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if-you-built-yourself-a-myth · 3 years

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Check Ignition: Part III

That Sobbe fake-dating Hogwarts AU that one person asked for and I dove into headfirst

Part I // Part II // Part III // Part IV

Requests are open if you have any ideas of what I should write next

After the second night of Sander and Robbe’s arrangement, Robbe couldn’t eat dinner in the Great Hall for a week. A whole fucking week. He had Jens and Aaron sneaking sandwiches into the dormitory at dusk using cloaking and levitation spells. Lunch would have been an issue, too, if he hadn’t been spending those with Sander. Unfortunately, one meal a day together was the minimum for a convincing fake relationship.

“I can’t eat alone, can I?” Sander had asked when they met in the Great Hall after classes. “Boyfriends eat together.”

Robbe could do nothing but give in. They tried for dinner at first, and the following dissolved into lunch. Sander sat on the edge of the Hufflepuff bench, as if he were not welcome there, and held Robbe’s hand on top of the table while he ate whatever finger food he could and engaged in pleasant small-talk with Jens. He normally spent his evenings roaming the grounds.

Of course, that left Robbe and his friends at the table come dinnertime, watching Noor stare daggers at them. And that wasn’t cool. Britt’s ice-cold mannerisms at prefect meetings didn’t help, either, and only Senne could balance her out.

This month was going to feel a lot longer than Robbe imagined. If Sander didn’t find someone better.

Robbe was relieved when the weekend rolled around, because it brought with it Hufflepuff’s first game of the Quidditch season, against Ravenclaw. Jens made Robbe and Aaron run drills until one AM the night before. Peak physical condition was more important than sleep anyway.

Now, Robbe flew out over the pitch, one hand poised over his eyes to shade them from the sun. It took only a moment to spot the green and silver scarf in Hufflepuff’s black and yellow section, and Robbe knew that he didn’t really miss getting Great Hall dinners. So what if it was fake? There was Sander, in all his bleach-blond glory, sitting next to Senne in the stands and waving a black and yellow flag.

Sander locked eyes with Robbe and started screaming something incoherent over the wind. It was probably more about what people in the stands heard than what Robbe himself did, so Robbe soaked up the precious minute of Sander’s bright and happy face instead of paying attention to the message.

“Alright,” said Jens, gathering the other players closer for a pep talk. Robbe flew up a little higher to be level with the rest of the team. “Ravenclaw’s good. Great, even. But we’re better. Keep the Quaffle away from Zoë—she’s too fast and we’ll never see it again. Robbe, stop looking at your boyfriend.”

He wasn’t looking at Sander. He just so happened to be gazing the direction of the Hufflepuff stands.

The other team members muffled their laughter.

“Obviously, Yasmina,” Jens continued, unperturbed, “you are smarter and more capable than all of us. Please fix our mistakes.”

Yasmina played keeper. No one could protect a post like her, and the Ravenclaws knew it. There would be some faceoffs today. “Good pep talk,” she said.

“I try. Alright, I think that’s it. Let’s have an amazing match, no life-threatening injuries, no deaths. Go Hufflepuff!”

With that, the team shot apart to their differing positions on the pitch. Jens and the other chasers crowded the half line, Aaron and his fellow beater stayed back a little bit with bats poised, and Yasmina lounged sideways in front of the goal. Robbe decided to circle the game from above for a better perspective. The view reminded him of that from the astronomy tower. As play began, it was difficult to differentiate between teams swarming the pitch—a hurricane of bludgers and broomsticks. Robbe waited for the glare of the sun to highlight the golden snitch.

“Hello up there!” Yasmina called up to him, around five minutes in. Hufflepuff had pretty steady possession of the Quaffle. “See anything?”

“Not yet,” he shouted back. Ravenclaw’s seeker tarried by their set of goalposts. She hadn’t seen anything either.

“Is Sander really your boyfriend?” There was no judgement in her tone, yet somehow, Robbe felt it anyway. He curled into the defensive.

