# Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Marcus Flint
## Overview

Marcus Flint is an older boy in Slytherin house, who is Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team.

## Role in the Books
### Philosopher's Stone

Marcus Flint, here a sixth-year, plays as a chaser and captains the Slytherin Quidditch team in their game against Gryffindor house. He purposely blocks Harry in his first Quidditch Match to prevent him from getting the Golden Snitch and Gryffindor is given a penalty. He scores five goals for Slytherin when the whole crowd is transfixed on how Harry's broom is trying to throw him off.

### Chamber of Secrets

Marcus Flint is the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. He first appears in "Mudbloods and Murmurs", when the Slytherins arrive to take over the Quidditch pitch from the Gryffindor team. He tells the Gryffindors that Severus Snape has given them permission to practice on the Quidditch Field due to the Slytherin Team having a new seeker, who turns out to be Draco Malfoy. When Malfoy calls Hermione Granger a mudblood, Fred and George Weasley attempt to jump on Malfoy, only to be stopped by Flint, who quickly dives in front of Malfoy.
Later on in the year, he plays in the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch Match. Gryffindor wins and Flint, who is furious yells at Malfoy for having the snitch on top of his head and not noticing.

### Prisoner of Azkaban

Somehow Marcus Flint is still at Hogwarts, because he is mentioned as being Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and in the game against Gryffindor (in which Harry is flying his Firebolt) it is mentioned that Flint has chosen players for size rather than skill. We see him again when he, Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle disguise themselves as Dementors in a failed attempt to put Harry off his game in the Quidditch match against Ravenclaw. They are all caught by Minerva McGonagall after Harry performs the Patronus Charm. They are all sentenced to detention and McGonagall says she is taking fifty points from Slytherin House as well.
Later in the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch Match, he plays in it. After Angelina Johnson scores a goal for Gryffindor, Flint rams into her and Fred Weasley throws him beater's bat at the back of Flint's head, making Flint's head smash into his broom, making it bleed. For this, Madam Hooch awards both teams fouls. He fails to score the foul because Wood blocks it. Flint manages to score one goal for Slytherin in the match. However, Harry catches the snitch before Malfoy, therefore making Gryffindor win the match and the Quidditch cup, as well. Flint is likely angry about this.
The author has said that, given a choice between her making a mistake and Flint having had to repeat a grade, she thinks it rather more likely that Flint has had to repeat a grade.

## Relationships with Other Characters

It would appear that most of the members on the Slytherin Quidditch Team have a good relationship with Marcus, as he is the Quidditch Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch Team. However, it is unknown what his exact relationships are with them since he is such a minor character and it never goes into detail what his relationships are like with them. He has apparrantly a good relationship with Draco Malfoy, as he lets him onto the Slytherin Quidditch Team as seeker after Draco's father buys the entire Slytherin Quidditch Team Nimbus two thousand and ones and protects him after Ron tries to curse Malfoy after the latter called Hermione a mudblood. This is shown once again in the next book when Malfoy's arm is injured by Buckbeak and Flint tells Wood that they cannot play due to Malfoy's arm still being injured. Despite Flint's good relationship with Draco Malfoy, at least one time he is noted to yell at Malfoy after the snitch was a matter of inches above Malfoy and he didn't grab it. His rival is the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, Oliver Wood. This is shown quite a few times in the books and even in the movies. For example in the books, in Quidditch Matches where Flint plays against Wood, he often tries to break Wood's fingers when the referee asks the Quidditch Captains to shake hands and he even tries to injure or even knock some of Wood's teammates off their brooms when he cheats. In the films, he even went as far as to knock Wood off his broom by hitting a bludger right at him after Wood had constantly blocked the Slytherin chaser's goal attempts.

## Analysis

Marcus Flint never appears except in his role as Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. In that role, he seems to be relatively unimaginative, and somewhat brutish — rather than using skill to win games, at least against Gryffindor, he seems to prefer to make as many fouls as possible, on and off the pitch, in the hopes that some of them at least will not be seen by the referee.
Outside the context of Quidditch, Flint does not seem to exist; he is never mentioned by other characters.
Like any extended series, the Potter books have a number of small internal consistency errors that purists pick up on and often complain about. With a very few exceptions, these errors do not affect the line or enjoyment of the story at all. The error that puts Marcus Flint at Hogwarts for an extra year was one of the earlier ones detected on the fan sites, and at least one fan site has chosen to call all such errors "flints" in commemoration of its discovery.

## Questions

Study questions are meant to be left for each student to answer; please don't answer them here.
1) What do you think happened to Flint after he graduated Hogwarts in Prisoner of Azkaban?
2) Is Flint just a mean and ugly bully and cheater or a misunderstood character?
3) Do you think there's any reason to Flint's rivalry against Wood?