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Evan stared down at the letter in his hand with a sense of disbelief. Captain. Vance had nominated him as captain. He read it again just to be sure. He'd been positive it would go to Reg. Everything usually did—Reg was dedicated, meticulous, and he approached Quidditch the same way he approached everything else: with total precision. He had the best grades of any Slytherin in their year, and the third best in the whole year, Barty and Pandora forever locked in their own private battle for first. Evan, by contrast, was—well. Evan wasn't really anything special. He was fine—as far as he was concerned. Average in lessons, average looking, average at most things to be honest. Two years on the team as a beater had given him strong arms and after a summer spent working out he had visible abs, but he wasn’t exactly casanova. He didn’t get the sort of attention Barty and Reg got, Reg who was brilliant at everything, not to mention striking with his black hair and grey eyes, or Barty who was clever and charming, and the kind of person people just flocked around. Evan was just normal looking, just the male version of Pandora in looks, but taller, and—not as clever—he got along well with most of his house, but he wasn’t super popular… he was just… average.
Evan was good at Quidditch, sure, but it wasn't like he was a Seeker or a Keeper—or even a Chaser. He was a Beater. The role everyone always said required the least skill. Beaters were, as far as most people were concerned, the thugs of Quidditch. Hired muscle. They just needed to be strong—the position didn't demand the agility of a Seeker, or the speed of a Chaser, or the split-second reflexes of a Keeper. It was just force on a broom. Beaters were rarely ever captains. Not at Hogwarts, not in professional Quidditch either. The only league team with a Beater as captain was the Falcons—which just so happened to be Evan's favourite team—but they were far from the norm. At Hogwarts there was a long tradition of captaincy going to the Seeker or the Keeper. Potter was a Chaser and Gryffindor's captain, sure, but Gryffindor did things their own way. In Slytherin it went to the best, and the best had always meant a particular kind of player—the kind seen as a leader, not a cog in the machine.
Except Emmeline had broken the tradition. For him.
He looked down at the badge in his palm. Small and silver, catching the late summer light through the window of his bedroom. He turned it over once, twice.
Captain.
Him.
He grinned—wide, so wide his cheeks hurt. Then he turned and bolted out of his room, across the hall, and flung himself through the door on the other side.
He held the badge up like a prize. "Look!"
His twin sister was lying on her front across the large four-poster bed in the middle of her room, a book—predictably—open in front of her. She glanced up at his entrance, one blonde eyebrow raised.
"Oh good," she said. "I thought they'd give it to you."
"You did?" he asked.
She gave him a sly smile. "You're going to be brilliant."
“You think?” he asked a little uncertainly.
“Definitely,” she said.
Of course, Evan might not have been quite so thrilled about his captaincy had he known it was going to come with a generous side helping of James Potter. Evan had never had much contact with Potter—he knew who he was, of course. Potter made sure everyone in the school knew who he was. But Evan had spent the last five years flying decidedly under Potter's radar, something he’d never particularly felt any sort of way about until it stopped happening. Evan’s social standing was, much like everything else about him, completely average. He existed somewhere in the comfortable middle of things—known, but not notable. Present, but not remarkable. At least that’s the way it always had been, and then, suddenly it stopped being that way. It stopped, because Potter noticed him.
It happened on the third day of term. It was warm—and Evan was starting to sweat. He pulled his t-shirt off over his head and tossed it onto the lower railing of one of the stands where he’d dumped his water bottle, and then he jogged on. He was on his fifth lap of the pitch, aiming for ten. Being captain meant no slacking off—he'd decided that firmly, somewhere between reading the letter and bolting across the hall to Pandora's room. He was going to have to be the best version of himself, which meant the fittest version of himself, the version of himself that ran ten laps of the pitch every other day.
Evan was on his seventh lap when he realised he was being watched, someone was standing on the edge of the pitch—not far from where he’d discarded his shirt, leaning against the rail, arms folded and body turned to face him. Evan ran on. Not his problem. It was only on his eighth lap, when he passed the figure again—still in exactly the same spot, still stood watching him. Tall, dark hair, stood leaning against the wooden boards that made up the base of the stands, was James Potter. He had his broom with him, which suggested he'd come with some intention of flying, but it was leaning on the wall beside him and showed no signs of being used anytime soon. He was just—watching. Head slightly tilted. The afternoon light caught his glasses, obscuring his eyes for a moment, and then Evan's angle shifted and it didn't, and he could see quite clearly that Potter was looking directly at him.
Evan looked away. Picked up his pace again. Potter was probably clocking the competition, he reasoned. Sizing up the new Slytherin captain—seeing what he was working with. That seemed like the sort of thing Potter would do—not that Evan knew him personally, but it was the kind of thing Evan would’ve done. Although he probably would’ve been a bit more subtle about it than Potter was being. Then again, Potter wasn’t exactly known for subtly.
Evan did his ninth lap without looking over once, forcing himself to focus on the ground in front of him and not the prickle of awareness that came from being watched. He was really sweating now, the feeling of eyes on him not helping—he could feel a small river forming along his spine, and his hair was damp with it. He did his tenth looking straight ahead. When he finally slowed to a stop, hands on his knees, catching his breath—Potter was still there. Evan straightened up, dragged a hand through his damp hair, and walked over. He needed his water bottle. There was no way around it.
