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1991
Oliver Wood breathed in once, long and deep, and exhaled just as slowly.
It was oddly quiet in the dorm—most of the other boys had already gone down to the courtyard. Oliver hadn’t even managed to pack all his things yet, much to Percy Weasley’s constant chagrin. The stuffy-nosed arsewipe had been especially annoying when he’d attempted to ‘help’ Oliver pack, and it was only after Oliver had threatened shoving his broomstick somewhere cold and unpleasant that Percy, with a grunt, had left him to it.
Oliver had made zero progress since. He knew he needed to be ready for the train but every time he went to fold another t-shirt or pair of socks, he knew next year would be different. Next year would be… weird. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but somehow going home meant coming back to a place that would have changed. He threw the t-shirt into the bag, sighing.
A stomp outside. A creaky floorboard. Oliver growled.
“Piss off, Perce!”
He didn’t even turn as he threw his pillow directly at the intruder’s face. He knew it landed due to the ‘oof’. He knew it wasn’t Percy when a deep snicker followed.
“Tell me it didn’t take four years for him to finally wind you up.”
Oliver’s cheeks turned redder than Charlie’s hair as he turned to face the older lad. Charlie held the pillow, dimples on show with a crooked grin. Oliver cleared his throat. Did it again. Smoothed down his shirt. “Sorry, Charlie.”
“Don’t be daft, Ol.” Charlie turned the pillow in his hands. “It was a good shot. Would have hit him. Ever thought about being a beater?”
“Not since the bludger to my face.”
“Oh. Yeah.” A weird expression flickered over Charlie’s face. Oliver wondered whether it was the memory of Oliver’s first game, the apparent ‘gallon of blood’ that spilled from his nose after taking a direct hit to the nose. Charlie had taken full responsibility for it, even though he’d been scouting the Snitch at the time and couldn’t afford to buffer typical Quidditch play. When Oliver finally woke in the infirmary, Charlie had been there with a half-eaten box of Chocolate Frogs, bags under his bright eyes, and chocolate smeared on his cheek where he’d fallen asleep on a wrapper.
Oliver’d been doomed.
“Just wanted to say bye and all that,” Charlie said, recovering by throwing the pillow back. Oliver didn’t attempt to catch it. ‘Goodbye’ sank, leaden, into his stomach.
“Off to see the world?” Oliver’s cheery tone didn’t match the attempted smile on his face, so he turned to fiddle with his suitcase strap. Charlie shrugged.
“Much of it as I can. Where there be dragons, there… I also… be.”
Oliver laughed then wrinkled his nose. “I thought you were trying out for the England team—”
“Thought about it.” Charlie leaned on one of the posts of Oliver’s bed, staring wistfully at nothing. “Don’t think that career’s for me. There’s only so much you can do with Quidditch. Stick to a schedule, scrutiny of media, have to watch what you eat. You have a shelf life. But can you imagine the work I could do with dragons? How little research there is considering their history? If we could study even a portion of the dragon population we’d be able to do so much to spread awareness and hopefully stop their dwindling numbers. Did you know there are some wizarding communities who still swear by dragon remedies? That there are some who even chain them like guard—”
Charlie ‘oof’ed as the pillow hit him in the face again. This time it was Oliver’s turn to grin.
“This is a bloody long goodbye.”
Charlie met Oliver’s grin with a brilliant one of his own. “Harsh but fair.”
In truth, Oliver could no longer stand watching him: Charlie lit up with so much enthusiasm speaking about dragons, a glimmer in his eye only ever present when dragons were even mentioned, that to even consider the next four years without his company felt like being hit with the bludger again.
“Listen, if you can swing a weekend or two, I’ll still be at the Burrow this summer.” Charlie dropped the pillow to the bed. “If you think you could stomach Percy, that is, even in passing. Promise you wouldn’t need to room with him.”
Oliver nodded, not sure why there was a lump in his throat as Charlie headed towards the door. With a forced mile and a mock-salute, Oliver said, “Aye aye, Cap’n.”
“Speaking of…” Charlie leaned so only his head was visible around the door. “I’ve recommended you be the next Quidditch Captain to McGonnypants, so maybe practice your motivational speeches, yeah?”
Before Oliver’s brows reached towards his hairline, Charlie was gone.
---
1994
The wind flew past Oliver’s hair as he zoomed around the grounds for the tenth time, iron grip on his broomstick, determination settled in his bones. This was his year. This was Puddlemere’s year. They’d lift the trophy. They’d celebrate. He’d prove not just to himself but to everyone that he was a bloody good Quidditch player, better than a reserve… that he was just bloody good!
