Just Gray🌟

The relationship between the two of you felt like something against the odds. Everything screamed danger. The fact he was a double spy, and even if he wasnt he still had people that hated his guts for a reason he couldn't name. Overall, life just seemed like it didn't favour it.

But, that was never going to stop it. No matter what happened he vowed to constantly stick to your side like glue and make sure you were ok so life didn't have a chance to sink its claws into while you weren't looking.

You two also vowed to keep the relationship a secret. But that secret was something life wanted to let out apparently...

You were doing the usual. teaching when you started hearing whispers coming from the students during class. You thought nothing of it until you may or may not made slower swoops around the classroom to take a good look before your eye couldn't help but catch something.

On one of your favorite students desk was a chart showing who you were most apt to date. Of course now that you had seen it, you giggled and instead of tearing the page out or calling the students out for this, you instead joined in on this little game of fun just to also secretly see if they had caught on.

In horrible writing you looked at the chart and froze. You saw they purposely erased the bar where Snape's was and drew it higher than even Hagrid's. That could mean someone might have either told the student or he started catching on a little.

But the fear quickly died down when you started laughing seeing Lockheart highest knowing damn well he wasn't even close to your type.

"Really, Lockheart? I guess I could almost see something there but honestly... No just no." Your brutal honesty made the children erupt with laughter including the nervous student who thought he was about to go into the light because a teacher caught him.

"Tell me though, do you have any of these silly charts on any other people?" You asked softly. Thanks to your calm reaction, he answered honestly. "No m'am, this is the first time I have ever made a chart like this."

You paused and nodded taking it as truth for now until otherwise. "Alright, but next time, try to make it more... Realistic." You said making the students giggle before they all started whispering a little.

"Your telling me a student was writing a silly little chart about who you would most likely date?" Severus was practically on the verge of exploding for more reasons than one.

"Relax Severus! Let the children have a little fun. Besides, if you don't calm down I wont tell you the rating scores." You said chuckling a little to yourself

To your surprise, he actually calmed down. You followed though telling him the whole thing. You regretted it a little since now he was scared yet again.

He also felt... possesive. The fact the students thought it was some one else secretly made his blood boil. Sure, it was reassuring that the lime light wasnt on you two, but that certainly made him more protective.

"Why would they even think you would date that pompous no brained horn dog" He said bitterly swirling a little the coffee in his cup.

You blushed a little since this was his way of showing that you meant a lot to him. After all, who wouldn't feel good having they're boyfriend go ape-crap after someone thought you were dating someone else.

"darling, why yes he had the brains of a five your old, you can see why the teens swoon over him. We all have had a mindless handsome jock or two in our life. I mean afterall, think of-" Before you were able to finish, it felt like you stepped in quick sand or uncharted territory.

He slowly turned o you with those dark eyes. "Like...who...?" You sighed and finished, "Well... Like James." Practically saying the name felt like you were throwing up poison and Severus didn't like it either.

But amazingly enough, instead of getting moody and dark, he just scoffed and replied, "Honestly that boy made mermaids throw up looking at him."

You quickly laughed realizing this may have very well been the first joke you've heard from him. He smiled knowing how well he roasted James alive before going back to reading the newspaper and finishing his coffee.

Even though he made such a good roast, something told you that this wasnt over. Not yet anyay.

It was now the Yule Ball, a introverts worst nightmare including your boyfriend's.

"Honey, we don't even have to dance. All we have to do is go to the teachers room, say hello maybe clink a few glasses then go back." You said trying to reassure him that he wasnt going to self-implode because he stepped outside.

He sighed nodding, "Very well, lets get this over with" And before you knew it, the two of you were getting dressed and ready.

The entire time, you felt his eyes linger on you longer than usual. Like he wanted to say something but it wasnt quite reaching his mouth. You shrugged thinking that it would come up at some point and you didn't want to rush him.

As soon as you opened the teachers lounge door, you were met with laughter and a sudden warmth. It felt nice and of course you two quickly gravitated towards Minerva.

After visiting and talking for a while with her, you moved on to talk with other people, meanwhile he remained your shadow, always sticking close behind. But he quickly noticed his enemy

Lockheart

Without any wanting, Severus quickly hugged you from behind wrapping his dark cloak around you like a bat while staring down Lockheart.

Lockheart being the dork that he was did not know what the hell was going on but decided to at least leave it alone before he stepped into something he shouldnt.

Meanwhile your face was as bright as a firework. It felt like everyone's eyes were on you. But it faded away as you felt the chill from winter melting not realizing how much warmth his cloak keeps in.

It made sense since he was able to stay hours making potions in his dungeon without a single shiver while you were turning into a Popsicle.

But this also meant the secret was becoming less like a secret and more like a diary left open for everyone to read. You didn't mind it that much, but you had a feeling Severus was going to scold himself later.

But once the party was over, you two started to head back to your shared quarters.

Before you knew it, you were quickly pinned to the wall and kissed like Severus was starving and you were a nice meal. "S-Severus what on ear-" Before you could finish he was already re-crashing his lips against yours.

Of course you started to try and ask questions before he pulled his cloak more around you and brought up his knee gently digging it into your crotch knee grinding making you quickly shut up or else you would let out a moan

Before though he was able to make any more advances, the sound of feet echoed throughout the walls making him quickly pull back.

Instead of being met with a teacher though, instead it was the little boy who made the chart. Severus meanwhile was cursing himself internally.

You pulled yourself together a bit more before you were met with the most excited eyes ever. He finally had a answer as to who you were dating and he was excited.

You bent down so you were eye level with him before saying, "Can you keep a secret?" The boy eagerly nodded before you rose back up ruffling the boys hair before sending him off

He nodded excitingly before dashing to his house's dorm. Severus's muttered something about stupid Gryffindor's to which you let out a chuckle.

Never have you been more grateful for his cloak.

As soon as you two got inside, he was a wreck. "Im sorry if I embarrassed you, really. Its just... I..." He didn't even know how to word himself which was surprisingly since he is a man made of words.

You knew though that sometimes, not even words could explain a situation or feelings well enough. So without a word, He started making coco for you. He didn't make any for himself since in his words 'chocolate is a muggle thing'.

But he would gladly do anything that made you happy. Even if it didn't exactly make sense to him. He sat down next to you and gave you the mug to which you gladly accepted. That hot chocolate was the best hot chocolate you thought you ever had.

Before you were able to compliment him, he curled up on your lap like a cat. His head resting on your thighs and curled up. You felt like you might just squeal from how cute and nice he was being. Of course he was always this way, but when you felt down and he did something like this, it meant a lot more.

You gently ran your fingers through his hair making him smile faintly before taking your hand and placing a kiss on your knuckles.

"I'm really sorry for what I did. I hope I didn't put you in danger. I shouldn't have let my possessiveness take over like that." He said practically beating himself up for what he did. But you understood him and why he did that.

"Its ok, I understand." He let out a sigh before going back to resting on your lap. Throughout the last part of the day, he continued to do small acts of service that made your heart soar.

He was like a raven if it took on human form because he loved bringing you random trinkets or shiny things. Anything that he knew you liked. As always, you put some on your night stand and saved the rest to put on your desk later.

But for now, it was the best part of he day, snuggling into him at night. He rubbed and scratched your back so good you thought you were at a spa meanwhile he placed slow gentle forehead kisses.

He wasnt just a man, he was a gentleman

You placed the trinkets on your desk expecting there to be hundred of questions since you were caught by that one student in the hallway. But instead, you were met with the normal amount of children chatting.

You as usual would walk around the students desks while teaching and you noticed that the bar on the date chart for severus was now all the way up and lockheart barely had a atom of bar.

You couldn't help but nod along to the beat of the song. Soda Pop was catchy, annoyingly so. And you hated even more that the group performing, who had bumped into you moments ago, were not only conventionally attractive, but they put on a damn good performance.

The Saja Boys. That's what the group called themselves. A group of demons masking as a boy band. Underneath that "perfect" exterior (and flawless abs) you saw the marks and the golden eyes.

"It looks like Gwi-ma's getting crafty," you mention off-handedly, never taking your eyes off the Saja Boys. The black haired one in particular drew your attention for whatever reason. You swear he winked at you, but you didn't want to seem that delusional. "And clearly it's working..."

All the fans around you seemed to be entranced...their souls wavering in support of the demons. Not a good sign.

"We can't eliminate them here," Rumi said. "There's too many people around."

When the song concluded, the crowd erupted into deafening applause. After sharing that the Saja Boys would be appearing on a game show that evening, they disappeared in a cloud of smoke and confetti, many people thinking it were special effects instead of their demonic magic. However, you noticed a faint trail...an energy of sorts that lead down the street.

"Y/n, are you coming?" Mira called.

"Um-I, uh will catch up with you guys later," you say, dashing off before the others could respond. The trail was flickering. You didn't want to lose it completely.

You followed it down several streets and through several alleys before it went cold, disappearing altogether when you arrived at some sort of park. It was relatively empty save for a few joggers who ran alongside the riverbank. The sun had just begun its descent, casting the sky in a hue of orange and purples. You look around for any hint of the trail before letting out a sigh, annoyed.

Then you heard it: the sound of an instrument playing.

Sitting by the river, you notice a lone figure. From behind you see that they're holding some sort of instrument that resembled a guitar. The sound was enchanting, a melody so sweet that it for some reason, brought tears to your eyes. Pain began to throb at the base of your temple as blurry images crossed your vision. You had heard this song before...but when?

"I didn't think you would follow me out here," a male voice spoke. Cautiously, you approached the musician, but when he turned, you immediately drew your weapon. Jinu held his hands up. "Woah be careful where you swing that. Someone could get hurt."

"That's kind of the point, demon." You lunge at him, and he teleports away. You try to strike him again and again, but Jinu makes no effort to defend himself nor attack you, only continuing to strum his instrument which you realize is a bipa. For a brief moment, the sight of it makes you falter.

"Do you remember?" Jinu asked gently though his gaze seemed distant. "You used to ask me to play lullabies for you all the time so you could sleep."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"And then, when you got sick, you said my music was the only thing that kept you going each day...even as you got weaker and weaker, you were happy just listening to me play the bipa."

"Shut up!" You lunged at Jinu again, tackling him to the ground. He made no effort once again to evade, only making sure you didn’t hurt yourself when the two of you tumbled into the river. You hold your blade at his throat. “Don’t act like you know me! I’m a hunter! It’s my job to kill demons like you.”

“Then do it,” Jinu said. He even grabbed your weapon, pressing it against his skin to draw blood. “May it be my repentance for failing you the first time, Y/n.”

Something about the way he said your name, defeated and sad made the ache in your chest worsen. His handsome features softened with this look of guilt you couldn’t quite understand. Your hands began to shake.

Why were you hesitating? Why wait? You were a hunter. You killed demons. You couldn't fall for this demon's charms or tricks. He was just trying to manipulate you and get into your head.

So why can't you bring yourself to slay him?

“Jinu, it’s okay. It’s not your fault…” you remember saying before a violent coughing fit ripped through your lungs. “I’m at peace with you by my side.” Jinu’s grip on your hand tightened. He looked the same except his clothing was strangely more traditional.

“Please, just hang on a little longer,” Jinu begged. His eyes watered with tears. “Please. I’ll get you the medicine. I’ll find the money to pay for a doctor. I can fix this!“

“Jinu,” you croaked. You trace your thumb across his hand. “You don’t have to fix everything. It’s ok. My only regret is that we didn’t have more time.”

“Y/n, please…please don’t leave me…I can save you.” The suppressed sob leaves his lips. “Please…I can’t go on living this miserable life without you.”

“Say…Jinu, my love.” You smile, shakily reaching up to cup his cheek. “Can you play for me one more song?”

You drop your weapon. Tears slowly began to trickle down your cheeks. “Why are you in my head…” your chest aches, your heart longing yet twisted with such pain you don’t recall having. “Jinu, why-“

Why do you have such memories with him? Why were you even alive? Why was he a demon? So many questions compounded into a headache.

Jinu pulled you close and wiped your tears. You cried into his chest equally scared and confused about the things you were seeing. The things you were feeling. The inexplicable care that you had for him. "What did you do to me?"

“Word cannot express how sorry I am, Y/n,” Jinu said softly. “I’ve loved you for 400 years, and I won’t stop even after my last breath. I sure as hell don’t deserve a second chance, but I’m not going to let it slip away. This time, I will ensure I won’t fail to protect you.”

abby saja: forced proximity, workplace romance

Being the manager to the Saja Boys was no easy job. In fact, they tested your patience almost every single day, especially Abby, who took great amusement in your annoyance.

You often ignore his advances, knowing him to be a major flirt and show off. It was part of his aesthetic. What you didn’t know was that deep down, his feelings were genuine, and Abby would do anything for your attention

“Manager-nim~”

You exhaled a tired sigh, mentally counting to prepare yourself for whatever request of you was to come next. Turning on your heel, you fake a smile of professionalism as you come face to face with a shirtless chest.

Ignoring the obvious distraction, you ask, “what do you want now, Abs?”

"Could you be a dear and help me with my performance outfit?" He asked with that facade of politeness that irked you. "We're going to film the practice video for Soda Pop."

"You're just wearing a Hawaiian shirt? How hard could it be for someone at your age to put on?"

The pink haired man shrugged, giving you a cocky smirk. "The buttons are giving me some difficulty."

You roll your eyes. There was no point in arguing with him about the blatant lie of his, so you take the blue shirt from him, making his smirk widen. After sliding his arms through each sleeve, Abby patiently watches you button up the shirt with careful precision. Your touch barely tickles his skin, and he tries not to flinch, but a subtle flush creeps up his neck. His heart stutters.

"There," you say flatly. "Anything else?"

Abby snaps out of his daze, putting back on his smile. The charms of course don't work on you, because you respond with a deadpanned glare. "Perhaps a kiss?"

"Keep dreaming." Then, Baby calls for your attention, needing help with something. Abby's eyes follow your retreating frame, his gaze narrowing as the beloved maknae gets too close to show you his phone. Bitter jealousy simmered in his stomach.

You always kept him at arms length. You said you had to remain professional which meant keeping business and personal lives separate. Hell, you wouldn't even go out to him for ramyeon or drinks unless it was a group thing. What would it take for you to truly notice him?

"Okay everyone, let's prepare to record," Jinu announced. "Manager-nim, can you handle the music?"

"Of course." You nod. The group filed into the practice room. The videographer set up the camera out of sight of the mirror, while you connected your phone to bluetooth. The catchy music fills through the speaker, and the boys are immediately in sync.

Although you've watched them perform this song more times than you'd like, you never fail to be impressed by their stage presence. They know how to command attention with their movements and charm the hearts of listeners with their vocals, especially Abby, though you hated to admit it.

He always moved with such precision that made his muscles flex in the best ways. He knew how to draw attention and make people swoon. And as much as you tried to ignore it, you couldn't help but stare whenever you thought he wasn't looking.

No, you reminded yourself. Keep it professional.

"Hey! Abs, are you okay?"

You snapped out your trance. It hadn't registered what even transpired, you were so focused on...never mind. The group had huddled around the center of the practice room. You pushed your way through to find Abby sitting on the ground holding his ankle.

"Let me see," you instruct, kneeling beside him. You rolled up his pants leg and immediately winced. It was swollen, an angry red beginning to turn purple.

"Just rolled my ankle. It's fine," Abby tried to assure through gritted teeth. "It'll be fine."

"Yeah no. It's definitely sprained. We're calling it a day."

"But we're supposed to go on Countdown tomorrow night!"

"It can be postponed," you insist. "Your health and wellbeing can not."

Abby didn't argue after that, and neither did the boys. Jinu and Romance handled the PR on your behalf to contact the show about the situation and release an official statement for the fans. Although there were varying levels of disappointment, it was undoubtedly agreed upon by the fans that Abby needed to rest in order to recover.

The two of you were left alone as you carefully wrapped his ankle with the bandages that Mystery had gathered for you. Abby winced slightly and you utter a soft apology.

"You'll want to avoid putting too much pressure on it for the next week or so. Until then, if you need anything, be sure to let me or the others know."

"I hate that I'm making you work so hard," Abby said with a halfhearted laugh.

You dismiss it with a shrug. "It's my job to."

Abby frowned, but he looked strangely...disappointed. "Is that all I am to you?" He then sat up and was suddenly in your face. The close proximity made heat burn your ears, and your heart fluttered nervously as you looked anywhere but him. "Why don't you ever look at me?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"I've tried so hard to get you to just notice me, but nothing I do ever works. Even know, you won't look me in the eye." Abby sighs, laying his forehead against your shoulder. "At this point, I just figure you must hate me."

"What? No! That's not-" You stop yourself, hesitating. Abby lifts his head, staring at you expectantly. Your face grows warm under his gaze. "You're an idol...I'm just your manager."

"So?"

"So! We can't-"

"Says who." Abby gently lifts your chin, your eyes finally meeting his. "Don't tell me you don't feel anything...that you don't feel the same connection. Y/n, as much as I play around, my intentions have always been genuine." He takes your hand, placing it against his chest. His heartbeat is erratic, nervous, a contrast to his seemingly cool demeanor.

You let out a shaky breath. Your own chest feels tight and your stomach is in knots. "Your fans won't be happy."

"I don't care."

"T-There'll be so much backlash...and people will question my professionalism as your manager-"

"Fucking hell, Y/n, I don't care!" Abby exclaimed. He let out a sigh, leaning his forehead against yours. In a softer tone, he asked, "what are you so afraid of?"

You swallow your nerves and allow yourself to lean more into his touch. "I'm afraid of it being too good to be true. Of being happier than I think I deserve. You could have anyone else more deserving, and I don't want to deal with the heartache when you realize that."

Abby let out a laugh. "Well then, that makes two of us." He pulled away to look you in the eye. His expression softened, less arrogant, full of adoration. He presses the gentlest of kisses on your temple. "But I rather live with the regret of letting myself be happy and love you then regret not trying at all."

mystery saja: opposites attract, celebrity x fan

Mystery was well, a mystery. Fans loved that cool exterior of his and the fact that you could almost never tell what he was thinking. Reality was that he was a huge introvert that preferred to observe the conversation and had few words to say

People mistook that for aloofness or as him being rude, not that it bothered him. Though, sometimes he wished someone would make an effort to understand him. He had feelings too, ya know. That's why he hardly expected for someone like you to see through him

Mystery first met you at a fan sign.

In all honesty, Mystery didn't care for these events. They were far too intimate and lasted far too long. Within the first hour and a half, his social battery would be depleted, and he'd disassociate mentally. Luckily, his hair covered his face, so no one could tell how much he truly didn't want to be there.

At some point, the faces of all the fans would blur together until he was just nodding along, posing for pictures, and signing autographs on auto pilot.

“Mystery, are you okay?” Someone asked, which snapped him back into reality. He was suddenly face to face with you. Unlike the other fans he had seen, you weren’t dressed in any visual merch, just a casual tee and some shorts. You wore an expression of concern, head tilted slightly in a manner he found strangely cute.

“Oh…yeah sorry, it’s been a long day,” Mystery made up some excuse before faking a smile. He took the album you were holding and signed it underneath Romance’s dramatic signature.

For some reason, you seemed unconvinced. Mystery’s smile wavered slightly, making him nervous. It was like you were staring into his soul. You then bowed, taking the album with a smile of your own.

“Ya know, it’s okay to be tired. No one will blame you for needing a break from time to time,” you say before your voice drops to a whisper. “Maybe visit a nice cafe for a change of pace. The one my grandparents run near Itaewon station has quite the cozy atmosphere.”

Before Mystery could respond or ask the name of the cafe, you were ushered along down the line to Abby, and he found himself feeling disappointed that your time had been cut so short.

Days after the fan sign, he couldn’t get you out of his head. Mystery didn’t understand why. You two hardly exchanged more than twenty words in your thirty second interaction. But during that time…you hadn’t asked him about the group, to do any fun poses or take a picture, nothing what fans typically ask.

Instead, you saw through his facade and showed concern. You had asked him if he was okay.

So, a couple days after the fan sign, Mystery found himself outside Itaewon station searching for your cafe.

The area was packed, bustling as usual. Mystery pulled the bill of his cap down to avoid recognition. He really didn’t have a plan to find you. Itaewon was one of the busiest districts in Seoul with no shortage of cafes, restaurants and bars. All you had said that it was by the station.

Mystery began wandering around, scouring his surroundings, when just his luck, he saw you. With an apron around your waist, you exited a cute looking store carrying a stand that had different menu items like coffee and parfaits on it. You set it outside the door before returning inside.

Huntr/x’s newest song welcomes Mystery when he enters the cafe. It was surprisingly small, with a cozy lofi-like atmosphere. Thankfully it wasn’t too crowded either.

“Hi! Welcome! Feel free to sit wherever you like,” you call, not looking up from the espresso machine.

Mystery takes a seat at the end of the bar, near the corner so he could observe while you worked without drawing too much attention to himself. You were efficient at your job. You swiftly took orders, refilled drinks, and dished out the most delectable looking pastries. Something about the way you worked was enlightening. You seemed to radiate this positivity from how you were all smiles and sincerity as you interacted with the customers. Mystery was entranced.

"Oh! it's you!" You exclaim when you finally noticed him at the bar. He shrunk down, looking around nervously. "Oops, sorry!" You whisper. "I'm glad you're here though. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?"

"Uh...what do you recommend?"

