Marcus had never considered the Falmouth Falcons's stadium intimidating before. It was old, built nearly a hundred years earlier, and tied together with wards to keep it from crumbling into dust. Most teams had upgraded from their original stadiums by now, but not the Falcons. Their dedicated fan base—drawn to the games by the violence and the blood—would say that it was because the Falcons valued tradition. Marcus wondered if it was because they didn't have the funds to build a new stadium.

The early October morning air was crisps against Marcus's lungs as he let himself inside the stadium. Broadmoor's offices were located on the ground level of the stadium, not far away from the team's locker rooms. He'd never been to them before, having worked more with the owner of the team than the coaches. It wasn't hard to find the offices. Standing outside them, Marcus felt like he was back at Hogwarts, about to face Snape as he accused him of not doing his homework (which was true, but the key to a convincing lie was being sure that no one was ever able to prove it). Pushing down his nerves, Marcus raised his large fist and knocked on the office door.

"What?" Broadmoor sounded irritated––grouchy. That probably wasn't a good sign for Marcus. "I swear to Merlin if this is about Griffiths–" Broadmoor stopped as he yanked the door open.

"I'm not here to complain about Merideth Griffiths," he quipped, leaning casually against the doorway.

Broadmoor grinned. "No. I can't imagine you are, Flint. Come on in." Marcus followed Broadmoor into his office, taking a seat across from him. It wasn't as big or fancy as the owner's office, but it was clean. Only a handful of quidditch playbooks filled the room. A large window looked out at the quidditch pitch. "A piece of advice: never hire two Welshmen at the same time. They will inevitably find something wrong with each other and cause you problems."

The Welshmen Broadmoor was speaking of were Merideth Griffiths, seeker, and Cassian Jones, chaser. Both were halfbloods, and, for some reason, hated each other. They weren't shy about the fact, either. Marcus had read several interviews in which they threw each other under the bus. They were a unified front for the Falcons, but everything else seemed to be fair game.

Marcus had done his research on the team before getting the recruiting job, but he'd delved in even deeper when his mother had convinced him to take Broadmoor up on the offer. Aside from Griffiths and Jones, there were the recently-added Bell brothers playing beaters, Ryland Walsh––Irish, halfblood––playing chaser, and Lavinia Macmillian, the only pureblood on the team now that Shafiq was gone, playing keeper. The Falcons had a surprising amount of halfbloods on their team. Back in the day, they'd had nearly as many muggleborns as the Cannons.

Broadmoor pulled a file out of the bottom drawer of his desk. Flint's eyes narrowed as he noted the label. M. Flint. Broadmoor grinned. It was unsettling. "I really hope you've decided to take me up on my offer."

"I have," Marcus confirmed. He'd talked it over with Merriam, who'd told him to follow his dreams. The alleys look after their own, she'd said, telling him not to worry too much about her, which had made Marcus a little uncomfortable. Had he inadvertently pushed his mother into the arms of a cult? Sometimes it seemed that way.

"Good." Broadmoor slapped the file. "I won't be needing this then."

"Am I to assume you wanted me on your team so much that you took the time to gather blackmail material on me?" Marcus arched an eyebrow. He was impressed. Not many people would try to blackmail him, the heir to the Flint fortune and name. He would've been mightily pissed if Broadmoor had actually blackmailed him––would've made his life a living hell––but, since it hadn't come to that, he wasn't going to hold grudges.

"Oh, this little ole thing?" Broadmoor slipped the file back into the drawer. "It's nothing. Your exemplary record from Hogwarts. Some of the finer details about your father's company. Information on your mother––couldn't find her, though. Seems she's disappeared, oddly enough. Your relationship with one Miss Katherine Bell, which, by the way, do her brothers know about that?"

"Yes." Elliot and Gilbert knew about his friendship with Katie. Elliot still didn't trust him, but he'd consider Gilbert a friend.

"Good. Good. I don't want that getting in the way of the team's cohesiveness. As I said, it's nothing you need to worry about."

"Burn it," Marcus demanded.

Broadmoor blinked. "What?"

"If it's something I shouldn't worry about, then burn it." Marcus crossed his arms. He was aware that Broadmoor could easily gather the information again––that he probably had duplicates––but he didn't want this information to fall into the wrong hands.

Broadmoor studied him for a moment. Finally, he raised his hands in surrender. "Alright. Alright. So long as you'll join my team…" At his meaningful look, Marcus nodded. Broadmoor's wand appeared in his hand. With a flick of his wrist, a spark shot out of the tip. They sat in silence, watching it burn. Only when the last ash had floated away did Broadmoor speak again. "Now that's done, let's hash out the details of your contract. Shall we?"