“Yes, and what of it?”

“Nothing. Just, Jana said so.”

“He’s gorgeous,” said Robbe, dropping twenty feet to do so.

“I didn’t know you were gay.”

“I’m not—”

The Quaffle almost made it through the smallest of Yasmina’s hoops, but she batted it away before it could cost a point. Jens grabbed her rebound and sped away down the side, passing back and forth with a fourth-year chaser they called Macs. Another minute, and a gong-like noise signaled a Hufflepuff score. They were leading thirty to zero.

“It’s great, really,” said Yasmina. “I’m happy for you.”

Robbe didn’t know what else to say, so he mumbled, “Thanks.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Sander’s unmistakable bleach blond move around. He whirled to the action. Sander was talking with someone, a brunette girl, with animated hand gestures. For some reason, it made his head buzz.

Yasmina followed his line of vision. “Who’s she?”

No one Sander wasn’t allowed to talk to.

“A friend,” Robbe said smoothly. “Watch the game.”

Sander could chat with anyone he wanted. It didn’t mean anything more than Robbe’s fake relationship with him did. Yasmina had the good sense not to push it.

The game passed at an alarming speed, no time to perseverate on anything going on in the stands, no time for any more casual conversation. Jens was a blur with the Quaffle, dodging bludgers and ducking under other players. Zoë was never far behind. The teams would have been locked into a helpless tie if it were not for Yasmina’s stellar guard of the goal. By the halfway point, Hufflepuff was ahead ninety to thirty, and not one sign of the snitch. Robbe busied himself by weaving in and out of the towers around the pitch, because he enjoyed the way the Ravenclaw seeker followed him around like a lost child.

He hadn’t seen a thing, and look at her go! Maybe he would nosedive to watch her streak beside him, or launch into the atmosphere with her along for the ride.

A bludger knocked into the side of his broom. “Shit, sorry!” yelled Aaron from his spot beside Macs.

By some bizarre luck Robbe kept his hold, but the impact swiveled him back to face the Hufflepuff section of the stands, and he’d been avoiding that particular sight. He didn’t have time to turn away again. Sander stood out like a sore thumb. No, better comparison—Sander stood out like a sunflower in a field of poison ivy.

Cool it with the similes, Robbe. Focus.

The girl was still around. Sander was allowed to talk to girls as much as anyone else in the world. Robbe was upset, though, because it messed with the believability of their dating life. That was the reason.

He swooped directly over their heads, hand outstretched, as if they were all too blind to see the snitch a few feet in front of him. Where the gesture came from, who could say? Ravenclaw’s seeker didn’t hesitate to join.

“The skinny bloke over there is Robbe Ijzermans, finally doing something purposeful this match,” Luca’s voice boomed from the announcer’s box. Robbe didn’t know her that well; Aaron had a thing for her friend, Amber. “He’s spotted the snitch. Or he looks like he has. Toss-up. Oh, and lovely Zoë has the Quaffle again. Give them hell, girl—”

What the hell. Robbe was supposed to be dating Sander. Sander was crammed into the Hufflepuff section for him. Really, it would be suspicious if he didn’t do anything about this.

He angled his broom to spin back around and make a second pass over the Hufflepuff stands. This time, he got so close to Sander that he could ruffle Sander’s hair before zipping away. Let Luca talk about what that meant. The girl scooted away from Sander on the bench. She stared at the wooden slats beneath her feet, while Sander put his hands to his mouth and called something that Robbe couldn’t quite make out over the rush of blood in his ears.

Then, a glint!

By the announcer’s box, there it was! He could see its golden wings fluttering about. Normally, he tried to tune out Luca’s long-winded description of the game, but it was a little difficult when her microphone boomed in his ears as he shot out for the snitch.

