Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
(A/N Hello again! I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! Here's your new chapter! It would've been here like... an hour sooner but I had to find out what was behind the door! It's open people! GO SEE IT!! YOU MUST!! It's more important than this!!! lol, hope you enjoy ^_^)
Chapter 9: Quidditch Before Christmas
Lily and Stephanie filed into the Quidditch stands along with all the other Gryffindors. Everyone was excited for the first match of the season, many held banners they would use to cheer for their house. Lily had participated in such practices a few years before when Raven had first made the house team. She hadn’t the time to make one for this match, and when she apologized to Raven for her lack of support the night before in the common room she had been surprised to find that Raven was actually relieved.
“Well, no offense Lily, but you and Stephanie are not the greatest artists. It was embarrassing sometimes really,” she had told Lily with a lopsided grin. It took Lily a moment before she realized that she wasn’t extremely insulted by that. Art wasn’t really her thing anyways and she’d learnt that back when she attended muggle school.
“Oi, watch it, coming through,” Lily turned in her seat to see Sirius, Peter and Remus making their way through the crowded stands to the empty seats located behind Stephanie and herself.
Lily looked to her friend to see that she wasn’t showing the faintest bit of interest. Was Stephanie over her crush? Lily didn’t think so, just yesterday Stephanie had forced her and Raven to hang out by the lake just because the marauders were at their usual place underneath the beech tree.
“And here come the Gryffindors, lead by their Captain, James Potter. Quite a formidable chaser he is, just recently switched over from seeker. Said seeker was too boring for him... honestly...”
“Yeah, that and I told him seekers were wimps,” Lily heard Sirius laugh.
“Plus Peter and I said that he wasn’t cut out to be a chaser. Way too much team work involved and he’s all for himself,” Remus muttered.
Lily laughed inwardly, imagining the look on James’s face when his friends turned on him like that. The commentator, Thomas Snider was cut off in his description of James’s past quidditch statistics by Professor McGonagall’s sharp voice, “We don’t need his life history Tom! Just the name will due!”
“Right, sorry Professor. Potter followed by Raven Sheppard who has been on the team since third year and is quite the asset. Threatened to beat me with her beater’s club if I didn’t stop giving her long introductions when she entered the quidditch pitch, but honestly, how can I not?” McGonagall gave him a sharp look and he quickly went on. “Sheppard followed by her fellow beater, Robbins, new seeker and quite a good find I might add, Kelly Keelson, chasers Terry Graham and Matt Jefferson. Last, but not least by any means, Keeper Julian Wood.”
There was wild applause from the Gryffindor stands as Thomas finished listing off the members of their team.
“Slytherin team goes out onto the field lead by Captain Harper, Gilroy, McCutchen, Pianosi, Lomer, Slater and Brooks,” Thomas listed off the names of the Slytherin team players in a bored tone. "Their team has suffered a great loss as Lucious Malfoy, their Captain, left last year.
The whole school watched as Madam Hooch lectured the teams on fair play. Both sides mounted their brooms and the whistle blew, signaling the beginning of the game.
Immediately James got the quaffle and started zooming towards the Slytherin end. Lily failed to supress a gasp as he narrowly dodged a bludger and passed the quaffle to one of his fellow chasers. They dipped under an approaching Slytherin before tossing the quaffle back to James who threw it at the goal and scored without any trouble.
“TEN POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR!” Thomas was barely heard over Gryffindor cheers.
The Gryffindor chasers were, without a doubt, the best at Hogwarts. They seemed to be able to read each others minds and know precisely what their fellow teammates were going to do next. They did countless amazing moves and soon Thomas was calling out, “70 TO ZERO FOR GRYFFINDOR!”
Lily cheered for Raven as she watched the girl whack a bludger with her club at a Slytherin chaser who had managed to get the ball away. He dropped it and James caught it, he pressed low to his broom and sped off to the Slytherin end, dodging players and bludgers as he went. In next to no time Gryffindor was a hundred points up and there was still no sign of the snitch. Both seekers could be seen hovering over top of the game, searching for the tiny golden ball that would end and most probably win their team the game.
