Fic: Love In Seven Parts
Off topic, but I thought this comic was appropriate to add to this post, whether or not you read the fic.
Title: Love In Seven Parts
Prompt: A story chronicling Michael Corner’s love life for royalty25 at hp_wishes.
Characters/Pairing: Including but not limited to: Michael Corner, Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein, Ginny Weasley, Cho Chang, Mandy Brocklehurst, Minerva McGonagall and Lisa Turpin, etc. [ Michael/??? ]
Genre: Some crack/humor, some romance, and a touch of adventure
Word Count/Rating: ~3,150 / PG-13
Summary: In which Michael Corner learns about baseball, gets revenge, falls in love, and argues about leprechauns.
Author’s Note: royalty25, I hope you enjoy this! I had no idea which pairings you liked so I tried to include a whole schmorgasboard of them. This fic definitely got out of hand, especially considering I planned to be done by 1,000-1,500 words. Sorry for the length, but it just wouldn’t let me go!
V I I I .
“First base should go there.”
“By the tree?”
“In the tree.”
Michael scratched his head and frowned at Lisa, but she crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out her bottom lip.
“In the tree,” she reassured him before he could protest. “I know-Dad took me to a game. First base was in the tree, second base was surrounded by a moat, third base was just over there, and fourth and fifth bases were hidden.”
Michael thought this was an awfully silly game and couldn’t understand why the Americans would ever want to play it, but Lisa assured him that it would be more fun than Quidditch-which he didn’t really know how to play either, to be fair. And plus, he was eight and she was nine, and nine year-olds were infinitely wiser than eight year-olds, and this was fact.
So he hid the fourth and fifth bases while she closed her eyes and counted to ten. When he was done he returned to her side, panting. “Now what?”
She handed him a big stick and a ball. “You try to hit the ball and I’ll go wait at first base. When you hit it, you have to run to me.”
Michael blinked at the stick but put the ball on the ground and gave it a good whack. He missed. After a second attempt he sent the ball rolling off toward the mud puddle that was third base.
“Run, Michael, run-or I’ll win!” Lisa shouted.
He sprinted toward the tree where Lisa sat with her legs dangling over the edge of a low, thick branch. He scrambled up the trunk and Lisa grabbed his hand to pull him up. When he squeezed onto the branch between her and the trunk she smiled at him and he noticed that she was still holding his hand.
“So this is first base, huh?” Michael asked.
“Yup.”
X V .
Mandy had ditched him.
He hadn’t really expected much to happen, because even though she was cute and laughed at whatever he said, she was also shy and they hadn’t known each other very long. But he hadn’t expected her to ditch him.
And for Anthony!
So he sulked by the punch bowl for a while and tried to come up with a good way to strangle Anthony in the middle of the night without getting into trouble, because the bastard had known Michael liked Mandy.
“Are you as bored as I am?”
The voice came from over to his left somewhere, and he didn’t immediately realize that it was directed at him. When the pretty redhead near the éclairs didn’t stop looking at him though, he figured it out.
“Yeah. I feel like I’m in History of Magic,” he replied. He gave the redhead a once over and quickly decided that she was cuter than Mandy, and that Anthony could suck it. He put on his best grin, puffed out his chest, and swooped his bangs out of his eyes in one theatric gesture.
She laughed-at his comment, he assumed, but she would later tell him that he’d looked like an absolute idiot-so he stepped closer and took a sip of his punch.
“How much punch have you had?” she asked. “I’m on my fourth.”
He frowned at his cup and contemplated. “No idea, but it’s been too much.”
“Perfect-do you want to dance?” She smiled a big, bright smile at him, which he couldn’t help but return.
They exchanged names-Michael Corner, at your service; Ginny Weasley, pleased to meet you-and crossed onto the dance floor. Michael made a point to dance her past Anthony and Mandy, and may or may not have clumsily attempted a dip that would reveal just how much more cleavage Ginny possessed than Mandy. Although, being fifteen, it wasn’t much. He didn’t know that Ginny was inadvertently waltzing them around Harry Potter and his date as well.
He was pleased to discover over the course of the evening that Ginny had more than just a few cents of conversation to offer him. He was even more pleased to discover that she was not opposed to the idea of snogging by the ice sculpture for a solid hour either.
