Disclaimer: I own nothing. The words in italic at the beginning and at the end are taken from the song I'm a Loser by the Beatles. I don't own these lyrics either.

Author's note: This was written for the Flying Solo challenge on the HPFC forums (see my profile for the link), in which I chose to write Gideon without mentioning Fabian. Again, I borrowed the nice nickname Mack from lyin'.

I'm not sure about the use of the song lyrics, I really love them and they inspired me to write this, but I don't want this to be like a song-fic. What do you think?

I'm a Loser

(a Gideon Prewett fanfiction)

To lyin', who made me love the Prewetts, and whom will, I hope, enjoy this story even a hundred times less than I enjoyed reading hers, because that would already be saying a lot.

Of all the love I have won or have lost

There is one love I should never have crossed

She was a girl in a million, my friend

I should have known she would win in the end

-

Gideon Prewett did not believe in fairy tales. He did not believe in soulmates. But he certainly believed in the ironic power of the last words Marlene McKinnon ever said to him.

“See you later,” Marlene had said lightly, and with a graceful wave of her hand she had Disapparated.

Not two days had passed by before Dorcas Meadowes broke the news to him that Marlene’s whole family had been killed.

Gideon wondered if they really would see each other later. There was an after-life, supposedly, some kind of later in which they could see each other again.

But Gideon Prewett did not believe in an after-life.

He stopped pacing the only room of his ridiculously small flat and stared at his reflection in the mirror, at his wan, drawn face. Even though his vision was blurry from the lack of sleep, he could still make out the dark circles around his pale blue eyes, which weren’t even tainted with red.

He had not shed one single tear for Marlene.

Crying was not for the Prewetts. He’d be alright.

But he had been sick twice and had not slept since he had learnt, twenty hours ago. He had broken two glasses in his fury and books and torn Quidditch magazines were scattered on the floor. He wasn’t alright.

He studied his tall, unusually thin figure; he had lost weight. If she saw him, his mother would practically shove food into his mouth. Molly would, too. But Gideon didn’t want them to see him like this, haggard and lost and not really himself. He looked down at his hands; they were shaking. He watched them as if it was an interesting phenomenon, as if he was someone else gazing at Gideon Prewett, like one studied a strange animal. He didn’t understand himself.

Marlene was gone. She had won their little game of “I don't love you”, “me neither”, their pretending there was nothing between them, just friendship and lust and a bit more if they were drunk. She had been the one who would say it was nothing more and repeat it until they both believed it. Gideon had agreed, but there was a part of him that had wished it wasn’t this way; yet the other part, the one which was careless and young and loved to fight, had always taken the better of him. Until today.

“So you’ve won, Mack,” Gideon murmured. “I’m the loser.”

For the first time in his life, Gideon Prewett was the one losing.

He had gambled their love and lost. He doubted she’d be happy about it. He looked at his reflection again; he could only see the white wall full of Quidditch posters and family portraits behind him, but he pretended he could see Marlene smiling at him.

He could clearly remember the first time they’d met, at the first meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. He was much too cynical to believe in love at first sight. In truth, he’d thought she didn’t seem to be his kind of girl at all. With her petite figure, blonde hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks, she looked like a doll. Of course, she was pretty, but Gideon had had a lot of pretty girls in his life. He didn’t really realize there was something more to Marlene until, barely a month after their first meeting, she’d scowled at him and said, rolling her eyes: “Damn it, Prewett, stop talking to me as if I might break at the sound of your voice.”

That was, strangely enough, when he had started falling for her. This probably told a lot about him, but he couldn’t quite figure out what.

He felt terribly sad and hollow and somewhat guilty (there must have been something he could have done, should have done, to protect her). Guilty, also, for feeling bad as much for himself as for her. He wondered what it was like to cry, and how it was possible for a twenty-three-year-old man not to remember the last time tears had filled his eyes.

He clenched his fists until his his knuckles turned white and he almost forgot to breathe.

Briefly, he wondered what dying felt like. He liked to think that he didn’t fear death – no, there were some things that he feared more. Losing was one of them.

He did not believe that Marlene could hear him, but he did it anyway.

“I love you,” Gideon said, feeling foolish and lonely and stupid, and yet so much better.

He had said it at last.

He started to cry.

-

I'm a loser

And I lost someone who's near to me

I'm a loser

And I'm not what I appear to be

Although I laugh and I act like a clown

Beneath this mask I am wearing a frown

My tears are falling like rain from the sky

Is it for her or myself that I cry?

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