Katie Wood

OOC

Game	Journal	Portrayed By
Endgame	k80	Odette Annable

Basic Stats

Full Name: Katherine Mallory Wood (née Bell)
Nickname(s): Katie
Gender: Female
Age: 34
Date of Birth: January 9, 1979
Zodiac: Capricorn
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Married to Oliver Wood. It's very weird and complicated, but not in a bad way.
Bloodline: Halfblood
Hometown: Ballycastle, Northern Ireland
Current Residence: Dorset, England
House & Year: Gryffindor 1997
Occupation: Healer: Spell Damage
Pet: A big mutt of a dog with fluffy red-orange fur (Godric)

Family

Father: William Michael Bell (wizard; Hufflepuff 1962; retired chaser: Ballycastle Bats; Dept of Magical Games and Sports; b. April 4, 1944; d. February 3, 1998)
Mother: Katherine Elena Bell née Clarke (witch; Hufflepuff 1963; magical veterinarian; b. November 11, 1944)
Brother: Samuel Richard Bell (wizard; Gryffindor 1989; musician; b. September 3, 1970)
Sister: Andrea Marie Bell (witch; Gryffindor 1992; hitwitch; b. October 13, 1973)

Husband: Oliver Michael Wood (wizard; Gryffindor 1994; captain and keeper: Puddlemere United; keeper: Scotland National Team; b. May 20, 1976)

History

William Bell and Katherine (Rin) Clarke were in the same house at Hogwarts, and Rin was best friends with Will's younger sister Penelope, so for years, Will mostly just saw Rin as "Penny's best friend" and was friendly, but completely oblivious to Rin's crush on him. It wasn't until Will's sixth year (Rin's fifth) that Rin basically hit him over the head with the idea that "HEY DOPE, I LIKE YOU." Although it took Will a bit to get that through his thick head, he finally got a chance to look at Rin as someone other than just his kid sister's best friend. Upon finishing school, Will got a position as a reserve chaser for Ballycastle, all the while writing to Rin while she finished her last year at Hogwarts and coming to Hogsmeade to visit her on the school's trips to the town. After Rin finished school the following summer, she got into training to be a magical veterinarian.

In 1968, five years after Rin had finished school, two big things happened: Will and Rin got married, and Will began the 68-69 season as a starting chaser for his team. Within the next few years, they had two children: Samuel and Andrea. Will was on his way to being a star on the pitch, and Rin's practice as a veterinarian was booming. And unexpected accident when Andrea was four brought a swift end to Will's career: a bludger to the back of the head near the end of the 77-78 season caused too much damage, even after the Healers did all they could to fix him: he was left with occasional blurry vision and dizzy spells, both of which were dangerous to have on the pitch, and both of which made his "fall-back" career idea of coaching a lot harder. However, he was offered a job in the Ministry with the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and he happily took it, glad to still be involved in the sport he loved.

Just under a year later, their family grew from four to five with the birth of their second daughter: Katie (named after her mother, but with a different nickname). It was a little awkward for Katie growing up, being so much younger than Sam and Andrea. But she was her father's little princess, and she absolutely soaked up his attention. Neither of her older siblings were too interested in quidditch, but Katie loved hearing all about the sport and her father's years playing. Whenever she got a chance, she tagged along with her dad to work, and was fascinated by the goings-on of the Department (she sometimes tagged along with her mum to work, too, but quidditch just held more of a fascination for her than injured animals did, sorry Rin).

For her fourth birthday, her dad gave her a toy broom (her mum wouldn't let him give her a real one that young) that had her zooming around the backyard all day every day for months on end. It wasn't long before she wanted a real broom, all her own, but her mother made her wait until she was seven: she had to be content with the toy and with going for rides on her dad's with Will until then. Her first time on her own, real broom, on her seventh birthday, had her falling off and breaking her wrist. But that did nothing to stop Katie from her love of flying and quidditch. By the time she started Hogwarts in 1990 (a year after Sam had finished school, and as Andrea was starting her sixth year), Katie was desperate to join her house team. Like her siblings, she was sorted into Gryffindor instead of their parents' former house of Hufflepuff, and while she didn't make the team as a first year, to her deep disappointment, she did make the team in her second year.

