Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter World or anything familiar. It's J.K Rowling's

Chapter 1: In Pursuit Of Quidditch

"Lily?" Rachel called back to her. She and Lily had been on their way to breakfast when suddenly Rachel found herself at the door alone. Turning, she found Lily staring at the bulletin board where the Quidditch Tryout sign up sheet was.

"I think I want to try out." She said. Rachel retraced her steps so she was standing beside Lily.

"Try out for what? The school play? Chess team? What are you going on about?" She demanded. Lily couldn't seriously want to play a rough sport like Quidditch. The Gryffindor team was probably the hardest team to make with Slytherin a close second.

"The Quidditch team." Lily told her.

"I think I heard you wrong. You want to go out for sports?"

"Yeah. I mean, its our seventh year right? So why not. I'm pretty good on a broom."

"Erm. Lily. I'm not sure if you realize this or not, but sports, as a general rule, are for boys. The male gender. When was the last time you even rode a broom? First year?"

Lily frowned. That hadn't been her point! "I could do it! I want to do it. I will do it." Lily decided. Rachel gave her a skeptical look, as if summing her up, or maybe debating on whether Lily should be sent to the mental ward of St. Mungo's.

"I see myself getting dragged into this." She said slowly. Lily smirked and raised her eye brows at Rachel. Rachel sighed and her shoulders slumped. "Why?" It came out as more of a whine, something a four year old would say about why his mother said no to a candy bar five minutes before dinner.

"Please?"

"But class."

"We'll practice after class."

"Homework?"

"Like you ever do it." Lily turned to face her. "Come on Rachel. You know you want to."

"What about Head Girl duties?" Rachel said, there was no way Lily would have time for class work, Head duties and Quidditch.

"I can't play Quidditch." She tried again.

"Neither can I. Not well at least. But that's what practice is for."

"McGonagall said the same thing! I still can't get transfiguration!"

Lily held back a laugh. She put her best "puppy dog" face on. "Rachel,"

She scrunched up her face unwillingly. She was a sucker for puppy dog faces...especially from Lily. "But-"

"It would mean so much to me."

"I don't-"

"I promise to make it up to you somehow."

Rachel groaned, finally caving. "You owe me big."

O

After classes they met on the front steps of the school. Rachel was wearing her comfy sweats, and a large t-shirt with the name of a muggle university on it, her black hair pulled into a pony tail. She still wasn't pleased with Lily and her 'I want to try out for Quidditch' idea.

"Where are we getting brooms?" She asked.

"We'll have to use the school sticks." Lily shrugged.

"And if someone catches us?"

"We tell them we're just playing one-on-one. A scrimmage game or something." Lily explained.

"What if we get in past curfew?" Usually she didn't care about stuff like this. But she was finding every reason, valid or not, to get out of it. As Rachel once said, 'I'm morally against exercise'. Playing Quidditch qualified as exercise.

Lily waved her hand and pointed to herself. "Hello. Head Girl. I can talk myself out of it. Now, come on." With some grumbling she followed. At the pitch gate, they discovered it was locked.

"Oh darn. Unless you plan on renting an elephant to barge through the gates, we're just going to have to give up."

"What happened to that, we can do anything attitude?" Lily asked.

"It's still trying to tell me 'we can talk Lily out of this!'" she faked enthusiasm, mocking the happy-go-lucky attitude.

"Well thats not gonna happen. I've made up my mind. Besides, we can squeeze through that opening." She pointed between the bars in the gate. Lily went first, easily slipping through the gate.

"My boobs are too big." Rachel said. Although her boobs were bigger than Lily's, she doubted they were that big.

"You didn't even try." She clenched her teeth together at Lily's comment, her jaw jutting to the right. Rachel slid through the bars following Lily where the brooms were stored.

Lily really wasn't appreciating her bad mood. But after getting the brooms and mounting them, it improved. Only a little, but Lily noticed.

"We could start with passing." Rachel suggested swaying on her broom gently.

"Okay." They had managed to snag a ball. The red one, Lily was pretty sure it was called a caughal. Or something similar. As it turned out, they couldn't play at all. When they'd pass it, the bugger would slip through their fingers, or they'd loose balance on their brooms. Rachel actually slipped off hers in a desperate attempt at catching the ball. Needless to say she was not pleased.

