Entry for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season 5, Round 10 - Wigtown Wanderers vs Ballycastle Bats

Position: Keeper

Prompt: 2000's: We Belong Together — Mariah Carey

Word Count: 2,215

Betas: DinoDina; silently-at-night; DolbyDigital

Entry for the Last Ship Sailing Competition II

Final Round

Prompts:

(word) neutral

(colour) sky blue

(food) chocolate chip cookies

Entry for The Musical Category Competition

Wicked: For Good - Write about someone feeling like they've been changed by someone else.

Entry for The Ultimate Doctor Who Challenge/Competition

Erosan - Write about romantic love.

Never Let Me Go

I didn't mean it when I said

I didn't love you so

I should have held on tight

I never should have let you go

Marcus Flint had never had good experiences with relationships of any kind in his life.

His parents, sticking to their Pureblood traditions, had never showed him much warmth while reminding him of the privileges and duties their blood status meant, and had started teaching him about how they were better than others long before he could even walk. It was of utmost importance to them that their son stayed true to their beliefs, and his father had liked to enforce that by raising his hand against Marcus whenever he stepped out of line.

Being a pureblood meant that as soon as he'd entered Hogwarts, he'd known which people were supposed to become his friends and who he shouldn't associate himself with. During his Hogwarts days, he'd only had one real friend, and even with Adrian he hadn't been able to talk about everything that was on his mind.

He hadn't ever realised that these experiences had a big impact on him, until long after the days of forced loneliness were over. After the war, so much had changed, he had changed: he'd learned to control his anger, the negativity wallowing inside of him; he'd managed to find real friends, and to top it off, he'd even found the courage to act on an old crush from Hogwarts. Katie Bell had been completely off limits during his school time, but when she'd joined his team as a Chaser he'd decided to take his chance, diving headfirst into a… something – he couldn't call it a relationship – when he realised that she had a thing for him, too.

Marcus didn't really know what he wanted, only that he wanted her, in his bed, and he didn't notice that the lack of definition for their… thing was a problem. He wouldn't let her too close without thinking much about it, refrained from doing 'couply' activities with her and was oblivious to the disaster building up like a rogue wave, carrying enough energy to destroy everything in its wake.

"Marcus, I don't understand why you won't talk to me! You're the one asking me to stay at yours for the weekends again and again, you're jealous when I talk with other men, and yet you don't want to give this a fucking name!" Katie exclaimed furiously, pacing his living room while gesticulating wildly, her temper taking control of her. "What are we, Marcus? Am I your sex friend you turn to when you have an itch to scratch?"

Marcus, sitting on the couch, didn't know what to reply. He knew that she was damn right, that it was time to determine what they were – almost five months of sleeping with each other, going out for drinks from time to time, he could understand why she was angry – but something inside him made him block her. He heard her words, related to them… but his face remained neutral, even as she whipped around to stare at him, a pained expression in her brown eyes.

"Do you love me, Marcus?"

Her question had a finality about it that made more than clear what kind of impact his answer would have. Marcus's shoulders tensed slightly as a war broke out inside of him; a part of him wanted to tell her everything he felt for her, but the rest was stronger, reminding him of what had happened every time he'd searched for some warmth and affection. He was meant to be alone.

"I don't," he heard himself reply calmly, feeling like he was a mere witness of the situation suddenly, and without another word, she turned around and left his apartment, slamming the door behind herself.

I can't sleep at night

When you are on my mind

When Katie left, it was as if she'd taken the light with her.

Marcus had trouble finding anything to be happy about in his everyday life, and sometimes he asked himself how it could have come so far that he stood outside his holiday home in the Caribbean, unable to see the beauty around him. The sun was shining down at him, the crystal clear water was splashing around his feet and everything, the flawlessly sky blue above him, the smells and sounds, was just perfect, and yet it didn't seem to touch him. He'd taken this holiday in the hope of finally having time to get over Katie and move on; since they were playing on the same team, he saw her on a near-daily basis and it made things impossibly harder. She tried to ignore him and appear like everything was just fine, but too often he could see her facade crumbling and then his heart was clenching painfully with regret because he knew that it was his fault.

His idea had utterly failed, though.

The hut was in the middle of a freaking paradise, he got to hang around at the beach all day long, the food was delicious and everything was just picture perfect… and yet he found himself sitting around, developing a grudge at how bright the sun was shining, at the people who smiled carefreely, at the chirping of the birds. Marcus was pissed that he couldn't get Katie off his mind, that some thought related to her always seemed to ghost around in his head, even keeping him awake at night. Whenever he closed his eyes he could see her smile so clearly or the expression of pure desire with which she'd looked at him… he woke up from light slumbers with her laughter in his ears and while still half-asleep he imagined inhaling her scent and feeling the warmth of her naked body against his skin.

Coming to his senses was the worst part of this, and over and over again the realisation hit him that he'd been an idiot and a coward, too afraid to deal with his emotions and the problems of his past.

If only he'd had the courage to face his demons, the fear of being left or being trapped in another relationship without love. The latter fear was highly irrational, he realised, as he knew that he had feelings for Katie, ones that ran deeper than the lust and desire he'd mostly acted on.

