Hey guys, I'm back. Sorry about the wait. I've been kind of lazy this week. So without further adieu, here is chapter 13.
Monday morning, when the boys walked down the stairs, they were surprised to see only Ursula waiting for them.
"Where's Elyse?" James asked.
Ursula answered as she stood up, "She isn't feeling good today. We already got Madame Pomfrey and she gave her some medicine. If she feels better, she'll be joining us for afternoon classes."
"What's wrong with her?" Sirius asked as they exited the Common Room.
Ursula shook her head, "It's nothing."
Remus raised his eyebrow, "It's not nothing if you had to get the school nurse."
"Did she have another relapse of Flammel's Disease?" Peter asked.
Ursula shook her head and looked exasperated at the boys. "Guys, please, just drop it. She didn't relapse from Flammel's Disease. She just isn't feeling good today."
"I don't buy it." James said.
Ursula shrugged her shoulders, "You don't need to buy it. Just leave it."
They didn't leave it. For the rest of the walk to the Great Hall the boys questioned Ursula about Elyse's absence and they shared their theories on what was wrong with her. When they got to the Gryffindor table, Ursula practically ran to Lily and practically threw herself onto the bench. She rested her head on Lily's shoulder.
"Lily," she whined dramatically. "Protect me."
Lily patted her head sympathetically and looked warily at the boys sitting down. "What did they do this time?"
"I'm offended, Lily Flower." James said. "When have I ever done anything to deserve your disapproval?"
She raised her eye brow while Marlene gave her a look, "Does she really have to answer that?"
"We just want to know what's wrong with Elyse," Ben tried to mediate.
Ursula faked sobbed into Lily's shoulder, "They won't leave me alone!"
Lily laughed, "Ursula, I would have thought that you would've known how to get rid of guys easily. All you have to do is tell them the truth." She paused and looked at the boys with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "You guys want to know what's wrong with Elyse? Alright, I'll tell you. Let me explain something to you. When a teenage girl becomes a woman, once a month she feels horrible pains in her lower tummy when-"
"STOP! PLEASE STOP!" The boys all cried as they covered their ears.
"Bloody hell, you don't tell people that!" Sirius exclaimed as he shook his head as if that would knock the words out of his brains.
The three girls on the other hand, were in hysterics at their reactions. Ursula was wiping tears from her eyes when the morning mail came in. Four owls carrying a large package swooped down in front of her. Ursula looked at the box in confusion.
"What is this?" She asked herself as she looked for a note. When she found none she opened the lid she barely had it open when her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. With slightly shaking hands she removed the rest of the lid and stared at the contents of the box.
The boys shared a victorious look when none of the girls were looking. Underneath the table, Sirius and James shared a fist bump in victory.
Alice was trying to look at the contents. "What is it?"
"It's all the Quidditch gear I need and a broom."
"What kind of broom?" James asked, playing dumb.
She looked up from the gift, "A Nimbus 1000." She said in an awed tone.
Before any of guys could comment, Lily spoke up. "You might want to run that back to the dorms really quick before class. You can't really carry that around all day."
Ursula started to stand up, "Want to come with me?" She asked the girls.
Alice nodded and disappeared from the Great Hall with Ursula. The two girls quickly ran up to their room and dropped off the box on Ursula's bed. They checked up on Elyse, who was in the bathroom taking a hot bath, who shouted through the door that she was fine. Not having enough time to question her anymore, they hightailed it to their first class, Charms.
When they walked in, Alice went to her usual seat next to Marlene. Ursula scanned the classroom looking for an empty seat and was surprised when she saw Ben sitting alone at her desk. He moved his bag from the chair when she walked over.
"Where's Remus?" She questioned.
"Working with Peter today," Ben answered back.
Ursula nodded but then a queer thought hit her, "Hey Ben?"
"Hmm?" He asked as he pulled out some parchment for notes and a quill.
"Why is it whenever I'm without a partner, I always get paired up with you?"
Ben turned a fait pink and he smiled charmingly at her, "Are you complaining?" He asked her.
She shook her head with a small smile of her own, "No, I just find it curious, that's all."
Just then Professor Flitwick walked in and called class to order. Today was a theory day, so it was kind of dull. This was especially so for Ursula and the boys because they had learned this charm when they pranked the charms room. Throughout the whole lesson, Flitwick kept a sharp eye on Sirius.
The rest of the early morning classes went on in this similar fashion. Ben would sit with Ursula if it was a double desk or if it was three, Remus or Peter would join them. When they were in potions, Ursula and Ben were working on the Shrinking Solution when they both reached for the valerian roots at the same time. Ursula pulled her hand away mutter a soft apology while Ben smiled at her with easy charm and stepped back and motioned for her to finish the step. Once they finished their potion, something hit Ursula on the back on the head. She turned around and saw a flying paper airplane hovering just in front of her.
