Chapter 21: Games and Questions of Import

It is amazing how quickly time can pass when one is living in a castle. With the NEWTS drawing ever closer, the close-knit group of Gryffindor seventh years had little time for anything besides homework and revising. And James was around even less since Ludo Bagman, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, insisted on practice five nights a week. Gryffindor had won the Quidditch cup for the last six years, and the team had no desire to ruin their winning streak. Because of this, James and Lily had very little time to themselves. When James would get in from practice he was so exhausted that all he had the energy to do was pull a book to him and read for an hour or two and then trudge off to bed.

The Quidditch final was scheduled for the day after NEWTS finished. James considered this cruel and unusual punishment, for when everyone else finished NEWTS they got to relax and enjoy themselves while he had the looming match to worry about. Though it might be a good thing, he decided as he walked out onto the field. If he got knocked out during the game it wouldn't affect his studying time.

He decided later that maybe he shouldn't have thought that, maybe he jinxed the team.

They were playing against Slytherin, and when the two teams lined up to face each other before play the Slytherin Captain, a big lump of a boy named Bletchley, called over to him,

"Hey Potter! How's the Mudblood girlfriend doing? Still crying over the loss of her filthy Muggle parents?"

Livid, James dove for his wand, but before he even pulled it up Bletchley's laughter was silenced by a well-placed silencing charm having been directed his way from the Gryffindor stands. James looked up and saw Lily slowly lowering her wand, her face set in a determined look. He smiled up at her, then turned to the boy in front of him.

"You should learn to keep your fat mouth shut, Bletchley. And twenty points from Slytherin for insulting the Head Girl and using offensive language."

Play began and things began nicely. Gryffindor immediately pulled ahead with three back-to-back goals. The three chasers were flying in perfect cooperation with James as lead scorer. In retrospect James decided he should have realized that there was a curious lack of beater interference.

The Slytherin beaters, instead of attacking the chasers, were both zooming straight towards the Gryffindor seeker. And they both sent Bludgers at her from five feet away. James watched in horror as she fell to the ground, completely out. She didn't wake up for a week.

With the Gryffindor seeker out, things began looking desperate. Bagman took immediate revenge and knocked out one of the Slytherin beaters, so that the Gryffindors had almost undisputed control of the Bludgers, but the whole team was thinking the same thing: how could they win without a seeker?

After an hour of heated play, Gryffindor was leading by seventy points, but it wasn't enough and they were beginning to get desperate. Bagman called a time-out, and James, instead of joining his team on the ground, shot off towards the stands. He stopped a foot away from Lily.

"James! What are you doing here?"

"Lil, I need to ask you something."

"Ask me after the game, James."

"No! Please, just listen!" Lily looked at him for several seconds, then nodded her approval. James rushed on. "I've been thinking, Lil, about what is going to happen next week when we go home. I know you don't have a home to go to, and so I want to offer you mine."

"James, you've already told me I could come live with you and your parents."

"No, Lil, I want you to live in my house." He held up a key, "bought it last week."

Lily stared at the small key in his hand, and a blush crept up her cheeks. "James, what did we talk about?" She said this very quietly, not wanting anyone else to hear this private of a conversation. James smiled adoringly at her, then produced another key.

"This would be the key to your bedroom. And I don't have a copy."

Lily threw back her head and laughed. Leave it to James to invite her to move in with him and then give her the ability to lock him out of her room. She beamed out at him, and grabbed the front of his robes to bring him closer to her.

"When did you get so sweet?" she whispered in his ear.

"When I fell in love with you." He smiled sheepishly at her, his eyes searching hers for an answer.

"So when do we move in?" A huge smile broke out on his face.

"You mean it! You'll come?" Childish delight was lighting up his hazel eyes.

"Of course, you great oaf!"

"Yes!" James did a few back flips than flew back to her.

Laughing, Lily deftly took the two keys and placed them in her pocket. Then she smiled before pulling him so that he was mere inches from her face.

"Are you going to kiss me, or not?"

