[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
The Future Mr. Evans


True to her word, Lily really had quit the Quidditch team, and she really did let Sirius use her broom. James’s new broom easily outflew it still, but it was a newer model than Sirius’s old broom had been so Sirius felt like he was moving faster than the wind itself. He clutched the handle as they practiced and moved through try-outs.

Halfway through try-outs, when the Beaters were up and Sirius was flying about the pitch, James looked up to the stands and saw Lily sitting on one of the bleacher benches with Annalee and a couple of first year muggle-born girls who’d wanted to find out more about Quidditch. He grinned and, tossing his uniform cape over his shoulders dramatically, he jumped on his broom and flew over until he was hovering right above them… and flipped so that he was hanging from his broom like a monkey in a tree, his knees hooked about the broomstick.

Annalee quickly powdered her nose with a little compact as he swung ’round, he couldn’t help but notice, and she grinned up at him. Seemed that their horrible Valentine tea hadn’t been enough to put her off him entirely.

“‘Ello Evans,” he said, smirking as his glasses skewed and the cape fell from his shoulders awkwardly, almost hitting Lily’s face as it flopped. “Sorry.” He swept the came into a bundle in the crook of one of his arms, staying upside-down. “How’s the observation of the team going? Do you reckon I stand a chance?” He was grinning, being facetious.

“Oh bugger off Potter,” Lily said, waving her hand.

“Is this your boyfriend?” asked one of the first years.

“Yes,” James answered.

“No,” Lily said pointedly, glaring at James.

James looked at the first year, “I am, she just doesn’t know it yet. Future Mr. Evans, glad to meet you.” He held out his hand, dropping the cape again, and this time the edge of it did catch the end of Lily’s nose and she glowered at him as the first year giggled and shook his hand. “I’m taking her name because I dunno what else I’d ever call her if she wasn’t named Evans.” He looked her over, “Though you do look like somebody who’d make a good Potter. What do you think, Love? My name or yours?”

“Bugger off. I mean it.”

James laughed and looked at the first years, “You lot play quidditch before?”

“We’re muggle-borns,” answered one of them.

“Well,” James said, “So’s Evans, and you should’ve seen her last year and the year before. Absolutely brilliant player. It’s a travesty she’s sitting on the benches.”

“Potter, go back to the pitch before Andy Woodhouse tosses you out for not paying attention.”

“What’s there to pay attention to? It’s the beaters try-out. Obviously it’s Frank Longbottom and Sirius Black.” James rolled his eyes.

“Is Sirius Black the one with the gorgeous hair?” asked one of the girl years dreamily.

“Bloody hell, don’t ever let him hear you say that,” James said, “He pays enough attention to it already without having it been labelled gorgeous.” James rolled his eyes.

They giggled conspirationally.

“He’s also spoken for,” Lily said.

“Not technically,” James replied, glancing across the way to where Remus and Peter were sitting. Remus was on the edge of his seat, staring intently across the pitch with wide eyes, holding a Gryffindor banner, as Sirius flew through a bludger-laden obstacle course below, waving his beater’s bat.

Lily sighed, “What’s taking so long? Seriously!”

“You’ve just answered it yourself. Sirius-ly. Sirius is why it’s taking so long,” James smirked.

“Why is what taking so long?” Annalee injected.

Lily said, “Just that Sirius has a crush on somebody and he hasn’t told them yet and… oh it’s going to be marvelous when he does.”

Annalee frowned, “Perhaps he wants to let my sister’s heart mend a bit before he goes strutting about the castle, snogging some other girl!”

Lily blinked in surprise at the heat in Annalee’s voice.

“Alright, I don’t fancy witnessing a catfight, and honestly I’m a bit dizzy from being upside down. Bye love.” James rolled the broom in a rather impressive motion that made the first years marvel (as he’d known it would) and flew off back to the pitch.

Lily was still focused on Annalee and barely waved her hand at James’s departure. “Rather, I think it’ll help her when she finds out,” she said to Annalee. “It’ll… explain a lot.”

“Explain a lot?” Annalee asked. “Who is it? I was thinking it would be Meg.”

“I can’t tell you,” Lily said, “I’ve promised someone.”

“Potter knows,” Annalee pointed out.

“Well Sirius told him, didn’t he?”

“So why do you know?”

“Because Potter told me.”

“Potter tells you secrets now?” Annalee asked, a smirk on her face.

“Ooohh,” squealed one of the first years, “He really likes you a lot, I could tell, the way he was looking at you. Maybe he really is your future husband!”

Lily rolled her eyes, “No. He’s a bully is what he is, and he’s very rude and he smells awful. Goodness.”

“I thought he smelled rather good myself,” Annalee said with a shrug.

“You’ve got a crush on him, of course you do,” Lily said.

“Yeah, me and every other girl in Gryffindor. But he doesn’t see a single one of us, it’s like he’s girl-blind, except for you,” Annalee said. “Seriously, you should go out with him just to break his heart so he’ll be available already! There’s a queue waiting behind you for him - starting with me.”