Michael decided that maybe he wouldn’t have to strangle Anthony after all. Anthony wasn’t the one who stumbled back into the Common Room later that night with lip-gloss all over his lips, now was he?
X V I .
It was their third date.
Michael had kissed her once before, but for some reason he was even more nervous this time than he had been then. Maybe it was because they were in that stupid, ridiculous teashop that was all pinks and reds and stupid, floating fake cherubs.
He ordered the only tea he knew the name of, and tried not to wince when he realized that the only reason he knew the name of it was because he’d absolutely despised it as a child.
“So, why did you break up with her?” Cho asked out of nowhere, and it caught Michael off guard. He thought that was at least fifth date type-of stuff, not third date. Wasn’t the third date supposed to be the sexy date?
“You mean Ginny? She was a narcissistic Harry Potter fangirl.”
This had Cho spitting tea out all over their table, but in a good way-he hoped. He took another tiny swallow of his tea and tried to hide a gag behind his hand. “What about you and Potter?”
“I may have been a little hung up on Cedric, and Harry was... We just wanted different things, that’s all.”
Michael nodded wisely. He in fact had no idea what this meant, but who did?
“Can I ask you a question?” Michael asked as he leaned over the table. She bent to meet him, a serious frown crinkling her brow.
“Why in the name of Ravenclaw do you like this place? You hate pink. And you swear like a Scott-no offense, since you are a Scott, but you know what I mean. Yeah.” He fumbled a little over the last bit, but cleared his throat and soldiered on. “What is so attractive about cherubs and stupid frilly paper coasters?” He waved his lacy coaster around for emphasis.
Her frown deepened. She appeared about to speak, but he really didn’t care about the answer. This was his attempt at charm-he had to run with it or risk looking like an ass. It was always a thin line that Michael Corner tread.
“We’re going to the pitch, where you belong.” He grabbed her hand and yanked her up.
She protested the whole way back to Hogwarts, but when he’d convinced her to get onto the back of his broom and wrap an arm around his waist, and the sun had begun to set over the side of the pitch, she seemed to have forgotten about cherubs and lacy coasters. The sunset had been an accident of timing, but if it got her to shut up and go along with it, he was willing to pretend it had been part of the master plan.
He was also willing to pretend that, later, when they ended up tangled together on the ground near an abandoned broom and two abandoned jackets, his hand slipping up her shirt had not been a part of any plans whatsoever, and was purely accidental.
She called him an ass.
He told her it was charm; she just couldn’t see it. He offered to let her touch his boob if it made her feel any better.
The next time his hand slipped up her shirt she pretended not to notice.
X V I I .
“Ow, ow, quit it, Patil!”
“Do you want me to help you or not, Corner?”
“You call that ‘help’? Just give me back to the Carrows if you’re going to do it like that! Terry-fuck-where’s Terry?”
“You trust Terry over me? What’d they do, brain you too? He may have been McGonagall’s favorite N.E.W.T. student, but he can’t perform healing charms for shite. Now quit squirming.”
Michael sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall. Padma was right. She was always bloody right about everything-which was precisely why he’d tried to avoid her these past few years. “I like your sister better,” he grumbled.
She ignored him and continued to prod him with her wand. He made a loud noise of protestation each time she hit a sensitive spot-and sometimes when she didn’t, just to bother her.
“You know,” he said between flinches, “I’m a hero now. I saved a first year, I did.”
“-Almost-”
“I saved a first year,” he maintained, “I’m a hero.”
“Congratulations.”
“Harry didn’t used to get bloody poked all over by a wand, and I haven’t seen him around saving any first years lately either.”
She jabbed him exceptionally hard in his shoulder, which he knew she knew was particularly sore. He let out a loud holler that had Neville looking up from some old parchment with serious concern. Michael nodded at Neville, but quickly turned a scowl onto Padma.
“What was that for?”
She smiled smugly.
“I deserve some sort of medal or something-how many bones do you think I broke, huh?”
“Four.”
“Four?! What-but-that’s a bloody ton!” His face blanched and he took a moment to actually survey his body. He went a bit woozy and started to slip down the wall.
