Chapter 23: Friends and Family
"This is usually not how I want to spend my Friday nights," Graham Montague said in a whiny voice. Poppy rolled her eyes and Marcus shot him a mean look to try and shut him up. The whole Quidditch team had gathered in the Slytherin common room to talk strategy for their game against Hufflepuff the next day. Marcus stood in front of the fireplace, trying to show some of his sketches but nobody seemed to care. Graham was fiddling in his seat while Derrick and Bole were almost drifting off to sleep on the couch. Malfoy sat on the floor next to Poppy, writing a Potions essay. Adrian was in an armchair with his legs slung over the arm reading his Arithmancy book.
Bole was awakened by Graham's voice. "Do you have a new girl, Montague?"
"You could say that," Graham replied with a toothy grin.
Marcus snapped his fingers. "Can you idiots focus for one second? Now, as I was saying-"
"So, it's true? You're dating that filthy mudblood?" Malfoy piped up from the floor with his signature sneer on his face.
"Excuse me? She happens to be my best friend!" Poppy shouted. She wanted to slap the smug look off of Malfoy's face but contained herself. Graham's grin quickly vanished.
"Well, I don't expect much from you. But Graham, honestly, what would your parents say?" Malfoy drawled.
"Probably something much nicer than yours," Graham said through gritted teeth, got up from his seat and approached Malfoy threateningly.
Malfoy got up and stood merely an inch away from Graham. He looked up at the taller boy. "I've met your parents. They're not going to accept this."
Malfoy's lip quivered slightly as Graham's hand formed a fist. "Accept what? I'm not marrying her!"
"Both of you, shut up and sit down!" Marcus yelled. His deep, raspy voice bellowed over the common room. Graham uncurled his fingers. Malfoy took a step back.
"Yes, listen to Marcus Flint. He's perfect," Adrian said dryly, not even glancing up from his book.
Marcus turned to Adrian. "What the hell did you say?"
Adrian rolled his eyes and got up from his chair. He left the common room without a word. Marcus signalled Poppy to go after him. She ran through the door, located him and shouted his name while stomping his way. He stopped and turned around.
"What is your problem?" Poppy asked, raising her voice slightly. She was getting really sick and tired of Adrian moping around.
"You really don't know? Guess," Adrian said monotonously.
"You're mad because I didn't pick you." Poppy didn't really want to say it, but she didn't know what else he could be mad about.
Adrian shook his head. "No. Because you picked him."
"That's the same thing," Poppy said, utterly confused.
Adrian sighed. "It's not. I don't care if you don't want me, but you could do better."
Poppy looked at his blank, emotionless face and it made her irrationally angry. He was mad, clearly, but instead of yelling or actually arguing, he seemed indifferent. "How is this any of your business?"
"He might've gone soft temporarily, but the old Marcus Flint will be back. You'll see," Adrian said matter-of-factly.
"Shut up, Adrian," Poppy snapped.
Adrian's face stayed blank. "Fine, I'll stop caring about what happens to you. You can do whatever you want."
"Good."
"I used to think you were smart," Adrian hollered after her as Poppy turned on her heels and started marching back.
She stopped and turned around. "And I used to think you were a nice guy."
She had just gotten Oliver to accept Marcus, or at least begin to accept him, she wasn't about to go over all that again with Adrian. Who was he to stick his nose in her life? They weren't even really friends.
"Adrian Pucey is an utter moron," Poppy said as she entered the common room again. It was nearly empty. "Where is everybody?"
"Graham punched Malfoy so I told them to bugger off," Marcus replied from the couch.
"Good. He deserved it." Poppy sat next to him and he wrapped his arm around her. Poppy snuggled up close to his chest.
"So, you hate Adrian?" Marcus asked. Poppy murmured something resembling a yes. "And Graham hates Malfoy."
"And Adrian hates you," Poppy added.
"What a great team we make. Tomorrow's going to be fantastic."
The game against Hufflepuff was over before it even really began. The Slytherin team crushed their opponent by scoring five goals in the time Hufflepuff scored one. Malfoy caught the Snitch before Cedric Diggory and that was it. Poppy barely even broke a sweat during the game. She had hoped to play a little longer to prepare for next months game against Gryffindor. Because they beat Hufflepuff with such good points, they would be playing Gryffindor for this years championship which meant that Poppy would be playing her own brother for the title that he'd wanted to win so badly ever since she could remember.
As Poppy and Marcus exited the changing room after the game, they found Grace waiting for them.
"Congrats," she said sarcastically and rolled her eyes.
Poppy laughed and went to hug her friend. "Thanks. And sorry."
They were just about to leave, when Graham emerged from the changing room. He seemed surprised to see Grace but his expression quickly turned smug. He raised an eyebrow. "Are you waiting for me?"
Grace shook her head and let out a chuckle. "Not exactly."
Poppy saw a flash of disappointment on Graham's face but it quickly vanished. He approached Grace with a smile on his face. "Well, do you want to come celebrate with me?"