An old oak rose in his path—he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere in his eagerness to beat his time. Careless. Cursing himself, he turned towards the Forbidden Forest and doubled back, hoping McGonagall didn’t see him whizz past her window. The Woods never lived too far from Hogwarts, and he loved to dip down around the mountains to train whenever he was back visiting. McGonagall had long argued with him about staying up all hours training—mostly, really, about keeping her students up all hours training—but he didn’t want her to have any fuel to add to that lovingly-scolding fire. Weirdly, he wanted her to be as proud of him as she had been of Charlie.
In Oliver’s first year, Charlie had been Gryffindor’s perfect Seeker. Everyone loved Charlie. His mop of red hair, debonair grin, freckles. He was in such a contrast to the rest of his family—Percy, the dour one in Oliver’s year, and Bill, the older, studious one who never liked when people caught him smiling—and Oliver was instantly attached.
When Charlie asked him to try out for the Quidditch Team the next year, Oliver had tripped over his shoelaces and careened headfirst into a secret passage on the second floor. He re-emerged on the fifth, riddled with cobwebs and hoping Charlie hadn’t had second thoughts.
Charlie was fourteen, a cool and charming youth who wowed people with his Seeking prowess. Oliver was twelve, clumsy, and ridiculous, who could get in the way quick enough to prevent the other side scoring a goal.
“That’s all there is to it!” Charlie insisted, but Oliver found his rhythm. He also found that the boy he had long idolized, that he yearned to impress, simply became a focus for yearning full stop.
Of course, this little tidbit hadn’t presented itself when Charlie was actually at school for Oliver to do anything about. It was more in the summer after Charlie’s graduation when, at the Burrow, Oliver found himself watching Charlie speed around the fields on his broom, or listening intently to Charlie’s thorough descriptions of the magical creatures that frequented the river nearby. Or when, as Oliver waved goodbye to the Weasley family, Charlie’s grin wasn’t half as bright as it usually was, his dimple barely there as Oliver zapped back home.
He hadn’t seen Charlie since—the man had taken a pilgrimage to Romania and his beloved dragons while Oliver…
A glimmer settled in the Forest. Oliver stopped his broom mid-flight. He could have been seeing things, but he’d have sworn someone had set up camp somewhere on the forest floor, a fire somewhere beneath the trees. Curious, Oliver guided his broom towards the treeline. There were plenty of rumours about going into the forest alone, and what state you’d be in if you ever survived. But he wasn’t worried about that—he had flight on his side. With a tightened grip on his broom, Oliver glided slow, quiet, stalking a light he wasn’t even sure hadn’t been a trick of his eyes.
Except a burst of flame and smoke suddenly confirmed he hadn’t been imagining things. Oliver cursed and stalled his descent a little too fast. The world turned upside down as he hit the forest floor with a soft thud. So much for being stealthy. If anything wanted to eat him now it’d have a brilliant chance. Though he was too sinewy to be a meal, and he wasn’t exactly alone.
As he scrambled among the leaves, Oliver took in his surroundings. A thicket. A dull roar. Fences… fences?
“Graceful as ever, Woodster.”
Oliver jumped. Charlie bloody Weasley stood above him, lopsided smile managing to stir Oliver to stand and infuriate him all at once. He should have said something about being a stranger, should have hugged him. Instead, Oliver gaped and gestured behind Charlie.
“What’s all this?”
Charlie folded his considerably buff arms and stepped in front of the enclosure, as though he were big enough to conceal everything within it. “Something for a thing at the school.”
Oliver rubbed his head. His landing hadn’t been very smooth. “What is it?”
“Secret. Can’t say.”
“Whatever is it better not damage my Seeker.”
“Don’t worry, Woodster, I’ll be fine.”
Oliver laughed. “Not you, numbskull, my Seeker. Potter. Golden boy, the boy who lived, the boy who helped our team win the Cup, the boy McGonagall declared better than you in his very first year, if you must know.”
Charlie’s cheeks flushed. “All right, all right. No need to go on about it.”
Another flare roared to life behind him. Charlie jumped, glancing over his shoulder in annoyance as Oliver’s eyes widened. “Is that—”
Despite his frown, Charlie’s lopsided smile lit up his face. “Yep.”
“Bloody hell, Charlie.”
“I know.”
“They’re actually—”
“Yep.”
“And they’re—”
“Yep.”
“Fuck me.”
Another flare, and Charlie’s face had reddened almost like he’d been burned. He cleared his throat. “You’d better be off before someone catches you. Can’t have Puddlemere’s criminally underused player slapped in Azkaban for trespassing can we.”
Dazzled by the dragons, Oliver blinked himself back to the man in front of him. “You follow the team?”
“Of course I follow the team. Romania has news, you know.” With a sneaky grin, Charlie fished out a chain from beneath his shirt, revealing stray curls of hair, and proudly displayed a Puddlemere United locket. “Go Puds.”
