Summary: Marcus Flint only wanted a little peace and quiet. Then Percy Weasley stumbled in. Let's follow these two very different misfits into the steamy-hot atmosphere of the prefects' bathroom. Wild, dirty slash, what else? Oneshot. Complete. [MarcusFlint/PercyWeasley]
Rating: M. Slash. Men having sex without a woman present. You have been warned! No joke this time! If you can't stand the heat, stand out of the kitch– er, the prefects' bathroom!
Disclaimer: Everything's mine! Except all the names of my characters and the scenery in which they do it. Acting out of character, that is. Okay, seriously, everything belongs to JKR, alas!
Last Warning: Two-chaptered story, originally German. Everything is self-translated, unbetaed, a disgrace. If you love the English language, turn away right now lest your eyes begin to bleed. On the other hand, if you love the English language … why again are you reading on FanfictionNet? Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! Now, brace yourself!
Of Trolls And Weasels
1. The Shame In Your Defeat
(The Cave – Mumford & Sons)
"Let's go! We'll beat them off their brooms and wipe them off the pitch!"
His team cheered enthusiastically. Proudly, Marcus glanced over them again before he turned around and took the lead. They were going to stomp Ravenclaw for good. These poor dolts would never know what hit them. Pesky nerds. They clearly deserved it. It was a shame that Ravenclaw had the worst Quidditch team of all four houses. There was no real satisfaction in beating them. At least, it did not satisfy Marcus. They were so incompetent that it wasn't fun at all to outplay them. Marcus hated these know-it-all smart-arses even more than those bloody Gryffindor hypocrites. Not a very common attitude amongst Slytherin house, but Marcus had his reasons. Good reasons, indeed.
He signalled his team, and they all stepped out onto the Quidditch pitch. Despite his earplugs, the erupting applause and loud cheers of the Slytherin stands sounded uncomfortably noisy to him. It was below his pain threshold but already borderline. While pretending to skim over his short hair, he covertly checked the fitting of his earplugs and shoved them even a little bit deeper. Sometimes the drawbacks of troll-blood were enervating. Although his immunity to magic often came in quite handy, it also prevented him from resorting to many useful tricks – like dampening the noises and protecting his sensitive ears by magical means. Once, he had lost one of his earplugs during a match. It had been living hell. Almost unbearable. The screams of the audience, accompanying and commenting every action above the pitch, had been like red-hot needles penetrating his ears and continuing their way straight ahead directly into his brain. Though it hadn't been the volume. Not solely. It had been this complete chaos, all these voices yelling and screaming, almost indistinguishably intertwined to form an amorphous fabric of maddening noise. He had felt extremely dizzy. And Slytherin had lost the match. This could not be allowed to happen again. This would not be allowed to happen again.
He took a deep breath. Involuntarily, his nostrils flared. The flood of odours was overwhelming and brought his troll instincts on. The air smelled of summer, dry earth, flowering grass and drying hay. A mild scent of resin emanated from the nearby woods, laced with flavours that came from so far away that even his troll nose was unable to recognise them. Animals, for sure. Maybe horses. centaurs or Thestrals; they all smelled alike. But it was impossible to tell for certain because the wave of smells from the stands surged over him and buried everything else. Human sweat, scents of soap – and even perfume. After all, it was weekend, and many spectators would be sauntering to Hogsmeade right after the match. Or maybe just after lunch.
Now the Ravenclaws marched onto the pitch. Marcus saw them coming. He knew that each single player on his side was better than his Ravenclaw counterpart. And those smart-arses knew that as well. He grinned at the other team's captain. Davies had been elected as their captain quite recently. Marcus could almost smell his fear. Maybe fear was an overstatement, but in any case, it was more than just excitement. He took another deep breath and delighted in this smell. He only pressed lightly when Hooch told them to shake hands. Lightly on his terms. Davies grimaced nevertheless, and Marcus almost laughed out loud.