"We just lost," Grace replied and swatted away his hand when he tried to grab hers.
Graham seemed determined not to give up. "I can comfort you."
Grace hesitated. When Graham flashed a big smile and threw in a little wink, Poppy knew her friend was weak at the knees.
"Just go. We've got a party to go to anyway," Poppy said.
Graham's eyes lit up and he grabbed Grace's hand.
"I'll see you later!" Grace shouted as they skipped off towards the castle. Poppy waved and watched them go. Marcus held out his arm and she took it.
They arrived to the Slytherin common room only to find it packed to the brim with people. Malfoy stood in the middle of a huge group of students, telling the story of how he outsmarted Cedric Diggory and caught the Snitch first. Pansy stood next to him, fluttering her eyelashes and squeeling at every single part of the story. Malfoy made the whole thing sound very dramatic but Poppy, having witnessed the event, had a different version of the story. She had seen Malfoy hovering on his broom, eyes fixed so intently on the whereabouts of Diggory that he almost missed the Snitch when it passed right by his ear. Thankfully he heard the fluttering sound it makes and located it, but very little skill was involved in this marvelous feat.
Poppy and Marcus stood by the door, watching as the crowd cheered when Malfoy finished his story. They had not been spotted by the crowd yet. Poppy saw Adrian leaning on the wall, sipping pumpkin juice. Derrick and Bole were chatting up a couple of girls.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" Poppy asked quietly.
"Definitely," Marcus replied.
They snuck out and headed for the lake. Poppy thanked Marcus for agreeing to leave. Celebrating Malfoy was not something either of them wanted to do. They walked around the lake. Marcus held Poppy's hand and when she shivered, he wrapped his arm around her. When she shivered even more, he pulled out a small piece of grey fabric and touched his wand to it. It grew to be a big, soft, woolly blanket, big enough for the two of them. He wrapped it around Poppy and himself and found a big rock for them to sit on.
"I still can't believe our dormitories are somewhere under there," Poppy said, gesturing towards the lake.
"I can. The Giant Squid sometimes knocks into my window when I'm trying to sleep," Marcus replied. Poppy chuckled. The Squid had also made an appearance in her window once or twice, and she often relaxed by listening to the sounds of water while in bed.
"But still, it's really weird."
Poppy leaned her head against Marcus's shoulder and looked out on to the lake. She remembered crossing it by boat on her very first day at Hogwarts and how scared she'd been. It seemed silly now.
"Can I ask you something?" she asked after they'd sat in silence for a while. She lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes.
"Sure," Marcus said with half a smile.
Poppy hesitated. She had been wanting to ask him about his family for the longest time and thought it weird he never mentioned them. After Oliver told her about Marcus's father, she understood it might not have been something he wanted to discuss. But she wanted to know everything about him. "You never talk about your family."
"That's not a question," Marcus said. To Poppy's surprise, his smile didn't fade.
"Well, could you? Talk?"
Marcus shared the story of his family, though he suspected Poppy already knew some of it. He told her how his mother died giving birth to him and how his father changed from a man that had been expecting a child with the woman he loved to a man whose wife was killed by said child. He blamed Marcus for everything and since he never heard otherwise, Marcus began to believe it, too. For a while, he believed that every beating he took was deserved. He learned quickly not to talk back to his father and to behave well.
When Marcus turned eleven, he got his Hogwarts letter. He started school as a scrawny little boy who just wanted to get good grades and not bother anybody. During his first week, he came down with a cold. Madam Pomfrey examined him and found the bruises from his latest beating as well as old scars all over his body along with fractures that never healed right. He was sent to have a word with Headmaster Dumbledore.
"My dear boy, you had nothing to do with the death of your mother," Professor Dumbledore said after Marcus explained to him what was happening back home. "Losing a loved one is a terrible thing. It can make people do dreadful things to themselves or others. Just remember, you are not to blame."
He didn't know if it was Dumbledore's calming voice or the fact that he looked to be at least a hundred years old and thus, all-knowing, but something inside Marcus clicked. Free from his father, he quickly learned to talk back to anyone that tried to put him down. He forgot about his grades.
"In hindsight, that was a bad idea," he said to Poppy, who was still listening intently. She let out a small laugh, even though only thirty seconds earlier she had been wiping away tears from her eyes.
Marcus continued his story. During his second year, he tried out for the position of beater on the Quidditch team, and though he was still scrawny, imagining the bludger was his father's head gave him enough strength to make the team. A year later, he was made a chaser. His father never appreciated the sport, even when Marcus made captain in his fifth year. He was simply disappointed that Marcus was not a Prefect.
"And, well, you already know I left home at seventeen," Marcus finished his story and looked into her eyes, as if to see if she'd been scared off by it.
"I'm finding it hard to picture you as a scrawny eleven-year-old," Poppy said with a smile.
"I was almost as short then as you are now," Marcus teased.
Poppy wrapped her dainty hand around his. "Thank you for telling me all this."
