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Sunday, December 15, 2019
Louis was awake, more or less, and seriously considering the possibility of spending the whole day in bed.
As he had predicted, there had been a big snowstorm the previous night; the windows of the Hufflepuff dormitories showed nothing but white, and while they were in the basement, that meant that the snow was at least a few feet deep. Fortunately for Louis, the Hufflepuff dormitories were the coziest place in the castle. Louis suspected that his own bed was particularly cozy, with an enchanted bedwarmer by his feet and the extra layers of quilts that he had managed to acquire. He knew that at that very moment he was missing breakfast, but so what? In this castle, you could get food whenever you wanted if you knew how. Sunday mornings were made for doing nothing, and there was no better feeling than being warm on a miserably cold day.
He might have stayed there until at least lunchtime, if not for an argument happening in the common room.
He heard several people, with one female voice being particularly loud. Covering his head with one of his pillows did a good job of blocking out the noise, but he was a prefect, and knew it was his job to go and stop whatever was happening. But surely it would resolve itself after a few minutes? Or one of the other five prefects would show up to intervene?
He took off the pillow just in time to hear a particularly shrill invective.
Louis sighed and threw back the covers, arching his back in a yawn.
A moment later he was brushing his hair with his fingers as he opened the door to the common room.
"It's the middle of a snowstorm, Atalanta!"
"Quidditch—is not a game—for BABIES!" said Atalanta Crowley, Louis' fellow sixth-year and Captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. "If you want to play, you play in all conditions! If there happens to be a little snow during our next game—"
"Oi! What are you lot fighting about?"
The seven members of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team all turned toward Louis, and one of the Chasers gave a flustered cough.
Louis—who was on the tall side, lean but with enough definition not to be scrawny—had emerged wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms. His strawberry blond hair was a bit long, and smoothed out just enough so that he wasn't scruffy but still unkempt enough that he looked a bit rugged. That, combined with the way that he was leaning casually against the doorframe, made for a rather attractive image.
This was not by accident. Having just rolled out of bed, Louis was making a concerted effort to keep his eyes open and his posture straight, while also trying to look relaxed. And he was cold. He hadn't even gotten his slippers, feeling that they would ruin the effect.
If they were going to bother him, he would bother them right back.
Still, he looked down at his bare chest as though unaware why all the girls were staring at him.
"Right. Forgot my prefect badge, didn't I? Anyway, what's the problem?"
The girls reluctantly tore their gazes away from Louis' torso. Atalanta even managed to look him in the eye.
"What? You're going to dock us points for going to practice?"
"Tell her we can't practice in this weather!" said the team's Keeper, who Louis vaguely knew as Django Something. He was one of three in the group, the others being Louis' younger cousin Albus and Albus' fellow third-year, Joshua McSomething.
"I heard Professor Lemery tell some kids not to go outside in this cold," Albus added, then winced as Atalanta glared at him.
"And the wind is so bad that your cousin here could get blown away! No offense," Django added, as Albus looked rather offended.
"Then he needs to practice flying in the wind!"
"I can fly in the wind!"
"Good!" Atalanta snapped. "Then let's go practice."
Louis spoke up. "It's not my place to decide your practice schedule, but I do have to enforce the school rules, Atalanta. If a professor said to stay indoors, then it's certainly not the sort of weather you should be flying in. Couldn't you practice tomorrow, after Hagrid has time to thaw out the grounds a bit?"
As he spoke, he ran his hand through his hair again. Atalanta's face was very red.
"We have the pitch reserved for today. I specifically requested the whole day. Tomorrow there'll be classes, and then the Ravenclaws get it."
Louis chuckled, pushing himself away from the doorframe. "The way you trounced them last month, do you really think you need more practice than them?"
"You never don't need practice! Let me remind you, we're up against Gryffindor next, and they're coming off of a victory, too!"
"But you don't face them until March! Plenty of time to get ready. And let's be honest—any practice you do is just gonna get undone over Christmas break. Now's the time to rest up before you hit the pitch in January."
Atalanta scowled. "Winners don't rest."
Louis' eyes darted over to Albus, who was looking nervous and hopeful, and then toward the snowy windows. He couldn't let them go out in this weather, but he would prefer a peaceful resolution to point-taking or detention.
He decided to use the big guns.
"What if the rest is in a nice hot bath?" Louis took a step toward Atalanta, and practically whispered in her ear. "It's my turn to use the prefect's bathroom this afternoon."
Django "OOOH"ed, somebody laughed, and Atalanta looked like she was ready to curse Louis into a wall. It took him a few seconds to figure out why.