He mounted his broom and immediately took off. Behind him, he heard his team following his lead. A gust of wind coming from the lake dispersed the odours of summer and humans for a moment, and the sweet, intoxicating scent of water, reeds and muddy banks put him on the verge of euphoria. The fresh breeze tickled the sensitive fine hair on every part of skin that was not covered by his robes. He felt the currents of air and steered into the winds. He flew a slanting screwed double-loop and laughed. Now, the Ravenclaws too took off. It was almost possible to pity these slow, weak, little males – and females. Almost possible. If they hadn't been Ravenclaw smart-arses. But anyway, he would wipe them off the pitch, no doubt about it. He would teach those twats to call someone an "ugly, little semi-troll". Truth didn't come into it.
Marcus took his earplug out and listened at the door to make sure that nobody was in there before giving the password. The prefects' bathroom was neutral ground, but he wanted to be alone. He deserved it, and the commotion and uproar accompanying Slytherin's celebration of their latest victory could be heard throughout the whole of their dungeons. After a while, it had gotten on his nerves.
He entered the empty bathroom and closed the door. The lingering, disgustingly sweet smell of foam and bubble baths was not too strong. Today, it seemed, nobody had been using the bath. He took his robes off and got naked. Then he turned on a seldom used tap to run the mud bath. He also turned on the tap for clear water so that the big in-ground pool would fill faster. He could not stand all the other foam and bubble baths the room did provide. They all stank. Each of them in its own way, but they all smelled unnatural, synthetic.
As the pool slowly filled, Marcus let his eyes wander over the pearly-white marble tiles, which reflected the flickering candle light of the chandelier, up to the painting of the blonde Mermaid. As always, she leaned at her rock that arose from the white-horsed sea, her pose tantalising, pretending to be asleep. Sometimes he felt strangely related to her. She too wasn't human, at least not fully. And even if he seemed – at first glance – more normal than a woman with a fishtail, he was really no more a human being than she.
On impulse, he reached for his wand, buried under the heap of his clothing, and tapped it on a special place at the wall. Instantly, the tiles changed into a mirror. Marcus was not even sure why he had done it. He steered clear of mirrors whenever possible. Not because he thought himself ugly – as others often surmised in hushed voices behind his back. It was just … whenever he saw his reflection in a mirror, he searched for something ugly. And he was annoyed because he was unable to find it. Or was he annoyed that he found nothing? He could not grasp what others actually meant by "ugly Troll". He examined his body – as he had done a hundred times before – and still found nothing. Surely, his arms and his shoulders were stronger than those of normal people. In fact, he was stronger than normal people. He not only had bigger muscles but extra ones and then some as he had learned by examining the other boys in the locker room and in the common shower. But he was not ugly.
His arms were a little longer than it would have been normal for someone fully human – and they would continue to grow. And his legs were not quite as long as it would have been fitting for a boy of his height. In return, his chest was slightly bigger and broader. What was the ugly part of that? His black hair crawled as a streak of stubbles from his neck over his whole spine, thinning out and stopping only inches before it could reach the crack of his bum. Apart from that, he was not very hairy at all. Terrence sometimes teased him about it. In a nice way, and Marcus let him because he liked him. Terrence was one of the few pupils in Hogwarts that never called him "stupid half-troll" when they believed themselves out of earshot. And Terrence was right – Marcus had not much to show off as far as pubes were concerned. Even the second years in the team had more hair. But in every other aspect, he was well developed. He knew that he would have won every dick waving contest between him and his team-mates. At least he wouldn't come last, he mused and started to grin while thinking about Adrian's tiny, little knob.
Neither his face grew much hair. Trolls were that way. They didn't grow fur on their bodies, and there had never been a bearded troll. And the rest of his face … well, his ears were possibly a little too small. It looked kind of funny. But nothing ugly about it. His black eyebrows were a little thick, too strong, and they formed almost a continuous straight line of hair. And they stuck out and made his forehead look flat and receding. His eyes were also very dark; such a murky brown was seldom found in human eyes. They made him appear gloomy, but he couldn't change that. At least his nose was handsome. It was absolutely straight, slender and perfect. "Classical" his mother called it. Many normal people wore much uglier and more crooked conks in the midst of their face. Alas, there still remained his jaw. It was very pronounced, admittedly. Heavy, underhung, and it gave his face an angular, almost squarish look. On the whole, his face could hardly be called handsome – Marcus understood and accepted that – but ugly? He failed to see how.
