[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
The Spill on the Pitch


The last quidditch game of the season was scheduled for the first weekend in May and James was a nervous ball of energy. He would wake up in the morning, hours before breakfast, and drag Sirius out onto the dew-soaked grounds to practice, even though Sirius was half asleep and not helpful at all in trying to keep James’s shots from going through the rings on the pitch. He ate, drank, slept, and talked Quidditch non-stop. “Eat your proteins!” James admonished Sirius, dumping a load of eggs onto his plate, or else, “I’ve got to service my broom before the game, I’ll have to order some polish in…”, or “Oi, Evans, if we win, will you kiss me then?” (The last was met with a hearty “bugger off Potter” every time).

Between being badgered by James to practice or eat extra eggs, Sirius was spending an awful lot of time with Marlene McKinnon. They would sit and joke about the courtyard for hours on end, shirking off doing their studies (which was very odd for Marlene, seeing as she was a Ravenclaw). They seemed to enjoy each other quite a lot, which was lovely for them, but less so for Remus, who felt as though he were being stabbed in the heart every time he saw them together. Especially the times when Sirius would be tucking the hair behind Marlene’s ear gently or smiling at her with his eyes in a way that Remus wished so very much was how Sirius would look at him. But he never did.

Remus was spending a lot of time with Lily and her friends, just to get away from the whole Sirius and Marlene situation. He didn’t mind listening to them prattle on and on about the boys they liked and who they hoped would ask them to go to the end of term party. But when Lily told them she was going with Severus Snape, Remus looked up in surprise, “You are?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Lily said reluctantly.

“I didn’t know you were still seeing him,” Remus said.

LIly flushed, “Well… I think I’m going to be breaking up with him after the party… I don’t think it’s working out very well between us recently. I’m not sure what’s changed, I just don’t see him the same way as I did before.”

“I don’t know what you saw in him to begin with,” Annalee said in a snobbish voice.

That night, the day before the big game, Remus went upstairs to the dormitory when he’d finished studying with Lily and Peter - though Peter had stayed down stairs to study a bit longer before going to bed, being quite nervous about the logic puzzles Kingsley had given them to sort through. James and Sirius were playing a round of wizard chess and James’s knight was just hauling away one of Sirius’s pieces when Remus walked in.

“Hey mate,” James greeted him.

“Hey.” Remus went over and started digging through his trunk.

James glanced at Sirius, who was concentrating on what to do for his next move. “C’mon, Black, on your feet, this is supposed to be an exercise in making fast strategic moves for the match tomorrow!”

“Chess is nothing like quidditch, Potter,” murmured Sirius.

James sighed and flopped backward onto his bed. “You always take forever to make a move, Black, bloody hell.”

“I just like to think through all my options,” Sirius replied and he rubbed his chin.

James turned his head so he was looking over at Remus as he methodically did all the buttons on his pyjama top. “So how was studying with Evans tonight?” he asked.

“Good, we got a lot of work done,” Remus replied.

“Right. Does she still smell all like strawberries and vanilla?” James asked hopefully.

Remus nodded, “Yeah, I s’pose.”

“You need to talk me up to her,” James announced, sitting up. “I’m thinking of asking her to the end of term party. Do you reckon she would go with me?”

“No,” Sirius answered, smirking. “I reckon she’ll refuse you and you’ll mope about for the rest of the term.”

“Shut it,” James said, “I’m asking Remus, not you.”

Remus smiled ruefully at James, “I’m sorry mate, but I’m going to go with the same answer, actually. Seems Evans is going with Severus Snape.”

“What?” James looked appalled. “How! Why? He hasn’t given her more love potion has he? That sneaking son of a --”

“Calm down!” Remus said, “She’s going because he asked her and she hasn’t yet broken up with him.”

“Of course she’s broken up with him! He ruddy snuck potion in her for Merlin knows how long! How could she even think about doing anything with that idiot?” James demanded.

Remus shrugged, “Honestly, I don’t think she knows what he did. She thinks it was just a hot and cold relationship, the way she’s talking about it. I don’t think he told her.”