"I'll bring you my favorite!"

By the time you brought out his drink, it had slowed down considerably, so you opted to take a seat next to him. You placed two coffees down along with a slice of cake. Mystery watched your movements cautiously, and when you gestured for him to try the drink you brought, he does so with a hesitant sip. Instantly, his chest feels warm as the caramel taste graces his tongue.

"It's good...what is it?"

"Butterscotch!" You say cheerfully, taking a sip of your own coffee that was iced. "It's the best thing we offer, and it always refreshes me after a long shift."

"It seems draining," Mystery mumbled, yet you still wore that radiant smile, seemingly unaffected by any exhaustion. Or, perhaps you were, and just managed to hide it insanely well. He kind of envied that thought.

"It can be, but with a little self care and a sweet treat here and there, I feel like I can tackle anything I put my mind too."

Mystery nodded absentmindedly. You tilted your head in that cute manner, pursing your lips like you were thinking. You could tell he was tense, unable to relax completely. As he sipped his coffee, he kept nodding off, nearly falling off the chair. Almost as if it were taking everything in him to keep from keeling over the countertop. Call it a hunch but you also knew from experience the dangers of overworking.

It made your heart ache, because you couldn't begin to fathom how much harder idols had to work. They didn't get too many breaks, so how well was Mystery really taking care of himself?

"Are you doing alright today?" You ask. "You seem tired."

"In all honesty..." Mystery hesitated briefly. "I don't really sleep well at night. Our days are so long, and even though I'm exhausted by the end, my mind races so much that I can't sleep." In reality, Gwi-ma infiltrated his thoughts better when he was tired or overstimulated.

"Have you told your manager? Or even the other members?"

Mystery shook his head. "They all assume it's just me being Mystery, but in actuality, I feel like I'm going to snap. The insomnia is so bad that I go nights without sleeping." He didn't know why he was telling you all this. You were just a stranger, a fan of his he met on a whim. But being around you came like second-nature and Mystery just wanted someone to hear his woes. To see that underneath that cool exterior, he truly was struggling.

You suddenly stood, taking the coffee cup out of his hand which surprised him. You go around the counter and pour it into the sink despite his protests. "The last thing you need right now is some caffeine. That'll just make it worse. Do you have anything else on your schedule today?"

"Not until maybe about eight tonight..."

"Good." You motion for him to follow. You lead him down the hall to the back where to one of the rooms marked Employees Only. The room wasn't a storage like Mystery expected, but rather a lounge with fluffy looking chairs and a couch with a couple decorative pillows. A radio played soft instrumentals in the corner. "This is what I call the quiet room. Lay down here for a few hours. No one will disturb you."

"Oh no...I couldn't possibly-"

"Mystery." The way you say his name makes his heart flutter. "Go lay down. I'll bring you some herbal tea."

Too tired to actually argue, Mystery hesitantly enters the room and sits on the couch. He sinks into the cushions that wrap around him like a hug. He barely registers the sound of the door closing before sleep consumes him. And for the first time, his thoughts are silent, only filled with pleasant dreams of you by his side.

romance saja: fake dating, enemies to lovers

The two of you despised each other. Sure, while the other members between the two groups had beef, the dislike you had for Romance extended past rivalry. Literally any time you saw him, you swung your knife at him, which fans mistook as you two playing

A misunderstanding lead to the dating rumor, that the two of you finally put your differences aside and actually found love. Unfortunately, your companies and fans ate it up

You were seated next to Romance during the fan sign after Rumi came up with the brilliant idea to mix and mingle with the Saja Boys despite your, Mira, and Zoey's protests. You couldn’t tell what she had been thinking. Especially knowing how much you hated Romance.

“Hello beautiful~woah!”

Romance leans back as the blade of your knife nearly swipes his skin as he goes to sit down next to you. Still, that stupidly charming smile doesn’t leave his face. Rumi mouths “please behave,” making you sigh and put away your weapon.

“I knew you’d fall for me eventually,” Romance says cheekily.

“In your dreams asshole,” you hiss through a gritted fake smile as the first fan comes up to you for an autograph.

“Awe, come on babe, am I really that terrible?”

“Yes. And don’t call me babe or I’ll stab you.”

“Ouch. You’re gonna make me cry.”

You rolled your eyes, knowing he was anything but sad. In fact, Romance was thoroughly entertained by your reactions and wanted nothing more than to see you tick. He knew how to push your buttons. It wasn’t hard to be honest. He would even go as far as to say he found your outbursts cute. Especially how you thought you could actually hurt him. And the fans seemed to eat up your interactions as well.

“Romance, Y/n, you guys are like totes cute. Can you please send us a heart together?” A young fan asked, holding her phone excitedly in her hands to take a picture.

“Of course/absolutely not.”

Romance ignored your comment, sliding up close beside you only putting a bit of distance when you held your knife against his side under the table. He held up half a heart with his hand and looked at you expectantly to do the same.

“Come on,” he whispered. “It’s just one picture.” Sighing, you then hold up your hand to complete the heart while forcing a smile. Romance tilts his head ever so slightly, making it seem like you two were closer. For some reason, it made your heart feel fuzzy in a way you didn’t like.

“Wahh totally my OTP! Thank you!” The fan cheers before skipping off.

You drop the act immediately once they’re gone. You then quickly stand to excuse yourself, giving a half assed lie about needing to go to the bathroom. Once backstage, the frustration finally boiled over and you punched the wall (stupidly). This whole Honmoon was frustrating enough to begin with but now adding the Saja Boys into the mix, you were slowly losing your mind having to play nice with demons.

And to make matters worse stupid Romance was consuming your thoughts lately and the feelings were confusing.

“Jeez, what did the wall do to you.”

You threw your knife without even looking at who undoubtedly followed you.

“Come on,” Romance whined. “I’m being so nice as to check on you because I was concerned yet you try to harm my beautiful face.”

“Go away. I want to be alone,” you huffed. Of course he didn’t listen, approaching you with leisurely steps. Romance takes your hand gently and observes your bruised fingers.

“Listen, the fans are just being fans. But if the interaction genuinely made you uncomfortable, you should've said so,” Romance said, his expression softening to a look of concern. He then brings your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles, making your traitorous heart swoon. “Last thing I truly want to do is upset you or disrespect your boundaries.”

“I’m not upset…” you mumble, trying to ignore the heat creeping across your cheeks.

“If you say so.” Romance pulled away. His touch lingered. “Come back out when you’re ready. Your band mates are handling everything.”

Your band mates in fact were not handling everything. In the less than 10 minutes you had been gone, the internet had exploded. Someone had snuck back stage and caught a picture of Romance kissing your knuckles and your clearly flustered expression.

Y/N x Romance: rivals to lovers?

I knew their beef was just for show!

OMG I called it! (Ship name) for ever

It just got worse and worse. Although the rest of Huntrix knew the rumors were fake, trying to dissuade fans would be difficult. Against your better judgment, you met up with Romance at a bar to discuss the rumors. After all, there was no point in denying the rumors if he wasn’t on the same page.

“Why don’t we just give the fans what they want and fake a relationship for a few months?” Was not what you expected him to say. Your mouth fell agape in shock.

“Are you mad? Why the hell would I do that?”

Romance shrugged. “Cause it would be fun, and I could assure you that dating me would come with some benefits.” You reach across the table, yanking him by his shirt as anger simmered in your veins. He held his hands up in peace, a smile on his face. “I’m serious. I can help you.”

“You’re a demon. Why the hell should I trust you?” You snapped. Romance smirked, tracing his finger across your jaw. A shiver went down your spine.

“I believe a fake relationship can be mutually beneficial for our individual goals.”

You swat his hand away, sitting back in your seat. “I’m not helping you steal souls.”

“That’s not what I want.” Romance hesitated before sighing. “I want Gwi-ma out of my head. If we continue to fake the relationship and he thinks I’ve successfully lured one of the hunters, you guys can seal the Honmoon when he least expects it. Once he’s out of my head, I can go about my business like every other human and you guys fulfill your duty. Deal?”

You stare at him skeptically, crossing your arms. His plan sounded solid, though you hated to admit. It was your stupid pride though that made you hesitate. That and…he already made you feel things that you didn’t quite understand. You were scared to explore where things could go if you let your emotions run unchecked.

“Come on,” Romance urged, his expression pleading. “Is the thought of loving me so terrible?”

“I…” you sigh. “Okay. Fine. But only until the Honmon is sealed.”

“You have yourself a deal, babe.”

It’s only pretend. It’s not real. If you repeat it enough, maybe you’ll convince your heart to believe it.

baby saja: friends to lovers, soulmates

You two practically grew up together in the demon realm and were inseparable troublemakers from the start. Neither of you remembered life before becoming demons, only that you had each other

Baby didn’t believe in love or soulmates. Truth was, he didn’t think he deserved it. So for years, he tried to convince himself that his feelings were strictly platonic. You were just a friend

Rehearsal dragged on longer than Baby would have liked. Then right after, he had to go on that stupid variety show and pretend like he cared about the dumb games they played. He had to be the cute maknae everyone adored. To maintain that perfect image despite the fact that everything on his body ached.

By the time they returned to home, Baby didn’t want to be bothered with anything else and retreated to his room, ignoring his hyungs. Figuring he was in a mood, none of the other members bothered to check on him which made sneaking out that much easier.

It was after midnight when Baby found himself at an abandoned building. Looking around, he made sure he was alone before moving the wooden plank that blocked the door to enter the dark space.

From the looks inside, it seemed to be some old motel or something. The lobby was pitch black but his demonic eye sight made it easy to navigate through the worn out chairs to the stairs. Baby climbed up to the fourth floor to the rooftop. It was equally as abandoned with old, broken chairs and a drained pool. The moon hung overhead basking the city with its light. Near the edge of the roof, a person sat with their feet swinging off the side.

“Oi, don’t sit so close the edge or you’ll fall,” Baby scolded. He stuck his hands in his pockets as he approached. You looked up at him with that sweet expression of yours that always made his chest feel funny.

“Why hello to you too,” you laugh. “Lovely evening isn’t it?”

Baby didn’t respond, instead sitting beside you. He then handed you the plastic bag he had brought with him. Inside were a bunch of snacks he knew you liked that he got from the 24 hour convenience store on his way to meet you.

“Ooh I love this brand of chips!”

“I know.” Baby deadpanned. “It’s all you ever talk about.”

“Well excuse me. We don’t have such delicacies in hell.” You meant it as a joke, but it only made Baby frown. Seeing that his demeanor changed, you quickly opened up the bag and shove a few chips into your mouth before offering some to share. “Mhm so good! Here! Try!”

Baby takes one only and nibbles on the corner. “Good, but they’re for you to enjoy.”

“Suit yourself.” You open up the pack of cookies next. They are something you hadn’t tried before, and the way your eyes excitedly lit up at the taste made the barest hint of a smile tug at Baby’s lips.

You were always so curious about humans and their world, even from when you were young. Baby himself didn’t always understand it but he loved seeing you happy and thus always entertained your little curiosities and interests. As long as it kept the smile he loved on your face.

“You look a little tired there,” you observe. You could always notice the small things about him. After all, you’d been around each other long enough to pick up on each other’s quirks and habits. Like you knew how his nose scrunched when he was annoyed and trying to hide it.

“It was a busy day,” Baby dismissed. He laid his head on your lap making you tense briefly. You hoped he couldn't hear your erratic heartbeat, but if he did, Baby made no comment. "Some fans can be so annoying. One human had me doing some of the most embarrassing aegyo to which Abby-hyung now won't stop teasing me for. And then Jinu-hyung is such a stickler for perfection that rehearsal ran over an hour." He sighed contently feeling your hands run through his hair.

"Sounds like you have it rough," you say with a laugh. "But for as long as I can remember, you've always had a thing for music."

"Yeah, but being an idol sucks. I'm only doing this so that Gwi-ma breaks our contract so that you can permanently stay in Seoul."

Unlike him, you were technically still bound to the demon realm. Due to the Honmoon weakening, you were able to occasionally slip through the weakened barrier to meet Baby in the human world. But you could never stay too long, because Gwi-ma would get inside your head and drive you to the point of insanity until you returned. Baby assumed Gwi-ma did it to keep you from completely escaping. It wasn't like you were a high ranking demon or anything. No. It was about control.

"While I do appreciate the concern, you needn't worry about me," you say. You brush Baby's bangs out of his forehead. He stares up at you, heart constricting from the sad smile on your face. "We're demons. I've accepted long ago that we don't get the luxury of happy endings."

You wince, a slight headache coming on. You didn't have much time left before you needed to go back...sadly. It never felt like your time spent with Baby was long enough. How you longed to just stay by his side. To wake up beside him. To go with him to the convenience store and stock up on junk food. To attend one of his concerts.

What would it be like to be human and have your own autonomy? To not have to worry about the negative thoughts driving you to the brink of madness? To be able to freely love the one you care so much about without restriction or fear?

“You know, I heard the seafood on Jeju Island is to die for,” you say with a small smile, trying to change the subject. “I’ve always wondered what squid tasted like.”

“We’ll plan a trip then,” Baby responded nonchalantly. “We can even go overnight when you're free."

"Baby-"

There were also small loops of dried grass braided around the handles of Barty’s rucksack, polished pebbles falling out of the tosser’s pockets, pressed flowers in his books, dried bundles of herbs and bouquets of wildflowers hanging along the posters of his bed frame, and Evan’s dorm room now featured something called an essential oil diffuser. 

And it was one morning after waking up to the scent of lemon and eucalyptus that Evan felt he finally had to ask. 

“Oh, Barty.” You cooed as you made your way over to their spot at the Slytherin table, coming up behind Barty and pressing a kiss to his lips when he craned his head back in a silent request for one. “What’s with all the wrackspurts, my love?”

Your eyebrows were furrowed in concern, Evan’s eyebrows furrowed in bemusement, and Barty’s eyebrows furrowed in what appeared to be disbelief.

”What wrackspurts? I shouldn’t have any wrackspurts.” 

”You’re covered in them.” You insisted; eyes darting around Barty’s head as you ‘shooed’ invisible beings away from him. “Did you not set up the diffuser properly?”

Barty scoffed as if you just said something utterly ridiculous. “Of course I set up the diffuser properly. Lemon and eucalyptus; just like you said!” 

You let out a disappointed sigh as you brushed your fingers through Barty’s hair; equal parts affectionate and discontent. 

“Lemon and mint, Barty.” 

Barty’s shoulders sagged as he pouted at you, which brought a loving smile to your face before you pressed another, apologetic kiss to his lips. 

“It’s okay, my love; I’ll make sure you have the right one’s set up for tomorrow.”

”Thank you, treasure.” Barty beamed, pulling you down for one more kiss before he let you go, watching as you all but floated away. 

Evan couldn’t take it anymore. 

“What the fuck?”

Barty’s soft smile melted away as you disappeared around the corner before he moved his attention towards his friend. “What?”

Fair enough, Evan supposed; he didn’t really know where to start, either. 

“What the fuck is a wrackspurt?” Evan decided, hardly pausing for a moment before he was continuing. “Or a nargle? And what’s with the braided grass? And the oils? And where do you keep getting all these rocks!?”

Evan was almost desperate for air by the time he stopped; Barty merely cocking one unimpressed eyebrow at him.

”Listen,” Barty started, pointing at Evan with his spoon, “she’s fit as fuck, so I don’t ask any questions.” 

And with that, Barty returned his attention to the yoghurt in front of him and left Evan staring at the top of his head.

You can’t sleep.

You're not sure you'll find sleep ever again.

“I knew it, I knew it—“ Cherry had bounced the whole way to your dormitory, howling into your ear. “I knew it!”

The image of Oliver’s fluttering eyes swum around your brain as you blinked into the darkness of the poster bed. The taste of his tongue and his words still right against your lips.

It was a riddle of a calibre that you can’t seem to detangle. More than anything, you try to remember how strong has he tasted of Firewhisky - was he so drunk to really dismiss it to nothing at all?

You lingered on it all weekend.

Cherry didn’t help at all — he’s been in love with you forever, that’s literally so obvious — and Enzo even less so once he’d been filled in: Oliver doesn’t seem a bloke who let’s alcohol make his decisions for him, something about Scottish genetics I think.

The interaction plagued you: digging a wide hole in the base of your stomach. You mourned the thought that you may never have the opportunity to kiss those soft lips again, more than anything: preparing yourself for the feud between yourselves to worsen.

There’s barely enough time to make sense of your situation before you’re racing down over the grassy hills of the grounds, bag swinging violently over your shoulder and extraordinarily late for your Herbology lesson in the greenhouse.

Your morning alarm had rung right into one ear and out the other, a product of the tossing and turning you’d been doing for the last two nights.

When you swing the greenhouse door open, panting and face flush from the beating sun, the whole room turns to you. Sprout pauses where her hands are flailing in explanation.

“Sorry I’m late professor,” you wheeze, readjusting your strap over your shoulder.

Cherry is smirking at you from her bench, sidled up with Jane Emmet.

It hadn’t escaped you that you’d be sharing the lesson with the Gryffindors, but you’d precious little time to worry about it in the five minutes you had to pull a robe over your head and stick a toothbrush into your mouth.

Your eyes are purposeful in not looking over the room. Scared to catch the wrong eyes.

“Not a problem peach, we’re just repotting some Fire-Seed Bushes.” She brings a stubby hand to her chin, “uhm … well, Mr Kumar there in the corner doesn’t have a partner. Go join him by his pots.”

Archie has a lopsided smile on his face when you approach, a thick black curl drooping over his left eye.

“Hey.” He nudges gently.

You set your bag down and grab a pair of gloves, chuckling. “Hey Archie.”

The soil is warm when you stick your fingers into the dirt, shifting it gently enough not to mess over the edge of the bucket. There’s a Fire-Seed Bush sitting tentatively at the end of the bench, spitting sparks and emitting smoke.

“So …” Archie speaks first, the back of his hand bumping yours between the black soil. “How was your weekend?”

It’s a veiled question, a poorly veiled one at that. The question draws a laugh from the base of your stomach.

You shrug, adamant on missing the point. “It was alright, I guess. How about yours?”

He shrugs right back. “Wasn’t the greatest. Penelope Clearwater rejected me for Percy Weasley.”

You don't mean to, you really don't, but it draws another bout of laughter out of you - you clap your hand over your mouth. “I’m sorry—“

“No, I get it. Percy bloody Weasley?” His brow is creased, dirt-stained hands rising messily from the soil to swipe at a fallen piece of hair in his face. “Dead sure that bloke's own mother can't say he’s handsome. I’m better looking than him, surely?”

There’s the hanging insinuation that it was rhetorical, but you reply anyways: “you’re definitely more handsome than Percy Weasley, Archie.”

His head cocks down at you, stained paws finding his waist and pressing black fingerprints into the red jumper. “You really think so?”

“Without a doubt.”

Archie smiles, bumping your side against his. You think he might be blushing. “You’re very charming. I understand what Oliver sees in you.”

You jolt involuntarily, spilling some black soil over the edge of the pot.

Swiping at the mess lazily, you play the comment off with another crumbly chuckle: hoping it convinces him more than it does yourself. “Oliver sees in me what a bull sees in a red cape.”

Archie’s reaching timidly for the Fire-Seed Bush, lifting it off the counter and holding the dangerous botanical at arm’s length. “Not true. The boy’s half in love with you.”

This conversation is getting awfully uncomfortable awfully quickly. It picks at your curiosity nonetheless.

“He said that?”

He’s quick to shake off the question, eyes still trained on setting the roots of the bush into the gap in the soil. “Oliver doesn’t have to say anything. He spends practically every fucking mealtime mooning over at your table, and he talks about you way more than necessary—“

“That’s just because I work on his nerves. Oliver doesn’t love me, he barely tolerates me.”

The boy turns on you, confusion set in his brow. “Why is this news? Last I saw you, your tongue was halfway into his stomach.”

Zachariah Smith and his Gryffindor partner look up at that. Your face goes hot all over - Archie doesn’t seem to notice.

“We were drunk.” You say softly, eyes stuck on a loose leaf crackling against the wooden counter.

There’s a special kind of fear that's crawling into your heart where you stand. The fear of putting too much faith into the words of Archie Kumar.

That it’s an elaborate ruse. A set-up, canons of confetti and a banner screaming “you’ve been fooled!” if you were to indulge his words. The danger of allowing your mind to drift too far off into the possibilities of a world wherein Oliver Wood doesn’t hate you - at least not as much as he lets on.

Archie looks at you out the side of his eye, you can feel it, but says nothing. He hands you a miniature yellow-handled spade.

Instead you fill the space. "I heard Isla Flynn has a crush on you."

He perks: "really?"

Across the room, Oliver is bumping elbows with Poppy Davis.

"Ow!"

A loose spark has evidently landed on her exposed arm. The sparks that Oliver was supposed to be watching for, the ones that he is intent on ignoring with the constant glancing back over his shoulder to where you and his best mate are in the corner of the room fucking giggling at each other like toddlers with a box of matches.

“Oliver — can you just focus for five seconds!” Poppy isn’t impressed.

Oliver isn’t either, with the situation as a whole. The pads of his fingers are blistered from the repotting of the bush and Poppy’s careless bumps and his general indifference to the task at hand.

It eats at his brain. What are you guys talking about? Is it about him?

You laugh again and it’s loud enough that it draws his shoulders all the way taut. There’s another snap of a spark and Oliver feels where it lands at his wrist, but he doesn’t react.