"So demanding…" James whispered with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

James could distantly hear the announcer. "And Potter appears to be having an intimate conversation with his girlfriend. Wonder if he is going to return back to the game anytime soon?" With a smile he quickly kissed Lily, then zoomed off to join his team.

Sirius would afterwards claim that the renewed energy the Gryffindor team displayed as they returned to play was due in large part to the fact that James had successfully gotten Lily to agree to move in with him. Indeed, James seemed to be playing with reckless abandon, he was so happy. Perhaps this explained how the Gryffindors were soon 140 points up. Yet just as James was beginning to hope that maybe they could win this game, his heart fell as he saw the Slytherin seeker go into a steep dive. James could just make out the tiny snitch hovering a few feet off the ground. The seeker was far away, but without the Gryffindor seeker in play, there was little doubt that he would catch the snitch and win the game for Slytherin, that is if James and his fellow chasers couldn't manage to score two more goals before the seeker caught the snitch. With large amounts of fear and trepidation, James grabbed the Quaffle and sped off with a quick nod at the other chasers. They had a plan for this situation, even if they had hoped to never have to put it in action.

James deftly threw the Quaffle through the goal, and didn't even flinch as the Slytherin keeper collided with him, or when he heard Lily scream out his name. He knew that the keeper would go after him, thinking he was the only one that could make the game winning goal, and James was taking the hit so that the keeper would be distracted from his fellow chasers. James allowed himself to fall backwards off his broom, and didn't struggle as he fell. Above him, he saw him teammate quietly put the Quaffle through the now unguarded hoop. He allowed himself to fall until he heard the whistle signaling that the Slytherin seeker had caught the snitch. He wasn't allowed to do magic until the game was over, or he would risk the Slytherin team getting a penalty shot that could tie the game. But once the whistle blew he quickly drew out his wand and summoned his broom. It caught him five feet from the ground. Then he once more flew over to where a sobbing Lily had been watching him plummet to the ground, her fingers covering her eyes as she was unable to watch. Before she even realized that he hadn't been hurt, he had grabbed her waist and pulled her on to the front of his broom. He flew her up high enough that the spectators wouldn't be able to see them clearly, then halted his broom.

Slowly he wiped away the tears that were still streaming down her face.

"Ahh, were you worried about me?"

"It isn't funny James Tristan Potter! I thought you were dead for sure. Don't ever pull another stunt like that, you hear!" She was half-heartedly beating her small fists against his chest.

"Lily," he said softly as he caught both her hands in his. "You didn't think I was going to die just after I got you to agree to live with me? No way would I give you up for a silly little thing like a Quidditch match." She looked at him through bleary eyes.

"Really?"

"Course! That was all planned, had it all under control."

She nodded at him, fighting desperately to keep more tears from spilling down her cheeks. Then she gave it up as a bad job and buried her face into his chest until she had calmed herself down.

"Stupid reckless boy…" she murmured into his chest. He just laughed in response and gently placed his hand under her chin, lifting her head up so that he could look into her eyes.

"And Potter, don't think for a second that I would allow you to get away with dying on me. You had better understand that I would have brought you back so that I could have the pleasure of killing you myself. You aren't getting away from me that easily."

"Lil, nothing could ever induce me to want to get away from you in the first place."

"That had better be the truth, James Potter. Cause the only way you are getting away from me is if you die."

"That wouldn't be very pleasant. 'Cause then I couldn't do this." Then he crashed his lips against hers, hungrily kissing her and pulling her closer to him.

A/N: Hope you like. I need to speed things up and get them away from Hogwarts. All my other ideas happen after they are after school. And I like the idea of James offering her a room in his house. My parents did that before they were married, as my mom had no where to go, and I have always loved that idea. Also, I am now taking suggestions for the name of the girl Remus will eventually start dating. He is going to meet her soon and I am drawing a blank at a good name for his girlfriend. So if you have any good ideas please let me know!

On another note, I have started working on another story because I just got this idea in my head. I want to work on it awhile before I post it, though. But it is called Kissing the Red Head.