Catch The Snitch

After another long day of classes and dealing with stupid people, Pervical made his way back to the common room where he could relax. He took a seat on one of the long leather couches, propping his feet up and letting out a deep sigh. He hated dealing with people who either a.) thought they knew everything or b.) knew nothing at all. It was nice to be away from the other houses and in a place where most of the other students shared the same beliefs and values as he did. An uninviting scowl could be seen on his face, trying to deter other people from coming over and speaking with him. Sometimes it worked, other times, people just didn't get the hint.

He rested his head against the back of the couch trying to clear his mind of all the stuff that took up space there. There was one thing that lingered there though. He had heard a rumor that their Keeper, Riley, was seen hanging out with Laguna. The pretty boy Gryffindor's captain. Percival didn't like the idea of a Slytherin player hanging out with not only an opposing teammate but their bloody captain!

As soon as he saw the girl walk into the common room, he sat up and smirked. "Oye, Riley. A word, if you please." He didn't bother standing, or even getting up to make sure she heard him. He didn't care, if she ignored him or didn't hear him, he would get on her about it later. He waited until she came over and he leaned forward. "Sleeping with the enemy are we?"

Riley was all too happy to enter the familiar confines of the Slytherin Common Room. She had been down by the Quidditch Pitch, getting a spot of last minute flying practice in before the evening fell properly. She was highly talented as a Keeper already, but she fought to maintain that razor sharp edge. The petite redhead felt that she needed to regularly be better than the best just to be included on it. She trooped further in, still clad in her Quidditch uniform, her bright fiery hair looking windswept despite the best efforts of a braided ponytail. She honestly wanted nothing more than to lie down, but it seemed that at least one of her housemates wished to talk.

For a few seconds, Riley considered saying maybe later or pretending that she failed to hear at a later date. But since the voice belonged to Percival, one of their beaters, she decided to see what it was he happened to wish to talk about. He did not appear particularly happy however. "Sure, so what is this about?" She inquired on her way over. He remained where he sat on a couch, reclined and apparently very comfortable.

His words shocked her, Riley's blue eyes went wide and at first she went pale, then turned a particularly bright shade of scarlet. "You've been spying on me?" She asked horrified, feeling utterly stunned and uncharacteristically at a loss for words. As if she would betray her own house to allow for the lions to win. Why should he care that she hung out with the captain of their rivals? On the pitch, he was to be the opponent, her personal feelings would not get in the way of that.

He watched as she hesitated for a moment, but when she made her way over to him he knew she had changed her mind. A small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as she made her over to him. Her voice was almost like nails on a chalkboard but he knew he had to have this conversation. It was grading on his nerves as well degrading to think she was spending all her time with Laguna Lestrange. Not only a Gryffindor but a sad excuse for an heir to his family name.

It amused him to see the reaction to his comment. Her eyes went buggy and her skin went even more disgustingly pale before turning a shade of red that could combat a tomato. He refrained from laughing and put his serious face back on before crossing his arms against his chest. "Oh please, Spying on you? I have much better things to do than watch you flirt and develop a school crush on a sad sack such as Laguna Lestrange." He shook his head at her. "I have my ways, but your reaction to my question more than confirms my suspicions."

He sat up a little and looked her square in the eye. "Not sharing our secrets are you? It would be a shady thing to do to share our plays with their captain just to get him into bed with you." He growled and looked away from her in disgust.

Riley struggled to contain her temper, her thoughts far from merely yelling at him. She considered striking him, but swinging the first punch in a fight would probably be a bad idea. She longed to pull out her wand and blast him with magic, but only the thought of potentially crippling the team with her being booted off of it and him in the hospital prevented her from doing so. "Jealous then? Upset that I'm not hanging out with a Slytherin?" The redhead snapped hotly at him.

"How dare..." She began, at a loss for words due to rage and hurt. Riley did not realize she even did it, till after she made to slap him. "Share our secrets? Share our secrets! You have some nerve! All I have been doing is playing Quidditch. Yes I might have shown off a few moves that I would never do in a match because the risk is not worth the reward. But! I would never sabotage my own team's chances of winning the cup! Perhaps if you spent more time on the pitch and less in delusions of fancy you might see that I have only ever given my best for the team!" She paused, but only to suck in a lungful of air.

