A/N- To be entirely honest, this story was originally written as an Angelina/Katie story. I wrote the first chapter and then got stuck and I couldn't figure out why it felt wrong. But then it clicked- this just wasn't the right couple for this story.

So I rewrote it as a Clexa story.

That being said it is still set at Hogwarts during the timeline of the Harry Potter books, though you do not necessarily need to have read/watched that series to understand this.

I own nothing.

Title from 'Marathon Runner' by Yellow Ostrich

You are not a pureblood but your damn close. Your father's grandmother was a muggle, but your family doesn't care about stuff like that. All it means is that you've been waiting to go to Hogwarts since you were old enough to understand what it was.

Now you're standing in the great hall, rain soaked with the other first years who have all managed to keep from falling in the lake on the boat ride over. The rain was thrashing the small wooden vessels and you had clung on desperately alongside a lanky blonde boy and a squat girl who have both disappeared in the crowd of first years.

You are shivering slightly both from the cold and nerves while you listen to Professor McGonagall explain the sorting process- you have at least eight chocolate frog cards with her on them and are rendered somewhat starstruck between seeing her, Professor Dumbledore, and the majesty of the ceiling of the great hall reflecting the storm outside.

In your awe you nearly miss your name being called, but then you're stumbling along up to the stool and the hat is being dropped on your head and you hear a voice chuckling in your ears.

'Griffin eh? You're more like your father than your mother aren't you?' And before the hat declares your house to the hall you know it will be 'Gryffindor!' Because your father was a lion and your mother was a raven and apparently you've inherited his heart.

You smile brightly as you join the cheering mass of red and gold clad students. You take a seat beside two redhaired boys who introduce themselves as Fred and George. There's a girl sitting across from them who brightens when they begin discussing a secret passageway to Honeydukes under their breaths while the remaining first years are sorted.

She is thin and delicate with tan skin and a striking profile. Her features are all hard angles and sharp corners and when she catches you staring, she looks you over with a critical gaze before a small thin smile plays across her lips.

You can practically feel her eyes flicking across you pale cheeks and up the slope of your nose. Your features are far softer than hers, round cheeks with high bones and a button nose that you still haven't quite grown into.

You know you must be blushing but you hold her gaze anyway until she turns her attention back to the two boys.

You see her in the halls and in the common room but it takes weeks before you learn her name. It's at the very first quidditch match of the year- Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. You spot the confident tilt of her jaw easily from your spot perched in the Gryffindor stands with the rest of your house even though she is clearly the smallest player on the team.

As the Gryffindors march out onto the field you watch her sure steps. She is so slight, and so small compared to the seventh year chaser she is walking beside- the top of her head hardly makes the height his shoulder. When they mount their brooms and kick off you listen carefully to the boy announcing the roster of players.

"From the Gryffindor team we have a solid lineup of returning players-Oliver Wood at keeper, captain Julia Isles seeking, Jackson Kar and Austin Jarvis as chasers. Lots of fresh blood though as we welcome second years Fred and George Weasley as beaters and Lexa Woods as our final chaser!"

Lexa. You test it out quietly under your breath, marveling in how easily it rolls off your tongue. Nobody hears you as a roar goes up from the stands when the players mount their brooms and kick off into the air.

She looks even more tiny in the air as her robes flap out behind her. But when the game begins, you grow concerned for an entirely different reason. She plays with reckless abandon having seemingly no concern for her own wellbeing as she collides with opposing chasers, she looks like a human bludger.

There's this one absolutely ridiculous play where she gets passed the quaffle and bullets down the pitch weaving in and out of players. She avoids a bludger and has nearly a clear shot at the goals except for an opposing chaser right on her tail. He is too close for her to be able to throw the ball through a hoop but she has no support from her team.

You listen carefully to the announcer, leaning forward over the edge of the student box to peer down the pitch, "It's Woods with the quaffle. Woods down the pitch almost within scoring range with Malcolm of Hufflepuff close on her tail. She'll have to make another pass at it- too bad she was looking so good to that point, not that she doesn't still look damn fine. Sorry Professor." Across the pitch you can just see Professor McGonagall glaring at the boy announcing who you can now recognize as Lee Jordan.

"What's this? Woods hasn't pulled off. She's still on course to goal. She's going to collide with the keeper- scratch that she's bowled right into the keeper, what an interesting bit of flying, Woods has flown right through the center hoop!"

You held your breath as you watched Lexa collide headfirst into the Hufflepuff keeper at top speed. He was knocked back by the force of the collision and smacked into the goal post. Lexa sailed cleanly through the hoop, ducking low over her broom with the quaffle held close to her body.

Lee Jordan asks the question on everyone's mind, "Does that even count as a goal?" He is answered by Madame Hooch's whistle and he tacks on 20 points to Gryffindor.

In the end, the Hufflepuff keeper ends up on the ground unconscious. The red and gold spectators go crazy for this juggernaut of a girl and you release a breath you didn't realize you had been holding because you're eleven years old and you've barely learned her name, but you're sure something terrible might have happened if Lexa had crashed.

"Chaser Lexa Woods has scored her first goal of her Hogwarts career and seems to be giving the Weasley twins a run for her money- who needs beaters when you've got a chaser like that. Wonder if she'd go out with me- sorry Professor!"

She scores a few more goals for the team as do the other chasers now that the Hufflepuff goals are undefended, and the game ends after nearly forty minutes when the Gryffindor seeker catches the snitch. That evening when the Weasley twins nick some butter beers for a celebration in the common room (much to their older brother Percy's disdain) you are watching her sneakily from across the room.

She has been walking with a bit of tenderness since the game and is now leaning on the wall to play off how sore she must be from ramming into other players. She catches your eye over her bottle and raises an eyebrow. You blush deeply- it seems to be the only response you're capable of around her- and she smiles her little thin smile before winking and taking a swig of her drink and returning to the conversation she had been holding with the twins.

The first time you speak with her is months later near the end of the school year. You're walking quickly, head down, bag slung high on your shoulder determined to make it back to Gryffindor tower before curfew hits and you walk straight into her.

She is sauntering along beside the Weasley twins, all of them with thick sweaters that makes it look as though they were headed outside.

You stumble a bit and her hand on your elbow steadies you.

"Sorry." She says, and her voice is low and rough and everything you should have expected from her dark eyes and her thin smiles but it still catches you wonderfully off guard.

"It's fine. I should have been paying attention to where I was going." You smile weakly.

She regards you for a second before something clicks behind her eyes, "You're Clarke, right?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go Lexa! I'm not getting caught by Filch again!" One of the Weasley twins calls.

She just rolls her eyes, "Coming." She yells back, "It was nice meeting you, Clarke." She tells you, holding out her hand.

You take it and marvel at the soft- rough of her calloused hand, no doubt toughened from hours spent on a broom throwing and catching a quaffle. Her hand encompasses yours perfectly and she lets the hold linger a little longer than it should. She shoots you one of those thin little smiles and nods before dropping your hand and sauntering off after where the twins have disappeared behind a statue of a humpback witch.

You hurry back to the tower and barely make it in time.

A/N- Drop a review, tell me what you thought