Potter didn't move as he approached. Evan stopped a few feet away and bent to pick up his water bottle, taking a long drink while doing his best to ignore Potter. The guy was full-on staring at him. It was, Evan thought, a bit much. He distracted himself by upending the last third of the bottle over his head. The water was a welcome relief—cold and it gave him something to focus on other than the fact that he was shirtless, sweaty and probably bright red in the face. Not exactly the way he'd have chosen to encounter Potter for the first time as captain. Especially because as well as being arguably one of the most popular blokes in the entire school, as well as fairly notorious for taking the Slytherin vs Gryffindor rivalry very seriously, Potter was also—very attractive. Unbelievably fit actually. And Evan wasn't great around fit guys at the best of times, let alone when he was in a clearly inferior position as far as dignity went.
"Pitch is free if you're here to use it," he said, because he felt like he should say something. "I'm done."
"Right. Cheers." Potter's voice came out slightly odd—a beat late. He cleared his throat. Then, to Evan's complete surprise, said: "I'm James."
Evan snorted before he could stop himself. "Yeah. I know who you are."
"Right." Potter was looking at him expectantly, and Evan had the suddenly humiliating realisation that Potter was waiting for him to return the introduction.
"Evan," he prompted. "We’ve played quidditch against each other for the last two years."
"Evan. Course." Potter nodded, like he'd known all along and was simply confirming it. "You're Sirius's brother's mate." His eyes flicked down Evan’s body and then back up to his face. "I didn't remember you being so…” he paused for a second, letting the sentence hang in a way that made Evan feel oddly self conscious before finally saying, “—tall."
Evan grabbed his shirt off the railing and pulled it on—suddenly overly aware of the fact that he was standing in front of Potter half naked. "I grew," he said, which was true, he’d had a growth spurt over summer, but nonetheless, the words made him cringe. What kind of comeback was I grew? What was wrong with him?
"Yeah," said Potter. "I can see that."
Evan, who had absolutely no idea how to respond, decided that the best option was to simply leave. So that’s what he did, he nodded once to Potter with what he hoped was a captainly sort of, “right, see you later then.”
And then promptly made a hasty retreat towards the showers. Once in the showers several comebacks that weren’t: “I grew” came to him, any and all of which would’ve been better. He toweled off and told himself strictly to let it go. And he did. He didn’t think about Potter again until dinner time when had the misfortune to look up at exactly the wrong time and catch Potter’s eye as he entered the great hall, which brought the whole encounter painfully back to the forefront of his mind.
Evan's first week of classes passed without him paying as much attention as he probably should have. His mind was elsewhere—occupied, as it so often was, with Quidditch. With Emmeline Vance gone, Slytherin needed a new Keeper, and finding one was his problem now. Tryouts were set for the second weekend of term, and the prospect had taken up full and stubborn residence in his head, crowding out everything else. How was he supposed to find a Keeper even half as good as Vance? What if he picked the wrong person? The thought ran circles in his head all week—including, on Thursday, straight through Slughorn's specific instructions not to add eye of newt before salamander scales. A fact which resulted in a minor cauldron explosion and the near loss of his eyebrows. Luckily for Evan—and his eyebrows—Reg had been paying attention, and managed to get the whole situation under control before anyone caught fire.
"You do realise," said Reg, falling into step beside him as they made their way to dinner, "that in order for us to have any chance of winning the cup this year, you will actually have to be present to play. A feat which will prove difficult if you've blown yourself up before the season's started."
"It was an accident," Evan said. "I'm distracted."
"Really? I never would have guessed." Reg said with his usual biting sarcasm. "By what, precisely?"
"Tryouts." Evan said. "Em was brilliant. I don't know how I'm supposed to replace her."
Reg was quiet for a moment—long enough that Evan glanced over at him. When he spoke, his voice had lost its edge.
"She was. The best captain Slytherin's had in over a decade." A beat. "She also chose you. I trust her judgement, even if you don't."
Evan sighed. Trust Reg to see right through him to the nagging fear inside, the real issue at hand. Which wasn’t really about try outs and more the niggling worry that he’d be bad at being captain.
"What if everyone is terrible?" Evan asked, forcing his thoughts back towards the thing he could control. Keeper tryouts.
Reg shrugged. "Pick the most tolerable and go from there. Ability can be improved with considerably less effort than personality."
When Saturday morning dawned, Evan did his best to keep the jitters at bay as he forced down three slices of toast. Reg sat opposite him, looking completely at ease, scanning the pages of what seemed to Evan an unnecessarily large book between unhurried mouthfuls of porridge. Then, all too soon, it was time. They walked down to the pitch together—Reg with his bag slung over one shoulder, the unnecessarily large book inside it, broom over the other. When they arrived he settled himself on the grass, cross-legged, book open in his lap, and made it immediately clear he had absolutely no intention of helping as Evan began hauling out practice balls and bats while the rest of the Slytherin team trickled in.
