Stronger Together by Pevensies_Pensieve
Chapter Notes: James has some fond recollections and an exciting Quidditch match takes place which will have you falling out of your seat.
Shafts of sunlight pushed through the thin veil of clouds overhead as James walked onto the Quidditch pitch. He had woken up extremely early for a Saturday and hadn’t been able to fall back asleep. After staring at the curtains of his four-poster bed for quite some time, he decided to make his way down to the Great Hall for breakfast, where, though it was otherwise uninhabited, he dawdled around for a good bit before finally deciding to fly around the Quidditch pitch to pass the time till the match.
Weaving in and out of the huge columns surrounding the stadium, James squinted as the glare from the sun hitting something flashed in his eyes. He shielded his face with his hand and glanced over in that direction to see that the castle’s spires fairly sparkled with the sun’s reflection of last night’s dew on them. He pulled his broom up to slow down and appreciate the view. A couple of birds circled the top of the astronomy tower before landing on the edge of the battlement, and James was reminded of the incident on that tower that first brought the four Marauders together.
Remus and James had met on the train to Hogwarts, sharing a compartment and worries about their new school. Like all the other first years they had waited in line to be sorted, only to find out, with relief from Remus and satisfaction from James, that they belonged in Gryffindor with two other boys, Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black. Peter seemed alright to James; a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but nothing as near as bad as Sirius, who claimed he was best at everything. It didn’t take too long until James and Sirius were vying for the top of the class in just about every subject.
James couldn’t stand to see Sirius smirking at him after he’d learned a spell faster than him, and likewise, Sirius usually made some derogatory comment every time James answered a question first.
They hadn’t quite come to cursing each other, but things were getting pretty heated when they joined the rest of their classmates for a special Astronomy class atop the Tower one evening early in October. Professor Barrabee wanted them to see a certain configuration of the stars that only happened every thirty years of so. Unfortunately, Professor Barrabee was very absentminded and forgot to bring up his wand with him when he came up the winding tower steps. Upon discovering that he could not use his wand to point out the stars to the students, he tottered back down the steps to retrieve it, leaving the Gryffindors to, “observe the heavenly landscape and wonder at the marvels of the universe.”
“Wonder at the pointlessness of this class, you mean,” Sirius muttered to Peter after Professor Barrabee had disappeared down the hatch in the floor. He had been planning on spending the evening exploring more bits of the castle and sorely missed his chance to scout out some new terrain.
“Hey, people have actually used the stars to navigate,” Lily contended, revealing yet more Muggle information that Sirius thought useless. “As late as the eighteen hundreds sailors looked at the position of the stars for the right direction.”
“Yeah, well as stupid as that sounds, I doubt we’ll be manning a ship any time soon,” Sirius said, throwing her a disdainful look.
Lily opened her mouth to defend her statement, but James cut her off.
“The only reason you don’t like this class is because you can’t even remember which star configuration is the one you’re named after.”
At this Lily rolled her eyes and huffed at the two boys while Sirius growled and spat, “Oh yeah, well at least I don’t need inch-thick glasses to be able to see them.”
“Half-wit.”
“Git.”
“Come on James, forget about it,” Remus warned, glancing nervously at the door.
Continuing on and completely disregarding Remus, James replied, “I bet you don’t even know how to fight a real wizard’s duel.”
“I’ve fought harder people than you, Potter,” sneered Sirius. “You’re probably too much of a coward to actually go through with it.”
Furious, James yelled, “Am not! Remus is my second, who’s yours?”
Sirius looked around and realized that Peter was the only other boy on the tower. Resignedly he muttered, “Peter.”
“Fine,” James said as he stepped forward. “Let’s have a go at it then.”
“Oh don’t be stupid!” Lily shouted. “Neither of you knows enough spells to really do anything. Plus Barrabee will be back soon and you’ll both be caught and get in trouble, no doubt losing Gryffindor some points.”
But neither of them was listening as they made their bows and retreated to opposite ends of the tower.
“On the count of three,” Peter piped up from behind a glowering Sirius. “One, two… THREE!”
Barely before the words were out of Peter’s mouth Sirius shouted, “Expelliarmus!” James just ducked and the spell harmlessly bounced off a part of the battlement.