“Just pass me the bloody spade.” He grumbles.

-

The lesson passes more slowly than Oliver could swim shoulder-deep through molasses.

It feels like years later when he tosses his gloves into the box with the rest, when the class shuffles to return tools and begin slinging half-open bags over their shoulders.

Oliver doesn’t think he’s ever packed up faster - Poppy is still scowling at him, he doesn’t care - before he’s knocking through yellow and red tied students to find Archie’s head of curly black hair.

“Hey!” He catches him by the wrist, tugging on it like a dog with a bone. Archie jumps, eyes winding down to find his friend. “What did she say?”

You’re far ahead, Oliver can make out the back of your head: hips bumping with Cherry’s up the hill towards the castle.

Archie grins. “She said Isla Flynn has a crush on me.”

Oliver groans, “Not about that, you prat. About— wait, really?”

"Yeah!" He hikes his bag higher on his shoulder. "Can you believe it? She's got that hot Irish accent and everything."

Oliver nods, "Yeah ... yeah. Good on you, mate."

He's trying desperately not to steal this moment from his best friend, but he's fucking itching to know what else you and Archie had been giggling about.

"Did she ... say anything else?" He presses, more gently than his character usually allows. "Like about me?"

Archie shrugs without looking down. "I asked her, but she seemed tense about the whole thing."

"Tense?"

"Yeah, she said something about a bull and a cape, and went like all quiet when I told her you like her--"

At that, Oliver's stomach leaps up into his throat. He grabs his best friend by the arm, jolting him to a short stop. Some Hufflepuff bumps into their halted figures, grumbling before shuffling around them.

"You told her what?" His eyes flare erratically.

Archie shrugs, an innocuously confused look painting his features. "Well I said Oliver's half in love with you, or something like that and she looked all confused about it--"

Oliver's grip on his friend's wrist tightened to a degree that a ring was sure to form on his dark skin. "You fucking pinhead! You told her I liked her?"

Pulling his arm violently from his grip, Archie has the nerve to look affronted. "You don't?"

The morning sun shining over Oliver's head feels like it's growing hotter by the second, there's a dribble of sweat running down his spine.

"That's -- that's not the point. Even if I do, which I'm not saying is the case, she doesn't need to know that."

"Were you two obliviated in your sleep last night?" Archie's eyebrows are pressed down against his eyes, slouching down to meet his friend's face. "I caught you two making out like the world was ending less than three days ago! Surely she has to figure that you feeling something for her, she's not stupid."

Oliver struggles between his thoughts, worse around his words. "That was ... we'd been drinking. For all I know, she only kissed me back cause she was trollied off Dragon-Barrell--"

"She said that, too."

Eyeing him, Oliver's hands find his hips. "Said what, exactly?"

"That you were drunk, I mentioned the kiss and she said we were drunk."

A sensation he can only identify as closest to guilt seeps up into Oliver's chest from his stomach. "She thinks I kissed her just cause I was drunk?"

Archie's hand finds Oliver's shoulder. "You should probably talk to her, mate."

He sighs, eyes drifting over the silhouette of the castle in the distance. He shakes his head like it'll rattle the plaguing thoughts loose. "We're gonna be late for Transfig."

-

"I mean, Archie is his best friend." Cherry is trying to rationalise the whole story. "I don't see why he'd lie about it?"

You shake your head, knocking shoulders with a Ravenclaw girl trying to pass through the corridor. "I'm not entertaining it, Cherry."

"Come on," she sighs, practically skipping to keep up with the furious pace you've set. "Would it be so terrible if he likes you?"

"Yes." You don't look at her.

The redhead's eye-roll is practically audible, "Let me rephrase, would it be so terrible if he likes you back?"

You meet her eyes for the first time since you'd entered the corridor.

She sighs, "we're gonna see him in Muggle Studies in five minutes. I think you should say something."

"Forget I said anything, Cherry." Heat flares at your neck again, prompted by the embarrassment of even imagining how such a conversation might go.

The rest of the walk is quiet, but you feel Cherry's gaze warming the side of your face.

Burbage's classroom is over-populated with Gryffindors by the time you drop your bag against the marbled floor beside your desk. In the corner of your eye, your brain has already fixated on Oliver's silhouette leaned against the edge of his own desk. You flush hot all over again, as if your thoughts were transcribing into subtitles and floating above your head for the whole class to read.

The click of Burbage's heels prompt the lingering students to find their seats, "Please take out your copies of Muggle Wars: Cause and Effect. We left off on page eighty-seven--"

You suddenly regret snapping at Cherry. Wishing for the comfort of her presence, your eyes glazing over where she's perched in the first row of desks closest to the chalkboard.

Unusually, the class trickles on without disruption. There's a few glances over at your direction, like everyone is waiting for another outburst from the grade's most volatile duo. They're sure to be let down, you're adamant to not even breathe in the direction of Wood.

Burbage comments on it, too, nearly ten minutes from the bell.

"It's suspiciously quiet in your corner today, captains." she looks down through her fingerprint-smudged frames, brushing over you and then Wood three seats away. "Something the matter?"

You shrug, refusing to acknowledge the boy. He seems to be doing the same: completely unfairly, the thought that he wouldn't look at you made the hair on your arms stand straight. "We can start up if you'd like, professor?"

Her face contorts into that irritated look that you'd grown accustomed to when Professor Burbage addresses you. "You're flirting dangerously with another session of detention, miss."

"She's just answering your question, professor."

Nobody in the class seemed more surprised than Burbage, although that in itself was a feat. The two Gryffindor boys in the row ahead of you swivel all the way around in their seats to look at Oliver, who'd just spoken.

You fight the twitching urge to look at him.

"Detention for two, it seems. I'll be seeing you both Friday afternoon."

A calm air settles again over the class, as if order had been restored. You and Wood had lost the interest of the room and students shift back to the board where WHAT IS A PRIME MINISTER? is sprawled across it in chicken-scratch handwriting.

Sighing, your eyes find the clock against the wall. Eight minutes left.

You pick at the end of your quill irritably: electing to dip it into the ink at the edge of the desk and entertain yourself quietly by drawing a miniature snowman at the corner of your page, trying not to think about another Friday afternoon in too close of a proximity to Oliver Wood. There's a soft whir, barely audible if you weren't so focused on outlining pebble eyes, and a tiny paper-airplane whizzes quietly from under your desk: landing squarely on the nose-less head of your snowman.

Fear prickles at you. You don't look up for the source, lest a suspicious sideways glance earns you another weekend with the party-animal Charity Burbage.

Instead, you carefully undo the intricately folded wings of the plane. It's barely big enough to fit into your palm once open, the top of the little note marked in black ink.

It was the same handwriting that marked the sign-out sheet for equipment in the Quidditch storage rooms down at the pitch.

'Thanks for that one, smart-mouth.'

Your eyes flicker up to Burbage, who's back is turned, before you dip your quill into the ink and scribble out a response. In your peripheral, Oliver is leaned back in his stool: biceps folded over each other. There's an unexplainably airy-fairy, fuzzy feeling warming your rib cavity.

'Believe this one was your fault, dickhead.'

You quietly refold the creased edges, before tapping it lightly with the end of your wand: then watch how it takes off the airstrip of your page and zips quietly under the cover of desks to land back in front of the sender.

There's a long pause - enough for Burbage to draw out a whole flow diagram of something called "parliament" - before the edge of the paper wing grazes at your calf again. It lands quietly again.

'Maybe.

We good?'

There's a gentleness to the sentence. Like you can hear it from Oliver's mouth, like he's avoiding your gaze when he whispers it.

You hunch over the note again.

Oliver's knuckles are turning white, twisting his wand in his hands under the table. He shouldn't have said anything. He's regretting the whole fucking idea of the stupid paper-plane now.

He's trying not to watch you write, not to notice how long you stared at his writing before you picked up your own quill. He does anyways.

When the airplane flutters down into his palm, Burbage is already excusing the class. Stools are scraping against cold tile, the clutter of textbooks being crammed back into bags.

'Never :)'

His eyes run over the word once, twice, three times over. A smile is tugging at the edge of his lip, he forces it taut - but his eyes are still shining unusually brightly when Archie knocks his shoulder to his.

"What you looking so damn happy about?"

Oliver tucks the note into the pocket of his robes. "Don’t know what yer talking about."

-

"But professor, why can't Hufflepuff take Saturday?"

"Well, Hufflepuff already gave up our practice days for Gryff--!"

Hooch sighed so deeply she almost melted back into her armchair. "The decision is made, Oliver. The pitch is being cleaned out on Wednesday, your team can take Saturday for any extra training."

He could practically hear the smile creeping onto your face, the smug crossed-arm look he'll no doubt find when he turns to you.

Irritation bubbles up in his throat, a familiar companion in your presence, and just as he prophesied: you are grinning.

In the weeks that followed that day in Burbage's class, it seemed that both parties decided that the topic of their shared kiss outside the Ravenclaw common room was best left undiscussed.

The arrangement is working. At least Oliver thinks so.

You still bait him and he still snaps, rising to your taunts. He still finds himself in detention more Fridays than he spends free, and his body ripples with anger when you roll your eyes at him.

But it was in moments, like this now, where your little self-satisfied grin doesn't quite vex him to the degree it once did. It's now harder to find a retort, to snap at you with a sharp-edged comment. Not when amusement crinkles at the corners of your eyes where your black lashes kiss so prettily.

Hooch swivels in her chair to find a document between one of her cluttered drawers, you take the opportunity to stick the tip of your tongue out childishly at him.

Oliver draws a tight breath, he hopes his face is still taut in annoyance, because his heart has slipped like a stone down into his stomach. That's the other issue, the tiny little obstacle in these recent weeks: he can't stop looking at your mouth. It's distracting, disarming - paralysing at the best of times.

He strips his gaze away, before he can be outed by anyone in the room. "Whatever." He mumbles.

You seem disappointed in his lack of a real response, but it passes quickly - like a shadow - over your face.

"Thanks professor." You grab up your roster from her desk and turn to the door, practically skipping out into the corridor.

He huffs.

Somehow, you and Archie have become fast friends. Mornings around Fire-Seed Bushes and Venomous Tentaculas in the heat of Greenhouse Three seems to do wonders for a friendship.

It prickles at Oliver's nerves when you pass in the corridors, when you perk up with a high "hey Arch!" and he grins down from his towering height right back at you: "hey Y/n!"

You don't look at Oliver. He's notably sour the rest of the walk.

Alright, maybe the whole arrangement wasn't really working. You were a distraction to him before, no doubt, but somehow your powers of beguilement had tripled. Especially since you seem to be behaving perfectly normal: like you hadn't given Oliver the best snog of his life outside the Ravenclaw common room that night.

Maybe it was just alcohol, maybe he is the only one plagued by the knowledge of the other's taste.

The castle has turned impossibly colder, the bitter bite of winter stinging at the loose cuffs of his robes on walkthroughs of the corridors. He can't imagine how cold the air above the pitch is going to be on Sunday when Hufflepuff faces off Slytherin for a spot in the finals.

It's all Hooch has been going on about for the last two weeks.

Oliver's had to shift around at least four practices - Roger almost twice as much, he's a pushover - to allow for you and Marcus to have more time on the pitch. His complaints fell on deaf ears, Hooch dismissed him with a wave of her bony hand and a "your time is coming, Wood."

You prance into dinner late most evenings, hair in every direction and face flush with sweat: sticking it out like a bumblebee in those awful yellow quidditch robes.

Oliver only notices because, annoyingly, he's found that he is frequenting the bench at the Gryffindor table that faces over to the Hufflepuff's. His eyes drift over the yellow-tied heads to where you clump up with Enzo and Cherry, watches you talk around mouthfuls of toast lazily, giggle behind your napkin: head rolling back to showcase that smooth neck, how it runs down to the soft slopes of your shoulders: disappearing down into your button-up.

Archie has noticed, he's sure, but hasn't done more but allude to it with teasing glances or suggestive comments.

"The Hufflepuffs up to something particularly interesting over there, Ollie?"

The speed with which Oliver's eyes snap to his peas is almost comical. He shrugs and mumbles like a child. "Don't know."

-

On Sunday morning, you don't go to breakfast.

There's an uncomfortable gurgling in your midriff, like a snake is slithering between your organs and you're sure even just the smell of eggs on toast would bring up your dinner.

Instead you find yourself at the pitch a whole hour before the game is set to start. Marcus is running laps around the grass, something he's done since you've known him.

He offers a curt wave, face set like cold stone.

It reminds you of Oliver a little bit, the distraction in his eyes.

Oliver is never all the way there, wherever he is, you think. His eyes mist over like he's halfway between this world and another. You know it's Quidditch: he dreams it, eats it, sleeps it.

But lately he's foggier than usual.

You think it's your imagination, brush off the idea as you have all the millions of others you'd had in the preceding weeks about the surly brute that was Oliver Wood. He plagues you.

Just the vibrato of his unimpressed huff when you get your way, when you quip something purposely annoying at him. It's addictive, the feel of his sugar-brown eyes glaring a hole through you.

Lately, his reactions have been closer to underwhelming. Allowing for only a moment of eye contact: gone are the quick-witted retorts, the Scottish-laced "princess" usually attached. The thought makes you wince in embarrassment, knowing that you've been pressing him harder lately: like a seven-year old jabbing at a claw machine, outwardly desperate for that brown plushy on the top of the pile.

Maybe he's over it. So deathly mortified of your shared kiss that he doesn't want to know you anymore, much less take the effort to hate you. Your chest pinches tightly.

You dress into your match robes slowly, taking your time with the loops of your shoelaces and the buttons down the sweater you're wearing underneath everything. Oliver Wood should be at the bottom of your list of priorities, normally, but now more than ever.

The team filters into the change-room, exhibiting varying degrees of nervousness. Cedric is practically green, but Herbert looks like he's about to go down a water-slide he's waited over an hour in line for. Beyond the swinging doors, you can hear the crowd shuffling loudly into their seats.

Before your wits are completely about you, Hooch is rapping on those same doors. "Onto the pitch, Hufflepuffs!"

You muster up your best excuse for a captain's speech for what might be the last match you ever play as one. The team seem satisfied, you figure it's easy to find solace before a game when you know it's not your last. As the only seventh year, comfort doesn't come so easily to you.

The crowd is deafening when yellow robes take to the sky: Marcus looks over, offering another nod, not unlike the one he'd given you earlier. You can tell he's feeling the dread of finality too.

There's a whistle blow and the quaffle flies past your face with a speed that nearly evacuates your nose from your face. Lee is announcing in the distance and the rumble of adrenaline forces your fingers over the handle. It tilts and you dip, disappearing into the sky of players.

-

The winter air at Hogwarts was biting enough roaming the corridors, but thirty metres off the ground is something wholly unnatural. Your face was burning crisp from the icy wind, the feeling in your cheeks and nose lost to the Scottish cold.

Foggy white clouds puff out with each heavy breath. Cedric zooms past and Jane loops around his moving figure to knock a stray bludger in the opposite direction.

Your eyes flash between them and the fast approaching Malcolm, he tosses the quaffle at you with a grunt and you catch it at the tips of slippery, ice-frozen fingertips.

Shooting forward again, you duck under Marcus who is hurtling through the sky at you: gone is the look of friendly fondness from his eyes, replaced with a hunger for the leather-bound ball in your grasp.

Just missing the grasp of his meaty hand, the ball passes onto Heidi.

"Another ten points to Hufflepuff," Lee's voice echoes as if from heaven. "That brings the score to ninety for Hufflepuff and eighty for Slytherin!"

It's been nearly ninety-five minutes of sitting on your broom growing colder, and you're not alone.

Around you, the team is descending into frost-induced exhaustion: Jane's nose is as bright red as a Christmas ornament and Cedric has been peeping over the top of his thick woollen-scarf for at least the last half - barely enough to catch a glance of the whizzing canary and emerald robes, much less of a tiny golden snitch.

You sigh out another white breath, letting your eyes drift over the stands. It's saturated with moving heads of faces you can't make out and yellow and green swaying banners. Your gaze lingers on the top left, in the corner facing the castle. It's where Cherry and Enzo park themselves during every match, where you know they're screaming in support, clenching their teeth at every quaffle handover. You can feel them, even when their faces blur into the crowd.

Unintentionally, you think about how Oliver's mixed in there too. Somewhere between your peers. If you had been granted another moment, if the quaffle wasn't mid-air between two Slytherins just under your nose and you'd not taken the opportunity to snatch it from them, you would have meandered into the trap of hoping that deep down in his chest - even if it was core of the earth deep - he was rooting for you, too. That he seethed at a missed goal or clenched a tight fist at his side in celebration when a Hufflepuff makes a beautiful play.

Meanwhile in the stands, Oliver has decided that the desire to play his allegiances in secret has since disappeared from his heart.

He'd played it light in the first few minutes. Mumbling under his breath at a fumbled pass or a slimy move from the Slytherins, but by the forty-fifth minute he'd found himself on his feet.

"Diggory!" His hands waved in front of him, "it was right there you fucking git--"

A Hufflepuff third year a row ahead looked at him askew, but he paid her no mind.

Archie had taken the hint early. As soon as Oliver was out of his seat, so was he. Despite being Oliver Wood's best friend, Archie had somewhat limited knowledge of the game himself and eyed Oliver's reactions to find the appropriate moments to whoop and cheer. Oliver didn't say anything, but he appreciated it more than he could verbalise.

His eyes tracked you more than anything, when you were flying between players or just floating in place: eyes like a hawk, watching over the game. His heart swelled and his pride fell to the wayside.

Just short of the two hour mark, there was a rise in the crowd.

"The seekers have caught sight of the snitch!"

Oliver's stomach rose into his throat.

"They're diving for it, Malfoy and Diggory head to head-- and Slytherin grabs the snitch, winning by 140 points!"

It sank back into place, like a stone to the bottom of the river. He watched how you froze, how you twisted over your shoulder to find Diggory's figure lingering at the bottom of the field. You shoulders sagged, hanging in the air as the others dropped to the ground.

"Slytherin have made it into the finals against Gryffindor for the quidditch cup, back here at the pitch next month!"

After a long moment, the last in the sky, you followed them down.

The raucous cheers from the Slytherins were hard to drown out, he wasn't even sure Archie heard him toss a "i'll find you at the castle" before he found himself pushing through the masses of people.

He fought against the wave moving to find the stairs, eager to return to the warmth of their dormitories, but Oliver was markedly more motivated than the majority. He stomped on some toes and nearly tossed a first year off the stands to race down the stairs.

Only once his feet had found the mushy grass of the pitch, did he pause to consider that he wasn't entirely sure what he was going to say. What was the rush for? To comfort you, tease you for your loss?

The latter option was definitely what he could do, what he could say. What was expected of him, if he was being honest. Recently, however, he's found it harder and harder to come up with remarks to hurt your feelings. Found that he quite prefers that little smile that tucks into the corner of your mouth when he says something unexpectedly fond. How your eyes practically gleam.

There's shoving from all sides of him -- get out the way, bloody hell -- and the teams pass ahead of him. Leading the march, despite it being nothing more than a slow trudge, is your figure: squashed between those of who he recognises to be Cherry Stretton and Enzo Musa's.

Their arms wrapped over your shoulders, talking animatedly into your ear on each side. Enzo tips his head to meet yours, a small touch of comfort.

Oliver sighs. He has nothing to say and no comfort to offer, wondering for a moment what he could possibly bare to hear in his own final moments as captain. He thinks that anything from your mouth would work.

So he waits, parks himself beside the stairs and waits for Archie: watching the six-legged figure disappear up over the hill.

-

You're not at dinner.

He knows because he's been watching the door for the better half of an hour. Archie pushes his plate at him, "Eat something there, Ollie."

Begrudgingly, Oliver brings his drumstick up to his mouth. "She's not eaten a thing since breakfast, it's almost eight."

Archie passes a sympathetic look over him. "Her friends are here, I'm sure she'll be by soon. There's no use you joining her on a hunger-strike."

He's right. Cherry and Enzo and some others that frequent your circle are talking around the table, around the spot that you usually fill. But dinner goes on and students leak steadily out towards bed without your return.

Eventually Oliver huffs, like an irritated bulldog, and grabs for the nearest napkin: unfolding it out in front of him.

"What are you doing?" Archie asks thickly, spitting bits of rice at him.

Oliver reaches for two chicken skewers, placing them neatly on the white square: alongside a dinner roll and a pumpkin pasty.

He wraps them over, double wraps it with another napkin too.

"What does it look like, Arch."

Placing it carefully into the deep pocket of his robe, Oliver goes to stand - lacking the patience it takes for Archie to answer, or for his inevitable teasing. "I'll find you back in our room."

He's halfway out the hall when Archie's voice calls out to him, "You don't even know where she is!"

Oliver shakes his head, brandishing a dismissive hand over his shoulder. "I know where she is." He mumbles for only himself to hear.

-

You’d watched close to twenty-one quidditch matches from the stands at the pitch on Hogwarts grounds: played in almost half of them. 

The seat is still slightly too small, just uncomfortable enough to make a person shuffle. Beyond the rim over the other end of the pitch you can see the orange sun dipping behind the horizon, drawing to darkness over your moment alone.