The whole crowd gasped and Lily’s attention was snapped back into the heart of the game. Raven was hitting a bludger with her club for all she was worth, but the problem was, she was hitting it straight at James! He did a neat roll and the bludger soared over him straight into the stomach of a Slytherin chaser who had been trailing James. Three quarters of the school cheered, drowning out the Slytherins’ boos and hisses. Lily let out a sigh of relief, happy that it had just been a type of quidditch strategy.
“I told him about that move,” Sirius said proudly. “Although I wish I hadn’t. He was at those bloody quidditch books all summer and forced me to read them too.”
“That’s odd Padfoot, considering you can’t play quidditch to save your life.”
“I don’t see you on the team, Moony!” Sirius retorted and Lily guessed that he had hit Remus because she heard a soft ‘ow’.
Slytherin scored two goals and the Gryffindors were somewhat discouraged, but not very. James and his fellow chasers were attempting a comeback. He passed the ball to a teammate and she fired at the goals, but the Slytherin keeper saved it. He tossed it to a Slytherin chaser and off they went down the pitch once again. It went on like this for a long time, each team attempting to score and the keepers continuing to make miraculous saves.
Lily’s attention was suddenly drawn to the Slytherin seeker going into a dive. She looked to the base of the quidditch pitch and saw a small glimmer of gold. Thomas was cheering on Kelly, the Gryffindor seeker, in his enchanted megaphone, but there was no way she would catch up... the Slytherin seeker was almost there... he was reaching out... at any moment he’d catch the snitch.
Lily winced as a bludger, hit by Raven, connected with the Slytherin seeker’s ribs, he flew off couse and missed grabbing the snitch. No one seemed very concerned about him as Kelly caught the snitch triumphantly and the stands erupted with cheering.
“Are we ever lucky that Raven knows how to hit a bludger,” Sirius said, letting off a few fireworks from the tip of his wand in celebration.
Lily turned around, acknowledging their presence for the first time. “That was quite the compliment coming from you Sirius!” she said with a grin.
He smirked. “I don’t mind complimenting people, as long as it’s not to their face.”
Lily rolled her eyes at him and turned to her friend. “Shall we go down to the pitch Steph?” she asked, wondering if they should meet Raven there or just go to the common room.
“Come, fellow marauders, it’s off to the kitchens for us,” she heard Sirius say and watched from the corner of her eye as they made their way out of the stands and back into the school.
Stephanie shrugged. “May as well go down, she’d probably hex us if we didn’t congratulate her.”
Lily nodded and they made their way down. Raven was just coming out of the change rooms with her quidditch robes rolled up into a bundle and tucked under one arm.
“Great game Raven! That was incredible!” Lily and Stephanie said, hugging their friend.
Raven grinned. “Thanks you guys. Am I ever thankful I’m not Kelly though. When I left James was yelling something about having spotted the snitch five different times while she just lazed about in the air,” she said without any real sympathy in her voice, and her eyes were sparkling with laughter.
Lily frowned. “I thought Kelly was supposed to be a really great seeker...”
“Oh, she is, when she’s concentrating that is. The problem is, she doesn’t do that very often,” Raven explained as they made their way across the grounds to the castle.
“And since James used to be a seeker, he’ll want her to be as good as he was,” Lily guessed.
Raven nodded and Lily let out a sigh. “I feel sorry for Kelly. He was a great seeker, and it'll be hard to llive up to.”
“Do my ears deceive me? Lily giving James a compliment!? Are you ill?” Raven joked, pressing a hand to Lily’s forehead as if she were checking for a fever.
Lily smacked her hand playfully away, laughing. “Stop it Raven, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Raven and Stephanie exchanged disbelieving looks, much to Lily’s annoyance. “You both know I have to get along with him if I want to be a good Head Girl!”
