Fic 1/4: On the Same Side (HP AU)
Title: On the Same Side
Fandom: Harry Potter AU
Characters: Quinn O’Mara (OC), Camillo Figge (OC), Caradoc Dearborn (established member of the First Order of the Phoenix)
Word Count: 1087
Prompt: written for the month-long challenge at octoberwriting and just a random Tuesday at 5_prompts
Author’s Note: This AU takes place in a world where Dumbledore didn’t win the fight with Grindelwald. It’s a little darker and a lot more scary for a certain little Slytherin who didn’t do anything wrong except for tripping against Imogene Banks, causing her to drop her chocolate frog on the floor of the train.
Quinn and Cam are both characters dreamed up for a dueling RP (two people writing back and forth) and have very extensive backgrounds. This was something new that I thought I’d play around with. You DO NOT need to know anything else about these characters to understand and (I hope) enjoy this story.
As always, for Aster
Quinn remembers the first time she met Caradoc Dearborn. A group of Slytherin, her own classmates, had cornered her near the library and there was no way she could see to get away from them. If there had been more time for her to prepare, she would have gotten her wand out from its secret place up her sleeve. The last time she’d been caught like this, they’d taken away her wand so that she’d been unable to run for fear of losing the one possession she cared about. Cam had helped her come up with a compartment for it so that she could grab it quickly. Problem was, this time, she had that arm stuck unpleasantly behind her.
Without even knowing who was in the middle of the group, Caradoc had just started swinging. When she was free of the boys holding her in place, she didn’t even remember to run away as she watched him get rid of all of them without any of them even thinking to draw their wands. Most of them were bloody and all of them were bruised. She’d tried to thank him but he’d only told her to get along before they came back.
The story soon took on such mythic proportions that Cam had to go back to the source to find out exactly what had happened. Cara told him off for letting her out alone. Cam growled back that she was a big girl who needed to take care of herself or she’d never get out of Hogwarts alive.
It was a thought she knew full well but it still made her wipe away tears that suddenly sprang into her eyes. Not only was she a mudblood but she’d made an enemy of the prettiest Slytherin on that first train trip to school. When Imogene took up with Harris Yardley, one of the Slytherin bullies, she didn’t have a moment of peace. No one dared step into a situation that was already out of control the moment it started.
“I can defend myself,” she said in a quiet voice that didn’t carry far enough to be a threat.
He walked up to her, getting as close as any of the boys who liked to mess with her did. The only difference was that she let him without any resistance. When he loomed over her, his breath stirring the top of her hair, he started laughing. “Really?”
The first shove didn’t do much more than tell her that he was all muscle under the Quidditch jersey he wore. While the second made him rock back only because she’d found his solar plexus, it was the elbow to the side of his ribs and the heel to his instep that got his attention. With her other hand, she reached up and pulled at his ear. His look of surprise made her grin but it was only fleeting. Instead, she lowered her head and rammed him. He took a step back but she was right there with him, shadowing his step and kicking his right knee before ramming him again with her elbow.
He took several hasty steps back and, this time, she let him. Her triumphant grin disappeared when he shook his head. “One. You can take on one bully.”
“I also bite,” she told him in her quiet voice. To prove it, she showed him her teeth in a wide, toothy smile.
“Her hair’s too long,” he told Cam as if she wasn’t in the room. “They can use it against her.”
“She won’t cut it. What am I going to do? Whack it off with my dinner knife?”
He pulled at one of the hands that was always tucked in protectively when not in use. “How many times have they broken her wrist? What, you think I’m blind? She favors it. They’re bound to notice that.”
“To date, they’ve broken it three times. She can do healing spells on herself and others that are better than what that twit in the Infirmary can do. You were only able to get it away from her body because you surprised her. She’s let her guard down with you. Don’t ask me why”
“Do you use your nails?” he asked her, finally looking down at her. “Do you scratch them?” When she shook her head no, he smiled. “Good. Don’t. It’s not worth it. Besides, you’d never clean their skin out from under your nails. You never know how that’ll infect you.”
He fired off a few more questions that Cam answered to his satisfaction. It was hard to follow the line of discussion when he was holding her hand. Fingers with toughened calluses traced over the fragile wrist as if smoothing the ruffled feathers of a small bird. When he let go of her, she struggled to school her features once again.
He hooked a finger under her chin. “Next time, yell. Someone is bound to come along and help.”
“No. They don’t. It just means I have an audience for the torture.”
His eyes narrowed but he didn’t try to discredit what she’d said. Instead, he turned toward Cam, his hand still holding up her head. “I’ll let some of the blokes know to look out for her.” And then he was gone, back to the red and gold Common Room up the stairs that Quinn had only ever dared climb once.
“They won’t like this,” she whispered, a shiver running up and down her spine so she felt like she’d taken sick with a sudden fever.
Cam shrugged. “But if he’s true to his word, maybe they won’t get a chance to make you suffer for it. This doesn’t mean that you can let your guard down every time he’s in the room. Once doesn’t make him a white knight.”
“But it makes him nice. And nice isn’t bad to have around.”
“And nice isn’t always nearby,” he reminded her. “They’ll be back. Don’t let him get in your head or you’ll always be looking for him to come for you.”
Quinn was tired of not being able to depend on someone to help her. Cam had fought all her battles, at first, until he realized that he couldn’t always be there. Now, he worked on giving her instruction in techniques so that she’d be able to defend herself. There was no such thing as a white knight in her world, only solid friends that held her when she cried and tried to keep her out of trouble.