Her House team quickly became her second family: Oliver, the Weasley twins, Angelina, Alicia, and Harry. Despite a few injuries and incidents on the pitch over the years (including catching a bludger to the head in her very first match, which had her flooded with concerned owls from her mother for weeks following the incident, checking to make sure she was really ok), Katie's love of the sport never faded, and she considered quidditch as a potential future career, but she also focused on her studies, not wanting to close herself off to other options.

In her sixth year, she joined the DA, which was started up by Harry and his friend Hermione. She was glad to have a chance to actually practice defensive (and offensive) magic, and to have the benefit of learning from someone who had practical knowledge of a fight. Even after the year was over and they were back to having "real" Defense classes in her seventh year, she kept her DA galleon in her pocket.

In October of her seventh year, while on a Hogsmeade trip, she was placed under the imperius curse to bring a cursed necklace to Professor Dumbledore, but ended up accidentally touching the necklace herself, and ended up spending six months recovering in St Mungo's. While she was able to return to school for her final match, and they did win, she was afraid that having missed nearly the entire season would make it difficult for her to make it onto a professional team. However, while she had been recovering in the hospital, a new interest came over her: Healing. She was fascinated by watching the Healers work on her and the other patients in her ward, and asked a lot of questions. Mostly through luck and chance, she was already taking the necessary NEWT-level classes to get into Healer training, and having spent so much time in the hospital had given her plenty of time to study for her NEWTs, so she was able to make high enough marks to get into the Healer training programme. While her father was a little disappointed that she wasn't going into professional Quidditch, he understood what it was like to have a calling. Rin, of course, was delighted that, although Katie would be healing humans and not animals, she was sort-of following her footsteps.

That first year after finishing school was not at all what Katie expected. For starters, her father and aunt were both arrested in July, accused of "stealing magic," and were imprisoned in Azkaban. Quidditch was cancelled, so she didn't even have that to take her mind off things. Healer training was a lot like trial by fire, and she was constantly worried about her father and aunt, locked away in jail for something they didn't do, and her sister, who was a hitwitch and sort of on the front lines of everything.

Shortly before Christmas that year, she was particularly down in the dumps: missing her father, living on her own in a small apartment, overwhelmed with healer training, overwhelmed with just the war. Oliver Wood, her former Gryffindor captain, was still a close friend, and he was happy to provide some distraction for Katie. That distraction quickly turned into too many drinks, a series of bad ideas, and waking up the next morning wearing matching wedding bands.

At the time, with everything else going on, Katie just didn't think too much about it. Honestly, with the war waging all around them, it was nice to just … not be alone, especially at night. And the chances of both of them surviving the war felt so slim that thinking about it too much felt like just adding more to worry about on top of everything else.

When her DA galleon called former DA members back to Hogwarts in early May, Katie returned with Oliver, Angelina, and Alicia. She engaged in fighting, but as people started getting hurt and dying, she switched gears and put her training to good use, helping Madam Pomfrey with taking care of the injured. By the time the dust settled, Voldemort was finally dead- for good this time- and Katie was honestly surprised that both she and Oliver had survived. Unfortunately, her father had not been so lucky: her aunt Penny was released from Azkaban, and brought with her the news that Will had died in early February. At least his body was released to the family, so they could have a proper burial for him.

Having survived the war along with her husband introduced all sorts of new problems. They had to actually think about the fact that they were married now. Katie had always loved Oliver, but in a more platonic, friendly way. He had been one of her best friends for so long that she didn't want to lose that friendship, so even though their marriage wasn't typical, she wanted to try to make it work. They tried dating, but even that was a little awkward. Finally, a year after the war ended, they decided that being married wasn't working out, and they divorced amicably, though Katie was determined to at least try to stay friends afterwards.