He continued to stare at his reflection for a while. He didn't really recognise it. He couldn't find himself in it. It was just the image of some funny looking boy who seemed somewhat familiar. But it wasn't really him.
He tapped his wand at the wall again and got rid of the mirror. The pool was nearly filled, and he turned off the tap for the mud bath. He loved the earthy scent it instilled in the water. Probably some troll instinct that showed through. But he liked it, and he didn't care why. He entered the pool und let himself slide slowly into the welcoming warm arms of its muddy waters. Before his head submerged, he took a last deep breath. Then he let got, started to sink and floated gently deeper into the water.
He didn't need to swim very much to reach the pool floor. He was heavy enough. His body was more massive and his bones more stable and denser than that of a human. When he reached the floor tiles, he fully opened his eyes and looked up. The cloudy, muddy water absorbed most of the light form the chandelier above. Only a dusky dim gleam reached his eyes as if he would take an evening bath in some water-plant covered pond in the woods and not be floating in his favourite mud and water mixture inside the luxurious, marble-tiled private bathroom for prefects and Quidditch captains.
He closed his eyes again and relaxed as completely as he could only here, under water. Warmth crept into his muscles and softened them up. Cramped knots, barely noticed during the day because he was so used to them, slowly dissolved. His oversensitive senses rejoiced on the incoming simple and clear stimuli. He smelled almost nothing under water. Even troll noses weren't built for that. Only the plashing of the still bubbling stream of clear water filled his ears. When he concentrated hard enough, he could even imagine it as the gushing sounds of a small waterfall. In any case, it drowned all the little background noises of the castle. At least, as long as he kept his head under water.
He floated blissfully above the pool floor, feeling as relaxed and happy as he seldom did in Hogwarts and then only in these few moments of detached solitude. Only in the air above the Quidditch pitch, he experienced similar bliss. He blinked under water, shut his eyes again and entered a state of dreamy peaceful drowsing.
Sometimes, in rare moments like this, he thought he could understand why one of his female ancestors mated with a wild forest-troll, many generations ago. Naturally, her primary goal had been to secure the inheritance of trollish magical resistance for her descendants. At least that was the reason Helva Flint had given in her own records. Two of her sons had been killed in a magical war, and her husband and her daughter had been driven into insanity by Crucio. These events hadn't helped to keep the mind of his ancestress sane. At least that was the gist of most stories his mother had been reading to him when he was a child and couldn't fall asleep in the evenings. Maybe they had been nothing but fairy tales, but he had loved to listen to them nonetheless. Especially because the heroes of those stories often had been trolls. He first started to grasp the fact that most people didn't like trolls when he entered Hogwarts. His parents had warned him – both in their own way – that people would think him stupid, ugly and mean, but he only had understood the true meaning of their warnings when he had his first encounter with this kind of attitude in reality.
Yeah, the sorting. It had been wonderful and horrible at the same time. All these new and strange people, the noise, the excitement. And then it had been his turn. He had stepped forward, leaving the group of first years and approaching the stool where the Sorting Hat had waited. Most of them had only whispered in low voices. Quite likely, they hadn't wanted him to hear them, but his ears were better than human ones, even when plugged. At the Slytherin table someone had been snickering. "What's that thing?" a girl at the Gryffindor table had muttered under her breath. He had tried to convince himself that she hadn't been talking about him. A few pupils on the Hufflepuff side had giggled too. Even during the train trip, many children had behaved strangely towards him, but Terrence and he had been alone in their compartment, and he hadn't given it much thought. Stupid troll. While Marcus had been approaching the stool, nervously and frightened by so many staring people, someone from the Ravenclaw table had said it: "Looks just like some mini mountain-troll. They are even more stupid than ugly, did you know?" A boy from Ravenclaw had whispered it the first time, and the one he had spoken to had begun to laugh.