By now you're sure the party in the common room has long since found momentum. The one you'd been promised by the team, "it's your last game, cap, we need to celebrate!". You're sure someone somewhere is looking for you, bracing a plastic cup of Firewhisky with your name on it, but you can't find it within yourself to face it all just yet.

The silence of the evening is enough, you only wish you'd been fast enough to retrieve your broomstick that's somewhere off with Enzo. Just for one last lap.

The serenity of your loneliness doesn't persevere, however. You can hear shuffling up the steps, you're tempted to look but the sunset is slipping so quickly out of your hands that it's not worth the time wasted.

It's only when the footfalls draw closer, stopping when a body slumps into the seat beside you. The seats are so cramped that his knee brushes yours, the figure long since identified from the corner of your eye.

"Come to gloat?" You ask, eyes never leaving the sky.

He shrugs. "Not today."

You nod. His smell drifts on the breeze under your nose, like peppermint and soap and Oliver.

There's a long silence. Your robes crease against the fist sitting in your lap, you've yet to change out of your quidditch uniform, you know it will be the last time.

"You missed dinner."

"Does it matter?"

Despite your avoidant gaze, Oliver's is warming the side of your face. The evening air cools the same spot.

There's a shuffling that finally draws your eyes. Oliver is still in his robes too, and his hand emerges from a deep pocket with a folded napkin square. "Figured you'd be hungry."

He places it onto your lap with a gentleness you're coming to find more of in him. Something frighteningly warm erupts in your chest and your hands come up to it, pulling apart the napkin to find picky bits inside.

You're fighting between smiling and starting to cry. You do neither.

"You carried this in your pocket the whole way from the hall?"

His eyes flicker between the food and your face before he shrugs. "Yeah."

By now, you were fighting a losing battle and the smile pulled up at the ends of your mouth so tightly that your cheeks started to hurt. "Gross."

You pick up a chicken skewer regardless, biting into it and facing the sky again. You offer him the other one and he looks for a moment like he's going to argue but takes it quietly in the end.

The chicken is tender and only after you'd swallowed the first bit did you realise how hungry you'd actually been. You finish it without a word, going to tear the pasty in half and offering a piece to your companion.

You're picking at the roll now, tearing tiny bits off and feeding it piece by piece to yourself like a bird. "Last game."

He nods. "I know."

"What could someone say to you after your last game, Wood?" You pick at him, eyes flittering between him and the now nearly black sky. "You know, to make you feel better?"

Oliver shakes his head, leaning back and rolling his shoulders: as if the thought itself unsettled him.

"Nothing, probably. I'd probably just walk into the Black Lake and drown myself."

You think he's joking, but with Oliver Wood that was hardly a sure thing.

"You wouldn't."

"What's there left to live for?" He says it with an airy chuckle.

Shrugging, your head falls against your shoulder. "You'd have to figure it out, because I'd go marching in right after you. Carry you out if I had to."

Oliver stills, eyes wide and blinking at you. Your chest goes tight, the ghost of a smile pressing at your face.

"Bridal style and everything ..." You add quietly, stifling your chuckle.

He seems to come back to himself, nodding. "We should get back. Been a long day."

The napkin crumples in your hand, shoved down into the depths of your own pocket. You walk ahead, the pathway to the steps is only narrow enough for one person at a time, and he trails behind.

By the time you've hit the steps, Oliver moving down beside you, you're brewing around an apology. A way to thin the air, to ease where your chest is tight: swirling around well done, now you've made things awkward you git. It's halfway up to your tongue when skin brushes against the back of your hand.

Warm fingers explore your knuckles to find your cool ones, slipping to knot between them.

You work not to look down, because Oliver's skittish like that. From the corner of your eye, you can see he's concentrating his gaze ahead.

His hand tightens against yours, palm callous from years wrapped around the wooden handle of his broomstick. It's a little sweaty and sticky but you're smiling so hard you're about to be sick.

You dare to look at him, Oliver's smiling too.

-

Oliver hasn't been sleeping.

His last few days of seventh year are slipping like water through his calloused hands and he can feel it. Every hour that passes, shadowy and fleeting.

Classes feel shorter than before, the terrible jokes Archie bombards him with over dinner sound funnier than he ever remembers them being and the glimpses he catches of you in the corridor never feel long enough. The ceiling of his poster bed flashes with moments of the day that's passed, feeling like a dream you'll be jolted out of as soon as it gets good.

Even over all his hours of broody contemplation, none of it makes the final whistle any easier to swallow. It hits him like he's been smacked with a bludger in the chest.

"Gryffindor has won the quidditch cup, two-hundred and thirty points to twenty!"

He can hear the crowd's roar, the whoops of the twins floating somewhere below him. Harry's standing on the grass of the pitch holding up his tiny golden trophy. The pitch is red all over: Oliver won.

He won.

Every moment building up over the last seven years culminated into the final blow of the whistle. The wind is whipping at the hair over his forehead: Oliver thinks this might be the happiest moment of his life, but he's not entirely sure.

He never realised that it would all be so fucking soaked in sadness.

It's over. He's leaving the castle empty handed. His engraving will live on the Quidditch Cup in a dusty cupboard for years to come, yes, and he might have a frame up in his future apartment somewhere, reminiscing on the old days. That's all.

He's struck with the devastating fear that in a few short years, nobody will remember him. More than anything, he can't believe he hadn't come to this overwhelming conclusion before right now. Before Angelina is yelling to him, waving a frantic hand and sporting the biggest grin in all of Scotland, before he was seconds from taking the prize he's held in his mind for so many years into his very hands.

Will you forget him?

It nearly knocks him off his broom. He finds that it scares him the most, more than the thought of the dust-caked trophy or the lonely corner at the back of his cupboard where his Hogwarts robes will no doubt live until eternity.

He won't forget you, he thinks. He knows.

You're just so damn annoying. And beautiful, fucking whip-clever and hilarious sometimes--

The handle of his broom is tilting down to the earth now, the crowd zooming into a blur on either side of him. He hits a shaky landing, broomstick abandoned on the grass behind him as he's pulled into the arms of his team and well-wishers.

A golden trophy passes over the heads of the twins and it's shoved into his sweating hands. It's cool to the touch and so much heavier than he thought it ever could be, but he can't seem to keep his mind on the situation long enough to realise any of that. His mind is racing around the castle wondering where you might be and what's the fastest way to get there.

His eyes are racing over the heads of the roving crowd. "Wood, Wood! Speech!"

Shadowing over everyone is Archie's tall figure standing at the back, grinning down at him. The team watches expectantly.

This is it. The moment for the speech he's been practicing in his bathroom mirror since he was seven.

"I--" he looks down at the cup for the first time, his face reflecting up at him in glimmering gold. He finds he can't remember any of the words. "I need to go find someone."

There's a buzz of confusion, but Oliver doesn't linger: shoving the Quidditch Cup into Harry's arms.

"That's the shortest speech Wood has ever given." He hears Angelina quip, but he can't be arsed to turn. He's already flying, moving through the crowd at such a pace he might just have been on his broom.

The sea of students had long since started moving up to the castle, particularly the non-gryffindors: trying to beat the stampede of scarlet that is no doubt to come. Oliver's legs carry him over the smooth green hill up towards Hogwarts, head craning over students to find your side profile somewhere in the mass.

He catches few oy, watch it!'s and congrats, Wood!'s but he doesn't turn, doesn't stop running. Students bespeckle the grass like ants lining up for crumbs, and he's all the way up into the stone corridor leading to the Great Hall when he spots Cherry's velvet red curls over the crowd, and sure enough, he finds you're knocking her shoulder with your own.

It only takes one shout of your name and you turn to peek curiously back, by which time he's taken both your shoulders into his hands and steered you to the wall of the corridor.

"Wood! What are you do--"

His hands squeeze around the plush at your upper arms. "Oliver. My name is Oliver."

Your eyes are wide in surprise, the window behind you showcases the gardens and the pitch in the distance. Sunlight forms a halo over the crown of your head.

With a head tilted in confusion, you nod slowly. "Alright ... what are you doing, Oliver?"

He can feel the eyes of Cherry and Enzo burning a hole through the side of his head, but doesn't bother with it. You're blinking up at him, gentle and benign in your features. He wonders when it became like this, when you'd lost the tight brow and the frown every time you looked at him.

"I won the Quidditch Cup." He says blankly.

You nod, a small smile tucked into the corner of your lip. "I saw. Congratulations."

Oliver only nods back at you. "I wanted to tell you. I wanted to come shove it in your face."

He's shuffling closer to your figure, and he's more than pleased to discover that you aren't cowering from it.

"Of course you did, because you're a prat." But you're smiling so hard now that it's impossible to take your jab to heart. "Is that all, Oliver?"

A warm sensation is spilling into his rib cavity and his fingertips are buzzing with electricity when they come to find either side of your face.

"No." His forehead is nearly touching yours and your hands have wrapped around his wrists. "I came to ask you out on a date. A sappy, disgustingly romantic date where I bring you flowers and pay for your hot chocolate. You'd hate it."

"That truly sounds horrible." Your smile is so wide he can barely see the whites of your eyes and it pumps more adrenaline through Oliver than any argument you'd ever shared over the last seven years.

"So, is that a yes?"

You're bouncing on your toes a little bit, bumping your nose against Oliver's clumsily. The babble of passing students and gawking onlookers has practically fallen mute to him.

"Depends, are you going to kiss me goodnight after?" You whisper it, like it's a secret between just you and him.

He nods slowly, "pretty desperate to kiss you right now, if I'm being honest princess--"

You don't wait for him to finish, thank Merlin you don't wait for him to finish, and push up onto your toes: crashing against his mouth. You're kiss is as dizzying as he remembers, but softer this time. You kiss like you know he's not running away, hands pressing softly over his neck.

It's nothing like your kiss outside the Ravenclaw common room: where that one was desperate and hot and angry, this time it's born from longing and tenderness and acceptance.

It leaves him just as fucking breathless as the first time.

Somewhere behind him, he hears wolf-whistling (he's sure it's Cherry) and when you pull your lips off his, your face is flush with embarrassment.

"I will go on a date with you, Oliver."

He takes your hand into his, curling his fingers between your own. You lean up to peck him softly and bat your eyelashes at him, grinning innocuously when you whisper: "If you treat me like you did with Delilah, I'm throwing your broomstick into the fireplace."

-

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Movies, as is their premise, glamourise plenty of things - high school, politics, tiny Greek islands - but none more than the classic sucker-punch.

The teeth-crunching, blood-spitting moment where skin meets skin in a satisfying thump that sends an unsuspecting victim to the floor. Music plays and the hero grins, grabbing the girl round the waist: dipping low to kiss her.

What’s consistently (conveniently) left out is how bloody painful it is to be on the sending end of that fist.

The first, and only, time you’d ever punched someone was in second year.

It had seemed like a great idea in the moment, quickly succeeded by the mind-numbing pain that shot up your arm where knuckle met face.

You’d aimed for his jaw, but as it turns out: in addition to painful, punching someone wasn’t a particularly accurate sport for a beginner and your slippery skin found a round-tipped nose instead.

A collective gasp and a month’s worth of detention waited for you on the other side of your act of rage.

And sure, while afternoons in Snape’s classroom every Friday sucked: it was all worth it.

Every purple knuckle that throbbed with the slightest brush, the points lost to Hufflepuff, the pages and pages of Hogwarts Does Not Condon Physical Violence you’d been forced to write was worth seeing the trickle of blood running down from Oliver Wood’s nose.

To see that smug fucking look wiped clean from his face. To watch how he doubled over in pain, grappling onto his friend for balance.

“Tyler fancying you? Any bloke would rather snog a goblin.”

His little comment had earned him a broken nose.

It had been the start of a five year long feud.

It’s the reason - now - why the ground is racing up to meet you, the nose of your broomstick pressed down towards it and wind whipping so hard against your face it draws tears. You knock into the ground, catching yourself on wobbly legs. A few feet away, Oliver Wood has done the same.

He’s marching towards you with the same ferocity that’s curdling in your chest:

“Tha’s blatching and you know it!” His accent is ringing, thick and blistering with heat like it always is when he talks to you. At you, rather.

The accusation is crystal clear, and loud despite the echoing din of the quidditch stands above. From the field where you're parked, you can hear the chatter and the cheers and the boos all conglomerating into a fuzzy uproar.

There’s still twelve brooms floating in the air, spewing irritated shouts from players in both yellow and red:

Just let it go, Wood!

Come on, Cap, can we just finish the match please!

You promptly ignore them. Oliver follows suit.

“What?” You scoff, face hot as a kettle on a lit stove. “As if Laurel and Hardy haven’t been elbowing my girls all game!”

It goes without saying that you’re referring to Gryffindor’s red-head twin-set of beaters.

“Bullshit.” He seethes, it’s purposefully quiet enough that McGonagall’s approaching figure doesn’t pick it up.

She, unlike yourself, is less patient and knobby vein-webbed hands come out to knock you both against your chests: widening the gap to a safe enough distance between the opposing captains.

“You two are exhausting.” And she sounds it too. Her glasses tremble at the edge of her nose, sun shining down on her aged face. "If one more match this season is interrupted because you two can't control your tempers, you will both be stripped of captainship and you will not fly until you graduate. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

But Oliver isn't looking at her. His eyes are focused on yours over her cloaked shoulder.

He's taking the predictable route of not replying first.

"Crystal clear, Professor." You resign to speaking first, skewing a grin at his anger-sewn face.

It’s another long boring moment before he cuts his gaze from yours, kicks up a patch of grass and grits through his teeth.

“Yes, professor.”

As can be imagined, things between you and Oliver Wood have been tense since the day he’d hobbled up to the hospital wing with a palm over his face and blood dripping down over his already red tie.

But with age, came ferocity, and what started as passing glares in the corridor melted into anger-drowned faces and sharp words flung with intent to scar.

Things got infinitely worse when you were elected captain of the Hufflepuff quidditch team in the same year Oliver was made captain for Gryffindor. It stoked the already sizzling embers that made moments around him warm and stuffy and hard to breathe.

The murky history swirled with what should be friendly competition, instead frothing into a bubbling pot of annoyed teammates and exasperated teachers and more sessions of detention than you would have ever had if you'd never met the son of a bitch that is Oliver Wood.

It's what puts you in situations like the ones you find yourself in the middle of before you even know how you got yourself there.

"You two," Professor Burbage had never held you in particularly high favour. It was just your luck that Oliver received the same courtesy. "One more word out of either of you and I will be seeing both of you this afternoon for detention in my classroom."

It was even unluckier that she'd sat you two barely three wizards away from one another and one fly-away comment had blown out into another heat-filled exchange. It always does.

"But professor--" you try.

"Right then. I'll see you both at five o' clock."

Oliver sighs, hands running up over his head between chestnut locks: "Fucking perfect. Thanks, big-mouth."

"Would you like to make it two days, Mr Wood?"

He huffs like an angry dog, tightening the grip on his writing-feather but says nothing else.

The end of the lesson doesn't come soon enough and when it does, Oliver is first out of his seat. You're grateful for it.

Cherry bumps you in the shoulder where she throws her bag over it. "You just can't help yourself, can you?"

You grin, despite the sunken feeling hollowing your chest with the acknowledgment that you're gonna be spending yet another afternoon at the mercy of an under-paid staff member alongside the hothead that was the Gryffindor captain.

"Come on, that wasn't my fault and you know it."

Her tight red curls dance when she shakes her head. They match her blood red tie. "Somehow it never is."

To your dismay, but not surprise, Enzo shares Cherry's views when he waltzes into step beside you in the corridor between Muggle Studies and Divination. His arm drapes over your shoulders and his tall frame shakes when he laughs.

"You know," his voice is thick and gravelly. "You two are gonna have to fuck it out eventually."

You roll your eyes, shoving him off you with a chuckle. The sentiment isn't anything new. "Oh, shut up."

The day folds blurrily between classes and lunch and greenhouse visits that by the time you look up it's just about five o clock.

Burbage's office door stares down at you.

The corridor is ghostly all the way behind you and it's emptiness means it's easy to make out Oliver's heavy footsteps down the stone floor. They're not slow, in an arrogant strut, neither quick like he has somewhere to be.

He trudges. Like the weight of the world is strapping him to invisible pins in the floor. It's easy to figure that your existence doesn't lighten his load any.

You don't turn. He simply falls into place beside you, keeping a good foot distance between your tightened shoulders.

The door opens.

Charity Burbage is insufferable in the way that she forces you and Oliver to sit almost on top of each other behind a scratched up desk where she can watch you under the curtain of her ratty blond hair.

You inch the chair dramatically away from Oliver's.

She's set a stack of pages by him and a wet stamp. "Stamp these and sign the date."

Additionally, she's dropped a stack of envelopes under your nose. "Tuck and seal. When you're done, you can leave."

You eye the papers. There must be hundreds.

To Whom It May Concern,

Hogwarts would like to remind all parents and guardians that the third-years will require prior permission before being allowed to visit the nearby village of Hogsmeade--

You jump when Oliver's elbow knocks yours (more violently than what was really necessary). He holds the first page out to you silently, face dripping with impatience.

When you take the page, his thumb brushes yours.

The paper is delicate in your fingers where you fold it. You tuck and seal, and by the time you've set it aside Oliver is offering the next page to you again.

His thumb brushes yours for a second time.

You find that it does for every letter that's passed on.

It's hard not to watch him out the corner of your eye. Oliver has this dark brown, nearly black, hair that's thick and almost too long and untamed all over. It's matched by bushy eyebrows and speckled freckles over the bridge of his nose.

If you didn't hate him as much as you did, you might think he was pretty. You might think that anyway.

Time stretches until the sun is setting the classroom afire with golden light and it's boredom that causes it, or possibly a desire to hear his voice at such tight quarters, but you speak.

"You know," it's soft enough that Burbage doesn't look up from her Witch Weekly magazine. "Even if - in some act of God - Scotland qualifies for the semi-finals, Luxembourg is gonna flatten them. I mean, think about it unemotionally, Wood: they have Luca Schmit as seeker. It's really a no brainer--"

"Are y’really just stupid or are you purposefully trynna start another argument?" His gaze flickers up to eye Burbage's desk warily, she still doesn't react.

Maybe it's both. After all, the subject of the Quidditch World Cup had been what put you both there in the first place.

You shrug, unfazed by his scathing remark.

"I'm just trying to make conversation."

"Well don't."

His hand brushes yours again.

-

Every second Friday, generally at the tail-end of lunch, Hooch's grey barn owl swoops low over your head and drops a smaller-than-average white envelope right into your mashed potatoes. Cherry yelps in surprise every time.

Then you watch the bird drop the same over the Gryffindor, Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables.

Good afternoon,

Reminder of Captain's meeting this afternoon in my office. Six o' clock, don't be late.

Regards,

Madam Hooch.

The letter says the same thing it has since you became captain and it's a wonder you still take the effort to break the seal on the envelope.

But come six o' clock, you're traipsing towards the west end of the castle. Lavender streaks caress the sky under the last impression of sunlight through the ornate stone arch of the corridor windows and an autumn chill creeps up your arms where your sweater isn't thick enough.

Hooch's office is in a quiet alcove, nearly impossible to find if you didn't know where to look, and the lamps are lit. Beyond the door, you can hear voices: you grin.

The door creaks noisily where you push it open. Inside it's cramped and cluttered with shelves of quidditch equipment - broken brooms, punctured quaffles and loose kits draping every open surface - but it's warm and smells like leather and is maybe your favourite little room in the whole castle.

The quidditch legend herself, Rolanda Hooch, has her legs kicked up on her desk and the boys are standing ahead of it locked in animated chatter.

She's laughing at something they said, and smiles when you enter.

"Sorry I'm late, coach."

It's nothing new and she waves you in with a smile. "Come in, poppet."

"Merlin," Marcus' shoulder finds yours and the force of the bump nearly sends you off your feet. "You'd be late to your own funeral hey, Puffers?"

You laugh, shoving him back with as much force as you can muster against the giant brute that is Slytherin captain Marcus Flint. It barely nudges him but he barks out a laugh, rough like tractor tires over crumbly concrete.

"I'm worth the wait." You quip back, leaning around Marcus to wink at Roger Davies. "Isn't that right, Rodger?"

He flirts back, "Always, sweetheart."

Roger is the antithesis of Marcus: all pale skin, blue eyes and short blonde hair. Easy on the eyes.

Oliver lingers just behind him, the tallest of the captains. You catch his eye, face slipping into something more serious, and nod. "Hey, Wood."

He nods in return, curt like how a ministry wizard's might be.

"Right," Hooch sits up straight in her high-back chair. "There are just a couple things we need to get through tonight, we won't be long."

The dynamic between the captains would be easy, if not for Oliver.

You're the only girl and that made for tough beginnings. Marcus is naturally brash and brutish, but - as you found - easy to impress with a couple showy tricks on the broom. A single promise to show him how to pull off a Woollongong Shimmy had him eating out your hand: the favour of a couple Slytherins was generally hard to buy and invaluable to a plushy Hufflepuff such as yourself.

Roger popped out the womb with a wink at the nurse. Impeccably charming and impossibly negotiable. Beyond being slightly dim, it was hard to say a bad thing about the Ravenclaw captain

On the other hand, Oliver was … well, Oliver.

Hooch tapped the sharp end of a writing feather rhythmically at a spot on her desk, eyes roving her clipboard.

"Next week we're doing a clean up of the supply room down by the pitch. I've set you each up on days, the whole team needs to be down to help unless they're excused by a teacher: I want a written letter."