They didn’t respond, continuing to look at each other with smirks on their faces and a smug air about them. Lily huffed angrily, but held her tongue knowing that anything she said would not help matters. In fact, it’d probably just make them believe she facied James, which was completely absurd.
Not completely absurd, a nasty little voice inside her said, if it were you wouldn’t have almost kissed him.
~*~
The next morning was a hard one for most Gryffindors. Since a majority of them had stayed up late into the night (and early morning for some) celebrating their victory over Slytherin.
Lily, Raven and Stephanie were all groaning and looking at the breakfast dishes with disgust. Thanks to the marauders, there had been an enormous amount of food in the Gryffindor common room the night before and they had helped themselves to it. Regretting those actions now, Lily poured herself a glass of orange juice and nibbled at an apple.
She gave Remus a small smile as he sat down next to her. Accusing mutters still followed him everywhere. If he tried to sit next to anyone other than Lily or the other marauders they would inch away with scared looks on their faces. She couldn’t imagine how Remus felt, so she tried to always make it known that she was a friend and there if he needed her.
Elise had stopped following Lily around shortly after the rumor about Remus spread around the school. She believed the gossip and avoided Remus at all costs. This was particularly troublesome during prefects meetings because she refused to patrol with him, even though Lily had finally made the alarm devices for them. Annabelle (who maintained her image of a reformed Slytherin) now patrolled with Elise and Remus was left to patrol with Annabelle’s former Slytherin partner.
Lily leaned forward and looked down the table, spotting Elise sitting by herself at the very end. Although it had been annoying having her hang around all the time, Lily wished the girl would reconsider her animosity towards Remus. She was bound to have a very lonely last year at Hogwarts.
The owl post arrived, distracting Lily from her thoughts. She looked up, searching for Raven’s owl that she’d sent away with a letter to her parents shortly after Timothy’s attack. She told them nothing of what was happening at Hogwarts, her letter only contained inquiries about the holidays.
She smiled when she spotted Raven’s beautiful black owl. It dropped a letter in front of her before landing on Raven’s shoulder and stealing some breakfast from her. Lily tore open the seal and pulled out a disappointingly thin letter from her mother.
To my little Lily flower,
I know you’ve been expecting that you would come home for Christmas and we would go skiing as always, but that will be impossible this year. Petunia’s young man, Vernon, has proposed to her. We will be spending the holidays getting to know his side of the family. We would love for you to come, but they haven’t the room for an extra person and we don’t want to be intruding. Hopefully this isn’t too disappointing for you. It is your last year, and I thought you would want to be there for as much of it as possible.
If you really want to come home, we will of course find a way to make it work, but I do believe that it’ll be quite boring for you.
Petunia and Dad send their love, as do I.
“ Mum
Lily sighed and folded up the letter, placing it in the envelope and then into her pocket.
“Bad news?” Raven asked, seeing the frown on Lily’s face.
“I’m staying here for Christmas,” Lily explained.
“Excellent,” Raven grinned, “I’ll stay too! I’ve always wondered what it’d be like staying here for Christmas when no one is around.”
“What’s all this talk about staying for Christmas? You always go home,” A curious James said, leaning forward so he could see them from his spot beside Remus.
Lily shrugged. “This year I’m staying,” she told him simply.
James’s face broke into an unexpected grin. “That’s great, I am too. Parents are busy with work,” he explained to the puzzled looks Lily and Raven were giving him.
“That means...” Raven trailed off.
“That I’m staying too! No, spare me the yells of excitement,” Sirius said happily, watching Raven’s face turn into a look of disgust.
“There goes a peaceful Christmas,” Lily and Raven said simultaneously, sighing.
(A/N and *gasp* what a shock! Lily and James staying at the castle for christmas when barely anyone else is around... this can't possibly mean that there will be romance! No... no... that's just foolish thinking! lol I know that was terribly predictable, forgive me! hehe. Oh! And I'm sorry about the Quidditch bit... it was no where near as interesting as it should've been! lol)