Evan had just finished dragging the last of the heavy equipment chests out from the kit shed when his fellow beater Augustus Flint said loudly, "you've got to be fucking kidding me. What the hell are they doing here?"
Evan looked up—and his stomach dropped.
A group had made themselves comfortable in the stands. James Potter, several members of the Gryffindor team, along with several girls—the same ones who seemed to orbit Potter wherever he went, apparently finding his latest spectacle worth getting up early on a Saturday for.
Potter caught his eye and grinned. "Nice day for it," he called cheerfully. "Don't mind us—we're just observing. Thought since it's your first time running tryouts, you might want someone on hand who's done it before. Consider it a professional courtesy."
Evan's jaw tightened. He turned away.
"Are they allowed to do that?" murmured Marianne Fawley, one of Slytherin's Chasers, from beside him.
"There's no rule that says they can't be here," Evan said, which was unfortunately true.
Evan did his best to focus as he ran his team through the plan for the morning, explaining what he wanted from each of them. By the time he was done, the first of the prospective Keepers had begun to arrive—more of them than he'd been expecting. Six, with more figures still visible on the walkway down from the castle. By eleven o'clock, when tryouts officially started, there were seventeen people waiting. Some of them Evan wasn't surprised to see, like Sophia Greengrass, for instance, who Evan knew for a fact was an avid Bats supporter and had tried out—and done pretty well, too—the same year he and Reg had made the team. But there were others that made very little sense to him, like Sophia's twin sister, Amalthea Greengrass, and another boy from Evan’s year Callum Corvelle, neither of whom had ever expressed even a passing interest in Quidditch in the five years Evan had shared classes with them. And yet there they both were. Smiling at him. Quite a lot. It was, if he was honest, a bit disconcerting. He looked away and cleared his throat.
"Right," he said, "if you could all line up over there—" he pointed to the area he'd mentally marked out as the starting point.
The prospective Keepers formed a line and they began. First was a third year boy, Aldric Drevish, who was not terrible—but not good either, and small, too small in Evan's opinion to play Keeper at any serious level. After him came two fourth year girls, both of whom Evan was fairly certain had never sat on a broom in their lives.
The Gryffindors in the stands made short work of cheering loudly whenever anyone dropped the Quaffle. Evan did his best to ignore them—which was easier than it should have been due to the fact that Amathea and Corvelle kept attempting to engage him in small talk as he was trying to watch their classmates fly. Both performed terribly when their turns came. Neither seemed remotely bothered by it, something which he didn’t understand at all. By the time he called a break an hour in, they'd barely gotten through half the candidates, Evan was losing his voice from shouting over the wind and the heckling from the stands, and he was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
Evan could see his own irritation mirrored in the faces of his teammates.
"This is bollocks," grumbled Flint, shouldering his bat. "Complete waste of a Saturday morning. Could've had a lie in."
"We need a Keeper," Evan said. "No way around it."
"Do we though?" Flint jerked his chin toward the line of remaining candidates. "Because I'm not convinced that's what half of them are here for."
Samuel Bones, who played chaser next to Marianne, made a noise of agreement from Flint's left.
Evan looked between them. "What are you talking about?"
Flint nodded toward where Amathea stood a few feet away, examining her lipstick in a small compact mirror. "The only balls Amathea's interested in are the ones she's hoping you'll let her handle personally." He paused. "If you take my meaning."
Bones grinned. "And I reckon Corvelle rather ride your broomstick than—"
"Alright," Evan said, cutting Bones off. "I get the idea. Thanks."
Bones snickered. And then, apparently deciding to take matters into his own hands, cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed across the pitch: "Oi! Just so you lot know—captain's bent as wet spaghetti, so unless you're in possession of a cock and balls, or actually here to try out, you can sod off!"
Evan punched him in the arm. Hard. Flint let out a bark of laughter as Bones swore and clutched his arm.
"What?” Said Bones indignantly. “I was helping. Now they won't waste their time or ours."
"Please," said Evan fighting off the wave of utter mortification currently threatening to swallow him whole. "Never attempt to help me again.”
He turned back to the remaining candidates, hoping he wasn't too pink in the face. Everyone was staring at him. Evan kept his eyes deliberately off the stands. A girl he recognised from the year below—one of those still waiting to try out—raised her hand.
"Stacey, right?" said Evan.
"Yes," she said. "I was just wondering—well. Are you actually?"
Evan frowned. "Am I actually what?"
"Gay."
"Oh," said Evan. "Er—yeah. I am. Although I fail to see how that’s relevant to quidditch try outs."
She let out a breath that could only be described as profoundly disappointed. Then, to Evan's complete astonishment, said: "well, that’s a shame. I’m going to go. I’m actually really that interested in quidditch.”
She turned and left. Another girl followed immediately behind her. There was a strange, suspended moment of stillness—and then several more peeled away after them. Six in total. Evan stared after them.
From somewhere behind him, Flint said, "told you so."