She snatched it out of the air and quickly made sure Slughorn wasn't looking. When he turned to critique a hopeless Ravenclaw's work, Ursula quickly unfolded the parchment and looked down at the semi-accurate picture of her and Ben holding hands before leaning over and kissing each other. Blushing a brilliant red, she turned to glare at the only perpetrators that would dare send that to her.
Low and behold, Alice and Marlene were making kissy faces at the pair while Lily smiled knowingly next to them.
"What's that?" Ben asked as he went to reach for the parchment clutched in her hand.
Ursula jumped a foot in the air and quickly stuffed the parchment into her bag, "It's just someone's death sentence."
Ben was completely unperturbed. In fact, he seemed to be entertained by this. "Whose death sentence I may ask?"
"Alice, Marlene, and Lily's. It will be slow and painful; a fair punishment for what they have done."
He laughed as he finished up the potion, "You know, you might want to hold back killing Lily. James might just kill you if you killed his 'Lily-Love'."
"I guess I can let Lily live," Ursula conceded. "But the other two are going down."
Ben seemed to be thoroughly entertained by the entire situation. "So if they don't show up to Transfiguration this afternoon…"
"Then you heard and saw nothing."
He nodded solemnly while she put some of their potion in a vial and labeled it and went to hand it in. He looked down at the messenger back and then back at his two female housemates that he wasn't as close to. Every so often, they would look over at him and when they saw him looking, they would hurriedly turn back to their potion.
It was a comical situation; he decided when Ursula came back after sending a death glare at Alice and Marlene and running her finger over her throat in threatening manner. They thought he was oblivious to all their hand motions and subtle signals to each other across the room. None of them made any attempt to being discreet.
After all, none of the girls knew he had seen the picture.
About halfway through lunch, Elyse appeared out of thin air next to Ursula. She looked absolutely horrible. Her hair was a mess and her clothes weren't sitting on her body right and her entire persona just screamed agitation. Elyse threw her bag to the table.
"If any oov yeh's say anythin'," she growled, "I'll bloody keel yeh."
With that, she nibbled on some chocolate that looked suspiciously familiar to Remus.
"Hey, Elyse, is that my chocolate?" he questioned.
Elyse shrugged while she took a large bite out of it. "I wanted chocolate. I knew yeh's had soom chocolate in yeh's room to I took soom."
Remus opened his mouth to argue the indignity of having his chocolate stolen from him but he quickly snapped his mouth closed when Elyse glared ferociously at him. The rest of lunch went by quickly. Elyse's mood improved a bit once she ate some chocolate so the boys were free from death-by-glare for the time being.
The last class of the day for them was Transfiguration. When they walked in, they froze in confusion. McGonagall was not in the room. She was always in the room. Dumbledore could be skipping through the halls naked while singing songs about candy and McGonagall would still be in her room.
"This is weird." Sirius said as he ventured forward towards his seat. The rest of the class seemed to agree with him because they cautiously walked in as if the room was booby trapped. Soon, everyone was in their seats. They were all stretching their necks looking for their teacher. Lily was about to go get another teacher when a tabby cat lithly jumped down from the upper window sill.
The cat walked down the aisle and passed all the students. When it got to the front of the room, it turned to stare at all the students. Ursula noticed that the marking around the eyes was weird, almost like she should have recognized it, but then a Hufflepuff girl named Kelly Sherman spoke up. "That's Professor McGonagall's familiar, isn't it?"
"Minnie doesn't have a familiar," Sirius spoke up.
Suddenly, the cat jumped up on James's and Sirius's desk. Sirius shoved his chair back in shock but James just smiled coyly at the cat. He nodded his head and said, "Good afternoon, Professor."
Everyone looked at James like he was crazy until the cat leapt off the desk and turned to face the class as it morphed into the Gryffindor's head of house. There was a beat of silence before there was a burst of applause from the entire class room. They were all awed by the advanced magic they were just shown.
James and the rest of his friends, minus Remus, all shared a look and pulled out extra parchment and prepared to take a lot of physical and mental notes. If this class was going to be about animagus transformations, they were going to need to pay extra attention today.
"Thank you. Mr. Potter, would you like to tell the class how you knew it was me?"
James nodded, "Your glasses matched the marks around the cat's eyes."
