i'm used to being a joke ✧ ONESHOT

i'm used to being a joke

"Oh, c'mon Blake is that all you've got? What are you? Scared?" John Murphy asked with an entertained grin.

"Oh, you little-"

"Boys, stop this nonsense at once," Severus Snape drawled in a fatigued fashion. Bellamy Blake and John Murphy looked at Professor Snape fearfully as they both shut their mouths and lowered their wands. "Good. Now don't you all have somewhere to be?" he said to the boys and the group of students surrounding them.

Murphy and his close friends, Clarke and Emori, followed him down the hallway to their potions class that the three of them annoyingly shared with the Gryffindor students.

"Geez, Murph when are you just gonna tell the boy how you feel inside of snarling at him like some feral animal?" Clarke said to Murphy, her books clutched to her chest.

"Yeah, what she said," Emori replied.

Murphy rolled his eyes. "It's not like I have any other way to get Bellamy's attention and besides, what would Hogwarts' star student want with a guy like me? He could have any girl or guy that he wants," he sighed.

"Well, you don't know if it's not you that he wants until you ask him y'know," Emori said.

"Plus the Yule Ball is coming up. You could ask him," Clarke suggested. The girls both gave Murphy a smirk with their eyebrows raised.

"Yeah right, like he'd ever say yes to me."

The three Slytherins walked into the potions room and were greeted by Professor Slughorn who was standing excitedly in front of a steaming cauldron.

"Good afternoon students! Today we are going to be learning about the wizard world's most powerful and dangerous love potion. Can anyone tell me what it's called?" Clarke raises her hand confidently. "Yes, Miss Griffin?"

"The potion's called Amortentia." Slughorn nodded.

"Now Amortentia is a very dangerous potion that causes a powerful infatuation or obsession in the drinker. It is also known to have varying scents and to produce the aroma of what the person smelling it finds attractive or likes. Would anybody like to share what they smell with the class?" When nobody volunteered, Slughorn looked at Murphy expectedly.

"How about you Mr. Murphy?"

Murphy sighed, anxiety filling his chest as he walked closer to the cauldron and wafted it up to his nose. "Um- teakwood? Chocolate? Maybe cinnamon?" he said quietly. Clarke and Emori looked at their friend with pity. Of course, the potion smelled like Bellamy, just great.

Murphy glanced up at Bellamy after he spoke, catching the attention of another Gryffindor boy. "Hey psst, Bellamy," Bellamy's friend Atom whispered amidst Slughorn's lesson.

"What?" Bellamy whispered back.

"Y'know, Murphy's Amortentia potion description sounded a lot like your stupid cologne. You think the guy's gay for you or something?" Atom said with a joking grin.

Bellamy rolled his eyes. "He better not be. I don't want his sharp tongue anywhere near my mouth."

"What if we found out?"

"Come again?" Bellamy looked at Atom like he had just suggested they enter the forbidden forest.

"You should ask him to the Yule Ball, just to see. He does seem pretty obsessed with you for somebody that claims he loathes you. C'mon it'll only be for a night and the guys will get a kick out of it."

"I don't know Atom. Doesn't that seem kind of cruel if he is into me? That it's all a big joke?"

"The guy's have been a royal asshole to you ever since you met back in first year. The asshat deserves it if anything." Bellamy looked from Murphy back at Atom and to Murphy again.