Work Text:
A Game, A House, A Family, A Love
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: This is a piece written from Scrivenshaft cycle X. It has gone through severe editing (several times). To submit it to the contest, I did some cutting, nothing really major or that I was attached to, but I also wrote the last part a lot shorter than the rest, and it was my favorite story. So I went back, and added back in bits and pieces and wrote, almost a complete rewrite for the last bit. I hope you enjoy it.
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Oliver Wood is a Quidditch player. Since he first looked at a broom, he has been a Quidditch player. A fanatic his Hogwarts team used to call him. Back when he was a captain, when he was important. Back when he was at school. He was obsessed with winning back then. He barely passed his N.E.W.T.S because of it, leaving his career options slightly limited. Oliver thinks it was worth it for the cup.
Now however, he is not so sure. When he first got signed for the Puddlemere United, he wasn’t so sure. When Cedric Diggory, the boy he had played against for years, died, he wasn’t so sure. At the funeral, when he fell asleep, too tired from workouts and plays, and when Dumbledore made subtle comments about the good side and the upcoming war, he wasn’t so sure. To make up for these thoughts he finds that he firmly tells himself off once a day.
Quidditch players are not made for war.
At the rise of Voldemort, not for the first time, Oliver is not so sure of his future. And sometimes, when he hears of a new death, when he hears of Dumbledore’s death, he regrets being a Quidditch player.
After three years of Oliver being a reserve, three years into his career and two years into the war, Oedipus Danphers, top keeper for Puddlemere United, is found dead in an alley. Oliver is not sure whether he should feel upset or grateful for the opportunity. It is only when they find the mark on Danphers’ arm does he decide. Oliver feels sick.
When professional Quidditch is cancelled because of the war, Oliver does not feel relief. He can do nothing but Quidditch. He is made for games and rule abiding players. He knows there are no referees in war. When he runs into Bill Weasley at a pub, his eyes do not leave the scars marring his face as Bill quietly invites him to join the good fight. Oliver knows he is not made for the battlefield. He tells Bill that he cannot give his alliance to anything but a broom. He smiles as he says this, shaky at first and then scared as Bill’s eyes turn cold and he excuses himself.
It isn’t a week later that a young boy brushes against his shoulder in Diagon Alley. Oliver smiles down at him kindly, only to be met with a wide-eyed glare. The boy is wearing Slytherin robes and carries himself with a distinctly pureblood arrogance. Oliver is too worn to glare back, so he turns and walks away.
“Oliver Wood,” a still high voice sneers after him. Oliver stops walking. The boy knows his name and he does not think it is from Quidditch.
“Flint is saving you for himself, but I think you may remember how minimal his patience is,” Oliver buries his fingernails into his hands. He does this to keep them from shaking. He knows he means Marcus Flint. Marcus Flint is a Quidditch player. A Slytherin, but still a Quidditch player. He should not be in the war. But Oliver knows he is. He turns around to look at the boy, a boy who can be no more than thirteen, a boy leaving threats from Death Eaters.
This makes Oliver burn for some reason. This war has affected everyone, down to thirteen-year-old boys, but Oliver has tried his best not to notice. He remembers all the visits his Hogwarts team made to the hospital wing to see Harry Potter. He thinks of his best beaters’ faces when their sister was taken from them. He sees their brother’s face, so serious as he asks Oliver to help, and Oliver cannot get the scars out of his head. He remembers how his Puddlemere coach and their star chaser refused to go to the funeral of a teammate. Then he remembers the teammate’s wife, and her ashen, but proud face, as she ignored the whispers.
He thinks of how much he loves Quidditch. He remembers the freedom he feels on his broom, how important he feels when he manages the get a save. Then he thinks of how much You-Know-Who has already destroyed of his Quidditch. He remembers the celebrations of the Quidditch World cup, the year he was signed professionally, being ruined with the destruction of The Death Eaters. He seethes when he recalls why he is here in the alley instead of on the pitch. Then he remembers Oedipus, a good keeper, a teammate who turned against them all. He remembers thinking Oedipus made the wrong choice, but now he thinks at least he made one. Then he remembers what the war had really done to him. It had made him a coward. Oliver Wood has played Quidditch in blizzards, in lightning, against future Death Eaters. Oliver is not a coward. In that moment, he decides.
“I’d watch your back if I were you Wood. Not that it will do any good. You’re not a fighter,” With that Malcolm Baddock turns away. But the strength with which Oliver answers startles them both.
“Yes I am,” The boy stares at him incredulously. Oliver pulls himself up straighter, feeling the muscles he has from Quidditch tighten. With a proud smile he adds “I’m going to win too.” Mentally, however he says ‘We are going to win’.
