Author's Note: Sorry that it has been so long since I updated this. I had writer's block, was busy with life, and also got married three weeks ago, so had difficulty writing this chapter. I will do my best to update more frequently.
On Friday morning, two days after the new house had been formed, Sirius sent over seven Nimbus Two Thousand Ones that he had purchased for Unity's Quidditch team, since he had done the same for the other houses when Lucius Malfoy had bought the Slytherin team new brooms. Umbridge didn't look pleased about that and probably would have found some way to confiscate the brooms if Professor McGongall hadn't tartly informed her that all the house teams had the exact same brand and so the only advantages the teams had were in the Quidditch skills of the members. That evening, James held Quidditch tryouts for Unity, with all the candidates taking turns using the team brooms so nobody had an unfair advantage in that respect.
The Chaser hopefuls were first, and out of the eleven that tried out, Ginny, Mari, and a third year named Demelza Robins were made Chasers, with Dean and Asteria made the reserves. There were two reserve Chasers instead of one because Ginny was also made the reserve Seeker, so if something happened to James that required her to take over as Seeker for a match and then another Chaser also couldn't play, there would be someone to take over. Next was the Keeper tryouts. Out of the four that tried out, Ron was the best, saving eight goals out of ten. He was made Keeper, with Jody, who had saved seven out of ten goals, the reserve. The last one was the Beater tryouts. Anthony and a third-year named Ritchie Coote were made Beaters, with a second-year named Jimmy Peakes as the reserve. James wasn't completely sure about Jimmy, but he had flown better than the other Beater candidates, and he did hit the Bludgers ferociously, one of which had narrowly missed Terry and managed to raise a lump the size of an egg on the back of James' head.
After the tryouts, James drew up a practice schedule for the next two weeks and after making sure to book the Quidditch pitch for the scheduled times, posted it on the notices board in the Unity common room. On Saturday afternoon, after the Gryffindor team had practice, Unity had theirs. It started out well, but when the Slytherin team and some other Slytherins joined those Unity members that were watching the practice in the stands fifteen minutes later, things started going downhill.
First of all, Draco Malfoy walked up to Theo and sneered, "You're a a blood traitor and Muggle lover and little better than a Mudblood, Nott. I can't believe I hung out with someone like you when we were younger. You're pathetic."
Blaise snapped and immediately jumped to his feet and punched Malfoy in defense of his best friend. Several of the Slytherins reacted by pulling out their wands, which made Unity do the same. Before any spells could be exchanged, however, Pansy Parkinson turned to look at the Unity team and shrieked, "Look at the pathetic broom the reserve Keeper is flying! Is that a school broom?"
Several people turned to look, and indeed, Jody was flying on a school broom, since she didn't have a broom of her own and as a reserve, couldn't use one of the team brooms at the moment. Asteria and Jimmy were the only reserves that had brooms of their own, and Dean was flying on a team broom since James was using his Firebolt. Unfortunately there hadn't been one available for Jody, so she was stuck with a school broom until she got one of her own.
The attention that she was now getting caused her to get flustered, and she completely missed stopping the Quaffle and so it sailed through the left goalposts. There was laughter from the Slytherins and Montague remarked loudly, "Maybe Weasley will do better at Keeper. Or not!"
There was more laughter, which didn't do Ron's nerves any better, for he got flustered just like Jody and overshot when Demelza threw the Quaffle towards him, letting it sail through the center goalposts. Ritchie then tried hitting a Bludger at the Slytherins to shut them up, but in his anger, his aim was off and it hit a post instead, and the Bludger bounced off and veered toward Asteria. She shrieked and managed to pull her broom up to avoid it.
"Okay, everyone just ignore the slimy, stinking Slytherins and focus on the practice!" shouted James.
That didn't work out too well, for Kyle hit Pansy with a Jelly-Legs Jinx, Malfoy tried to retaliate, and then hexes and jinxes started flying between the Unity and Slytherin students. In frustration, James paused practice and shouted, "We're not supposed to get into a fight, no matter how annoying the Slytherins are! Stop at once!"
It wasn't until he threatened to fetch a teacher, Anthony reminded everyone that he was a prefect and threatened to give them all detention, and Mari added, "And I'll tell Professor Hida about it, Taiki-san and Hikari-chan, if you don't stop!" that the fighting desisted. Mari and Dean then did several Finite Incantems to remove the effects of the various and James angrily ended practice.
Once in the Unity common room, James snapped, "I get that the Slytherins are annoying and provoked you guys. But we were having practice and shouldn't have let them distract us and start a fight! I'm not saying that we should be friends with them, but we could do what the Sorting Hat said and try to tolerate them. Not all of them must be evil. I mean, look at all the ex-Slytherins that are now in Unity. From now on, I would like it if we could just ignore the Slytherins unless they start throwing spells at us or something and we then have to defend ourselves. Okay?"
The prefects backed him up and the rest of Unity agreed to do their best to ignore the Slytherins. After that, most them went to their homework, with the older students helping the younger ones when needed.
Dobby and Peridot popped in an hour later and asked if anyone needed anything. Everyone shook their heads, so they left. After the fifth house had been formed, the two house-elves' working situation had been changed so that they were responsible for cleaning the Unity common room and dorm rooms, though the Hogwarts elves still did the laundry. The younger students were now able to ask Dobby and Peridot to do tasks for them, but politely and not take advantage. Also, each student in Unity, including the Japanese ones, now contributed seven Sickles each, which was used to pay Dobby's wages of one Galleon a week. The twelves Sickles left over were given to Peridot, who after some persuasion from Theo and Dobby had reluctantly agreed to accept them as a salary of one Sickle a month.
On Monday, it soon got around school that Professor Trelawney was on probation following the results of her inspection. While a number of students did think that she was mostly a fraud with only a shred of real talent, they hated Umbridge more and so were indignant on Trelawney's behalf. Unity, who had a reason to hate Umbridge more than most, were most upset by this. Starting that very day, whenever there was no Quidditch practice, the Unity fifth- and fourth-years spent an hour each evening teaching proper Defense to the younger students and practicing spells.
The portrait of the Founders strongly approved of this, and two of them would always appear in the painting over the fireplace and supervise the lessons. Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin also suggested Defense spells that they knew of or had invented. Rowena Ravenclaw had also created some spells that could be used Defensively, which she told them about. Helga Hufflepuff, however, had mainly created spells that had to do with cooking and housekeeping, so she usually just supervised. Her spells couldn't really be used in a battle, except maybe making someone choke on soap and water if you hit their mouth with a Scourgify. The Founders were quite pleased with Unity's progress, and encouraged them.