Chapter 9

How the fuck did he manage to get to 102?

The score was now 102:46, Scorpius. Jack didn't know how it had happened. The past year, Scorp and him had kept tally like normal, each managing to get minor leads over the other. They had ended 3rd year with an even score of 43:43, and Jack had thought he would be leader in their 4th year, having managed to escape Aunt Tooth and his other relatives to get to a club, sneaking his way in via a fake I.D.

But surprise, surprise, it seemed that Sparkledust had decided to have Christmas early because he managed to get with a whopping 59 girls before the school term had even started. Jack didn't know whether to be livid or proud at the fact.

Albus and Beckett had been very understanding through it all, and the two had managed to keep Jack and Scorpius away from each other while Jack digested the new information. At the moment, Jack was teaching Beckett how to play soccer while Scorpius and Albus practiced with the Slytherin Quidditch Team. The first match was against Ravenclaw, and Jack knew as well as anyone that it was going to be a very intense match. Rose was known to be one of the best Seekers since Harry Potter had the position, causing Ravenclaw to become the team to beat for the past two years since her admittance.

Scorpius had been bragging since the year started that he was going to catch the Snitch before her in this game. He'd apparently been practicing over the summer. Jack didn't really care. It was just a ruse to disguise his obsession with the red-head, which had been becoming more apparent starting the past year. Hopefully Scorp would mess up and reveal that he had a major thing for Rose, and Jack could stop the mindless bet they had made four years ago. Truthfully, he was getting tired of it, and not just because Scorp had managed to slide in 59 girls without Jack knowing.

He'd discovered in the past year that while a lot of the girls at Hogwarts were wonderful, very kind and thoughtful, the good handful that he attracted were not very much so. Some of them were downright cruel and vindictive. He'd witnessed fights over him, in addition to curses being strategically placed on helpless first years so they wouldn't, or couldn't, talk to him. He felt like he was in some corrupt hierarchy where the king had to bend to the will of the adversaries.

There was only one that he actually cared to get to know more.

But she also happened to be the one person he couldn't talk to.

Beckett had pledged the need to study, so Jack decided to wander the halls, as he honestly would rather not study with Beckett. Beck was a great guy, but studying was death with him. He needed absolute peace and quiet, as in Jack better not breathe or else Beckett would start enchanting books to throw at him. He was having trouble in Ancient Runes, being dumb enough to stay in the class after the majority of students dropped (his reasoning being that "it's more useful than Latin, and I need a second language, but since they don't offer Spanish or French like any other normal school, I'll have to settle for this") and Albus had once admitted to Jack that he was positive Beck had stayed because he wanted to get closer to Rapunzel.

Jack doubted that Beckett had spoken more than ten words to Rapunzel since the class started last year.

Jack walked past a group of second years, one of which asked for his number. Jack flashed a grin, and gave it, along with a location and time for them to meet. He winked and walked away as the group giggled loudly after him. He needed to get his stats up in order to beat Scorp, no matter how much he didn't want to do any of it.

He passed by more girls, and each time he was stopped, either to get his number taken from him or to be pulled in the corner for a snog. He was silently tallying up the numbers as he walked about. So far, he was now up 10. Still a while from 102 though.

Jack sighed, and kept walking. I wish I could talk to Rapunzel. The last time they had spoken was that day when he went to visit her in her tower. That wasn't exactly a shining moment in Jack's timeline, and he knew it. He needed to tell her, not to mention that it'd be nice to talk to a girl that he knew wasn't going to ask for his fucking number again.

He turned a corner and at once heard female laughter. Hell no, I am done with this. He turned back around, and saw another group of girls walking down the hallway he had come from. Hoping to race through the girls in the other hallway, he turned but saw that they had seen him and were now walking as quickly as they possibly could to intercept him. There was no way out of this.

The last thing Jack needed right now was to be the center of yet another Wizard's Duel because two groups of girls collided and they couldn't decide which one of them got to snog him first.

I need somewhere to hide. I need to get out of here.

He turned around again, and from out of nowhere, a door had appeared in the wall in front of him. Running towards it, he pulled it open and slammed it shut behind him, hoping neither group of girls would follow. He felt the door lock, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Looking up, he saw that he was in a large bathroom, flooded with sunlight. There were floor to ceiling arched windows, and a soapy bathtub as well. There was hair everywhere, large golden locks, surrounding the bathtub and leading up to a vanity. Purple paint could be found everywhere in it, looking like someone had decided to haphazardly highlight the poor girl's locks.

The hair, Jack finally realized, led up to a sleeping figure on a vanity table.

Rapunzel.

"What the hell?"