Entry for the "Flying Lesson" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"
Task: All relationships have to start somewhere. Min 500 words
Extra Prompt: (plot) someone bullying a member of your pairing
Entry for the "Chocolate Frog Card Club" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"
(Bronze) Marcus Flint; Challenge: Write about Marcus Flint
Entry for "Hopscotch" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"
Prompts: "What can I do?" (dialogue), nice (word), sight (word)
Entry for the "Gringotts Prompt Bank"
HP Locations: 1. Sixth Floor Corridor
Everything Starts Somewhere
"Oi, Bell! Where do you think you are going?!"
Katie turned around slowly, a grim expression on her face as she saw Pucey and Montague from the Slytherin Quidditch team approaching her, having obviously followed her here to the corridor on the Sixth Floor of the castle. They still wore their green Quidditch robes, just as Katie who was still in her red ones, and the two boys were grinning maliciously.
"Is it your time of the month again, ladies?" Katie asked smugly as an answer to the way Pucey and Montague made their knuckles crack threatingly.
"Yeeaahh," Montague replied with a dumb grin, obviously not exactly getting what Katie had said, but she was not in the mood for a laugh, really. She knew exactly why the two of them were here, it was quite obvious, really, only half an hour after Gryffindor had won their Quidditch match against Slytherin. They wanted revenge for playing bad, and this time they had obviously choosen Katie to be their victim.
Thinking about it, Katie noticed that surprisingly, this was the first time she herself was being targeted alone. The times before, she had only been the witness or been in a group of players who were the target – never had they approached only her. Surely this was a coincidence, or simply because today, she had been the chaser who had scored the most goals during the game – that was enough to justify the actions of the Slytherins, though they had never really needed a reason to bully anyone from Gryffindor, or especially the Quidditch team.
"So, what now?" Katie asked in a defensive manner, trying to hide that they were actually making her a little bit nervous. What were they going to do? Though most of the team members of Slytherin were not the brightest lightbulbs in the store, they still could get pretty inventive and creative whenever they wanted to have their revenge for being untalented or badly trained when it came to Quidditch.
While Katie decided that it was very likely that she would have to pay a visit to the Hospital Wing today, she tried to grope for her wand unobtrusively – her fingers were shaking, showing off that she was getting nervous and she could not remember where in her robes she had put her wand.
"Now," Pucey grinned, "it is time for revenge."
Kate gulped and forced a sweet and slightly mocking smile onto her face, answering:"Can't you think of anything new? Like, investing more time into your own training, for a change? I know, thinking too much does hurt in your head, guys, but wouldn't it be logical to rather spend more energy with developing your own flying skills than wasting it by getting uptight about loosing because your are just not good enough? Didn't you guys ever ask yourself 'Oh my, what can I do?'"
For a short moment, Katie could allow herself a tiny bit of amusement – Pucey and Montague were staring at her, looking a little bit dumbfounded and she could literally see the wheels turning in their heads and she really expected steam to come out of their ears any second.
But unfortunately, this nice little moment of triumph did not last long and before Katie could react, Montague had jumped forwards, his face contorted in anger. The taller boy grabbed the front of her scarlet Quidditch robes and slammed her against the stone wall behind her, knocking the air out of her lungs – it felt a little bit like she had been hit in the back by a bludger.
"I don't think you will be in the mood to joke around as soon as we are finished with you, Bell," he spat, and Katie's face twisted as his badly smelling breath hit her face.
"Ugh, when did you last brush your teeth, Montague? No wonder not a single boy wants to snog y..."
Before she could finish her sentence a hard punch landed on her ear. Immediately, Katie saw stars in front of her eyes, her vision blurred and had she not been pinned to the wall by Montague, she surely would have lost her footing.
She was expecting the next blow and secretly hoped that she would loose consciousness upon that second punch, but it did not come – instead, she heard someone yelling:"What the hell is going on here?!"
"We are teaching the little Gryffindor a lesson, Flint. Want to join?" Pucey answered and though Katie could barely see the outlines of the boy through the blurr, she knew that he was grinning – the sound of his voice was giving it away.
"Didn't I tell you to go for Wood?!"
To Katies surprise, Flint sounded... angry?!
"Aren't they all the same?"
"Let her go, search Wood and beat him up. This is an order," Flint growled and to Katie, the whole situation made no sense any more as she felt how the support suddenly was gone, Montague was really letting her go...
