DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns all rights to Harry Potter. Cover art by anxiouspineapples. Credit for the genderswap concept/consequent name changes goes to the Jily fandom (I'm not keen on tracing the origins to one specific individual; tedious, that).
I'm still working on everything else, despite the lack of updates, JUST SO YA KNOW. In the meantime, here's what I advertised on Tumblr (cokebottleglassesarecool) as "secret!fic." ;D –K.
He's a Sucker for a Girl in Uniform
You've got that look in your eye
Nobody told me you were a sucker for a kiss
– New Found Glory –
Here we go again…
Marcus McKinnon grinned across the table at his best mate. Liam was so bloody transparent sometimes, he thought, his smirk widening as Liam's sharp green eyes followed the swing of a certain Quidditch captain's hips through the Great Hall. That's where his eyes always were these days, Marcus recalled – Potter's hips, her mouth, following the jagged path one of her hands would take through that uncontrollable mop of hair – pretty much anything Liam's gaze could latch onto, it did.
And Liam thought no one noticed, Marcus thought and rolled his eyes. Ha!
Unable to resist taking the mickey any longer, Marcus all-too-innocently prompted his friend: "Whatcha lookin' at?"
"Er –" Liam snapped into attention, tearing his eyes away from where aforementioned Quidditch captain had taken a seat with her friends. "Nothing."
"Riiiiight." Marcus was hard-pressed not to laugh. "But I s'pose it was only a matter of time before Potter's constant staring rubbed off on you, eh?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Liam said loftily, and with the added air of someone who – despite any defense to the contrary – knew exactly what his best mate was talking about.
Never one to be bested in such a battle of wits, Marcus snorted and said, "Give me a break. You've wanted to shag her ever since the first time you saw her on a broomstick."
"Need I remind you that we were eleven the first time I saw her on a broomstick," Liam pointed out, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be feigning obliviousness. "I didn't want to shag anybody when I was eleven."
"And now that it's late in the winter of your sixteenth year?"
Well, obviously I'm mad about her, Liam thought, and then cursed himself profusely and refused to let that errant thought escape his lips. Even though he managed that, though, he couldn't stop all those other errant musings – the way she made him laugh, her almost lazy confidence, the dimple that appeared at the corner of her mouth whenever she really smiled, the way she'd look at him and he felt like the center of something, and…
Well, fuck it all, but she looked dead fit in her Quidditch uniform, too. The kind of dead fit that made his imagination do very dirty things that Jameson would probably grin smugly at, and then he'd never hear the end of it (at this point, he knew Jameson Potter well enough to know that he shouldn't expect anything less).
But – not wanting to listen to his friend's endless and told-you-so mocking – Liam didn't say any of this out loud. Instead, his eyes flicked down the table again and he growled, "Shut up, Marcus."
"Evans is looking at you again."
Ignoring the derisive snort that accompanied Stella's words, Jameson Potter whirled around in her seat just in time to catch Liam's eye a few seats along the Gryffindor table. Further ignoring that familiar heart flutter that she was sure wasn't good for her health, Jameson shot a wink in his direction and delighted in the way his face tinged with color in response.
So much for being an insufferable little prat, she thought, rather pleased with herself. She admitted that such a thought was rather insufferable in and of itself, but if Liam's blush was any indication, she didn't think he would mind so much anymore.
"I thought Jamie was the one who was always looking," Petra commented, a little confused. "Since when has that changed?"
"Since about four months ago, give or take, when Liam started to fancy her," Rena stated dryly as she flipped through that morning's Daily Prophet. "Oops, did I say that out loud?"
Stella groaned at the light-up grin that was threatening to split her friend's face in two at this unprecedented news. Jameson often entertained the fantasy that Liam would – after several years of arguments and more recently, one of cordial acquaintanceship – come to his senses and admit his deep-seated feelings for her. Stella privately agreed, but that didn't mean she was eager for the pair of them to start snogging; Jameson would be impossible to live with after that.
"Great, Re," she said. She threw an orange across the table, which Rena easily deflected. "Thanks for telling her; now we'll never get her to shut up about it."
"Oy!" Jameson snapped out of her bliss for a moment of indignation. "You act like he's all I ever go on about!"
"He is all you ever go on about," Petra pointed out. She wasn't able to quite so easily deflect the orange that was chucked at her next, but she continued with an undiminished gusto. "Well, him, and Quidditch. But it's been about two years now, and I know more about Liam Evans than he probably knows about himself."