Padma was laughing when she pulled him back into a sitting position.
The gravity of his situation slowly began to settle in, and he let her do her work in silence for a few minutes longer.
“I could’ve died,” he muttered. “What would have happened if I’d’ve died?”
“Calm down.”
“But I-”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. ‘Could’ve died’.”
Light-headed and suddenly dizzy, but not entirely off his game, Michael straightened up with a few visible grimaces, and impulsively leaned forward until he was able to roughly catch her lips in his. It was sloppy, it was wet, and it was a little too short for his taste, but at least it was something.
She quickly forced his head away and slapped him.
He whined and collapsed back into the wall.
“Fucking hell, Corner, what was that for?”
“I could’ve died!”
“Next time I’m not helping you and-what the-Michael, is that your hand on my arse?”
“…I could’ve died?”
X V I I I .
The first time he said it he was about a Firewhisky away from being a puddle of puke. His usual limit was about three, but too much rain and rubble had pushed him to stretch his limits-and all he ever saw at Hogwarts these days was rain and rubble. He couldn’t remember why he’d come back for another year, not tonight anyway, and was considering just ditching the whole effort.
“Rio de Janeiro!” He’d exclaimed before he really knew where the conversation was going.
“What about it?”
“Let’s go there! I’ll bet it’s a lot nicer. And we won’t have to clean all the time-or,” he hiccupped, “or put up with Filch or anyone.”
It was in the middle of the rain and approaching some of the rubble when he started to say it, though.
“I’ve been thinking,” he declared into the shoulder of the person who was supporting him on the sludge home.
“Naturally.”
“I have! About important things. Like baseball.”
“Baseball?”
“-And tea, sometimes. I don’t like tea-I don’t think. Did you know that in baseball there’s a moat?” He sniggered and let his head loll back into that comfortable shoulder.
Michael wasn’t making any sense, but interrupting him wouldn’t do anyone any good, so he was allowed to babble on. He eventually lapsed into humming and hiccupping-alternately-and didn’t say much for a little while longer. Things were just beginning to look calm when Michael lurched up with a surprised ‘Oh!’ after tripping over a branch and nearly landing on his face in a particularly slimy pile of mud. “Oh! Oh!” he exclaimed again.
“What?”
“I just realized something. It’s that-that-well, I love you, you know?” Michael said, grinning lazily. “I do. I love you.”
“I love you too, Michael,” Terry Boot responded, rolling his eyes and dragging a stumbling and gurgling Michael up the front steps of the school. McGonagall had just stepped out of the Great Hall and stopped to stare at the two soaked boys.
Terry shook his head. “Don’t ask. He loves me, apparently.”
She nodded knowingly.
“I love you!” Michael shouted at the poor old witch as they passed. He giggled and poked Terry in the cheek. “Don’t worry, mate,” he whispered. Or he thought he whispered, anyway, when in fact he was practically yelling. “I love McGonny-gles, but I love you more.”
McGonagall’s lips twitched just a little bit. “Good night, Mister Boot.”
X X I I .
“GREENGRASS!” Michael bellowed through his opened office door.
The flustered woman appeared in the doorframe a moment later with a quill thrust behind one ear to hold short black curls out of her face. “What?” she snapped.
“Why’s this rubbish on my desk?” He waved an article at her. “Prophet readers do not want to read about the heroics of a few mis-sorted Slytherins from five years ago.”
“Who says?”
“Um, I do.”
Daphne stepped toward his desk and placed her hands on her hips defiantly. “Would you rather I write about rainbows and frolicking leprechauns?”
“If you can find a frolicking leprechaun to write about, then it would go on the front page. All the leprechauns I’ve met, however, are sour little buggers who would prefer to kick my shins than frolic under rainbows.”
“Sure that has nothing to do with your being a block-headed piss-artist with the spine of a flobberworm?”
“Ouch, Greengrass, that hurts.” Michael threw a hand over his heart dramatically. “Now write me a new article.”
Daphne glowered at him and she stormed out of his office. Michael found it quite peculiar, then, when she acknowledged him later that day with a cool smile and a slight wave. She was obviously up to something. Michael wasn’t too surprised when he shook open the paper the following morning and found her original article positioned neatly on page five. It figured.
