Oliver Wood

**Oliver Wood** was a character in *Harry Potter book series*. He was a wizard who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and was the Keeper and Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He later joined Puddlemere United and fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and survived.

## Biography

### Early life

Oliver was born into a wizarding family between 1 September 1975 and 31 August 1976. He was raised in Scotland.

### Education

#### Philosopher's Stone

By the beginning of Oliver's fifth-year, he was the Captain of the House team. Professor McGonagall collected Oliver when he was attending a Charms lesson, and introduced him to Harry Potter to tell him she thought that he should be the new Seeker. Then when she explained why, he was delighted and thought Harry was the best build for a Seeker, suggesting that he needed a decent broom. He let the team know, but he wanted to keep the school from finding out so he could be a secret weapon.

The school found out anyway, and in the first game of the year, he gave Harry a plan not to actively join the game unless he finds the Golden Snitch. During pep-talks, he had the tendency to call the team "men" and "lads", but Angelina Johnson pointed out that the team had female players too. During the game, he shook Slytherin Captain, Marcus Flint's hand but Harry thought he was trying to break Oliver's fingers. He later saved a goal from Flint.

In February 1992, Oliver began training the team very intensely in the build-up to their game against Hufflepuff. If they won, they would be higher than Slytherin the Inter-House Quidditch Cup for the first time in seven years. He then found out that Snape was supervising their next game instead of Hooch, and advised the team to give him no justification to take points from them. He wanted Harry to catch the Snitch right away, which he did, defeating Hufflepuff. However, they didn't win the Championship that year.

#### Chamber of Secrets

During the summer of 1992, he created a new training programme for the team. That September, he woke Harry and the team up very early the first Saturday for their first Quidditch practice of the year. He told everyone about the new training programme at length even though they were falling back to sleep, and then he took everyone to the pitch.

He saw Colin Creevey during training taking photographs in the stands and panicked because he thought that Colin was a Slytherin spy. Harry told him Colin was in their House and George told him that Slytherin were there in person anyway. Flint told him that he had booked the pitch to train their new Seeker, whose father had purchased Nimbus 2001s for everyone, and they had to give up the pitch. Oliver then watched when Draco insulted Hermione Granger and Ron used a spell that bounced round and caused him to cough up slugs.

He continued to intensely train the team even in bad weather, and had Fred and George watch Slytherin to spy and they told him that their Nimbus 2001s were that high a speed that they everyone looked like a blur. He gave a speech before the first game, telling everyone that even though Slytherin had better broomsticks, they had better people. He told Harry it was down to him to win and he had to beat Draco to the Snitch. During the game, Dobby hunted Harry through a rogue Bludger to intentionally knock him down. Fred and George had to spend the first half trying to protect Harry, but they could not help the Chasers and Slytherin were winning. Fred and George called for a break and told Oliver, but Harry was determined to continue and told Fred and George to stop protecting him because he will never get the Snitch.

Everyone told Oliver that it was stupid to let that happen because Harry could get hurt, but he gave Harry permission. Harry was eventually successful in getting the Snitch and winning the game, but at the price of a broken elbow. Oliver and the team later saw Harry in the Hospital Wing and bought cakes to eat round Harry's bed, but Madam Pomfrey told them they had to go. For their next game against Hufflepuff, Oliver kept increasing training until it was happening every night. The day of the game, he took the team for a warm-up flight. But seconds before it was about to begin, Professor McGonagall cancelled it. Oliver begged her to let it continue but she ignored him, telling everyone to go back to their common room instead.

#### Prisoner of Azkaban

Oliver was now in the final year at Hogwarts, and still hadn't won the Inter-House Quidditch Cup. He was now desperate to win it, and encouraged what he described to be the "best team" by acknowledging their "superb Chasers", "unbeatable Beaters" and a Seeker who "has never failed". They began training three evenings a week in any weather conditions, planning and adapting their approach to play Slytherin. However, the day of their final training session, Oliver found out through Flint that they had to play Hufflepuff instead.

Oliver started panicking because he thought they had been wrong-footed by Slytherin, and they hadn't trained to play Cedric Diggory's strong team. He was upset when Fred suggested it would be easy, because he didn't think everyone was taking the situation seriously enough. They had to play in a thunderstorm, which he was very nervous about. He couldn't eat or speak to give a pep-talk, feeling hopeless and instead just leading everyone onto the pitch. He shook Diggory's hand and he smiled at Oliver, but he couldn't smile back and looked like he had lockjaw.

They played in the heavy rain and lightning for ages, while Harry struggled to see clear enough to get the Snitch. Wood called for a time-out, and told Harry he needed to catch the Snitch very soon unless he wanted to play into the night. Hermione intervened when Harry stated he couldn't see clear enough, enchanting the glasses using "Impervius" to keep water sticking to it, leaving Oliver very happy. However, things soon went awry. Harry saw the silhouette of a black dog in the crowd, and Oliver had to shout at Harry to point out the Snitch that Diggory was pursuing. He began chasing the Snitch, but Oliver and the other spectators had to watch while Dementors showed up and attacked Harry. He fainted, and Diggory caught the Snitch.

When Diggory saw what had happened to Harry, he gave Oliver the offer of a second game but even he had to admit that Hufflepuff had won fairly. He was too upset that evening to see Harry, but he went on Sunday and told Harry in a "hollow, dead" voice that he didn't he think he was at fault for what happened.

## Notes and sources

1. ↑ According to *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, Chapter 10, he had no idea what basketball was. He should have done if he was raised in the Muggle world, implying he was raised in the wizarding world by at least one wizarding parent.
2. ↑ According to *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, Chapter 9, he was a "fifth-year" then. Five school years earlier was 1987.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, Chapter 9
4. ↑ World Exclusive Interview with J K Rowling (July 2000)
5. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, Chapter 11
6. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone*, Chapter 13
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 *Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*, Chapter 8
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, Chapter 7
9. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, Chapter 8
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, Chapter 10
11. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*, Chapter 14
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 *Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*, Chapter 9