Oliver’s heart swelled. He had definitely grown—he looked like he should be in an adventure romance somewhere, wooing women in jungles and defeating evil overlords. It definitely wasn’t the dragons making heat crawl up Oliver’s neck as he studied the redhead in front of him.
“So—how long are you here for?”
“Until my task’s done. Nobody’s supposed to know I’m here.”
“Oh. Not a long time, I’m guessing.”
“Regrettably, no.”
“You’ll be gone by the end of this summer.”
“Most likely way before.”
Oliver nodded, lips pursed, staring behind Charlie at the very thing Charlie had left to become a man for. For what he loved to do. Something Oliver was incredibly proud of the Weasley for doing… but just as ready to forget, if it meant spending another minute with him.
“Better make the most of it, then.”
Charlie had been about to say ‘what’—Oliver knew, because when he kissed him, Charlie’s lips were shaped perfectly by his confusion, soft and firm. Before he could pull away Charlie gripped him closer, hardening the kiss into something Oliver would later recall, on a lazy, hazy fly back home, like pure dragon fire.
----
Later, 1994
The Quidditch World Cup was more than Oliver had ever imagined. Lights flashed above his head, the sizzle of fireworks casting a vibrant glow over the crowd as they filed from their tents toward the arena. Oliver turned, stunned, neck almost aching from how far he leaned to take in the view. If only they'd been able to win that last match, they'd have been in this final. If they'd been able...
A flash of red hair distracted him. Oliver saw Charlie everywhere these days: on a street outside Edinburgh cafes. At the Puddlemere United grounds in the middle of training. He told himself it was nothing more than anticipation—that he counted down the days to when they met again, and that Charlie most definitely was not popping up all over the shop just to see him. Charlie had work to do. Oliver had training to complete. If he was ever going to get off the bloody reserve team, it’d take more than speeding along the Scottish coastline on his broom, Charlie beside him as they worked up adrenaline before the inevitable tumble in the reeds and sand dunes that accepted them as they fell into each other’s arms.
It was pathetic, really, that Oliver saw Charlie everywhere. He was back in Romania, now. The Triwizard Tournament was long since over, and Charlie had postponed his return as long as he could. Oliver knew that.
So why was Charlie Weasley grinning at him from the side of a snack stand?
Oliver stopped against the flow of the crowd, earning some tuts and funny looks. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“Care to take a stroll, sir?” Charlie said, putting on a silly, gravelled voice that still managed to stir Oliver’s loins. “I heard there’s a reporter wanting an interview with Puddlemere United’s most handsome reserve player.”
“That player has an address.”
“The reporter couldn’t use an owl. Too slow. Plus, spontaneity seems to be something the player appreciates…”
Without another word, Oliver took Charlie’s hand and tugged him through the narrow passageways curling around the back of the area like Diagon Alley’s sneaking sidestreets. He had no idea where he was going, just that there were far too many eyes for his liking. Too many people who could glimpse and gossip, who could see a Weasley and a Quidditch Player and shout. Too many busybodies.
Too many clothes on Charlie.
His feet took him away from the crowds, towards the stadium and beneath it. Hardly anyone knew the magic of stadiums like this—but there was always a hollow. If there was anything handy for Quidditch Players to know, it was a nice, quiet place to recuperate in private.
Or other things.
Charlie laughed the second he realised where they were. “Oliver Wood. You are full of surprises. You know they could hear us—”
As if on cue, music blared from above. Of course, the Weasley would time his visit to the bloody world cup. The one time it was being held in the British Isles. Oliver had built up to this for months. His crew would wonder where he was, why he wasn’t enjoying everything he’d organised them to share.
Somehow, a snitch and half a million people or whatever paled in front of the man in front of him.
“I’m not the only one with surprises,” Oliver said. “I assume you came alone?”
"My family don't know I'm here. I'm meant to be winding my way back to Berlin before I go to Romania again."
"Mm. You do like the smoke and mirrors, don’t you? Nobody can know this, my family don’t know that…”
“I like being mysterious.”
Oliver snorted. “You’re about a subtle as a priest in knickers.”
“All right, less chit chat,” Charlie said through a chuckle. Oliver grinned to himself as Charlie tugged him deeper beneath the stands, the wail of the crowd above and the biggest match in Quidditch about to start mere feet away. "Got some lost time to make up for."
Oliver started on Charlie’s belt first, unhooking the loops with expert fingers. They’d long practiced this earlier in the year, and now… now he had it down to a fine art. "How'd you know I'd be here?" he asked as the announcer was greeted with roars.
"I didn't." Charlie’s hands ripping at Oliver's shirt, heated kisses against his neck. "I hoped."
Oliver sighed and leaned against something solid so his legs wouldn’t collapse. "Kiss me hard."
Charlie obliged.