He called her into his office again. “What happened to the leprechauns?” he asked the moment she passed the threshold.
“On vacation, sorry.”
“You know, I could fire you.”
“But you won’t,” she grinned, batted her eyelashes, and was gone by the time he could finish fumbling for a worthwhile comeback.
Over the next few weeks, Daphne Greengrass was the most frequent thing to appear in his office-usually to fight with him over some article or another, occasionally to insult him for no reason, and more often than not to unknowingly torture him with the fact that he found her increasingly attractive-in an annoying, if-blisters-could-be-attractive way.
It wasn’t until the annual office New Years’ party when her appearance in his office became one of a much different nature.
They were both a little drunk, he wasn’t sure where his tie was, and she kept stabbing him in the chest.
“-You know what I’m talking about, Corner, don’t deny it.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not here. You can poke me as much as you want, but that’s not going to get it here any quicker-more quickly?-sooner.” He turned away from his messy desktop to shrug at her, but found her face bobbing much closer to his than he’d expected it to be.
“You owe me six galleons,” he declared-although he was quickly forgetting what for. In a moment of panic he hoped she wouldn’t ask.
Without saying anything, she grabbed his head and kissed him. He wasn’t sure how to respond. Still holding his head she stood back and smirked. Michael managed to utter what was, in his opinion, a rather debonair and convincing “Err, um, yeah”.
She kissed him again and allowed her lips to linger until his shoulders relaxed and his fingers stopped clutching the corner of his desk. He’d just drawn up a hand to rest at the base of her neck when she removed her lips. Once again his eyes met that challenging smirk.
“Okay,” he croaked, “We’ll call it even then.”
“And I can write whatever I want?”
“That’s not fair. Just because you-”
Daphne wasted no time in cutting him off with a much fiercer kiss, and she did not hesitate to wrap a leg around his waist, which drew their bodies close enough to be pressed flush together. The side of his bureau dug uncomfortably into the back of his thigh, but he hardly noticed.
“Okay!” he burst when she released his mouth. “You can write whatever you want-” he kissed her neck and then her lips briefly “-don’t care, don’t care”.
“Great. Knew you’d come around.”
Daphne began to undo the buttons of his shirt, shoving his hands away when he tried to help. He wondered momentarily if this wasn’t such a good idea.
But then again, Michael never had been very lucky with the ladies, and he couldn’t deny that this was pretty sweet.
X X I I I .
Michael had envisioned this moment going slightly differently. At the same time, he couldn’t exactly be surprised based on the way things had always been for him. This just seemed right.
He cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Michael, you’re wearing nothing but shorts.”
“Yes, I realize this.”
“And you’re in the middle of the office.”
“Yup.”
“In your shorts.”
“This has indeed been established.” He shifted a little uncomfortably and scratched his chest.
“I hope you weren’t going for subtlety.”
“Does it look like I was going for subtlety?” he snapped. “-And Creevey, quit staring. You’ve seen men in their shorts before, providing you lived in a dorm for seven years like I think you did.”
“Sorry.”
Michael ignored him and continued hounding his original target. “Now are you going to make me sit here in my shorts forever?”
“It depends. Did you even bother to get a ring?”
“Does it look like I planned to do it this way?”
“Knowing you, possibly. Just to vex me.”
Michael snorted. “No, I don’t have a ring, but I am on my knee and the whole office is staring.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, you dolt, I’ll marry you. Now get up and put some pants on.”
Michael Corner stood up and strode toward Daphne Greengrass, who had just realized her dress was completely askew. While this was not quite as terrible as Michael’s state of undress, it was a little embarrassing none-the-less. Michael ignored this fussing and pulled her into a tight embrace and a lusty kiss. She shortened it considerably by glaring at him.
“Put your pants on.”
“Right. Anything for you, Mrs. Daphne Corner!”
“And don’t call me that-you still need to get a ring.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He turned and sauntered back toward his office, but paused in the doorway to smile back at Daphne. “I love you.”
“More than Terry?” she waggled her eyebrows at him.
“More than Terry.”
Or any of them, he added mentally. God knows why-she was definitely the most harassing of the lot. But, he reasoned with some giddiness, that was probably the point.