McGonagall nodded her head, "Good answer. Five points to Gryffindor. As the rest of you may have guessed, today's lesson is a brief tutorial on the advanced transfigurational magic also known as an Animagus Transformation. This skill, which only the best at Transfiguration can accomplish, allows the witch or wizard to change into one animal at his or her own will. The animal is selected not by the witch or wizard's own choice but by who they are…"
The rest of the lesson was the most informative and more in-depth any of the third year Gryffindors had ever had in that class. To the rest of their classmates, it seemed odd that they seemed to be hanging on McGonagall's every word. They took meticulous notes and asked specification questions unlike they ever had before. Even Elyse, who felt like a single step above death, stayed completely attentive through the entire double period.
When class finally ended and they were dismissed, the gang was even more fit on their resolve to become animagi. James was talking to Ursula about how they were going to get some of the ingrediants for the potion when the time came for it when Lily walked by.
"Hey! Evans!" James shouted after her.
Lily stopped and turned around.
James smirked in what he probably thought was a charming way, "What d'you say to going to Hogsmeade with me in two weeks?"
"Potter, get this through your head: I will never go out with you."
She stomped away and Sirius patted James on the shoulder condolingly, "Tough blow mate."
James just shrugged it off, "She's say yes to me one day. It's Snivellus that keeps feeding her lies about me. He deserves a good hex, don't you think?"
No one had the chance to response before Snape's voice clearly shouted through the corridor, "Caeli Remotionem!"
A light blue light hit James in the back and he fell forwards, gasping for breath. Sirius quickly knelt by his side and fumbled to get his wand out of his pocket. James's face was rapidly turning red from the lack of oxygen and his gasps were getting weaker and weaker.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO HIM?" Ursula screamed and charged after a smirking Snape. A pair of arms wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her side, while she screamed obscenities and the retreating Slytherin boy.
"Let me go!" Ursula shouted at her captor. She twisted and turned and tried to get free so she could go hex Snape into the next century. Turning her head over her left shoulder, she saw James turning slightly blue while Remus and Sirius tried a slew of counter curses. Over her right, Peter was holding back a slightly less irate Elyse. The said red head ripped her arm free of Peter's grasp and instantly went to go help James.
Remus was finally the one that said, "Finite Incantatem."
James took a shuddering deep breath. Like a man that almost drowned, he took in deep breath after deep breath of air. His face started to regain color and his got a little less glassy. Sirius handed James his glasses (they must have fallen on the floor when James fell forwards) before he placed James's arm over his shoulder and Remus did the same to the other arm. Carefully, both boys lifted James to his feet and started to carry/guide him to the hospital wing with Peter and Elyse right behind them.
The arms around Ursula slowly loosened before they completely went way. Ursula spun on her heels and glared at Ben. "Why the hell didn't you let me go after Snape?" She demanded. "In case you didn't notice, he just tried to kill James!"
Ben placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her but she roughly shook his hand off. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair once, "We had enough to worry about with James without having to make sure you didn't get hurt going after Snape. If he is capable of hurting James, then he sure as hell is capable of hurting you." He argued when she opened her mouth.
Her mouth snapped closed. He had stolen her argument from her before she was even able to make it.
Ben threw his arm around her shoulder and spun her around as they started walking towards the hospital wing. "Besides, if you got caught," he began, "You would get detention for this weekend and you can't miss your first game now, can you?"
"There's only one flaw there," Ursula pointed out. "I wouldn't get caught."
Ben laughed and brought his other hand around to ruffle her hair. "Shut up, you cheeky brat. Let's go visit our favorite git in the hospital wing!"
It wasn't until the night before the game that Ursula was able to look at her new Quidditch gear. She pulled out the broom and marveled at the perfection of it. It was the newest and best broom out there at the moment and now she was the proud owner of a Nimbus 1000. She would have to write a ridiculously long thank you to her Uncle Alphard, who she assumed sent her the broom and the gear because he was the only adult she knew with the money who would buy it, after the game tomorrow.
Ursula picked up the jet black shin guard when something fell out of the box. She scrunched up her eyebrows as she looked down at the black glove now resting on her floor. Reaching down, she picked it up and tried to figure out how it got in the package. She turned it over and in the palm of the leather glove the two letters J and P were pressed into it.
Anger flew through her veins. Without a second thought, she stormed out of her dorm and down the stairs only to straight back up the boys'. She climbed up to the room that had the Third Year marker on it and flung open the door.
"POTTER!" She shouted into the room.
All the boys jumped a foot in the air and Peter actually fell off his bed.
James sat up in bed and smiled lazily at her with his infuriating lopsided smirk, "You shouted?"
She literally smacked the smile off his face when she hit him with his glove before she threw it at him. "Tell me why I found that in the package I got that had all the new Quidditch stuff in it." She demanded.
