So this is for queenargelladurrendon on tumblr for the axgexchange who gave the prompt: Hogwarts AU where Arya and Gendry are Gryffindors.
Rating: Teen
Summary: Gendry sees Edric flirting with Arya and suddenly sees her turn from an annoying little sister figure to the woman she's grown into. A Hogwarts AU for queenargelladurrendon on tumblr for the exchange because they did such a great job organizing it and deserve all the fics!
A/N: Gendry, Jon, and Robb are only 2 years older then Arya in this.
When Gendry first saw Arya Stark she was in line with all the first years entering the great hall. He knew of her before that, Jon, Robb and Theon had all mentioned her at various times before, but he wasn't able to put a face to the name until she passed by and waved at her older brothers sitting next to him at the Gryffindor table. She, like all the first years, were looking around excitingly at the hall, she was talking animatedly to a chubby boy, who looked a little surprised to have her attention, as she pointed toward the ceiling.
He watched the sorting with a combination of interest and impatience like every year as while he was interesting in who would be joining his house, he also really wanted the feast to start. He noticed that Arya's new friend was sorted into Hufflepuff and watched as he ambled over to their table before he turned his attention back. By the time Arya's name was called there were only a handful of kids left, she hopped up to the stool and shot a grin in his direction, aimed at her brothers, no doubt, and the sorting hat yelled 'GRYFFINDOR' before McGonagall even let go of the hat.
She bounded off and headed over to their table, shoving in on the bench across from them and leaning over to watch as the sorting finished. Once the food appeared she dug in the same way Jon did, and Gendry couldn't help the laugh that escaped him as they both reached for the shepherd's pie at the same time.
Jon, Robb and he were third years, and while they didn't have any classes with Arya, she certainly made up for it by hanging out with them in the common room and during meals. She didn't seem to get along with many of the first year Gryffindor girls or boys and for awhile he had thought she didn't have any friends until she mentioned studying with 'Hot Pie', a Hufflepuff who shared half of her classes. She didn't seem to mind her small social group, unlike her Ravenclaw sister, who had friends and admirers around her constantly. She and Jon were obviously very close and she quickly accepted Gendry into the fold as if she had known him for years. Two years passed in this fashion, with Arya becoming a part of their little group except for when she went to hang out with Hot Pie, and he almost felt like one of her older brothers with the familiarity shown between them.
Upon his return to Hogwarts for his fifth year he found himself spending a lot more time with Arya and Hot Pie, who were now third years. It was pretty similar to the year before at the beginning, but then Jon started dating Ygritte and spent much more time snogging her than hanging out with Gendry. While he and Robb got along fine, he was mainly friends with Jon, and Robb spent most of his free time hanging outside the common room with his best friend Theon, who was a Slytherin. This was also the year Arya tried out for the Quidditch team, and made it as their new seeker; she was unsurprisingly good, given both her older brothers were on the team, and her small form made her incredibly fast on the broom. So he found himself, for the first time, spending a lot of time with Arya without her brothers around, they were all together at practice of course, but now Arya dragged him along when she went to hang out with Hot Pie in the courtyard or library.
He found that she acted a bit differently around him when her brothers weren't there, and he thought it odd how he would catch her staring at him sometimes. Whenever he called her out on it she would simply say his face looked constipated from thinking too hard and would look away, her face flush from being out in the sun too long.
He didn't really think anything of the way she acted because he didn't know any better, people acted differently around their family all the time so maybe he was seeing just Arya instead of Arya Stark. He had grown so close to Arya that he couldn't understand why, when the next year rolled around, he suddenly barely saw her around. Jon and Ygritte were on one of their numerous breaks so he didn't realize he had barely talked to her because he was spending so much time listening to Jon moan about how little he knew about women.
Once he realized he hadn't seen her around, he tried to seek her out only to come to the conclusion that she had to be avoiding him. She was never in the common room, she must be eating at different times as he never saw her at meals. He thought he spotted her once in the hallway between classes but when he called her name she ducked into a hidden passage behind a tapestry. He finally tracked her down when she was sitting out by the lake, when she saw him approach she glanced around quickly, and seeing no escape looked annoyed, likely at herself.
When he reached her she was packing up her bag, shoving her notes in besides her books. She stood up and attempted to shove past him but he grabbed her arm and held her in place.
"Hey, what's the deal? Why are you avoiding me?" He questioned, looking at her face, trying to meet her eyes.
She scowled up to him, wrenching her arm from his grip. "Why do you even care? Don't you have better things to do than hang around a little girl like me?" She spat the words 'little girl' out like they were venom.
