bakerstreet | Hogwarts AU

Spot's eyes lit up, though he looked away quickly, feigning interest in some broom maintenance kits to try and hide how eager he was to accept the invitation.

"Yea.. sure that sounds good..." he agreed casually.

He was sure he could make his excuses to get out of the house.

"I'll work friday?" Marcus grins paying for the magazine and tape and gets okay seats for the game. He hands Spot's his, "We can meet here in the morning?" He asks smiling a little. "You're gonna love it." He says easily.

"You should be looking at the scouting reports." Mr. Finnigan says ideally taking the money from Marcus.

"And give myself a nervous breakdown? I'm repeating a year, can't look good." He huffs.

Mr. Finnigan just shrugs, "They don't care, they've drafted dropouts." He picks up the Daily Prophet and starts to read, shooting Marcus a grin over the top of the paper.

Outside the shop, "Anywhere you wanna go?" Marcus asks easily.

Spot tucks the ticket away carefully in his wallet, actually smiling a little - that would give him something to look forward to.

Once they're out of the shop he asks "How much do I owe you? For the ticket?"

He didn't have a lot of money but it hadn't sounded like they were too expensive, he should be able to pay for it.

He glanced at his watch and shook his head.

"I should probably be getting home..."

Marcus nods, "Alright see you Saturday." He says easily shoving his hands into his pockets. "You can get the drinks and shit at the match." He says easily, "Should be even." He nods.

The next Saturday he's waiting outside Finnigan's for Sean, and it gets to be about 40 minutes until the game starts and he frowns, of course, he was stood up. Why would anyone want to be around him, fuck it, he's done.

He goes to the game to forget about all the shit piling up on him and it feels good for the moment, feels better when the Bat's win, but as he's heading his mood starts to crash again.

He's at work the Monday after they were supposed to meet up, soon to be second years coming in and looking at Brooms and it makes him smile a little, he's trying to not think about how shitty this summer has been.

He doesn't have long, he really can't get away with staying out for more than a couple of hours right now and it took him long enough to get here, but he doesn't have an owl or any other way of getting in touch with Marcus, so he figures he can at least drop a message with the owner of the shop - it's clear when Spot walks into the shop and stops dead that he wasn't expecting to catch Marcus himself in there.

There's a couple day old bruise flourishing on his cheek just under the faded black eye, and a deep cut held together with stitches just over his eyebrow on the other side. A shiny white cast decorates his arm.

"...hey."

Marcus looks at Sean and is about to treat him like any other customer, shut the other student out. He sighs when he sees the Hufflepuff's face and shakes his head.

"You look like shit, and what the hell is that on your arm?" He asks arching an eyebrow. He takes in Sean's face, "The Apothecary down the street, and give you something for..." He gestures at all of Sean's face.

"It's a cast." Spot says "To set the bone. He-" he catches himself "It's broken."

He shakes his head, looking down.

"Can't." he says simply. He's got to let stuff heal normally, magical healing was only going to make it a hundred times worse.

"Look I just wanted to pay you back for the ticket..."

Marcus sighs and shakes his head putting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm. He sees what happens to him in Sean and it's starting to make him think a lot. "Don't gotta pay me back, just get me lunch at some point." he shrugs.

He rings up a witch buying a broom for her four-year-old, and it makes him smile a little, she makes sure it has height and speed locks. When she leaves he looks at Sean again and pulls a small bit of parchment and writes some stuff down on it.

"Post office has owls you can use if you get hurt like that again... you can tell the Auror's." He shrugs, he would do it for himself but his dad had friends at the Ministry and it would take a lot for anything to happen.

"Yea and what're they gonna do?" Spot shrugs, he takes the parchment anyway, tucking it into his pocket carefully, but his father's a muggle, what would wizarding society do about him?

Probably about as much as the muggle authorities had, which was next to nothing. His mother's lies had, as usual, smoothed everything over at the hospital.

"I dunno." Marcus shrugs, he just knows Madam Pomfrey has said she was gonna call about Marcus a time or two, but again his dad had too many connections. "Might be worth it, that thing doesn't look pleasant." He says nodding to the cast.

