p class="p1"span class="s1"It was a cool autumn morning and James Sirius Potter stood out in front of a group of Gryffindors on the Quidditch pitch. Several of his cousins were included in this mix. Hugo Weasley, a handsome third year with all of his female friends that looked after his frequented carelessness. The boy was brilliant and helpless. His older sister sat in the stands, Rosie had never taken to broom riding quite like her mother. Albus Severus Potter was sitting in the grass, a fifth year, and trying out for this team for the second time. Right beside him was his younger sister, but she was standing. A wide smile danced on her face, she was nearly jumping out of her robes. James called out to the pitch to quiet down, he was the new captain of the Gryffindor team. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1""Alright now as you know you can only try out for one position. I will be posting the results in the common room by the end of the week. Let's begin with beaters then!" Six Gryffindors came forward, one being his younger sister Lily, which surprised him as he had never realized what position she wanted to play. "We're going to start with two at a time and you're going to take five shots each at a third party. That'll be me. I'll be looking at accuracy, consistency, and force." James mounted his broom and flew up into the air. He pointed his fingers at two Gryffindors. The first was a burly seventh year who waddled a bit when getting up into the air, he seemed to hold the bat well though, and even tossed it up into the air getting ready. The second was in James year, scrawny but fast. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1""Teddy!" James shouted, "Release the bludgers mate!" and two balls came whirring into the air. James had asked Rose to cast a few charms on him to protect him from the bludgers since this was just trials. Both boys were able to hit James twice a piece which didn't seem good enough to him. His sister was in the next duo, who hit him four times, all hard as hell, and her competition hit him only once. The last pair was Oliver Wood's daughter Anya Wood and Fred the second. Both performed very well. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1""Next I'll be looking at seekers," James said after landing on the ground. He was quietly contemplating between Anya and Freddie because Lily had out performed them both. In this batch there were only three, Albus, Hugo and Victoire. He threw golf balls to each of them separately. After four rounds of twelve it was clear that this year the Gryffindor team would be made of mainly girls. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"Next he looked for Chasers where he only needed two. Here was a great batch of girls and only one bloke. James looked slightly agitated. He had become quite popular with "the ladies" during his time at Hogwarts. Yet, he had failed to court even one girl. He simply wasn't interested. After going through each candidate he finally settled on four possibilities. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"The last position was keeper. Just one girl showed up for this position. James, of course, still required the girl to try out. Surprisingly, she did very well. The girl was just a fourth year and at the end of the tryouts said, "My name is Belle Zambini."/span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1""Blaise your dad?" asked James./span/p
p class="p2" /p
p class="p1"span class="s1""Yeah," she responded. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1""Right."/span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"It was surprising that he hadn't noticed her before. He at least tried to recognize the pretty ones. Belle had dark skin and she wore her hair in two thick black braids. Everybody left the pitch. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"(/span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"emDad, /em/span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"emI think Victoire made seeker, I'm quite proud of her. Of course, she is a seventh year, so I'll have another shot next year, yeah? I'm not sure who James picked for the other positions. Prefect duties are going well. Send some /emsweetsem in the next parcel? See you soon, /em/span/p
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p class="p3"span class="s1"Albus/span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"The fifth year boy sat up in the Owlery early in the morning tying the letter to his small barn owl. "Take this to dad not mum alright Pegleam?" Albus crossed his hands in his lap angrily as his owl left him with a soft hoot. On the other side of the room a tall boy with messy white tufts of hair came into the room. At first sight Albus didn't seem to recognize the boy, but continued to look for some reason, and saw that it was Scorpius Malfoy. In their first year, the two boys hadn't spoken much. However Albus had the chance to set him in his place upon seeing Scorpius watching him and fiddling with something sharp in his robe pockets near the end of the year. Albus didn't curse the boy or anything, but instead just told him to mind his business and to keep away from him. Since then, the two had not spoken. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"But in those moments of defeatedness, Albus decided that should change, "Hey." The Gryffindor looked at the Ravenclaw boy with cocked curiousity. 'He's handsome, especially when he hasn't slicked back his hair,' Albus noted. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"Scorpius's bright blue eyes looked up from his owl and jumped a little in surprise. After seeing Albus, the boy blushed and mumbled, "Hi," before scurrying out of the owlery again. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"Albus thought this behavior odd of any Malfoy after all the stories he'd heard. Albus sighed again and trudged out of the high tower. He ran into Professor Longbottom whom he greeted with a hug as he was an old family friend. After chatting for a few minutes Albus went down to the Great Hall for some breakfast. He noticed Scorpius sitting in muffled conversation with the same girl he was always with: Lo Chang. They looked to be studying arithmancy homework. Albus felt weird watching Scorpius with Lo as he always did whenever he saw the two in transfiguration. He shook the feeling off and sat down next to his sister who was positively bouncing in her seat. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"(/span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1""James told me I was beater, that I was the best on the whole pitch, well for beater anyway," Lily said with an eggy omelet smile. "I don't think you did so bad for seeker, but you're far better at home aren't you? I'm sorry anyway." /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"Lily knew that she could continue speaking for hours without Albus ever interrupting her. This was one of the reasons she was far more fond of him than she was of James who she felt had to dominate every conversation. She scowled just thinking about him, always thinking his jokes were better than hers, always calling her Wiley. "I just hate that I'll have to answer to James you know?" Lily seemed to enjoy finishing her sentences with questions. Her spiky red hair was swept to the side in a small bow. "Anyway I have this plan for using Uncle George's fireworks all across the detention halls so that we have to go back to the old ways of doing it in teacher's classrooms, don't you think that's a good idea? Because then I can just annoy Flitwick to the south jinxes and back and he'll let me out early. God I'm dreadful at charms aren't I Al?"/span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"Her brother nodded but she didn't think his attention was all that much on her or else he would've denied that she was dreadful at anything. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"After breakfast Lily sped off to the detention halls and hooked everything up to a blasting potion. She'd told quite a few third years about her display. Hugo stood beside her, still shorter than his cousin. "Ready Baby?" she asked him. And he nodded cutely. She took out her 12" dogwood and phoenix feather wand and whispered "profectus inpompa" then ran, dragging an awed Hugo along with her as the detention halls sparked into white and green and purple flames of a thousand different shapes. With booms the walls crumbled within themselves. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"As Lily turned a corner, Flitwick came running at her, a vein pulsating in his little white head, "DETENTION POTTER!" he screamed, "IN FACT," a breath, "You may go to the headmasters office right now dear." A forced smile came and he gave her a push in the right direction. /span/p
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p class="p1"span class="s1"Lily laughed and ran to the gargoyle. She quickly said, "I wish I was gamekeeper," and the statue jumped aside. She heard voices behind the door to the headmasters room, Newt Scamander was talking to the portrait of Severus Snape. Lily knocked and the voices hushed. A lot of commotion from inside the office let Lily know that she was intruding, which made her giggle. Scuffling and slamming from inside occurred until Professor Scamander appeared at the door. He looked slightly relieved to see Lily and looked around behind her, "I was expecting somebody else, come in Lily dear, what've you done this time?" But Lily was looking at the smashed portrait on the floor and the greasy haired man standing behind the headmaster's desk. /span/p