Surprisingly, it didn't take as long as Marcus had assumed for them to figure out a contract that suited both of them. Broadmoor had been on Marcus's side of the desk before, so he knew what players wanted. He didn't ask for too much but wasn't willing to let Marcus pull one over on him. He'd been willing to let him use his own broom as the Falcons hadn't had a broom contract in several years because of their ranking and how often they broke them. By the time negotiations had concluded at ten, Marcus had a grudging respect for the man.

"Management will decide if there's anything wrong with your look," Broadmoor had explained, "Personally, I think you look intimidating as hell. A lot scarier than Shafiq looked. All thin and delicate he was. Falcons fans will be fine with it, but we're expecting an influx of female fans with our new acquisitions. You'll have to arrive early tomorrow morning to get fitted by the tailor."

After that, he instructed Marcus to go home, change, eat something, and come back at noon to meet the team. Marcus did as instructed. After eating a light lunch prepared by Nilsy, Marcus grabbed his bag with his practice pads from Hogwarts. He felt the same jolt of satisfaction that he always did when his fingers wrapped around the Flintlock. He was ready to head out the door to arrive at practice early when the fireplace roared to life. Someone was trying to get in.

Approaching his floo, Marcus accessed the wards to see who was trying to enter his house but wasn't keyed into them. What he saw stopped him cold. Julian Flint. His father. What did he want?

Carefully, Marcus slipped the Flintlock back into his broom cupboard. One of his earliest memories was of his father destroying his childhood broom, breaking it into pieces, and using it as kindling. He wouldn't let him do it to Katie's broom.

Allowing him entrance just this once, Marcus watched as Julian stumbled out of the fireplace. His father was an intimidating man. Tall and broad-shouldered like Marcus, his dark hair was beginning to turn grey. He didn't have the same muscle mass as his son, and Marcus took comfort in the fact that, physically, he could take his father in a fight. He had taken his father in a fight. Against the cruciatus, he was defenseless, but physically he was stronger.

Julian righted himself, cleaning his robes with a quick charm. He sneered when he noticed the bag hanging from Marcus's shoulder. Marcus couldn't bring himself to care. "I had hoped that the rumors weren't true––that you hadn't been foolish enough to join a professional quidditch team––but I see that I expected too much from you."

His words might have impacted Marcus when he was younger, but he didn't care what Julian thought of him anymore. "What do you want?" he demanded.

"For you to stop this ridiculous farce. Playing quidditch is below a Flint." Julian stalked towards Marcus, who held his ground. He was taller than his father by two inches. He squared his shoulders, his arm hanging close to his wand but not touching it. He didn't want to invite a duel, but he had to be prepared for one at any moment. He had good reflexes. He'd had to have them with a father like Julian.

"Is that all?" Marcus asked, keeping his voice neutral.

Julian eyed his son for a moment, satisfaction crossing his features as he imagined Marcus's compliance. "That is all, so long as you stop playing quidditch." He turned to leave.

"I won't."

Julian froze. Anger seeped into the lines of his body, curving along his muscles and making his fingers twitch. "You do not have a choice in this matter."

"And what do you think you'll do if I play? Disown me?" Marcus scoffed. "You couldn't convince another pureblood family to give you their daughter after what you did to Mother, and I'd make sure that everyone knew. No one would want to do business with you after that. I suppose Lord Riddle would be more than happy to arrange a marriage with a halfblood-"

"How dare you!" Marcus was ready for his father's curse. He threw up a protego . The spell bounced off his shield, obliterating one of the horrible paintings Katie hated.

Marcus dropped the shield and sent a series of spells at his father, fully expecting him to block them. They deflected off of his shield, flying around Marcus's flat. He couldn't bring himself to care as destruction rained around him.

He darted to the side as Julian dropped his shield to return fire, avoiding the string of hexes, getting nastier with each second. He threw an expolso at Julian. To his surprise, it made contact. Julian soared through the air, breaking Marcus's couch in half as he landed. With a quick summoning charm, Marcus had Julian's wand in his hand.

He pushed aside the feeling of satisfaction as he stalked towards his dazed father. "I will be your heir on my own terms. You have no power over me––legally or otherwise. If you try anything, I will make sure the world knows just how much of a monster you truly are. I will destroy everything that you care about. The family name. Whatever legacy you think you've established. Gone."

Marcus knelt down, holding his wand threateningly under his father's chin. With the amount of hate coursing through him, he could easily cast a cruciatus. He could kill his father.

Katie would understand. She didn't have the same experience as Marcus, but she'd somehow understand. It would change how she looked at him, though. He'd become dangerous in her eyes. He didn't want that.

His mother would be disappointed in him. Merriam always thought him better than he actually was. She had to believe that he was better than Julian. Otherwise, he'd failed her as a son.

Besides, he couldn't play professional quidditch from Askaban. He was sure that would make the sick bastard happy, even if he was dead.