"I had to prove myself repeated due to my small height in order to be a keeper. I'm one of the best in the entire school and you think, you think I'd sell out everyone, my friends, my team just because I like a boy! You have some nerve." Riley appeared to finish before adding on. "And why do you care so much? As long as I save the goals and stop Gryffindor from winning on the pitch, who I spend time with away from game should be no concern of yours!" Her blue eyes burned with a furious anger as she attempted her best to stare him down, blood pounded in her ears as she positively trembled with barely contained rage.

The reaction she had to his comments and accusations was all he needed to make his day that much better. He could see the anger boiling under her calm facade. She wanted nothing more than to haul off and smack him. He took pleasure in knowing he could have that effect on people. It meant he really knew how to read people and how to get under their skin. A good quality to have when he was trying to manipulate them to do his bidding. "Jealous? Oh, Merlin no. Actually, I can see why you'd lower yourself to spend time with a Gryffindor. No one of actual importance would waste their time." He leaned back and crossed his legs, laying his arms against the back of the couch he was sitting on.

More anger, the idea of her getting closer and closer to simply exploding was entertaining enough. The fact that she had tried to slap him merely made him laugh. He caught her hand and looked at it before tossing it back to her side. "Awww, poor little deprived little girl. No one sees her, everyone overlooks her. She has to work twice as hard to be noticed. Boo-hoo." He mocked rubbed his eyes and then rolled them at her. "Everyone has some sort of sob story to tell. Yours is no different than anyone else. So what if you have to work to get where you are? If you spent more time practicing and less time caring about whether or not people see you, you would really be the best keeper in the school."

More sobs, more 'I'm good enough' self-reassurance. He rolled his eyes again and acted as if he were bored. "Yeah, yeah...No one cares what you have gone through. At least not until you make it big and become something better than a Hogwarts quidditch player." He scoffed and let out a small laugh. "You really are a spitfire, aren't you? And you wonder why there are rumors going around the school about you. Although I'm sure you thrive on the attention." He let out a chuckle and didn't break eye contact as she stared him down.

She scoffed at that, Riley found it hard to believe he was not jealous given his reaction to him merely hanging out with Laguna. He, just like any boy at the school had plenty of time to make themselves known to her. If his methods were too subtly for her to notice, she could understand some of his anger or frustration, but if it was pure jealousy, this would hardly convince her to change her mind or serve to view him in anything but a negative like.

Riley withdrew her hand as if stung. "I never said I was different or deprived." She countered. "Seriously? You have seen how often I practice and that's your insult?" The redhead shook her head in disbelief. "Do you honestly believe that? I don't care for the attention unlike you who seems to want to make a scene? What for? Cause disruption within the team? Weaken us before the big game against Gryffindor?" Riley desired to beat them all the more due to her friendship with Laguna. If they lost to them, she would never hear the end of it. However, she knew if her house won, she would never let him hear the end of it either.

She glared at him for a moment longer, meeting his stare with one of her own. "We're done here." Riley snapped, turning to walk away heading towards the girl's dormitories. She fought down the urge to snap out a final parting shot. It would only serve to make a terrible situation worse.

Jealousy wasn't something foreign to Percival. He experienced quite often but would never admit it to anyone, including himself. Perhaps it was a twinge of jealousy that fired the blaze in his belly. But what right did she have to know that? He scoffed back at her and rolled his eyes as her anger seethed under the surface. For whatever reason, he got off on how angry she was getting. Perhaps it was the wrinkle in her nose, or the fire in her eyes, the way she balled up her fists into tiny battering rams. Jealous, Percy? Never.

"You never said..." He growled and stood up. "You just got done telling me how hard you had to work to 'prove' yourself. If you weren't saying were deprived in some way, you sure did insinuate it! Well have to work hard to prove ourselves, how does that make you any better than the rest of us?" If anyone were to read between the lines, they would see where all this was coming from. But most just wrote him off as a bully, which served his purpose just fine. "No, McNeill, I don't want to cause disruption." There was more to it than that, but he snapped his mouth shut and folded his arms over his chest.

He sighed and rolled his eyes as she turned to leave. "Bye bye, then." He growled and flopped back onto the couch he had been sitting on before she had walked in the door. His anger had faded but the twinge that she had mentioned was still there, bubbling under the surface. He needed to find a way to calm it or he was going to struggle with it for months to come.