"Right," said Evan, at a complete loss. He looked around at those remaining, and caught Corvelle's eye—and received a wink in return. Evan cleared his throat raising his voice. "This should really go without saying—but if anyone else here isn't genuinely interested in joining the team, now would be the time to leave."
There was a tense moment in which Evan felt utterly ridiculous for having to say it at all. Then Corvelle and a seventh year boy whose name Evan didn't know both turned and left without a word. Someone in the stands cat called loudly. Evan ignored it. The rest of the tryouts went significantly quicker after that. Most of the remaining candidates weren't much to write home about, but at least all of them could fly. Three stuck out: a fourth year boy, Sylvester Ashcroft-Vane; a seventh year, Stephen Morett; and Sophie Greengrass. Evan thanked the others for their time and sent them off, then put the final three through a series of plays, testing each of them against various Chaser formations. In the end it came down to Sophie and Morett. He told them both he'd be in touch within a few days and left it there.
The Gryffindors filed out of the stands in a loose, noisy group, Potter departing with a: "see you in the air, Romeo"—which Evan chose not to respond to. He turned his attention to packing up the kit. Bones stayed to help, which was uncharacteristic enough that Evan suspected he probably felt bad about embarrassing Evan in front of the enemy.
Later, Evan tried not to grimace when Barty asked how tryouts had gone.
"Fine," he said.
Barty raised his eyebrows and looked between him and Reg. "That bad?"
Evan didn't answer. If truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure what had happened—or that it wasn't some sort of elaborate prank cooked up by the Gryffindors, designed specifically to humiliate him.
"It would appear," said Reg, "that Evan has acquired something of a fan club."
Barty's eyes lit up. "Oh?"
"Mm. I'd estimate roughly half the people who turned up were rather more interested in him than they were in Quidditch."
Barty started to laugh, dark eyes crinkling at the corners. "I bet he loved that."
"Strangely, no. I don’t think he did.”
Evan scowled at both of them. "It's not funny."
"It's a little funny," said Reg.
"I don't understand it," Evan said. "What—I'm captain for five minutes and suddenly I'm interesting?"
Barty snorted. "I don't think that's it, Ev."
"What then?"
"Have you looked in a mirror lately? Seriously—what the hell did you do over summer, wrestle dragons? You're totally stacked. And I swear you've grown three inches."
"So?" said Evan. "What's that got to do with anything?"
Reg turned to look at his boyfriend, one eyebrow arched. "Yes, dear," he said pointedly. "What exactly does that have to do with anything?"
Barty held his hands up in mock surrender. "Don't look at me like that—you know blonds aren't my type. I'm just saying, objectively speaking, Evan's a total hottie." He turned to Pandora. "Back me up, Panda."
He was rewarded with a look of mild disgust. "That's my brother you're talking about."
Barty rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He turned his attention back to Evan. "You are, though. Obviously people are going to fancy you—I'd get used to it if I were you."
Evan didn’t know how to respond—so he didn’t. He did his best to shrug the whole embarrassing situation off and focus on what was important. Quidditch. He spent the better part of Sunday turning the Keeper decision over in his head. On paper, Sophie and Morett were very evenly matched—Morett was bigger, taller. And that, for a keeper was preferable. Taller meant better reach. On the other hand, Emmeline had been the best Keeper he’d ever seen and her head had barely come to Evan’s shoulder so he knew first hand that it wasn’t the more important factor. Besides, Sophie was faster. Really it could go either way. Morett had always struck Evan as the kind of person who was only ever pleasant when it suited him—the sort who'd be fine in the team as long as things were going well, and insufferable the moment they weren't. Sophie Greengrass, on the other hand, didn’t take shit from anyone. Besides, she was a twin. Evan knew what it was to be a twin, too—to exist perpetually in someone else's orbit, to have to carve out your own space by sheer force of will. And he couldn’t help feeling a sense of contradiction with her simply for that alone.
In the end he chose Sophie simply because he liked her better.
The weeks that followed settled into a rhythm. Practices three times a week, essays perpetually overdue, and James Potter—who, much to Evan's dismay, had apparently decided that Evan was worth his sustained and undivided attention. At first it was fairly mild. Potter calling across the corridor, some jab about his hair, or calling him Romeo—which, after the fourth time it happened, Evan decided he’d better look into the name—he found out from Barty that was apparently a reference to some famous Muggle play which, from Evan could ascertain from Barty’s description was about some italian bloke who shagged his cousin and then killed himself.
Evan did not understand the parallels at all. But whatever. Potter’s aim, as far as Evan could tell, was simply to get a rise out of him—like a cat batting at a mouse and watching with great satisfaction as it squeaked indignantly. Evan wasn’t a mouse though. He was a snake. And so he took the snake's approach, and ignored Potter entirely. He blanked Potter in the hallways and ignored Potter’s every attempt to get a rise out of him—and was rewarded with the distinct satisfaction of watching Potter grow increasingly frustrated each time he did. The unintentional consequence of this, unfortunately, was that it seemed to provoke Potter into escalating. The jabs got more frequent. The appearances in corridors more frequent. The whole thing was profoundly irritating—Evan genuinely could not grasp why Potter wouldn't simply leave him alone. Or why—Pandora, for reasons she declined to share, found the whole thing absolutely hilarious
By the beginning of October, Evan had decided that Potter was by far the most annoying person he'd ever had the misfortune of encountering. He turned up at their practices to heckle from the stands. Deliberately double-booked the pitch during the slots Evan had scheduled for training forcing him to scramble for new times that worked around seven different class schedules—yelled abuse at him in the hallways—and just generally went out of his way to make Evan’s life miserable.