After long hours of sorting through his emotional mess, he was finally able to acknowledge that he loved her.

He, Marcus Flint, the biggest idiot on the whole planet, was in love with Katie Bell, and he'd let her go.

When you left I lost a part of me

It's still so hard to believe

Come back, baby, please,'cause

We belong together

One only knows what they had when it's lost, and so Marcus noticed only now how much Katie's presence had influenced him positively; the few people close enough to him to care pointed it out to him. Apparently, he'd gotten significantly more polite and a lot less impulsive thanks to her, able to keep his temper under control, and Marcus briefly remembered his fear of being like his father in Katie's presence – abusive, mean, lashing out without provocation. With her, the constant anger that had been burning inside of him, only soothed by Quidditch, had died down to a little, tamed flame. He appeared more balanced in his life, at ease with himself because she'd put his demons to rest. Slowly, he'd shaken off some bad habits and started to open himself up to the world, the values of his parents slowly stopping to influence his actions.

And obviously he'd been so comfortable with it that he hadn't even noticed the change. But even he was aware of the fact that he was back to his grumpy self, though now he was more withdrawn, separating himself from everyone to the point where Adrian showed up to make sure he was still alive. Some nights he got drunk, but the alcohol didn't help to numb the feelings, so he soon stopped, and Adrian ended up sitting next to him in silence for many evenings, no real conversation taking place. Sometimes Marcus managed to attempt expressing his feelings – he'd never been good at it, but Adrian acknowledged the effort – but Adrian mostly was the one who talked. Though it was mostly about banalities, things that he'd read in the newspaper or that had happened to him during the day, he broach the topic of 'Katie' from time to time in a testing manner, as if he was trying to analyse Marcus. However, against Marcus' hopes, he didn't present any solutions for his misery.

Weeks passed, and then, Adrian finally said something, breaking Marcus out of a daze. "Man, I'll be honest with you. I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're a wreck without your Gryffindor. You two belong together."

Marcus snorted – the first real reaction he'd shown towards his best friend that night – and took a sip of his pumpkin juice. "Tell me something I haven't realised myself. It's too late. I fucked it up."

"You sure?" Adrian asked with the tone a person could only use when they knew something important, and Marcus raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Alicia said Katie's just as down as you are. She misses your sorry arse."

"But she thinks I don't love her," Marcus argued, shaking his head at what Adrian was implying he should do.

"Well, time to get your big troll head out of the sand to tell her you do."

There ain't nobody better

Oh baby baby

We belong together

It took Adrian a good week to convince Marcus to take a shot ("Hell, you'll never stop annoying me if you don't try, Marcus!") and even then he lingered in the background – behind a bush, to be exact – when Marcus walked up to Katie's door. He felt absolutely ridiculous in his dress robes that had gotten too big since he'd lost some weight during his mourning, clutching a bouquet of Katie's favourite flowers and a bag of the chocolate chip cookies she would kill for if she had to. His heart was racing in his chest as his knuckles gently rapped on the door, knowing that Adrian would strangle him if he tried to back out.

Even though he didn't want to admit it, Adrian was right, of course – if he didn't at least give it a try, he would never know what could have been. And no matter how scared he was of opening up to her, he knew that he would never be able to live with himself if he didn't do everything he could to get her back.

The moment Katie opened the door, Marcus feared that he would get punched and have the door shut in his face, but to his surprise, he was only met with shocked silence. Clearing his throat, he met her gaze, and his heart clenched when he recognised the tired and sad expression in her eyes – it was as if he was looking into a mirror. And yet Katie looked as beautiful as ever, maybe even more so, but that might be because he allowed himself to take her in for the first time in weeks. During training, he'd always forced himself to concentrate on himself so he wouldn't have to see what he'd lost.

But now she was standing right in front of him, the only thing to focus on, and Marcus struggled to keep himself from drowning in her beauty.

"What are you doing here, Marcus?" she asked quietly, her tone of defeat causing a wave of worry to rush through him. Katie rarely ever lost her fight, but now it seemed like there was not much left inside her and it was all his fault.

He must have looked pathetic, too, but in this moment he was too focused on getting out a straight sentence to really care. "I… I wanted… I needed to see you…"

Marcus cursed inwardly about the stutter in his voice and decided to just say it all now, before she would think that he was trying to mess with her to make the pain worse. "I miss you, Katie. I'm sorry; I'm a big idiot and I can understand if you want to punch me, but… I lied. I lied to you. I do love you, but I was too scared of my past repeating itself to admit it."

She simply continued to stare up at him and Marcus clung tighter to his little presents, feeling the stems of some of the flowers breaking in his grip. "I… I love you, Katie Bell. I realised you're making me a better person, and I don't want to be without you. All I want to ask for is a second chance. Because… because we belong together."

Katie sniffed, her carefully built facade slowly cracking, and she looked down at her hands for a moment; when she lifted her head again, her brown eyes were glimmering with tears. "Promise me that you won't let me go a second time."

"Not a chance."

We belong together