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“He’s looking this way again.” Cisco snickered. Barry buried his head further into his book, both to ignore his best friend’s goading and to resist the urge to turn around and look. Beside him, Caitlin elbowed Cisco in the side.
“Leave him alone, Cisco.”
The Ravenclaw shrugged. “I’m just saying, that Durmstrang has been following us around for weeks, and he always stares at Barry. Stalker, much?”
Barry rolled his eyes and tried to even harder to hide behind his book. Cisco wasn’t wrong. The Durmstrang in question—Oliver Queen, he’d found out—had been his constant shadow for weeks, ever since the second task. As two of the three champions (the other being a Beauxbaton named Kara Danvers), they’d spent more time together than Barry had with any of the other Durmstrangs, but unlike Kara, who was warm and friendly, Oliver was stand-offish and quiet.
During the second task, involving rescuing the people they treasured most from the bottom of the lake, Barry had arrived at the site where the captives were being kept first. The merpeople of the Black Lake kept a constant presence around the perimeter, making sure that each champion only took one hostage. Barry swam over to his hostage—Cisco, which he knew he would never hear the end of—and raised his wand to free his best friend, pausing when he realized that none of the other champions were right behind him.
What if they didn’t make it this far? What would the merpeople do with the hostages? He recognized the Durmstrang and Beauxbaton hostages as Thea, Oliver’s sister, and Alex, Kara’s sister. He couldn’t leave them there at the bottom of the lake without knowing that their siblings were going to make it.
So, he waited. Kara was the next to arrive, giving him a nod of gratitude when Barry helped untie her sister and waved her off. He kept an eye out, waiting for Oliver to show. Ten minutes passed. Another five. Soon, he came to the conclusion that something had happened. Oliver wasn’t going to make it to save his sister. And the hour was almost up.
Glancing around, he made sure that none of the merpeople were watching before he sent a stream of magic at the bonds of both hostages. He dragged Thea and Cisco towards the surface, feeling the gillyweed he’d eaten wearing off the closer he came to the hour mark. When his head finally broke the water, Cisco and Thea woke up from their magic-induced sleep.
“Dude, what’s happening?” Cisco asked, kicking to keep his head above water.
Barry opened his mouth to answer, but he was so tired. He hadn’t even noticed that he was drifting off until Thea pulled him into her arms and helped drag him back to shore. The teachers and other students helped pull the three onto the dock.
Caitlin rushed to Barry and Cisco’s sides. The former flinched when she slapped him sharply on the arm. “You are such an idiot! Kara told everyone that you got there first, but waited. Did you think that Dumbledore was just going to leave them down there?”
Honestly, when Barry was in first year and got detention, they sent him out into the Forbidden Forest at night to search for something that was murdering unicorns, so he wouldn’t put anything past Dumbledore after that. He didn’t say that though, instead accepting a hug that both of his friends pulled him into.
“You.” He heard someone say to his left. He turned to see Oliver Queen standing away from the crowd, a strange expression on his face. “You were in first place, but you stayed behind to save my sister.”
Under the Durmstrang’s intense stare, Barry couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, he just nodded. A small smile grew on the other wizard’s face, and all Barry could think was ‘Wow, he should really smile more’.
“Thank you.” With that, the Durmstrang returned to his sister’s side.
After all that, both Kara and Oliver petitioned to give Barry first place, since he technically did get to the hostages first and would have won, had he not been, as Caitlin had worded it, ‘so self-sacrificing and stupid’. Since then, Oliver Queen was never more than twenty-feet away from him outside of class.
Which was especially embarrassing now that the Yule Ball had been announced. Just the other day, Barry and Cisco had been sitting in the Great Hall and Linda Park, the girl Barry was going to ask to the ball, walked over. Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks and walked back to her table. When Barry asked Cisco why he thought she’d done that, he nodded behind Barry. Sitting facing him at the Slytherin table was none other than Oliver Queen, glaring at Linda as she walked away.
“If he keeps this up, I’m going to be going to the Yule Ball alone.” Barry groaned, laying his head down on his book. Cisco and Caitlin both gave him piteous looks.
“You know I’ll go with you if you need a date.” Caitlin smiled, laying a hand on his. Cisco nodded.
“Me too, dude. Unless Oliver Queen threatens me, in which case there is nothing wrong with going stag.”
Caitlin elbowed his again, this time hard enough to make Cisco cry out. “Damn girl. Do you sharpen your elbows?”
Barry laughed quietly, glad he had friends that cared so much about him. “Thanks, but I know you want to go with Ronnie, Caitlin, and I wouldn’t want to take Lisa Snart’s date away from her.”
Cisco frowned as Barry rose up from his seat with his things, not noticing the Hufflepuff in question approaching behind him. Walking away, he held in a grin when he heard, “Hi, Cisco.”, followed by a small yelp.
As he left the library, Barry could hear familiar footsteps following him. He didn’t need to look back to see that Oliver was behind him. He sighed. This was never going to end. Why was Oliver doing this? He saved his sister’s life (or at least, he thought he was at the time), and he repays the favor by stalking him?
This was it. He was putting a stop to it now. He took a sharp turn down a lesser used corridor, knowing that Oliver would follow, and hid in an alcove. When he heard Oliver approach, he quickly reached out, grabbed him his cloak, and yanked him in.
“Why are you stalking me?” He demanded. The shock on the Durmstrang’s face gave him a swell of satisfaction. Although, now that he was face-to-face with Oliver, he could see that this was a terrible idea. He’d isolated himself in a corridor with his stalker, in a small alcove where they were pressed against each other, not sure of what said-stalker’s intentions were. He swallowed hard, trying to keep his brave front up.
Oliver bit his lip in a nervous gesture that surprised Barry. The few times he’d spent with Oliver, he’d never seen the Durmstrang be anything if not fearless and stoic, bordering on cocky and overbearing. When he suddenly leaned in bring their lips together, Barry was both confused and somewhat pleased. After all, Oliver was not an ugly man, nor was he a completely unlikeable man. All of a sudden, the stalking made a little bit more sense.
When Oliver pulled away, it took Barry a minute to start breathing again. “I…um,” Oliver cleared his throat. “I’ve been wanting to ask you to the Yule Ball, but I wasn’t sure how to ask. So…”
Barry, still in a bit of a daze, nodded. “Yeah…I mean, yes, I’ll go to the ball with you.”
Oliver’s face lit up as he leaned in for another kiss. This time, Barry wrapped his arms around Oliver’s neck to pull him in closer, mentally laughing at the fact that his foster sister, Iris, would never believe this.