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Playing with Fire

She threw her damp hair over one shoulder and snuggled closer to the fire, smiling cozily. Even after a refreshing shower, her muscles felt deliciously sore. Books and parchments were sprawled on the table in front of the sofa she lay on - she had attempted to do some homework, but decided it was a lost cause after barely five minutes. She was too lazy to pick them up and was instead lying on her side, with her bare feet lying on one armrest and her head on the other.

It was Sadie Wood's favorite time of the day. She always reveled in those fleeting hours between the after-training shower and a well-deserved sleep. Right then, the Common Room bubbled with activity, but as usual, she let herself relax.

Her eyes were looking astray while her mind ran wild. In her field of view was Dominique Weasley, her best friend and Gryffindor 's Quidditch Team Captain. She was working on strategies and plays as usual, her red hair in a messy bun and her reading glasses on. The team's male Beater sat by her side, seemingly deep in thought.

"Oi, Sadie, wake up." She would recognize James Potter's voice from kilometers away, even when lost in daydreams.

She'd known James since childhood. Her parents had been teammates of James' parents when at Hogwarts, so such meetings were inevitable. While they had Dominique in common, Sadie had never paid much attention to James until her third year, when he made Seeker and she was forced to spend time with him during practice. Three years had gone by since then.

"I'm not asleep." She bent her knees to make a space for him to sit down. He took it gleefully. "And you should be glad that I wasn't. Even Dominique is tempted not to make morning practices. Says waking me up makes it more of a chore than it is already."

"I can barely hear you, Sadie. It's not very fun talking to your feet like this." As he said that, James took her left foot in his hand and started massaging it.

Sadie tensed immediately - it was like James to seek physical contact, as innocent as it may seem, to lure girls in. And Sadie tended to become deeply aware of her unequivocal status as a girl whenever she was around him.

She felt silly. It was all worse because she was almost a full year older than him, and she was pretty certain girls were supposed to be more mature than boys. It was childish - it made her feel tiny, vulnerable, like when she was eleven and crushing on the Teddy Lupin, like pretty much every single girl in Hogwarts.

"Well, James, you're making this fun for me." She tried to sound natural, but her voice shivered. Whatever it was that made her so nervous, she couldn't let him know. "Don't forget the right foot."

"You're such a heartbreaker, Sadie!" He seemed oblivious to her discomfort. "Here I was, looking for an excuse to see your face-"

Sadie's laughter at James' fake indignity was more genuine than she would've liked to admit.

"Me? A heartbreaker? Please. Look who's talking!"

"I don't break hearts on purpose. But you, on the other hand... well, sweet girls like you are always the worst ones!"

"Right foot, please," she joked commandingly.

"Just like that, baby. I like it rough," James answered with a wink. Sadie huffed and rolled her eyes, almost missing the fact that James' hands were now on her right foot.

"You're impossible."

"Really? Most girls say I'm easy."

Sadie couldn't think of a proper answer, and instead, she sat down so as to deprive him of physical contact. She hated to let him win. She hated to make him feel like he had power over her.

Which he did, but that wasn't the point.

"Maybe I should go to bed," she said rapidly. "I'm waking up early to get to Hogsmeade as soon as possible."

"Really? What are you girls doing?"

"I'll be out having fun in Hogsmeade, while Dominique slaves over Quidditch strategies. Sounds like us, doesn't it?"

"Kind of, yeah," he agreed. "Well, now I really hope you've stopped sulking about the fact that you're not the team Captain."

Sadie let out a half-smile at James' bluntness, which was nothing out of the ordinary.

Yes, she'd been bitter. Her father had been Gryffindor's Quidditch Team Captain for three years while at Hogwarts, and Sadie had the nagging feeling that she'd let him down the moment she told him the captaincy had gone to Dominique Weasley.

As the daughter of Oliver and Katie Wood, Sadie had quite the reputation to live up to. She wished she could be more like James in that sense - he had much more pressure on him, as he was Harry Potter's firstborn, but he carried his reputation with grace and took advantage of it in every possible occasion.

"I'm not bitter anymore, James." she answered truthfully. "I'd be lying if I said that it was never the case, but I'm quite certain I wouldn't have been able to handle the pressure."

"That's because she's a nerd," he said unyieldingly. Still, his voice had a hint of affection in it - unsurprisingly, too, since Dominique was his favorite cousin. "She really needs to start making friends."

