Quidditch Issues
By LilyLouGryffindor
Category: Humour, Romance.
Words: 1574
Author's Note: Hello everyone! LilyLouGryffindor here. Here is the first chapter for a Jily fanfic I've called 'Quidditch Issues'! I have no idea where this is going, but I'm going to try and persevere with it! Tell me what you think of it! Constructive feed back is welcome! Thanks!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of it's characters.
Chapter One: Where It All Started
It was a cool winter's evening at Hogwarts. Majority of the students were in their designated common rooms, trying to keep away from the sharp chill that travelled in the afternoon wind. With winter already here, all witches and wizards were preparing for the upcoming Quidditch season. All except for one: Lily Evans. The beautiful, smart and enticing Lily Evans. She was carrying on with her school work and Head duties as usual. See, Lily didn't care much for Quidditch, nor did she care for any sport that could severely or even fatally harm a person. But given that Lily had now been dating James Potter for the past four and a half months, it was only a matter of time before she would have to make the effort to go to games and talk some Quidditch terms with him. Or so she thought. Seeing as she had only gone to a couple of Quidditch games in her early years at Hogwarts, Lily knew next to nothing about the sport. This was surprising because she was a witch and all. Although this had all crossed her mind from time to time, somehow she seemed to keep on forgetting to read up on the game before the season started. And now it was too late.
Lily sat curled up on the Gryffindor common room lounge, in front of the crackling fire, with a book in hand. She much preferred the Gryffindor common room to the Head's when she felt like being surrounded by friends. It seemed as though James quite liked the company of others too, or liked the company of Sirius, Remus and Peter (more commonly known as the Marauders).
Her long, fiery, red, curly hair was draped down one of her shoulders. Her emerald green eyes wandered the pages of her book intriguingly. Her nose was slightly pink and so were her cheeks. Though the fire let off a large amount of heat, Lily could still feel the coolness of winter seeping through the windows. After all, she never took lightly to the cold. Shivering somewhat, she could see a rather tall figure carrying something whilst walking closer to her out of the corner of her eye. When she looked up at it, she saw the one and only James Potter unfolding a red pleated blanket.
With her eyebrows knitted close together and a faint smile she said, "What are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing, Lily?" said James amid a smirk. He then sat down beside her and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. "I know you don't like the cold, or at least you don't cope with it well. So I took the liberty in getting you the warmest blanket I could find."
Lily blushed a little. She could never get over how sweet he could be sometimes. Seeing as she wasn't a big fan of public affection; she leant over and gave James a quick peck on the cheek. James raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Thank you," said Lily with a goofy smile as she wrapped the remaining blanket around James. There was a silence between them whilst they stared into each other's eyes, both of them off in their own dream world. The silence wasn't awkward at all for them, as they had been doing the exact same thing since they got together, maybe even beforehand. But in some way, the silence made everyone but them awkward. As a result, Sirius decided to cut it short.
"Soooo Lily, what are you reading?" said Sirius, taking a seat between them. Soon after Remus and Peter joined in, acknowledging the awkwardness in the room.
"Yes Lily, what are you reading?" spoke Remus.
"Yeah, Lily," said Peter in a small voice. Before Lily replied, James' forehead wrinkled up in annoyance from the sudden company.
"Oh, um... well I'm reading some book called 'Pride and Prejudice'. It is meant to be one of the bestselling books of all time in the muggle world. He has too much pride and she has too much prejudice. It just works. Quite good for a muggle book, to be honest. A lot more interesting than I thought it would be," Lily said, still not quite back to the real world.
"Right!" said Sirius but then quickly leant over to Remus and asked quietly, "Ah, Remus? What does prejudice mean?" Remus rolled his eyes and ignored the question.
"So Lily, will you be attending the first Quidditch game of this season?" asked Remus. James hastily turned to Lily with eyes wide full of hope, like a puppy's. Whilst Lily's were full of dread. She 'unsuspiciously' looked back to her book pretending to not have heard.
"Lily?" asked James. Lily looked up and tried another approach...by changing the subject. Yeah, that sounded solid enough.
"Have any of you read this book? It really is quite good. I mean, it might be a romance, but you all could pick up a few tricks from it," she said with a wide smile; then quickly spared a small look at Sirius to give him a hint that he specifically should read it.
"Now what's that supposed to mean?" yelled Sirius in response.
"Why don't you use your brain and you might find out?" began James before finishing with, "Oh and, DON'T YELL AT MY GIRLFRIEND YOU BLOODY PRICK."
"James! Might I have to direct my last comment to you too?" James looked at her in disbelief. Normally, she would praise (or more like thank) him for yelling at Sirius.
"Er, excuse me, but Lily; you still haven't answered my question?" said Remus.
"What question may that have been?" she replied innocently. Lily really didn't want to answer.
"Quidditch, are you going to the first match of the season?" said Remus, furrowing his brows.
"I actually heard that the weather was going to be dreadfully cold and rainy on that day... and you know how I am with the cold. See, you even had to bring me a blanket even though the fire is...er...blazing!" Lily made a small sigh of relief thinking that she had gotten away with it.
"Um, excuse me Lily?" asked Peter unexpectedly.
"Yes, Peter?" Lily had a bad feeling.
"Well, I checked the weather for James' game in advance and it said that it would be sunny skies," said Peter.
"Oh, well… um..." Lily tried to evade James' eyes but it was obvious that he wouldn't tear them away from her. "I... I have a lot of homework to be done on that day so..." but before Lily could continue James cut her off.
"Lily, we don't have any homework set that far in advance." He was getting suspicious.
"Wel,l what I meant was that there will be- wait a minute, how would you know that?" said Lily taken back a little.
"I do pay attention, you know. I'm not always slacking off. Actually, I can't remember the last time I did slack off. With Head Boy duties, accompanying you to Hogsmeade every weekend and taking over some of your rounds at night..." and then she realised it. James had been exceptionally responsible lately. He had been taking her place sometimes for rounds... and he had been accompanying her to Hogsmeade so she could go shopping, go to Honeydukes and drink butter beer. He'd been doing all these things that she was completely oblivious to until now. He never asked for anything in return. He always wore a smile. He was doing it all for her. "Well, I guess I haven't had much time to slack off really," he said while scratching the back of his neck and chuckling a little.
She owed him. She most utterly and awfully really owed him.
By the time James had finished speaking she was fiddling with her fingers; her head was down and her lips were pursed.
"Lily? Are you ok?" requested Remus. Lily took a deep breath. She owed him. And this was what she had to do, even if it meant making a fool of herself. And Marlene, Alice and Frank would be there. They could maybe point her in the right direction. She thought a little further into it and concluded that it was for James' happiness.
She turned to James before giving her verdict with a great (but anxious) smile. "I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
James gave a broad smile before embracing her and bestowing a short but enthusiastic kiss on the lips. And now Lily could do nothing but smile.
That night, James did nothing but laugh, smile and tell Lily how much he appreciated her coming to his Quidditch game. All Lily could do was think about how she was going to get through a whole season of watching Gryffindor play Quidditch and stop James from finding out that she knew next to nothing about the game.
TBC