It all came to a head in the second week of October, when Professor Hooch informed Evan that Potter had once again—somehow—managed to override his existing practice slot, the one he had specifically booked for early Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Evan decided he’d had enough. He was up at six and down at the pitch before the dew had dried. Storming past the rest of the Gryffindor team without so much as a glance, he made straight for Potter, who stood in the pale morning light, broom in hand, looking—insufferably—as though he’d been expecting him.
"Morning, Romeo," said Potter, with a grin that made Evan want to hex him into next week. "Sleep well?"
Evan stepped forward, closing the distance between them until Potter—to Evan’s considerable satisfaction—took an involuntary step back.
"No," said Evan. "I didn't, actually. Because I was up until midnight rearranging my team's entire practice schedule around you—again—which is three times now, in case you've lost count."
He jabbed a finger into Potter's chest. Hard.
"I have seven people on my team with seven different timetables, half of them with OWLs and NEWTs to worry about. And I am done with you and your bullshit. Pick a different slot—this one is mine. You self-absorbed, insufferable prick."
Behind him, someone on the Gryffindor team let out a low whistle. Something moved behind Potter's hazel eyes—something Evan didn't bother trying to read.
"Alright," said Potter.
Evan, who had been braced for a fight—who had been ready to hex him if it came to it—blinked. "What?"
Potter grinned at him. Then he leaned in, close enough that Evan became suddenly, uncomfortably aware of how little space there was between them. Close enough to smell him. And he smelled good—annoyingly, distractingly good. Warm and faintly spiced, like something that had no business being that appealing at six in the morning. Potter dropped his voice, low enough that it didn't carry.
"I said," he said, "alright—I'll stop booking out your slot."
Evan stared at him. He opened his mouth. Closed it again. He frowned—confused. He’d been expecting a fight and yet here was Potter just agreeing?
“Good,” he said finally.
Then, because Potter was watching him in a way that made Evan feel oddly unsettled—and rather too warm—he turned and walked quickly away. He was distantly aware of the Gryffindor team watching him go. He didn’t look back. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the far end of the pitch and kept his expression as neutral as he could, which was considerably harder than it ought to have been when his thoughts were being so extremely loud and unhelpful. They kept circling back to Potter: to the way he had looked standing there, all tall and dark and irritatingly attractive; to the way he had held Evan’s gaze without looking away; and to the strange, nervous feeling that had sent skittering through him. The bloke was completely deranged. A total and utter pain in the arse—even if he did smell amazing and was, objectively speaking, exceedingly good-looking. Evan’s mind caught on that last thought, and he shoved it firmly aside. Not the point. The point was that Potter was an utter prick.
An utter prick who cornered him in the library on Tuesday night after dinner. It was almost eleven and the words of his History of Magic essay had long since stopped making sense. He was aware of movement at the edge of his vision—and then Potter dropped into the chair beside him like it was something he did every day. Before Evan's exhausted brain could fully register this, Potter reached over, lifted the roll of parchment clean off the table, and leaned back in his chair, scanning the page with an expression of casual interest. Evan made a half-hearted grab for it. Potter shifted it out of reach without even looking up. Evan, who had been working on the essay for four hours straight and had recently promoted it to the position of most annoying thing in his life—formally displacing Potter—decided he was too tired to fight about it. He slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes.
“Surreptitious has two t’s,” said Potter.
Evan didn’t open his eyes. “It could have seven for all I care. It’s due tomorrow, and I still have five inches to write.”
“Look,” said Potter.
Evan cracked open one eye. Potter had leant forwards, elbows resting on the table, Evan’s essay still in his hand.
“I wanted to apologise about the other day,” Potter continued. “You know—the whole pitch thing.”
“How considerate,” Evan said dryly. He pushed himself upright from his slumped position. “What do you actually want?”
“I think we may have got off on the wrong foot—”
Evan’s eyebrows shot up.
“Six weeks ago, you barely knew I existed, despite the fact that we’d been playing against each other for two years—which, for the record, I preferred. Since then, you’ve gone out of your way to be a gigantic prick and make my life as difficult as possible. I wouldn’t exactly call that getting off on the wrong foot.”
“Gigantic prick seems a bit harsh—”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Evan. “You’ve been giving me grief since the first week of term for absolutely no reason. You’ve had a go at my hair, my robes, my choice of broomstick—” He counted each offence off on his fingers. “Even the way I walk, which apparently ‘looks dodgy’, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
He lowered his hand and met Potter’s eyes.
“So no, I don’t think ‘gigantic prick’ is pushing it. I think it’s a fairly accurate summary of your behaviour.”
