Oliver Wood (die__trying) wrote in snark_n_bark, @ 2008-07-05 17:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | complete, gawain, neville, oliver |
Pink scarves and shocks
Characters: Neville, Gawain, Oliver
Summary: A chance meeting of former housemates leads to a shock for one of them
Oliver laughed as he ran his hand down the smooth oak handle of the broomstick the shopkeeper was pitching. One of these days, he mused to himself, he’d keep his offhand comments about new brooms to himself. Because when he didn’t? He was treated to the same hard-sell he was getting now, as well as side-nattering about contacting the designer about endorsements.
“No really,” he laughed again at the proprietor’s unceasing litany, trying to keep the humour in (and the annoyance out of) his voice when he spoke. “I’m perfectly happy with the broom I’ve got, and couldn’t accept offers of endorsements without my agent involved. Down in the rules, you know. He gets twitchy if I start talking this stuff without him present.” Oliver flashed a wide smile, hoping his message was getting across. “Otherwise he starts to feel useless, and we can’t have that, can we?”
It took another five minutes, and a customer asking after Quidditch boots, before he could extricate himself to search out the gloves he’d come in here for in the first place. It wasn’t that he minded the way he was treated, or deferred to, but sometimes he’d just rather go out and shop and not have to worry about what he said.
He’d just found the gloves when the bell over the door tinkled behind him. He turned to see who’d entered and smiled again, dropping the gloves back into the bin. Unless they were Quidditch players, Oliver hadn’t really noticed those in years below him, even in his own house, but this one was a close friend of Harry’s, and that sparked the memory of face and name. And after what Padma’d said about his recent losses, a curiosity over how he was faring.
“It’s Neville Longbottom, isn’t it?” He greeted his former housemate with a hand outstretched and a wide, true smile.
Neville had entered Quality Quidditch on a whim. While he wasn't much of a follower of the sport himself, there was no saying that Gawain wouldn't take to it. In fact there was no saying that Nimue wouldn't take to it, but as it was Gawain that Neville had given himself a stomach ache sharing ice cream with it was Gawain who got to have a look inside the shop; Nimue would have to wait her turn.
It was because it was such a rarity to be in a Quidditch outlet that Neville was surprised to find somebody greeting him with a familiar smile. Automatically shifting Gawain onto his hip so he could hold out his hand in return, Neville took in the handsome face and smile and found himself grinning in return as he realised who it was.
"Oliver Wood! Wow, I didn't think I would see you in here. Or that you'd recognise me. How are you?"
Oliver laughed. "Shared a dorm with you for three years, didn't I? Granted you've grown into the body a bit since then, but the face is still much the same." He held out a hand, then dropped it a bit as he focused on the gurgling child on Neville's hip. "I'm decent enough. Seems you've been a bit on the busy side though, yeah?"
His hand raised almost of its own accord, reaching up to touch the soft hair on the child's head. "And aren't you just the handsomest of young men, hmm?"
Neville laughed when Gawain clapped his hands together and laughed at Oliver's touch. "Now you've done it. Next he'll be after a kiss." Sure enough, Gawain tilted his face, offering his cheek for what was undoubtedly due to him: "Ksss."
Neville shifted Gawain higher in his arms. "You don't have to kiss him," he told Oliver. "He's just got into some bad habits because of all the attention he gets - haven't you Gawain. I suppose you're right about me being busy, though - he also has a twin sister, Nimue. I don't know if you'd remember her, but I'm married to Luna Lovegood. She was in the year below me in Hogwarts, Ravenclaw."
"Nonsense," Oliver waved off the out clause on the kiss and leaned over to smack his lips loudly against the baby's cheek. He caught a whiff of the baby's scent, and memories assaulted him once again. Memories of another baby cheek he'd bussed, a baby long since gone. Carefully, studiously, he cleared all traces of the pain from his face and eyes as he straightened and shot Gawain a goofy smile. The sound of his answering laughter helped the smile he wore reach his eyes.
"I'm afraid I don't remember her," Oliver admitted when he met Neville's eyes again. "I had trouble enough remembering my own housemates at times. But married and twins? I'd say I'm a bit behind on the congratulations. Either that or my teammates are right and I need to read more than the sports page of the Prophet if I want to keep up." He clapped a hand on Neville's shoulder. "So my belated congratulations to you both."