"What? Of course I care, you're my friend." He defended, confused as to where this was coming from.
Instead of reassuring her his words seemed to do the opposite, causing an angry blush to bloom across her face. Her eyebrows furrowed as she almost snarled her next words, "Oh don't bother, you're just like Jon, second you have someone pretty to suck face with you miss anything around you."
"What?!" He spluttered, "I don't-what?" Arya was not impressed with his attempts to figure out what she was talking about. She turned on her heal and started stomping back towards the castle, he called out "Arya!" to try one last time to get her attention.
She looked back and threw him a dirty look while yelling over her shoulder, "Ring all the bells you want Gendry! I don't care."
He stared in confusion at the spot she just vacated, he had no idea what she was talking about. Girls were so weird sometimes.
Unfortunately, after this most of his interactions with Arya were rather frosty, she tolerated him during practice, and ignored him in any other setting. At least she was no longer avoiding him, she even sat with him and her brothers at meals again, but always managed to sit furthest away from him, only talking to Jon or Robb. He thought Jon would have mentioned something, had he noticed, but he was back on with Ygritte so he was, of course, oblivious to everything around him.
Over time it softened into plain indifference, and while Gendry still cared for her, he didn't want to push it if she didn't want to be friends with him anymore. By the time his seventh year rolled around he didn't think much of Arya Stark at all, until he saw her for the first time that year.
The seventh years decided to throw a combo house party in the room of requirement to welcome in the new year. Robb and Theon had it all planned out, they even snuck to Hogsmeade to get Firewhiskey and Butterbeer. The party was in full swing, with several fifth and sixth years joining in, he was a couple whiskey's deep when he noticed one fifth year in particular.
It's possible that the alcohol he consumed had a greater influence then he thought because his first thought when he saw Arya Stark was not a thought at all, just shock and awe at how much she had changed since he last saw her. She was just, beautiful, there were no other words, he hadn't seen her since four months prior, and even then only from far away. She had grown into her features, her face no longer seemed too long, she was still small in stature, but the tight t-shirt she wore revealed two small, but defined, breasts. Her hair too had grown, instead of the pixie cut she wore the first several years of school, her hair reached almost to her shoulders, and he watched as it flipped over her shoulder, her hand running through it. He stared, transfixed, at her long neck as she tilted her head back in laughter. He smiled in response to her expression before he turned to see what she was laughing at.
Beside her was another fifth year, Edric Dayne, from Ravenclaw. As he watched, Dayne reached out and placed his hand on her arm, and he saw red. Before he could stop himself and just think through what was happening he was charging through the room like a bull, determined to get to them. They both only had seconds to look at him in shock before he was dragging Arya from the party, out into the corridor.
She ripped her arm away from him once they were outside and growled out a flat, "What is your problem?"
The alcohol was messing with his brain as he struggled to get his words out. "You. Him." He let out a small groan and rubbed a hand down his face. "You shouldn't even be here, you're too young for him and too young to be drinking."
She raised her eyebrows, disbelief masking her face, "Are you serious right now? Jon invited me, Robb gave me beer, if they don't care why do you? And I'm too young for who? Ned is my age, and in case you've forgotten, I'm not exactly eleven anymore!"
He was very clearly being reminded that she wasn't eleven now that he was standing so close to her, her lips were even plumped up in a pout that he couldn't stop staring at, they were very distracting. "You shouldn't-he's just taking advantage of you drinking! All he wants is to sleep with you!" he exclaimed.
She crossed her arms, which pushed her breasts up to where he could see cleavage in the dip of her shirt. He torn his eyes up to her face when she started speaking, her tone angry but contained, "Don't you dare! First of all, I can handle myself perfectly well, no one is going to take advantage of me! Second of all, who cares if that's all he wants, it's none of your business who I do or do not sleep with!"
"Of course it's my business!" He exploded, forgetting that they were trying to keep their voices down. "It's my business cause you shouldn't be kissing a clown like him! You should be kissing-." He cut himself off, eyes wide as he stared into her shocked face. He felt his face heat up and couldn't stop the following fragments to tumble out of his mouth, "I mean. That's not. I don't."
He never did get the right words out because Arya was reaching up to tug face down, he continued to ramble and they got closer, finally cut off when her lips met his. He melted a bit, hunched over and arms coming to rest on her waist. They kissed for a only a short period before pulling apart, Arya smiling shyly up at him as she spoke.
"You're an idiot, you know."
He grinned in return, "Yeah, I know."