She was gliding down the wall, her knees feeling like pudding and as she finally managed to focus her eyes she saw Montague and Pucey moving away, their shoulders looking tense as they passed their team captain Marcus Flint. Marcus was looking extremely angry, the glares he was sending at his two players were outright deadly.
Katie expected him to leave after insulting her, put once again things were different – as soon as Pucey and Montague were out of sight, the tall captain started to move towards Katie and ultimately knelt down in front of her.
"What, Flint? Do you want me to thank you?" Katie asked weakly and tried to ignore the slight hint of concern in his gaze. Actually she was sure that she was hallucinating due to the punch to the head she had received, there just was no way Marcus Flint could in any way care about her. Surely he had just sent Pucey and Montague away so he would be able to have his own bit of fun with her.
"Are you okay?" Marcus asked, acting as if he had not heard her earlier remark.
"Sure..."
Katie took a deep breath and inwardly shook the slight blurr off, not willing to show any weakness to the Slytherin, especially now, as she expected his kind of friendliness to be a nasty trap. She had never seen a Slytherin being nice, let alone to a Gryffindor, and Flint's behaviour was really fishy to her.
"I am sorry."
Barely able to hold herself from widening her eyes and letting her jaw drop, not able to believe what she was hearing, Katie said the only thing that was on her mind in this second.
"Are you drunk, Flint?!"
"Only a little bit," he winked and Katie could not help but snort in amusement, though she still felt like this situation was more than odd.
"No, seriously, what is this? Let me guess... you are Fred or George, but you drank some Polyjuice Potion to impersonate Flint to scare me a little bit?"
"Slytherins are only humans too," Marcus replied dryly and took her elbow as she slowly started to stand up. "Am I not allowed to be a little bit friendly towards you?"
"No. It is scaring me, Flint, and it totally destroys my worldview. And why should you be sorry that they tried to beat me up?"
"Because I told them that they should not go for you," Marcus explained shortly, his hand not letting go of Katie's arm. Wrinkles appeared on the younger Gryffindor's face as she wondered:"Why would you do such a thing? It is not like you are the king of fairplay."
Was he blushing?!
Katie stepped on her own toe on purpose, somehow as a substitute to pinching herself – she obviously was not dreaming.
This was not the Marcus Flint she knew, though she barely knew anything about him, really. The only time they really had something to do with each other was on the Quidditch pitch, and then he was always acting as unfriendly as all the other Slytherins. He lived for Quidditch, that was all she could say about him for sure.
She secretly had spent some time watching him during the times they had been closer to each other and had seen some things that had not really fit the opinion she wanted to have of him.
Everybody thought that he was a git, not a guy who was neither exactly intelligent nor nice and whose only talents were in the field of athletics, though he also liked to bully people who were weaker than him.
Katie wanted to think this way as well, but sometimes, when he had felt unobserved, she had been able to catch a glimpse of a different side of Marcus Flint.
She had seen him being rather pensieve, as if he had been in his own world, and she had been surprised that she had found him kind of attractive in that moment – in any case, it was an interesting sight. His slightly crooked teeth were unimportant when she saw him sitting there, mentally preparing for training or for a game, he always looked simply handsome, relaxed... things that she did not wanted to think about him, because, well, he was Marcus Flint, and moments later, he would try to crush Oliver Wood's hand.
"Well... mainly because I dislike men who are violent towards women offside the pitch... but also because... um... I..."
"Marcus Flint is stuttering," Katie grinned, "I never thought I would witness something like that."
"Stop making fun of me, it makes me feel even more like an idiot, as if protecting you from these idiots since you got on the team isn't enough yet," Marcus answered and suddenly he kind of leaped forwards and pressed his lips on hers, gently, but certain.
Katie was, of course, more than surprised by this move, but she could not deny that the kiss felt good, really good, actually... there was this slight, pleasant tingle shooting up and down her spine and the feeling of sweet excitement that was spreading in her stomach made her feel oddly light...
After a few moments they parted and Katie actually blushed under the intense gaze of his dark eyes, feeling a little bit embarassed about how her heart was racing in her chest.
They just looked at each other, knowing that they had just done something that nearly nobody at Hogwarts would understand, but the rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor simply seemed irrelevant to them. The only thing that counted right now was that it had been something wonderful, it had felt so right, and they both could hardly wait to take more looks beneath the surface of the other one's personality.
And in this moment, Katie Bell and Marcus Flint shared their first smile, and then their second kiss.