Face it, he'd been doomed from the start.
Title: Love In Seven Parts
Prompt: A story chronicling Michael Corner’s love life for royalty25 at hp_wishes.
Characters/Pairing: Including but not limited to: Michael Corner, Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein, Ginny Weasley, Cho Chang, Mandy Brocklehurst, Minerva McGonagall and Lisa Turpin, etc. [ Michael/??? ]
Genre: Some crack/humor, some romance, and a touch of adventure
Word Count/Rating: ~3,150 / PG-13
Summary: In which Michael Corner learns about baseball, gets revenge, falls in love, and argues about leprechauns.
Author’s Note: royalty25, I hope you enjoy this! I had no idea which pairings you liked so I tried to include a whole schmorgasboard of them. This fic definitely got out of hand, especially considering I planned to be done by 1,000-1,500 words. Sorry for the length, but it just wouldn’t let me go!
V I I I .
“First base should go there.”
“By the tree?”
“In the tree.”
Michael scratched his head and frowned at Lisa, but she crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out her bottom lip.
“In the tree,” she reassured him before he could protest. “I know-Dad took me to a game. First base was in the tree, second base was surrounded by a moat, third base was just over there, and fourth and fifth bases were hidden.”
Michael thought this was an awfully silly game and couldn’t understand why the Americans would ever want to play it, but Lisa assured him that it would be more fun than Quidditch-which he didn’t really know how to play either, to be fair. And plus, he was eight and she was nine, and nine year-olds were infinitely wiser than eight year-olds, and this was fact.
So he hid the fourth and fifth bases while she closed her eyes and counted to ten. When he was done he returned to her side, panting. “Now what?”
She handed him a big stick and a ball. “You try to hit the ball and I’ll go wait at first base. When you hit it, you have to run to me.”
Michael blinked at the stick but put the ball on the ground and gave it a good whack. He missed. After a second attempt he sent the ball rolling off toward the mud puddle that was third base.
“Run, Michael, run-or I’ll win!” Lisa shouted.
He sprinted toward the tree where Lisa sat with her legs dangling over the edge of a low, thick branch. He scrambled up the trunk and Lisa grabbed his hand to pull him up. When he squeezed onto the branch between her and the trunk she smiled at him and he noticed that she was still holding his hand.
“So this is first base, huh?” Michael asked.
“Yup.”
X V .
Mandy had ditched him.
He hadn’t really expected much to happen, because even though she was cute and laughed at whatever he said, she was also shy and they hadn’t known each other very long. But he hadn’t expected her to ditch him.
And for Anthony!
So he sulked by the punch bowl for a while and tried to come up with a good way to strangle Anthony in the middle of the night without getting into trouble, because the bastard had known Michael liked Mandy.
“Are you as bored as I am?”
The voice came from over to his left somewhere, and he didn’t immediately realize that it was directed at him. When the pretty redhead near the éclairs didn’t stop looking at him though, he figured it out.
“Yeah. I feel like I’m in History of Magic,” he replied. He gave the redhead a once over and quickly decided that she was cuter than Mandy, and that Anthony could suck it. He put on his best grin, puffed out his chest, and swooped his bangs out of his eyes in one theatric gesture.
She laughed-at his comment, he assumed, but she would later tell him that he’d looked like an absolute idiot-so he stepped closer and took a sip of his punch.
“How much punch have you had?” she asked. “I’m on my fourth.”
He frowned at his cup and contemplated. “No idea, but it’s been too much.”
“Perfect-do you want to dance?” She smiled a big, bright smile at him, which he couldn’t help but return.
They exchanged names-Michael Corner, at your service; Ginny Weasley, pleased to meet you-and crossed onto the dance floor. Michael made a point to dance her past Anthony and Mandy, and may or may not have clumsily attempted a dip that would reveal just how much more cleavage Ginny possessed than Mandy. Although, being fifteen, it wasn’t much. He didn’t know that Ginny was inadvertently waltzing them around Harry Potter and his date as well.
He was pleased to discover over the course of the evening that Ginny had more than just a few cents of conversation to offer him. He was even more pleased to discover that she was not opposed to the idea of snogging by the ice sculpture for a solid hour either.