She offers a piece of parchment without looking up.

"As you all know, it's the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw game next week."

You bump your elbow to Marcus'. He looks down and grins a mouthful of crooked teeth before turning to Roger. "Ready, pretty boy?"

Roger rolls crystal blue eyes, but he's smiling too. "Bring it on, tough-shit."

"Oy," Hooch interrupts them with a cool sigh, "The last thing, you all submitted your autumn practice requests for the pitch: Roger, Marcus, you have the days you want--"

They nod. Your shoulders stiffen.

"--Oliver, Y/n. You both want Wednesday afternoons. Monday afternoon is open, I'll let you two decide between each other who is gonna move their practice. I want a decision before tomorrow night."

Marcus is sniggering under his breath. The edges of your mouth sink into a frown, of course he wants the same day as me.

You can feel the heat of Oliver's eyes on the side of your face. You don't indulge him, keeping your gaze settled on Hooch's face.

"We'll figure it out, coach."

"Unlikely." Roger's quip is barely a whisper but you catch it.

"Alright." Hooch doesn't. "You're dismissed, go get some dinner kids."

The office door bounces back off the stone wall where Marcus tosses it carelessly open, echoing all the way down the empty corridor.

Frosty air chases over your face and the boys start down towards the Great Hall. Roger is complaining about a potions essay he hasn't started and Marcus is shrugging him off with a suggestion that includes something along the vein of blackmailing a sixth year into doing it for him but you can't focus long enough to follow.

"Oliver." Irritation is prickling at the surface of your skin. It flares into an almost rash when he stops walking, glancing over his shoulder with an unconcerned expression. "Who's giving Wednesday up?"

His arms fold against his chest. You're working extremely hard not to look down where his biceps stretch the seams on his Hogwarts jumper. "Well, you obviously."

Marcus barks another laugh, he calls down the corridor: "We'll see you kids at dinner."

"Yeah, don't kill each other! It's only practice!"

You huff in disbelief, unconcerned with the running commentary.

"Uh," you mirror Oliver by folding your own arms. "no it's not. Come on, we can negotiate like civil people can't we?"

Thick caterpillar eyebrows disappear beyond the overgrowth hiding his forehead. "Negotiate? I'm the one who wasted three hours of my life in detention last week thanks to your big fat mouth. Wednesday is mine."

"That was a joint effort, twat." You can feel where your throat is flush with rising anger. It wires your jaw tight. "Are you really so bloody difficult that we can't even come to a simple agreement?"

"Difficult?" His arms have shifted from his chest to perch against his hips. "Just because I'm not giving you what you want? Cry me a fucking river, darling. Sorry Puffers, but I'm not your precious Marcus or Roger. I'm not gonna fold just cause you bat yer pretty little eyelashes at me."

Pretty?

You blink in surprise. It's brushed quickly aside for more pressing matters. Your hands scrunch into fists at your side:

"Well. I'm not giving it up. I want Wednesday."

"Neither am I."

"Fuck you."

"In your dreams."

-

Oliver collapses loudly into the open spot at the Gryffindor dining table. His callousness knocks Archie's goblet of pumpkin juice across the shiny wooden surface between dishes of sausages and peas and roast potatoes.

"Bloody hell, what's got you in a mood?" He's patting down the table with a serviette, transforming it into a orange lump under his palm.

Shaking his head, as if it would joggle the thought of you loose, Oliver stabs a chicken drumstick from the top of a nearby pile with his fork. He doesn't respond.

"Wait, let me guess." Archie presses the elbows of his red jumper into the still wet surface beside his plate. "Something to do with your little Hufflepuff sweetheart?"

Oliver grunted around a mouthful, looking annoyed. "Not mine and not a sweetheart. A fucking brat."

Archie seems to find something funny, leaning back on the bench with a haughty laugh. "Right. What she do this time?"

"Wants the pitch the same day as me for practice." He's mumbling around a mouthful of chicken, tipping forward to shove a spoon teetering with peas alongside it. "Refuses to give in, despite the fact that she put me in detention last week with Burbage."

Shifting to the edge of his seat, Archie leans around Oliver's frame to find your figure across the Hall at the yellow-lined table. He nods, seemingly finding you. "Yeah, she don't look too happy either."

"I don't care."

Oliver is trying very hard not to give into the itch to look back.

"Whatever," Archie's gaze finds his again. "in better news ... I spoke to the twins just before dinner. They're still on for tomorrow."

He's twitching in his seat, eyebrows dancing and grinning around his words like a kid who's found a matchbox.

Right. The twins.

Specifically, Daisy and Delilah Dawson: two Ravenclaw sisters a year below Oliver.

They're peng, Archie had reasoned, you need a little fling to get your mind off quidditch. You're too strung up, mate.

And sure, they were, but Oliver had more important things to do than gallivant across Hogsmeade attached to the hip of some sixth year who just wants to earn her I Kissed The Quidditch Captain! badge.

He'd groaned and whined and glowered at the prospect. Was it petulant? Naturally, but spending five sickles on subpar hot chocolate and making false conversation with some Ravenclaw was a waste of precious time in Oliver's humble opinion.

His priorities are, as they've always been, crystal clear in his mind.

1. Win Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup 2. Refer to point (1)

There was little wiggle room for the introduction of girls into any spot on that list.

You're the only one who came almost close to the tight list. Only because if there had to be a third priority, "shove winning the cup in Hufflepuff's face" might just crack it. He thought about you significantly more than any other girl in the castle and maybe that might mean something if he thought about too long about it, but fortunately, he refused to.

Regardless, Archie was adamant and more than a little pathetic when he mentioned that Daisy only agreed to see him if he had a date for Delilah. It was all settled very quickly.

And it's in this show of loyalty to his dearest friend that Oliver finds himself walking the cobblestone path down into Hogsmeade on a crisp Saturday morning.

The little village is bustling with students - it normally is - and the crowd has him knocking shoulders with Delilah who's walking in step beside him.

He's uncomfortable to find that she's staring dreamily up at the underside of his jaw.

On Oliver's other side: Archie is talking Daisy's ear off, making another pitiful attempt at holding her hand. He doesn't quite manage it and Oliver can't tell whether it's because she genuinely doesn't notice or she just can't be arsed.

"So," Delilah's voice is light and sweet. Delicate. "You mentioned that you take Arithmancy? I've heard it's tough."

Oliver nods airily. "Yeah ... yeah, it's difficult."

He tightens his jacket closer over his frame. The wind is whipping between their bodies and he thinks that maybe she didn't hear him over it's howling if her confused expression is anything to go by. He finds he's not bothered enough to repeat it.

The entrance of Madam Puddifoot's comes into view at the end of the walkway.

Oliver’s relieved. It's freezing out here and maybe he'll be more in the mood for flirtatious conversation once he's gotten some food in his stomach (Archie had insisted they skip breakfast: we have to order something to eat, so we can sit longer).

There's a jingle of a bell overhead when Archie pushes the door open, standing awkwardly aside to let the ladies in first.

Inside the shop, it's more than busy: powdery blue walls barely visible beyond the sea of Hogwarts couples crammed around tiny circle tables and waiters in red uniform knocking the back of their chairs with wobbling trays.

There's music coming from ... somewhere, it sounds like The Weird Sisters and at the sound, Oliver can't imagine how this morning could possibly go any worse.

Oh wait, yes he can.

You could be sitting at a table right by the door across a too-small-table knocking knees with some Slytherin prick. Like you are right there right now.

Delilah tugs on his wrist, it's gentle and he almost doesn't feel where he's being lead between tables towards an open booth across the room. He falls unceremoniously down against the torn leather, eyes never leaving your table.

You haven't noticed his presence, he knows because your lips are stretching around a giggle he can't hear but can already imagine. You don't smile around him, that's for sure.

Oliver's stomach is frothing and bubbling and he's trying really hard to tune back in where Archie's knocking a menu into his hand.

Of course you're there. To ruin his mood and his day, because you're just bloody perfect at it.

"So, am I seeing you girls at the Quidditch match on Saturday?" Archie's voice carries somewhere over his head.

Delilah laughs. Or maybe it's Daisy, Oliver doesn't look.

"Maybe," she says, "Depends if Oliver's gonna be there. You're gonna be there, right?"

He feels a hand nudge at his forearm. Definitely Delilah.

His gaze floats back over the table to offer a fraction of eye contact, he nods. "Oh, uh ... yeah. Sure, definitely."

Archie saves him by speaking again and your table finds Oliver's attention just in time for him to watch the boy sitting across from you swipe away a smudge of hot chocolate over your cheek. You smile, looking bashful and a little bit flushed.

A suffocating, searing heat rushes from the soles of Oliver's feet up between his every organ and over every tendril of hair on his head. His jaw tightens.

Of course he recognises the pratt across you.

Ryo Yoshida.

Every girl in the castle's wet dream, if the rumours he's heard are anything to go by. With his fucking sleek black hair and his Japanese accent that had witches flocking to him in the dozens.

He doesn't wonder why you're here with him.

Oliver is a proud man, but even he could admit that you're beautiful. Albeit reluctantly.

With your wide wet eyes that make him a little sick in a way that turns his stomach warm and the way you do your hair and those fucking dangly earrings that clink when you loose your cool on him.

That's without even mentioning the sound of your laugh - the one he only ever overhears - and your legs in the school uniform skirt and the way you look when you're diving on your broom under the light of a sunny day.

Alright, maybe he couldn't admit to all of it ... but you were okay.

Okay enough to crack a date with Ryo Yoshida or any other schmuck in the castle if you wanted.

"Anything good to eat here, Oliver?"

He pretends he doesn't hear her at first, but the kick at his shin under the table is harder to ignore.

Archie is glaring at him across the table. Dude, don't fuck this up for me.

Oliver's eyes find Delilah. She's scooted up close under his elbow and, to be fair to the poor girl, she was pretty too. Red lipstick smeared across her smiling lips, painted nails edging closer to his arm and perfectly styled hair sitting over her shoulder.

He nods, reaching for the menu: "Yeah. Actually, last time I had the Merlin Meal and it was pretty good."

She perks up, cherry red smile widening at his reply. "Oh, I thought that looked good!"

Training his eyes on the menu, Oliver wills himself not to look back at you. You're already souring his mood and you haven't even said a bloody word.

It's just what you do. What you do to him: infuriating him with the threat of an argument around any and every corner.

The waiter comes by and Oliver finds himself generous enough to gift Delilah with an arm draped over the back of her seat. She giggles and he pretends he doesn't notice when she mouths something that looked suspiciously like 'he's so hot' to her sister across the table.

Archie seems pleased too. Daisy has granted him, finally, her hand and his arm bends at an awkward angle to maintain the grip in hers under the table. He's positively beaming.

But despite Oliver’s best efforts to stay engaged, he still catches himself - only when it's too late - and his eyes are already glued to watching the way your jeans are hugging your thighs where you shift in your seat.

Your table is sat by the door. The chime of the bell calls for his gaze every time it tolls and every time he finds you let off a violent shiver in your seat as the autumn crisp rolls over your shoulders.

The door shuts again and you still.

Oliver can feel where the tips of his ears are burning red and his bones are itching: Ryo’s black suede coat is hanging over the back of his chair.

You’re still talking - hands rubbing together, fighting for warmth - he’s leaned over with his chin in palm to listen and his jacket sits unused behind his shoulders while you fucking shiver in the breeze.

It’s pathetic, really. He’s not sure whether he’s referring to himself or you: but Oliver is still looking and you’re still shaking like a leaf and he’s halfway to flipping tables to get to you and just give you his own fucking coat so you’ll stop shaking and stop annoying him—

“Oliver was just telling me about wanting to join the Hogwarts Choir.” He turns again to find Archie waiting with an expectant face, it's laced in a little bit of smugness: caught you. "Weren't you, mate?"

When he looks back you’re gone.

There's a short pile of sickles abandoned on the table and he hopes that Ryo at least had the good sense to pay for your drink after forcing you to sit in the freezing cold.

He shakes the thought off. Who cares.

In fact, he hopes you catch a cold.

-

The day passes like swimming through molasses: slow and sticky and exhausting.

It's nearly seven when Oliver presses a sympathy kiss into Delilah's cheek - Daisy allows for no such thing from Archie - and the two sisters skip off down the west wing corridor with a wiggle of their fingers over their shoulders at the boys.

"I think that went well." Archie's grinning, hands on his hip and glasses edging down his brown nose.

It's the first thing that genuinely brings a jolt of life out of Oliver all day. He teeters back on his heels, hands gripping his stomach where he laughs. Laughs like a madman.

"I think you need to get yer fucking head checked, mate."

The tail end of his outburst is simmering down, now barely a breathy chuckle, when a voice washes over him from down the other end of the corridor. "Wood!"

He'd recognise that voice anywhere. From the dead of sleep or the depth of the ocean.

He's slow when he turns on his heel, the remnants of his smile dripping all the way off the edge of his jaw until he's nearly frowning.

You're jogging, scarf bouncing at your shoulder with the movement, and coming to a stop right under his chin.

"What?"

There's a sharp edge to his tone - there always is - but he really hopes you haven't noticed how the syllable wobbled at the end. Now that you're right beneath his frame and not across the room, it's harder to ignore the lashes kissing at the corner of your eyes. You're wearing lip gloss and he knows it's for Ryo.

His stomach is churning and your face is twisting into something he is struggling to recognise.

"I--" your hands wring, eyes flickering behind to where Archie's watching curiously (you wave awkwardly). "You ... you can have Wednesday."

It's not what Oliver is anticipating. He almost takes a full step back in surprise.

"Why?"

Your eyes roll in a comfortably familiar way, "Because Hooch wants an answer tonight and one of us had to be the bigger person."

His brow tightens, eyes roving down the stitching of your sweater. It's cute. He's quiet.

"You not gonna argue?" You throw your words quickly, snatching them back before he can answer: "Perfect. I'll send her an owl before bed."

You're marching back down the corridor before he has chance to say anything else and he's watching your retreating figure with the hope - that he’s not gonna address - you’re not going to cozy up somewhere in the Slytherin dorm room.

“Well.” Archie’s running a hand over his thick black curls. “That was unexpected.”

Oliver huffs. “It’s been a weird day.”

-

An uneasy air has settled over Hogwarts.

It came in like a storm front, drifting in on the wind that dropped the article at the door of the castle. 

The same copy of The Daily Prophet has been doing the rounds between dormitories and class rooms all week: Sirius Black, Azkaban’s most infamous prisoner and recent escapee, has been sighted in Dufftown by an astute Muggle, The Daily Prophet reports. 

Dufftown. A barely twenty minute ride by carriage from Hogwarts bridge. 

It’s got the castle on edge, it’s got you on edge. Creeping around the castle like Sirius Black is gonna jump out from around any corner. 

Dumbledore stationing dementors at the edges of the castle was the tipping point for the cold drip of trickling fear in your chest that's become easy to ignore in daylight - when Cherry and Enzo are flittering around you between classes - but in moments like these, like now, when you’re on the tail end of a quidditch practice, grow like a poisonous black vine up around every nerve in your body. A Monday night, the team’s kit weighing heavy in your arms - broomstick tucked precariously in the bend of one elbow - and following the siren call of the dormitory showers. 

You’d promised the team you’d get them to the house elves before the upcoming match on Saturday. The match against Gryffindor. 

But for tonight, they’re gonna live in a pile at the end of your bed. 

You’re exhausted: calves burning, sweat sticking loose hairs to your forehead and probably smelling like wet socks and broomstick polish. 

The touch of night is suffocating the flicker of the corridor lamps. It’s long past the recently set curfew and you know that if McGonagall finds you out you’re likely in deep enough trouble to get you off Saturday’s match roster. 

Despite the prospect, you don’t dwell on it. You find you’re more worried about escaped Azkaban convicts: the echo of your own footsteps setting you further on edge. 

You’ve craned your neck over your shoulder enough times to form a knot there. Each time you’re relieved to find that Sirius Black hasn’t crept up behind you. 

Suddenly, the squeak of your boots against the stone floor are un-alone. 

Someone is marching and right in your direction. Your heart bangs wildly on the inside of your ribcage - blood turning to an icy slurry in your veins, but you don’t move. 

The corner is sharp when the figure turns into the corridor you stand and the scream is halfway out your throat when your eyes find his face. 

Absent is the matted black hair and sunken eyes you’re anticipating. Instead, warm brown rings reflect the fire of the lit torches. 

Your broomstick clutters to the floor, warm relief flooding down to your fingertips. “Fucking hell, Wood.” 

He looks just as surprised as you. Only for a moment, though, before his gaze is tightening in annoyance again. 

“I thought you were Sirius Black.“ 

“Well that’s stupid isn’t it.” 

You huff, shifting the weight of the team’s robes precariously between your arms: squatting to try scoop up your broomstick off the floor again. You’re halfway successful when it clatters loudly back against the stone floor. 

“What are you even doin’ out here so late? You know curfew is passed, don’t you?” His voice curls with something that might be mistaken for concern if you didn’t know who you were talking to. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

You’re reaching down again. A robe on the top of the pile slips off, landing beside the broomstick. 

“Aye right. Whatever, goodnight.” 

He’s brushing past you. 

In a movement neither of you anticipated, driven by the fear shooting up your spine again, your hand finds his wrist. “Wait—“ 

Oliver freezes: eyes dropping to where you’re connected. You rip your hand back, as if scalded. 

“I …” the words mash and wrestle at the back of your throat. “Could …”

You glance down the darkened corridor awaiting you in the journey back to your dorm before meeting his face again. It’s unreadable. 

His brow scrunches. “Yes?"

"Could you want me to walk my common room?” 

Embarrassment sears at your cheeks. On a normal day, you’d sooner go dancing naked under the Whomping Willow before asking Oliver Wood a favour but that was before the image of Sirius Black swum behind your eyes everywhere you looked. 

Oliver would be fairly useless if faced with the criminal, naturally, but at least you wouldn’t die alone. 

“Please?” Your voice is quiet and you think it’s the gentlest word you’ve ever said to him. 

There’s a long stretch of quiet. His eyes flicker between your face and the broomstick on the floor. It’s quickly stretching past the blurring boundaries of an appropriate time for consideration. 

You’re practically melting in embarrassment now, electing to make the decision for him. 

“Never mind.” You squat again, successful this time in sticking the broomstick back under your arm. The dropped robe is more difficult but you manage to replace it. “Forget I asked.” 

Oliver’s moving before you’re stood straight up again. He’s reaching for your broomstick, you instinctively yank it back but he sticks you with a firm look and his thumb is unexpectedly soft where it caresses over your knuckle wrapped around the handle. 

Your grip loosens and he perches the broomstick over his shoulder with ease. He surprises you again by taking half the load of laundry in your arms into his own. 

“C’mon, before someone catches us out here. I’m not doing any more detention because of you.” 

He’s already three feet ahead when blood rushes down to your legs, prompting them to chase after his figure. The movement is easier, lightened by Oliver’s surprise act of kindness. 

You fall into step beside him, half-tempted to comment on his willingness to share your burden, but knowing him, one wrong word and he’d dump it all back into your arms. 

It’s quiet. 

You don’t make a move to talk and Oliver doesn’t look your way. It dawns on you that Gryffindor dormitory is in the other direction and you’re still deciding whether to feel guilty or flattered over the fact when Oliver speaks. 

“Why’re you out here alone?” 

You look, met with the side of his face: it’s still like he hadn’t said anything at all. There’s a tugging instinct to snap at him. 

Why do you care? 

But his tone is perceptibly gentle enough that you think maybe, just this once, it won’t end in an argument. You test the tepid waters. 

“Uh …” your head knocks sideways, tilted as you speak. “I let the team come up early while I sorted the quaffles in the sports closet by the pitch. Didn’t want them walking up in the dark.” 

You’re tempted to mention that it was his team last week that left it in such a mess. You don’t. 

"And now you’re walking in the dark yourself? Smart move, princess."

Your breath hitches. 

It’s not the first time he’s called you that. Princess. A couple times over the years, usually in the heat of a spiraling argument, but never so benign. While still ungentle, the tone is soft enough that it rings in your ears.

You choose not to succumb to the antagonization of his reply. Humming, you shrug. "Rather me than them."

His eyes flicker, almost barely, to the high apple of your cheek. You notice in the corner of your eye how his jaw twitches, like he wants to say something. 

He seemingly decides otherwise because he focuses his eyes ahead of him and stays silent. 

The overhanging ceiling art is sloping down, air going sticky with the scents of the kitchen the further you go: it’s the trademark of the approaching Hufflepuff common room. 

Another two turns and it will be the end of your little journey with Oliver Wood.

"‘M surprised Ryo didn’t walk you up."

You're more surprised than you've been since finding him, eyes widening in confusion. He grants you another look out the side of his eye.

"How do you know about that?"

Oliver shrugs, shifting your broomstick to the other shoulder.

"The whole world saw your little date down at Madam Puddifoot's the other day."

Of course. Word travels faster through seventh year than a new Firebolt.

"Yeah. Well." You hum. "That's not gonna be happening again anytime soon.” 

It had all been good and well. The rush of having Ryo Yoshida, Hogwart's most eligible bachelor, ask you out and - to be fair - the date had been fine. Ryo was funny and made good conversation but nothing near thrilling enough to daydream over and you'd allowed yourself to brush over a couple red flags because of it, until Cherry came bursting into your dormitory less than a day after your date relaying how he'd caught her between classes to ask her out to the same spot.

