Finder's Keeper || Oliver Wood [1]

Chapter 1: Quidditch Confrontations ✔️

"But you're a Gryffindor and a muggle-born. I seriously don't see what the problem is," the blonde pouted. Although Alista was a half-blood, she managed to get into Slytherin because of her ambitious personality. Still, she was surrounded by purebloods who were more than likely to be blood purists, which had initially worried Jessica when they met. But she was grateful to find out early into their friendship that Alista and her family, despite coming from a line of mostly Slytherins, did not care about blood purity or house supremacies. It was clear that she was in no way a horrible person like most people would assume, no thanks to the stigma that all of Slytherin's witches and wizards became evil.

Nevertheless, life as a witch still wasn't easy for muggle-borns that constantly have to deal with the prejudice that the magical world continues to hold towards them. Frankly, life was even harder when one is from a family full of muggle-borns who somehow managed to get past that prejudice and make their names known in the wizarding community — and that was exactly Jessica Hawthorne's life. Her father, Ian, became an Auror at a young age and quickly climbed to the top due to an impressive amount of dark wizard and witch catches early into his career. Her mother, Katherine, currently held the highest position under the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Their non-magical relatives knew nothing about their feats, but for Jessica, this meant that she had a lot of expectations to live up to — to prove that even as someone who did not come from a pure, magical family, she could be just as talented as any other witch out there.

"Where are you headed?" Alista continued, bringing Jessica out of her thoughts.

"Oh, just the Quidditch Pitch."

"Of course," she rolled her eyes teasingly. "I don't get why you stay there. It's not comfortable at all."

"It's quiet and I have it all to myself — sometimes."

Like many people her age, Jessica was a big fan of Quidditch and actually pretty good at playing it, too. But she never had the guts to tryout Gryffindor Quidditch Team despite her friends' encouragement. Why, exactly? Well, there was yet another case that added to her dilemma of having to live up to certain expectations: she had a cousin by the name of Charles Hawthorne who miraculously turned out to be a wizard as well, and he ended up playing as Chaser for the professional Quidditch team, Puddlemere United. With only four individuals having magic in both sides of her family, they all proved themselves of being worthy to be a wizard or witch, and Jessica was the last one with the pressure to do so. As silly as it might sound to others, she wanted to do it her own way — she didn't want to just copy or follow in the footsteps of the ones before her by working in the Ministry or playing Quidditch. She felt that there had to be some other way to show just how capable she was.

"Whatever you say," said Alista. "Since it was technically my fault that Oliver Wood bumped into you, I shall give you a peace offering." She dramatically unwrapped her Slytherin scarf (Jessica honestly did not understand why she was wearing it since the weather was still warm enough to go on without it) and gently wrapped it around the other girl's neck.

"You're just too lazy to put this back in your dorm before your next class, aren't you?" Jessica said knowingly. Alista could only grin as she was caught in the act.

"You know me too well. It's getting hot, anyway, so I don't wanna carry that thing around."

"So, you dumped it on me instead?"

"Exactly."

The two friends finally parted ways. Alista decided to search for her housemates, while Jessica made her way to the Quidditch Pitch. She would sometimes go there to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch Team train with her fellow housemates, but other times, she simply liked going to the pitch whenever it wasn't booked because it was most likely empty and away from everyone else. She needed that time to be alone once in a while, especially in a castle filled with students, teachers, and ghosts in every corner, not to mention the academic requirements that were starting to pile up already.