Here we go again, another Marauder era story. Jennifer is mine, nobody else is. Enjoy :3

The Problem with Pre-Match Excitement

"Quidditch," Lily Evans said decidedly, in a voice so exasperated that her friend was surprised she wasn't tearing her hair out, "Is the source of all life's problems."

Jennifer raised an eyebrow, a small smirk barely concealed by the mock serious expression. "Is it, darling? Do tell."

"You know!" Lily looked indignant now. Perhaps she'd caught the smirk. "All these boys – and girls – getting so worked up over a stupid game, causing fights in the corridors and showing off to all the first years and just generally making huge fools of themselves. I mean, do they really think the ability to catch a shiny metal ball gives them superpowers? Does hitting a ball through a hoop make you some sort of celebrity? Or above the law? Or make you into a hero? No! As if Remus and I don't have enough to..."

Jennifer, herself the current Seeker on the Gryffindor team, took neither notice nor offence towards Lily's rant. She had heard it all before; besides, it wasn't as if Lily really had anything against the game, after all – in fact, she had more than once been persuaded to a little competition. No, the problem was much simpler than that. The problem was male, Caucasian, with improbably messy black hair, glasses covering his brown eyes, and was currently approaching them. Jennifer decided not to alert Lily to this for the sake of a few more moments of the red-head's sanity. Her virtuous plan was ruined, however, as Lily's continued rant was cut short by the jarring (and, in Jennifer's opinion, rather attractive) voice of the Problem's companion.

"Oi, Evans!"

Lily whipped her head round, red hair flying around her face. Her bright green eyes narrowed as she glared towards the two main sources of utter irritation in her life. "What do you want, Black?" she asked, apparently thinking that by talking to only one of them, she only had to accept that one of them was there. Jennifer determinedly kept a straight face as she caught Sirius's eye and he winked at her. It wouldn't do to incense dear Lily any further than was about to happen.

"Prongs wanted to walk with you to class."

James Potter smiled in Lily's direction, indicating that this had, in fact, been his intention. The look Lily gave him in return was only not murderous because of the strained cordiality towards James that she had been trying to affect this year. "Couldn't he have found me alone, then?" she asked in a tight voice.

"Well, I wanted to escort your lovely friend, obviously."

Sirius and James were level with them now, the former linking his arm through Jennifer's, the latter only stopping himself from doing the same to Lily due to a sheer sense of self-preservation. Lily herself was paying him no heed, she was busy shooting her friend a withering look that clearly said "what, again?" Jennifer smiled back at her, totally unashamed – her friend had no right to condemn her on-off fling when she couldn't even admit her own feelings that everyone was certain she had, and, like that, the four headed towards the class.

To give some background, it is important to note that it was two days away from an extremely important match, defining which of the two teams – Gryffindor or Slytherin – would be facing Ravenclaw in the cup final. Tensions, therefore, were running even higher than usual between the Gryffindors and Slytherins, and between the rest of the students as bets were taken and people chose their sides. The Ravenclaws were split down the middle; the Hufflepuffs were, traditionally, more on the Gryffindors side. The whole school was rife with excitement, hostility and apprehension, and the teachers did little to settle their students, some of them getting just as enthusiastic.

Due to this, Gryffindor/Slytherin relations had gone beyond breaking point, and therefore joint Potions with the Slytherins, with the head of Slytherin house as the teacher, were always going to be unsafe. In the classroom, people were positioned as they entered, which did not help matters as inopportune groupings were made. Jennifer was sat next to an unfortunately manly Slytherin girl, as well as the other two 'Marauders', as they called themselves. Remus Lupin, resident Prefect and genius, was judged to be a lucky cauldron partner. Peter Pettigrew, however, was small, meek and seemed to be terrified of the Slytherin girl who towered over him. At the next cauldron were Lily, who was pleading for help with her eyes, James, Sirius and a guy Jennifer thought was called Avery, but could have been mistaken.

The class went ahead fairly uneventfully, however, until about twenty minutes in when the door opened and a lanky, dark haired boy came in, muttering his apologies for being late. Severus Snape hurried to the free position at the back of the class, unable to avoid his eyes lingering on the redhead at the front as he passed. Jennifer frowned, glancing up to see how Lily had reacted. Sirius and James were both wearing expressions of extreme dislike, but Lily was studiously looking down at her cauldron, determinedly not reacting. Poor girl had been acting like this since that had happened last year.

Beside James, the boy probably named Avery snorted. He leaned over to speak to the girl next to Remus, not bothering to keep his voice down as he said "You'd think he'd be over it by now."

The girl laughed, and nodded, while Lily stiffened and focused harder. Slughorn was at the back of the room, helping Snape to catch up. Jennifer glanced at Remus, who was frowning heavily. It was clear they had both reached the same conclusion – this could get nasty. "James," Remus muttered warningly, but if James heard him, it was ignored.