"I meant you could have it instead of me!" He held up his hands, but grinned at his own mistake. "I assume you don't want to share?"
Django and two of the Chasers were still giggling, while Albus looked more embarrassed than Louis felt. Atalanta's face was redder than ever, and her expression was hard. Finally, she turned to snap at her teammates.
"Fine! If you flobberworms can't stand a little cold. But we are going to practice on Wednesday, even if there's a bloody hurricane! And if we lose against Gryffindor, so help me—!"
She spun on her heel and stormed into her dormitory, slamming the door behind her. Several people cheered.
"Thanks, Louis," said one of the girls, who then blushed and looked back up at his face.
"Yeah, thanks," said Albus, smiling wanly.
"No problem," Louis said, earning a "Gerroff!" as he tusseled his cousin's messy hair. "I was looking forward to that bath, though," he mused, as the rest of the team began to disperse. "But I can take one after curfew when you lend me your Invisibility Cloak."
Albus' eyes darted away. "What Invisibility Cloak?"
"Al. Don't play dumb. James has spent hours complaining to me that Uncle Harry gave it to you instead of him."
"He already got the magic map," Albus grumbled.
Just then, the entrance to the common room opened. A bunch of first-years clambered inside, most of them talking or laughing or yelling. Behind them crawled Sadie Fovargue, Louis' fellow sixth-year prefect, who looked harassed as she climbed to her feet.
"Louis, can you please help me with—" She paused, her gaze darting down his body and then back up to his eyes. "Aren't you cold?"
Her scornful tone only made Louis smirk. "Quite, actually! You were saying?"
"The moppets are driving me crazy, and they can't go outside. I don't suppose you could help me entertain them?"
"First thing's first. Are they still serving breakfast?"
"No."
"Alright, then. OI!" he said, turning around to address everyone still in the common room. "Who wants to do something that's technically against the rules but probably won't get you in any trouble?"
Albus and Sophie both gave him dubious looks as several of the first-years voiced their approval.
Louis had been a little worried about bringing more than a half-dozen people to the kitchens at once, but he warned them to be on their best behavior, and most of them were too awed to cause trouble. They were sitting in small groups, talking animatedly while the house-elves, always delighted to have visitors, brought them snacks between their preparations for the day's lunch.
Louis, now dressed in school robes with two of Grandma Weasley's jumpers underneath, sat on the floor by the fireplace with Albus. He was just pushing away an empty plate of breakfast as a house-elf run up with two mugs of hot cocoa.
"Thank you, Gellie," Louis said, raising his mug as if toasting her. The elf curtsied and ran back to her work.
Albus took a sip. "Blimey! This is really good."
"I know, right?" Louis sipped his own, then grinned, fully aware that he had given himself a chocolatey mustache. "Now, see, this is the proper use of a winter's day. Sitting beside the fire with a warm drink—not going outside and sitting on a broom. Especially when you're already a big-time Quidditch star, eh?"
He gave Al's shoe a little kick with his own. Albus made a face, like he thought Louis might be mocking him. "I've only played one game."
"And you won! That's a 100% success rate. Better than most professional players."
Albus took another sip of his cocoa, let his gaze travel around the room, and then down at his lap.
"Louis?"
"Yeah, Al?"
"Have you ever actually dated anyone?"
He shrugged. "Not really."
"Oh."
"Why do you ask?"
"I don't know. It just seems weird, because girls all seem to really like you." He hesitated again. "How do you get girls to like you so much?"
"Well, it helps if you happen to be an incredibly attractive part-veela."
"Oh," he said again. He gave Louis a weird look, as though it was just now occurring to him that he was what most girls considered handsome.
Louis smirked, leaning forward. "Are you looking for advice? Is there a special lady that you've got your eye on?"
"No," Albus said quickly, turning a delicate shade of pink.
"...Special bloke?"
"No. I was just wondering. Because it always seems like you're...flirting, or whatever, but you never ask the girls out, even though I'm pretty sure just about any of them would say yes."
Louis sat back and finally licked away his mustache.
"I don't know. I like girls a lot, so I have a hard time picking one. It's more fun to flirt with all of them. Especially Dom and Molly's friends," he added. "If you ever want to annoy Lily, just flirt with her friends a bit, it's sure to drive her crazy."
"But isn't that kind of—mean?" When Louis raised an eyebrow, he added, "Atalanta fancies you, you know."
"She doesn't fancy me, Al. She thinks I'm fit. Which I am. But that's not the same as fancying."