Michael decided that maybe he wouldn’t have to strangle Anthony after all. Anthony wasn’t the one who stumbled back into the Common Room later that night with lip-gloss all over his lips, now was he?
X V I .
It was their third date.
Michael had kissed her once before, but for some reason he was even more nervous this time than he had been then. Maybe it was because they were in that stupid, ridiculous teashop that was all pinks and reds and stupid, floating fake cherubs.
He ordered the only tea he knew the name of, and tried not to wince when he realized that the only reason he knew the name of it was because he’d absolutely despised it as a child.
“So, why did you break up with her?” Cho asked out of nowhere, and it caught Michael off guard. He thought that was at least fifth date type-of stuff, not third date. Wasn’t the third date supposed to be the sexy date?
“You mean Ginny? She was a narcissistic Harry Potter fangirl.”
This had Cho spitting tea out all over their table, but in a good way-he hoped. He took another tiny swallow of his tea and tried to hide a gag behind his hand. “What about you and Potter?”
“I may have been a little hung up on Cedric, and Harry was... We just wanted different things, that’s all.”
Michael nodded wisely. He in fact had no idea what this meant, but who did?
“Can I ask you a question?” Michael asked as he leaned over the table. She bent to meet him, a serious frown crinkling her brow.
“Why in the name of Ravenclaw do you like this place? You hate pink. And you swear like a Scott-no offense, since you are a Scott, but you know what I mean. Yeah.” He fumbled a little over the last bit, but cleared his throat and soldiered on. “What is so attractive about cherubs and stupid frilly paper coasters?” He waved his lacy coaster around for emphasis.
Her frown deepened. She appeared about to speak, but he really didn’t care about the answer. This was his attempt at charm-he had to run with it or risk looking like an ass. It was always a thin line that Michael Corner tread.
“We’re going to the pitch, where you belong.” He grabbed her hand and yanked her up.
She protested the whole way back to Hogwarts, but when he’d convinced her to get onto the back of his broom and wrap an arm around his waist, and the sun had begun to set over the side of the pitch, she seemed to have forgotten about cherubs and lacy coasters. The sunset had been an accident of timing, but if it got her to shut up and go along with it, he was willing to pretend it had been part of the master plan.
He was also willing to pretend that, later, when they ended up tangled together on the ground near an abandoned broom and two abandoned jackets, his hand slipping up her shirt had not been a part of any plans whatsoever, and was purely accidental.
She called him an ass.
He told her it was charm; she just couldn’t see it. He offered to let her touch his boob if it made her feel any better.
The next time his hand slipped up her shirt she pretended not to notice.
X V I I .
“Ow, ow, quit it, Patil!”
“Do you want me to help you or not, Corner?”
“You call that ‘help’? Just give me back to the Carrows if you’re going to do it like that! Terry-fuck-where’s Terry?”
“You trust Terry over me? What’d they do, brain you too? He may have been McGonagall’s favorite N.E.W.T. student, but he can’t perform healing charms for shite. Now quit squirming.”
Michael sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall. Padma was right. She was always bloody right about everything-which was precisely why he’d tried to avoid her these past few years. “I like your sister better,” he grumbled.
She ignored him and continued to prod him with her wand. He made a loud noise of protestation each time she hit a sensitive spot-and sometimes when she didn’t, just to bother her.
“You know,” he said between flinches, “I’m a hero now. I saved a first year, I did.”
“-Almost-”
“I saved a first year,” he maintained, “I’m a hero.”
“Congratulations.”
“Harry didn’t used to get bloody poked all over by a wand, and I haven’t seen him around saving any first years lately either.”
She jabbed him exceptionally hard in his shoulder, which he knew she knew was particularly sore. He let out a loud holler that had Neville looking up from some old parchment with serious concern. Michael nodded at Neville, but quickly turned a scowl onto Padma.
“What was that for?”
She smiled smugly.
“I deserve some sort of medal or something-how many bones do you think I broke, huh?”
“Four.”
“Four?! What-but-that’s a bloody ton!” His face blanched and he took a moment to actually survey his body. He went a bit woozy and started to slip down the wall.
Padma was laughing when she pulled him back into a sitting position.
