Quarterly: (Word) Horoscope / (Trope) Stuck Together

Chocolate Frog Cards: (Action) Jinxing Someone

"Please?" Oliver said. "You did say you'd help me."

"If you didn't spend all your free time making Quidditch plays, you wouldn't need my help to do your actual school work." Percy crossed his arms over his chest, standing stiffly on the opposite side of the empty classroom. "I said I would help you practice your jinxes. I never said I'd let you fire them at me."

"How else am I supposed to do it?" Oliver said, in a voice that said he thought he was being perfectly reasonable.

"Use a chair," Percy said. "Or a book. Or any inanimate object that doesn't feel pain."

He knew he was going to give in, but there was no harm in making Oliver work for it.

"What, are you scared?" Oliver goaded.

It might have made Percy mad, except when Oliver goaded him, it didn't feel the same as it did when his many infuriating siblings goaded him. It wasn't taunting; it was teasing, gentle, and a little coaxing. Oliver didn't want to make fun of him or push until he was uncomfortable. He just treated him like a friend.

"I might be scared if I knew you'd cast any non-broom related spells in the last few months," Percy said dryly. "But as you said yourself, you're fairly out of practice. I don't think I have anything to be worried about."

Oliver looked briefly offended, before his face lit up slyly. "Oh, that's how it is, is it?"

"That's how it is." Sighing, Percy dropped his hands and got into the correct stance, slipping his wand out of its holster. "Fine, let's do this. The quicker we see how abysmal you are, the quicker we can work out how to fix the gaps in your knowledge."

Oliver let loose a bright laugh, and then he slid one foot back, lifting his wand. His pose was always aggressive, always on the offensive, but there was something sturdy about it, something unapproachable. It warned: this is not someone you can push over.

It came with being a Keeper, Percy supposed. But that didn't make it any less attractive.

The thought took him by surprise; he flushed so hard that when Oliver's jinx came soaring towards him, he deflected it without thought. The jinx streaked across the room, a jet of white light. Percy saw the moment Oliver's mouth opened to send it back, and he knew without a doubt that it was too late. The jinx struck him right in the thigh.

Percy winced. He went to apologise, but then he felt a tug near his hamstring, and in the next second, the whole world blurred around him: he went soaring across the room, and crashed straight into Oliver's arms.

"Will you just tell me what your zodiac sign is?"

"No," Percy said.

Oliver sighed, leaning back against the classroom wall. The motion tugged Percy back a bit, but he didn't look apologetic at all, not even when Percy shot him his best glare over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses.

"You're supposed to be doing your homework," Percy said. "That was the deal."

"Compromise, you mean," Oliver muttered.

A compromise meant that neither party ended up happy. Percy could safely say that the compromise had lived up to its definition; since both of them had been at fault, Oliver had to do thirty minutes of schoolwork, and Percy had to review one of his Quidditch plays. He usually never minded Oliver's company, but it was different, spending time with him in the dorms, than it was having their legs glued together by a rebounding jinx.

Percy did feel bad about that. Not the choice of Jinx exactly, since that was all Oliver's fault, but the fact that he hadn't aimed when he deflected it. It was some kind of gluing Jinx, and it had stuck their thighs neatly together. They could still move, so long as some part of their thighs were touching.

"At least we still have both our hands," Percy had said, once they'd gotten their bearings. "We can do some homework together until it wears off."

Oliver's tentatively hopeful expression had died right then and there.

"Come on," Oliver said now, pressed together side-by-side against the wall, completely ignoring his stack of essays. "I know you hate this kind of thing, but we're stuck together until this Jinx wears off, aren't we? Might as well do something entertaining."

Classwork was entertaining for Percy, but he'd given up trying to explain that to anyone. All it earned him was baffled looks and outright derision at times.

"Entertaining for both of us, I mean," Oliver added quickly. He nudged Percy's shoulder, careful not to do it when his quill was touching the page. "You could use a break too. You don't want your hands to cramp up."

Percy flexed his fingers experimentally. He didn't feel sore, but the pleading look in Oliver's eyes was enough to get him to obey, if reluctantly. He dropped his quill and turned his attention to the flimsy magazine in Oliver's hand.

"Fine," he said. "Which useless and uninformed quiz are you doing now?"

"The one about which horoscope you've got," Oliver said, perking up immediately and leaning in to point. "Apparently it tells you which kind of broomstick you're best suited to. Not a good method of working it out, if you ask me, but it's better than doing Charms homework."