"No, I'm sure that she fancies you," Albus insisted. "I've noticed, she's always looking your way during dinner or in the common room. And you remember that time you came to watch us practice? She kept messing up, and I'm sure it's because you were there."
Louis stared at him for a long moment.
"Are you sure?"
Albus nodded. "And it just seemed—back in the common room, like you were...teasing her about it? I don't think you meant to," he added quickly. "But I think she'd really want to go out with you, if you wanted to go out with her. So being all...flirty, or whatever, if you don't want to date her, just sort of seems bad."
He looked away quickly, then peeked back, as though to see if Louis were mad at him. But his older cousin only looked thoughtful.
"Maybe you're right," he said finally. "If a girl thinks you're dishy, walking around her half-naked is an act charity. But if she fancies you, then it's just cruel. Are you sure she does?"
"When she looks at you, I always think that it's probably how I look around girls I like."
"Girls such as...?"
"Nobody," Albus snapped.
Louis shrugged, sat back and finished off his cocoa.
"Well, she's a lucky girl, whoever she is, since you already know more about romance than I do."
Albus blinked in surprise, then smiled nervously.
A little before lunchtime, Louis led his charges back upstairs, taking some to the Great Hall while others, who had had enough snacks in the kitchen, wandered off toward the common room or library. Albus, meanwhile, went off toward the Gryffindor table, presumably to sit with James, Lily, or that Scorpius friend of his.
As he tucked in at the Hufflepuff table, Louis glanced over and saw Atalanta sitting a few feet down the bench. She had been looking in his direction, but quickly turned away before their eyes met.
Louis quirked his head and stared.
Atalanta was not what most people would call pretty—she was tall, stocky and barrel-chested, and even aside from that, probably at least a stone or two overweight. None of this bothered Louis much—his own good looks were only the most obvious aspect of his charm, so he considered an "ugly" girl with a fun personality more attractive than a blighter with a pretty face. (This was at least partly a result of growing up with Dominique.) The question was if Atalanta was the sort of girl he could get along with. He didn't know much about her, except that she was fanatical about Quidditch and often ill-tempered.
He had never been on a date before. Not really. He had teasingly asked girls if he could walk them to class, or sit with them at dinner, or whatever, but nothing that he considered a date. He never really went beyond flirting.
But Albus was right: it was wrong to lead a girl on. If she was really interested in you, you either had to ask her out or stop flirting.
Louis didn't know how to not flirt with a girl. Which left only one option.
"Wotcher, Atalanta," he said, sliding down the bench toward her.
She turned to him. She looked annoyed. But her eyes also briefly flashed down to his robes, as if to confirm that he was, in fact, wearing them.
"I'm not sure if I thanked you for letting the team off from practice today. I think they really appreciate it."
She grunted. Her cheeks were pink. Louis wondered at how obvious her crush was now that he'd been told about it.
He cleared his throat. He was actually a little nervous, but decided to just plow ahead.
"Would you like to see a Quidditch match with me?"
Atalanta's shoulders shot up stiffly.
"Like, as a date."
She seemed to be frozen in shock, her eyes wide.
Louis continued, "I'm not supposed to know this yet, but my Aunt Ginny is getting me tickets to the Prides' next game for Christmas. It's on New Year's Day, so it'll hopefully be done before term starts. You keen?"
He looked at her face, and his usual bright smile dimmed a bit. Atalanta had unfrozen, and there was a sudden tension in the air between them. But not the good kind.
"The Prides?"
"Yeah? They're my favorite team. Get a bit of a laugh, with all the antics they tend to cook up."
"I support the Wanderers," she said grimly.
Louis frowned. The Prides and the Wanderers had built up a bit of a rivalry in recent years. It had come to a head last season, when the Prides had dashed the Wanderers' chance to make it to the finals. Some Wanderer fans had been so irate that they'd tracked down the Prides' Keeper and Transfigured him into a platypus.
As much as he enjoyed Quidditch, Louis couldn't understand people getting so worked up over a game. But now he was edging back down the bench, lest Atalanta draw her wand and give him a bill.
"So. Not interested?"
"I'll be busy over the break."
"Well, then. Er. Maybe another time."
She didn't answer, but started digging into her lunch as if it had killed her family.
Louis returned to his own plate and exhaled, allowing the tension to release from his shoulders. He had a feeling that he had just killed any infatuation that Atalanta Crowley may have had with him. Which was for the best, really. They almost certainly weren't each other's type, and now he wouldn't have to feel guilty about his natural sportiveness around her.
But still. The first time that he ever asked a girl on a date, and she shot him down. He couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.