Typical

The team had gotten invested in Flint's crush, mostly out of self-preservation. It very quickly became apparent that Flint was not going to forget about his mystery man, so if they wanted any other conversation topics in the foreseeable future, they were going to have to help out.

Oliver hadn't been part of the first wave to get excited about it, both because he wasn't much of a romantic and because it was Flint, but he'd succumbed pretty quickly once it became a team activity.

Oliver had laughed when he heard the man in question was a redhead. "If we can't find him, I know six other ones he could try out," he'd offered. "Seven if you're flexible on gender."

Flint had scowled, because no one was a substitute for his crush (and partly because it was Oliver; their antagonistic relationship went both ways) but some of the others had laughed and clapped him on the back.

"Plan B, eh?" Aditya, one of the reserve Beaters had joked.

Trying to figure out who had attended the party had been a non-starter. While most parties had guest lists, Flint's parents' agenda caused them to open their parties to all. They put notices in the papers and after the first few failed to land Flint in a relationship, they'd stopped even questioning suitability, beyond putting a simple age charm on the door.

Flint's parties became unofficially known as a good place for free food and a generous bar, and nearly all the team had crashed a few of them when they had nothing better going on. Unfortunately for Flint, what that meant was that the guests were numerous, drunk, and functionally anonymous.

Eventually, they'd put out an ad looking for the bloke. They'd put it in all the same places that the party announcements had been; sure that the man would have to see one of them.

They'd been kind of vague in their ad. Part of it was that they'd all had encounters with particularly obsessive fans and knew to keep some things private, but mostly it was that they couldn't possibly have to do a lot of narrowing down. Flint wasn't a flirt the way Oliver was (nor was he pleasant the way Oliver was) so moments where Marcus called "[them] 'sweet' and [they] blushed nearly as red as [their] hair" (a near direct quote from Marcus's gushing they decided to use in the ad, minus gender) had to be incredibly rare. In the garden at this particular party, they were expecting a mere handful of people total, which would be quick and easy to wade through while still maintaining a bit of privacy.

***

Marcus Flint's Mystery Date started as a bunch of ads but was quickly picked up as a popular story. The Quidditch press talked about it because Flint was a player that seldom had good press points and they wanted to milk it for all it was worth. Gossip mags and society pages were atwitter over the romance and mystique of it all. Opinion pieces ran in the Daily Prophet about love, anonymity, and fame. Even the Quibbler had done a piece on it, although it had focused on changelings, faeries, and which sorts of creatures couldn't cross into a new day.

Marcus had been pessimistic about their idea, but the team initially took the level of interest as proof that they were brilliant. It would be near impossible for the man to simply overlook the commotion and while Flint wasn't everyone's cup of tea, he had plenty of practice telling what someone who was uninterested in or scared of him looked like. Mystery Man hadn't been either of those things and Flint was a catch on paper, so surely he would show up once he knew the impression he'd made.

Oliver had thought that everyone who cared to know must know what Flint was like by now, but people came out of the woodwork to claim they were The One For Flint. Instead of the ad signaling to the masses that Flint was taking himself off the market, they seemed to take it as him being desperate. It was like the early days of the balls, only worse because people were sure they would be offered his fame and fortune the minute he thought they were the one.

It was absolutely unreasonable to consider, except that Oliver wasn't completely sure Flint wasn't going to propose the minute he laid eyes on the man. All of this hype was actually making the situation worse, because it reminded Flint (and all of them, really) how disappointing people were.

****

Ginny Weasley responding to their ad was quite the surprise. Firstly, Oliver had never known Ginny to blush in anything but rage except around Harry Potter. Secondly, since they knew she wasn't the man of Flint's dreams, Oliver was surprised she would bother trying it. Thirdly, she was Ginny, so when she had the chance to speak to Flint, she didn't actually try to lie to him.

"Obviously we're not interested in each other or else one of us would have tried it on at the party," she stated bluntly.

Oliver probably should have expected that from Ginny, but Flint rolled with it fairly well, with only a slight snarl at her for wasting his time.

"I was at that party and I have the right color hair so one of my classmates suggested I come to you saying it was me in hopes of making Harry jealous enough to pull his head out of his arse. I'm not going to try to trick you into it, obviously, but I thought I'd offer. I can try to help you find your actual love interest while you help me. We'd put a time limit on it, maybe a month? I have no interest in accidentally marrying you because Harry Potter is the world's biggest tosser."

"Well," Christian, their rookie Chaser breathed, "I think I'm in love."

Ginny shot a smirk at him but immediately turned her attention to Flint. "Well?"

Flint was squinting hard at her. 'You have brothers, don't you?"

"Yeah, a bunch. You played against Fred and George back in school. They were on a team with this one," she motioned to Oliver. "And maybe Charlie too?"

"Take me to meet all your brothers and we have a deal."

~~~~~~~~

Ginny Weasley was as good as her word. They didn't announce that Marcus was taken or had stopped searching, but they left the people answering the ads to be vetted and dealt with by the team and Ginny quietly started bringing Marcus around. He was pretty confident that all of Gryffindor thought they were dating but word didn't spread far beyond that.

Taking Marcus home accomplished two objectives: Since Harry Potter was basically already a member of the Weasley clan, he had plenty of opportunity to see them together and get jealous, and her brothers were there. Her brother's faces were hilarious, especially the twins, who he did remember now that he saw them again, the nasty little buggers. Every time they went by the Burrow, there seemed to be a new (horrified) face, all of them red-haired and nearly all male, but none of them the face he had secretly been hoping to find.

It had been a long shot, but he'd seen just enough of the sister to know she'd also had red hair. Ginny had been at the party and she had brothers, making her a better lead than counting on a man who hated Quidditch, gossip, and parties to put together the pieces and realize he'd been getting hit on by Marcus Flint. Even more, Marcus wasn't sure he'd made a good enough impression in those few moments, and hoped mostly for a chance to woo him properly, not for him to have also felt a spark.

The anonymity in the garden had felt magical, but in hindsight it was terribly inconvenient. Even though he felt he had some understanding of the man's character, he had no guesses as to his name, age, profession, or whereabouts. Ginny Weasley's sprawling clan had felt like his best lead, but with every visit he found his hopes dwindling. He didn't need to settle down, not even for his parents' sake, but he felt a void as sharp and haunting as a blowout loss at the idea of missing his chance to genuinely fall for someone.

*