Potter watched Evan, his dark eyes fixed intently on him. As the moment stretched on, Evan felt his irritation begin to ebb, replaced by that nervous flutter in his stomach that seemed to be an unavoidable consequence of prolonged proximity to James Potter. Just as Evan became certain he would start squirming if Potter didn’t look away soon, Potter spoke.
“Did it ever occur to you,” he asked, “that I might just have been trying to get your attention?”
Evan stared at him.
“What?”
Potter smiled then—the sort of smile that ought to have been classified as a serious public-safety hazard.
“You were ignoring me,” he said, as though that explained everything. As though Evan were the one being unreasonable.
“Are you serious?” said Evan, momentarily unable to comprehend what was going on, “you’ve been deliberately sabotaging my practices and harassing my team because I was ignoring you?”
Potter shrugged. "What else was I meant to do?"
The sudden urge to pick up the nearest textbook—and there were several within reach, reassuringly heavy ones—and bring it down on Potter's head rose in Evan and it took every molecule of self restraint he had not to do exactly that.
He stood abruptly, grabbing his bag. "You are absolutely unfucking believable, do you know that?"
"So I've been told," said Potter, who was still grinning.
Evan stared at him for one long moment—at the grin, at the easy, unbothered way he sprawled in his chair—and decided that if he remained in the library for another second, he was going to do something that would get him expelled. So he turned and stalked away before he could commit murder in full view of Madam Pince. It wasn’t until he dumped his bag onto his bed ten minutes later that he realised Potter still had his essay. The essay due tomorrow. The essay he still had five inches left to write. Evan kicked his trunk in frustration, which accomplished nothing beyond adding a throbbing toe to his already considerable list of grievances against James Potter.
"Fuck," he said, with feeling.
For a split second he considered hunting Potter down and retrieving it. Then the reality of that plan hit him. It was a ten minute walk back to the library, meaning it would be close to midnight by the time he got there—and that was assuming Potter was even still there. It also meant talking to him. Talking to him and successfully resisting the urge to commit actual violence, which as the throbbing pain in his foot was to be taken into consideration was not something Evan could currently guarantee. He decided that History of Magic simply wasn't worth it. He'd take the late penalty—an automatic Poor, which was what Binns gave anyone who handed in past the deadline regardless of the quality of the work, a policy Evan had plenty of experience with. It wouldn't be the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last. He wasn't going to get better than Exceeds Expectations on the thing anyway. He got ready for bed with the resigned air of someone accepting their fate.
Fate as it turned out—in partnership with James Potter—took pity on Evan. And he woke the following morning to find his essay resting at the foot of his bed, along with, for some inexplicable reason, a single orange rose. Then, just as the last of the breakfast dishes began clearing themselves away in the Great Hall, Professor Dumbledore rose from his seat at the staff table and cleared his throat.
“On account of the recent development of a swamp on the first floor corridor,” he said pleasantly, “all classes will therefore be cancelled until further notice.”
He paused, peering over his half-moon spectacles with an expression of mild concern.
“I would also strongly advise against attempting to enter the girls’ lavatory on the staircase leading down from the second floor. There are several disgruntled will-o’-the-wisps, a somewhat irate Kappa, and the swamp itself is—”
He paused seeming to consider his words for a moment before saying:
“—rather enthusiastic, and so, for your own safety, please do leave it well alone. Those of you whose common rooms are located below the first floor may return to them. All other students should report to their heads of house, who will make alternative arrangements.”
Evan took advantage of the unexpected reprieve from classes to finish his essay, even persuading Reg to read it over and suggest several edits. He then turned his attention to the daunting pile of homework awaiting him and managed to make a respectable dent in both Transfiguration and Charms before dinner. As a result, for the first time in over a week, he went to bed at a reasonable hour.
He woke the following morning feeling remarkably refreshed, having avoided yet another late night battling homework in the library. His good mood lasted precisely as long as it took him to pull back the hangings around his bed.
There, on his bedside table, lay another orange rose—identical to the one he had found at the foot of his bed the previous morning. Evan frowned at it. What, exactly, was Potter playing at? He vanished the rose and set about getting dressed.
The next morning, there were two.
The morning after that, three.
Then four.
And on Friday, when Evan opened his locker in the Quidditch changing rooms to shove his robes inside, he found an entire bouquet waiting for him.
On Saturday evening, orange roses appeared magically on his dinner plate—and sprouted from his goblet of pumpkin juice—causing him to yelp in surprise and knock the whole thing over. On Sunday, a shower of orange petals descended upon him from the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall. By Monday morning, his fellow Slytherins had taken to calling him Rosie. The jokes were relentless, the teasing had spread entirely out of control, and Evan was once again giving serious consideration to James Potter-shaped homicide.
Orange roses followed him through the next five days. They appeared in the drawer of his desk in Transfiguration, arrived by owl and—on one particularly mortifying occasion—were delivered in the middle of Defence Against the Dark Arts by a distinctly apprehensive first-year. Each day, they multiplied. Each day, their presence became more aggressive. Everywhere Evan went, flowers were waiting for him. He finally snapped on the following Friday morning—when he drew back the hangings around his bed and found himself confronted by a sea of orange.
