Fic 3/4: The Darker Side of Affection (HP AU)
Title: The Darker Side of Affection
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: 1248
Prompt: written for the month-long challenge at octoberwriting and people talk at 5_prompts
Author’s Note: This AU takes place in a world where Dumbledore didn’t win the fight with Grindelwald. Quinn is learning her place in the world now that she has some breathing room. It doesn’t hurt that she has the attention of so many people all at one time. It’s a bit heady and exhilarating, being a teenage girl on the cusp of actually knowing what it is she wants.
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 have any other background on the characters to read and, I hope, enjoy this.
As always, for Aster
Quinn liked having a band of roving knights at her beck and call. The year started out rough but it soon smoothed out so that there was almost nothing the boys had to do but stand around her protectively in the library when they should have been studying. She did most of their work for them, making sure they understood what she was doing so that they weren’t completely missing out on their education. Some of them mentioned, on several occasions, how they understood the lessons better when she explained it.
There were still missions to go on, other damsels to save from distress and the like. Quinn soon discovered that she liked to plan those, mapping out routes and discovering the best times to strike for the most effectiveness. She knew the halls of the school well enough, considering she’d spent those early years skulking around some of the little used ways as she tried to find routes that weren’t used by any of her tormentors.
She could also talk to the girls that some of her boys could not. Gavin was especially tongue-tied around girls he found attractive. Considering this was the majority of the Fifth Year girls in all the houses, he spent a lot of time quiet when he was eating or studying. Quinn had discovered how easy it was to walk up and start talking to someone when it wasn’t about herself. She’d smile and ask the girl if she liked Quidditch (a yes was required to this question or she walked away with a shrug and a “better try next time” smile) before moving onto other questions that directed the girl toward the attributes of her boy who was waiting patiently somewhere off by himself, an embarrassed colour creeping up his cheeks.
But all these playful games didn’t mean her life was wonderful or that she didn’t spend many dark nights listening to the sounds of the girls around her breathing, hoping that she hadn’t heard a hitch in one that meant she was faking it and meant to attack. It was harder to fight girls, she’d discovered this year. They didn’t leave marks like the boys had but the hurt went deeper. The bruises were on her ego and her soul.
Cara congratulated her on finally cutting her hair, something he’d never stopped harping on. She shrugged and changed the subject, hoping none of them noticed the uneven cut. It had turned out fairly pretty on Quinn’s face shape, something that hadn’t made Janice happy at all. Her fingernail clippers were never as sharp as they once were. She went for a second round of insult by cutting all the pages out of the books in Quinn’s book bag. It would have stopped there if she hadn’t taken the time to draw a picture of Quinn and her friends in series of vulgar positions along the insides of all the book jackets.
Quinn retaliated by concocting a potion that made all of Janice’s hair fall out. Then she hung up all Janice’s drawings (none of them were any good but many of them were embarrassingly accurate portrayals of what she wanted to do to one of the Slytherin boys) on the walls of the Great Hall with a spell that proved to be fairly hard for anyone else to crack.
Rosalind liked to insult her every night as they got ready for bed. It had been easy to ignore at first. After awhile, some of the insults began to make her uncomfortable as they grew more and more profane and personal. One day, she insulted Cam. When that didn’t work, she insulted Cara. The next day, Quinn found a spell that would glue the girl’s lips shut. She was sent to St. Mungo’s when no spell was found that would completely reverse the effects. The last Quinn had heard, the girl nearly starved to death but was being kept alive with daily injections, a Muggle healing device that one of the Healers had finally insisted on trying.
There were still two things that kept Quinn from enjoying herself even during the times she spent with her knights. There was still the nagging thought that Cam would be gone next year, especially considering he didn’t think he was needed any longer. To the boys, her tortures seemed to be over. They never noticed the new threat she was up against and she wasn’t about to go crying to them about something they couldn’t handle any better than she was. There was nothing she could do to keep her friend here with her. Her heart stopped beating when she thought about it but it wasn’t the bone-jarring ache that it had been last year.
That was probably because of Cara. She’d gotten to know him far better over the last year than she’d ever thought she would. He was always there, sometimes a silent presence when she was helping one of the boys with a girl but, most of the times, cracking jokes right along with everyone else.
“Do you want me to say something to a girl for you?” she kept asking.
He only shook his head. “Just haven’t found that right girl,” he’d say, over and over again.
And then he’d suddenly discovered girls. All of them. Seemingly all at once. She saw him with a new girl every day. It had been hard to watch at first. She told herself she didn’t like it because he hadn’t needed her help with any of them.
Some he only talked to, making them laugh in the same way he tried to make her and his friends laugh. Others he smiled at so the girl couldn’t help giving him sidelong glances that spoke of dark corners and deserted classrooms.
“Do you think he really likes all those girls?” she asked Cam as they witnessed Cara’s interest in a Seventh Year Hufflepuff that hadn’t been apparent yesterday but was more than noticeable today.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t he? Our Cara likes girls just like the rest of the blokes.”
“You don’t act like that,” she said with some accusation behind her words. “I’ve never seen you try to make a girl get all hot and bothered like that.”
Cam had only shrugged as if he didn’t walk into Hogsmeade nearly every Friday and come back on Saturday evening with a lighter step and a smile that wasn’t wiped away quite so easily. She’d never dared ask him who he went to see, although she watched the different women when they visited together on the school sanctioned visits to see if any of them paid her friend any special attention.
“Don’t frown at him, Quinn. Either you let him chat up those girls or you chat him up yourself. You can’t have it both ways.”
She’d only stared at her friend, trying to figure out what exactly he meant by that. Why would she want to chat up Caradoc Dearborn? Sure, she liked it when he smiled at her and it was very nice when it was his turn to walk her back to the Slytherin dungeon and they took the long route so she could finish a story she was telling. He was always respectful of her, more than some of the boys. The others saw her as a chance to show off their prowess with their wands and fists. Cara was there because he understood her. Didn’t he? Not that she understood herself these days.
Trying to hold back tears that had nothing to do with a hurt inflicted by others but because her heart was beating too fast for her to control, Quinn pretended she didn’t see Cara kiss the girl on the cheek.