“Looks like our Robbe has spotted it now. Wonder what that bullshit was earlier, then. Sorry, sorry I’ll stop cursing. Oh, fucking hell—”

Ravenclaw’s seeker came in close on Robbe’s side. She seemed to be following his movements; she couldn’t see the snitch about fifty feet away from her face. Robbe did have 20/20 vision. Maybe he was just better. It danced around in the air and across the stands, forcing them both to flip over in order to keep the pursuit.

“Macarthy with the Quaffle, he’s headed toward Ravenclaw goal. If I’m allowed to mention this, I don’t think Ingrid’s actually caught the snitch ever—right, sorry.”

The snitch closed its wings and dropped from the air until it was barely above the ground, where it reopened them to cut a trail across the worn grass. And here was Robbe, pretty close to the other Hufflepuffs, still.

This was a risky move, riskier than the hair ruffle. But it was pragmatic, Robbe reasoned, and it got him to the ground as quick as anything else. If he ever wanted to convince other people that his thing with Sander was something, it had to be more than sneaky kisses that didn’t really count for much. Plus, Ingrid didn’t actually see the snitch. So no harm done if he just—

Robbe let go.

The freefall was shorter than expected; he kept one hand wrapped around his broom as if he were on the monkey bars at the park back home. His feet met the wood of the stands with a bit of a bounce. Right next to Sander. Thank goodness, because there wouldn’t be time to move over if he landed by the wrong person. He conjured the memory from last week, when Sander kissed him for the first time, and did the same, but briefer and with less tongue. Tongue would be a little too much for a game. The crowd roared. He could see the snitch spinning in wide circles just above the ground. Ingrid halted overhead, confused, and darted toward the Slytherin tower.

“Another point for Ravenclaw over here and—what the fuck, Robbe?”

Robbe broke away before the kiss could take too long, and Sander leaned inward after him, as if he did not want it to end. Spectacular acting. Noor stood up from her seat three rows down, their eyes meeting for the shortest of seconds.

Before he could regret the whole thing, Robbe gathered up his last bit of courage and bounded down the stands on his feet instead of flying, making quite the jump at the end. He barely got his broom underneath him in time to evade a broken ankle on the pitch underneath the stands. Macs swerved to avoid him as his feet grazed the grass.

He coasted the rest of the chase on the adrenaline pumping through his veins and the absolute shock on Noor’s face. In no way did Sander’s cutting smile make him weak, no way.

“Guys and gals, take notes,” Luca declared. “Oh, and he’s got it, that son of a— Robbe has the snitch! Hufflepuff wins!”

***

Jens was on Robbe before he’d even dismounted his broom. “The fuck is with the grandstanding, huh?” he demanded. “You could have hurt somebody. You could have lost us the game. What the fuck?”

“Sorry, I was—” Robbe tore his gaze away at the sound of Sander’s voice coming down from the stands.

Sander caught him in a hug and brushed his lips along the edge of his ear, whispering, “How dramatic do you want this to be?” Skin peeled from his chapped lips and beads of sweat caught the light on his forehead. He was still a Greek god.

“I don’t know,” said Robbe, barely keeping his composure. “You can��”

He cut off as Sander scooped him up and spun him around in a circle. At its end, Sander lowered Robbe enough to draw him into a long, deep kiss. If Robbe could do wordless magic, every tree within a fifty-mile radius would have caught fire and burned to ash in a second.

He had to stop indulging thoughts like that. Noor stood by the entrance to the stands, and this was all for her. Just Sander helping him out.

“Gross,” said Aaron, patting Robbe on the back. “Get a room.”

“Gladly,” Sander said. “How long before Jens tries to get back to the dorms?”

“Oi!” Jens wasn’t done being angry with Robbe yet. “You’re not having sex on my bed!”

“Somebody has to, and you certainly aren’t.”

“Wow, okay. You’re not even—” Jens cut off. They’d promised to play along. “You’re new here, shut up.”

Sander accepted gracefully.