By dark neither of them had improved much. Lily wasn't rolling, finding herself under the handle of the broom as often, and twice she'd caught the ball and thrown it with almost perfect balance. They had a week till tryouts. Rachel felt the need to express this to Lily as they made their way up to the castle.

"You only have a week until tryouts. How are you going to get ready in time?"

"I don't know." Lily replied. "I'll just keep working on my riding skills. I really want to be chaser."

"Chaser?" Rachel repeated. "Seriously? Why not go out for something easy? Like ... a fan!"

"Rachel." Lily scorned.

"Well. Even Seeker is easier. Chaser your forever flying around chasing a ball. Hence the name! Chase-er. Chaser. Er as in the person who chases. Chaser."

"You promised to help." Lily told her.

"No I didn't. You begged me to help and I unwillingly agreed." Lily rolled her eyes.

"It's still an agreement." Rachel growled at her. Deciding it would be over in a week anyway Rachel let it drop. Or tried to. They made it through the front doors before she said anything.

"How can you expect me to follow through with something I was forced into?" She demanded.

"Because your my best friend." Lily stated.

"That's not going to work forever."

"Will it work for now?"

Rachel smiled reluctantly. "For now. But really maybe you should think of recruiting someone who, oh I don't know, can actually play chaser."

"Like who?" Lily asked.

"Like," Rachel paused, but only one name came to mind. "I dunno. James, or someone."

"Potter?" Lily repeated. "Are you insane? He would laugh at me. And then he would die from laughing so hard. No way."

"He wouldn't laugh." But at Lily's look she added, "Hard enough to actually die."

They made their way up the stairs. "I don't even like him enough to ask. Its too big a favor."

"But he's captain of the team. Has been since, what? Fifth year?"

"Something like that."

"See, so he would know what it takes to get on the team. Ask him." Rachel encouraged.

"No." Lily said decidedly. "Flobber worm." She said to the Fat Lady, gaining entrance.

"Fine. What about Sirius?" Rachel persisted following her through the hole.

"Sirius?" Lily nearly choked. It was that crazy of an idea. It was even worse than asked Potter. And that was saying something.

"Sure. He made a fair chaser last year with James. Naturally he's a beater, or keeper even. Black might even be better than Potter. He's more versatile and won't be hitting on you. A better sight if I do say so myself."

"Rachel, you can't be serious."

"Well! At least he's not messing up his hair all the time." She took on a deeper voice impersonating a male, "'Oh, look at me, I'm James Potter. My hair is just so sexy.'" She ran her hand through her own hair, having taken it out of it's pony tail awhile ago.

Lily laughed glancing around the nearly empty common room before taking up a spot on the couch. "Don't forget about that stupid grin and that stitch he nicked."

"You mean snitch?" Rachel corrected.

"Whatever. It's still annoying! And thievery. He has no regard toward rules."

"It was after a match. They wouldn't have been able to use that snitch again anyways."

"It's the principle of the matter!" Lily said.

"You need to just shag him already."

"Gross." Lily shuttered blenching.

"Oh come on! You're always saying how much he annoys you,"

"Because he does!"

"But you really, in fact, like him. You're like that chick from Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth, prejudice against Darcy, in this case Potter, but eventually you'll see the good that lies beneath. Then you'll find yourself falling in love with him."

"Please stop." Lily begged. "Before I either die of laughter at that ridiculous notion or vomit by just thinking about marrying that git."

"You like him." Rachel said.

"Yes. You caught me." Lily said sarcastically. "I also want to have his babies, buy a cute little house with him and then at night we'll become superheros, out to stop dark wizards and make the world a safer place for wizard kind."

"You know he does want to become an Auror, so at night you might fight dark wizards with him. Or patch up his wounds when he gets home all beat up. Like a real man."

"Rachel, honestly. That's never going to happen."

"Fine. But you were the one talking about marrying him. I just told you to shag him. Get it out of your system so we can move past him."

"I don't have any feelings toward him though." She insisted. In her head she added, except extreme disdain.

Rachel sighed. "I'm going to bed. Training is hard work, I am exhausted. Capitol E, bold it, underline it a few times, whatever. You coming?" She pulled herself off the couch, waiting for Lily's answer.

"Yeah." Together they went to the dorm, crashing almost instantly into their beds. The only thing that kept them from just collapsing into sleep was the fact that they had to change from their grimy work out clothes and brush their teeth.