Harry Potter Crossover
Pairing: Faberry
Setting: Postwar era, Hogwarts.
Summary: Her Veela heritage has both been a blessing and a curse for Quinn Fabray in her entire life. Her unearthly beauty and irresistible thrall has always gotten her what she wanted, yet kept her away from what she needed – genuine love.
Disclaimer: Bless JK Rowling. And to some extent, Glee for their characters.
AN: Shortfic, up to three chapters. Because one long fic is enough :)
She intrigued her. Very much so. But her deep-rooted pride didn't allow her to let the smallest emotion of curiosity flicker across her mostly indifferent face.
Quinn swiftly shut her book in displeasure, not able to concentrate in the library with some of her admirers unabashedly watching her every move. She didn't want to be observed while she herself was observing someone. And that someone was the reason why she even bothered to enter the library despite knowing that all eyes would be trained on her the whole time.
Annoyance was almost a constant expression on Quinn's face, appearing so often that she was apprehensive of the wrinkle between her eyebrows becoming a constant, too. From time to time she would subconsciously touch her forehead, reassuring herself that there were no permanent wrinkles marring her otherwise flawless face. Other times she wished there were wrinkles, so people would stop following her around because they deemed her as perfect.
Quinn didn't spare her stalkers a glance as she placed her book back into the shelf, it would only encourage them. When she left the library, there was only one person she graced with a look. And that person didn't even notice the lingering look she received since her nose was buried deep inside of a history book.
–
"Rach, we still need a Seeker for our Quidditch team," was the first thing Noah Puckerman decided to say once he sat down at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall.
"That is nice Noah, and what am I supposed to do with that information?" Rachel Berry absently replied as she looked for a plate of food that wouldn't rest heavy on her stomach. A helping of fried tomatoes and roast potatoes would do. While she reached for the vegetables, her fellow Slytherin helped himself to beef casserole and lamb chops.
"I know you got a Firebolt for your birthday, the package wasn't really hard to figure out." Puckerman put a generous amount of mashed potatoes onto his already full plate. "So I'm coming to the conclusion that you can fly."
"I am afraid you came to the wrong conclusion," Rachel merely remarked and shortly sipped on her pumpkin juice. "My fathers are just a little bit deluded about my actual preferences. I believe they misinterpreted my metaphorical wish to reach the stars. All I wanted was a book about astronomy."
Puckerman's full mouth slowed down in its chewing motion. He wanted to retort, but once he saw the warning look he received, he decided to finish chewing first.
"Unbelievable," Puckerman coughed out once he swallowed his bite. "I won't comment on how crazy you must be, wanting a lame book instead of a Firebolt that is too expensive for me to even touch."
"You can have it," Rachel was quick to reply, her offer meant genuinely as she held no interest in it.
"No or I'll be forever your house-elf," Puckerman brushed it off, ignoring the criticizing look he received for mentioning the little creatures. "I want you to put it to good use and win us the Quidditch Cup this year. Man I'm sick of those gloating Gryffindor faces."
At the mention of their house rivals, they both looked up from their plates and sent disdainful glances across the hall.
"Just look at Weasley Junior – thinks he's great shit because his dad helped Harry Potter to defeat the Dark Lord," Puckerman grimly muttered. "If his sister Rose wasn't so hot, I would've beaten him up after that Quidditch match. Lousy Keeper."
Only half-listening, Rachel's judging eyes were trained on Lily Potter, the youngest child of the Chosen One, sitting at the Gryffindor table. The grudge that she held against her wasn't personal. They were both Prefects of their respective houses, the pride and joy of Slytherin and Gryffindor, and the competition between them was on an academic level. They always tried to outdo each other.
After Lily Potter had snatched away the lead in a school musical right under Rachel's nose, the brunette had been searching for ways to succeed somewhere else. Maybe this was her chance. Her chance to prove herself, not only to Lily, but to the whole school that she was more than just a bookworm. She had been sorted into Slytherin for a reason. If the Sorting Hat had only seen intelligence in her, then she would be sitting at the Ravenclaw table now.
"When do you expect me on the Quidditch field?" Rachel said with determination written all over her face.
Puckerman dropped his cutlery in excitement. "Really? Yes, I need to notify Santana! We'll get you in the common room after dinner."
Completely neglecting his half-full plate, he jumped off the bench and strode over to the Hufflepuff table where Santana was sitting because of her girlfriend Brittany Pierce who wore her yellow badge proudly.
Rachel found they were quite a match. Green and yellow seemed to blend well together.