Marcus doesn't spend much time at home, and things are fine when he and his dad stay out of each other's way. That is until he comes home from work one day and sees his father standing in the hall holding some rather personal things. He sucks in a breath, this is going to be bad, also the letters he'd been sending back and forth with the lawyers.

He does what is smartest, he bolts for his bedroom, it is bad, he's busted up good, he manages to get his dad out of of his room and the door locked pretty tight but he doesn't have much time, his burned from hexes, he's pretty sure his ribs are broken and something is wrong with his jaw.

Marcus Packs up as much as he can tossing a box wrapped in brown paper his mother had given him before she did, that he hadn't been able to open yet. He shoulders his broom and hops the Knight Bus, the only place he can think to go is Oliver's. He doesn't know why, but it feels safe, and far enough away.

When he gets there Oliver is surprised and scared, and Oliver's dad who works at the Ministry calls the appropriate officials immediately despite Marcus' protests.

Spot is noncommittal and things are.. not awkward, but they're back to being not great, he doesn't really have enough time to stick around and try and get them back again.

And then the next time he makes it in Marcus isn't there. Or the next time.

His boss doesn't seem to know where he's gone and Spot is left with the unsettling feeling that something terrible could have happened and he'd never know about it.

He hopes that isn't it, he hopes it's something else - he just has no way of finding out, and he hates his father even more for making him miss the game.

Maybe that's why he pushes harder than he should, isn't as quiet and careful as he's learned to be, doesn't wait for his injuries to heal before ending up with new ones.

In the end he runs, he has to, he staggers out the house and he needs to put some fucking distance between him and his father and it's dark so maybe it's safe and he changes, and it's fucking agony to do it when he's already so injured but he does it anyway and just runs.

In the end he doesn't know if it's muggles or wizards that see him but somebody does, because even at night a battered and bloody snow leopard is going to attract some attention when he's the only one in the country outside of a zoo. At some point he passes out, and when he wakes up he's back person-shaped and lying in a hospital bed. It doesn't take him long at all to realise it's a wizard hospital.

There's an auror there, ready to tear him a new one Spot's pretty sure, but the man surprises him by being... Sympathetic. He asks Spot about how he got his injuries and Spot, well he starts to lie but then he realises why should he? Marcus said he should tell them, so tell them he does.

He gets a pretty sharp slap on the wrist for the whole unregistered Animagus thing, but he knows they let him off easy, and by some miraculous turn of events things actually go well for him, they heal up all his lingering injuries, they arrange for somebody to go his parents' house and retrieve his wand and school things and he never has to go back there again. Instead he ends up in the house of a wonderful welcoming couple who are delighted to have him even though he's still cautious and prickly and uncertain.

They buy him a broom. It isn't any super fancy but it's new and it's his and he's going to play Quidditch on something other than one of the temperamental school brooms and that's what convinces him that maybe, just maybe, things are going to be okay.

The healers heal him up as much as they can, bruises go from black to yellow, bones mended, he'll have a burn scar on his side for the rest of his life from whatever his father hit him with. But Oliver's parents offer him the spare room.

Marcus, Basil, Adrian, and Oliver are sitting in the field behind Oliver's house brooms leaning up against a non-whomping willow. Being here Marcus was finally allowed to actually grieve and talk about his mum, and shit talk his dad as much he wanted. He still cries at night but he won't admit that to anyone.

He was starting to feel normal again.

"You lot see the paper?" Basil asks arching a brow, "Looks like Marcus isn't the only one to put it lightly had a family blowout." Basil says and it makes the others look at him and Marcus sit up on his elbows.

"My father wasn't family." He says seriously, and Basil apologizes put pulls the daily Prophet out of the bag with the quidditch gear and tosses it between them.

Marcus blinks at as the read the story, "It can't be..." Oliver says eyebrows going up.

"He was taking advanced transfiguration in his fifth year." Marcus points out maybe a little more amused then he should be. "Maybe we can finally get an owl to him." He says letting out a slow breath.

He and Oliver sit down after dinner, and after Basil and Adrian and write Sean a letter, pretty sure the owl can find him. When Oliver head to his room Marcus adds a separate sheet explaining why he's living with Oliver for the next two years until graduation, and at the end bemoans having to be an Irishman living in Scotland until school is over.

