Dance With Somebody

Chapter 1

Everyone has a highlight reel. These snapshots start from the time of birth until the last breath is taken. In the highlight reel of life, some people's are grand. They beckon forth happy memories and lives full of love and adoration. These reels are full of family and friends who are there no matter what, at a moment's notice, with arms full of hope. Then there are other kinds of highlight reels. These are the ones that are not so happy and are shrouded in darkness, despair, neglect, and rejection. These are the lives full of hurt.

So many people struggle with insecurity because they compare their behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel. And after a while, it gets to you. Insecurity kills anything that is beautiful, wounding the soul and marking it forever. Sometimes thoughts are backed by so much insecurity that they start to create lies that are believed. It's an ugly thing, insecurity that leads to ugly actions and reactions.

Perhaps that's why Marcus Flint feels more at home in Slytherin than with any other house. Almost everyone in his group, from first to seventh years, is enveloped in insecurity of some form or another. Most of the time, they play it off by camouflaging it in arrogance. It's easy to act a certain way if it's accepted and believed.

Everyone expects Slytherins to be arrogant, selfish, unkind, and uncaring. No one, outside of their head of house, gives a rat's ass about them--- not really. And that's the same even at home. So when Marcus looks at the other houses and sees happiness, joy, and all of those different sickening feelings, it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

But really, Marcus is bitter for other reasons too. He failed his NEWTS and has to repeat the seventh year all over again. That news did not come as a shock to his parents, Cora and Maxwell Flint. They've long since known that their youngest child is a blockhead who's good for nothing except quidditch. Marcus's older brother Marshall inherited all of the brains in the family. Whereas his older sister Clementine got all of the beauty. And what did Marcus get? Besides a backhand to the face for having to repeat the final year, he received pure brawn.

Quidditch is Marcus's outlet for everything. If he has a bad day or week, he takes it out on the field. If he's been called a troll one too many times, he scores more goals than any other player. Yet he's blamed for playing rough. Well, he'd like to see how those people who call him brutish would play if they were called a troll or laughed at for being stupid all the time. Quidditch is his life and dream outside of school and ridiculous family obligations. On the field is the only time he does anything remotely right or receives any pats on the back. The sport allows him a bit of notoriety, not that it does anything to sway the female population to his side.

Firmly entrenched in the belief that the rumors of troll blood are true, the females steer clear of him. Marcus Flint, seventh-year repeater, seventeen-year-old, has never had a girlfriend and never been kissed. He tries not to dwell there too long because it's depressing enough listening to all the guys talk about their conquests, especially when he's had none. He'll be eighteen in a matter of months, for gosh sakes. It's truly unfortunate. When he looks in the mirror, he only sees his gross teeth. Everything else pales in comparison to the teeth, but his broad shoulders are a close second these days. He feels much too awkward for a guy of almost eighteen. His mother says he'll continue to grow into it.

Clementine took care of the bushy unibrow situation he had going on the summer after his sixth year. That was the summer she was marrying Cassius Warrington's older brother Clay. According to her, "I cannot have you looking like some hideous beast for my wedding. Your teeth are bad enough, but there's no reason to have poor brows. Girls never trust boys with bad eyebrows. If a guy can deceive himself about how they look, what else will he be capable of?" Then his sister proceeded to pluck away at one of his inadequate features and his eyebrows too.