Work Text:
Baz
Simon is obsessed with quizzes, and not the educational kind, or else he may have done better in school. No, it’s the useless quizzes he seems to love so much. The sorting kind: “ What kind of bird are you?” “ What would be your superpower?” “Pick a taco and we’ll tell you at what age you’ll get married.” (Incidentally, that one said he was already married, but I’m not suspicious.) It’s all totally useless knowledge. Bunce says that useless knowledge doesn’t exist, but she’s not dating Simon Snow. And she’s not the one being begged to take them all after he’s done.
I took a few of them at first, of course, just to humor Snow. It seemed trivial at the time. But after finding out that I’m a pigeon, and that my superpower is invisibility (and the countless vampire jokes that ensued shortly afterwards), and that I’m apparently never getting married because I’m not a fan of tacos, I had to put my foot down. But apparently, that means nothing because a laptop is being shoved in my face.
“No way, Snow.”
“But, Baz, we have to know!”
“We already know.”
“Not officially!”
Bunce walks in and gives us a questioning glare as I yank the laptop out of Snow’s hands and sit it down on the coffee table.
“What don’t we know officially?” She asks, sitting down on the end of the sofa. Then she glances between us. “You two aren’t flirting, are you?”
I roll my eyes. Snow makes a grab for the laptop, but I swipe it up from the table and walk away from the couch.
“We don’t know Baz’s Hogwarts house,” he says. He huffs and crosses his arm, glaring at me and then at the laptop in my hands. I almost smile at him. Because he’s pouting.
I slide the laptop onto the bookshelf and turn to him. “I’ve already told you, Snow. I’m not taking anymore of your quizzes.”
Bunce’s eyes widen. “You don’t know your Hogwart’s house, Basilton?”
I raise an eyebrow at her and give her a disappointed look. “Not you too, Bunce.”
“Penny is a Ravenclaw,” Snow says, nodding towards her. Bunce nods in return and sips her tea. “And I’m a Hufflepuff.”
“Of course you’re a Hufflepuff, Snow,” I say.
He rolls his eyes. “But we don’t know your house, Baz.”
“Of course we do,” I say. I run my hand cooly through my hair and smirk at him. “We all know I’m a Slytherin.”
Snow doesn’t react to this. “Not officially,” he says, and he points to the laptop. “You have to take the quiz.”
Bunce snorts. “I don’t buy that for a second, Baz. You may exude Slytherin on the outside, but you’re just as bad as Simon. I think” —she locks her eyes with mine— “that you’re a Hufflepuff.”
Snow starts laughing, but I just frown. “I’m not a Hufflepuff, Bunce. That’s absurd.”
She shrugs and sips her tea again. “You’ll never know unless you take the quiz.”
Snow giggles a bit more, then smiles at me. Crowley , I think. I never win. Because the evening sun is setting, and the light is filtering through the windows. And Simon’s face is glowing. And he’s smiling so wide. And I hate him for it. Because that smile makes me weak. It makes me want to say yes. It makes me want to agree. It makes me want to do whatever it takes just to keep him smiling.
I roll my eyes and sigh. “Fine, Simon,” I say, grabbing the laptop from the shelf. I ignore Bunce’s questioning stare as I walk back over to the couch and hand the laptop to Snow. “I’ll take your stupid quiz.”
Snow takes the laptop happily and opens it as I sit down beside him. As he types away at it, I run my fingers through his hair, watching as the light reflects off of each curl. He swishes his ridiculous tail over at me and winds it around my arm. Bunce scoffs at this, then gets up and walks toward the kitchen.
“Ready,” Snow says, then hands me the laptop. He leans against me and puts his head on my shoulder.
I read through the questions carefully and probably spend too long on each one. But maybe I’m dragging this out on purpose. Because Simon smells wonderful. Like cinnamon and citrus and a scent that I can never quite seem to describe. And his tail is still wrapped around my arm, and his thumb is moving against my leg.
When I select my answer to a certain question, Snow looks up at me with a questioning eyebrow raise.
“White?” he asks.
“What’s wrong with white?”
“You’re a vampire, Baz.”
“So?”
“Your last name is Pitch.”
“What’s your point, Snow?”
He doesn’t say anything and puts his head back on my shoulder.
I read through the next few questions, then hesitate on clicking the ‘Find Out Your Results’ button.
“The moment of truth,” Snow says, sitting up and staring intently at the screen.
I roll my eyes and frown, then click on the button. We wait a few seconds (of course, Snow has the slowest laptop in existence), and then the page loads, and I immediately slam the laptop shut.
Snow is laughing. He’s doubled over and laughing. Too much and too hard.
“Shut up, Snow,” I say. I nudge him in the side, but he’s laughing too much to care.
Bunce walks back into the room, and I glare at her. She looks over at Snow, then smiles.
“Ah, yes” she says, grinning slyly. “Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, the Hufflepuff who lived.”
I roll my eyes. “Fuck off, Bunce.”
Snow unwinds his tail from my arm, then gets up and shuffles quickly to his room.
“I told you so,” Bunce snarks.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. I just want to spell this laptop away from me.
Snow then comes out of his room, leans over the back of the couch, and drapes an obnoxiously large yellow and black-striped scarf around my neck.
“There, Baz,” he says, leaning over more to kiss me on my cheek. “We can be in Hufflepuff together.”
My cheek feels warm, tingly, almost like a burn, but I just scoff at him.
“I don’t want this bloody scarf, Snow,” I say as I try to push it off. But then I inhale, and the scarf smells like him. Like cinnamon and citrus and that scent that I can never quite seem to describe. But it’s the one that I know so well. And as it leaves my nose, I breathe it all in again.
And I think that maybe Hufflepuff isn’t so bad.