The letter ends, At least I can annoy you by owl now... Marc

Spot doesn't really pay attention when the owl arrives, until his foster mother calls him downstairs to tell him the letter is for him. He doesn't understand at first, staring at her in confusion.

"Is it like from school or something?" he reaches for the envelope. It's definitely not from Hogwarts, or the ministry.

"It'll be from one of your friends, of course," Medda says cheerfully, and Spot's about to retort that he doesn't have friends when he suddenly clicks and he practically tears the envelope open.

The letter from all of them is kind of weirdly touching, given that Marcus' other friends only really know him from Quidditch and his outburst in the library, though the mention of his story being in the Prophet certainly earns a raised eyebrow and a decision to ask Medda some very pointed questions later.

The second sheet, however, is the one that has him dropping into a seat at the kitchen table. It's not exactly overwhelmingly affectionate or anything stupid like that, but it's confirmation that he's safe and he's okay and he's... he's staying with Oliver.

It's better than being anywhere near his father, he reminds himself, forcing down the weird pang of jealousy he feels.

He writes a letter back, mostly to Marcus, thanking him for the letter and answering a few of the questions posed in the letter he received. He calls Marcus' friends dumbasses at least twice, which is practically an endearment. He finishes it with glad you got out. It seems a little too simple, but at the same time says everything he needs it too.

Marcus writes back a day or two later taking a break from the summer homework, and he might be trying to go over what he missed in the months he did even if he's repeating the year.

Hey Sean... Spot whatever, Spot is still stupid yell at me. Oliver's parents said you're welcome to come over. His house is in the middle of nowhere Scotland, I miss Belfast.(code for he misses sean but he won't write this) Think after school I'm gonna move back. But was thinking you could actually finally come to a game? Bat's are playing PU... which means Oliver's gonna be crying when they lose.

But uh I would like to see you catch up whatever, Spot is still a stupid nickname.

Marcus

He sends the letter off with the owl and gets back to work on the mountain of work he has to do.

Spot's about to automatically say no, because there's no way he'll be able to go to Scotland, but he's halfway through writing it when he realises that he doesn't have to think like that any more, and he can just ask.

So he does, and Medda says of course, though she writes a letter to Oliver's parents to enclose with Spot's letter to Marcus, to make sure it's fine with them and to confirm it's fine with her as long as she knows all the whens and wheres of it.

He scribbles out what he was going to write and instead says that he'll be there. He sits over the parchment for a little while before finally continuing, finding it a little easier to write the words and say them.

I know you think it's dumb, but I'm used to it by now. The thing is I was named after my dad, so it's hard to hear my name without thinking of him. Mum called me Patrick to tell us apart, but I don't even really like that. Both names have just got a lot of bad memories attached and I haven't really ever managed any good memories to replace them. I don't know. Maybe that'll change.

Maybe his name wasn't so bad when Marcus said it.

~~I'm trying to get better~~ Anyway I'll see you soon

S

Fuck your dad, it's your name now. Anyway, we're meeting at Gate D Floo, Oliver's dad works for the league nothing fancy we've got pretty good seats, again nothing fancy. But uh this is either a late or early birthday present I dunno just wear it to the match. With the letter, there is a brown package with a black t-shirt across the front it says Ballycastle Bats, with a large red bat on the back.

Oliver, Adrian, Basil, and Marcus are waiting at Gate D, the stadium charmed to be hidden from muggles it's also in the middle of the countryside. Adrian and Marcus are in Bats jerseys with Irish flags stitched on one sleeve, Basil and Oliver in PU gear.

Spot's never had a friend who got him a present before.

He's glad he's alone when he gets the letter because he can't hide his emotions at all, and he immediately tears open the package to run his fingers over the soft fabric of the shirt almost reverentially.

So of course he's wearing it when he arrives at the stadium (his first time using floo powder, as well, not that he'll admit it) and he heads over to Marcus and the others trying not to look as awkward as he feels.

"Hey.."