With a growl, Marcus let the air escape his lungs. A wobbling swarm of bubbles soared to the surface. Naturally, he couldn't stay as long under water as a true troll, but ten minutes he could manage easily and without experiencing any shortage of breath. He closed his eyes again and stretched his arms and legs. Now, with his lungs air-free, he could effortlessly stay lying down, sprawled on the pool floor. The water still purled from the clear-water tap. He didn't feel like getting up and turning it off. If the pool spilled over, the water would just run down the drains. He opened his mouth and let the last remnants of air escape. His tongue slid over his fangs. They already needed some regrinding. Soon, if he didn't want them to become too noticeable. During the next break, maybe.
Suddenly he thought of home. Was Gordon all right? His little brother had learned only last year to walk upright on his two feet without using his overlong arms as supportive legs. Marcus loved him dearly, but he also pitied him. Gordon would never be allowed to attend Hogwarts. Outside the family, he would always have to hide. Or use a special variant of Polyjuice for public appearances if he didn't want to have every bystander's finger pointing at him. Gordon hadn't been as lucky as Marcus, who had inherited his looks from their father. Their father came from a branch of the Flint family that showed almost no visible signs of their troll ancestry any more. Gordon however looked just as their mother. Even more trollish than she. His little brother's long arms reached all the way down to his knees. When he had been only half a year old, the sharp edges of his first fangs had protruded through his jaws. And his skin had a definite greenish tint. His mother and his father adored him madly. And so did Marcus. Sometimes he wasn't quite sure whether he should pity or envy his little brother for never going to be sent to Hogwarts. Gordon would never be teased by other children, not behind his back. But he would also grow up only knowing relatives and the few friends and confidants that were close to the Flints – while Marcus would publicly perform as the future head of the family. There were times when he would rather have traded places with his little brother. Sure, he had some friends – acquaintances mostly – in Slytherin. After a while they had accepted him – grudgingly. And after his natural talent for flying had emerged, some had even begun to admire him. And there was the team, especially Terrence, who never made fun of him, not once, not even last year when Marcus had failed almost every class and had to repeat a year.
He felt his cheeks glowing with shame. He shut his eyes tightly and hid in the darkness surrounding him. That had been a field day for all fucking arse-holes in this fucking school. "Have you heard? That stupid troll has to repeat a year!" He had regretted that he ever had been gifted with the bloody exceptional hearing-ability of his troll-blood. The whole school had laughed at him – many still did when they thought he couldn't hear them. It was a rare occurrence at Hogwarts that someone failed so completely that he had to repeat a year. But apparently it was true: trolls weren't very intelligent. And if someone inherited their good traits, said someone had also to cope with the bad ones – so he told himself. His mother and his father had tried to comfort him and assured him that he wasn't stupid, just a little slower in thinking matters but also more thoroughly than most people – but he hadn't believed them. What else could they have said? In fact, it didn't bother him too much that he was less clever than others. In return, he had better eyesight, could taste and feel and smell and hear better, was stronger, tougher, more robust than normal people, and his reactions were faster. Many spells and magical poisons that could easily kill weak human beings did almost nothing to him. When he had turned eleven, before he was sent to Hogwarts, his father had cast Crucio on him for the first time. It had been tickling his skin, and he had laughed. Back then, Marcus hadn't seen his father's point. Most targeted spells with less power than the absolute magic of an Avada Kedavra could nothing do to him, an ugly, stupid half-troll, but give him a little discomfort. Not long ago, he finally grasped what was so great about that and what his father had tried to show him.
The continuous purling of the running water made him sleepy. He still felt no need to surface and draw breath. He was so unguardedly relaxed and at ease, he only heard the other visitor when shoes stepped on the marble flooring of the bathroom. Despite his exceptional senses – or due to the steady gurgling noises of the running water – he hadn't heard it when the visitor had opened the door to the prefects' bathroom. And now he remembered that he had forgotten to bolt the door. Usually that wasn't too important. He did forget it often. The bathroom was neutral ground. Everyone who was allowed to use it respected that. Nobody wanted to forfeit this privilege for some stupid brawl. But when he recognised the voice, shouting "Hello? Somebody in there?" into the bathroom, he regretted deeply that he had forgotten to lock the door.
