Friendly Competition by Gmariam
Story Notes:
This story was written for the Lily/James Fan Fest Summer 2010 at Live Journal. It was written for the following prompt: Broomstick. There are three parts and I hope you enjoy them!
Part One: On Your Mark…
"So, Prongs, how did your big idea go over?" asked Sirius. He was lounging across his bed with a Butterbeer and a foot-long essay on Confidence Potions. "Anyone buy into it?"
I grinned as I took off my robes and crashed on my own bed. I kicked off my shoes and put my hands behind my head. "They loved it," I replied, feeling a bit cocky myself. "Every one of them."
"Really?" asked Peter, glancing up from his Charms text with a surprised look on his face. "Even Lily?"
"Even Evans," I answered. "I thought for sure she'd shoot it down straight off, but everyone else was so interested, maybe she couldn't. Hand me a Butterbeer, will you, Padfoot?"
Sirius raised his eyebrows. "That doesn't sound like our normal Head Girl," he observed as he tossed a bottle across the room. "She doesn't usually hold back when it comes to putting a stop to your nefarious plans."
Remus walked in then. "Maybe it's because she's planning on entering the competition herself," he announced.
I sat up immediately, spilling Butterbeer all over my shirt. "You're joking," I sputtered as I grabbed my wand to clean up.
"I'm not," said Remus, sitting on his own four-poster. "She just told me."
Peter put down his book to join the conversation. "Why would she tell you?" he asked. "She must know you'd tell us."
Remus shrugged. "I don't know. She asked me to help her out a bit as well."
"What?" I exclaimed, throwing my feet over the side of the bed and staring at him. "You've got to be joking."
"I already told you I wasn't," Remus laughed. "Don't worry, I told her I couldn't. So she asked Jackson Robertson instead. He about fell over when she did."
"But…but…" I stammered, slightly stunned. Jackson Robertson? The Ravenclaw Seeker?
"I think what James is so eloquently trying to say," offered Sirius, "is why didn't she ask him to help her out? And of course the answer is…"
"She still can't stand him and his big head," answered Peter with a snort, returning to his work. I threw a pair of socks at him, but he batted them away with a blithely innocent look on his face.
"Point to Wormtail," Sirius crowed. "Bad luck, Prongs. But then, when you win, you can show her who's in charge."
It was Remus's turn to snort. "Who's in charge of what?" he asked.
"Their lack of a relationship, of course," Sirius replied.
"Not James," said Peter from behind his book.
"Oh, Evans is definitely in charge," nodded Sirius.
"She's not in charge of anything," I grumbled, starting to get irritated. They had been giving me a hard time about Lily Evans for years, and usually it didn't bother me. Tonight, however, it did. Sirius was right: why hadn't she asked me to help her?
"Except there's nothing really to be in charge of, is there?" Remus asked, pretending to be thoughtful.
"Sure there is," said Sirius, putting down his essay and warming up to the subject. "She's in charge of eye-rolling, name-calling, and constant, never-ending rejections."
"Will you three knock it off?" I asked, pulling my shoes back on.
"Still a sore spot," murmured Sirius, returning to his work with a smirk.
"Wendy Foster," I replied, feeling juvenile. Sirius pulled a hurt face, pretending to be hit in the heart at the mention of the Ravenclaw who had dumped him the previous year. Then he fell back laughing.
I grabbed my Invisibility Cloak, unsure whether I would need it, but wanting it just in case. "My idea, my race," I snapped. "And neither you, you, or you," I pointed at each one of my friends to punctuate my words, "or Jackson Robertson will stop me from winning now."
I left them howling with laughter behind me as I stomped down the stairs back to the empty common room. The prefects' meeting had run late and everyone had already gone to their dormitories by the time we had returned. I threw myself into a chair and glowered into the fire, alone with my thoughts.
My great idea had turned on me. With the Hogsmeade trip for Halloween cancelled due to recent Death Eater activity in the area, I had proposed another way for Hogwarts to interact, celebrate, and keep its spirits up: a flying race across the grounds. It was for the prefects and Heads only, although if it was successful, I was hoping we could open it to all students for a spring race.
