Summary: We all know the story of the prophecy that foretold Lily and James Potter's tragic deaths, but the students of Hogwarts in 1977 can all fondly recall another prophecy surrounding Lily Evans and James Potter, years earlier, that many still claim began it all: stemming one of the greatest love stories in wizarding history and winning Gryffindor the 1978 Quidditch Cup, to boot.
A/N: This story was written for tumblr's Jily Secret Santa, for Megan (woodenseahorses). The prompts were Hogwarts and Quidditch, and hopefully I delivered. It's quite a bit longer than I'd planned, but I hope you enjoy it! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
November 5, 1977 - Gryffindor vs. Slytherin
Lily Evans had no interest in attending this morning's Quidditch match. And no, it had nothing to do with a certain Head Boy who she was currently not on speaking terms with, thank you very much. Or so she attempted, feebly, to explain to a chiding Mary MacDonald who was currently refusing to leave the 7th Year Girls' Dormitory. Somehow, despite the absurd gold and red face paint she was currently sporting, the five-foot tall brunette managed to project a thoroughly intimidating air with her arms glued to her hips.
"Lily Evans! You are Head Girl, for heaven's sake!" Mary screeched. "You owe it to your house to be there. It's the first match of the season. Your housemates could use your support, even if you aren't necessarily on the very best of terms with all of them."
Lily shot her friend a particularly nasty scowl, but with a light groan, finally sat up in bed, dropping the Potions textbook she had been feigning concentration on. "Fine, MacDonald. You win. I'll go, but if you expect me to do any celebrating after the match, you are going to be sorely disappointed. And if you expect me to cheer for any of Potter's goals, you have another thing coming."
"You are so immature sometimes." But Mary wore a satisfied grin on her face as she turned to descend the staircase.
Hastily wrapping a scarf around her neck, Lily reluctantly followed her best friend down the stairwell and into the sea of red and gold that currently constituted the bustling Gryffindor common room. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you our illustrious Head Girl!" Mary announced with a flourish. Lily rolled her eyes at the gesture, but couldn't help but feel a little better as soon as she entered the cheery common room. Suddenly, she regretted ever considering skipping the game. How could she have even considered letting that annoying prick Potter keep her from this?
"Lily!" A voice called across the common room. Lily looked over to see two boys, each head-to-toe in red and gold, respectively. The one who had called out her name, Remus Lupin, was sporting bright gold robes. His normally sandy hair today shone an obnoxiously bright red. "Hey, we match today!" He exclaimed with a broad grin. Next to him, his friend Peter Pettigrew was draped in red robes and his mousy blonde hair was now a shiny gold. He stood, looking slightly bashful, beside Remus, who knew Lily from their years of prefect duty together.
"Hey, Remus, Peter" Lily greeted, a small smile forming on her lips against her better judgment. While she and Remus typically got on quite well, both Remus and Peter were the best friends of that arrogant, smarmy prat, Potter, and the association was not necessarily one she was keen on making on this particular morning. Still, she hoped Remus wouldn't pick up on the hint of coldness in her voice, or bring up their mutual acquaintance.
No such luck. "Lily, what happened between you and James last night? He stormed in after midnight in quite the mood!"
"And made quite the racket, I might add," Peter piped in.
"He wouldn't tell any of us what was wrong, but he was still in a funk this morning," Remus continued, shooting Lily an inquisitive glance.
Mary, who had reappeared at Lily's side, interjected before Lily could even open her mouth to make up an excuse. "Don't even hope for an explanation from this one. She's been annoyingly silent on the entire ordeal for the last twelve hours. All I've gathered is that our head boy and girl are – surprise, surprise – once again not on speaking terms."
"Ah," Remus nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable.
"If you're quite done discussing my personal business, I'd really rather just go watch this blasted Quidditch match," Lily snapped at her friends, and began to stalk out of the common room, her chipper mood fading quickly. She hadn't made it down the corridor before Remus came scampering after her, shouting her name. Apparently he had drawn the short straw.
"Lily! Hang on!" Remus called. With a guilty sigh, she stopped short and turned toward her friend, who, she noted, could now be her brother with his preposterous new red hair. "Listen," Remus panted, "Sorry about that. You know I hate getting in the middle of things with you and Prongs. I usually know better, it's just seemed like you two have been – well, civil, at least, if nothing else, these days."
"We have been," Lily acknowledged. In fact, in the past several months, the two had become, reluctant as Lily was to admit it, actually quite friendly. The iciness between them had all but entirely thawed, which had made their fight the previous night even more disastrous. Lily sighed. "Listen, it was just a mess. It might be ok, eventually, but it also might not be. There's... there's a lot between us. Years of hatred, for one."
"Of you hating him," Remus corrected.
"And him deserving it. Maybe he doesn't anymore, but he does a shit job of showing it sometimes," Lily muttered. "I don't really want to talk about it, Remus."
"Ok, I get it." Remus paused a moment, staring down Lily with something of an annoyingly knowing glint in his eyes. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But, if you can, try to fix things with him soon. It really gets to him, you know. And with the stress of Quidditch and being head boy this year... well, he likes to pretend he's always on top of everything, but he's only human, you know?"
Lily shifted on her heels, the guilt beginning to seep in. They had left the castle now and were approaching the Quidditch pitch. The sounds of cheers in the stands could already be heard, even from several yards away, but Lily was sure they still had at least fifteen minutes before the game was due to start. She scowled, angry with herself and with Remus for making her feel guilty. Potter certainly wasn't guiltless in this particular situation – about which, she might add, Remus knew nothing at all! She opened her mouth to begin to say as much, but couldn't bring herself to. Instead, she gave a long sigh. "Do you think it'll affect his performance in the game?" She asked, feebly.