The brunette was about to turn back to her food when she suddenly felt like being watched. Her head turning, she casted a glance at the Ravenclaw table behind her to find Quinn Fabray looking her way. Surprised and unsure if the quarter Veela was actually looking at her, Rachel turned to her sides to see whether someone else was holding eye-contact with her. But everyone on her side of the Slytherin table had their back turned to the rest of the hall.
"Huh."
Rachel craned her neck to look at the blonde again, but she wasn't looking up anymore, her face as blank as white canvas. How lovely would it be to paint a smile on it, Rachel thought. Maybe the colors green and blue were a match as well.
–
Rachel couldn't believe that she had never bothered to play Quidditch before. It was wonderful, being weightless and floating in the air, leaving all sorrows on the ground and coming a tad nearer to the stars. Her Firebolt had seemed to feel her excitement and given its everything, flying in such a speed to the point where she had become a blurry spot in the sky, and Puckerman and Lopez had to keep turning their heads to follow Rachel's route.
Still buzzing in excitement from her flight in the evening, Rachel forgot how much she disliked to patrol Hogwarts' corridors at night with Scorpius Malfoy until the latter one made his unpleasant presence known.
"I heard you'll be trying out for Seeker. I thought you didn't like sticks between your legs?" the boy with the white blond hair sneered.
Rachel was used to his scathing remarks by now. He was all bark but no bite, just like his father had been.
"Lumos," Rachel muttered to herself and the tip of her wand lit up. "Professor Sylvester ordered us to patrol the corridors on the third floor tonight."
"The third floor?" Malfoy repeated and his voice sounded strained.
Unimpressed, Rachel pointed her glowing wand towards the moving staircases. "Yes. Let's get going."
When Malfoy didn't move from his spot, Rachel rolled her eyes and sighed. "There is no three-headed dog to attack you, it is foolish to believe all the myths that Hogwarts holds."
"Those aren't myths," Malfoy snapped. "My father told me he saw everything with his own eyes, the dog, the Basilisk -"
"If he saw the Basilisk with his own eyes, then you wouldn't even exist," Rachel impatiently said. "Those are legends. Passed from generation to generation. Now can we go?"
"Alright, but you walk in front of me. I'm one of the last pure-bloods."
Rachel sighed and walked in front. She was innerly glad that she didn't have to walk besides him.
Once they were situated on the third floor, they got into their usual routine. Rachel would patrol one end of the corridor and Malfoy the other.
Nothing out of ordinary happened for half an hour until Rachel heard a faint scream. She turned on her heels and hurried back to the middle of the corridor with her wand stretched out, ready to conjure spells at any time. When she caught a mop of white blonde hair vanishing around the corner, she rolled her eyes and lowered her wand. Most likely did Filch's cat Mrs Norris scare Malfoy away like the last two times.
"Not such a tough guy, is he?"
Rachel startled and whipped around, pointing her glowing wand at someone before realizing that it was just another Prefect. "Oh, hello Lorcan. So you were the one who scared him away?"
The Ravenclaw Prefect laughed and nodded. "I couldn't let this chance pass by. He made fun of my mother for her research on Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. She will find them and prove him wrong."
"Scamander, where a you?" an annoyed female voice called from another floor. "If I have to patrol alone one more time, then your Prefect badge won't be the only thing you'll be losing."
Lorcan Scamander grimaced. To Rachel he whispered, "It's Fabray. Such a joy to hang out with." Then louder, he called, "I'm here, third floor. Right by the stairs where the Nargles are."
Rachel liked the Ravenclaw boy and his twin brother Lysander even though they were both a bit peculiar, but that was to be expected if your mother was Luna Lovegood, a famous wizarding naturalist. Rumors had it that she had helped Harry Potter to break into the Ministry of Magic in their fifth year.
Once the large stairs shifted and connected to the third floor's corridor, a lithe figure appeared and neared them. Rachel watched Quinn Fabray approaching with interest. In her one year of patrolling at night, they had never met before.
Quinn's steps slowed down once she realized that her fellow Ravenclaw Prefect wasn't alone.
"Scamander, we don't have time for chit-chats," Quinn coolly said, purposely not looking at Rachel.
"But apparently we do when you meet Pierce," Lorcan mumbled and bid goodbye to Rachel, who wished him goodnight. Playfully glaring at Quinn, the boy strolled past her and stepped onto the stairs. When the blond girl wanted to follow him, the stairs had moved and she watched in disbelief how Lorcan laughed at her from his moving position.
"What was Professor McGonagall thinking when she made him Prefect," Quinn said under her breath.
"I do believe it is because he can keep the ability to talk when he's around you," Rachel suggested from behind, reminding the blonde of her presence.
