In the years that followed, he wondered how she had chosen him. At the time, he didn't know who she was. The Polyjuice Potion had been effective in concealing her appearance. Riding the wave of success; flush on the win of his first game as an International Keeper, drunk on the champagne his teammates on the Scottish National Team had plied him with in the locker room after the game, he had taken the invitation of the stunning blonde who had approached him as the team celebrated in a shady pub in the Scottish countryside, to the general raucous cheers of his teammates.
He'd followed her up the dimly lit narrow wooden staircase, watching the luscious sway of her hips under her snug denims as she climbed, leading him to a surprisingly clean room with a large, downy bed as the central feature. When she stripped herself bare, pouring him another glass of whiskey and drinking from her flask, he could hardly remove his team robes quickly enough. He remembered fumbling a lot in his efforts that night, at least until the whiskey began to wear off some. He remembered the hoarseness of her voice, achingly familiar, as though he should know it from somewhere, as she cried out over and over again through the night. She drifted off, and he stared at her, marveling at the pale luminescence of her skin in the moonlight, the shimmering coppery tones in the blonde of her hair that he hadn't noticed before while his own eyes grew heavy. He vaguely recalled thinking her hair was growing less wavy and more red as he slipped into slumber, but he passed it off as a trick of the moon, the drink, and the exhaustion before allowing sleep to overcome him.
When he awoke in the morning, she was gone, as he'd known in some corner of his mind she would be. A delicately folded note in the shape of a lily was laying on the nightstand was all that remained of her presence save for the scent of their lovemaking on the sheets and a faint hint of something flowery on her pillow. He opened the note, staring in surprise at the simple words in delicate script:
I am the flower, you are the seed. We walked in the garden, we planted a tree. Now baby don't try to find me, please don't you dare, just live in my memory, you'll always be there.
There was no signature, nothing to give him a single clue as to her identity, and remembering her flask the night before, he strongly suspected she had been drinking Polyjuice Potion to conceal her real appearance from him. In the years that followed, he remembered the incident with fondness; he rarely shared such passion with any other woman in his experience. He rose in stardom through those years, and he enjoyed few encounters with the 'Bludger Bunnies' that haunted the locker rooms of the teams, but only rarely. He didn't enjoy sampling the wares that were offered to his teammates unstintingly.
Ginny Weasley-Potter, her husband Harry and their only child, a son, James Oliver Potter, were attending the annual benefit at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, held every summer since the defeat of Voldemort to keep the school in funds and assist with the rebuilding of the destroyed portions of the school that were extremely costly, when she looked up and saw a face she had never thought to see again on this side of the afterlife. The sins of her past came flooding back to her, but her husband greeted the man with a hearty handshake.
"Oliver!" Harry nearly shouted. "It's wonderful to see you! It has to be ten years. You know my wife, of course, from school, but I don't think you've met our son, James?"
Ginny held her breath, but she needn't have bothered; the instant Oliver Wood looked down at the young man Harry was introducing to their son, Oliver's eyes widened and he stared at Ginny in shock. He regained his composure almost immediately.
"That's a fine boy you've got there, Potter," he said evenly. "Can I steal your wife for a dance?" Harry nodded and Oliver held out his hand to Ginny. To refuse would only bring about questions she couldn't answer in front of her husband. Slipping her hand into the pocket of her robes, she waited until she was sure they were out of Harry's earshot and whispered a quick spell to keep their conversation from prying ears.
"It was you," Oliver said without preamble. "Our 'tree' seems to be flourishing." His voice was scathing, and Ginny couldn't blame him for his bitterness.
"We had miscarried once before, and Harry – didn't take it well," she said quietly. "So when I got pregnant a second time, I didn't tell him until I was sure I'd carry to full term. As it turned out, it was a wise decision, because I lost that one as well. And a third. After I lost the third, Hermione and I secretly went to St. Mungo's, in disguise of course, to see if they could discover the problem. It's Harry. He can't father children successfully. And you know my husband. It would devastate him. So, in the despair of losing a third baby, I decided not to tell him, and substitute a child for him."
"Why me?" Oliver asked, his voice strangled.
"I could give you any number of reasons, Oliver, all of them the clinical reasons I gave myself at the time – your eye color is similar to my husband's. You're of a similar build to my brothers, so I could claim you took after my side of the family should the child resemble you in that way. Your hair color is similar to my own, so I can easily pass your genetics off as mine or Harry's. But the truth – oh, Oliver, the truth is that after all these years of raising your son I've had to face it: I fancied you as a child, and I'd been fascinated with you for years. I used to dream of you quite as often as I dreamed of Harry. But if Harry Potter was out of my league, then you were out of my galaxy." Ginny sighed as the song ended and looked at her husband.
"Please understand, Oliver, I love my husband. The truth could destroy him. And he loves James. And he never questioned why, but I insisted our son be named James Oliver. I don't want to hurt Harry, but he wanted children, and so did I. We've accepted that we will only have one child, and I'm sorry that you had to find out this way. I did always mean to find some way to tell you, if it worked…"
"It's alright," he said softly, looking down at her with a tender smile. "I understand why you did it. And I'm proud that you chose me. Proud and honored, Mrs. Potter. If there's ever anything, anything at all, I can do for you or the lad, you be sure to let me know." Oliver kissed her hand then and walked away, and Ginny found herself fighting back tears as she walked to her husband's side alone.
Later in the evening, she saw her husband, her lover and their son standing together by the punch bowl, her heart in her throat as she watched the three of them interacting, realizing how very much James looked like Oliver, and wondering if it would be harder to disguise as James aged. She saw Harry reach out and shake Oliver's hand again, and pull the older, burly man close in an awkward on-armed hug, patting him on the back, and she shook her head, wondering what in Dumbledore's name Harry was getting so emotional about now. Why, she could almost swear Harry was thanking Oliver for something!
Men, she thought exasperatedly, searching for Hermione in the crush. She was definitely in need of some female companionship.