Remus looked somewhat taken aback. "I wasn't trying to say that! You shouldn't blame yourself, and James is a big boy. He's shrugged off just about a hundred rejections from you and gone on to work miracles on the Quidditch pitch."
The redhead ran a hand through her frizzy red hair, suddenly regretting jumping out of bed so quickly this morning. "Still..." she began, her voice softening now. What was it about calm, even-tempered Remus Lupin that always made her feel so damn irrational all the time? "Maybe I should talk to him before the game." Blushing at the grin that was growing on Remus' face, she added quickly, "For Gryffindor, you know! I don't want to be the reason we lose the Quidditch Cup!"
"Of course not," Remus replied, barely suppressing a laugh. Lily gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder, though perhaps a bit harder than she had meant to, but ran off in the direction of the pitch before he could say any more.
Mary and Peter had finally caught up to Remus just in time to see the flurry of red hair running away. "Where's she off to?" Mary asked. Remus only grinned wider.
Lily was standing outside the door of the Gryffindor Quidditch team's locker room. Reaching for the door, she abruptly dropped her arm and turned away. "No. Nope. Not doing this. No." She muttered, walking toward the stands for the fifth time. And, for the sixth time, she turned back toward the door of the locker room. This time, however, before she had time to grab the doorknob, the door came swinging open, causing her to jump back to avoid being hit.
"Shit! Evans!" The broad figure of the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team filled the open doorway, adorned in his Quidditch robes. He ran a hand through his typically messy black hair, his eyes wide and confused through his wire-framed glasses. "I – what are you doing?"
Lily crooked her head slightly, pursing her lips. This is it, Lily, she told herself. Now just swallow your pride. "I just – well, I wanted to talk to you. Last night..."
James was frowning slightly, still a bit startled and confused, but he nodded nonetheless. "Yeah. I'm sorry about that."
"I was saying -" Lily began, and then it was her turn to look startled. "You're what?"
"I'm sorry. It wasn't my business and I shouldn't have butted in like that and made things worse. I know you and Snape have a lot of history."
"It wasn't your fault," Lily admitted, realizing the truth of the statement as she said it.
"No, it was his, but I didn't help things at all. So... I'm sorry." For what seemed like the first time since Lily had met him, James Potter didn't have a trace of cockiness visible in his demeanor. In fact, as he shifted on his feet, fiddling with his wand and not meeting Lily's gaze, he looked downright bashful.
"Um.. well, thank you, I guess. I'm sorry, too," Lily mumbled, suddenly feeling her cheeks grow warm. "So, now that that's sorted, I guess I should get to the stands."
"Right." James tucked his wand back into the pocket of his robes and looked up at Lily, his hazel eyes meeting her green ones in a gaze so piercing Lily wanted to break it, but somehow couldn't bring herself to. "Evans?"
"Yeah, Potter?"
"I'm glad you came to the game," he said, a smile now forming on his lips. "I didn't think you would."
"Me neither," Lily admitted. After a short pause, she looked over toward the stands, which were now nearly full with Hogwarts students. "Well, good luck, Potter."
"Yeah, thanks." James once again ran a hand through his disheveled black hair. Lily had walked ten feet toward the bleachers when, after a gulp, James called out, "Hey, Evans?"
"Yes, Potter?" She called back, a smile now having formed on her lips. She hadn't realized how much better she would feel when things had been resolved with the Head Boy.
James was grinning widely when she looked back in his direction. "Hey, you don't suppose you might want to go out with me sometime?" He said, hoping his tone sounded at least half-joking.
He breathed a sigh of relief when Lily's smile didn't fade, and in fact widened to a grin. She paused for a moment. "Yeah, okay." And, with that, she marched over to the Quidditch stands, the grin never leaving her face.
When Sirius stepped out of the locker room and found James, his jaw was still hanging open, staring at the spot Lily had just vacated. "Uh, you ok, mate?" The beater asked his best friend, his shaggy black hair falling over his eyes.
"Padfoot, I think Lily Evans just agreed to go out with me." James' voice was flat, and, yet again, he ran a hand through his hair in confusion.
Sirius laughed loudly. "Good one, Prongs. Seriously, though, what's going on?"
"I'm deadly serious, Padfoot!" James shouted suddenly, jumping in the air, as though he were suddenly processing Lily's words. His eyes lit up and a mad grin spread across his face.
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No way."
"Yes way!"
"Lily Evans?"
"Lily Evans," James repeated the name in a reverent whisper.
Sirius' eyebrows were still raised, but a grin was forming on his face to match his friend's. "Wow."
"Yeah, I know."
"This is – wow!"
"I know," James repeated, his mind and body abuzz. He had never felt more ready for a Quidditch game. "So, what do you say we go cream some Slytherins?"
Sirius groaned. "I'd forgotten for a moment. I was trying not to think about the fact that we get to play against my dear little brother."
"Not to worry, Padfoot. Nothing could possibly go wrong today!" James chirped, skipping back into the locker room, his bemused best friend following behind.
"This attitude is going to get old real fast," Sirius muttered, still grinning.
James Potter scored twelve goals during that game, a personal record, and no one in the stands could quite understand why, even when he was hit square in the chest by a particularly nasty bludger, the Quidditch Captain would not stop grinning. Not until, that is, word spread around the castle that the Head Girl had finally agreed to go on a date with the Head Boy – everyone understood quite perfectly after that. And thus began the superstition, widely held within Gryffindor House, that Lily Evans and James Potter needed to stay together in order for Gryffindor to win the Cup.