"Get out of my fucking house," he growled. Binding his father in ropes, he tossed him his wand. Eyeing him maliciously, Julian disappeared with a pop . Marcus sank down to the ground with a sigh. He'd have to be on the look-out for Julian's revenge, but he was out of his life for now.

Marcus was finally free .

There was a broom cabinet with his name on it located right next to the benches with space to hang his clothing. Past the lockers, the showers were partitioned off, separated by smoky glass windows. There were six locker-spaces on each side of the room, and one on the far side, belonging to the seeker. A door to the right of the seeker's locker led to the second-string team's lockers, but none of them were filled. Teams at the bottom of the league didn't have second-strings––not that quidditch was a sport that allowed you to sub players. The Falcons spent the money they would've used for more players on hiring the best healers, hoping that none of their players would die mid-season. That would be inconvenient.

Marcus's locker was crammed between the two other chasers, Walsh and Jones, in the spot that he assumed used to be Shafiq's. His fingers traced over the name engraved on the seat M. Flint. This was everything that he'd dreamed of as a boy but never dared to imagine possible. So, what if they were a shitty team? Marcus was playing quidditch .

"You the new chaser?" A small, wiry woman asked, rolling the 'r' at the end of 'chaser.' Stripping off her robes, she hung them in the cubby for the seeker. Merideth Griffith eyed him for a moment, her gaze calculating.

Marcus nodded. "I am." Standing, he offered her his hand. "Marcus." He didn't share his last name. He didn't want to be associated with his father so soon after their fight.

"Merideth." She shook his hand. She was a full head shorter than him but didn't seem intimidated in the least. "If you don't mind my asking, how old are you?"

"Nineteen," Marcus answered. He'd be twenty in December.

"Nineteen." Merideth let out a low whistle. "I don't know if I should be impressed or insulted." Marcus didn't have the energy to be offended by her comment. "No offense to you, of course. Just seems like they keep getting younger and younger. Gilbert's twenty-three." She shrugged. "Or maybe I'm just getting older." Merideth wandered back to her locker and started pulling on her practice pads. "I'm the second-oldest on the team, though. Lavinia's thirty. I'm twenty-nine. Ryland and Jones are twenty-seven-"

"You telling the new guy our ages, Mer?" a humorous Irish accent announced the arrival of Ryland Walsh, closely followed by a tired-looking Cassian Jones. Ryland turned his cheery smile on Marcus. "Ignore whatever bad things our seeker's told you about us. I'm Rye. This is Cass." He jerked his thumb at Cassian, who yawned, offering Marcus a two-finger wave.

"Marcus," Marcus repeated.

"He's nineteen," Merideth added.

Unlike Merideth, Rye looked impressed. "Broadmoor got me young too. I've been playing for the Falcons since I was seventeen."

"Where's Lavinia?" Cassian asked.

"Your mam's," Merideth answered, not annoyed in the slightest by Cassian flipping her off.

"Why?" Rye asked.

"She owes me five galleons," Cassian said, tugging off his shirt to reveal his muscular freckled chest. Both the other chasers were shorter than Marcus, but tall by most standards, sharing a similar muscular build. "I told her Broadmoor would hire a bloke. Aren't many women violent enough for his tastes."

"Management wants us to tone down the violence given the new fanbase," Merideth reminded him.

"Tough shit." Cassian started pulling on practice pads. "The Bell brothers can eat my fist if they've got a problem with my playing style."

Tugging off his own shirt to reveal tanned brown shoulders, Rye grinned mischievously at Marcus as the door swung open. "Oi, Bells. Cass wants to-" Before Rye could finish his statement Cassian tackled him, covering his mouth with his hand. The Bell brothers entered the locker room to find Cassian and Rye wrestling on the ground.

"What does Cass want?" Elliot asked, eyeing the squirming pair.

Gilbert's gaze slid past the two keepers, focusing on Marcus. His face lit with a smile. "Marcus!" he exclaimed. Bounding over, he tried to pull Marcus into a hug, but the younger man avoided it. Gilbert had the audacity to pout. "You didn't tell me you were becoming a Falcon."

"It's a recent development," Marcus offered as an explanation.

Fully dressed, Merideth glanced from Gilbert to Marcus, then back to Gilbert. "You two know each other?"

Gilbert swung an arm around Marcus's shoulders, to his irritation. "Marcus here is a good friend of-"

Marcus punched Gilbert in the stomach before he could finish that statement. The man doubled over as the wind knocked out of his lungs. "We're friends," he answered. He did not know Merideth Griffith. He did not need her asking questions about his relationship with Katie Bell. Not until he knew that she wouldn't wilfully betray him.