Percy Weasley. Obviously. That toffee-nosed Gryffindor prefect. It wasn't that this arrogant wanker had bothered him in any way or mocked him especially – as far as Marcus knew. But this Weasley was in all likelihood as big a twat as the twins. Probably worse. Mr Smart-Arse had earned all twelve OWLs, and now everybody seemed to think he was some kind of genius. Two years ago, Marcus had earned three OWLs, and he had spent months with studying and revising till his head had been on the verge of exploding and he barely escaped a serious mental breakdown. And Weasley had been elected prefect the second year in a row. Everybody and his brother thought it a safe bet that he would be the next Head Boy. That swot was the last person on earth that Marcus wanted to see. Maybe he would sod off again if nothing stirred? Down here, at the floor of the pool and under a six feet high cover of muddy water, Marcus was certainly not easy to spot. But when the other boy shouted the second time and stepped closer, Marcus realised that the water was still running. Weasley wouldn't simply go away again without at least turning off the tap. Now the other boy – as far as Marcus could sense – approached the bench on which his clothes lay. The meddlesome swot apparently stayed there for a while before turning around and coming towards the pool. He called again, "Somebody in here?" His muffled, water-dampened voice sounded insecure to Marcus.
Nevertheless he stayed on the pool floor. He would try to give Weasley the lesson of a lifetime. If this bugger supposed it would be any of his damn business who was using the prefects' bathroom, he was in for a shock. The same moment the nosy git turned off the tap, Marcus would push off the floor and burst through the surface. Weasley would wet himself when right under his nose a roaring half-troll form suddenly surfaced through the muddy water. Marcus opened his eyes and was taken aback when he saw how clear the water had become. Since he had turned off the mud bath tap and only clear water had been running, now only a minor brownish layer of mud covered the pool floor. The remaining water was only a little turbid. Too clear to facilitate a surprise attack on Weasley, Marcus had to admit – heavily disappointed.
"Flint!" he heard Weasley's dull yell, and he was thankful that his head was still under water und that the twat's hysterical cries didn't reach him full volume. What was that wanker's problem? He shouted Marcus' name a few times and seemed quite agitated. And then he began to wave his wand around. Marcus barely felt the light tingling when Weasley's levitation charm slipped off his skin. Maybe he should ask him what he was up to? But the moment Weasley cried "Fuck!" and began to curse, he realised what the twat must have been thinking. After all, Marcus lay motionless on the pool floor, and longer than a normal person would have been able to. And because Marcus never felt the need to tell all and sundry about his abilities, especially not some random Gryffindors, the nitwit was bound to assume that Marcus was dead. Or drowning this very moment.
Marcus took some pride in the swiftness of his thinking and the ingenuity of his theory. Even more so when Percy seemed to confirm it by hurrying to the pool side and causing a splashing sound as he jumped into the water. He dived and tried to grab Marcus by his shoulders. Weasley pulled and dragged frantically. Marcus gave it almost away. He barely managed to suppress a smirk. This nincompoop really tried to save his life or something like that. He was in for a surprising experience when in the end Marcus would suddenly "rise from the dead".
Finally, Percy managed with much splashing, paddling and wild flailing around to drag Marcus to the surface. As Marcus squinted through his eyelashes, he saw in all detail how the clumsy ninny managed to lose his glasses. First they dangled still on an ear, but with the next frantic splash they disappeared and sank to the floor of the pool.
Then Weasley tried to haul him up the pool edge. Which proved to be a little bit more challenging than Weasley probably had expected. Marcus knew that he was much heavier than his looks led others to believe. And without the additional help of buoyancy, a gangly, unfit wimp like Weasley was to be expected to have some serious difficulties in moving him at all. Marcus pondered the possibility to put an end to the game right now. He felt a slowly growing need to take a breath. He would manage another two or three minutes without problem but not much longer. And it seemed somewhat unlikely that Weasley would have accomplished the task of dragging him out of the water by then.
So it took him by surprise when the other boy plunged into the water, and shortly afterwards Marcus felt a forceful push hitting him in the back, sweeping him, accompanied by a swashing wave of water, over the pool edge. He squinted again and saw Weasley – sputtering and gasping – climbing out of the pool. His red hair was dripping with water and stuck to his face, and he obviously had some trouble to crawl out of the pool since his robes were soaked with water. Eventually he managed despite his difficulties, and for a moment he lay panting and motionless next to Marcus.