"Yeah," Avery continued. "I mean, it's not like she's a huge catch, just some silly little Mudblood who-"

Lily flinched this time, no doubt about it. James' wand was out of his pocket immediately. "That's not very nice," he said in a low voice.

Remus took a step away from the cauldron, but before he could say anything else, everyone was surprised by what happened next.

"Come on, Prongs, he's not worth the effort," Sirius said, nudging his best friend on the arm. James looked stunned. "We already have about three week's detention," Sirius went on.

"Since when has detention bothered us?" James demanded incredulously.

"I have a date I don't want to miss," Sirius pointed out with a half glance at Jennifer. "And the game's in about two days..."

"Oh, right, because they'll get rid of two of the Chasers," James scoffed. It was clear that he was angry, and Sirius was doing little but redirecting that anger towards himself. "Look, mate, if your too worried about being punished to get involved-"

Perhaps fortunately, it was at this moment that Slughorn returned to the front of the classroom. The rest of the lesson went ahead in a prickly silence for everyone at Lily's cauldron – she was upset, James was angry at both Avery and Sirius, Sirius was annoyed at James, and Avery...well, Avery was an arse.

"Oi, Avery," James called as the sixth years spilled out of the classroom. The Slytherin boy looked back at him contemptuously, turning and muttering something to his friend. The word 'Mudblood' was clearly distinguishable again as he continued to walk away until he found himself with his feet attached to the ceiling with James's wand trained on him.

"I said leave it!" Sirius was irritated now, looking away from Jennifer, who had been telling him the best way to remove the bright green potion stain on his face. "What good'll it do, Prongs? He's just calling her names, Evans isn't even that bothered, are you, Evans?"

Lily looked startled by his direct appeal to her, but then she gathered her wits, shaking her head. "No, he's right, James, it's fine, not a problem, just let him go. He's not worth the trouble." Jennifer noted Lily's use of the first name; she was attempting to placate James.

He ignored her, instead glaring at Sirius. "Since when did you turn into such a good boy? Too much of a coward to teach this scum-" he flicked his wand and the struggling Avery jerked in midair "-a lesson?"

"Who's a coward?" Sirius demanded, angry now. "You're not 'teaching anybody' a lesson, you're showing the hell off for her." He jerked a thumb at Lily, who was looking weary of the whole thing already and appealing to Remus for help. "She's not interested, James, and she never will be!"

A vein in James' forehead twitched. "Just because you seem to be alright with people saying M...saying that," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Doesn't mean that decent people are going to just sit back and-"

"Decent people? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I was talking to you brother."

A sticky silence. Jennifer's hand had flown to her mouth, unable to quite believe James had said what he had. Lily looked similarly shocked, while Remus was massaging his forehead in clear exasperation.

"James...that's not..." Peter began uncertainly.

"Oh, shut up," James spat at him.

"That's right, start on him, too," Sirius' voice was raised now. "Who do you think you are, some sort of prince? You're no better than any of us, and you think you're some sort of superhero. Is it because of your money? Your pure Gryffindor blood? Who died and made you leader, anyway? You're just some rich kid spoiled by mummy and daddy."

"You weren't complaining about 'mummy and daddy' when you were hurrying over, begging for somewhere to stay because your own family couldn't stand you!"

"Oh, and I would want to be cared about by them?"

"I don't know, you don't seem all that different to them sometimes."

Sirius' hand plunged into his pocket. James swivelled around, his wand now pointing at Sirius, leaving Avery to fall to the ground in a heap. The Slytherin got to his feet in a hurry, running away as fast as his legs would carry him.

"That's enough!" Remus' voice was sharp as he hurried forward, grabbing James' wand arm and forcing him to lower it, while Peter attempted to do the same to Sirius. The girls watched, Lily looking faintly nauseated by the whole thing. "You're both behaving like animals."

James and Sirius both looked ready to make some sort of sarcastic resort, but spying the two girls watching, both closed their mouths in a grimace. Sirius shook Peter off, glaring across the hall at James. "You," he said, "Are such a dick when you don't get what you want." With that, he turned and stormed away.

"Yeah? Well fuck you too!" James yelled after him, marching off in the opposite direction after another glance at the rest of the assembled company.

The four remaining looked at each other. "I'll go after Sirius. Wormtail..." Remus started

"Got it," Peter agreed, looking close to tears as he scrambled after James.

"I was...going to say leave James alone..." Remus muttered. "Not that any of them ever listen to me."

"What the hell was that all about?" Jennifer demanded of both him and her friend. "That wasn't just about Avery. If they don't square themselves up, we have no chance of winning against Slytherin on-"

"Not everything is about Quidditch, Jen!" Lily cried, exasperated, turning and walking in the same direction as Sirius had gone.

Jennifer stared after her, turning back to Remus, her eyes demanding an explanation.

Remus smiled wanly. "James...can be kind of a dick when he doesn't get what he wants," he explained. "Are you coming?"

Jennifer nodded, and together they hurried after Sirius and Lily, to calm them both down and salvage what was left of this situation.

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