"Why's that?"

You're confused now, why Oliver cares or how he'd become curious enough to actually ask. You're even more confused as to why you decide to answer him. You shrug, "He asked Cherry out the very next day. She said no, obviously, but that was enough to let the whole thing go."

You expect him to say something malicious, quip something spiteful about What you did you think would happen? You're nowhere near in his league.

He doesn't.

"He's an idiot."

Not for the first time in the last five minutes, you're not sure what to say. You think this is the longest a conversation has gone without an argument. You sigh, "Yeah."

The stack-up of barrels comes into view. You dig into you the deep pocket on the inside of your robe, emerging with your wand.

Oliver stops, eyes flickering between the barrels and his shining black boots.

You step ahead, tapping the barrels in the rhythm that's become second-nature and the entryway opens.

Turning to him, you offer out an arm and he sets the robes back into your hands. The awkwardness is stifling. He leans forward, tucking the broomstick under your arm, hand wavering to make sure it doesn't fall again. The gesture makes the hold in your knees wobbly.

He nods. "Right. Goodnight."

You nod back, so quickly that you hear your earrings jingle. "Yeah, g'night."

Oliver turns, marching back the way you came and you watch him: biting your bottom lip so hard you're half expecting to draw blood.

"Thank you!" It leaps from your mouth before you have you moment to let it marinate on your tongue. You wince immediately.

He pauses, turning halfway on his heel. He smiles, it's not wide enough for teeth, but definitely wide enough to have your heart falling through your stomach. He nods again and then he's gone.

-

Saturday arrives gloomy and dripping.

It makes for good quidditch conditions, but the chill in the air is still hard to ignore when you step out into mushy grass under stadium lights. The roar of the crowd nearly deafens you, but it'll only take a couple minutes in the air for it to burn down to a soft hum.

In the middle of the stadium floor: Hooch is standing with a whistle to her lips, her figure blurred by the drizzle. Oliver stands beside her, and behind you, your team is clambering onto their brooms and rising into the air with the freshly washed kit over their backs.

You go to walk, but the icy glance Oliver is sending your way convinces you into a jog. He's always impatient before a game, itchy, antsy.

"On time as usual." Hooch hums when you land beside her.

"Got the whole bloody school waiting on her." Oliver mutters but Hooch shrugs him off, pulling the game coin out from inside her robes.

"Perfect." She positions it so we can see, "Gryffindor?"

Oliver straightens out, chest swelling: "Heads."

Hooch nods and before you can suck in another breath, the coin is in the air. She catches it with a skilled hand, flipping and revealing it to the set of captains.

"Hufflepuff, first ball!" She shouts loud enough that the floating players can hear. They nod, some groaning.

The coach turns back on the captains, "I want a fair game kids, no fighting."

"Me and Ollie? Fight?" You smile, "Never, coach."

Oliver rolls his eyes. "Yes, coach."

Suddenly you're above the pitch, sucking in breaths of wet air and struck with that familiar feeling like you could conquer the world on just your broomstick.

The quaffle flies and you stoop to catch it, twisting around Alicia Spinnet to snatch the ball before she's even noticed you're there.

Rain pelts on heads and the game goes on.

Oliver is shouting like a madman from his place in front of the goals behind you - you’ve long learnt to drown it out. He does it half to annoy his own team and half to distract yours. 

You're spinning, flying, swooping and - as you predicted - the crowd has become a distant call, a blurring sight of yellow and red.

An hour passes and the game is already halfway into the next when there's a rise in the crowd. It's not the normal yells and whoops and hollers, but you still don't look up: you're calling over to Jane and Wyatt, your beaters.

“Get between the twins, and stay there!” 

Below, Harry Potter and your own seeker, Cedric Diggory, are flying in circles around each other. The call of Cedric's name is on the tip of your tongue when there’s another ripple of sound off the crowd and this one draws your eyes. It’s there for a second before you find the army of figures descending on the pitch. 

Your breath catches in your throat, freezing solid so you can’t swallow. 

The dementors are even more ghostly this close. You'd never seen so many.

A darkness is permeating the air, the sight of the supporters in the stand dissipating into black. They’re floating in from every corner, drifting at a pace that’s too fast for you to make a move in any direction. 

There’s a scream and your gaze finds the body falling through the sky: it’s Harry.

The ground is racing up to meet him and adrenaline drives your hand to tip your broom, to chase after his quickly disappearing shape when a blurry figure blocks your way. 

Someone yells your name but you don’t hear it. 

You’d never imagined examining a dementor, much less this up close, but even if you had: nothing your imagination could conjure up would ever come close to the harrowing darkness of its empty eye-sockets. 

Its silhouette spreads over every corner of your vision, black like night and blocking the view of the sky. Your nose is so close you could tip forward and meet it's silken cloak.

A cold washes over your body like you've never felt, like you're freezing over: ice creeping up your fingertips, shoulders and face.

Your brain looses all grip on thought, replaced with a seeping dread. It barely acknowledges where a scabbed, decomposing hand is reaching out to you.

Charcoal fingertips brush your cheek when you're tugged back, all the way off your broomstick.

There's not even a last coherent thought to panic when you're engulfed in a warm chest, a hand stabilising around your waist onto a new broomstick. It dips and the green grass is reaching up to you.

The new heat engulfs you through to your bones. You grasp blindly for the expanse of a thick veined neck, wrapping yourself around him.

Digging your face into his shoulder, it takes one glance at the scarlet robes to know who it is. Oliver's panting, one hand holding you against him while the other steers the broomstick down to the floor.

You're trembling, no thought occupying any space beyond Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, Oliver--

"What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

The voice is distant, said against your temple but echoing as if from the end of a long corridor. You don't register where hot tears are wetting your cheeks, erupting over your face without being called.

His words prompt you closer: a tight arm furling over his shoulders and wrapping around him like a vine around an old tree.

"O-Oliver ..."

The hand over your waist tightens. "Sh ... it's fine. You're fine."

The broomstick lands shakily, Oliver's boots squelching into muddy grass. You barely realise you're back on ground when another hand is tugging you off, but you cling tighter to the sweaty red neck: shaking your wet face against his well-pressed robes.

"C'mon, princess ..." His calloused hands pry you from him, gently like you're a piece of china sitting on the very edge of a high shelf. "It's Pomfrey, she's gonna look after you."

You think you feel a kiss press into your hairline before you're being scooped up into a new set of arms. Madam Pomfrey is warm too, smelling like antiseptic and maple syrup.

There's another swell of noise erupting from the supporters above and you're being lead away.

Oliver watches your figure, slumped against the school nurse until you've disappeared into the medical tent.

His heart is going wild, slamming against the walls of his ribcage. Beside him his hands are shaking and he's sucking in thick gulps of air, he finds it still isn't enough oxygen.

There's another splatter where Angelina has landed a few feet behind him. She's panting too, tugging on the edge of his robes and pointing up into the sky.

"Wood!" She's frantic, "They won, Cedric caught the snitch!"

His mouth is dry when he swallows. Rain catches in his eye when he looks up, half the Hufflepuff team is no longer in the sky and the Gryffindors are all on their way down.

"I ..." feeling is returning to his fingertips, "is ... where's Harry?"

Angelina points in the direction of the medical tent. Above, the pitch is engulfed in a bright white light and Oliver catches the wispy end of a shining phoenix chasing between disappearing Dementors. It's a patronus. Dumbledore's, Oliver figures somewhere in his muddy brain.

"Is everyone else okay?"

Angelina nods. Her eyes flicker to the medical tent then back at him. "Is she?"

The image returns to him: the mass of darkness engulfing your figure in the sky. The terror that ripped through him like he was being torn apart from the inside, the whistle of the wind that stung over his ears and how it blocked out his mutterings of please, please, please--

He shakes his head. "She's too tough for her own good. She'll ... she'll be fine."

But it comes out like he's trying to convince himself more than Angelina.

-

Oliver doesn't see you for a few days.

Two, to be exact, and his skin itches the entire time. A deep itch, like it's coming from his bones.

It's only on Monday evening at dinner, with the Hufflepuff table whooping, that you come strolling back into the light of his eyes.

Your head is down, flushed with all the attention, and when you sit, kids are rising from their seats to tackle you into side hugs. He can tell you're embarrassed but he can't gather himself enough to care: the warm rush of relief flooding his stomach so much so that if he dared open his mouth it would all come rushing out.

You look fine. All limbs attached and smiling, it settles him.

He doesn't snap at Archie when he knocks his shoulder with a "you're staring" and his dinner suddenly looks more appetising when he peels his eyes off your figure down to his plate. He finds that he doesn't care as much as he usually does where Enzo's lanky arm is strung over your shoulder.

The week passes in a flurry.

While you share several classes, Oliver doesn't share a single word with you. It's hard not to notice that you're working very hard not to interact with him.

In Muggle Studies, you arrive late and keep your nose tucked deep into the pages of a textbook he knows you couldn't care less about. You're up and out of the classroom before he's even zipped up his bag. It's the same in Potions and Arithmacy.

While going days without talking to each other is not unusual, this time he can tell it’s on purpose. He pretends that he doesn't care.

The rain has cleared and when Friday arrives the sunset is red and orange and purple, granting Oliver with a rare enchanting view out his bedroom window where it's setting behind the East tower.

It's in this quiet, peaceful moment that Archie comes bouncing in with some news of a party happening in the Ravenclaw dormitory.

He's indifferent but Archie is nothing if not convincing.

"Come on, dude. You're literally a hermit crab." He sighs, falling back against his own poster bed across Oliver's. "There will be girls."

"There's girls everywhere, Arch."

His eyebrows wiggle, "And alcohol."

It takes a bit more pestering and the Weasley twins rushing in after him with the same news (and a far less patient approach) to get him up off his bed.

He digs in his cupboard for the last pair of clean jeans and a somewhat suitable purple jumper, tugging them on with a grumble, before he's being dragged by both arms - a twin on each side - across the castle to the West tower wherein resides the Ravenclaw population.

The common room is bustling with seventh years, he recognises them from all houses, and a table set up to the side with some trays of food. He's barely made himself comfortable when Katie Bell is shoving a red solo cup into his hand:

"It's Angelina's brew." She informs him.

He can believe that. The liquid is strong, burning down his throat followed by the barely there after-taste of pumpkin juice. Oliver downs the whole thing in one go.

The music swells louder and he's three cups of Angelina's concoction deep when you come tumbling through the entrance portal.

You're drunk yourself, he can tell by the way you're giggling and half leaning on Cherry Stretton. Bumping through people, not passing without leaning back to apologise to them tipsily, you head straight into the arms of Angelina and Alicia Spinnet. They smile in surprise, engulfing you in their arms.

Despite his and your long-held rivalry, it had done nothing to stop the rest of his team from sweetening up to you. The twins called you their favourite yellow tie at regular intervals and the girls found you nothing less than endearing. Oliver could lie and say he hated it.

Instead, he wrestles his way to where Katie is situated with more to drink, filling his cup and downing it.

-

The room is twisting in a flurry of colours and faces and it's the lightest you've felt in almost a week. You giggle against Enzo, his dreads tucked safely back in a bun while Cedric sets a Dragon-Barrel Brandy shot on fire and hands it carefully over.

Enzo's head knocks back, slipping the burning liquid down his throat with a wince. There's a cheer at his accomplishment, and suddenly Cedric's knocking your elbow: "you're next, Cap!"

After the match-gone-wrong, Madam Pomfrey had held you down in the infirmary until Monday morning. You were fed copious amounts of chocolate - in the form of bars and drinks and cakes and ice creams. By Saturday night you were - surely a couple kilograms heavier - and feeling fine, but Pomfrey was nothing if not paranoid:

"That was no light ordeal you went through, dear. I'm not letting you out of my sight until I'm happy with you."

In all honesty, you'd prefer if the whole school forgot it ever happened.

If Pomfrey didn't fret and your friends didn't come by every meal time and your team stopped sending you get better! letters and nobody mentioned it ever again.

More than anyone, you wished Oliver would forget. The ordeal, or maybe just you as a person.

You'd made a stupid decision under the heat of stadium lights and the influence of racing adrenaline, trying to chase for Harry, and he'd made a stupider decision coming to save you from yourself.

When it got quiet in the infirmary past dusk and Harry's shadowy figure was long since snoring in the bed across yours, you could feel Oliver's touch. Could feel it's strong hold wrapped around your waist and the voice against you the back of your neck and the lips at your temple.

You never reminisced long: for with his touch came the writhing, scalding fear burrowing a hole in your chest.

He could tease you, he will tease you.

Oliver had saved you from the clutches of a dementor moments from your soul being sucked out your body and you'd cried in his chest the whole time, refused to let him go in front of the whole school. It was a mortification you would never live down. And if Oliver decided he was going to use it against you, even once, you were sure you'd melt into the floor in shame.

It's what's made the Firewhiskey and Lemon squash concoction Cherry had handed you back in her room so easy to toss back. It stung and steam rose out your mouth where you'd panted for air. There was another ... and another, they went down the same.

The walk across the castle to reach the Ravenclaw Tower had been wobbly and you'd laughed with your friends loud enough to wake up the whole castle you're sure, but it dissolved the fear that clung to your bones. The fear that he was here, lingering between the people in the crowded blue common room.

Now the liquor is fading. Numbing to a dull buzz and you decline Cedric's offer at a burning shot, thinking about how proud you'll be of yourself when you wake up tomorrow morning in bed rather than wrapped around a toilet seat and hauling up guts into the bowl.

The party, not unlike yourself, is dimming.

Students are crawling away into all corners, each with their own excuse. I have a potions essay to do or No, dude, I'm too drunk for this or Flint wants us down at the pitch for drills at eight tomorrow morning, I gotta head to bed.

The crowd, though thinning, is beginning to clump into respective circles across the room. You glance annoyed at the fireplace where the flames crack merrily. Even with your short skirt and thin satin top, the heat of the common room is stifling.

Enzo is on his fourth burning shot, it's lost it's appeal to the crowd but he seems undeterred, knocking Cedric in the shoulder with the empty shot glass motioning: another! You yawn, playing mindlessly with the ruffled sleeve of your shirt.

"Oh no," A harsh tug at your hand draws you from the lure of sleep that's fogging your mind. "The night is young, no yawning!"

Cherry has your wrist in her grip, Enzo's in the other. He blinks blearily down at his friends.

"Huh?"

"Come on," Cherry's brown eyes roll far back in her head. "Fred says they're starting Seven Minutes In Heaven. Let's go join--"

"Seven minutes--?" you laugh between words, "Cher, are you mad?"

She whines, pouting like a kicked dog. "It'll be fun. Besides, when last did you have a good fucking snog? Too long, I say!"

Somehow, you're not only convinced across the room into a spot onto the floor in a circle of a couple others, but a drink has ended up in your hand and its contents quickly down your gullet.

For the nerves, you assure yourself.

Before you know it, Angelina - who's conveniently settled beside you - is topping up your plastic cup with a nearly empty bottle of Daisyroot Draught. "This is the good stuff. Katie stashed it in, her sister works at a brewery."

You smile nervously, nod, and take a tentative sip. The pre-existing buzz in your head convinces you it's not so bad.

In the circle is a couple Gryffindors you recognise, some giggling Slytherin girls, a Ravenclaw you can't name and three members of your quidditch team. There's an open spot on the side you don't take note of.

That is until Archie Kumar is steering a grumpy, visibly drunk Oliver Wood into the open place and collapsing beside him.

Your breath catches in your throat, heart sinking into your stomach like a stone. You're halfway off the floor, suddenly desperate for the loo, when Cherry - on your left side - drags you back down to the floor.

Maybe it's Katie's sister's brew, but you tumble too easily back onto your bum.

"Relax. Just don't look at him, okay?"

You suck in another breath, eyes trained on the white moon outline sewn into the rug. "Yeah ... okay."

It doesn't hold long and when you find the Gryffindor captain again, his gaze is trained on your face. It's stone cold. You gasp quietly and look away.

"Right!" George Weasley is on his feet, setting an empty Firewhisky bottle into the centre. "Who's first?"

Alicia shuffles forward on her knees, the first of the group to move, and the bottle goes spinning. It lands on the Ravenclaw boy. He grins and she does too: Fred wolf-whistles when they stand.

The "heaven" in question is a tall oak cabinet leaning against the back wall of the common room. The pair disappear into its depths and conversation rises again as the circle waits.

You sip your drink in large gulps, trying to hold conversation with Angelina against Oliver's hot gaze that's burning a hole through the side of your face. It's difficult: the Gryffindor girl is so drunk that she's talking with her eyes closed.

Seven minutes later, there's a chorus of "time's up!", Alicia and the boy emerge another ten seconds later. They're rearranging their clothes and Alicia is as scarlet as her quidditch robes. The boy is grinning like the cat who caught the canary. You're suddenly struck with the violent urge to throw up.

The game goes on like that, round after round. Lee Jordan and Jane Emmet (your beater), Katie and Wyatt (your other beater), Cherry and a pretty Slytherin girl you don't know - she's especially chuffed when she returns, red lipstick smeared over her chin.

You're working very hard not to look at Oliver, much less think about him, but it's proving difficult. Every time the bottle takes its spin, your stomach churns.

It had occurred to you during the time that Alicia and that boy were in the closet that there was a very real chance that Oliver could be called up when one of those pretty Slytherins take their turn at the bottle. The thought had made you down the last of your drink and immediately want to vomit it all back up into your cup.

The image of their slender arms curling around his criminally wide-set shoulders, Oliver pushing them back against the inside wall of the grand closet. Would he make noise? Would he sigh or groan against their lips or whisper something about how beautiful they looked tonight in their ears--

"Ollie, you're up mate."

You can't remember who said it, but the words stripped your gaze off Angelina and straight into the pooling brown eyes you'd been avoiding all week long.

He sighed, grumbling under his breath and only with a less-than-gentle nudge from Archie, did he lean up on thighs that flexed unfairly -- bloody hell, stop it! -- and wrap his hand over the neck of the bottle: it went spinning.

The only sound you could hear was the twist of the glass against the woven rug and the hum of your own blood rushing past your ears. It stopped.

"No fucking ways." Enzo cracked from two people down.

A hand landed on your shoulder, shaking you half off your arse: Angelina. "You're up, babe! Go!"

The bottle was pointing irrefutably at your little spot in the circle.

Oliver's face was as white as you'd ever seen it when you dared look up.

"I-I'm not going in with him--" It was the first thing that came to your mind and went spluttering out your mouth.

George was laughing so hard that he'd fallen all the way onto his back. The roar of the group was ear-splitting.

"There's no ways I'm going in with her!"

"Let's end this feud once and for all," Katie bellowed over their heads. "Captain versus captain!"

You're being knocked from all sides, hands crawling under your arms and lifting you off the floor. Across the circle, Oliver is experiencing the same and before you know it: the wooden doors of the cabinet are creaking open.

"Go on!" Lee's finger is piercing your side.

Oliver is beside you but you won't look. You take one last look over your shoulder at Cherry back on the floor, she does nothing but offer a sympathetic shrug and mouths "sorry, dear".

Your hand reaches before Oliver's, flinging the door open with maybe a little too much force. It bangs against the wall behind it.

"Let's get this over with." You mumble, only half concerned that he heard you.

You slouch climbing in, the top is low and the space is even more cramped than what you assumed. To your surprise, Oliver is stepping in after you. He takes his turn at slamming the door, shutting it this time.

It's dark inside, but not enough that you can't see. Light is peaking in through the cracks and he's leaned back against the opposite wall to you.

In the narrow space, your legs are twisting around each other to stand: his one knee situated between yours. In the dimness, he folds his arms and you notice for the first time the jumper he's wearing. The purple one, you recognise it as the one he's had for years. Time has taken its toll where the jumper is clinging to life around his frame, Oliver having grown at least three times wider while the jumper has remained the same size.

"Go on, Wood, give her a kiss!"

The voice is unrecognisable but it knocks your tongue back into your mouth where you'd been ogling at his torso.

His arms are folded, proffering you with a glare that could cut through steel. He makes no visible sign that he'd heard the shout at all. You mirror him, folding your own arms.

"I'm not kissing you."

His head cocks. "Oh, so you're talking to me now?"

You suck in a sharp breath. It's not the response you're anticipating. "What?"

"So we're playing dumb?" He leans just a fraction closer. You can smell the linger of alcohol on his breath, but it doesn't work hard enough to drown out the smell of peppermint that follows him around. "Doesn't suit you, princess."

"I'm not playing anything. I don't know what you're talking about." You double down. It's probably not sustainable but the heat of his body almost against yours and the thrum of liquor in your blood makes the decision for you.

"Y've been avoiding me all week."

"I haven't"

"You're a bad liar."

You swallow hard. Embarrassment is rising again, making your head spin. Oliver's chest is puffed up in anger, you can tell because you've had five years to learn the look like the back of your hand. Except, now - as it has been for a longer time than you care to admit - it's harder to focus on the waves of fury reflecting off of him when his face is just so ... beautiful. Nose scrunched and lips pulled tight into a grimace.

It's what makes you change tactics, you think.

"So what if I was? Why does it matter?"

His arms unfold, eyes rolling so far that his head knocks back against the wood of the cupboard.

"Why?" you press, "Did you miss me, Wood?"

"Maybe I did."