Neville grinned. "Thank you. So how about you? I know that the Quidditch career is going well, but is there anything else you've been up to?" Gawain suddenly made a lurch for something interesting on the shelf behind Neville's shoulder. Getting a firmer grip on his son, Neville rolled his eyes at Oliver and turned to see what was making Gawain so excitable. When he saw that it was an item of clothing - a pink scarf for the Wigtown Wanderers to be exact - he rolled his eyes again and sighed.
"Figures. Sorry, Gawain seems to have already become image conscious, and he thinks pink suits him." Neville let Gawain grab the scarf and kept half and eye on the boy as Gawain tried to wrap it around both his and his father's neck, craning to see what it looked like in one of the shop mirrors.
"A man should have a right to surround himself with whatever colours make him comfortable," Oliver agreed with another goofy grin at the baby, "and bollocks to what the naysayers prattle on with. Pink's a fine colour, I'd say." He chucked the baby under the chin and received a wide baby smile in response. The interaction warmed him, but at the same time brought his losses back to the forefront of his mind as well. He did his level best to beat them down.
"Quidditch takes up much of my time," he agreed, "but I've also found a bit of time here and there to fly up to Hogwarts and help the Gryffindor team out a little. McGonagall was right when we spoke, they're this side of dreadful. Hell, they make the Cannons look competent," he snorted. "It's been, well, surprisingly fun, spending time with the younger ones. Fewer ego problems," he winked at Neville.
"I bet," Neville laughed. "It's great that you're helping out like that. I sometimes consult with Professor Sprout on things. I have a couple of plants in development that will give the younger years a look at how fun Herbology can be if they stick with it. I run a magical nursery," he explained to Oliver. "Mostly for supplying businesses with ingredients, but I do sell more decorative flowers out of the nursery when they're in season and I dabble in research. I'm often surprised at just how well things have gone with it. I was expecting to be a one man band for quite a few years, but I would be completely lost without my assistant."
Oliver tried to remember back to the Hogwarts days, back through the Quidditch obsession that had always kept to the forefront of his mind, to any memory of Neville being so into plants. He came up short, though, and without any true memory to share, he settled on a wide smile.
"It's brilliant, isn't it? When you find something you're so perfectly suited for that you almost feel guilty in getting paid to do it," he grinned wider and winked. "Well, almost guilty. The money's still nice." There was something slightly off about his voice, an almost weary note to it. "And I envy you your ability with plants. Here you are able to keep an entire nursery going, almost single-handedly, and I can't keep so much as a fern alive in my flat. I've a black thumb, apparently," he laughed, holding up one of his hands which Gawain promptly reached for. Oliver smiled and gave him a finger to hold.
Neville chuckled over Gawain's antics, as his son not only took the finger, but then grabbed Oliver's wrist with his other hand. It looked like Gawain was trying to climb onto Oliver and it was only when the pink scarf slipped from his neck that Gawain let go to retrieve what would inevitably be his by the end of the shopping trip. While Gawain was pretty enthusiastic about attention from almost anyone, the way he was once more demanding a kiss amused Neville and reminded him of someone. "He likes you just as much as he likes Faelan," Neville thought out loud.
Oliver's arms were raised to take the baby if he succeeded in crawling over his father in his attempts to grab more of him, laughing all the while. But when Neville spoke, the laughing smile slid straight off his face. A look of stunned disbelief replaced it, his mind a whirl of emotions and denials. It couldn't...he'd heard wrong. That was it. Had to be. But as he replayed Neville's comment over and over, he came back with the same result. Neville'd said 'Faelan.' And how many Faelan's could there be in the world? Common as his own name was, his sisters...and his brother...had all been uniquely named.
Still. He had to be sure.
"W-Who?" He hated the stammer in his voice, but as his entire body was close to trembling, he wasn't surprised that he had no control over his voice.
Neville frowned at the sudden change in Oliver's demeanor: he looked like he had seen a ghost. Still, he replied to Oliver's question.
"Faelan..." he repeated slowly, his tone holding questions of his own. "He's my assistant at the nursery. Do you know him? He does have the same sur-- " Neville's eyes widened and he stared at Oliver's face. "You're joking me! His name's Faelan Wood. He's not...?" Neville trailed off, watching Oliver's face intently and the changes that came over it.
Faelan Wood.