Jameson opened her mouth to protest, but was cut off by Stella's laugh. "Completely," she agreed with an approving nod in Petra's direction. "For instance, did you know that, even though Evans excels in Potions, his real interest is in theory of Defense?"
"And did you know," Rena added, "that he's got seven freckles just behind his left ear?"
"And that he taps his middle finger against the table when he doesn't understand something in class?"
"And that he doesn't put milk in his cereal?"
"And that he's just so deliciously dreamy –"
"All right!" Jameson cut across wherever Stella was going with that (and knowing Stella Black as well as she did, Jameson assumed it wasn't anywhere good). "All right, I get it, you lot. Bunch of bints, you are."
"Whatever." Stella flicked some of her elegant hair over one shoulder, very purposely hitting Jameson in the face with it in the process. "You're just mad because Evans still won't go out with you, no matter how much Re thinks he fancies you."
Rena lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, I don't think," she said, "I know."
Stella threw her an ugly glare, and Rena supposed she was meant to quiver and quake and engage in yet another game of No One Cares About Jamie's Lonely Soul. But after two years, Rena was inclined to say that she did care – mostly because it was bound to happen, anyway, and she thought Liam and Jameson should just get on with it, already. So, regardless of how much it annoyed Stella, Rena decided to quit the game and let Jamie do what Jamie did best.
"I reckon you might as well ask him again," she said coolly. "And you can quit throwing food at me, Stella, because Marcus told me – ouch!" Rena scowled and whipped the apple that had just made contact with her face back at Stella.
Not minding her friends' potential food fight, Jameson snapped her fingers wildly in Rena's face. "What?" she pressed. "Marcus told you what?"
Directing another scowl at Stella, Rena turned back to those eager hazel eyes and continued. "Marcus told me that Liam fancies you," she confided. "Not that he'd do anything about it, but it's not like you're the shy type, anyway."
"True," Jameson said thoughtfully while her head buzzed on fast-forward, leading her to a quick decision. "Right then," she went on as she rolled back her sleeves. "How's my skirt? Short enough?"
"As ever," Stella assured her after a quick glance. "You're going to ask him out again, aren't you?"
"Yup," Jameson said happily. She smirked, and that overzealous half-grin painted her mouth with inherent confidence. Nothing new for Jameson Potter.
She stood up, and Stella – admitting defeat for the sake of her best mate's sheer and unadulterated ecstasy – followed suit. After all, she wasn't keen on missing the show; and since all four girls were often of the same mentality, Rena and Petra joined the procession to the other end of the table.
Potter asks Evans out, take thirty-seven…
"Well, shit."
"Huh?" Liam looked up at Marcus, who was grinning again, much too broadly for Liam's liking this time. He followed Marcus's line of sight, only to have his heart drop into his stomach in a mixture of panic and pleasure that he couldn't quite identify. He had, however, come to associate the feeling with Jameson, since he'd never experienced it out of her presence.
Stupid damn exceedingly fit smart funny four-eyed insufferable incredible messy-haired little sod…
"Hey, Black," Marcus was saying when Liam came back to his senses. "You're looking especially ravishing this morning."
Stella tweaked his nose affectionately as she and Jameson took the seats on either side of him. "All for you, McKinnon."
"Ah, I suspected as much."
"All right, Evans?" Jameson greeted the object of her undying affections. Despite her smooth tone and the self-assurance that glinted behind her specs, she felt her hands shake a little when Liam met her eye.
Crikey, he's gorgeous.
"Potter," Liam returned, just as easily, while his heart did somersaults through his ribcage and he smiled back at aforementioned messy-haired little sod.
Blimey, she's pretty.
Stella snorted (Rena kicked her under the table in retribution, but the former hardly noticed). "Always the tone of civility, eh, Evans?"
Marcus, who was always quick to pick at his friend, grinned mischievously and answered before Liam could: "He's cross because he can't figure out how to get into Jamie's knickers."
"Marcus –" Liam swore. He could have killed him, and the rest of them laughed; the rest of them, that is, except Jameson, who just mirrored Marcus's grin and leaned forward to grasp one of Liam's hands with hers.
"Evans," she said, her voice solemn as she squeezed his fingers reassuringly, "my knickers are your knickers. This domain –" she used her free hand to gesture over her lap – "is all yours."
Their friends laughed again and Liam cracked a smile, even though he would have much preferred it if the floor would just open up and swallow him then and there. It wasn't that he was virgin-eared or anything, but even when Jameson joked about her knickers, it drove Liam up-the-wall with a feeling that was a lot less sod off and a lot more yes, please. The last thing he needed was to lunge across the table and snog her right then; now that was something he'd never live down.