That night he owls Bill Weasley and gives him his alliance. He proudly tells Bill that they will win and he feels like the noble Quidditch player he was, not the coward he pretended. He imagines charts and plays with daring maneuvers. He believes he was made for this game. He is again obsessed with winning. He thinks back on his old thoughts, all his excuses that kept him out of the war. Oliver knows that yes, he is a Quidditch player; he has been since he was first on a broom. But Oliver is also a soldier. He thinks that if he can win a game, he can win a war.
It is only when he is in bed, that he remembers the words Dumbledore spoke. At the time he wanted to laugh and correct the old man. Now, once again, Oliver is not so sure and Dumbledore’s words echo every time he raises his wand during the war, until he can no longer hold it.
“No one is winning Oliver, Quidditch isn’t a war.”
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Malcolm Baddock remembers his sorting very well. When the hat touched his head it told him he had a choice. It explained that with some houses, some times, during desperate times, their alliances extended beyond school and point systems. The hat warned him that some choices would mean his life. Malcolm ignored these warnings and took the path he was supposed to. He always feels a little embarrassed when he remembers how long it took the hat it say it, and he is glad no one heard the it’s warning.
“There will be a day you will regret this.”
Malcolm is a Slytherin, and Slytherins value loyalty just as much as Hufflepuffs. Only Slytherins owe loyalty to their house, to their blood and to their cause. The only loyalty they have to each other is what falls within these boundaries. This did not mean anything until the end of his first year, when he and his friends sat sneering at the grassy maze, taking bets at when Perfect Harry Potter would send up sparks. Malcolm Baddock did not have a loyal cause until Cedric Diggory’s body portkeyed back to the pitch.
The Dark Lord’s reign started for him in his first year of Hogwarts. There were always whispers in the common room of his deeds and his orders. Malcolm’s father told stories of the glory days, of the death of the Order, of the Bones murders. He imparted these stories to his house and smiled as his popularity grew. His father helped murder the entire Bones family the very day before The Dark Lord’s first (and only) defeat. He would laugh to himself as he saw their niece in the hallway.
In his third year, there are whispers of a new servant among them. It does not take much for him to find out whom from his father. From that day on he treats Draco Malfoy respectfully. He is amazed when he learns what Malfoy’s task is. He watches Malfoy often, glancing quietly between him and his ‘task’. Malcolm wonders if Malfoy can actually do it. His loyalty of house does not allow those thoughts. When Malcolm’s father tells him Malfoy failed, and what Dolohov heard Dumbledore say to him that made him lower his wand, the words ring over and over in Malcolm’s brain like a warning. Starting that day, Malcolm tries to differentiate himself from him, but he cannot. His identity grows fuzzy in his eyes.
It is the summer after his 3rd year, after his failure that Malcolm goes on his first mission. It is to give a warning. This is his chance to prove that he is different from him, to prove his loyalty. Loyalty to his house, to Flint’s house, loyalty to his blood, his father’s blood, and loyalty to the cause, everyone else’s cause. In his loyalty to the first two, he is loyal to this cause, but he tries not to feel bound. This is ruined when Oliver Wood shows doubt in the cause. Wood is the first person Malcolm knows who does not think they will win the war. It is an inkling of doubt, one that is planted and grows in his mind, making the warning ring louder.
Not a year later, he tries his hardest to think that they proved Wood wrong when he attends Wood’s funeral accompanied by his father and a gloating Flint. It is there he sees Susan Bones, the niece, the cousin, the blood of those his father helped to murder. She stands staring straight towards Wood’s coffin. When she steps forward with her mother to put her handful of dirt on the grave, she looks straight into his eyes. Her mother sees him and his father, and she looks terrified. She turns pale and almost running, stumbles away. Malcolm remembers how proud he used to be, telling his father’s story. Now, as he avoids Susan’s face, he cannot conjure that pride. Susan steps forward but not with the glare he expects. She looks at him, as though sizing him up. She stares hard at his forearm, covered in his black dress shirt, which his mother bought him for this occasion. She looks him in his eyes and he knows right away what she sees.