Faelan Wood
His heart stopped beating, his lungs quit working, his mouth went completely dry. Oliver's entire body went rigid.
Neville's casual comment rattled through his head like a rogue Bludger, knocking everything else out of its way and leaving behind only a sharp ringing in his ears. The shop disappeared, so did Neville, Gawain, the pink scarf. All that existed was the echoing name in his head. Shakily, he reached out for a nearby counter and gripped it to keep his now-weak knees from buckling beneath him. His heart restarted with a deafening thud as he struggled with the news he'd just received. Alive. Faelan was alive? But how could...why didn't...?
It just couldn't be, but it...Somehow, the words forced themselves past the whole body shock that had engulfed him.
"He's alive?" His voice was nothing more than a ragged whisper in the crowded shop.
The thought that he might have got a hold of the wrong end of the broomstick fled Neville's mind. He'd had no idea that Faelan was related to Oliver, and had only put two and two together now because of Oliver's reaction to Faelan's name. However, the reaction was intense, and when Oliver spoke it was very clear that he hadn't been expecting to hear about his younger brother.
Reaching out to grip Oliver's arm, Neville lightly shook his head. "He's your brother, isn't he," he said, needing to say it out loud just in case he really had made the wrong assumption. "I had no idea. I would never have guessed, if you hadn't..." Neville chewed on his bottom lip. "You didn't think he was alive?"
"I...," Oliver paused and snapped his mouth shut. Every word Neville said seemed to be pounding another spike through his chest. "Yes. Brother." Long lost, so very long lost, and each day easier to bear but the hole of loss never quite closed. And now...was it true? Was it all for naught?
The older brother in him, the one who had vowed to protect, overcame the shock enough to speak and fired out question after question. "Where is he? How is he? Is he safe? Happy? Well? Where has he been all of these years? Why didn't he....," Oliver's conscious mind took over in time enough to forestall that last question. It also kept his arms loosely at his sides when really they wanted to grip Neville's shoulders and shake the information out of him.
Neville's frown deepened as Oliver questioned him. While Oliver obviously had a younger brother named Faelan Wood, that didn't automatically mean it was the Faelan Wood Neville had started to regard as family. And yet... and yet, it felt right. There had been a reason why he had connected the two and his instincts were still screaming that connection at him.
Gawain had gone very quiet and when he looked down Neville found a pair of brown eyes just like his own staring up at him. He kissed Gawain's forehead, thinking how important his family was to him, and how important it obviously was to Oliver to find who might be his younger brother. Faelan had just lost Sirius, and if Oliver was his brother he could offer the support Neville wasn't sure the boy wanted from himself. As much as he might feel it, Faelan wasn't a member of his family, but he just might be a member of Oliver's.
Gawain patted his cheek, disturbing him from his thoughts and making him raise his gaze to Oliver again. "Right," he sighed. "He's staying in Hogsmeade with Harry. Their place is called Haven's Loft. I probably shouldn't have told you that, but, well, if he is your brother..." Neville paused, studying the conflict evident in Oliver's expression. "Just, if it's him, go easy on him. He's had it rough recently."
Oliver's eyes flew to Neville's and he snorted. "Had it rough," he said offhandedly. "Yeah, I know a bit about that as it happens."
And just as suddenly as that, he couldn't stand there a moment longer. Haven's Loft. Hogsmeade. The words replaced the near constant echoing of Faelan's name in his mind and it became an obsession to rival anything he'd ever felt before. Not Quidditch, not winning, not the news of the dead returning, nothing he'd ever experienced had filled him with such an intense need. To see, to know, to find out. It was consuming him as rapidly as if someone had set fire to his robes.
"Neville, I'm sorry. I've...I've got to go." His eyes were already darting towards the door and wondering just how much trouble he'd be in if he Disapparated where he stood.
Not sure whether he had done the right thing, Neville nodded. "I hope everything turns out for the best," he offered lamely. "Come on, Gawain, Mr Wood's got to go talk to somebody." Gawain waved his chubby fist and Neville nodded before turning away to the till, leaving Oliver to do what he felt was right.
He'd feel bad later for his hurried departure, for not saying a proper farewell, or anything at all for that matter. But at the moment, all he could do was nod and wave in a vague manner and turn on the spot, Disapparating home to grab his broomstick then head straight for Hogsmeade.
And Haven's Loft.
And his brother.