The other fans swarmed the players like flies and followed them on the way back to the dormitories, where Hufflepuff common room would likely host a killer party to celebrate the win. Robbe lost Sander in the fray almost immediately, even though their hands had been intertwined. He should let the group carry him along; he knew as much. Now that the game was over, though, there wasn’t any energy left for something like that. Robbe sat down on the pitch and leaned against the wooden supports of Hufflepuff’s box.

He wasn’t gay. He didn’t like Sander, not like that.

There must be loads of straight guys who felt good when they kissed other guys.

It didn’t mean anything. The whole relationship was fake.

Why wouldn’t his heart stop racing?

He breathed in until his lungs burned, held it for eight seconds, and exhaled until there was nothing left in his lungs. When that was done, things were calmer. More rational. His lips stung from the kisses.

This was not the time for a sexuality crisis. Tomorrow morning, maybe, or Tuesday afternoon.

The crowd’s cheers and banter faded off into the distance. The last straggling fans stumbled their way to the castle. It would be dusk soon, and the sunlight painted everything a delicious shade of gold. Robbe couldn’t help but fantasize: Sander in the sun like this, Sander’s eyes in the sun like this, Sander’s long eyelashes in the sun like this. He hated himself a little bit.

“Hey.”

Robbe looked up. Noor stood a few feet away, wearing a Hufflepuff sweater and a pair of sweatpants. The late November temperatures were no joke.

“Hello,” he replied.

“I thought you’d be upstairs.”

I thought you’d leave me alone, he thought. He said, “Catching my breath.”

“It’s a good night tonight. Lots of stars.”

“They’re around every night.”

“I guess.” She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “You haven’t been at dinner.”

“I’ve been studying,” said Robbe. “Exams in three weeks, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Robbe opened his mouth to tell her to spit it out, whatever she had to say. He was tired of talking to her. He needed her to disappear, even if it hurt, and fuck, he was a bad person after all.

“He’s going to get tired of you,” she said. It wasn’t harsh. It wasn’t even that sad. She said it like a fact. “He’s… he’s not right. He’s going to get bored and leave you.”

That caught him off-guard. “What?”

“Sander.” Noor bit her lip. “He and Britt are going to get back together. They always do.”

Robbe scoffed. “I don’t really care about Britt’s take on this, no offense.”

“It’s not hers. It’s mine. Sander’s going to get bored of you, and when he does, he’s going right back to her.”

The whole thing was fake. Sander wasn’t even with Robbe. How could Sander leave if they weren’t together? Nothing Noor said had any bearing on Robbe’s situation at all.

He repeated that to himself.

“Is that all you came out here to say?” he asked. Hopefully that sounded confident. Robbe was still a little out of breath from the game.

Noor nodded. “I just thought you should know. Don’t get too attached. Sander’s—”

“It’s not really your business,” said Jens. Oh thank goodness, there he was, behind Noor. He must have turned around when he realized Robbe wasn’t with him. Sander was at his shoulder. “C’mon, Robbe,” he said. “We’ve gotta get back. I think they’re popping champagne.”

Robbe pushed himself up using the wall as support. He wanted to hear the end of that last sentence, even if he never wanted to hear Noor speak again.

What he knew:

He didn’t consider himself to be a particularly interesting person, never had, and today was the most brazen he’d been in his entire life.

The arrangement was made to be thrown away as soon as someone better stepped onto to scene.

Sander already knew that he was boring—Robbe was a prefect, for fuck’s sake.

Noor hadn’t said anything that wasn’t aware of already.

For some reason, it still stung. They started off down the worn grass that led out of the stadium and in the direction of Hogwarts’ main building, and, very purposefully, Robbe slid his hand into Sander’s. Because he could.

“Sorry!” Noor called as they headed away. She really did sound it.

“What was that about?” came Sander’s whisper in Robbe’s ear. It sent shivers down his spine.

“Nothing,” he hissed back. “Don’t worry about it.”

He wouldn’t worry about it either.

#sobbe #sobbe fanfic #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #hogwarts au #requested fic #fake dating #my writing #wtfock

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