The doubt that has been building up in him since Wood first insinuated the failure of his cause comes to its final head. Words start to run though his mind as he fights to keep his panic from further betraying him. His father’s proud stories about the glory days, the sorting hats warning. You will regret this it said. Maybe that was really where his doubt started. The screams of the crowd when Cedric’s body is found, Dumbledore’s toast to the loyal friend and The Dark Lord’s first victim. Malcolm feels bile rising in his throat as he struggles to keep his face in a carefully composed mask. The words Dumbledore spoke to him, the words that proved true, send the bells in his mind to a deafening level. His words to Wood seem to echo Dumbledore’s but they serve an entirely different purpose. Why had he subconsciously chosen the words that started his transformation into him? You’re not…
When Susan finally speaks, her words remind him so much of the ones that are killing him but he cannot manage to challenge her back, the way Wood did. They confirm what he has known since his failure. But they contradict the crest on his robes, the blood in his veins and the fresh mark on his arm. It is then that Malcolm pays attention to the sorting hat and for the first time, he feels truly bound. He now understands his failing. He understands how a simple sentence can destroy everything you honored.
The look in Susan’s eyes as she speaks is of conviction. They both know it is true. But there is compassion as well, for she too understands loyalty to house, blood and a cause. They both know they have no choice anymore. So she speaks the truth that is unchangeable. The words that once blurred his loyalty, his identity, now destroy it. Draco, Draco you’re not….
“ You’re not a killer,”
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Susan Bones grew up on stories. From the beginning of her memories her grandparents, her parents or her aunt were spinning tales together for her pleasure. Her grandparents’ stories were about their childhood and almost entirely fabricated. Her mother’s stories were always fairytales she found is a gild edged book in Flourish and Blotts and the only stories her father told her were replays of the latest Quidditch game. Her Aunt Amelia’s stories were almost always true and they always ended unhappily.
Aunt Amelia told stories about the first war late at night when she visited, after both of Susan’s parents were asleep. She told Susan about a secret organization of brave people like she would one day be. One night, when Susan was a little older, the night before her first trip to platform 93/4, her aunt told her about her uncle’s murder.
That night, her mother heard Aunt Amelia’s stories. The next day at the train station, as Susan leaned out the window to say goodbye, she saw them speaking, her mother’s eyes flashing. She felt proud of her Aunt as she stood straight and refused to say You-Know-Who like her mother. She was proud that Aunt Amelia had been so loyal to the cause, and wouldn’t betray it by lying like her parents. Susan smiled to herself. She wanted to be like her aunt one day. She leaned further out the window to yell goodbye, but all the sudden she couldn’t get it out. Her mother had said she hadn’t the right to be like Amelia and fight. Aunt Amelia’s face told her everything. There was a reason she must fight, and more than the one she gave to her mother.
“It’s her legacy to follow.”
When Susan came home for Christmas, Aunt Amelia did not visit. It was the first Christmas Susan spent without hearing one of her stories. Her mum tried to tell her a story from her gold book, but Susan felt an unfamiliar sneer graze her lips, and she patiently told her she is too old for such silly stories.
Susan did not go home for Easter holiday, or any holidays again. Susan enjoys her holidays at Hogwarts, which she uses for twenty-four hour research. She smiles sardonically to herself when a friend jokes she should’ve been a Ravenclaw. The more curses she learns and the more battles she studies, the more she thinks she should’ve been a Slytherin. These thoughts sicken her, but at first so did the curses and stories she read. At some point Susan started to become numb to the bloodshed and hate she studies. This thought does not sit well with her when she remembers her Aunt’s passionate, steady voice and flashing eyes. She repeats to herself the stories that caused this need in her. She learns as much as she can about her Uncle’s death, which is not much, and it doesn’t spark any passion within her. At some point, Susan’s only reason for preparing for a war was the fact that her family had been killed, the fact that it was her legacy. Susan cannot think of any other reason, but she cannot stop.
“Brandwond voor altijd is a curse based off the Grubraithian fire, made up in the late 1700’s by an unknown Dutch wizard. Its effects include…” Susan is reading that sentence, the summer before her 6th year at school, nearly six years after she last saw Aunt Amelia, and five and a half since she spoke anything but politely to her mum, when a ministry owl informs her of her Aunt’s death. Susan feels ill, in a burning sense. Brandwond…. Susan feels a fire building in her stomach that extends slowly behind her eyes until it finally reaches her throat. At her screaming, her mother comes running but by the time she reaches Susan, the study has been all but burned down, flames still leaping into the air, even when they had nothing to feed them.
Susan Bones knows passion. In her mind she sees her Aunt’s flashing eyes and this makes her smile. She has finally started to follow her legacy. In her seventh year McGonagall invites her into the Order, and it is through that which she finally learns who killed her family and she feels a slight fire flare up, but without fear.
