bakerstreet | Hogwarts AU

"Ain't an act, I'm really just this much of an asshole," Spot smirks back.

It's probably for the best, invitations to hang out with friends was a touch closer than Spot really wanted to be with anybody, so there's a part of him that's almost glad he can't go.

There is, of course, the much deeper part - the part that the sorting hat recognised (much to his annoyance) - that's actually kind of pleased with the invitation, that would love to actually let someone in for a change.

"I can't go." he says firmly, slipping up slightly in his phrasing.

Marcus nods because he's not sure how to respond, "You want me to bring you back something?" He asks as they walk back toward the castle. "Don't mind, gotta suck being stuck here." He shrugs a little.

"Nah." he shrugged. He was surprised at the offer, honestly, but he wouldn't even know what to suggest, since he'd never been to Hogsmeade and he didn't exactly have the kind of friends who would bring him back things - though he looked upon the sweets from Honeydukes with envy almost every weekend.

"I'm used to it." he admitted, though he wished he hadn't said that, the last thing he wanted was anybody feeling sorry for him.

Marcus shrugs, "alright if you're sure." He walks off to meet up with Basil and Adrian. He has fun and it's a good day, and well he doesn't really buy candy for Sean but has a couple of extra chocolate frogs in his pocket.

He drops them on the Hufflepuff table next to Sean, before walking with Basil and Adrian to the Slytherin table.

The next few days are good until someone gets in his way and calls him a few choice names, it's the first fight Marcus had been in a year. He started it and finished it, and ended up with detention, at least the 6th who he beat down got it too.

It was McGonagall who busted it up, so he's sitting in the transfiguration classroom writing an extra essay on Animagi. Leave it on the desk when you're done. He doesn't know where she put McCreed but at least she heard what he had called Marcus.

Spot's sitting at the table reading and absent-mindedly nibbling on his dinner when two chocolate frogs suddenly appear on the table next to him. He blinks up but Marcus is already walking away and he...

He doesn't know how to feel about that. He tucks the treats in his pocket and is irritable for the whole rest of the evening.

Except maybe later that night, when he has his curtains drawn and he sits on the bed and has one of the frogs, taking his time and savouring every bite, and he's still a little uncertain but the chocolate is nice at least.

It's not the first fight Spot's been in this year. It's not even the first fight Spot's been in this week, but it is the first time he's been caught - and dragged straight to detention without the opportunity to go and see Madame Pomfrey. He can already feel the bruise blossoming on his cheek, but he'll be able to go and get it sorted afterwards he is told.

"If I have to break up one more fight today I shall be sorely displeased." Professor McGonagall declares as she ushers Spot into the transfiguration classroom, demanding him sit and giving him the same assignment as Marcus before sweeping out of the room.

Marcus looks over at Sean and shakes his head more amused than anything else. "Not surprised to see you here, who gave you the shiner?" He asks looking back to the parchment on his desk and goes back to writing.

"Does it matter?" Spot mutters, slumping down in his seat. He doesn't have any intention of starting writing yet, he wants to stew a little bit in his own irritation first, especially since Marcus is here.

Marcus makes him feel confused, and Spot does not like feeling confused.

"Fine, whatever." He says and slouches over the parchment writing quickly and looking between the book and the parchment, brow furrowed and leg bouncing. He wanted to get this done and take out the leftover aggression and anger on the pitch.

"Can you stop that?" Spot snaps after barely thirty seconds, glaring over at Marcus' bouncing leg. He'd like to pretend it's just a normal level of annoying, and not only noticeable because he's hyper aware of Marcus' presence and everything he's doing, no it's definitely not that.

Writing this paper should be easy, Spot's done a lot of research into animagi, but he can't concentrate on even starting.

Marcus' eyes snap over to the Hufflepuff "I'm not even making any noise, just don't look at me." He says glowering a little, he does stop though, even if it looks like he wants to bolt from the room. He never liked how he felt after a fight, that well wasn't in the middle of a match. Marcus measures his parchment and writes another paragraph before rolling it up and putting it on McGonagall's desk.

"Professor Sprot has that herbology test this week, I'll be in the library later, gonna fly some laps, and then a run." He shrugs he doesn't even know why he's fucking saying it. "Know you don't need help on Transfiguration." He says leaving the room.

Spot just scowls, shifting his chair so he wasn't looking at Marcus. It didn't seem to make much difference, but it wasn't much longer before the Slytherin was done.

"...Sure." he says with a nod, and yes okay he's a little grateful for the help with herbology, he definitely doesn't want to see Marcus again today but he could do with the help studying, that's all.

He doesn't watch him leave. (He does.)

Finally he looks down at his own parchment. He's stupidly tempted to change right here and just sit on the desk until McGonagall comes back. Here, professor, here is my essay on Animagi.

But he's pretty sure revealing to your professor that you're an unregistered Animagus out of pure spite is.. probably a bad idea. So he scribbles down everything he knows and dumps it on the desk on top of Marcus' parchment as he leaves.

Marcus gets his mood sorted out, and lays by the lake for a bit, quidditch season is off to a good start, they pounded Ravenclaw, he knew scouts were starting to watch for the draft. He also tries to figure out why that little shit Sean Conlon keeps getting under his skin... and not in the way that leads to a fight.

The term continues to pass, and his marks better than he had hoped given the thoughts of scouts are on his mind. But he knows he's good, damn good.

Early Saturday morning, Marcus is getting his team worked up to beat Gryffindor, he can already hear the crowd building in the stands. He loves getting under Oliver's skin and hopes he annoys the shit out of the keeper.

