He hadn’t meant to mess it up. But he’d be lying if he said he was surprised that he did.

Oliver Wood had one singular focus for as long as he could remember—Quidditch. The pitch, the play, the sweat and ache of it. And maybe that was part of the problem. He knew how to lead a team through blizzards and Bludger storms, but handling a relationship—you—was different. He couldn’t just bark instructions or draft a new strategy when things got hard. You weren’t a broomstick. You didn’t need a captain. You needed him. And somehow, he kept giving you everything but.

So when you said it—voice too quiet, too steady for the weight behind it—it hit him straight in the fucking chest.

“It feels like you care more about the team than me.”

That was the thing. You didn’t shout. You didn’t accuse. You stated it, like a fact. Like it was already decided. And he didn’t even have the words, at first. Because yeah—on the surface, sure. He skipped dates for practice. He left early in the mornings and came back reeking of the pitch. He’d go quiet when he was too deep in his own head, mapping out new formations instead of looking at you. He’d answer with grunts, distracted nods, eyes locked on playbooks while your heart quietly dimmed beside him.

(…He was a bloody idiot.)

After you walked out—slow, no drama, no tears—he sat on the edge of his bed, fists tight in his hair, heart hammering like he’d just lost the Cup. But this wasn’t a game. And he wasn’t just the captain.

He was the boy who memorized the little arch your brow made when you were teasing him, the shape your hands made when you tied your scarf too loosely in the cold. The boy who remembered the exact laugh you made the first time he fell off his broom in front of you and tried to make it look intentional. He was the boy who’d read the same paragraph of Quidditch Through the Ages fifteen times just to sit near you while you read something entirely different.

So he found you.

You weren’t hiding—he didn’t deserve the grace of a dramatic search. You were sitting on the windowsill of the Astronomy Tower, knees up to your chest, like you’d sat there a thousand times before, as steady as starlight. You didn’t turn when he walked in. Didn’t flinch.

And that silence? That was worse than any Howler. Because you were so still, and he couldn’t fix this with a pep talk or a firebolt.

He sat next to you. Quiet. He didn’t ask for your forgiveness. He didn’t try to defend himself with excuses about the Cup or Slytherin’s new Keeper or how much pressure he was under.

Instead, he breathed. And it hurt.

“You think I don’t care?” he finally said, voice low and raw. “You’re the only thing I care about.”

And it wasn’t a confession. It was a reality. The words weren’t meant to sway you or fix anything. They were just what was left after he’d burned through every lie he told himself.

He hadn’t said it before because he thought he didn’t have to. He thought you’d just know—that every awkward smile, every soft touch, every time he saved you the last piece of treacle tart, meant something. But love wasn’t something you inferred. You needed to say it. Show it.

So he did. Not perfectly. Not with grand gestures. But slowly.

He started leaving practice early—even when it meant dodging Fred and George’s snide remarks. He learned to close the bloody playbook when you walked in the room. He started watching your face like it mattered more than the pitch. Because it did.

And when he looked back on it later—months later, when things had settled back into the gentle, breathing rhythm of you and him—he still thought of that night.

Not as the moment he nearly lost you. But as the moment he finally remembered he was more than a captain. He was yours.