Cowboys and Angels

moment twenty-eight: by any other name (late July 1992.)

Marcus pulled the bell cord, taking note of the portico around him. This invitation was certainly unexpected, especially during the holidays. He really didn't see the point of it, but his father had pushed him into going, and besides, Marcus was curious as to why he'd been summoned to this desolate estate on the Yorkshire moors. He'd come over on the provided Portkey, which now lay inside his right pocket.

After a few seconds, the door was opened by a house elf, and the thing bowed as if was expecting him, leading Marcus without a word through a mess of passageways and rooms to the back of the Manor, where the house opened out into a courtyard. There was a maze some yards away, a mass of hedges reaching several feet up into the sky. The man would have a bloody maze in his backyard.

The man in question was some distance away, between the house and the maze. He was in a small rose garden that stood to one side, the bushes curling and rising around a trellis, his gloved hands - they looked like old Quidditch gloves, but that couldn't be right, now could it? As Marcus watched, he cut off the old diseased branches on one particular rose with a pair of clippers, reaching down to a woven bag to pull out a twine tie, and tied them loosely, naturally against the trellis. After a short while, he stopped, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of a glove, and turned to Marcus. "I do hope you'll forgive me, Master Flint. My roses are one of my few indulgences."

Marcus shrugged. "Not any of my business."

"Such a commendable attitude. My wife doesn't appreciate the work I do here, but then what man isn't willing to be in effort in order to be rewarded by such beauty?" He glanced up for a moment at the house, and a dark look came over his face. Marcus turned to follow Lucius' gaze, and he almost thought he saw Lucius' wife - what was her name - at one of the upper windows, before the curtain fell back into place and she was gone.

"You wanted to see me?"

Lucius clipped a bit off from near the top of the rose bush, examining its shape against the trellis. "Hrm, yes. I've been watching some of your Quidditch matches, Master Flint. You like to overwhelm your opposition by sheer force, don't you? Pummel them into surrender."

He motioned for Marcus to hold onto a stem so he could cut it better, and Marcus curled his fingers around, wary of the thorns. "It's worked before."

"Ah," Lucius cautioned him, snipping off the stem, and Marcus removed his fingers, wincing slightly as a thorn cut him, and sucked the wound. "That won't work now. Gryffindors love causes above all, and now they have one: Potter. The more you overwhelm, the more they'll enjoy playing the martyr. And eventually they'll beat you."

Marcus certainly didn't like being told what to do. "What would you suggest, then?", he asked, his tone getting belligerent.

"The only to beat a Gryffindor," Lucius informed them, "is to make them want to be beaten. So in the end they have no choice but to accept their own defeat."

There was a pause. "Are you asking me to play fair?"

Lucius grinned, and pruned back another rose. "Of course not. But you must have the advantage, so they will not question your victory." Another stem fell to the ground. "I would be willing to outfit the team with Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones."

Marcus tallied up the cost of that in his head. Shit. "What would you want in return?"

"Oh, I am a man of modest goals, Master Flint. I merely crave a Slytherin victory...and my son on the team."

"As Seeker?"

"What else would he be content with?"

True. The little scroat did have an obsession with Potter a mile wide. It would mean taking care of Terence, but he was becoming a liability as it was. And Terence, no matter what strengths he possessed, couldn't do shit against Potter. "Fine."

"It's been a pleasure dealing with you, Master Flint. Oh, and give my regards to your father."

Marcus blinked. "You know my father?"

"Yes. He has been quite useful to me in the past."

I'll just bet he has, though Marcus sourly, but Lucius continued. "I actually remembered meeting you when you were three, playing in your father's shop. Would have been about fourteen years ago, yes?"

"Yeah." Marcus crossed his arms over his head. This would have been back when Mum was still there. Before she'd decided to get out while she still could.

"Do remember to wipe your feet on the mat on your way back in. Narcissa does get so upset about the state of the carpet."

With that polite dismissal, Marcus shook his head, and made his way back through the house to where he'd started. A quick touch to the Portkey in his pocket, and he was miles away.