He leveled Gilbert with a glare, challenging him to contradict his statement. He didn't. Instead, he grinned at Merideth. "Yep. I met Marcus playing quidditch in Diagon Alley. We've been best friends ever since." Which Marcus was sure meant Gilbert would be exploiting their 'friendship' to whatever end he could. This was going to be annoying.

Merideth seemed to relax at that. Rye and Cassian stopped wrestling and started getting dressed. Elliot offered Marcus a friendly nod, "It's good to have a competent chaser on the team, Marcus."

"Hey!"

"Oi!"

"At least we know he's decent," Merideth said. "He's got the Elliot Bell seal of approval." She sat down on Marcus's bench as he finished pulling on his last wrist brace. "What d'you fly?" She didn't give Marcus a chance to answer, saying, "Most of the team's on custom brooms. Lavinia's got a Nimbus because Greengrass is her cousin or something. The Bells are on Bell brooms, obviously. Jones's got a Dendron––one of the older models, mind you. Nothing to fancy."

"It's plenty fancy," Cassian protested. "At least I'm flying a custom broom."

"I've got a Bala 800," Merideth said with a grin. "My mam's part Argentinan so I got my cousin to send me one. It may not technically be a custom broom, Cassian , but it's faster than yours."

"I've got a Violetear," Rye said. "Mark three, but still a good broom. Been with me for a long time." He eyed Marcus. "What're you riding?"

"Custom," Marcus answered. "It was a gift designed by a friend."

"Smart," Rye said. "I should get a friend who designs brooms. Would save me a lot of money."

"Can I see it?" Gilbert piped up. The knowing look in his eyes indicated that he knew exactly who had designed Marcus's broom. Taking the broom out of the cupboard, Marcus carefully passed it to Gilbert. He examined it with the knowing eyes of a broom maker's son, frowning when he read the handle. "She called it the Flintlock ?"

"It's custom made," Marcus said. It was. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized Katie had probably designed it specifically for him, no matter what she said. Fast. Durable. Unbreakable. Fireproof. It was a broom that couldn't be chopped to pieces and burned.

The thought of her designing the broom for him made Marcus's chest tighten and warmth spread throughout his body. He didn't think about it often.

"A little on-the-nose, isn't it?" Elliot quipped. His expression also said that he knew Katie had designed the broom, but that he didn't like the fact. He still didn't trust him––with good reason. Marcus didn't really care so long as he still had Katie. Elliot could think whatever the hell he wanted to.

"Why's that?" Merideth asked, her gaze inquisitive.

Rye obviously didn't care, asking, "Can I see it?" The broom passed from chaser to chaser to seeker. The former two were much more impressed with the broom than the latter one. That was the problem with seekers, Marcus thought. All they cared about was speed.

"Looks good," Rye commented. "Can I fly it?"

"No." Marcus wasn't about to let anyone else fly his broom. Rye seemed to understand, passing the broom back to Marcus.

Merideth smiled. "Ooh. He's got attitude. That's good. Wouldn't survive this team without it."

Cassian rolled his eyes. The door opened and the final member of the team strolled inside. Lavinia Macmillian, nee Greengrass, was of average height and appearance. Her dark hair was plaited, tied behind her back in a braid. Her cold eyes surveyed the group gathered by Marcus's locker, stopping on the newest member. She looked slightly surprised to see him. "Flint," she acknowledged.

"Macmillian," Marcus acknowledge in response. Her family hadn't disowned Lavinia for marrying a radical Light pureblood, but she wasn't talked about anymore. He hadn't seen her at an event in five years. They were familiar with each other the same way that all purebloods were familiar with each other.

Merideth stilled. Silence fell over the previously loud group as Lavinia made her way to her locker. They hadn't thought Marcus was a pureblood, he noted. Now that they knew, they were reexamining everything that they'd thought of him.

It was annoying.

He was at an advantage being a pureblood. His life was so much easier in many aspects. He could do anything he wanted––travel to any country he wished––but put him in a group of halfbloods and everything turned awkward. They'd been taught to 'respect' purebloods, so they tended to walk on eggshells around them.

It was annoying.

"Guess that explains the name of your broom," Rye said, breaking the tension. He glanced at the Bells, questioning if they'd known about Marcus's status. Gilbert nodded. With Gilbert's stamp of approval, Rye patted Marcus on the back. "Don't think we'll go easy on you because you're a Flint." Because you're a pureblood, he meant.

Following Rye's lead, Cassian said, "You're the rookie," with a smile. Merideth didn't say anything, staring at Marcus with a frown. She would take a while to come around, Marcus realized, and if she didn't, he didn't care. She was the only team member he didn't have to work with.

"Alrighty, dumbasses," Broadmoor said as he pushed into the locker room, carrying a clipboard with him. "Let's see how you play." With that, Marcus's first practice as an official member of the Falmouth Falcons began.