oliver dies but its crack (flintwood)
Oliver Wood dies on a Wednesday evening with ridiculous amounts of fanfare and not nearly enough wizarding insurance. It’s not even heroic, or daring, or anything , the way he dies - it’s not a game, or an exhibition match, but rather a practice at Puddlemere’s stadium and his heart just - stops - mid-flight and that’s that.
As all things go, he’s pretty pissed.
When he comes to, he’s quite aware that he’s, well, dead. He is staring at his body, after all, sprawled on the grass of the pitch and his teammates yelling in increasing frenzy as the coach runs for the mediwitch.
There’s a brilliant window of light Oliver notices in his periphery the same time his body is levitated away from the pitch. He’s heard of this, he supposes. It’s all his mum would talk about, how before his gran had died she’d babbled for an hour about the halo and the other dead relatives. He knows he’s supposed to - pass over?
But. Well. Oliver seethes. He is ( was) twenty-seven, damnit. He’d barely played three years of first-string and now this . The universe is distinctly unfair.
Oliver glares at the window of light. “Is there quidditch in the afterlife?”
The window doesn’t change.
“I’ll take that as a no then,” Oliver mutters, “No. No, thank you, I’m sticking right here.”
And then his consciousness suddenly takes form again and he’s looking down and his hands are wispy and greyish-silver and his teammates are pointing up and someone yells, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Wood, you wanna be a ghost for Quidditch, don’t you?”
They’re not wrong.
***
He haunts his old apartment (“It’s technically still mine!” he yells at a teary-eyed and increasingly frustrated Percy as his best friend tries to reason with him to relinquish the lease), the Puddlemere locker room (his teammates have learned to ignore his lamenting moans in the showers), and the Quidditch supply store he used to frequent (the store owner is so old and visually impaired, Oliver truly doubts he’d noticed anything different).
Oliver is halfway through his usual routine of banging the locker doors shut while sulking when his coach comes stalking in, wagging a stern finger.
“Look, Wood, while we’re all still technically in mourning, you’re getting on our damn last nerve.”
“But I don’t know what to do with myself,” Oliver wails.
“Tough. We gotta replace your spot on the team and having you here moping about is putting off all the new recruits.”
“Good,” Oliver mutters under his breath, “It’s my damn spot.”
“You’re useless to us on a broom,” his coach says with no sympathy, “So either knock it off and get outta here, or make yourself useful and help us find a new player.”
“But I don’t want to,” Oliver wails again.
“You’re acting like a child,” his coach sighs, “Just - make yourself useful, alright? There’s no point in acting petulant for the rest of eternity, damn you.”
Oliver pouts, but he does, begrudgingly, get the point.
He gives it his best, truly. The thing is, all of the new recruits are either put off by him giving them pointers - Oliver supposes that there is something kind of off-putting about a ghost sticking his arm through your chest to direct your movement - or just not good enough for the caliber the team is playing at.
His coach is getting frustrated. His team is getting frustrated. But both parties agree that it’s been exceptionally hard finding a replacement for Oliver.
“You miss me, don’t you,” Oliver preens to Carlson as they watch yet another recruit fail to block a pass.
Carlson, a Chaser who’d started at the same time Oliver had, glares at him. “It’s hard to miss you when you insist on being around. All. The. Time.”
“Still.” Oliver huffs.