He's looking at you again. For what feels like the hundredth time just tonight, your breath escapes you in a rush and your lungs struggle to grasp back at it. Your face softens without meaning to.

You blink at him.

"You did?" It's a whisper.

His arms are still folded but something clement passes like a shadow over his features.

"No."

His face betrays his words, eyes soft and lip daring to curl up at the edge.

The air in the tight space goes cold. Or maybe it's your blood. It's more likely the look on Oliver's face: like he hasn't just turned your organs to slush. You're all the way sober now.

"I'm not kissing you." You repeat dumbly, but it's gentle.

Merlin, you want to kiss him so fucking badly.

"You mentioned." He's almost, almost, smiling. It's gentle too.

The space between you falls quiet. You're suddenly overly focused on the brush of his knee between yours. His swirling brown eyes catch on the split of light creeping in past the hinge on the door.

It stays like that until your voice creeps nervously out. "I was embarrassed. Am, I am embarrassed."

A thick brow tightens in confusion. "Why?"

You huff, almost annoyed. Your eyes train on a dark spot by your intertwined feet. "Come on, Wood."

"What, about the match?" The alcohol thickens his accent.

Your silence seems to answer his question. The apples of your cheeks are warming again.

"What was I supposed to do, leave you to have you bloody soul sucked out yer body?" His voice is rising, "No, princess, I'm not apologising for that."

It's an outpour that you're not expecting. Oliver's clearly in the mood to shock and surprise tonight.

Your lips tighten around the words that are all fighting for the spot at the tip of your tongue. Silence reigns while they argue, he's still watching you with exasperation set into the lines of his face.

"Princess." You settle.

His expression twists again. "What?"

"You always call me that. Why?" It's a question that you buried long ago. But his proximity, in conjunction with the night you've had, unearths it.

It's his turn to look surprised. He grumbles some indiscernable Scottish blabber before-- "It's because y'are a princess. Spoilt and bratty. Always gets her way."

There's no malice to his response, you find. It draws a chuckle from the depths of your chest.

"Aye, right." You mimic his accent and his quip, one he's used many times at you.

He laughs. It's not a sound you hear often and it's setting your whole nervous system alight like a tangled bunch of christmas lights. His whole body's shaking with it, head resting back against the wood again, and you really do think you might grab him and kiss him -- when the door flies open again: seeping his whole body in yellow light.

Alicia's standing at the opening, grin wide as night is wide and clearly expectant on catching you with your tongues down each other's throats.

If she'd given you another three seconds she just might have.

"Oh." She slumps in disappointment, looking back over her shoulder and shaking her head to the expectant crowd. They groan collectively. "Well, love birds, your time is up."

You'd almost forgotten where you were. Oliver clears his throat, the ghost of his laugh impossible to find on his face, and clambers over your legs out into the common room again. He doesn't pass without brushing his hand over yours.

-

It's nearly three in the morning when Enzo finally lets up.

His long legs are sprawled across the midnight blue couch in the middle of the common room. Fiona, a lovely Ravenclaw girl you'd met just tonight, shrugs at you: "Don't stress it. He can crash here tonight."

The party is long since dead. Seven Minutes In Heaven had looped another three rounds before everyone had gotten their chance in the dusty cupboard and began to grumble in boredom.

You'd avoided Oliver's eyes the whole time again, sure that if you looked he'd be able to read the fondness on your face.

It wasn't long after that the last of the students dissolved in the direction of their respective bedrooms. With your dear friend in good hands with the Ravenclaws, you loop your arm with Cherry - knocking against her side towards the portal.

You've barely pushed it ajar when she breaks off you, "Hold on, I need to get my Transfig notes from Jacob!"

"Cher, it's three in the morning?"

Alcohol is directing her legs in the opposite direction clumsily, "I'll wake him. If I fail another quiz, Mcgee's gonna have my arse."

She's gone before she catches your call: "I'll find you outside!"

The portal creaks where you shove it open again. The corridor is dimly lit and colder than the common room and a shiver chases up your exposed legs.

"Bloody hell." You run a hand over your forearms.

It's quiet too, and empty besides the Gryffindor captain leaning against the stone wall closest to the entrance you've just emerged from.

"Merlin," your eyes find his. "Not you again."

The flush over your cheeks is warding off the chill.

Oliver shrugs. "Me again."

An awkward silence permeates. Against better judgement, you shuffle forward, leaning against the wall beside him. He doesn't react, arms folded and staring into the inky abyss of the corridor leading out to the rest of the castle.

"Why're you out here?" You ask, tucking your hands between your back and the wall.

"Archie." He huffs out, voice wrapped in annoyance. "He's in there with Penelope. I gave him ten minutes."

Ah, Penelope Clearwater. She'd joined the game in the last round. A good thing too because Oliver's friend was looking more crestfallen as the bottle spun again and again, surpassing him each time. Penelope had taken the last turn, ending up with her hair in every direction and Archie's spectacles leaning half off his face when they emerged from the cupboard.

"You?"

The eddy of average conversation is strange, but you find you like it.

"Cherry." You hum. "Something about quiz notes."

He drops his head back against the wall.

"That what they calling it now?"

It startles you, head tilting to stare up at the side of his face with a grin: "oh, Wood’s got jokes now? I didn’t know it was possible for you to make a joke."

His eyes flutter shut, a twinkle of laughter bubbling out of his frame. Tucking his head down to his chest, he shrugs against his own light chuckle. "I have them. I just don’t share them with you."

You giggle back at him. "Right. Well then you better stop smiling there, someone might walk past and think we’re friends."

He shakes his head, the sound of his snicker fading but leaving behind the imprint of a smile. "Nobody’s gonna think that."

You lean back again, eyes drifting over the low ceiling. Quiet falls again - not uncomfortable - and you let it linger for a moment. A thought tugs on a loose string in your mind, not a new one, but one you’ve carefully buried over time.

It comes falling out your mouth. "You ever think about how it might be ... if things were different?"

The question grants you a look out the side of his eye. "Different?"

"Y’know," you shrug, the very last remains of alcohol are ebbing and unsureness is replacing where it stood. "If we … we had—"

"If you hadn’t suckered me in the bloody nose?" His words are unexpectedly fond.

You laugh at him, "If you hadn’t deserved to be suckered in the bloody nose."

He draws in a long breath, not answering. It prompts you.

"We could have been friends." You whisper, more to your chest than to him really.

But he hears it. "We would never be friends."

It stings sharper than it should. Your shoulders go stiff and the corners of your eyes sting inexplicably, turning the corridor blurry. A dying fire revives in your chest, blistering the cave, reminding you why Oliver Wood has been nothing but a stake in your side since you were thirteen years old.

"Of course. How stupid of me, for a minute I forgot what an absolute arsehole you are." You push off the wall, intent in going to dig out Cherry from the depths of the Ravenclaw dormitory. "Goodnight, Wood."

An arm wraps around your waist, not unlike it'd done a week ago in the air of the quidditch pitch, lurching you into him until you're pressed back against the cool stone of the corridor wall.

Oliver looms over you, crouched so that your nose bumps against his. "Don't sulk, princess."

It all happens at once: his hands grab onto the fat of your hips, digging in there like he really does hate you, and lips crash against yours like maybe he doesn't at all.

He stays there, unmoving for a second that feels a year long.

Where the inside of your brain had been buzzing with runaway threads of thought, ribbons streaking out in all directions: they disappear in a sizzling light. Oliver Wood is kissing me.

You melt against him, tipping up onto your toes and latch onto muscled shoulders. He seemingly takes that as his cue, pressing you closer against his body with his arm - lifting you half off the wall.

He tastes like the remnants of Firewhisky and pumpkin juice, the flavour setting every nerve ending in your body on fire. Lips soft but persistent while his hands grip onto you like you'd dissolve into dust if he didn't.

It's aggressive, but familiar in that way. Oliver is nothing if not hot-blooded and his touch, darting between your hips and your face is turning you tipsy again.

"If you want a friend," It's muffled when he speaks, punctuating his words with hot wet kisses, "go be friends with Ryo."

It's only in this moment, with his desperation mirroring in the glimpses of sugar brown irises you catch where he's fluttering his eyes over your face, that it dawns on you.

"Jealous much?"

He growls lowly and it makes you giggle against him, your hands slithering up into the hairs at the base of his neck. Oliver shakes his head against you, still huffing in disbelief.

"Shut up." It's accent-heavy and bleeds a hole through the bottom of your stomach. "You're such a fucking brat."

"And you're a fucking prick."

He huffs lowly, you press harder to him: solidifying the sentiment. Somehow the bickering makes it all sweeter, like you're dissolving cotton candy against your tongue where his swoops over it.

You'd just about forgotten where you were when a creak echoes down the corridor. Halfway to ignoring it in favour of Oliver's touch, your situation dawns on you in the same moment it does him.

Like you'd both licked the end of a live wire, you and Oliver jolt back a foot, hands diving to your respective sides.

Cherry is standing against the light of the common room behind her, a lanky Archie parked beside her. Their eyes are wide and Cherry's hand is against her jaw in shock.

"Oh my god." She mumbles against it.

Blood is rushing to your face and out the corner of your eye, Oliver is running a hand over the hair that's sticking in all directions from the influence of your fingers.

Cherry is laughing breathily, eyes still wide and white in surprise. "Oh my god."

Archie's eyes are flickering between you and Oliver.

"Sorry to interrupt." He says, a smirk curling onto his features.

It jumpstarts your entire system. You step forward, grabbing Cherry by the arm.

"Well," you nod at Archie and at Oliver, not daring to meet his eyes, "goodnight then."

You march with fervour, half-dragging her in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room until your figure disappears behind the next corridor.

Oliver stands with his hands hanging at his side dumbly. He swipes a finger of his bottom lip, still tasting the strawberry lip gloss you'd left there.

"Can't say I didn't see this coming, mate." A hand claps over his shoulder.

He groans, running both hands over his face, and Archie shakes him lightly.

"So ... how was it?"

With another groan, Oliver shoves Archie's hand off of him. "Bloody hell, Arch."

Archie throws his head of curly black hair back, laughing so loud it bounces off the wall. "That good, huh?"

(part two/final part)

-

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“No,” you laugh. “No, sorry, I was just surprised.” The slight tension in his face relaxes. “There’s not much to hurt anyway.” 

The joke is obvious in your tone, but Spencer doesn’t laugh. His eyes go all sweet and concerned instead. 

“What do you mean?” 

You roll your eyes, kissing up at him. “They’re little,” you say between lengthening pecks to his upper lip. Spencer’s got a lovely upper lip. Small but expressive, cupid’s bow shifting with every movement, you could devote an entire day to it. “Barely even there. Do whatever you want with them.” 

You feel his frown between your lips. Try to kiss it away, but to no avail. 

“They’re there,” Spencer says, pulling away so there’s a couple of inches between you. “I think they’re a good size.” 

You give him a good-natured, be serious look. “You don’t have to say that,” you tell him. “It’s fine, I accepted my meager endowment a long time ago.” 

His frown worsens, pulling his eyebrows together in the middle. “They are little, but that doesn’t make them less…” He seems to hesitate halfway through, a mild sheepishness touching his expression. “Nice. Women with larger breasts usually have pain in their upper back. Garcia says it’s not very enjoyable.” 

You laugh, your own face heating slightly at the clinical way he’s discussing this. “Yeah, I’ve heard.” 

“But you know,” Spencer goes on, “smaller breasts have been found to be more sensitive than larger ones.” 

You feel your eyebrows rise. You feel like a pre-teen, but you’re going to need him to say breasts a few more times in that voice of his. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Roughly twenty four percent more sensitive, actually.” 

You feel suddenly short of breath. Your eyes dip to where Spencer’s slender hand is still splayed over your boob, breathing a quiet, “Oh.” 

He hums, not following your gaze but undoubtedly aware of it as he leans down to press a pillowy soft kiss to your lips. “So I just want to be careful with you,” he says, his long thumb sweeping gently over your small mound, just barely skimming past your nipple. “Will you tell me if I do anything you don’t like?” 

You nod fervently, chin bumping his as you kiss up at him, but Spencer takes his time. He pecks gently at your bottom lip before his mouth migrates downwards, marking a path of adoration down your center until his lips come to rest on the inside of your left breast. You watch him the whole way, tense with anticipation and something far more fragile, and when he looks up at you through his lashes, eyes warm and soft and safe, you know Spencer sees both in your expression. 

“You’re okay with me touching them?” he checks quietly. 

“Yeah,” you breathe. 

CEO!Jing Yuan who will never forget that night - you, running into the house after he let you in, with hair still messy and clearly first clothes you dug from the closet thrown on you. You looked like a cute ruffled sparrow, which quickly transformed into a mother hen when he better explained his troubles about a little kid - now his adopted son - and how he couldn’t get him to fall asleep at the new place. You too didn’t know much about handling children, but you were willing to try and the white-haired man couldn’t ask for more. Both called off work the next day.

CEO!Jing Yuan who since then has a room in his house that belongs to you - over the years it got filled with your personal things, redesigned (twice!) to your tastes, and has been occupied over the years for almost half of each passing week.

CEO!Jing Yuan who adores Yanqing - the boy proved to be feisty, but at the same time he was very sweet and nice to have around. Jing Yuan didn’t think twice about adopting the little guy the moment he learnt of his friends’ passing, turning from a godfather to just a father. He, obviously, didn’t force Yanqing to call him dad, making up his mind that even if it never happens - it’s totally fine. Due to the age the boy could understand why his parents weren’t there and Jing Yuan was making all he could to give him a good life, a normal life. He was so lucky that you tugged along.

CEO!Jing Yuan who almost cried when Yanqing absentmindedly called him ‘dad’. The ten-year old didn’t even notice it, but to the man it meant the world. He spammed you with messages, all in caps and with weeping emojis, and felt his heart about to combust when you sent him a response full of excitement, congratulating him. And then messaged about how you wished to hear the boy call him dad the next time you were around. Damn, he wished so too.

CEO!Jing Yuan, who loves having you around. He melts when he returns to the living room after going to refill the snack bowl only to see Yanqing cuddled closely to you, staring at the screen with his head tucked under your chin. His lips tug into a wide smile when the boy asks you if you can be the one to get him from school tomorrow instead of Jing Yuan’s personal driver (and you always say ‘yes’, even if it means you’ll sacrifice your lunch break). A pleasant shiver runs down both his and the boy’s backs when you walk into Yanqing’s room to check on the two doing homework and gently scratch their heads. Jing Yuan loves the domestic life the two of you created.

CEO!Jing Yuan, who encouraged his son when a couple of years later he wondered if it’s okay if he started calling you ‘mom’. The man told him to approach you the next time you were staying over and ask your opinion on the matter. Which the boy did, shyly reaching out for your hand and when you gave it to him with a smile, dropped a bomb. Jing Yuan remembers the slight hesitation flashing in your eyes, how you lifted him and got him into your lap to be on the same eye level with him.

“Baby, are you sure?”

“Mhm. You’ve always been there. You raise me. And I really love you and want you to be my mom.”

“Even if I am not your father’s wife?”

“Maybe you should become her? But either way, yes.”

CEO!Jing Yuan who now can’t get the boy’s words out of his head. Yanqing is right - you’ve always been there. For them both. His, no, your son is thirteen now - meaning that for five years you’ve helped your friend raise the boy - you were not obligated to be there for his special events, you weren’t paid to take days off and sit with him when he was sick, no one asked you to kiss his forehead and tuck him into bed, there were no rules that said that you have to share his hobbies… Yet, you did. Always. And the man has always been very aware of that, but only his son’s words seem to open his eyes - both of you are his parents. Maybe it’s a shame you are not spouses.

CEO!Jing Yuan who feels kind of bad - you’ve spent 5 years of your life being a family to Yanqing and, admittedly, the man himself. You’ve given up searching for a partner, starting a family of your own just to make sure that the kid who has no relation to you grows healthy and happy. He can’t help but love and appreciate you.

CEO!Jing Yuan who finds out that you’ve been having similar thoughts about him after that conversation with your son. He really didn’t mean to overhear, he just wanted to drop by your office at the beginning of the break and offer to go get lunch together, only to stop at the mention of his name that passed through the door. Apparently, you sought advice from Yukong - the head of the logistics department, a fellow mother and one of the few who knew what your family dynamic was really like. You are concerned that you took the place that wasn’t meant to you - you worry that Yanqing got attached to you so strongly that should Jing Yuan start seeing someone, the boy would be too stubborn to accept.

CEO!Jing Yuan, whose heart skips a beat, when the teal-haired woman asks you, why you are not entertaining the possibility that you can be the one the man seeks a relationship with. The same heart drops into his stomach when you sigh and tell her of him never showing interest. Things seem platonic to you. Well, not to your coworkers, it appears.

CEO!Jing Yuan and you, who freeze in your seats, when at the end of the meeting a new secretary of the man asks if ‘Mrs Jing will also attend the event’ hosted by one of the company’s biggest clients. Confused, you look at your friend, who's equally stunned (but secretly, realizing what kind of mistake it is, fights back a tiny spark of delight). It turns out that the secretary thought the two of you were husband and wife and for that reason gave you the man’s last name. If it’s not the sign, then what is?

CEO!Jing Yuan who goes clothes shopping with you - because you both indeed are going to be at the event and the man insists the two of you buy something matching. When you ask why, he slyly smiles and promises that it’s his way of ‘showing interest’. At first you don’t get it. But when your cheeks heat up he knows the message is clear to you. You do call him a scoundrel and he heartily laughs at that, but you still reach out to his hand and he readily interlocks your fingers.

CEO!Jing Yuan who notices you getting flirtier, one time in particular not leaving his mind. He was comfortably sitting on the sofa, having everything he needed to push through the last bits of work he had decided to take home (‘everything’ being just his laptop and a mug of steaming tea). That’s when you approached him from the back, laying your palms on top of his shoulders, gently kneading the tense muscles, working a low appreciative grunt out of his throat.

“Yuan?”

“Mmm?”

“You look stressed,” fingers dug a little rougher into his flesh and the man groaned, shoulder flinching. Only for his whole body to go rigid when your voice fanned right against his ear, ”I know how to fix it.”

And then you innocently proposed to go to the gym together once he’d be done. Honestly? For a stunt like that Jing Yuan wanted to bite you.

CEO!Jing Yuan who does get his teeth onto you as you are trying to escape the trap of his arms after waking up from the cute cuddling session with Yanqing. Only for the boy to be gone upon your awakening (and you hear some shuffling in the kitchen) and a very hot man - your friend? boss?? unofficial-but-everyone-thinks-you-are-together lover??? - pressing your back into his chest with arms firmly circling your waist. When you attempt to move away, he suddenly surges forward and clamps his mouth onto the exposed juncture between your neck and shoulder. And nibbles.

“Jing Yuan!”

“Hufshf,” he mumbles into your skin, before releasing it and burying his face into your neck. “Don’t shout, you’ll alert Yanqing, and I want some more time with you.”

“...why?”

“Why?” He muses, and you feel a smile pressed to the back of your neck. “Because I think we’d make great as a couple.”

CEO!Jing Yuan who comes to an agreement with you that for the longest time it felt like the two of you were indeed a married couple. You share a place, you do most domestic things together, you go to places together, you raise a son together. And together you come to a conclusion that courting is due.

Until recently, where it seems less like a fantasy and more like a terrifying possibility. 

Over the past few weeks Luke has gone out of his way to be sweet to you. Or at least you think so. He’s spent extra time talking to you at lunch, laughing at your half-formed jokes almost in earnest. At bonfires he saves you a seat, grabs you a marshmallow on occasion. You even made him a friendship bracelet of sorts—admittedly a little ugly—but he’s never taken it off. Not since the day you gave it to him. 

Not to mention helping you last week before the archery competition. His hands lingering over yours as he steadied your bow, the curls of his breath on the back of your neck when he stood behind you. 

“Don’t be nervous,” he says, a tinge of mirth in his voice. “You just steady your aim and first is as good as yours.”

(You came in fifteenth.)

You don’t want to say that it’s him weakening your aim, making your pulse beat out of your neck. His nose brushes against the back of your jaw as he leans forward and you smell the pine on his skin. Is this friendly? Is he this close on purpose? Are you delusional?

It’s all you’ve been thinking about these past few days. So when Luke Castellan’s endless admirers come to the forefront of your mind, you feel like all those moments of potential buildup have been ripped away. 

“You alright there, sunshine?” 

He takes you out of your spiral with a teasing lilt you love. When you look at him, his face is a shimmering warmth, complete with boyish smile. 

“Yep,” you reply, trying to ignore the nickname making your insides flutter even though you know he’s saying it ironically.

You’ve always had a gift for identifying colour. It’s the thing you pay attention to most. Something inherited from your mother, you suppose. So you’ve memorized the way Luke’s eyes melt in the sunlight. How his scar blends with his pinking cheeks when it’s hot outside. You never told him, and you probably never will, but you’ve painted him from memory quite a few times in the Apollo cabin—always with the excuse that you were practicing. It's so blatantly obvious you're in love with him there's no point in your friends bringing it up.  

The two of you are meandering around camp before dinner, a tradition Luke started early on in the summer. You talk about high points of your day (mostly you) or share nuggets of gossip you’ve heard around camp (mostly him). It's the thing you looked forward to every morning. A time when his words are just for you. 

Idle chatter flows as you keep walking. Sometimes your arm brushes his and you have the embarrassing urge to tug yours away. You do your best not to stare at him too long or laugh too loud at his jokes. 