"I think if today proves anything, it's that you should focus a little less on quizzes, and a little more on Charms homework." Percy tugged pointedly at where their thighs were joined. "But I suppose I'll try it."

The quiz gave him an old Cleansweep, which made Oliver snort-laugh until he got a headache.

"I don't see what my horoscope has to do with this," Percy said.

"Nothing." Oliver grinned, flipping the magazine page over. "It's just for fun. See, this one's about which famous Quidditch player you'd make a good match with. All it takes is your favourite colour, your favourite food, and your favourite book."

"A bunch of rubbish," Percy said, rolling his eyes.

"It's not! Here, do mine."

"Wouldn't it make more sense for you to do your own?"

"Are you saying you don't know my favourite food? My favourite colour? My favourite—?"

"I know your favourite book," he interrupted, thinking of the battered copy of Quidditch Through The Ages that had pride and place on Oliver's bedside table. "Everyone knows your favourite book. And it's not that odd to not know things like this. You didn't even know my birthday."

"I know when your birthday is," Oliver protested, frowning. "I just don't know the zodiac sign things. You think I don't pay attention to you? I know I spend most of my time playing Quidditch and thinking about Quidditch, but it's not actually the only thing in my life."

"Angelina said that you're Quaffle-sexual."

Oliver made a mutinous noise, pulling a face. "I don't even want to know what that means."

"I thought it was fairly self-explanatory."

"You do believe me though, don't you?" Oliver leaned in a little, looking at him with enough intensity to make him shiver. "I pay attention to you. You're not some big mystery to me."

His voice was too soft, too personal. Percy swallowed and turned away.

"I believe you," he said. "How long does it take for this Jinx to wear off?"

"Oh, uh—soon, I bet. Hey, what got you distracted in the first place?"

Percy stiffened, dropping the magazine back in Oliver's lap. He remembered the determination in Oliver's gaze, the focus behind those light eyes, the strength in his stance. He opened his mouth, floundering for words, and shut it again. His ears went bright red, heat flooding through him as he watched Oliver's eyebrows climb higher and higher.

"Huh," Oliver said. He licked his lips. "I'm going to try something. And if you don't like it, you can punch me right in the face, free of charge."

"Do people pay to punch you?" Percy said, voice climbing as Oliver reached for him, and though he didn't want him to stop, he couldn't help the breathy little noise of confusion that fled him as Oliver gripped his hips.

"You'd be surprised," Oliver said.

His voice was a little lower than normal. He lifted Percy up, keeping their thighs together, and hauled him into his lap. Percy barely had a moment to splutter before Oliver was catching his chin in a firm grip and bringing him down to meet him, kissing him hard.

It was not like any kiss Percy had ever had before. The world blurred again, and he could barely keep up. He felt hot and dizzy, clinging to Oliver, pushing him back until he thunked against the wall. There were hands on his hips, fingertips ghosting along the back of his shirt, and the moment he gasped for breath, Oliver was on him, running his tongue along Percy's bottom lip.

When they came up for air, Percy had to take a moment to catch his breath. He felt stunned, cursed and Jinxed all at once. And a little bit charmed. He'd made a complete mess of Oliver's hair, and he was sure he was going to have bruises just from how hard Oliver held his waist. Oliver's passionate nature, it seemed, wasn't simply confined to Quidditch.

"That was, uh—um." Percy swallowed, abruptly embarrassed that he was sitting in Oliver's lap. "That was interesting."

Oliver snorted. "Interesting?"

"Forgive me if I'm a little low on adjectives," Percy snapped, though there was no real irritation in his tone. Oliver's grin went all soft, and a little too cocky for his liking. "What brought that on?"

"I thought it was fairly self-explanatory," Oliver teased him, laughing when Percy pinched his bicep. "Wanted to do it for a while."

And that was nice, really, the idea that it'd simply reached a point where ignoring it felt unimportant. The idea that it wasn't just him sitting with the feeling, letting it percolate and evolve into something deeper and vaster than he knew what to do with it. It was nice, knowing he wasn't alone in this.

Oliver pulled him into another kiss, this one lazier and slower than the last. "Are you less mad at me for getting us stuck together now?"

Percy cleared his throat. He nodded once, glasses slipping down his nose, and tried to force the warmth out of his cheeks.

"That's good," Oliver said. He pushed Percy's glasses gently back into place, firm but gentle, and then visibly braced himself. "Because you're not going to like hearing this, but this Jinx won't wear off without an Anti-Jinx, and I have absolutely no idea what it is."

"I can see why people might pay to punch you now."

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