Sadie wouldn't allow herself to say those words, because they would feel like a disloyalty to her dearest friend. But deep down, she agreed.

"If she's happy, then it's not my place to say anything," she said noncommittally.

A comfortable silence set in, in which Sadie gathered her things. She had no desire to go to bed just yet, but being around James Potter felt oddly like playing with fire.

"So wait," he said after a while, startling her. "If you're not going to Hogsmeade with Dominique, who are you going with?"

"I'll figure it out," she shrugged. "Worst case scenario, I'll go by myself."

They both knew this was a lie, for Sadie prided herself in being able to constantly socialize and befriend people. The biggest proof of this was that her closest friend was one of the most difficult people she'd ever met - and she loved Dominique to pieces.

"No need to go on your own," James reassured her. "I mean, why not- why not me?"

The tinges of anxiety in his stutter didn't go lost on Sadie. She bit her lip. The moment Dominique had warned her about for so long had come.

She had no doubt that James genuinely liked her, but it confused her. Why her, among all girls? James liked a little bit of trouble, a little bit of flair. She wasn't it.

"The question is, James, why me?" She asked without reserve.

"What kind of question is that? Merlin, you girls have a way of complicating everything!"

Sadie smiled guiltily at his outburst. Yes, she supposed that expecting an eloquent answer from a bloke was too much to ask. More so when that bloke was James Sirius Potter.

Of course she liked James. How could she not? James wasn't the hottest guy she'd ever met, or the cleverest, but he was certainly the most charming. Sadie couldn't help but like any decent-looking guy that flirted with her, even if she very well knew that guys flirted with anything that wore a skirt, and that it was naïve of her to enjoy the fleeting attention.

In that area, James was surprisingly restrained. He would hold a girl's hand close to his face to admire her brand-new bracelet. He would notice her new haircut and compliment it offhandedly. He would notice that a girl was sad and would softly try to make her laugh. He wasn't concerned with pretending to be tough and shameless, when open smiles, enough modesty and occasional attention to detail were much more efficient in getting people to adore him. And he knew.

Sadie often wondered how it could be that such delicacies came from someone as subtle as giant dancing pumpkins.

She sighed. Against her will, and with a weak resolve, she felt it would be better to end things before they started.

"James, I'm really not sure this is the best idea," she said.

"Why not? I'm asking you as friends. Well, sort of." Sadie raised one eyebrow, and he looked away. "I mean, no pressure, alright? I'm not expecting you to have my babies after one date."

Sadie rolled her eyes and laughed in spite of herself. She was blushing at his frankness, and she hoped it wouldn't show. But James smiled, making her realize that he did notice.

"I just- well, you're Dominique's cousin and-"

"She's been telling me to ask you out for ages."

"I just don't want to string you along."

"Damn it, Sadie!" He burst, his tone impatient and frustrated. "I fail to see how giving me a chance would ever mean that you're stringing me along. Anything else?"

Sadie had run out of excuses, and why was she making excuses in the first place? Was she afraid of becoming one more in James' long list of conquests?

James wouldn't do that, she assured herself. He might be a bad boy, but he's not an asshole. Even if he couldn't care less about me, he wouldn't risk upsetting Dominique.

Still, she doubted. Sadie knew he wasn't pretending, and she was scared of letting him down. She admittedly felt weak when faced with his many charms, but she'd be damned if she was going to fall for them without a fight. Her heart could be fooled, but her head could not - she knew him well, and knew the kind of things he was capable of.

Then again, she didn't dislike him any less for it. He was a great teammate, and an even better friend. He could be open with her, showing frustration and impatience when he would've hidden it from any other girl. And she could always find a way to make him smile and leave him wanting more.

"Well, woman," James said, smirking, "I'm too proud to beg. I'm going to, um, demand an answer."

Sadie laughed at the way he was using humor to placate his own nerves, finally realizing what the answers to her questions were. She didn't know if she liked James Potter enough. She didn't know what he saw in her.

However, at the very least, she knew that their first date was going to be one hell of a ride.

Notes: For the first round of the Original Character Round Competition (Prompts used: Genre, setting, emotion, word, era, OC feature and Bonus.) Sadie Wood wasn't made up for this story - she's an OC I used as a secondary character for my drabble collection 'Dominique.'

Thanks to IllusiveAddictions for proofreading this!

Thanks to you too, reader!

-Karyn.