Friday morning, James and I got called into to the office of our Head of House, Professor McGonagall. I was shaking the entire trek there, which was just two short strides out of the Fat Lady's portrait and a few turns down the corridor, but it might as well have been miles.

"OhmyGodric, we're going to get expelled! We're the worst Heads of Everything That Has Ever Been and Ever Will Be ever!" I whined, wringing my wrists in total panic.

James fixed me with a look that clearly said he thought I'd gone bonkers. "Lily, relax. I'm sure it's normal and boring Head business as usual."

"What if she asks about our emergency meeting during History of Magic yesterday?" I asked, a completely new wave of panic taking over me. "You know—the one that wasn't real and we made up so we could practice Hippogriff on the Quidditch pitch?"

James chuckled. "Knowing Minnie, I don't think she'd mind that, actually."

The unrelieved worry must have been tying my face into knots in addition to my stomach, because one look at me, and James sighed. "It's okay—if things go off in there, just follow my lead."

I still wasn't convinced.

He rolled his eyes. "I really don't think Professor Binns would have cared enough to say anything to our Head of House, Lily. Or even noticed we were missing. I've taken his class for seven years, and the man still calls me Geronimo Podmore."

I had to stifle a giggle as we had reached McGonagall's door. I took a deep breath and wrapped my hand tentatively around the doorknob. "Here goes nothing."

I turned the knob and we made our way inside. The office of Gryffindor Head of House was bedecked in as much scarlet and gold as the common room.

I imagined Godric himself in this room, sitting imposingly behind the dark, stocky medieval desk on the throne-like, high-backed chair, gold buttons tufting red velvet along the cushions. The sight would have been even more striking at sunset, when the stained glass windows behind the desk would have backlit the scene, creating an impressive silhouette of the man as he sat regally on his chair.

In fact, a portrait of the Hogwarts Founder in this very apartment hung to our right, flanked by golden sconces. The chair and desk were the same, but in the portrait, the room held an array of golden objects, including four very ornate golden chairs sitting in front of the desk, rich scarlet carpets and drapes, and a large, mahogany cabinet in the corner of the room displaying a grand sword collection. The portrait hung in the original place of a beautifully woven tapestry depicting the god Helios as he dragged the sun across the sky in his chariot.

McGonagall had taken extra pains to downplay the over-the-top royalty Godric demanded in his own office. Apart from a pair of chest of drawers on either side of the room and bookcases lining the walls, the room was rather bare. Before the desk sat two, modest yet plump, scarlet armchairs, looking as though they would not be out of place in the Gryffindor common room. Upon the desk, a simple inkwell, candelabra, and writing parchment were set out.

Strangest of all the things in the room—and perhaps this was a testament to McGonagall's commitment to her professorship—was a standing blackboard panel, tucked away to the side of the throne-like chair upon which she sat.

"Ah, Mister Potter, Miss Evans. Do have a seat." She gestured vaguely at the armchairs before her, and peered up at us from her reading glasses. The frames were in the shape of cat eyes.

I really wanted to tell her I liked them, but held my tongue until I knew what this meeting was about, and took my seat.

"I trust you are well rested," she said, all burr and no sympathy in her tone.

"Aye," answered James, and I threw a sidelong glance at him, half in intrigue, half in warning. Like, yeah, okay, it's super hilarious to be Scottish at our Scottish professor, but it's probably not the best idea if she's about to give us the flogging of our lives!

McGonagall didn't seem to mind, though, and set her eyes on me.

I blinked, looking away. "Er, yes, Ma'am. Thank you for asking."

She nodded and very delicately pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, sitting back in her chair. "Right. Well, our business this morning is very short. It has come to the attention of the Headmaster that our Head Boy and Head Girl, that is to say, the pair of you, are doing very well with the experimental"—she rolled her eyes in clear distaste and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing—"Operation Fire Dragon. He wishes to thank you for your continued commitment to the program. However, in light of Mister Nott's injury yesterday, he should like to pass along that any future games of Hippogriff are strictly forbidden. I trust you will share this information with your classmates in a timely fashion."

James cleared his throat. "If I may, Professor?"

McGonagall pursed her lips, but waved her hand at him in the affirmative.

"Professor, the Headmaster had to have known that injuries like Nott's were bound to happen, Hippogriff or not. Though we're doing our best to be as safe as possible on the pitch, we're flying with amateur Beaters batting at Bludgers in every direction. What happened to Nott was an accident, but we were able to mend his arm on site, and Madame Pomfrey assured me he would be out of the Hospital Wing by the end of the day, fully recovered."

McGonagall raised her eyebrows, but made no other suggestion of her feelings. "Be that as it may, Potter, I'm afraid the ruling on this is final. The School Governors made the amendment to the program. It is quite out of our hands."

James slumped down in his chair in defeat. "I understand."

McGonagall nodded in sympathy. She turned her green eyes on me and I froze, every reason for panic overloading my brain. But instead of asking me if I had skived off yesterday, she merely said, "If that is all?"

I nodded mutely.

"Very well. I shall see you both in class this afternoon."