As the match for the Cup waged above, a war of teeth and lips and hands commenced beneath. Charlie’s enormous groan as Oliver took him in his mouth, smothered by the crowd’s disappointment at a failed goal. Oliver’s whimper as Charlie trailed a line of kisses along his stomach, all the way to his neck, before he turned him torturously slowly around, a nuzzle of softness and affection, followed by the delicious, first sting of fingers finding their place and the eventual, all-consuming feeling of Charlie’s girth sliding inside of him.
They’d done this so often the last few months they knew each other’s tells, almost as though they were on the pitch. A hitch of a breath—slower. A low grunt—calm down, or it’ll be over too quickly. A gasp in unison—do that again. Oliver tilted back his head, resting it against his lover’s who accepted his mouth in a kiss. Everywhere Charlie touched ignited a fire, and Oliver wasn’t scared of dousing in flames.
It seemed like forever but not long enough. Oliver’s arms trembled as Charlie’s movements increased, bodies colliding as in a final, endless wave, his last thrust spent him. Oliver’s high took a while to wind down, waves rolling over him like a tide as every twitch of Charlie’s body sent another shiver through him.
It was always meant to be like this. It should have always been like this. Oliver snaked a hand up and around to Charlie’s face, a silent expression Charlie returned with a kiss to his palm.
It didn’t matter the match was almost over as they exited the stands. Didn’t matter they both looked dishevelled. When Oliver looked down at their hands, entwined, Charlie’s fingers squeezing him as all eyes stared at the athletic display in the air, it felt like nothing could stop them.
----
Later still….
Of course, he should have known.
The moment the feeling of perfection settled in his bones he should have listened to his instincts. Nothing like that lasted forever. All it was was moments passing by, perfect and imperfect, horrible and amazing. What was it Muggles said? Pain vs Pleasure.
They’d had the pleasure.
Pain followed in the guise of Death Eaters and tortured innocents, a mass exodus of what should have been a joyous celebration. Charlie and Oliver sat in Oliver’s flat by the light of the fire, faces drawn. Oliver wiped at his hand. He hadn’t bothered to wipe the soot off since they got back, hadn’t thought he might be smokey from the fires.
Charlie opened his eyes from dozing. “You’re quiet.”
Oliver’s mouth tilted in a smile. “Don’t get used to it.” In truth, Oliver couldn’t get the image of screaming people out of his mind. Mere hours ago he’d been yelling in pleasure with the sound of ten thousand revelers to mask his desire. Then, it had turned into a horror show. He placed a hand on Charlie’s. “Your family okay?”
“All safe. I didn’t… I didn’t tell them I was here to see it.”
Oliver knew it wasn’t out of shame about what they were to each other. Charlie lying to his family took a deeper toll than that. “They’ll likely be grateful you weren’t. And we weren’t, really. Not in the thick of it.”
Thanks to more celebratory bonking in the changing rooms, after he’d managed to sneak a pass from a friend of a friend. Oliver had never imagined he might be spared experiencing the onslaught of such a horrific thing because he ended up shagging the hot Quidditch Captain from Gryffindor, but as things were, he was rather grateful for it.
“In the final minutes, though, Charlie, did you see it? They snatched glory right out of their hands!”
Quietness settled. Oliver’s words dangled in the air, and he felt he had to prompt Charlie with a “What?”
“You’ve got that look in your eye again,” Charlie mused, a rueful smile gracing his lips. “You light up when you talk about Quidditch.”
Just as Charlie did with his damned dragons. Oliver went to open his mouth, rethought, and closed it again. Charlie was right: Oliver loved Quidditch. It was in his bones. Charlie loved dragons. Both had scars to prove it.
Neither would ever leave that which they loved, even for each other.
In the silence, Oliver gripped Charlie’s hand. Tried not to let the tears come. It was damn hard when the Weasley’s eyes were shining in the firelight, beautiful and green and full of something Oliver didn’t want to define because if he did, if he even thought of what emotions hid behind those eyes, he wouldn’t be able to speak.
“You’re going to go back to Romania,” he told him. “You’re going to be the bloody—life and soul of the dragon community, and make the changes you want to make. There’s nothing to stop you, Charlie. You’re made for it. It’s all you’ve wanted to do since I’ve known you, and especially now, with what happened tonight… you’re going to make the most of every single damn second you can grab among those beasties. You’re going to be absolutely bloody marvellous.”
“Always the one with the rousing speeches.” Charlie offered a rueful smile and placed his hand around the back of Oliver’s head, eyes searching as though he were committing every feature to memory. For once, the slowness was nice. Pleasant. For when things sped up, it meant Charlie would leave. Oliver would go back home to an empty house. And there wasn’t any guarantee there’d be another summer like this one.
“Kiss me hard,” Oliver whispered. “Before you go.”
As always, Charlie obliged.