James was silent a moment before he nodded slowly in acceptance. "You caught me. My parents sent me some money and I bought you all that stuff. I don't want you using the crap the school claims is safe because you'll end up hurt on one of those brooms."
Ursula was still fuming, "Dammit Potter, if I wanted your bloody charity, then I would've asked for it!"
"No you wouldn't've!" James shot back. "You would have been your usual proud self and refused any sort of help."
"Because I don't need any!"
"Bull shit!" James shouted back. "You know what, I don't care if you're mad at me. You'll get over it sooner or later. If you have to imagine that it is an early Christmas or birthday present, then so be it! I'm not taking it back and that is final!"
Though James seemed to done with the conversation, Ursula wasn't. "I can't believe you would go behind my back and do this!"
James sighed, annoyed at her. He got out of bed and grabbed his cloak off the bed post, "Listen. I don't really understand the weird, twisted way you were raised, but friends help other friends in need. You need to step back and realize that you would have done what I did for everyone else in this room and in your own. You aren't some sort of burden that we just tolerate, you're my friend and that's that. Now, I need to go set up some fireworks for when we win tomorrow."
James waved at everyone before he threw the cloak around himself and disappeared. The only indication on where he was, was when the door opened and closed.
The next morning, Ursula struggled through breakfast in her Quidditch robes while James ate a slightly smaller version of the breakfast he always ate. He shoved the plate of toast towards her.
"Eat." He ordered before he took a sip of pumpkin juice.
Ursula nibbled at the toast and was actually able to eat a little bit before Jacob called the team away. Elyse watched her two friends walk out with the rest of the team.
"Do yeh's 'ink she's gonna be okay?" She asked the remaining boys.
Sirius nodded, "Definitely. Sissy's tougher than she looks."
Ursula felt the nerves gathering in her veins as she waited for the teams to be introduced. She tried not to show it but Jacob seemed to know how she was feeling. He walked over and clapped her on the shoulder twice, "Just do what you do at practice and you'll be fine. You're good. You can do this."
"AND INTRODUCING THE GRYFFINDOR QUIDDITCH TEAM!" The announcer shouted.
"That's our cue." Jacob mounted his broom before he soared out of the tunnel. The rest of the team followed suit. Ursula was nearly deafened by the roar of the crowd. The adrenaline coursed through her veins and for a moment, she felt invincible. The thrill of the game was already addicting to her and she couldn't even remember why she was so nervous a few minutes ago. This was truly the best, most exhilarating feeling in the world.
"BEATERS LIAM MCLAGGEN AND CORMAC ZIMMERMAN; THE LOVELY BUT TAKEN CLARA ROBERTS PLAYING SEEKER; EQUALLY HANDSOME AND EQUALLY TAKEN SEAN WOOD AS KEEPER; URSULA BLACK AND JAMES POTTER AS CHASERS; AND CAPTAIN JACOB SPINEEEEEEEET!" The announcer shouted over the roar of the crowd.
The next half an hour was a complete blur for Ursula. She remembers the plays they pulled and points she scored, but it felt like a dream. Everyone so often she would hear her or James's name being chanted by her year mates or she would hear the score announced; Gryffindor winning at each announcement.
What broke her out of her dream like state was a force that almost knocked her off her broom and caused her to drop the Quaffle. It didn't register at first but then the fiery pain shot up her leg and she cried out in pain. Ursula knew that she had just been hit by a bludger and her leg was definitely broken. The booing from the crowd told her that she was probably fouled. It turns out the chaser behind her grabbed her broom stick and pulled her back just enough that the bludger hit her.
Flying was now next to impossible as the pain was starting blind her. Every single movement she made caused searing, white hot pain to shoot up her leg. It was getting to the point of being unbearable when Clara pulled out of a dive with her fist in the air in victory.
Ursula in relief, almost crashed her broom as she landed. She fell down onto the pitch and closed her eyes and let the roar of the crowd fill her. The feeling of pure joy spread through her body at her first victory. Ursula was pulled up by two members of her team before James swept her up in a hug. He spun her around a couple of times while yelling out in victory.
"WE WON!" He shouted.
"WE DID IT!" She shouted back and kissed him on the cheek.
"How does it feel?" He quested out over the noise.
"Bloody fantastic," she replied breathlessly as she kept all her weight on one foot. James smirked and pulled her arm around his shoulders to help her balance. With his free hand, he pulled out his wand.
"Good to know," he said before, with a wave of his wand, he set the sky on fire with brilliant fireworks of red and gold that exploded from behind the Gryffindor section. Out of the Gryffindor pillar, a red and gold lion appeared and roared.
Ursula had to admit that even though it had been a rough week and he leg was painfully broken, it was the happiest week of her life.
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