Springing back into a defensive stance, he yelled, “Impedimenta!”
Unfortunately, at the same time Remus grabbed his arm and yelled, “Stop, James!” jerking the position of his wand slightly. Time seemed to slow as the jet of light shot out of his wand and arched across the tower, illuminating the students in a faint glow, before finally reaching Peter and hitting him squarely in the stomach. There was an audible gasp as the force of the spell lifted Peter off his feet, over the battlement, and down towards the other side.
Thinking fast, Sirius wildly called out, “Wingardium Leviosa!” stopping Peter before he could descend farther down the castle walls. Instead he lazily started to drift higher and higher until he was once again beyond the height of the tower.
“Quick! Before the spell starts to wear off we’ve got to get him back on to the tower!” James yelled, running over to the now terrified floating boy. He climbed up onto the ramparts to try and grab Peter’s foot to pull him down. Ginger Brown fainted as he swayed slightly. Trying not to look down, James made another grab for his foot, but to no avail. Peter had floated beyond his reach, and if they didn’t do something soon, they wouldn’t be able to save him.
“I’ve got an idea!” James called to Sirius. “If I jump off and grab him, you can catch my legs and pull us both down.”
“Alright,” Sirius agreed.
Lily shuddered as she watched Sirius ready himself by standing against the side of the wall. “This is completely mental,” she muttered.
“Alright. Let’s both jump on the count of three,” James said with a nervous wobble in his voice. Screwing up his face, he counted with determination and leapt off the tower.
Right on time, Sirius hugged James’ legs as James closed his hand around Peter’s ankle. Remus caught hold of James’ legs as well and helped Sirius pull them all safely back onto the tower.
“Good thinking,” Sirius said a little out of breath as they disentangled themselves from each other.
Looking a bit green in the face as well, James replied, “Nice spell-work. He would have kept falling if you hadn’t thought of using that.”
Both of them winced as they heard Lily shout, “YOU IDIOTS! YOU COULD HAVE ALL BEEN KILLED!”
“But we weren’t,” James replied, cocking a smile. “Nice to know you care though.”
“James Potter ““ Lily started. But whatever she thought about him, no one found out because at that moment Professor Barrabee popped his head out from under the door over the spiral stairs.
“Everything all right?” he asked. “Potter, what are you doing down there on the ground?”
“He was pointing out the constellation of Canis Major to me Professor,” Sirius replied, winking at James and giving him a hand up.
James and Sirius stopped arguing after that and quickly became the best of friends. Soon the four Gryffindor boys could be seen traipsing around the school causing mischief and mayhem.
“Oy! Potter!” Carol Parks shouted from the ground, nearly unseating James from his broom in surprise. “Better change into your robes before the rest of the school gets here.”
“Sure thing, Cap’n!” James yelled back to her as he tipped an imaginary hat. He shot off on his broom towards the changing rooms, passing the first groups of students heading onto the pitch.
“Alice, wait up!” Lily called as she jogged to catch up with her friends. She had been talking to Miles near the Ravenclaw table across the Great Hall when Alice, May, and Ginger got up to leave for the match.
“Is Miles in tip-top shape for the match?” May asked, turning around as she walked.
“I think so,” Lily replied. “He’s really excited for Ravenclaw to win the Cup at his last game.” In fact, Lily thought to herself, that’s all he seemed to talk about lately. Granted, he had never seen the Ravenclaw team win the Quidditch Cup in all four years that he had played as their keeper. But still, it would have been nice to talk about something else in the few moments that they saw each other during the week.
“Don’t tell me you’re rooting for Ravenclaw too?” May asked.
Lily laughed. “No. I’ll be sitting with the Gryffindors. Don’t worry. You just might hear a whoop every time Miles makes a good catch though.”
“Hey look!” Alice pointed. “Henry Lovegood’s bewitched his toad to act like a raven again.” Henry had indeed transfigured his pet toad into a rather large raven which flapped menacingly and cawed in a loud voice every few minutes. If the crowds had not been so boisterous, it would have been likely to give Lily a headache.
“He is an odd sort of fellow,” Ginger remarked before leading them up into the stands.