Quinn's masked expression set in place, she turned around and faced Rachel with indifference though she was innerly feeling uneasy. "I cannot recall asking you for your opinion."
Rachel remained unimpressed as she had long figured out the self-defense mechanism that the quarter Veela seemed to have developed over the years. "I cannot recall needing to be asked to have an opinion. I believe, as the Americans like to say, that this is a free country where the freedom of speech grants me the right to voice my opinion whether it's wanted or not."
Quinn's expression slipped into her most frequently used one, annoyance. "Are you sure you've been sorted into the right house? A know-it-all in Slytherin?"
"I could ask you the same, you know," Rachel calmly retorted. "I thought Ravenclaws were led by their brains and not by their negative feelings."
Quinn forgot about her duty to patrol the corridors and didn't notice when the stairs were back in place. She challengingly stepped towards Rachel instead. "The Sorting Hat is never wrong. If he saw darkness within me, I would be in your snake hole now."
"What a lovely prejudice against our honorable house," Rachel said with pursed lips. "We Slytherins pride ourselves on our ambition to strive for the best, which we achieve through our cunning minds and our resourcefulness. But if you want to know, the Sorting Hat didn't know where to put me at first. He considered all four houses."
Quinn's eyes flickered across Rachel's face, searching for truth. When the Slytherin stared back at her openly, Quinn slowly said, "Same with me. He saw a lot of things in me that I didn't. Brains was the only thing I could agree with him on."
Surprised at the revelation, Rachel suddenly felt oddly honored. She was sure that this was a fact that no one else knew about Quinn Fabray and she was the first one to hear it from the direct source. Her stance immediately softened.
"I am sorry, about before," Rachel gently said. "You are a great addition to the Ravenclaw house. And I should be more sensible about the right time to voice opinions."
For the first time since Rachel could remember, she became the witness of something incredible – a genuine smile from Quinn.
"No, you were right. I was rude to you and this is a free country after all," Quinn said, her smile still in place.
Both grinning at each other, they completely forgot about their patrolling duties until Quinn snapped out of it. "I'm sorry, I need to go now. Scamander will probably wonder where I am."
"Oh, of course," Rachel said in disappointment. She didn't really care about Malfoy as he certainly was back in his dorm and hiding under his bedcover from imaginary monsters.
"I will see you around," Quinn softly said and gracefully stepped onto the moving stairs. Rachel watched her being transported to the second floor. They shared a shy hand wave before they went off to their respective directions.
A grin broke out onto Rachel's expression. She liked the idea of green and blue even more now.
–
Once Rachel was out of sight, Quinn released a deep breath and loosened her blue-striped tie.
That girl wasn't wrong about McGonagall's decision to appoint Scamander to her fellow Prefect. The peculiar boy was completely unfazed by Quinn's relatively weak yet alluring thrall. She was just a quarter Veela, almost entirely human. But her uncontrollable thrall was enough to pull everyone with a slight interest in her in and make them lose their heads around her. It applied to both genders, and those who weren't romantically interested in her were either irrationally jealous of her to the point of hate or they were indifferent to her like Lorcan Scamander was. But the latter one was a rare case.
In Quinn's situation, most girls were envious of her gift as she had to do absolutely nothing to gain attention from the male population, rendering them into a speechless mass with her simple presence. And as much as those girls hated Quinn for snatching away potential boyfriends, the blonde hated her own gift twice as much.
She didn't have any real friends besides Brittany Pierce and Tina Cohen-Chang. She couldn't let strangers come too close to her or they could be in a position to hurt her. It had happened before, she had been used before, people liked to associate themselves with her because of her beauty, in hopes her Veela glow would make them shine in a brighter light, too.
"You hypocrite, you let me patrol alone," Scamander startled her from behind. "But shift's over anyway. Let's go back to our dorm."
Quinn worldlessly fell into pace next to him. He was one of the few she could hold a conversation with and it reminded her of how effortlessly she had talked to Rachel Berry. The brunette had challenged her, had demanded witty responses and sharp comebacks, she had kept up with Quinn. It had aggravated her slightly, but it had made her feel alive as the passion had ignited something inside of her, the flame to defend her rightful place in her house.
She would have loved to keep the conversation going for once. It was probably the most stimulating conversation she had in a while. Without wanting to offend her friendship with Brittany and Tina, they just didn't challenge her. They were more of a quiet nature and didn't often engage Quinn in topics that could end up in a heated discussion.
As Quinn said goodnight to Scamander and retreated to her dorm, all she could think about was talking to Rachel Berry again. Because talking to her was so much better than just watching her.