She sees Malcolm Baddock at Oliver Wood’s funeral that year, and she wants to curse him. She wants to burn the mark off his arm. She hears her Aunt’s voice in her head and she thinks of her family. Her mother scampers off but Susan walks forward. The look in Malcolm’s eyes nearly stops her though. She sees a Slytherin crest on the tie around his neck, and she almost can feel the very blood pump through her veins. Susan understands suddenly why her mother kept her away from it all. She understands being bound by something. This thought leaves her unsteady and doubting. She understands family, and she understands loyalty all too well. When Susan is with Ginny at the ministry a month later and they run into Penelope Clearwater, she sees what Ginny cannot, the loyalty Penelope cannot control and Susan feels like a traitor.
Susan Bones calls Penelope Clearwater a traitor that day in the ministry. Penelope tugs on a curl and answers her with a fact that Susan already understands. Susan is beginning to hate the war and to hate her family. She hates her Aunt for leaving her bound to a legacy she doesn’t want anymore. She hates Oliver for dying when she thought he’d be a kid forever in love with a broom. She hates Malcolm Baddock for being a kid who is trapped, and she hates Penelope for being a woman who is equally trapped. Susan feels a fire burning within her again, but this time she fears it is burning her down. She feels like some sacrifice all of the sudden and she doesn’t like it. She feels a familiar burn in her throat. She finds it ironic that no family is there for her this time. She thinks she could open up and laugh, if she didn’t think she would end up screaming. Her mother’s hateful words eventually cause her to yell as they repeat themselves again and again, overlapping Penelope’s and her aunt’s.
Susan Bones understands passion but she also understands cages made from blood. Susan Bones understands legacy but she also thinks she only now knows the difference from a legacy and revenge. Susan wants to shriek and bawl until she has burned down all the bars from her cage and coffin around Oliver and the chains attached to Penelope and Malcolm. She wonders if the screams she hears echoing around her are enough to burn the blood from her veins and her family’s words from her mind.
“Susan is not some martyr for your mistakes, Amelia.”
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Penelope Clearwater is a muggleborn thrust into a world full of magic. There are times when she still doesn’t really believe any of it. Penelope thinks that she is ordinary in every sense of the word. The only thing she was ever proud of prior to getting her Hogwarts letter was her hair. But even in Hogwarts, being magical with lovely hair didn’t mean anything. Even when she is made a prefect in her fifth year, it doesn’t change. She wants to be special someway. Though she would never admit it, she is terribly jealous of people like Harry Potter or Cho Chang, even her Professors at times. She wants to be the savior or the athlete, respected. She sometimes wishes she were pureblood, thinking that being part of one of those seven special families would mean she was important, that she stood out. She thinks that if she wasn’t a stupid muggleborn witch that no one wanted, she wouldn’t think everything about her life was a dream. These thoughts will one day sicken her, when she realizes that after being attacked by someone who agrees with them, they still do not go away. Penelope is sick of dreaming. This is until a boy in glinting glasses and a straight tie kisses her tentatively and tugs on one of her dark curls. Penelope thinks that if she is dreaming Percy Weasley, then that is okay.
Percy is spectacularly smart, with unordinary red hair. He is a prefect and eventually head boy and he has blood flowing in his veins that she always wanted to be in hers. Percy Weasley is anything but ordinary. Penelope is content to trail along behind him, if it will let her bask in his light. She is incredibly proud when he gets his job at the ministry, and when he judges the triwizard tournament. She makes him special dinners and lets him grab fistfuls of her dark hair. He still kisses her tentatively, though sometimes she thinks it is more without passion. She hates these doubts she has of him, just as she hates the coldness of his glasses pressed against her skin and how she hates how he refuses to let her press his clothing. The doubts come faster when he moves in with her, claiming his family are traitors. She always wanted to be part of that family, and now she fears she never will.
She visits him often at the ministry and grows more disgusted with the rumors and corruption she witnesses. There are nights when she cries to him, wanting to beg him to leave those places, to go home. She never does get the words out. He strokes her hair and she loves him and knows she can do nothing about it anymore. She knows Percy is making mistakes and that she’s letting him. He proudly proclaims Voldemort is not back and no, he will not hurt Muggles. They both know he is lying, but even when Susan Bones and Ginny Weasley tell her she’s protecting a murderer, she cannot tell the truth. She cannot believe them, and she cannot disbelieve Percy.
“I love him more than I could love a cause.”