Lily laughed, “What are you talking about, you’re mad. Besides, you’ve had a date with him.”

“During which he stared at you the whole time.”

Lily shook her head, “Definitely mad.”

Annalee shrugged, “The only one of us that’s mad is you if you can’t see it! Mad and blinder than Mopsus.” The first years nodded solemnly. “That boy is so smitten by you that he can’t even see straight.”

Lily shook her head, “He’s not! He just says that stuff to be a pain in the arse because he knows it annoys me and for whatever twisted little reason that’s floating about in that mad, over sized head of his, he enjoys annoying me.”

Annalee looked at the first years with a raised eyebrow and a smirking smile. “Can you believe, this one’s actually one of the brightest witches in the school?”




Peter leaned back against the bleachers. “I’m bored and I’m hungry,” he complained, “Can’t we go back to the castle yet? I have a load of Honeydukes under the bed… We can share a fudge bar. Hell, if we leave right now, I’ll give you two whole fudge bars!”

Remus was leaning forward, watching Sirius on the grass below as he and James were punching each other and laughing over something one of them had said. “No, Peter, c’mon, it isn’t over yet.”

“Both of them went, we saw what we came to see…” Peter whined. They were doing the Seeker try-out now and it obviously would be Meg again.

“They’ve got to announce who’s on the team still.”

“You can’t be seriously thinking either one of them will be chucked off the team!” Peter said, “They’ll make the team. They aren’t even doing anything! Look, they’re just standing there being gits.”

Sirius had caught James’s head up under his arm and was mussing up his hair even worse, shouting something that Remus couldn’t quite hear, even with his excellent ears. The wind was too loud up in the stands.

“Please,” Peter begged.

Remus sighed, “Oh alright,” he said, and he got up and they started down the stands. Lily Evans watched them go and waved to Remus, who waved back before they left the pitch altogether and started up across the grounds to the castle again. “They were very good, though, weren’t they?” Remus commented as they walked, “I mean all those bludgers going at Sirius at once, and he was just --” he waved his arms, mimicking Sirius’s intense moves with the beater’s bat, “And those things, they aren’t light. Blimey, imagine how strong his arms must be, really? I mean he never really uses his strength ‘round us, you know?”

Peter stared at him, “Blimey, you sound like the girls,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Remus flushed, realizing Peter was right, and he shut up about it quickly.

They were nearly back to the castle when a herd of Slytherins in their Quidditch uniforms came out of the castle. Among them was a few of the Second Years and they were surrounding Regulus Black, who had a broomstick flung across his shoulder and was walking with a strut of unrivalled arrogance as he boasted, “I practiced half the summer on this broomstick! Father bought the top of the line broom for me this year when he found out I fancied going for Seeker. I’m going to be the best Seeker that ever played the sport…”

Remus and Peter stopped short a few feet off and Remus muttered, “I’m not dealing with them right now. C’mon.” He grabbed Peter’s elbow and hauled him off the path, headed ‘round the castle.

“Where are we headed?” complained Peter, who’d been so close to being back inside to his waiting chocolate bars that he’d nearly been able to taste them. “I’ll make it three whole Honeydukes bars if we can just go inside right now, please.”

“No,” Remus said, “If Rosier or Regulus sees me, they’re going to --”

“MY BROTHER ALONE NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU NOW, PUFFER FISH?” came the drawling voice, yelling across the grass after the fleeing form of Remus and Peter, “GOTTA SNEAK AWAY WITH THE LITTLE BALL OF LARD, TOO?”

Peter blinked, “What’d he just call me?”

The Slytherins all laughed quite loudly and a few of them started miming shoving their thumbs into their mouths in a lewd manner.

Peter turned quite red. “That’s just disgusting.”

Remus looked around at them and saw what they were doing and he rolled his eyes, “Bugger off the lot of you, you’re all pathetic.” He pulled Peter along, speeding toward the Green Houses, hoping to get into the castle ‘round the gate between the Bell Towers.

“Hear that you lot?” Barty Crouch giggled, “He wants to bugger the lot of us!”

“IN YOUR DREAMS, LUPIN!” shouted Evan Rosier and they started off down the path to the pitch, seeing Remus and Peter were about to turn the corner by the row of Sunflowers that lined Greenhouse 6.

As soon as they’d gone ‘round, Remus sat roughly on the grass and squeezed his eyes shut.

Peter stood awkwardly there, fuming about them insinuating he was gay, and calling him a ball of lard. He poked at his stomach. He’d even lost weight this summer, he thought hotly.

“At least now we can go back in the main entrance instead of going all the way ‘round to the Bell Towers entrance,” Peter observed, “They’ve gone down to the pitch now.”

Remus nodded, but he sat there on the grass for several long moments, regaining his breath and composure. He didn’t want to cry. He’d already shed enough tears over the Slytherins and their nasty words. He was glad that Sirius hadn’t been there - oh the mess that would’ve made. After a few long moments of telling himself he was okay and that the stuff they said didn’t matter at all, he finally pushed himself up and he held his chin high and straight and, though his fists were balled with the effort of it, Remus Lupin walked tall.