The gravity of his situation slowly began to settle in, and he let her do her work in silence for a few minutes longer.
“I could’ve died,” he muttered. “What would have happened if I’d’ve died?”
“Calm down.”
“But I-”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. ‘Could’ve died’.”
Light-headed and suddenly dizzy, but not entirely off his game, Michael straightened up with a few visible grimaces, and impulsively leaned forward until he was able to roughly catch her lips in his. It was sloppy, it was wet, and it was a little too short for his taste, but at least it was something.
She quickly forced his head away and slapped him.
He whined and collapsed back into the wall.
“Fucking hell, Corner, what was that for?”
“I could’ve died!”
“Next time I’m not helping you and-what the-Michael, is that your hand on my arse?”
“…I could’ve died?”
X V I I I .
The first time he said it he was about a Firewhisky away from being a puddle of puke. His usual limit was about three, but too much rain and rubble had pushed him to stretch his limits-and all he ever saw at Hogwarts these days was rain and rubble. He couldn’t remember why he’d come back for another year, not tonight anyway, and was considering just ditching the whole effort.
“Rio de Janeiro!” He’d exclaimed before he really knew where the conversation was going.
“What about it?”
“Let’s go there! I’ll bet it’s a lot nicer. And we won’t have to clean all the time-or,” he hiccupped, “or put up with Filch or anyone.”
It was in the middle of the rain and approaching some of the rubble when he started to say it, though.
“I’ve been thinking,” he declared into the shoulder of the person who was supporting him on the sludge home.
“Naturally.”
“I have! About important things. Like baseball.”
“Baseball?”
“-And tea, sometimes. I don’t like tea-I don’t think. Did you know that in baseball there’s a moat?” He sniggered and let his head loll back into that comfortable shoulder.
Michael wasn’t making any sense, but interrupting him wouldn’t do anyone any good, so he was allowed to babble on. He eventually lapsed into humming and hiccupping-alternately-and didn’t say much for a little while longer. Things were just beginning to look calm when Michael lurched up with a surprised ‘Oh!’ after tripping over a branch and nearly landing on his face in a particularly slimy pile of mud. “Oh! Oh!” he exclaimed again.
“What?”
“I just realized something. It’s that-that-well, I love you, you know?” Michael said, grinning lazily. “I do. I love you.”
“I love you too, Michael,” Terry Boot responded, rolling his eyes and dragging a stumbling and gurgling Michael up the front steps of the school. McGonagall had just stepped out of the Great Hall and stopped to stare at the two soaked boys.
Terry shook his head. “Don’t ask. He loves me, apparently.”
She nodded knowingly.
“I love you!” Michael shouted at the poor old witch as they passed. He giggled and poked Terry in the cheek. “Don’t worry, mate,” he whispered. Or he thought he whispered, anyway, when in fact he was practically yelling. “I love McGonny-gles, but I love you more.”
McGonagall’s lips twitched just a little bit. “Good night, Mister Boot.”
X X I I .
“GREENGRASS!” Michael bellowed through his opened office door.
The flustered woman appeared in the doorframe a moment later with a quill thrust behind one ear to hold short black curls out of her face. “What?” she snapped.
“Why’s this rubbish on my desk?” He waved an article at her. “Prophet readers do not want to read about the heroics of a few mis-sorted Slytherins from five years ago.”
“Who says?”
“Um, I do.”
Daphne stepped toward his desk and placed her hands on her hips defiantly. “Would you rather I write about rainbows and frolicking leprechauns?”
“If you can find a frolicking leprechaun to write about, then it would go on the front page. All the leprechauns I’ve met, however, are sour little buggers who would prefer to kick my shins than frolic under rainbows.”
“Sure that has nothing to do with your being a block-headed piss-artist with the spine of a flobberworm?”
“Ouch, Greengrass, that hurts.” Michael threw a hand over his heart dramatically. “Now write me a new article.”
Daphne glowered at him and she stormed out of his office. Michael found it quite peculiar, then, when she acknowledged him later that day with a cool smile and a slight wave. She was obviously up to something. Michael wasn’t too surprised when he shook open the paper the following morning and found her original article positioned neatly on page five. It figured.
