured he'd been cooped up inside over Christmas, and was just itching to get back on a broomstick. From what my other friends had told me, there'd been a series of blizzards across Scotland, and lot of people had been trapped inside.

So, we mounted our brooms and began practicing drills together, him rubbing it in my face every time he blocked a goal, and me doing the same when I got one in.
After a while, we landed back on the ground, and took a breather. I laid down in the wet grass, and turned to watch the empty stands, banners softly flapping in the breeze. Oliver stayed standing, drinking from his water bottle and pacing.

"So, when we play against Ravenclaw we really have to focus on our group movements. Before Christmas break I sat in on one of their practices, and I learnt that they all tend to do their own thing, they're not a close-net team like us." Oliver looked down at me, then kept pacing. "They don't speak to each other when they play, and it leaves things... ambiguous."

I groaned, and pulled myself to where I was resting on my elbows, "Can't you wait til practice to talk strategy with me? I mean, you drag me out here, and I'm happy to play Quidditch with you, but it's six am, I don't wanna hear about any other house in this school until at least nine."

"Ok, I'll drop it," he said, sitting down next to me, "but first you have to give me a suggestion. How do we improve our teamwork?"

I reached out for his hand. "Make everyone play a different position. You and the twins as Chasers, Angelina as Seeker, so on, so forth, what have you."

"Man, this is why I love you!"
I grinned, "That's the only reason, huh?" Oliver gave me look, and pushed my shoulder. "Ok! I love you too! Now knock it off."