The Headmaster had approved, pleased to have found an activity that would keep the students on the grounds and safe. It would be an obstacle course around the castle. Madam Hooch had agreed to design the course so that it was challenging for both novice and experienced flyers, giving everyone a change to fly fast, fly carefully, and fly competitively.
The prefects had enthusiastically embraced the idea. Though they weren't all flyers, only a few opted out, preferring to do other things for the race instead. I had thought for sure that Lily Evans would want to be a race monitor, given how much she liked to be in control, but she had only smiled and shrugged when I had asked.
Apparently, she had approached Remus to help her after I had returned to the dormitory. Good friend that he was, he had declined. So then she had gone to Jackson Robertson, Ravenclaw Extraordinaire. The seventh-year Seeker, prefect, and pretty boy whom the girls all swooned over. The thought made my stomach turn.
Why hadn't she asked me? We still might not get along all the time, but I was far and away a better flyer than either Remus or even that prat Robertson. I’d been on the Quidditch team six years running, for Merlin's sake! I could certainly help her train better than just about anyone except Hooch herself.
As I sat there staring into the fire, I heard the portrait hole open behind me. I glanced around, but did not see anyone, and turned back to the fire with a grumble. I heard a crash and a squeal, and suddenly Lily Evans appeared, eyes wide as she stumbled into a chair and tried to make her way unnoticed to the girls' dormitory.
"Oi, Evans!" I called, jumping up to startle her some more. "What are you doing sneaking around after hours? The meeting ended an hour ago and curfew is past. You're not trying out that Disillusionment Charm we learned, are you?"
Lily sputtered; I frequently got that reaction from her. "What are you doing down here?" she finally demanded instead.
"Not sneaking around," I replied archly, hiding the Cloak in my robes. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"Neither was I," she said, sounding a bit defensive. She also held something behind her back. I grinned and snatched it before she had a chance to react.
"Ah, a little bit of bedtime reading," I remarked, flipping though the book. It was a deadly dull tome on broomsticks and flying; I could have given her any other number of more interesting books and magazines. "So you really are going to try it?"
"I am," she replied, somewhat defiantly as she tried to grab the book back. I held it up, pretending to read the chapter on braking charms. "Do you have a problem with that, Potter?"
I shrugged. "No, no problem. Just don't cry when I leave you in my tailwind."
Lily snorted. "I'll be too far ahead to even worry about your back end."
"I didn't think you liked flying," I remarked, tossing the book back to her and ignoring her smart remark. She caught it deftly. "Might mess up your hair or something."
"That's true," she said, a look of exaggerated horror on her face. "Then I might look like you." She ran her hand through her hair, mimicking my own nervous habit.
"It's an improvement," I replied as blandly as I could, even though she was starting to push my buttons now. We'd been working together as Head Boy and Head Girl for almost two months, and though things had settled down between us compared to years past, we still had a good row now and then. I felt one coming on.
"I can win," she replied.
"You'll need a lot of practice," I observed.
"I will."
"And a better tutor."
"Why?" She didn't even seem surprised that I knew about her deal with Robertson.
"You know I'm the better flier, Evans. Why ask Robertson?"
"Because he'll actually teach me," she replied. "Not just show off."
Did she really think that's what I did all the time? "Well," I shrugged, "just don't fall off your broom when he starts groping you."
"What do you care if he gropes me?" she asked. "Or if I fall off?"
I tried not to grin as I ticked off the reasons on my hand. "One: he's a git and the groping would be revolting. Two: I don't want to rescue you when you fall off your broom. Three—"
She interrupted me, rolling her eyes. "No one is going to grope me, and I'm not going to fall off my broom. I'm going to win."
"Keep dreaming, Evans."
"You wish, Potter."
* * *
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you so much to Carole/EquinoxChick for reading this over and doing her awesome Brit-picking! And to Natalie/HestiaJones for her constant encouragement and support of my obsession. Any mistakes you still see are my own.