SUPERSONIC | oliver wood

1. One To Another

Kindly, another team chaser Wendy Lewisham offered to show him all of the lockers which were currently unoccupied, leading him toward a long row of lockers that the whole team seemed to stick to. It was there that Oliver had discovered there was another team member he had yet to greet, and he was surprised he hadn't realised it sooner that she did not come forward to introduce herself.

It wasn't often that beaters gained much accolade and fame over chasers, but Adore Kingsley was likely the most well-known member of Puddlemere United. Along with Andre, she was the only other member who also attended Hogwarts - house Slytherin, Oliver recalled with a shudder. The keeper didn't remember much of anything about her from their school years, the two staying out of each other's way as Adore didn't even play for her own house Quidditch team. The ginger woman was the only Hogwarts student to have made the Puddlemere Junior team whilst still a student, and spent all of her free time focusing on training for that rather than being of any help to her house team.

She was gifted in her position, that much was true, but Adore's true media attraction came from her personality. The wizarding world either loved or hated the Half-Blood belle, and whether it was articles of her latest rumoured romance or her latest controversial comment one thing was for certain - everyone wanted to hear about her.

Oliver Wood didn't have much of an opinion of her before that day, if not a slight bias because of his distaste towards her school house, although he wasn't going to let that affect his judgement. They were adults now.

"Ah now Kingsley," the thick Irish accent of Padraig Mullen sounded from behind Oliver, the only other beater on the team scoffing a laugh, "are ye not going to greet our new keeper? Get over here and give him a hug, don't be an ol' shrew."

The ginger woman paused as she tugged her shirt over her head, uncaringly standing in nothing but her jeans and her bra as she looked toward Oliver with a quick, uncaring glance. The man in question looked away abruptly out of respect, mildly uncomfortable with how quick she was to strip in front of everyone. Back in Chudley, the male and female players had separate locker rooms, but clearly Puddlemere were close enough to not care for such a divide.

The entire room paused in waiting for her to speak, all eyes discretely fixed on the interaction and wondering how it would go. Oliver swallowed thickly as he opened the nearest free locker and shoved his bag inside, wishing Padraig had never brought anything up. He was perfectly fine with her not approaching him before now.

"If a bludger knocks you out, don't go letting go of your broom," she finally spoke, her tone jarringly cold and distant. "We can't afford to lose another keeper."

With that, she shoved a strange device over her head that appeared similar to a headband, with two circular coverings that hid her ears and seemed to play the muffled sound of music from what he could hear standing a few feet back. Slamming her locker door closed and taking off, Oliver was left open-mouthed and a little off-put.

Adore had clearly been referring to the incident that had left the position of keeper at Puddlemere open in the first place - their previous keeper having been knocked from his broom and landing on the ground in such a bad way that his spine was damaged before even magical intervention could repair it.

"Bloody hell," Oliver laughed as she disappeared from sight, shaking his head with mirth at the scene. His laughter had broken the tension in the room, with the rest of the team joining in with chuckles of their own. "Who pished in her pumpkin pasties?"

"Don't mind her mate," Padraig clapped a hand on the keeper's back encouragingly, "our Adore can be a little prickly to people she doesn't know."

Oliver settled for a shrug as his reply, smirking all the while as he thought to himself he couldn't imagine her being particularly non-prickly to anyone. But it mattered not to him, for he was here to do his job and do a bloody good job of it.