"Thanks for the offer, Potter," Liam said as he slipped his hand from beneath hers, not knowing why he broke that much-desired contact, "but I'll have to take a pass."
"As usual," Jameson muttered, more bitterly than she would have liked to demonstrate. It was frustrating, though, because if anyone could knock her confidence down a peg or two, Liam Evans was surely the one to do it; in fact, he was the only one, and Jameson didn't care for the way it made her feel.
She'd been in the hospital wing upwards of fifty times by now, and – when push came to shove, if you asked her which was worse – none of her Quidditch-related injuries were as much of a blow as Liam's rejections.
She'd fallen off her broomstick from twenty feet in the air, had the breath knocked out of her lungs by two vicious Bludgers, one after the other. She'd had her nose broken by a wild Beater's bat, a fractured spine, busted specs, near-pneumonia cold and eat-your-skin-alive sunburn from bad weather conditions, and it had all been so much more bearable than Liam's continual "Thanks, but no thanks."
Everything else, all those other hurts, they could be taken away with the flick of a wand or a bottle of potion, but her heart was in tatters and she kept losing the pieces.
And that was why – even though there was nothing particularly awful about this time, compared to some of the others – Jameson couldn't take it anymore. Sod her bloody pride, because she'd had enough and she couldn't keep pretending that it was okay when it hurt this badly.
"Well, it's been fun," she said heavily as she stood to leave, "but I reckon now's a good a time as any to go drown myself in the shower. See you around."
"Jamie –" Liam began, but she was too quick for his regret. One second he was looking into the uncharacteristic flatness of her eyes, and the next he was watching her hurry away like the devil was after her. And it was his fault.
Funny way of showing someone you fancy her.
Ah, shite.
Not bothering to defend himself against Stella's accusatory glare, Petra's nail-biting, Rena's exasperated sigh, or even Marcus's "What the hell, mate?", Liam swung his legs over the bench and made his own hasty way after Jameson. He supposed it was his turn to do a little bit of chasing.
"Potter!" he called when he reached the entrance hall. His eyes caught movement a few feet away, as Jameson's hand pushed its aggravated way through her hair, tousling it as if it weren't already a complete bird's nest. "Oy – POTTER!"
Unable to ignore the exclamation or the sound of Liam's hurried footsteps, Jameson spun on her heel to face him. Her heart slammed violently against her chest, begging for release so it wouldn't have to endure any more abuse, and she willed herself not to burst into tears in front of the stupid bloke who'd inflicted all that pain in the first place. It wasn't his fault, she knew that, because she couldn't reasonably blame him if she didn't make his heart dance a staccato beat; that was just the way it was. But that didn't make it hurt any less.
"What?" she bit out as Liam came level with her. "Think of another way to turn me down, did you? Might as well get it all out now, because that's it, Evans, I can't do this anymore – I can't keep chasing you, it's killing me. So congratulations, I give up, and you win."
"Doesn't sound like the words of a Chaser to me," Liam said conversationally, and – not willing to give himself the time to weigh the pros and cons of what he was about to do – he grabbed her face roughly between his hands, and he kissed her.
Jameson's eyebrows shot up and she muttered some shocked expletive into Liam's mouth, but it didn't stop her from responding to the thing she'd been waiting for these past two years. Liam's lips nudged hers apart, both of them eager to drown in the other's taste, and her heart quit beating itself up and instead hummed contentedly, pumping hopeful blood through her tingling veins.
She tasted like sugar and syrup, Liam thought, and she felt like the sweetest relief when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
And when their lips broke apart so their lungs could catch their breath, he didn't let her go.
He felt her shudder under his touch and he melted with her; he rested his forehead against hers and waited for one of them to say something.
"Change of heart, then, eh?" Jameson said at length, with a rather dazed smile. She wondered vaguely if she should be at all surprised at what had just happened, but for the moment it was enough that Liam Evans wanted to kiss her badly enough to initiate it; anything else could wait. "What was the deciding factor? The hair, the charm, or was it just my basic irresistibility?"
"Actually…" Liam stole another kiss and returned her smile as his thoughts wandered down to goal posts and broomsticks, the way Jameson snapped her leather gloves on and the light that sparked in her eye when she scored another goal.
God damn blasted Quidditch trousers, Liam thought, and his smile widened teasingly when he revealed his deciding factor:
"I just couldn't resist the way you wear that Quidditch uniform."