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It’s a dove today.
Oliver watches the tiny bird flit around the ceiling of his dorm, weaving in and out of the red tapestries. Yesterday, it’d been a tiny bouquet of daisies placed near his Quidditch equipment. The day before, a bottle of new broom polish resting inconspicuously on his desk in Transfiguration. The week prior had been finely wrapped chocolates (exquisitely wrapped, to be honest), one each day of the week, resting neatly in his locker.
He’d dragged Percy in, scattered the various gifts on his bed, and pointed to the cooing bird wordlessly.
Percy stares up at the dove, pushing up his glasses with his index finger. “Looks like you have a secret admirer.”
“What?”
“Well,” Percy says, “Doves, chocolates, flowers. Something personal you greatly appreciate - it’s standard, isn’t it? Someone’s trying to woo you.”
Oliver snorts. “Only you would use the word ‘woo’.”
“Still.” Percy shrugs, picking up his textbook. “Just make sure the dove doesn’t get droppings all over the place.”
The next morning, it’s a tiny labrador puppy, waiting patiently at his seat in the Great Hall with Oliver’s name on a tag around his collar. The pup starts yipping as soon as Oliver enters the hall and pants excitedly as Oliver sits down.
He takes one look at the cute Lab and stands up.
“Okay!” Oliver calls, waving his free arm around to catch the attention of everyone eating breakfast. The other hand clutches the happy pup to his chest and a group of fifth years coo at the sight. “I love dogs, but I really can’t - can’t take him. Whoever’s been leaving me gifts, I greatly appreciate them, but I really would like it if you’d just come and express yourself to me in person.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Adrian Pucey muffle his laughter. Huh.
“Um. Wood, I don’t think anyone here’s responsible.” Angelina pipes up, glancing around at the quiet faces.
Oliver sighs. Great. Now McGonagall’s giving him the evil eye for nothing.
The brown lab looks up at him with big, adorable eyes and Oliver smiles on reflex. He supposes the pup must be pretty well trained, to wait in the Great Hall. It shouldn’t be too hard to take care of.
He’s making sure Lucky (yes, he named the puppy, okay, he couldn’t resist) is able to wait patiently by the side of the pitch for practice later, when Flint stalks up to him. Shoulders drawn, hands shoved in pockets and Flint looks like he’s brooding - Oliver wonders what’s gotten the guy so torn up like this because even when Slytherin had lost the match last year, Flint had just stormed around and yelled.
Of everything he knows about Marcus Flint (which is a bit too much for just rivals, but Oliver ignores that little voice in his head), Flint does not brood.
“What do you want, Flint?” He asks first, deciding to cut straight to the point.
Flint merely grunts and nudges at a pebble with his foot. Lucky barks by Oliver’s feet, tail wagging.
“Look,” Oliver sighs, “If this is another ploy to get out of a match because, I dunno, Montague tripped on a Niffler or something - the answer is no.”
“S’not.” Flint mumbles, and if Oliver was seeing correctly, he’d think that the hulking brute in front of him was blushing.
Oliver straightens up, and Lucky makes a move to dart forward before Oliver sidesteps the pups eager bound. “Then what? Here to make fun of me about this morning?”
Flint’s mouth turns down into an even more menacing scowl. “No.”
Oliver resists the urge to throw his hands in the air, fed up with Flint’s one word answers. “Look, if you’re not going to spit it out, then whatever.”
He makes it ten paces away before Flint blurts out “Did you like the chocolates?”. And that - that strikes a jolt through his body. Oliver spins around with a little less grace than he’d like to have.
“You - how’d you know about the chocolates?”
Flint’s mouth opens then closes. No words come out and then Lucky the Lab darts away from Oliver’s side to pad at Flint’s calves with his little paws. Oliver can only stare as Flint bends down to pet the pup with a large hand, and then the pieces click together, one by one.
“Holy shit.” Oliver points first at Lucky, then back at Flint, and he knows he’s being rude but really. Really.How does one react to Marcus bloody Flint being their secret admirer?
Flint’s frowns and there’s a little jump in his jaw. “You - Pucey said I should just tell you. That’s what you said this morning, apparently.”
Oliver only nods, still in shock.
Flint huffs. “Fuck, I knew this was a bad idea.” And he makes to move away, even as Lucky whines piteously. “You can keep the stuff, I don’t care.”
Oliver manages to shake himself out of his stupor to catch Flint’s elbow when Flint brushes past, and he’s kind of still reeling from the fact that his bloody Quidditch rival, vicious and nasty on the pitch, had cut daisies carefully and tied them together delicately with a nice red ribbon.
“Wait.” Flint stiffens under his grasp, but he doesn’t continue to pull away. “I did. Like the stuff, I mean.”
Flint appraises him with a careful gaze. “Even the bird?”
“Well, that was a bit overboard but, yeah.” It’s the most words they’ve exchanged outside of arguments over practice times and Quidditch, but Oliver is reminded of that one time at the beginning of the year when McGonagall had forced them to partner together for an assignment.
Oliver can admit to himself that he’d enjoyed Flint’s company, once the arguing had settled down.
Flint doesn’t seem to know what else to say, his presence as much a confession as anything else, and Lucky is at their feet, looking up almost hopefully at his new owner and, Oliver guesses, his old one.
“I really liked the chocolates.” Oliver tries, unusually tentative. “If you want - maybe you could … take me to where you got them?”
Flint stares at him. Then a slow smile blooms across his face, similar to the one Oliver had caught in the quiet moments when they’d been finishing their Transfiguration assignment, and Oliver thinks that maybe, maybe he should’ve seen this coming.
Flint nods. And Oliver smiles himself, when he says, “Then it’s a date.”