For one bewildered moment, he wondered whether he had somehow woken up outside. Then his sleep-addled mind arrived, slowly and somewhat surreally, at the truth: he wasn’t outside. The outside—or at least every orange rose it had ever produced—had somehow come inside. They were everywhere. Great armfuls crowded into vases and overflowed from loosely tied bouquets. They covered nearly every inch of the dormitory floor, engulfed the bedside tables and lined the shelves along the walls. There were even bunches balanced precariously atop the boys’ trunks. Evan shot to his feet, wincing as his bare soles came down on several thorny stems.
He was going to kill Potter.
He vanished the roses with considerably more force than necessary, the last of them disappearing just as Reg emerged from behind his bed hangings. Evan dressed quickly, then stormed out of the dungeons and made straight for Gryffindor Tower. He found James Potter in the corridor outside the portrait hole. Before Potter could do more than look mildly surprised, Evan seized him by the collar and shoved him against the wall.
“Why,” he growled, pressing the tip of his wand beneath Potter’s chin, “are you harassing me with flowers?”
Somehow, despite the wand at his throat, Potter managed to arrange his features into an expression of exaggerated innocence.
“Don’t you like flowers?”
The answer only made Evan angrier.
“What the fuck have I ever done to you?” Evan demanded. “What could I possibly have done to make you go this far out of your way to make my life difficult?”
Potter grinned—the insufferable prick looked as though he were having the time of his life, apparently untroubled by the fact that Evan had him pinned against a wall with a wand pressed to his throat.
“Maybe,” he said, his eyes glittering with amusement, “I like it when you yell at me.”
Evan’s mind went abruptly, spectacularly blank.
“What?”
Potter’s grin widened. “Maybe I find it hot.”
Evan’s anger vanished so abruptly it was disorientating—behind it a hot, nervous confusion that spread rapidly from his stomach to his face. Evan could feel the warmth of Potter’s body against his—and Potter was looking at him in a way that made Evan quite sure he knew exactly the response his words had had on Evan’s insides. Evan released him as though he had been burnt. He stumbled backwards, nearly tripped over his own feet and only just managed to disguise the movement as something resembling a deliberate step. Potter straightened his robes, still wearing that infuriating, knowing smile.
“Stop fucking with me,” Evan said.
It would have sounded considerably more threatening if his voice hadn’t caught halfway through.
Potter opened his mouth—but Evan cut him off.
“Just—stop.”
Then he turned too quickly, his shoulder catching a suit of armour and sending its halberd clattering to the floor. He did not look back. He did not acknowledge Potter’s badly smothered laugh. He simply righted himself and strode away with as much dignity as a person fleeing the scene of his own complete psychological collapse could reasonably muster.
The rest of the day passed in a haze.
Through every lesson, Evan was haunted by the slow, creeping horror of one inescapable conclusion: James Potter knew Evan found him attractive—and now he was using it against him.
Because Potter had to be messing with him. He had to be.
There was no conceivable way someone like James Potter could genuinely be interested in Evan. Potter was gorgeous, brilliant at Quidditch and—despite being almost unbearably infuriating—the most popular boy in the entire school. He could have anyone he wanted.
And Evan was—
Well. Evan was just Evan.
It had to be a pisstake. Some elaborate joke Potter had devised because tormenting him with flowers had finally lost its entertainment value.
It had to be.
Didn’t it?
The question gnawed at him through the remainder of his classes until, by dinner, he could no longer stand it. With considerable reluctance—and only after extracting several solemn promises that no one would laugh—he finally broke down and told his sister and friends what had happened.
For several seconds after Evan finished speaking, no one said anything.
Then Barty started to laugh.
“I’m so glad my suffering amuses you,” Evan said coolly.
Barty shook his head, his eyes bright with badly suppressed laughter. “Poor Rosie—tormented by the attention of the fittest guy in school. However, will you survive?”
“I will stab you with this fork.”
“See, this is precisely what Potter likes about you. All that viciousness in such a deceptively pretty package. Can you really blame him? The eyes. The cheekbones. The abs—”
“Please stop,” Evan interjected.
“And you’ve got that whole small-but-dangerous thing going on—”
“Five foot nine is not small,” Evan snapped.
“—like an especially beautiful kneazle with rabies.”
“I’m the same height as Reg, you prick.”
“See?” said Barty gleefully. “Irresistible. Right there.”
Evan turned desperately to Reg.
“Tell him he’s deranged.”
“He is definitely deranged,” Reg agreed obligingly. He paused, then added, almost, “unfortunately, he is also not wrong.”
Evan stared at him, then looked between his sister and his two best friends in disbelief.
“Oh, Evan,” Pandora said, her expression painfully sympathetic. “You really didn’t know? He’s been flirting with you since the beginning of term.”
“Has he?” Evan asked faintly.
“Yes. We sort of assumed you knew and were simply choosing to ignore it.”
“I knew you didn’t know,” interjected Barty. “I just thought it was funny watching you being totally oblivious.”
Evan looked to Reg, who could ordinarily be relied upon to provide some measure of logic and good sense.
