Meant To Be

Marc's Feelings

I woke up to my normal day, I got up, went to breakfast, went through all of my classes, then was left with the lovely free time we get.

"Avery!" Marc shouted before running up to me and putting an arm around my shoulder.

"Marc," I greeted as usual. "What's with the shouting?"

He took a deep breath. "I need your help."

"You need my help?" I asked, surprised.

"Please don't make me repeat my sentence, it's already painful enough to tell someone that I need their help."

I laughed, stopping in the middle of the hall. "Alright, what do you need help with?"

Marc instantly seemed to get nervous, taking his arm back and messing with his hands, looking down.

"I-um, I," He stammered before mumbling something that I couldn't hear.

"Marc, I hate to tell you this but I didn't catch any of what you just said," I sighed, knowing that it was going to be difficult for him to repeat his sentence.

With another breath he tried again. "So I-uh like this girl but...I don't-I don't know how to tell her."

"It's Penny isn't it?" I asked.

His eyes widened. "How-"

"It's completely obvious from the way you look at her all the time, you look at her like she's the only person in the room," I bluntly stated, walking again.

He stood dumbfounded for a few seconds before running up to me again. "Well does she know?"

I shook my head. "Sadly she doesn't have a clue, she's always looking the other way or is reading so she never catches you looking at her."

He seemed to look relieved. "Thank goodness, that would've made this worse."

"I say it would've made it better, I can't believe I was right," I smiled. "Daniel owes me five Galleons now."

Marc looked shocked. "You had a bet on this?"

"Yeah," I responded casually. "Sebastian and I said it would take you less than a month from Christmas to tell one of us, Daniel said it would take two."

"I can't believe that you. Avery Harper. Took place in a bet."

I shrugged. "You'd do it too, you can't deny it."

"I hate to admit it, but you're right," He said, putting an arm around my shoulder again.

<><><>

Daniel sighed as he gave up his lost money, clearly upset that he wasn't right.

"Which one of you guys convinced her to take part in this bet?" Marc demanded. "Avery doesn't have to take part of your evil schemes."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "You're just mad that we were right."

Marc immediately went quiet, falling in his chair and huffing.

"If it makes you feel any better if we all were wrong the money was going to be yours," Daniel told Marc before quickly dodging the pillow that was thrown at him.

"Don't be such a drama queen," Sebastian said, throwing his own throw pillow at him.

"Is this always what you guys do in your Common Room?" I asked, looking around the room and taking it all in.

The place was darker than the Common Room I was used to but it was still nice, the dark sofas and green throw pillows were a nice look.

Everyone in the dorms didn't seem surprised to see a Hufflepuff there which made it obvious that the friend assignment seemed to be working at least a little bit.

"Are you okay, Avery?" Sebastian asked.

I nodded. "I'm okay it's just this dorm, it doesn't seem that...homey."

"Yeah, sorry about that Avery but," Marc ran to his dorm then ran back. "I have cookies."

<><><>

After leaving the Slytherin dorms I ran into the one person who didn't know about Marc's feelings, Penny.

"Hey Avery, have you read this book?" She asked, shoving a book in my hands.

With one look at the title I was able to give her an answer. "No, I haven't read this one."

"Well you are going to now," She responded before walking with me again.

I had to resist the urge to laugh at her not-so-subtle demand because I knew how she was, if I laughed Penny would surely tackle me.

We walked to the Hufflepuff Common Room, talking about books the entire time. That was how I ended up with a Ravenclaw in my dorm room, refusing to leave until she wrote down all of the books she thought I needed to read.

I waited for the list to be done before bidding Penny a goodnight, hoping that I could make her leave before she'd be up past curfew.

"Goodnight Avery, I expect you to read at least one of these books by the end of the month. That's not a request, it's a demand."

Once she left I looked over at the piece of parchment that she wrote on, quickly skimming my eyes through the seemingly never ending list, this was going to take awhile but at least I had a list of books to choose from instead of mindlessly wandering in the library.

Placing the parchment back where it laid, I slowly made my way towards my bed. Nighttime seemed to have came faster than usual, making me wish he day went by slower so I could have spent more time with my friends.

No matter what though I knew, Marc and Penny were going to go on a date so everyone could know if Marc's feelings were reciprocated.