James grit his teeth, “That’s so unfair. She deserves to know what a bloody maniac he is.”

“Yeah, nobody should he snogging anybody else against their will,” intoned Sirius, still studying the chess board. Finally he reached for a piece and moved it.

James didn’t even sit up, he just looked over at the board for a moment, waved his wand and his next move was made. He turned back to Remus. “You ought to tell her about the potion, Rey.”

“I’m not telling her - bloody hell, are you mad?”

“Well somebody ought to. In case he tries to do it again to her, so she can be on the watchout.”

“So you tell her,” Remus replied.

James set his jaw, “Maybe I will.”

“Yes, attack her best mate, that’s a good way to get her to fall for you,” said Sirius. “His word against yours. Who do you reckon she’s going to believe?”

“Well I’ll make Slughorn and Kingsley tell her what happened if she doesn’t believe me,” James said. “Maybe she’ll be so impressed with the fact that I told her that she’ll fall for me for my honesty!”

“Maybe,” Sirius glared at the chessboard.

“She’s right downstairs in the common room,” Remus said, “Go on and tell her and I’ll stay here and make sure this one doesn’t cheat on your game while you’re gone.”

Sirius looked up, “I would never.” But he was grinning slyly.

James thought about it, but as he imagined telling Lily what Snape had done, she help but imagine the pained look that would come into her eyes. He hated even the thought of upsetting her. He scowled. “I’ll wait until after the match, so she’s not thrown off her game by the news.”

“Or maybe you’ll conveniently forget because nobody wants to hurt Lily Evans’ feelings,” Remus said.

“Maybe,” James admitted.

Sirius finally moved a piece.

James looked over the board, “You really suck at chess, Black,” he said, and he quickly moved, ending the game.

“Bloody hell,” muttered Sirius.




The match promised to be intense. It was Hufflepuff and Gryffindor playing, but the winner of the House Cup would be decided by it, it seemed. If Gryffindor won, they would take the cup. If they lost, it would be Ravenclaw, who had a considerable lead over all the other houses. James was pacing through the team room, practically pulling out his hair with nerves. “Will you sit down?” begged Frank Longbottom, “You’re making me nervous.”

“It’s just such a big game, I dunno if I can handle it,” James replied, and he continued on with the pacing.

Lily Evans arrived a bit late, having been trying to avoid meeting up with Severus, who’d hung about the entry to the team rooms, trying to see her. She felt sick to her stomach with the prospect of having to break up with him, yet at the same time she couldn’t bear to continue on faking that she fancied him as she had the first part of the year. Every time she thought of the time she’d spent with Severus, she wondered what it was that had so infatuated her about him before. She felt silly, like she’d been momentarily posessed and woken to find herself doing something she truly ought not to do. He was like a brother to her, and here she’d been snogging him. It seemed downright controversial. So she was doing her best to avoid him until she’d worked up the nerve to tell him they were finished.

“There you are, Evans!” exclaimed Andy when she came through the door, “Thank Merlin, we were getting nervous that one of our star chasers wasn’t going to show.”

“Hear that, Evans?” James said, slinging and arm about her shoulders, “We’re stars together. How do you like that? You’re co-star with a trophy winning Quidditch player.”

Lily ducked out from beneath his arms, “Get a grip, Potter, he might’ve been talking about me and Ali, after all.”

James flushed.

Sirius slapped him on the back as Lily walked away, “She really loves beating at your ego, doesn’t she?”

James nodded.

“Somebody’s got to, Potter,” Sirius said, and he grabbed his broom. “Are you ready to get out there and kick some Hufflepuff arse?”

“Definitely,” James said, feeling his frustrtion over Lily might channel into the first quaffle through the rings of the match.

And sure enough, it did. They were only in the air for a few minutes before James had haucked the quaffle through Hufflepuff’s rings so hard that they had to wait several long moments whlie somebody went to fetch it from the grounds outside the pitch.