"Hey." Marcus smiles and the others greet him too, Oliver hands out the tickets for the game. "We've got time to get stuff from the concession stand," Basil says.

"Starting to think you only come with us for the food," Oliver says with a laugh.

"I do, certainly not to see you lot," he smirks.

Marcus gets a butterbeer and one for Sean. "Here. You can get the next ones." He smiles.

They settle into there seats and Marcus and Oliver look about as intense as they do when they are on the pitch.

"Uh they are a little nuts about this... more so when it's The Bats and PU." Adrian whispers to Spot. "Consider this you're warning," Basil adds with a laugh.

Spot takes his ticket and just kind of lets the conversation wash over him - he's not ignoring them quite the way he was trying to in the library, he just doesn't really have any contribution to make - keeping up with a friendship group isn't exactly something he's practiced at.

Mostly he's just trying not to think about the way his heart skipped when Marcus' fingers brushed his as he handed over the butterbeer.

"Pretty sure I already owe you plenty," he rolls his eyes, but follows them over to the seats and takes a sip with a private little smile because he loves butterbeer, it plays right into his sweet tooth and he almost never gets to have it and for all he feels awkward and out of place there's already something kind of perfect about today.

"'Course they are," Spot snorts, amused "Quidditch is basically their whole thing. I ain't surprised."

"I would say lives..." Adrian laughs softly.

Marcus' leg is leaning against Sean's eyes locked on the game yelling during certain plays, you can see why the pair are friends. Marcus' fingers brush against Sean's again once his butterbeer is done. The game is good The Bat's win (barely) but Marcus still rubs it good-naturedly in Oliver's face.

As they file out, "Oll and I have time to get food before we head back what about you guys?" Marcus asks.

His heart is racing because it's an exciting game. That's it. That's all. The game.

Only, the longer the game goes on, the more... well he and Oliver are so close. They poke and prod and tease each other but they clearly have a connection, and this is where Marcus came when he didn't have anywhere else to go.

Then there's the comment about getting food and honestly? Spot hates himself a little for getting so... caught up in Marcus. Just because he gave him a t-shirt and bought him butterbeer and Quidditch tickets, just because his touch made Spot's breath catch. It didn't mean anything.

The problem was, the realisation that there was probably something going on between Marcus and Oliver forced a subsequent realisation that he was jealous, which in turn sent him crashing into admitting that he was attracted to Marcus and it didn't fucking matter because he was taken.

It was a very complicated few minutes of revelation, and Spot would very much like to have not experienced it, thank you.

"I should probably head back." even though Medda had said he could stay out as late as he liked and even stay over, if he wanted.

Disappointment flashes across Marcus's face he takes a deep breath and kicks at the gravel on the ground. But Marcus is good at getting what he wants and he wants Sean to hang out a little longer.

He tosses an arm around Sean and smiles, though he's still getting used to that. "Please come." He says. God he was becoming a sap, "You know you want to."

Given everything he's just realised it's almost heartbreaking to have Marcus look so disappointed, and almost overwhelming to have him sling an arm around his shoulder and fucking smile like that and say please.

It was like he knew exactly what would break through Spot's defences. (It was him. He was the thing that broke through. He'd already done it, it had just taken Spot this long to realise).

The bastard.

"Fine."

Fuck it. Marcus thinks and doesn't take his arm off Spot's shoulder as they walk. He'd never been this fucked up about trying to date someone before. At school normally, it was just wanna go make out under the quidditch stands, go to Hogsmead. Blah Blah Blah. He didn't know why this shit was different.

They find a place to grab dinner when they get seated by a young wizard around their age, Marcus doesn't sit next to Oliver he slides in next to Sean to the point where their legs are almost touching. "I'm getting a milkshake tonight, I think." He mumbles starting to flip through the menu.

God it's like he fucking knows and he's just trying to torture Spot.

He should shrug Marcus' arm off, he shouldn't let him do this, but he's fucking weak and desperate for the touch even if it doesn't mean what he wants it to mean, so he lets it happen.

And then of course Marcus sits opposite Oliver, leaving him close enough to Spot that their legs are pressed together, again, and Spot's scowling as he stares at the menu because it's just not fucking fair.

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