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Fight on the Pitch


James woke up and jammed his glasses on the next morning. The sun was shining in through the high windows over his four poster. He glanced over to see Remus’s form curled up around the big fluffy black dog - all you could really see of Snuffles was the tip of one ear sticking out from beneath Remus’s chin and his flapping tail sticking out the side of the bed covers. Peter was still asleep, too. James crawled out from under his blankets and went to his trunk, changing into his Gryffindor quidditch uniform. It was the day of the first game and he was eager to get ready and go out to the pitch - it was a wonderful day for quidditch, he could tell from the sun rays in the window. He was tugging on a pair of leather boots when Peter woke up.

“What time is it?” Peter asked sleepily.

“Early yet,” James replied. “Breakfast should be in about a half hour…”

Peter sat up groggily and looked about. He spotted Remus and Sirius’s wagging tail sticking out from under the covers, then glanced over at the empty fourth bed across the room. “Is that --”

“Sirius? Yup.” James nodded.

Peter asked, “Has he been there all night?”

“Yup,” James nodded again.

Peter got up and started getting dressed, too. He was struggling with the laces on his trainers when finally James couldn’t take it anymore and he threw a jumper at Remus, “Wake up, sleepy-heads,” he called, “It’s breakfast time. And it’s quidditch day.”

Remus blinked awake slowly, pushing the jumper off his face where it had landed with his arm. He looked down in surprise at the snuggling black dog. “Sirius??” As a reply, he got a thick, gooey wet lap straight across the face and Sirius leaped up from his arms and bounded across the bed, jumping from Remus’s to Peter’s to James’s - nearly knocking James over - and onto his own bed, bouncing and prancing about. Remus looked even more shocked and struggled to roll himself out of bed without bending his knee too much.

“Hurry up and get ready,” James said, pulling on his quidditch gloves.

Sirius barked.

“YOU IDIOT!” James yelled, “SHUT IT! Frank and Andy are going to hear you barking like that and they’re gonna ask about it and what’re we gonna say then?”

“We could tell them we were eating Animal Crackers,” suggested Peter.

Sirius turned back into a boy, laughing as he did. His shirt was all wrinkled and his hair a mess. He ran his fingers through it and flopped onto his belly to reach in his trunk for the bottle of Sleekeazy he’d been using to style it just so. He hurried over to the mirror and started swiping palms full of the potion up in a suave style.

When the boys were all dressed and ready, they headed downstairs to the Gryffindor table and eagerly ate their breakfasts. James was all quaffles and snitches as he’d turned to talk to Andy and Frank. Sirius was picking at breakfast, but mostly sitting and staring at the plate, deep in thought while Peter and Remus chatted across from him.

When they’d finished eating, they started on down the path toward the pitch, James carrying both the brooms over his shoulder as he ran ahead, excitedly, waving for the others to hurry up. Peter was overfull from eating too much and waddling along slow while Sirius took his time, making sure Remus was alright making his way down the uneven dirt path to the pitch with his crutches. He was still deep in thought, though, and unfocused, in his own little world.

There came a light nudge on his side, stirring him from his thinking, and he blinked up to find Remus staring at him. “You alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sirius answered. “Bit tired.”

“Well you spent the night sleeping with Remus,” Peter said thoughtlessly.

“He what?” The voice was cold and Sirius shut his eyes in dread. Regulus laughed as he came up around the side of his brother, raising his eyebrow and looking at him with a smirk, “Oh if mother only knew!”

Sirius’s jaw hardened, “Shut up, Reg.”

Peter looked like he might puke. He looked panicked between Sirius, Remus, and Regulus Black. “I didn’t mean it like that - it wasn’t like that - it’s - I -”

“Go on ahead, Peter, before you make it even worse,” snapped Sirius, not wanting to put up with Peter’s bumbling little voice any more, angry, though he didn’t really know what about.

Remus’s face was bright red.

“I mean I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, really,” Regulus drawled and he nodded for Barty Crouch to follow him as they made their way past Sirius and Remus, “I just didn’t think you were that much of a half-breed lover!” His eyes twinkled and they both snickered as they moved on. “I’m sure the Pups will be quite lovely!”

Sirius started to go after him but before he could a spell shot past him.

“Alium!” Lily’s voice had issued the spell and there was a loud crack like skin-on-skin and Regulus stopped snickering to grab onto his face in surprise. “Slapping charm,” Lily explained, and she glared at Regulus, “Apologize you little skunk.”

Regulus glowered at her, his palm pressed to his cheek, lip curled up. Barty looked impressed at Lily’s magic. “Make me,” Regulus hissed.

Lily raised her wand even higher, “Do you really want to play at that game, Regulus?” she demanded, “Don’t think for a moment I won’t. I’ll hex you so good you’ll be crying for your precious mother.”

Regulus looked her over. He clearly did not want to challenge Lily - didn’t dare to, really, he’d heard rumors about her being the smartest witch in Third Year from more than one source - so he tried to get out of it as smoothly as he could. He shrugged, “Whatever. I’m so sorry, Sirius, for insulting you and your… mate.” He said the word with a bit too much emphasis before turning away and running with Barty Crouch following behind.

“Horrid little bastard!” whispered Sirius, glaring after him.

Remus looked queasy.

Lily kept her wand raised until Regulus and Barty had gone down over the hill to the pitch, even as Severus Snape walked by with Evan Rosier and glanced over at her with a question in his eye. Finally, Lily lowered the wand and turned to look at the two boys. “Bloody little prat!” she said, “How in hell does he have your blood running through his veins? I’ll never know!”