James got up from his seat. "See you then, Professor."

I made my way towards the door behind James. We'd done it! We'd gotten away with skiving off! I could finally breathe!

Suddenly McGonagall called out, "Oh, and Miss Evans!"

I turned around, feeling like a doe caught in headlights, my eyes wide and waiting for the guillotine to drop.

I was so dead.

McGonagall smiled. She actually smiled.

Oh Merlin, maybe I really was dead!

"Yes?" I croaked, for lack of anything better to say.

"Your upturn needs some more finessing, but you pull off quite the Wronski."

I blinked.

She smiled again.

AGAIN!

"Good work," she said.

"Er, thank you."

"Well, then. Please close the door behind you." She pulled open a drawer and busied herself with searching for something or other.

"Of course, Professor."

James had been waiting in the doorway, and he was grinning like a total tosser. I closed the door behind myself as instructed and made it all the way around the corner before I exploded.

"I. CANNOT. BELIEVE. WHAT JUST. HAPPENED!" I began.

He laughed.

"I'm serious!"

"I know, it was a lot," he agreed. "But she complimented your flying." He knocked our shoulders together, teasing and smirking. The stupid, blooming feeling in my chest started up again. "That's rare. Ancient-dragon-egg-hatching rare."

"I thought for sure she was going to give us a demerit for skiving off yesterday!" I said, trying to calm my racing heart as the feeling of warmth spread from the shoulder he'd knocked to my fingertips.

"Shh! Not so loud!" James teased. "The walls can talk, you know."

I snorted, eyeing a nearby portrait of two knights dancing drunkenly in a herd of sheep. "Fortunately, they don't care. Oh, I'm so relieved!" I exclaimed. "I felt like I was holding my breath the whole time we were in there."

"You might have been. We were only in there for three minutes."

I frowned. "Oh, blimey. I just realized—" I cut myself off with a groan.

"What?" he asked.

I swallowed thickly, my nerves overwhelming whatever warmth his stupid shoulder might have previously provided. "How are we supposed to tell everyone that Hippogriff is no longer allowed? Black asked for a rematch, and now—conveniently—it's forbidden?"

James shrugged. "She'll get over it."

"No, she'll just find new ways to torture me. At least with this, there was a chance that I could beat her, and she and her whole lot of blood purists would have to live by the terms of our agreement."

James chewed on his lower lip. "And what were the terms of your agreement, exactly?"

I scrunched up my face in thought. I couldn't really remember! It had all just happened so fast! "I—I think they just have to stop calling me Mudblood."

All of a sudden, James looked thunderous. "Unbelievable," he said under his breath. "So if they won, I assume they could call you that without consequence?"

I nodded, feeling as though perhaps the entire ordeal had been worthless. I mean, not getting called Mudblood wasn't a guarantee they wouldn't continue to harass me or other Muggleborns in the school.

A bitter smile curled at his full lips and he said, "If they decide they want to settle their rematch in a different way, I think you'll have grounds for new terms. And if I were you, I'd think really hard about what I really wanted."

When we got to the Fat Lady, James decided he needed to do some things before breakfast, so we parted ways and I walked down seven floors—see? What exactly is the point of Operation Fire Dragon?!—to the Great Hall.

For the second time that week, I found myself on the front page of Frank Longbottom's school zine, the headline reading: WRONKSI WARRIOR STRIKES AGAIN. That headline alone made me feel like a superhero. Or possibly, a super villain, depending on what Frank had written.

I plucked a copy out of Frank's proffered hands and made my way to the Gryffindor table.

I heard him call out a, "Thanks again, Evans!" and I responded with a wave of my hand in acknowledgement.

I was absolutely transfixed by the front page. The photograph depicted my dive after Nott and the graceless crash-landing onto the pitch. The caption read: "Head Girl Lily Evans saves Alexander Nott from certain death with sophisticated flying techniques during Operation Fire Dragon, Hogwarts's leading flying programme."

I skimmed the article, noting that it described our game of Hippogriff in exciting detail, and if I weren't myself, I would have thought this Lily Evans person was downright heroic.

But I am me, and it was disconcerting to be painted as this accomplished flying athlete when I literally just picked up on the concept of flying overnight.

It sounds impressive, but all that I'd learned was the product of a determined student and a very patient coach in the form of James Potter.

Which was a bit surprising, considering he was otherwise a tosser in every respect.

I piled a bit of egg, beans, sausage, and toast on my plate, figuring I'd have time for a full English this morning, considering how early James and I had received our owls to meet McGonagall. It would be another twenty minutes or so before the rest of my mates showed up.

In the meantime, I could enjoy the time alone with my breakfast and the zine that loved to praise me. I spelled it to prop itself open so I could read while I ate.

The "WRONKSI WARRIOR" article went on to chronicle the success of Operation Fire Dragon, and continued to cover the controversy over its status as a requirement for graduation.