“Blimey, good arm,” said Frank Longbottom, when he returned from fetching it. He tossed it to Madam Hooch and they started off again with play.

The Hufflepuffs were playing hard, and their team was very good - especially Marty Brown, who had been one of the players on the tourney team against Ilvermorny the year before and therefore knew how James and the others that had been on the team played fairly well. She cut James off several times as he belted down the length of the pitch, trying to score some more goals. “You gotta pass off to Prewitt and Evans now and then, Potter,” instructed Andy Woodhouse, forwning, “Share the quaffle.”

Evans got a couple good scores in, too, after that, and so did Prewitt. The Gryffindors were in the lead and the Hufflepuffs were sweating. So were the Ravenclaws who screamed their support for Hufflepuff in loud voices from the stands.

It happened while the score was 180-140, Gryffindor, that Lily was flying across the pitch, followed by Sirius with his beater’s bat, when suddenly Marty Brown came flying toward her, coming the other direction, trying to line herself up to catch the quaffle that James was about to toss to Lily. The two girls collided with a terrific crunch and, though Marty managed to recover herself, Lily went down, her broom knocked from beneath her and she plummeted toward the ground, free falling.

“EVANS!” James shouted and without hesitation, he dodged around Marty and flew pell-mell for Lily, his arms outstretched as though she were the golden snitch and he needed to catch her to win the game. There was a loud gasp in the stands and James could feel all their eyes on him as he ducked low and urged his broom downward in the highest speed that he was capable of doing. He was going faster now than he’d even gone in the match against Ilvermorny, faster than he’d probably ever gone in his life. He could feel the broomstick shuddering against the air.

Lily was screaming, her eyes wrenched tightly closed, bracing for the pain that the impact was surely about to cause her...

Suddenly she felt arms beneath her, cupping her legs and back and she shrieked with surprise at the loss of velocity, only to feel the world spin over again and again and finally, there was a horrible crunch, a snap, and she landed quite softly on something squashy. She kept her eyes closed for several moments - even as she heard shouting and voices surrounding her - dizzy and afraid. She was trembling.

“Are you alright Evans?” said a very thick, heavy voice.

“Yeah,” she murmured and she opened her eyes to find herself face-to James Potter, who was laying on the grass of the pitch, a pained expression on his face, his glasses broken. He was breathing heavily and he had a bit of blood coming out of his nostril. “Wh-what happened?” she asked.

James said, “Seems you had a bit of a spill.”

Lily looked to the left and there was James’s broom… broken. “Oh no.” James looked over and a look of horror crossed his face, his eyes wide and she could tell that if she hadn’t been there, he probably would’ve started crying. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “Oh no, I’m so sorry, Potter.”

He shook his head.

Suddenly Madam Pomfrey and Madam Hooch and Albus Dumbledore were all converging upon them, worried expressions covering each of their faces. Madam Pomfrey hurriedly assessed them, gently rolling Lily off James and checking her over before moving on to James. Sirius had landed and stood just a couple feet away, staring on with a nervous look to his eyes.

Lily did the only thing she could think to do to help and that was take hold of James’s glasses from his face and tap them, “Reparo,” she said and she held them in her palm while Pomfrey worked on fixing all the places he was broken.

“ARE THEY ALRIGHT?” Marty Brown landed, panic in her voice, “I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry, Lily!”

“Stay back,” Madam Hooch said sternly, “Give them space to breathe!”

Dumbledore’s voice was low and calm, “I am confident in Poppy’s ability to get them both ship-shape in no time, Miss. Brown.”

Lily’s eyes travelled up to the stands and there was Severus, staring down, eyes wide with shock and fear, far above, clutching onto the rail of the stands. He was unable to do a bloody thing about her fall except watch as James Potter went to her rescue.

“Evans?” James asked from the grass, seeing her staring off to the stands.

“Potter?” she looked down at him.

“I saved your life,” his nose was still dripping blood, “Doesn’t that merit a kiss?”

She shook her head, “Bugger off, Potter." But she said it kindly.