“Yes,” Lily huffed, climbing the last of the stairs and sitting down at the end of the row. “But if you ever talk to him, you find you he’s really pretty sharp at noticing things other people normally don’t.”
“Ugh. It’s those Slytherins,” May interrupted. A group of them had pushed some first years out of the way so that they could sit in the front row.
“You know I really don’t like that Bellatrix Black,” Alice shuddered. “I was talking with Hagrid, the groundskeeper, the other day, and we caught her trying to make two crups fight each other. She said she wanted to see if they attacked each other like regular dogs do.”
“Yeah, she and that Rodolphus Lestrange are both a bit creepy if you ask me,” May replied.
Lily sighed. “I hope I don’t have to play disciplinarian today. It’s not like they listen to prefects anyway, much less younger ones.”
“Ah just forget about them and watch Miles,” Ginger advised, giving her a wink. “There he is now and the rest of the Ravenclaw team.”
Lily waved as he passed them by on his way towards the goalposts. He smiled and waved back, circling the hoops once before settling down on his broom in front of them. There was a loud swooshing noise and a swirl of red and gold as the Gryffindor team flew on to the pitch next. Minutes later the quaffle was released and the game started.
“And they’re off! Carol Parks grabs the quaffle and passes to Potter, who races down the pitch and dodges a bludger from Stone,” Mark Thomas roared from the commentator’s box. “Potter does a quick fake and aims for the hoops, but Miles Kirke catches the quaffle and throws it to McNew.”
“McNew passes to Davies, nearly collided with Charley Appleton there trying to avoid that bludger. He’s almost to the hoops now! Davies ducks to avoid Parks and swerves left. She shoots “and scores!! Ten points to Ravenclaw to start out the match!”
Fifteen minutes later Alice remarked dryly, “Well it’s a good thing Miles is keeper. Otherwise the Gryffindors might get some points.” The score was not twenty Gryffindor, seventy Ravenclaw with no signs from Miles that he was letting up on his goalkeeping stamina anytime soon.
“Sorry,” Lily replied. “At least we still have a chance at the snitch though.” In truth, she was a little irritated that Gryffindor was losing because of Miles, but she pushed this thought to the back of her mind and tried to watch the rest of the match with neutrality.
Her attention was distracted however, when May shouted, “Hang on. Why are those Gryffindors rooting for Ravenclaw?” Sure enough, a group of first-year Gryffindors sitting near the front were squeaking excitedly every time the Ravenclaw team made a good move. Suddenly, one of them burst out in a little song and dance number about the greatness of the Ravenclaws. Lily saw a small streak of light weave towards the group of first years and a second later another boy joined the song. Looking for the light’s source, Lily gazed around the stands and spotted the older knot of Slytherins laughing and gesturing animatedly at the antics of the small students.
“I don’t believe it,” she muttered, standing up and marching down to the row holding the troublemakers.
“Ten points from Slytherin!” Lily shouted.
Bellatrix turned around and sneered at her, “Do you really think we care about some stupid house points? Besides, it’s just too much entertainment watching these little ones dance around like idiots.” The others laughed while she shot another spell at the first years.
Lily furiously said the counter curse and turned on the Slytherins. “How dare you take advantage of younger students. Just because you can do more advanced magic doesn’t mean you can abuse your power and use others for your sport.”
“We were just having some fun,” Rodolphus said with an ugly smile on his face. “What are you going to do anyway? Report us to the teachers? Like we’re really afraid of them.”
Bellatrix leered, “Go on, Evans. Run off to Dumbledore and tattle on us. I’m sure he’ll make everything alright.”
Lily glowered and replied, “I hope you are expelled. It would serve you right.” And with that she turned and started to make her way down to the teachers’ box.
“STEBBINS HAS SPOTTED THE SNITCH!”
Surprised by the outburst, Lily tripped down a couple of stairs and was further knocked off balance when she jerked to avoid two quidditch players colliding dangerously close to the stands. Suddenly she felt a shove from behind, and the next thing she knew she was tumbling over the edge of the railing. Lily frantically tried to grab onto the wooden beams, but her hands only painfully scratched the sides. In horror, she felt herself falling with an alarming speed towards the ground. Bile in her throat, Lily tried to scream but no sound would come out of her mouth.
