Marcus Flint was a lot of things, and one of those, probably the one he was most confident about, was that he was a smooth talker.

There was this one time in his Transfiguration class in the fourth year when he had accidentally turned his partner in the class into a donkey when it was meant to be a horse and he was able to convince McGonagall that it was purely intentional (subjective humor he had called it).

Since that day he liked to think that he could probably charm his way out of and into almost anything, and that was something he wanted to try really soon, to put his abilities to test.

Gryffindor vs Slytherin was just a week away and from what Marcus knew, Wood was working day and night in order to defeat them again. And he could not handle this embarrassment again, losing to Gryffindor had been a hit on his pride already last year. So in order to distract Wood this year just to help Slytherin's case a bit more( in addition to the brilliant new Nimbus 2001s that Malfoy's father had gotten the entire team), he had come up with a brilliant plan.

He liked to know what all was going on in the school and one of the hot topics of discussion nowadays, which he'd himself witnessed once in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class was the 'friendliness' of Wood and Sharma, the girl he'd bumped into a while back.

Marcus wasn't really into her but he could see why Wood would be attracted to her. She had a weird sort of quirky charm to her plus her Indian accent was pretty fascinating to hear. She was his opportunity to piss off Wood so that he'd be too distracted to concentrate on the game.

……

"Alright, you're all done for today Wood, we'll meet here same time next week." Sharma said as she started packing up her stuff.

"Will you be coming to watch the game?" Oliver inquired. Ever since that day he had started having these sudden impulses to know everything about her and her day to day activities. He still couldn't quite comprehend why he wanted to know such pieces of information.

"Well Quidditch is not a very popular sport in India because we use carpets more than brooms so I don't really know the rules of the gam- I'm probably explaining too much, aren't I? You just wanted to know yes or no, and my answer is no, because I know very little about it," she concluded sheepishly.

Oliver couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment by this answer, he'd have loved to see her in the stands supporting the team but he kept the thought to himself, deep deep down to himself.

……….

Later that evening, Samridhi was sitting with Percy in the common room when a second year kid named Neville approached her, looking a bit peaky. He seemed to have been shaken up, like he'd seen the insides of Nearly Headless Nick or got scolded by Bloody Baron. She noticed he was gripping a piece of parchment in his hand as if his life depended on it, which, to her surprise, he handed to her. As she opened her mouth to inquire about his well being, he just ran away from the common room into the boys dormitory.

She was concerned about the kid, from what she'd heard about him from Hermione, a girl from his class who Samridhi liked quite a lot, he was bullied a lot by the Slytherin kids. Poor kid, what must it feel like to be this scared and meddled with so frequently-

"So what does it say?" Percy's voice pulled her out of her thoughts a little.

"What does what say?"

"The parchment he gave you!"

"Oh that.." she slowly opened up the paper, mind still on Neville, and eyes focused on the stairs he ran up from...

"MARCUS FLINT ASKED YOU OUT??!" Percy suddenly whispered loudly, making her heart jump a little.

"What?" She replied a little louder than she'd wanted to.

Her attention was certainly diverted from Neville now. She looked at the piece of parchment and it said,

"Hullo Samridhi,

If you're free this weekend I'd like to have a Butterbeer with you and would love to get to know you a bit better, hopefully on a first name basis. How does 3 o clock at Three Broomsticks sound? Let me know.

Marcus Flint."

She read the letter once, and then again, and then again. And then she burst out giggling.

"Oh come on Percy, you can't be serious… I'm sure someone is just pulling a prank on me, maybe one of the twins. I mean I don't even know this guy, I've never talked to him inside or outside the class. Don't pay too much attention to it" she laughed as she crushed the piece of paper and aimed to throw it in the bin. It missed by a foot or so.

"So what were you telling me about Penelope…"

….

Oliver had been giving the team a little chat on the formations against Slytherin in the common room when he saw Longbottom come in pale faced and running straight to Sharma. Since Oliver played a sport that required quick reflexes and minute attention to every detail in the surrounding, it would've been hard to make out that after every few seconds as he lowered his head to explain the formations from the parchment, he would ever so slightly tilt his heard in order to see what was going on with Sharma and Longbottom.

He saw Weasley whispering loudly, presumably about what written in the parchment, in the next tilt he saw Sharma laughing and throwing the parchment towards the bin and in the next tilt he smirked, she would've been a terrible Chaser, he thought, since the parchment didn't go in.

Oliver would be lying if he said his interest wasn't peeked by the reaction of the three parties involved, so after explaining the formations, he hung out in the common room for a bit longer, so that the crowd would thin out. He got near the bin and pretended to throw a piece of gum and picked up the parchment while coming back. He knew it was wrong for him to read it but his curiosity got better of him.

To say he felt sad after reading the note would be an understatement.

Something dropped in his stomach, he figured it was probably his heart.

And that's when it hit him.

He was in love with Samridhi.

And that was probably the very first time he'd referred to her by her name, even if it was in his head.

Bloody hell.

……….

The next day after the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Samridhi stopped after someone called after her.

She turned around to see Marcus Flint approaching her, an apprehensive smile on his face.

"So, what do you think? I didn't hear from you so I thought I should just straight up ask you, face to face. So, would you be interested in going for a Butterbeer in Hogsmeade this weekend?" He asked, plastering all his charm with smile on his face.

"It was really you? Oh. I thought someone was pulling a prank on me."

She sighed.

Her dating life was pretty much non-existent but she didn't know a thing about this guy! What would they even talk about? Potions? The weather? Politics? Quidditch?

Thinking about Quidditch, Wood's face suddenly flashed before her eyes… she knew that Wood detested Flint and somehow… she was starting to grow weary of that teethy smile.

She put on a plastic smile and politely declined, "I'm so sorry but I hardly know you, we've never even talked!"

Flint's smile faltered a bit, she could see that he didn't take rejections too well.

"But that's the whole point, get a drink or two with me in order to get to know me. You know what, just don't answer right now, I'll be waiting at Three Broomsticks, if you show up, that'd be fantastic, if you don't, no hard feelings. How's that?"

Before she could reply, she heard Flint say something that sent chills down her spine.

"Hey Wood, what's up? Good luck for the game, you're going to need it."

He gave a final squeeze to her shoulder and asked her to think about it and left.

She turned around, her body felt rigid and an uncanny guilt was growing in the pit of her stomach, like she'd done something horribly wrong.

But to her surprise, Oliver was nowhere to be seen.

Oliver.

That was the first time she'd ever called him by his first name, even in her head.

It had an oddly intimate ring to it.

Weird.