“Hey, Castellan!” Someone calls. 

Luke’s head turns. Your heart plummets. A beautiful girl, Aphrodite cabin, you think, is heading towards you. She’s all honey-spun hair and dazzling pink lips, and it’s obvious she knows it. You don’t know her name. But Luke does. 

They fall into conversation the second she arrives. It’s just greetings, pleasantries, but there’s a coy smile on the girl’s face that betrays any sense of disinterest. “Heard you’re not too keen on pairing up with us for the Chariot Race next week. What gives?” Her tone is pouty and playful as she taps Luke’s shoulder. She side-eyes you, lips curling imperceptibly. “I’m sure you’ll have a better chance with us.”

He lets out a strained chuckle. “Dunno, just thought it was fine to switch it up.”

Just like that, you’re out of the loop again. More of her friends flock after her, and soon Luke is tangled in a whole other world. They’re all glowing with a kind of righteousness you only get when you’re popular. You know Luke has friends, tons of them. He's the leader of the cabin with the most campers. Not to mention assertive and gorgeous. His presence is so inviting it’s a challenge not to fall in love with him. 

So you can’t blame this girl, the one that keeps touching his arm and giggling. It’s not like you’ve staked your claim on Luke—no one even knows you exist. As much as you want him to be yours, you know you’ll never stop someone from taking him first. It’s your fatal flaw, you think. Cowardice. 

You end up sidelined completely. Watching him swathed in people more charismatic than you plants an ache deep inside you. All your wishful thinking feels sour now, a pipe dream, a bedtime story to help you sleep better. Somehow it hurts more knowing that it’s nobody’s fault but yours. These people can’t be doing this on purpose. It’s just who they are. It’s who you are—always a step behind, always daydreaming. You are your mother’s daughter, after all. Just a prism reflecting everyone around you. 

Eventually, one of the boys in the group takes notice of you. He’s not nearly as captivating as Luke is—you don’t find the colours of his eyes hold as much depth. There’s also a haughtiness when he looks at you. He sneers, “What the hell do you have on your face?”

It draws the attention of others in the group. You feel like a naked sculpture in an art gallery. “Uh, what?” You stammer. 

Some of them purse their lips. The girl with Luke lets a laugh slip. You’re pretty sure you look like an idiot, waiting there with your brows wrinkled in a daze. Their gazes keep flicking over to your cheek, so your hand flies up there before you can delay any more. When you press your fingers to the side of your face, they come away tacky and pink. Mortification constricts you.

Paint. It’s leftover, half-dried paint. The colour of Luke’s cheeks in the sun. 

“Oh,” you say dumbly. It’s drowned by snickers. All you can do is find Luke, the only face you know, and ask, “Why didn’t you tell me?” without sounding too hurt. 

You know you failed when your voice comes out wrong and his ebony brows push together. “I thought it looked—”

He never gets to finish because the golden girl laughs a little louder, the pink tones in her face a little darker. “Oh my Gods, you’re that Iris kid that’s always singing, right?” She giggles sharply, cornflower eyes darting between her friends. There’s something in there you can’t quite pick up on, until it flushes the pupils of all her friends, and they all grin with a secret knowledge they want you to see. “You’re, like, really good!” The girl simpers, but her bottom lip pulls between her teeth to soften another laugh. 

“Oh, so good!” Another friend piles on. 

Their passive-aggressive chuckles start to sound like hail on a window. You shift further away from them. Dirt slides beneath your shoe, and you long to kick up more of it, displace yourself, disappear. 

You don’t look at Luke. The giggly, flaxen girl has already turned back to him, and you’re sure he’s enthralled once more. You try to stir up the image of Luke’s closeness during archery practice, the lilac bruise on his knuckles when he angled your bow, but it doesn’t take. Now, it feels like you’ve dreamed it. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Luke leaning down to catch a whisper from the Aphrodite girl’s ear. The boy that first commented on your cheek leans closer to you again. He’s suffocatingly smug when he grins, “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you go … wash that off? You don’t want to look like that at dinner.” He snorts. “For an Iris kid, you really aren’t good at taking a message.” 

If you were a more confident person, maybe you’d point out how that didn’t really make sense, or how stupid it sounded coming out of his mouth. But the sentiment of it wounds you, and you’re weak enough as is. 

"Guess you're right," you mumble. You wipe your face of paint as you leave. The memory of Luke’s skin stains you until you wash your hands off in the sink. 

You haven’t talked to him since. 

It’s been a few days of you avoiding him, and it’s hard to explain to anyone why you’ve been doing it. How do you tell the truth? Luke Castellan is a work of art and you are … a weird doodle, or something. Despite your adoration, you know there’s no reason he should feel the same for you. Everyone loves him for a reason. Everyone must ignore you for one, too. 

“Why haven’t you been talking to Luke?”

The question breaks your concentrated silence in the Apollo cabin. You’ve been sitting here for a while now, humming to yourself over a mostly blank canvas. The cabin is dusted with a lilac haze, thanks to your manipulation of the light streaming through the windows. Helps you feel less like you’re at camp and more like you’re in a fairytale. 

“Helloooo, lady, I asked you a question.”

You begrudgingly look up. Lee Fletcher, head of the Apollo cabin, is at the mouth of the cabin, gazing at all your supplies strewn about the floor like they’re a bunch of unsavoury substances. “It looks like a hurricane came in here. Now why aren’t you talking to Luke?”

“How do you know I’m not talking to him?” You mutter as Lee sits beside you. 

“Uh, because you’ve been sleeping here multiple nights in a row and you never do that. And you don’t sit with him at dinner. And whenever we see him you drag me in the other direction—”

“Lee!”

“I’m just saying, you should probably talk about it. My beautiful voice can heal wounds, yes, but not of the heart.” He splays a hand across his chest in mock theatrics.

You don’t say anything. The familiar weight of the brush against your fingertips is far more comforting than trying to talk, so you busy yourself with your canvas again. “He waits for you, you know,” Lee continues, quieter. “In the morning. And before dinner. He always asks if you’re here.”

“Oh,” you say, and your wavering voice betrays your expression. But you think of everyone else at camp, their gleaming smiles and their celebrated parents, their own cabins and friends and dreams, how you don’t seem to have any of those. You think of the girl whispering in Luke’s ear. All her shades of beauty. You know it’s wrong to compare yourself, to be jealous. You’re just … sad.

The cabin darkens from a lilac to an imperceptibly gloomier shade. A blue sort of longing gets caught in your throat, blurring the colours on your canvas. But you keep your brush steady, focused on the scratch of its bristles so you don’t have to hear what you say next. 

“I think I love him, Lee.” And then, “But I don’t think he loves me.”

There’s no sound except the scraping of your brush when it’s run out of paint, and a sniffle when a tear rolls down your cheek. 

“Oh,” Lee fills the silence the way you did just moments before. Then he says your name, laced with pity, and hugs you on the floor of his lavender cabin. 

“You want to help me lead the bonfire song tonight?” He asks after a minute. “Or at least … come to the bonfire song?” 

“No to the first, yes to the second.”

You wish you said no to both. 

The spot you choose after dinner is right next to the fire so you can distract yourself with the golden flecks of flame. Fire is so fluid, so complex, from a colour perspective. But no matter how close you get, the searing warmth can’t hide Luke’s gaze peering over the embers. 

He will not. Stop. Looking at you. 

The singing from the Apollo kids usually soothes you but tonight it’s just making you anxious. All this attention so close to you. Will Solace has been sitting next to you this whole time, your unofficial assigned companion for the night thanks to Lee. One of his siblings beckons him over, and he shoots you an apologetic look, hesitating. "Just go," you wave off kindly. "It's all good." He's not entirely convinced, and you aren't either, but he squeezes your shoulder with thanks and leaves you anyway.

Now you’re acutely aware the space next to you is wide open. And so is Luke, it seems. There’s an awkward moment where your gazes slide over each other and he weaves out of his current crowd towards you. So you do the most mature, sound thing you could possibly do in this situation:

You say you have to go to the bathroom to no one in particular and get out of there. 

It’s dark, but you’ve got sharper eyes than most. Soon the noise of the campfire is behind you. You traipse through the camp towards the bathroom,but you don’t get far before you hear something that makes your stomach drop in the worst and best way. 

Luke, calling your name. 

At first you think you can get away with not hearing him. Then he calls a second, a third, a fourth time, punctuated with, “Come on, I know you can hear me, can you just turn around?”

He’s got longer legs than you so the next time he speaks it’s practically in your ear. “Hey, just look at me. Please. I want to talk to you.”

There’s something so tender in his voice that it makes you cave immediately. But you already feel so fragile, you can feel the tears behind your eyes. You know you won’t have the strength to talk to him. 

His hand curls gently around your wrist and it sends warmth all the way up your arm. He says your name again, softer, and you love the way it sounds. You can’t meet his eyes, but you already know what he looks like. Even in the dark you picture him crystal clear. 

“Look at me,” he repeats. “I just—I need to know what I did wrong.”

His dark eyes are full and apprehensive when you heed him. You notice how much you’ve missed studying his face—the slight bunch of his brows, the tensing in his jaw. And you almost delude yourself that he’s missed you just as much, the way he squeezes your wrist and rakes over your expression.

“Why are you ignoring me?” He asks. 

“I’m not—”

“You are. I know you. Just tell me why.” 

He looks so sweet, so earnest, and it kills you. You think of the way he looked when all his friends made fun of you. It all comes up before you can help it. 

“Do you always let me walk around looking like an idiot?” You ask bitingly, staring at the floor. “The thing, with the paint on my cheek—why didn’t you tell me? I looked so stupid and all your friends just laughed at me!” 

His face falls. “I tried to tell you, I thought—”

“It’s okay to say you don’t like me, or that you’re embarrassed, or whatever, but I …” You swallow, tears thick on your lower lashes. “Everyone makes fun of me. I don’t know why you don’t.”

“Because I do like you,” he states, hand moving up to your forearm. 

“Don’t say that,” you whisper. “You’re so much … better, you know you are, and I don’t want your pity, or your spare time. I just—I made something up in my head that wasn’t there and I only noticed it the other day after you talked to that girl and that guy made fun of me and I’m really, really sorry—”

“It looked cute. I was trying to say I didn’t tell you about the paint because I thought it was cute.”

There’s a lull.

“What?” You blink stupidly. 

“I know I should’ve told you about it, but I swear I was going to before dinner, I didn’t think we’d run into anyone before then.” His cheeks tinge red. “I had this whole dumb thing planned out where I’d wipe it off your cheek and tell you how cute it was once you got embarassed. I was waiting to tell you. I was thinking about it the whole time.”

His hand on your arm is a frighteningly grounding thing. You're dumbstruck by that alone. Your lips part, but all that comes out is, “Why?”

A gentle laugh tumbles out of his throat. “Why do you think?”

His other hand comes up to brush your cheekbone, where the paint had been, and you can imagine him doing it to you on that day. How you'd probably react just the way he said you would, the way you are now. A warm orange glow blooming in your chest. “But the girl—”

“She tried whispering to me how much she liked my bracelet,” he smiles fondly. “Told her you made it for me. It shut her up. I don’t know what that guy said to you but I chewed ‘em all out the second you left. They knew I wasn’t happy. I tried looking for you but you were gone. I don't like them, you know."

You don’t know what to say. It’s too difficult, too uncertain for you to jump the gun on this. So you just stare at all the shifting colours on his face as he moves closer to you. All this time going over his every detail, and there's still more to be enthralled by.

“I found the paintings,” he says, voice so close you can feel it brushing your skin. “The ones of me. I was looking for you in the Apollo cabin a week ago and you left one out. I knew it was yours because ... I mean, there’s no one in the world that can make me look that … beautiful.” 

The last word is apprehensive but it’s spoken with an unimaginable tenderness. He looks a little teary himself. You think you’re dreaming. “I knew I had to tell you after that. I’ve been trying to tell you. But you started pulling away from me so I thought I was making it all up.”

“Tell me what?” It’s a ghost of a question between you, an impossible thing, but the hand on your arm slips around to your back and he presses it there with such certainty. 

“You’re really gonna make me say it?” He cocks his head, but you nod. “I’m in love with you, I think.”

The words cascade over you in ribbons of warmth. Your brain feels fuzzy, seperate from the rest of your body. Your mouth opens multiple times but you can’t seem to control what comes out. “Luke, are you joking?”

“Not even a little.”

“But you’ve got so many other—”

“I want you.”

“I am literally the most incompetent person alive; I can’t sing, I can’t talk to people, I have a weird knee—”

"Your knee is fine!"

"I'm just saying, this makes no sense from an outsider perspective, it's—"

“Okay, clearly the telling thing isn’t working so I guess I’m just gonna have to kiss you.”

It happens so quickly you don’t have any time to think (probably for the better). You let out a surprised “oh” before his mouth silences you, stopping every other thought. He’s gentle, thumb still rubbing your cheekbone, other hand still firm at your waist. You want to panic—where should you put your hands? How do you know you’re doing this right? But he steadies you, the way he always does, and you give in. 

He starts to smile against your lips. You’re almost positive the intensity of your heartbeat could summon a storm. When he pulls away, he kisses the corners of your mouth and you think you’re going to evaporate. “I don’t think I’m very good at this,” you whisper.

“You’re perfect.” He grins a little when your hands tentatively tug at a curl on the nape of his neck. “And none of that stuff you say is true. I mean, you’re definitely a better singer than me.”

Leaning close to your ear, he warbles out a song you know but gets the words horribly wrong anyways. You can’t help but laugh. “Okay, maybe you have a point.”

He hums and chuckles with you. You swear the moon gets brighter when he wraps his arms around your waist to kiss the side of your face. “Next time you paint me, I want to be there when you do it.”

You blush harder than you ever have in your life. “Only if you try painting me,” you say quietly.

“Of course. You’re very pretty, so I’m sure my horrible artistic skills won’t even make you look bad.”

Luke lets you press your face into the crook of his neck. You soak it up for all it’s worth. 

In the morning, you wake up in the same position. Your nose tucked against his collarbone, the shade of pink you love freckled across his cheeks. You can't wait to paint him again.

When you look out the window, you say a silent, grateful prayer to your mother.

Y/N Neveah. Many people loved you, many people didn't.

You were always the talk of the school for being so nice yet being in Slytherin. Boys fawned over you, some girls loved you but most hated you. School bitchiness was not for the faint hearted and you learnt that early on.

Skylar Snaggle, a ravenclaw who always had it out for you. It's like she was jealous of you and everything you did. Constantly side eyeing you and digging at you. You ignored her didn't let it get to you but fuck, was she a bitch. It only got worse when you starting dating your boyfriend.

You were in 6th year now, the past two years everytime you'd come back boys again would fawn over you how you've 'blossomed' over the summer but you belonged to one man. And that man was.

"Cara mia" You turned around smiling as Theo stood beside your locker. You took his hand smiling as you pecked his lips softly.

"I missed you... all of you" He raised his eyebrows as you rolled your eyes and hit his arm.

"Don't be crude" You fixed your tie before shutting your locker and holding his hand and walking down the corridor.

You and Theo were the hot new goss at Hogwarts. The current IT couple, consisting of the hot brood of Slytherin himself, Theodore Nott and the much desired but never achievable Y/n Neveah.

"Here's the lovely couple now" Blaise clasps his hands as the group turn to you both.

"Do we have to announce it" You grit your teeth, grimacing at Blaise. You felt Theo chuckled beside you, his soft laugh filling your ears making the corner of your mouth turn up slightly.

"You did that yourself, sucking face in the back of charms" Enzo snickered.

"True- Anyway we were planning on heading into Hogsmead. We need to stock up on fire whisky with the game against Hufflepuff fast approaching we'll need alot for our celebrations" Blaise smirked, nudging at Daphne as she scoffed at his cockiness.

"You guys might not even win" She panned.

"Don't be ridiculous Daph, when has Hufflepuff ever fucking won" Draco let out a genuine laugh at Daphne's wild assumption. The other boys laughing along with him too.

"As much as we'd love to come to Hogsmead. Daph, Pansy and I were planning on meeting with Astoria to have a little girlie evening swim" You smiled to Pansy and Daphne as you all smiled at eachother.

"Boring" Draco yawned.

"Hardly boring Draco, they'll hardly be wearing anything" Mattheo smirked. A alight blush appearing across Theo's cheek at the thought.

Pansy smacked Mattheo hard with her wand into his chest, earing a sharp 'ow' from the boy. "Don't be disgusting"

"Have fun at Hogsmead though!" Pansy giggled as the three of you began to walk off.

"Wait-" Theo grabbed your hand as you turned to him.

"Have fun, be safe" He smiled before pecking your lips.

"Aww cute" Daphne cooed.

You ruffled Theo's hair softly before walking off with the girls.

"You and Theodore are so cute, I'm so jealous!" Pansy whined as the three of you walked down the hall.

"Blaise isn't even cute like that, it sucks!" Daphne groaned.

"Stop it" You shook your head.

Later in the evening you and the girls relaxed by the black lake taking a light swim with eachorher, gossiping and catching up on the latest with one another.

Finding out that Luna and Pansy have been flirting. Astoria is finally willing to settle down with Draco and stop keeping him on his toes. Daphne describing in great detail her intimate life with Blaise which - to be fair you didn't expect to be so spicy between the two of them. The girls wanted to know all about you and Theo but you'd just been taking your time. Despite the slight hook up the night before. But they knew all about that.

"What about Skylar" Pansy questioned as the four of you walked back inside the grounds. All wearing damp tshirts over your swimsuits.

"Don't even- I don't know her fucking problem. Her big mouth is always yapping about something" You snarled.

"Me? Big mouth?" You four snapped your head to see Skylar and her little minions at the top of the stairs inside the entrance.

"Oh fuck off Skylar" You scoffed, reaching the top of the stairs. As your about to walk of you hear-

"You're always running your mouth about something. Maybe focus on the fact your.. I don't know.. a stupid fucking bitch" Skylar smirked to her friends.

You turned to her. Astoria whispering "Lets just go its not worth it"

"Wow Skylar, you really ate me up there" Yiu gasped dramatically holding your heart like you'd be stabbed. "Maybe stop being so fucking obsessed with MY boyfriend. He doesn't want you and your.." You tapped your lip before speaking again. "Well, your little infestation" You smiled.

"INFESTATION? You fucking bitch. THEO IS MINE" She suddenly lunged at you pushing you back harshly.

"Yours? I don't remember him stating that while he was manhandling me last night" You laughed in her face.

It was like it was all in slow motion. As you turned around to walk away, you watched as your friends faces widened staring behind you. You couldn't react fast enough. You felt your ponytail being dragged back as your body harshly recoiled against the pressure.

You turned, locking eyes with Skylar a smirk upon her face as she tugged at your ponytail, lifting her fist to sock a direct punch in your face, splitting your lip.

After that you reached up, grabbing her hair as you yanked at it, swiping at her legs as she dropped on the floor below you, screaming. The corridor was suddenly not so peaceful as both you and Skylar hurled abuse at one another while Pansy, Daphne and Astoria were trying to yank you both apart along with Skylars friends.

You climbed ontop of the girl, stabilising yourself as you socked a punch into her face as she clawed at yours.

"YOU BITCH!" she screamed as she yanked your hair again.

"OW-" you lifted your leg planting your good right in her face as you swung your arm round once more punching her before you heard tons of footsteps yelling and scrambling towards the both of you. You watched as her tooth cracked and slid across the floor as she spat blood up in your face.

"BEAT HER ASS Y/N!" Pansy yelled from behind. Daphne scolding her as the three continued to try and pull you girls apart without falling in the firing line.

Both of you were clawing at one another. You were landing way more than her let's say. Her face was full of blood as you dug your acrylics into her cheek.

You felt yourself harshly being yanked off the girl as you scrambled towards her but being held back. "LET ME AT HER! WHORE!" You screamed.

"MY FACE! YOU.. YOU.. SLUT!" Skylar screamed at she ran off down the hall with her friends.

You felt hands on your face as you turned to be face to face with Theo. You watched as he analysed every aspect of your face, checking if you're ok.

"Teddy- I'm so-"

"Shhh" He placed his finger upon your lip as he took your hand into the bathroom leaving all the rest of your friends stunned at the scene from before.

He sat you upon the sink as he took off his shirt, dampening it before wiping all the blood from your face.

Theo chuckled at the thought of cleaning up after you having a fight. "Look at my girl, getting into fights like her boyfriend" He smirked as he pecked your lips softly.

"I can't help it- she's so obsessed with you Teddy. It's annoying" you scoffed. "Are you sure you didn't fuck her"

"Bella, I told you. You were my first and you'll ne my last" He caressed your face softly.

You smiled at his words as he finished wiping your face up and smiled.

"You did good, only a cut lip. Atta girl" He squeezed your thighs softly as he leaned forward, kissing your nose.

"Learned from the best" You smiled.

"Amore mio.. I love you" He snickered before capturing your lips in his. Softly kissing eachother as his hands held your waist softly. You wrapped your arms around his neck as you locked your legs around his waist pulling him in closer.

He pulled away, softly sucking on your bottom lip before pulling away and licking his lips before wiping yours with his thumb.

"My little vampire" You cooed as you ruffled his hair chuckling.

"In future if you get in fights let me be there. You looked so hot, but ill always step in after a while. Can't let you actually get beat up" He smiled.