Marcus almost ran out of patience and was sorely tempted to nudge the weakling and inquire when he would be ready to continue this "life-saving business". But then Weasley pulled himself up, and Marcus quickly closed his eyes again. He felt a breeze of breath on his chest and then an ear touching it. Naturally, his heart was still beating, though not as fast as that of a human being. But that was normal for him. His wannabe life-saver finally seemed to realise that Marcus wasn't dead just yet and hastily got up. Marcus heard the "Respirate!" before he felt it. Without effect, as to be expected. Nevertheless, the nitwit tried it over and over again till he finally figured out that all his efforts were in vain. The "Enervate!" that followed was just as effective. Such feeble charms meant nothing to his troll constitution. Apparently Weasley didn't want to see the futility of his actions. Marcus was quite amused when Percy refused to give up and got almost hysterical after a while. For whatever reason, the poor wimp reeked of fear. No cause at all. But Marcus had always suspected that the greatest cowards hid in Gryffindor. His nose told him often enough that their proclaimed bravery was nothing more than putting on an act – and not a very convincing one, performed by cowards on the brink of wetting themselves.
He thought about getting up and laughing hard at Mr "I'm So Fly" when Weasley stopped his wand waving and spell casting. With what sounded almost like a sob, Weasley got down and kneeled at his side. When fingers touched his face and slid over his lips, he nearly gave himself away by flinching. Maybe he did because Weasley audibly drew a deep breath. But then his nose got held, a mouth pressed on his mouth and tried to breathe into him. When Marcus felt the pressure of invading air, he acted on instinct. His right fist jerked up and connected with something soft while he opened his eyes, and his left hand lashed out at Weasley, hit his shoulder and threw him off. The airborne boy got another kick by Marcus' leg as he flew by.
For a split moment, Marcus gazed into the other boy's surprised, wide, blue eyes. And certainly, it had only been water dripping from his hair that had wetted his cheeks. Weasley shouldn't have had any cause to cry beforehand. Unless he was such a pathetic wimp that he started shedding tears of excitement even about the smallest things. Not impossible with him being a Gryffindor, Marcus thought scornfully while getting up and looking down on Weasley. At least, he now had real cause to weep. He lay curled up in the corner of the bathroom on the white marble floor and seemed presently unable to breathe. He was pale, his face almost greenish, and convulsively gasped for air while holding his belly. Marcus noticed with some satisfaction that he apparently had scored a lucky hit at a soft spot. He pondered whether to use this welcome opportunity to put the boot in while Weasley was still lying flattened on the floor. Another kick in the goolies would be quite fitting and could never hurt. That much. But when Marcus stepped closer, the weakling choked and started to puke. Marcus jumped back. He didn't fancy putting his bare feet into a puddle of sick. Instead he leisurely turned off the tap, casually towelled himself off and slipped into his robes. When he was done, the wimp still lay on the floor with his head and hair in his own puke but his breathing had steadied a little.
The whole time, Weasley hadn't said a single word but had heavily panted for air and produced whiny, snivelling snorts and whimpers. Maybe he had been hit harder than Marcus had thought. He didn't always remember that he was much stronger than normal people – much less a meagre, pathetic, sorry specimen like Weasley. He avoided Weasley's tear-filled, bleary-eyed gaze when he turned around to leave the bathroom. He returned shortly and retrieved Weasley's glasses with an Accio from the pool floor and placed them within his reach. Marcus wasn't quite sure why he did it. Without doubt, Weasley had it coming for a long time and deserved everything he got.
Marcus was a slow thinker, but nothing if not thorough. The fallacy in his reasoning occurred to him just before he went to bed. Weasley had gotten what some others would have deserved. Marcus didn't sleep well. He dreamt about a sobbing boy with a freckled, pale face, tear-filled blue eyes and puke-drenched hair, lying in a pool of sick on white marble tiles. And in his dream he saw his little brother watching the scene and giving his older brother strange looks.