He called her into his office again. “What happened to the leprechauns?” he asked the moment she passed the threshold.
“On vacation, sorry.”
“You know, I could fire you.”
“But you won’t,” she grinned, batted her eyelashes, and was gone by the time he could finish fumbling for a worthwhile comeback.
Over the next few weeks, Daphne Greengrass was the most frequent thing to appear in his office-usually to fight with him over some article or another, occasionally to insult him for no reason, and more often than not to unknowingly torture him with the fact that he found her increasingly attractive-in an annoying, if-blisters-could-be-attractive way.
It wasn’t until the annual office New Years’ party when her appearance in his office became one of a much different nature.
They were both a little drunk, he wasn’t sure where his tie was, and she kept stabbing him in the chest.
“-You know what I’m talking about, Corner, don’t deny it.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not here. You can poke me as much as you want, but that’s not going to get it here any quicker-more quickly?-sooner.” He turned away from his messy desktop to shrug at her, but found her face bobbing much closer to his than he’d expected it to be.
“You owe me six galleons,” he declared-although he was quickly forgetting what for. In a moment of panic he hoped she wouldn’t ask.
Without saying anything, she grabbed his head and kissed him. He wasn’t sure how to respond. Still holding his head she stood back and smirked. Michael managed to utter what was, in his opinion, a rather debonair and convincing “Err, um, yeah”.
She kissed him again and allowed her lips to linger until his shoulders relaxed and his fingers stopped clutching the corner of his desk. He’d just drawn up a hand to rest at the base of her neck when she removed her lips. Once again his eyes met that challenging smirk.
“Okay,” he croaked, “We’ll call it even then.”
“And I can write whatever I want?”
“That’s not fair. Just because you-”
Daphne wasted no time in cutting him off with a much fiercer kiss, and she did not hesitate to wrap a leg around his waist, which drew their bodies close enough to be pressed flush together. The side of his bureau dug uncomfortably into the back of his thigh, but he hardly noticed.
“Okay!” he burst when she released his mouth. “You can write whatever you want-” he kissed her neck and then her lips briefly “-don’t care, don’t care”.
“Great. Knew you’d come around.”
Daphne began to undo the buttons of his shirt, shoving his hands away when he tried to help. He wondered momentarily if this wasn’t such a good idea.
But then again, Michael never had been very lucky with the ladies, and he couldn’t deny that this was pretty sweet.
X X I I I .
Michael had envisioned this moment going slightly differently. At the same time, he couldn’t exactly be surprised based on the way things had always been for him. This just seemed right.
He cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Michael, you’re wearing nothing but shorts.”
“Yes, I realize this.”
“And you’re in the middle of the office.”
“Yup.”
“In your shorts.”
“This has indeed been established.” He shifted a little uncomfortably and scratched his chest.
“I hope you weren’t going for subtlety.”
“Does it look like I was going for subtlety?” he snapped. “-And Creevey, quit staring. You’ve seen men in their shorts before, providing you lived in a dorm for seven years like I think you did.”
“Sorry.”
Michael ignored him and continued hounding his original target. “Now are you going to make me sit here in my shorts forever?”
“It depends. Did you even bother to get a ring?”
“Does it look like I planned to do it this way?”
“Knowing you, possibly. Just to vex me.”
Michael snorted. “No, I don’t have a ring, but I am on my knee and the whole office is staring.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, you dolt, I’ll marry you. Now get up and put some pants on.”
Michael Corner stood up and strode toward Daphne Greengrass, who had just realized her dress was completely askew. While this was not quite as terrible as Michael’s state of undress, it was a little embarrassing none-the-less. Michael ignored this fussing and pulled her into a tight embrace and a lusty kiss. She shortened it considerably by glaring at him.
“Put your pants on.”
“Right. Anything for you, Mrs. Daphne Corner!”
“And don’t call me that-you still need to get a ring.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He turned and sauntered back toward his office, but paused in the doorway to smile back at Daphne. “I love you.”
“More than Terry?” she waggled her eyebrows at him.
“More than Terry.”
Or any of them, he added mentally. God knows why-she was definitely the most harassing of the lot. But, he reasoned with some giddiness, that was probably the point.
Face it, he'd been doomed from the start.