Spot attended most Quidditch games, quite apart from it being just what you did at Hogwarts, it also helped to scope out the other teams and their playing. He hadn't made it to as many a normal this year, but he wasn't about to miss the Slytherin/Gryffindor showdown.

He's actually got a pretty good seat as well, so the view should be excellent.

He looks over the teams as they walk out onto the pitch and he tries to pretend his gaze doesn't immediately seek out Marcus, but no matter how many times he dragged his eyes away, he kept drifting back.

The game is a long one, both teams playing hard, Marcus doesn't cheat no matter what some people whisper, he just does what he has too, pushes the line as much as is allowed. It's obvious at least to anyone who follows quidditch, and most certainly Madam Hooch, that both Marcus and Oliver, and headed for more than just a few years playing at Hogwarts for fun. It's evident by how they practice, how hard the push on the pitch, and how they play.

It made Madam Hootch at times think they might want to consider two teams per house having a second year going up against players Like Flint and Wood, wasn't the best of ideas.

Marcus throws the quaffle so hard at one point it looks like it snapped Oliver's wrist, but the keeper keeps going, and Marcus keeps going when one of the Gryffindor chasers slams into him, trying to get the quaffle blood pouring down the Slytherin captain's face.

In the end, Slytherin ends up winning, but players on both sides look beat to heal, the match had dragged on for hours.

Marcus comes out of the locker room showered and changed nose and lip still bleeding a little a fantastic bruise blossoming across the middle of his face and under his eyes, he wants to go get patched my Madam Pomfrey and get dinner.

Spot is watching Marcus because he's a really good player. Because he's the captain and he's the only with the tactics. Because he wants to analyse how to beat him when they next play Slytherin. He's got a whole barrel of excuses ready to explain away why he doesn't take his eyes off the Slytherin captain the whole game.

He doesn't have an excuse for why he's waiting outside the locker room afterwards, but it's definitely not because he's waiting for Marcus.

"Good game." He comments, falling into step beside the taller boy "you..uh.. you played really well."

"I know." He says fighting the urge to poke at his face, but he's pretty sure nothing's broken but shoots a glance at Spot and smirks a little. "Scouts are keeping eyes out now." He says putting his gear bag over his shoulder, no way in hell did he ever leave the gear in the locker room, not even the Slytherin lockerroom. "Was a long one, surprised people stayed through the whole thing." He laughs a little, spitting some blood into the grass. "Gotta go see Pomfrey." He mutters.

"Long, but it kept everyone on their toes, I think people were enjoying it. Honestly a better seeker might actually have ruined that game." Spot points out with a shrug.

He snorts, dancing at Marcus' battered face.

"Uh, yea, I'd say so, unless you want to walk around looking like a Picasso."

Marcus does look worried at that, he has issues, he pokes at his face and flinches, mostly checking his teeth, before realizing again that he's not along and drops his hand. He's only really worried about his teeth it took him so long to finally find a way to get them fucking fixed behind his dad's back, that should be interesting when he gets home.

"Yeah." He nods letting out a soft laugh and it's a real one.

Spot frowns slightly - there's something about Marcus' reaction that seems.. off. He can't quite place his finger on it, but it just seems a little strange.

But then it passes and he laughs a little and it's a nice sound that Spot will refuse to admit he likes, so Spot files away the weirdness for later consideration and shrugs.

"...walk you up to the hospital wing?" he offers.

"Alright." Marcus nods lips twitching into an almost smile. When they get there, there are other players from both sides sitting on beds, Madam Pomfrey chides Marcus for not coming straight away and sits him down. To wait for her to finish up with some of the more serious injuries.

And Spot should leave, he'd delivered Marcus to the hospital wing (and why did he even do that), he wasn't injured, he had no business being here.

But he lingered near where Marcus sat with his hands shoved in his pockets.

"Were there scouts at this game?" he asked idly.

"Probably some 7th years on the Gryffindor team, gonna be keeping a slight eye on the sixth year, but they never tell anyone, well maybe Madam Hootch, but she keeps her lip zipped." He says shaking his head, "Think she's afraid certain players (him and Oliver) would aneurism if they knew when the scouts were watching." He laughs a little.

Madam Pomfrey comes over and prods Marcus faces a little flipping his lip to see how bad he split it. Before making quick work of patching him up.

"You broke my wrist," Oliver yells, but there isn't anger in his voice.

"Learn how to block and get stronger wrists, I'm sure you can figure out how to do that," Marcus calls back, and than Madam Pomfrey is shaping at him to go to dinner, but he's laughing.

"Come on food, and library, you wanna pass your OWLs at the end of the year." He says to Spot.

"Well if they were, you played good." Spot commented with a shrug.

He watched the exchange between Marcus and Oliver and felt something unhappy twist in his stomach, something that made him want to punch things.

"Whatever." he shrugged in response to Marcus' comment, turning on his heel to head down to the great hall and not looking to see if Marcus was coming too.

"Thanks. I really wanna make it into the league, well the Bats would be a dream..." He arches a brow at Sean, well that was weird, the guy has more mood swings then he does.

Marcus heads to the great hall walking with Sean, but there is an awkward silence between them, "See you later." He says heading to the Slytherin table and flops down with Adrain and Basil.

He heads to the dorm first and grabs his shit, NEWT level class were a lot, he'd knew they would be though. He settles a table and starts to work through shit, Adrian, Basil, and Oliver join him after a bit, and the table is a mess of parchment, books, and ink pots, but there is space for one more person to join them.

Spot just nods and heads to the Hufflepuff table.

After dinner he grabs his books and heads down to the library, and... stops.

Because it's not just Marcus, there's three other people there with him. Spot recognises them all from various classes, but he's barely spoken to any of them outside of absolutely having to, and he hesitates.

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