"Some day you'll tell me about your family?" Marcus asked.
"I've told you everything worth telling," Poppy said, shook her head a little and shrugged. There wasn't much to say about her family.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Your father left, your mother is bonkers. That's everything?"
"Yes."
"Well, what do you mean by bonkers?" Marcus asked.
Poppy took a deep breath and shifted a little in her seat. This was not her favourite topic. "You know. Bonkers. Stare at the wall for hours, leave your home for days on end, forget you have children, throw pots and pans at your children when you see them and think they're intruders and sleep for three days straight or don't sleep for a whole week kind of bonkers."
Marcus stared at her as she looked out onto the lake again. He hesitated before speaking again. "Where is she now?"
"St. Mungo's," Poppy said, looking down at her feet. "Oliver thinks I don't know."
"Why would he keep that a secret?" Marcus asked and wrapped his arm around her even tighter.
Poppy could feel a tear forming in her eye but she forced it back by tightly closing her eyelids. She looked up at him. "Because he thinks I hate her and doesn't want to talk about her."
Marcus studied her expression intently. "Do you hate her?"
"I do. But inside, she's still my mum. And I love my mum."
Marcus didn't know what to say, so he simply wrapped his other arm around her too and hugged her tightly. He wondered how she grew up to be so normal.
In the weeks leading up to the Quidditch Championship game between Gryffindor and Slytherin, everybody was on edge. Oliver was often seen scribbling new Quidditch plays into his napkins while the rest of his team avoided him outside of practice the best they could. Graham had recruited Grace to help deal with the massive amounts of pressure and they were spotted on numerous occasions heading for an empty broom cupboard.
It seemed the pressure had not gotten to Marcus until one night, after practice, Marcus and Poppy stayed behind to actually go over their strategies but when Poppy got up from the bench they sat on to grab her sweater, Marcus suddenly jumped up and pulled her very close. He kissed her and it was nothing like their kisses before. Their kisses were intense, the kind that left Poppy gasping for breath, but this one was angry, hard, rough even. He picked her up by her waist, and Poppy, caught off-guard by what was happening, decided to just go with it and simply wrapped her legs around him as he slammed her back against the nearest wall. His lips made their way down her neck and back up again. She gently bit on his lip while he slid his hand under her shirt, running his fingers softly against her stomach and up until he reached the edge of her bra. Feeling the lacy fabric snapped Marcus out of what he was doing. He stopped kissing her and simply looked into her eyes with a face that looked surprised and also as though he didn't know whether to apologize or keep going.
Poppy didn't have a chance to do anything as they were interrupted by a gasp. Marcus turned his head to see the person behind the noise. Percy Weasley. Poppy unwrapped her legs quickly.
"What are you doing here?" Marcus asked angrily while letting go of Poppy. She felt her cheeks flushing as she straightened her shirt and tried to smooth down her messy hair.
Percy eyed them head to toe from behind his glasses and crossed his arms. "I am Head Boy. What are you doing here?"
"Quidditch practice," Marcus said.
Percy tapped on his watch. "The time you booked ended fifteen minutes ago. You need to return to the castle."
Marcus remained calm and didn't even protest when Percy followed them the whole way to the dungeons. Poppy was impressed.
"That little git, the power's gone straight to his head," Marcus growled when they arrived at the door and Percy finally left them alone. Poppy laughed and then turned to the wall to speak the password. The wall opened to reveal the passage to the Slytherin common room.
"I'm sorry. About what happened," Marcus said.
"What?" Poppy asked, trying to remember what he had to apologise for.
"I probably made you uncomfortable." Marcus spoke quietly.
"Oh, that. Actually, I didn't mind," Poppy said casually. During their walk, she had figured that if Percy hadn't walked in, she probably would've let Marcus finish what he started. She didn't tell him that, though. Not talking too much, like she'd done before, and just rolling with it seemed to be working alright.
"Uh, alright. That's good. It's all good." He stumbled over his words a little. Poppy simply smiled and grabbed his hand to pull him in to the passageway.
Percy Weasley finished his Head Boy duties shortly after escorting Poppy and Marcus to the dungeons and headed for the Gryffindor Tower, where he spotted Oliver lounging by the fire, following the game of Wizard's Chess Fred and George were playing next to him. Percy sat down on the red armchair next to Oliver's. He spoke in hushed tones. "I caught your sister and Flint in the changing rooms after curfew."
"Oh?" Oliver asked, fixated on the game. Fred was having a fight with one of his Knights.
Percy leaned in closer. "It's a good thing I walked in before it went any further. His hands were crawling all over her, I think he was about to take off her-"
Oliver jumped up from his seat. "Percy!"
"What?" Percy asked.
"I don't want to hear this!" Oliver shouted. Percy opened his mouth to apologise but Oliver turned around to head for his dormitory, muttering something and shaking his head as he walked.
"You can tell us," Fred said.
"We'd love to hear more," George continued.