* * * * *
“STEBBINS HAS SPOTTED THE SNITCH!”
James grinned at the report from the commentator. Unfortunately, he couldn’t celebrate just yet because he was holding onto the quaffle and having a difficult time passing it off to anyone else as the Ravenclaw chasers were doing a superb job at blocking him. Finally in desperation, he ducked down and swerved left, taking an unrealistic shot at the hoops. He never got to see if it went in however, because Sarah Davies came at him sharply from the right. Before he could roll out of her way, she crashed into him and the two of them skidded towards the stands. Pulling up hard, James stopped himself from crashing into on of the bystanders and came to a halt in front of the stands.
“Impedimenta!” someone shouted and James looked around in surprise. He saw Rodolphus Lestrange pointing his wand down towards the other end of the row. He whipped his head around and watched as someone fell over the edge. His heart nearly stopped when he saw auburn hair fluttering around a pair of terrified green eyes and realized that it was Lily. Without a second thought James plunged after her on his broom.
An uneasy feeling rose in the pit of his stomach as Lily dropped closer and closer to the ground. He wasn’t sure that he would make it to her in time. James willed his broom to fly faster. But even as he closed the gap between them he could see that it wouldn’t be enough. She would already be too far under him for James to grab her.
“NO!” he shouted in determination, and in desperation he leapt off his broom a few feet away from where she was passing him and dived towards her body.
* * * * *
Watching the stands grow farther and farther away, Lily waited for the impact she knew was coming. She couldn’t see the ground rushing towards her, but she knew from the way the beams were speedily passing her by that it wouldn’t be long until the ground broke her fall. From the corner of her eye she saw a large blur coming at her. It have a loud roar and then suddenly leapt on top of her and rolled her around in the air until it was under her and she was facing the ground. She gasped as she found herself staring into a pair of hazel eyes, framed by glasses, which reflected her own fear. A split-second later James hit the ground with a loud grunt.
Catching her breath back and pushing herself up a little, Lily blinked in surprise and gaped at the boy under her.
“All right, Evans?” James groaned.
Lily continued staring for a second before coming to her senses and saying, “Are you ok?”
He gave a croaky laugh and said, “Yeah. My ears are still ringing though.” Lily moved off him as he slowly sat up.
“Ms. Evans, Mr. Potter!” Professor McGonagall called as she hurried towards them. “Oh thank heavens. You didn’t break any bones did you?” By now several of the other players had flown towards them and landed to see what all the commotion was about.
“I don’t think so, Professor,” Lily answered as she shakily pulled herself up.
“Well, why don’t you and Potter go on up to the hospital wing to check things out just in case?”
“No, Professor,” James protested. “I’ll be fine. Really. Besides, I can’t miss the rest of the match!”
“Oh, very well,” she agreed, not wanting Gryffindor deprived of one of its star players. “You may go Mr. Potter, and twenty points to Gryffindor “for saving the life of another student in a very courageous act.”
Still looking a little rattled, Professor McGonagall turned to Lily and said, “Now Ms. Evans. What happened?”
“It was Rodolphus Lestrange, Professor,” James broke in before Lilly had the chance to answer. “I saw him cast an Impediment charm on her when her back was turned.”
“Is this true Ms. Evans?” she asked.
“Well I was on my way to get a teacher because he and a couple of other Slytherins were bewitching some young Gryffindors to root for Ravenclaw when I felt a hard shove from behind, making me fall over the edge,” Lily said.
McGonagall sighed and said, “Well I wouldn’t put it past him. Are you sure you’ll be alright Ms. Evans?”
Lily nodded and turned to join her friends who were now rushing over from the bottom of the stands with worried looks on their faces. After explaining everything to them and reassuring them for the umpteenth time that she was fine, she followed them back up into the stands for the rest of the match. She hardly saw a minute of it though, as her mind was too tightly wrapped around the events that had just occurred. Only when a butterbeer was practically shoved into her stomach in the common room did she register that it was over and that she could go to bed without anyone noticing.
Someone did notice amongst all the celebrating however, someone with hazel eyes that were not twinkling with joy over the important win but frowning with worry over a certain redhead.