After the divorce, even with the world feeling safer without the war waging, Katie still hated being alone, so she got a small house outside of Ballycastle (somewhat near her sister, who was also staying sort of close to their mum, who still lived in their childhood home in town, though Aunt Penny had moved in with her to keep her company) and a puppy: a big mutt with fluffy red-orange fur, whom she named Godric. At least with Godric around, Katie never had to come home to an empty house at night. She finished her Healer training, and specialised in spell damage, mostly working with emergency cases as they came in and short-term patients: she didn't like working with the long-term patients too much.

The years that followed were mostly a bit of a blur of work. She went out with friends from work sometimes, even tried dating a little, but she rarely saw the same guy more than two or three times. Eventually, she stopped trying to date, preferring to stay home with Godric and reading when she wasn't at work, and she started pulling longer shifts, too. She still went out with friends, just always in group situations.

By the time Oliver was starting keeper for the Scotland national team in 2006, they were back to being good friends, and Katie was excited to go with him to Spain for the World Cup. Although Scotland didn't win, Oliver played amazingly well, and while they were both riding high on the euphoria of the whole thing, they ended up eloping again. This time around, they tried harder to make a go of their marriage, moving in together again and everything. Maybe because the circumstances of this elopement were so different from the first one, it just seemed to work better.

Although she now actually had a home life, and a marriage that she was trying to keep going, Katie still had work to concentrate on. In 2010, her hard work paid off, and she was promoted to the Head Healer of the Emergency Ward on the Spell Damage floor. With her work life going well, and helped along by her mother's occasional hints about grandchildren, Katie has started to actually think and wonder about what it would be like to have children with Oliver. Though she's not sure if she wants to be the one to bring it up.

Personality

First Impression: SHE was a Gryffindor?
Likes: Summer, warm weather, being useful & helpful, flavoured coffee, chocolate, peanut butter (she eats it straight out of the jar), history, quidditch, flying, the smell of fresh-cut grass, dogs
Dislikes: Necklaces, jewellery in general, strawberries (horribly allergic), black coffee, tea, people who treat muggleborns as "lesser" wizards, being cold, being alone, being cooped up inside for too long
Overall personality: Katie is the sort of person who loves to help others, and to take care of them. She has a tendency to almost mother her friends, reminding them to grab a coat, hat, and gloves if they'll be going out into the cold. To a lot of people, it probably seemed natural for her to go into healing, since she always liked "fixing" people. And that is one of the things she enjoys about her job: being able to help people and get them better (which is one of the reasons she tends to avoid the Long Term Ward on her floor: she doesn't like the reminder that not everything can be quickly and easily fixed).

Unless you know about her participation in the DA in her sixth year, or her quick response to returning to Hogwarts to fight against Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Katie doesn't seem like the brave type, so many people wonder why she was put in Gryffindor, the house of bravery. In truth, she's as brave as any of her housemates, it's just more of a quiet bravery, hidden behind her sweet, studious, hard-working nature. She has fight to her, of course: she doesn't take things sitting down, and she'll stand up for both herself and the little guy, she's just generally grounded and pragmatic about things and prefers to have a plan before jumping into things (alcohol in any quantity has proven to put the pragmatism on hold, as is evidenced by her two elopements with Oliver Wood).

Although she doesn't play the sport professionally, Katie still loves quidditch, and still takes her old broom out for a quick flight when she needs to clear her head. The two teams she'll cheer for unfailingly are the Ballycastle Bats (her father's old team) and Puddlemere United (Oliver's team)- and when they're playing each other, Katie silently apologises to her father and cheers for Puddlemere. She's absolutely loyal to her family and friends, she'll stick with her loved ones through thick and thin, and she absolutely hates it if her loyalties to two different people are put to the test. But if she makes a promise, she'll do everything in her power to keep it, which was why she struggled a little with her divorce from Oliver: they might have been drunk when they eloped the first time, but they still made a promise to each other, and they were willingly breaking it. Which is part of why she's more determined to make things work this time around, because she doesn't want to break that promise a second time.

Katie tends to be better at helping and "fixing" others than she is at seeing what she needs to concentrate on for herself. It's not that she thinks she's perfect, it's more that she has a hard time seeing what her own flaws are, or to know what to do to fix them. So while she's good at giving advice (asked for or not) to friends, she's not so good at taking her own advice about some of the same things.