Penelope feels like a coward when she says it, but she knows she is not. Penelope is merely ordinary and maybe sometimes a liar. She loves Percy, despite his mistakes. He is and always will be a lovely dream to her. Even though she confuses it with a nightmare sometimes, when she hears his thoughts on Dumbledore or the ministry or Fudge. Those were the times that made her cry and plead with him more often than not. She hated those nights. She hated the feeling in her throat she got during his rants. It reminded her of when she was little, and she swallowed the little silvery, star-shaped button from a dance costume. She used to wonder sometimes if eating small pieces of bread and drinking gulps of water would help her now. She knew eventually she would give in and cry and her eyes would get swollen. She knew that Percy would keep talking, only softer, like a she imagines he used to speak to Ginny, when they did still speak. And as her sobs slow down, his voice would get low and caressing. He would start to call her Penny. His Penny, his lucky Penny.
But nowadays she doesn’t even cry for him anymore. The more murders she reads of in the Prophet (before Percy cancels it) and the more the ministry recants its opinions of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or Dumbledore, the more she curls into herself. Penelope stops visiting the ministry to see Percy. She spends many days on the balcony of her, their flat, one of Percy’s old sweaters wrapped around her steadily thinning shoulders, her own hand, still vacant of a ring, wrapped around a cooling cup of tea. Penelope never drinks these cups of tea. They become a test for her. She tells her self she will drink it when Percy gets home. She will drink if he drinks with her. He is hardly ever home before her tea grows cold. The nights he is, she finds she cannot bear to drink it. She fears she may start choking.
There is a night when Percy comes home, almost on time. He clears another cold cup of tea, without so much as raising an eyebrow. He pulls out some folder and locks himself in his study without asking or talking or touching. Penelope almost thinks about crying. Instead she just goes to bed. That night, it seems almost weeks later, a knocking on her (their) flat door wakes her up and it is a tall, imposing man who only asks to see Percival and sneers at her back when she leaves the room.
Penelope leans against the cool wall in the hallway and hesitantly pulls out the extendable ear that Percy’s brothers sent her. They told her that she might want to pay closer attention to Percy’s doings. Penelope never thought she’d have the guts to eavesdrop on Percy, but she also never thought she’d be afraid of the man she loved either. Before she can back down, she lets the twins’ magic do it’s job. The man introduces himself as Mr.Baddock, a name that has Percy offering seats and hot tea and my pleasures. Percy stops speaking and Penelope stops breathing when Mr.Baddock tells him the Dark Lord is interested in him.
Penelope bites back the first sob she has wanted to breathe in months when Percy says he’ll consider. She feels a familiar poking in her throat, the one that reminds her of her childhood, of buttons and cold tea and of the nights spent with red eyes and tissues. Penelope pulls out the ear before she gives in. She wishes for simplicity. For bread balls and water and maybe for a lucky Penny. She wishes desperately never to feel like this again. She wishes for an end.
It is there, sobbing against the hallway wall, clutching the ear to her chest, that Percy finds her no more than ten minutes later. “Penny…” he says more softly than she’s heard him ever speak. He falls beside her and starts begging then, pleading with red eyes and a hoarse voice that reminds her once again of choking. He tells her very little, but still she thinks this is the most they’ve spoken in months. He tells her about errors in judgment and little lies. She only picks up strings of words between the sobbing of both of them. She thinks back to a cracked compact mirror and the shivers the glint of his glasses used to give her because of it. She thinks of red hair and funerals. She remembers the first time Percy told her he loved her. He was scared and Ron had almost drowned or he had thought. It had been a mistake he’d said. I was wrong, I misunderstood. Penny said she forgave him, though at the time she didn’t know what for. Then he had said it.
She remembers a caught feeling, like a hook holding her in place by her throat and the hundreds of wasted teas left for him to pick up. Penelope knows that she wouldn’t be crying if she were extraordinary. She knows she would have left before her tea went cold if she were special. But Penelope also knows that if she completely ordinary, she wouldn’t be feeling like this in the first place. She also knows that she wouldn’t have forgiven him. Every time he picked up her full tea cup and cleaned it, she forgave him for the tea. She understands that now.
She is crumpled on the hallway floor, her thin body wrapped around his while they sob and he’s still speaking, softly, like he loves her. He speaks of jobs and stupidity and god he loves her and she’s so lucky and he wishes he could save her. Penelope knows she will love him for every time he says Penny and every time she has cried over him. She sealed herself into this feeling and she wants it to end, but then she will have nothing left to set her apart. They are like Romeo and Juliet or maybe, she feels, one day more like Othello and Desdemona. This is all she has, and she will accept it. He’s made a terrible mistake and Penelope knows she will forgive him, like she forgives them all. Penelope knows that she will love him despite murder. He cries and she stops her sobbing for the last time, knowing she is trapped by what she loves most.
“I could never leave you Percy,”