electric continued | fiery

[Finlay T McCormick]

_{cont'd from here}

"I saw, and you were amazing?!"

He was too small for any chest muscles to actually puff up at her words but they would have. Her praise made him feel ten feet tall and his back straightened to get him as close to that as he could.

"I can't believe I got the first score of the game!"

Fin was confident in his natural flying ability and in the work he put in during team and solo practises but it was still somewhat a surprise that he'd managed to get the first goal in the first match of his first year.

If he were talking to almost anyone else he might have come off as more cocky, smirking and saying something like of course he was amazing he's Finlay McCormick. It wouldn't be a lie, he did think he was amazing. He just never felt like he had to drive that point home with Rosie.

Bouncing on the balls of his feet, his arms moving from around her back to her shoulders, there was so much energy pouring over him he didn't know what to do with it all. There had been few moments in his life so far that had felt like this. Moments when pride in himself mixed with the flush that resulted from the admiration of one of his favourite people and the slowly fading adrenaline from his hard work on the Quidditch pitch.

The effect was a potent floating sensation, stronger even than when he was flying. The thrill filled him from head to toe as he looked at Rosie, his smile so wide his cheeks were beginning to hurt. He couldn't have asked for a better first official Quidditch game and now standing here with Rosie, her words boosting his already heightened mood, had Fin feeling like doing something more to keep this feeling. To make it go even longer.

And there was one thing he could think that could make this feeling linger. Another first to go with all the others he'd had today.

So without thinking too much more about it, Fin leaned forward with his hands still on top of Rosie's shoulders and tried to put his lips against hers; all while surrounded by students pushing and shoving their way out of the stands.

[Rosemary Wolffe]

"Yeah well I believe it," Rosie answered firmly.

And she did— wholeheartedly. Not just because she'd seen it only half an hour or so ago (what Rosie did or did not see hardly mattered when the image was tainted rose, the strokes realigned to fit her fancy) but because there were some people so forceful, so clear in their pursuit for greatness that the rest of the universe had no use but to meld to their wishes— and Finlay McCormick was one of them.

"I bet on you!" She beamed. Rosie patted the pocket of her (borrowed) slytherin jumper, and the faint sound of metal clinked together reached her ear. She'd won four galleons and five sickles exactly: three galleons and a sickle for Fin's first goal and one galleon and four sickles for Slytherin's win.

"I'm proper rich now, Fin— I'm gonna buy us all something nice from Honeydukes to celebrate your win, yeah? What do you want? Chocolate frogs, or Bertie Bott's every flavoured beans, or fizzing whizzbees or—"

She didn't notice he'd gone quiet. People went quiet a lot around Rosie, usually because she was talking (and talking, and talking) without any sign of stopping— which, she supposed, she was doing now.

His hands slid to her shoulders and she kept talking, now at "—exploding bonbons, or caramel cobwebs, or peppermint toads—".

He tilted his head towards, and she paused momentarily to let him know that "blood flavoured lollipops are probably not the best choice but hey, if you want them then I guess I can get them for you?"

He pressed his lips to hers and finally (finally) she shut up.

That tightness in her chest was back now, but he wasn't squeezing her like he'd been just a minute ago. His hands were gentle against her shoulders but to her, they weighed a tonne, and she was sinking into the ground for it, suffocating beneath the pressure of his lips on hers.

The jostling of the crowd around them pushed them apart.

Rosie stepped back, eyes wide and nervous."Uh—?" she started, and where just seconds before she'd been ready with a long spiel of nonsense, now there was a heavy pause broken only by an awkward giggle.

"So—?"