Oliver Wood is stubborn, confident, and brave... or at least that's the façade he wishes to show. Lying is easy for Oliver, but living is harder when a white-haired girl crashes into him by chance. It's too bad she's the younger sister of his quiddi...
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June 15 - 1991
Small sobs echoed off the cold walls of the desolate changing room. Well, not completely desolate. Gryffindor's quidditch team captain sat rigidly in the far corner of the room with his knees up to his chest and hands pulling at his hair, tugging ferociously at the migraine that held itself there. He shook with a violent stream of anxiety flying through his veins like a snitch in the air.
His name was Oliver Wood, and he - his brown eyes dragged up, trailing the clock on the wall - had ten minutes until his final play of the season. Ten minutes until he would need to be out there, front and centre, ready to win against Ravenclaw. He needed to win.
It was his first year as captain and it would be an understatement to say that he had done everything in his power to get himself and his team this far in the competition, he couldn't lose all that now. However, the Scottish boy's nerves had other ideas.
Perhaps it was the growing pressure from the crowd. Or his untamed, desperate will to win. But before each game, when the crowd whirled and hurled their supports from the stands above, it was as if an electric chain reaction set off within him. The feeling started in the pit of his stomach, then rose to his chest with shaky breaths. He could handle that. But as the anxiety manifested over his skin, setting alight to the paling tissue, he became a forest fire of doubt, burning wildly with his defences crumbling. And that was uncontrollable.
They were incredibly important to him, these games. They were his keep, his mind's focus throughout the day. Every day. He worked hard at it, and his skills paid off. He was good. He was destined for more; bigger stadiums, louder crowds, professional teams. And that's why no one could know. No one could know of his tremors, the prickling worries that splintered his mind. He would keep it a secret, and has done for years; not even his team knew.
He had to keep up a strong front. He had to lie. Push through and ignore the flooding heart wrench that tightened a noose round his neck. But with every game, the closer he got to the Quidditch cup final, the noose tightened. It encircled his skin and tugged with pinching, pricking and punching pain. It was getting harder, more suffocating to keep up his Gryffindor braveness, the façade that everybody else saw.
But he had to. And he had to do it alone.
Oliver's eyes stayed on the clock, losing himself in the rhythmic beat of the clock's tick and chime. He thought that would calm him, the song of time lulling him into a daze that would, eventually, calm his nerves. But the ticks nor the chime did any good. His attempts failed, and so his tears would continue to paint his face, watercolour his cheeks as they fell onto his chapped lips. They tasted of salt, and the boy cringed, rushing to wipe them from his mouth. He wished for them to stop. This wasn't him.