Sirius was uncomfortable with the way Remus looked and he really wanted to break the tension, so he said quickly, “So does that mean you like me alright, then, Evans?”

“Well you certainly aren’t a bleeding idiot like he is,” she muttered, shaking her head.

James came running back up the hill from where he’d overheard only a part of the commotion, “What’s going on?” he asked, handing Sirius his broomstick.

“Reg is being a tosser is all,” Sirius replied.

Remus was standing quite still, quite ill looking.

“You okay?” Peter asked gently.

“Brilliant,” Remus replied, “C’mon. Let’s go get a good seat. Good luck at the game.” He hastened to swing forward on his crutches, leaving James, Sirius and Lily behind as Peter scrambled after him.

James looked at Sirius and Lily, “No. Really. What happened?”

Sirius shook his head and stormed off down the path to the team room.

James looked at Lily.

Lily looked after his retreating back, “Nothing really, I suppose. Regulus was just being rude to Sirius, that’s all.”

James grit his teeth. “I hate him.”

Lily said, “I’m beginning to.”

They started walking down the path toward the team rooms together. Normally, James would’ve been over the moon with the idea that Lily Evans was walking to the pitch beside him this closely, but he was so distracted with his annoyance at Regulus that he barely noticed it was her that was beside him. “I have a right mind to hex that little tosser,” James was saying, “String him up, turn him into a little ferret and leave him out for the hippogriffs to snack upon!”

“Yeah, me, too,” Lily agreed.




Sirius got to the locker room and changed into his team robes there. Unlike James, he hadn’t been wearing his all through breakfast. James and Lily arrived not long after he’d finished pulling on his boots and, although James clearly had something he wanted to say to Sirius, Andy Woodhouse took over their attentions before he could’ve done, going over the plays he’d come up with for the game. He was waving his wand, making chalk marks appear on a wide board that had belonged to Derek Bell that hung up on the wall and scratching out all the things that everyone would be doing once they made it out to the pitch.

It seemed merely minutes later that Andy, Meg, James, Lily, Ali, Frank and Sirius were taking the field, Sirius carrying his beater’s bat and his broomstick over his shoulder. They walked out to the center of the field where they were to shake hands with the opposing team -- the Slytherins. Isaac Horan shook Andy’s hand and then on over the other team members, followed by the rest of Slytherin’s quidditch team - Walden McNair, Geoffrey Mulciber, Dimitri Goyle, Evan Rosier, Germaine Avery, and finally Alabastar Jackson. Jackson looked at Sirius’s hand with a sly eye before he shook it, a smirk growing on his face, then he turned away.

Sirius got a very odd feeling come over him. Especially when Alabastar Jackson immediately turned and whispered something to Evan Rosier that made him look over and laugh… and turn to Dimitri Goyle… who turned to Mulciber and McNair and Avery… and Sirius glanced toward James with a nervous expression.

James, however, was busy fixing his gloves and didn’t look up.

“On my whistle,” called Madam Hooch. Everyone stood over their broomsticks. “One --”

“Psst. Black. Oi. Black.”

Sirius looked over to see Evan Rosier was grinning at him, an evil twinkle in his eyes.

“Two!!” Madam Hooch cried out.

“Is it true you’re a fag, Black?” Evan Rosier hissed.

“THREE!” The whistle blew.

And Sirius Black threw down his beater’s bat and flew head first into Evan Rosier’s stomach with enough force that he threw Evan Rosier backwards across the pitch quite violently before descending on him, fists raised.

Fwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!! Madam Hooch’s whistle echoed ‘round the pitch and the other members of both teams stood there utterly dismayed, none of them aware of what had happened as Madam Hooch hurried to pull Sirius, who was about to draw his wand from his pocket, off of Evan.

“Don’t you bloody call me that!” Sirius bellowed, anger raging through his veins, “Don’t you bloody dare call me that!”

Evan Rosier was clutching his wrist - he’d landed on it poorly and it had made a horrible cracking sound under his weight. He also had a cut on his chin. “He’s attacked me!” Evan shouted, “For no reason!”

“NO REASON!?” Sirius practically screamed, his fist balled around his wand and he fought to raise it, “NO REASON?!”

“NO! NO, MR. BLACK!” Madam Hooch commanded loudly and sternly.

James ran over and grabbed Sirius’s shoulders to take him away from Madam Hooch, as did Lily. “Put the wand away, mate,” James pleaded, “Rosier ain’t worth it!”

Sirius was struggling against James and Lily’s grip on his shoulders. “Lemme at him, I’ll show him... I’ll obliviate his bloody nose!”

Lily said, “Sirius, c’mon, fighting isn’t the answer. C’mon… you’re going to end up expelled.”

“HE should be expelled!” Sirius bellowed, but James and Lily managed to drag him off to the team room at last and closed the door behind them. Sirius violently knocked over a large hamper that was meant for their dirty quidditch uniforms after the game and he kicked the first locker he came to and stomped about, punching lockers and growling in anger.

Lily looked at James.

James took a deep breath, “Hey, Sirius, calm the bloody hell down. What’d he do?”

“He called me a fag!” he shouted, turning to them.

“What? Why would he say that for?” James asked, stunned, he looked at Lily.

“Goodness. That traveled fast,” whispered Lily.