Reg lifted one shoulder. “I’m afraid I agree.”
He glanced towards the Gryffindor table, his expression distinctly disapproving, before then turning back to Evan with an almost apologetic look.
“Consider it this way: did Potter not spend most of last year harassing Evans in pursuit of his self-proclaimed desire to date her?”
Evan made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. There was little point denying it—the entire school had been subjected to Potter’s increasingly ridiculous attempts to persuade Lily Evans to go out with him.
“And would you not agree that his behaviour towards you—commandeering your Quidditch pitch, seeking you out in the library and inundating you with flowers—follows a remarkably similar pattern?”
Evan opened his mouth to object, only to discover that he couldn’t. Every argument that occurred to him collapsed beneath the deeply inconvenient fact that Reg was right. After several futile seconds, he closed his mouth again.
“I believe,” Reg continued, “that where Potter is concerned, making a nuisance of himself constitutes courtship.” He regarded Evan steadily. “The question isn’t whether he likes you. It’s whether you like him.”
Evan lowered his gaze to his plate, suddenly and acutely embarrassed. Because no, of course he didn’t like Potter. Potter was annoying and ridiculous and a walking public hazard. It was merely that Potter also did strange things to Evan’s stomach. And perhaps—perhaps—Evan wouldn’t mind discovering what James Potter was like when he wasn’t deliberately trying to irritate him. That thought followed him into bed—bouncing around his head as he lay in the dark—the thought of Potter—and him…
The following morning, an owl swooped down over the breakfast table and landed in front of Evan. A large parcel wrapped in brown paper was secured to its leg. Evan regarded it with considerable trepidation. Given recent events, he half expected the moment he opened it to be smothered beneath an avalanche of orange roses. Instead, when he carefully peeled back the paper, he found a leather-bound book. He turned it over curiously. Embossed across the cover in curling gold script were the words:
The Secret Language of Flowers
by Euphemia Wren
Evan opened it and began flicking through the pages. He had gone only a little way when he found one corner folded down. The book was plainly brand-new, which meant the page had almost certainly been marked deliberately. A familiar bloom had been rendered there in delicate watercolour: an orange rose, its petals bright as flame.
Beneath it were the words:
Orange roses speak in the language of fire: desire, passion, beginnings. They are neither the gentle friendship of yellow nor the abiding devotion of red, but the spark between them—the heat of fascination, the quickening of something new, and the promise that what begins in flame might yet endure.
To give an orange rose is to confess: I burn for you.
Evan read the passage once.
Then again.
Then Evan closed the book.
After breakfast, he carried it back to the dormitory and tucked it carefully into his trunk. He sat down on the edge of his bed and thought—long and hard—about every interaction he had had with Potter since the beginning of term. He thought about every time Potter had singled him out. Every time he had stopped Evan in a corridor simply to tease him. Every argument he had deliberately provoked. Every infuriating grin when Evan rose to the bait. He thought about the Quidditch pitch. How Potter had forced his entire team to change their training schedule repeatedly—dragging seven people out of bed at the crack of dawn—apparently for the sole purpose of getting under Evan’s skin.
Thought about Potter apologising for that very thing later in the library. Thought about him saying he’d done it to get Evan’s attention. Then—something else occurred to him: the mysterious swamp that had appeared on the first floor the next morning. The swamp that had resulted in the cancellation of every class Evan had been due to attend that day. The swamp that had appeared only hours after Evan told Potter his History of Magic essay was due the next morning. An essay Potter had known perfectly well wasn’t finished, considering it had still been in his possession when Evan stormed out of the library. Had Potter created an entire swamp just to give him time to finish his homework?
Then there were the flowers.
It was ridiculous. Excessive. More than slightly unhinged. It was also more effort than anyone had ever gone to for him. More effort than Evan had ever imagined anyone might want to go to—just for him. And, viewed through the revelation contained in that book, the whole thing suddenly seemed rather different. It didn’t seem nearly as annoying as it had before. In fact, in a completely deranged, distinctly James Potter sort of way, it was almost—
Romantic.
Evan fell backwards onto his bed and covered his face with both hands.
"Oh, fuck."
Once he had himself relatively under control, he stood and went in search of James Potter. He found him outside the Great Hall, laughing with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Before good sense—or, indeed, any thought whatsoever—could intervene, Evan seized Potter by the wrist, dragged him into the nearest broom cupboard and kissed him. Because, really, what else were you supposed to do when someone sent you a thousand orange roses?
Potter made a startled sound against his mouth. For one terrible instant, Evan thought he might have made a catastrophic mistake. Then a hand found Evan’s waist, the other slid into his hair, and Potter kissed him back with such unrestrained enthusiasm that Evan stumbled against the door, sending several brooms clattering noisily to the floor around them. Potter drew back just far enough to breathe, his glasses crooked—grin bright enough to blind.
“Does this mean you liked the flowers?”
“Shut up,” Evan muttered, pulling him back in with the distinct feeling that James Potter might be the end of him and any sanity he might have—and the far more troubling realisation that he wasn’t entirely sure he minded.