In the corner, Frank had added an aside about how the program seemed to be cultivating inter-house relations, and specified that "James Potter and Severus Snape, known rivals of opposing houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin respectively, cooperated as referees of the inter-house game of Hippogriff," and then went on to speculate whether this could be a sign of waning enmity despite the divisiveness of the war outside the walls of Hogwarts.

I rolled my eyes. What was the point of Pettigrew? Hadn't he told Longbottom that the match was agreed upon as the stage for our enmity to play out?

The article ended thus: "Though both sides competed with great vigor and heroism, the results of the match remain as vague as the question of friendship between two longstanding adversaries, brought together by a game that would have never taken place had it not been for the compulsory flying of Headmaster Dumbledore's Operation Fire Dragon."

Merlin.

I couldn't deny his words didn't have a way about them. Nor could I deny that he made a compelling point—I had witnessed it myself.

James and Severus.

They had worked together, when not three days ago, they were at each other's throats over the environmental repercussions of salt in potions!

It seemed so out of character for the both of them, to have turned the other cheek over a game of Hippogriff. Perhaps it was a Wizarding thing, this game, its rich history—its weird, un-self-conscious chant of "Hippogriff, hip hip!" Perhaps, like all of these things, cooperation was part of the game, and without it—unlike in, say, Quidditch—Hippogriff wasn't Hippogriff.

In any case, if Longbottom really wanted an angle on inter-house relations, he didn't have to look further than Abed Cassimi and Harriet Seabury. They'd worked with James and me on our eggshell powder alternative potion voluntarily.

It was nice to know not every Slytherin was a blood purist. Though it would have been rather reductive to think so, or to assume that every Slytherin had a Pureblood heritage.

I wondered vaguely what it must be like to be a Muggleborn in Slytherin House. Lonely, I imagined, and doubtlessly terrifying. I wasn't even in her house, and Bellatrix Black made sure I never forgot where she thought I belonged (six feet under, in case that was unclear).

Remus appeared in my field of vision blinking blearily, and I was forced to focus on the present moment. He sat diagonally across from me and began piling sausages on his plate.

"Morning," I said, smiling encouragingly at him.

He blinked, apparently surprised at my greeting. He gave a bit of a start as though he were going to respond, but instead blurted, "Have you finished with that, Lily? Longbottom's run out of copies." He said that all very fast.

"Oh, sure," I said, folding up the zine and handing it over. "How has he run out of copies?"

"Demand exceeded supply," he explained simply.

This surprised me. "So early in the morning?" Frowning, I turned in my seat to glance at the doors of the Great Hall, which Longbottom usually occupied in the mornings to hand out the latest edition of The Hogwarts Post.

Only, he wasn't there.

"I wonder if he could find a professor to help him Duplicate some more copies," I said.

It was against the rules to perform a Duplicate Charm without proper supervision; conjuring a facsimile on a subatomic level was very complicated magic, and any wrong moves could result in the unstable copy catching fire, or exploding, or warping space-time. Therefore, unauthorized Duplicates could get a student writing lines in detention for the rest of their natural Hogwarts lives. Or, if there was any actual damage, they could be expelled.

Remus shook his head. I could almost see him working something out in his mind. "He's been gone too long. Likely he's had to start the magical presses again. Besides, I don't think using a Duplicate Charm to make that many copies would ever be authorized by a professor. The probability of it backfiring would increase per copy."

I loved talking about quantum alchemical mechanics, and so it seemed did Remus. We chatted a bit longer on the exact percentage of failure per degree of separation from an original element before we both tucked into our respective breakfasts.

Noticing Frank hadn't returned yet, I asked, "How long do you think it takes Longbottom to print off a hundred copies?"

Remus didn't reply. I turned back around and found him reading the zine intently, his lips moving slightly as he went, and frowning deeply.

Deciding the conversation was probably over, I took a swig of pumpkin juice to assuage the tense silence that seemed to hug my shoulders like an itchy blanket.

I pulled at the neck of my robes uncomfortably. Then, rather loudly, Remus pushed the zine away from him in a disgusted groan.

"This is—it's . . ." He seemed to have difficulty finding the right words. "It's just not—none of it happened this way."

I smiled wryly at him. "Do you mean to say that I am not a Wronski Warrior?"

He blinked, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly. "Well, you've just learned how to fly."

WHAT?!

I must have looked panicked, because his eyes softened, and a person appeared out of the ice sculpture that had been parading around as Remus Lupin.

"No one else knows," he whispered, leaning in toward me. "I just figured it out."

"How?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

He began counting on his fingers. "You have never shown any aptitude for flying until this week when you suddenly pulled off one of the most technically difficult skills during O.F.D. Then, when we congratulated you, I noticed you wouldn't take your hands off the broom. And even though everyone thought you had screamed to make fun of Nott, it didn't match his scream. Yours was too honest to be a parody.

"Then, yesterday, when you made Prongs cancel on me, I realized he must be helping you with something more important than Head duties. And he wouldn't have cancelled on me unless it was time-sensitive."

Grimacing, I said, "I am sorry about that, Remus."

He waved me off. "It's alright, it really is. It only bothered me because whatever he was doing with you, it wasn't just important, it meant something, and I'd spent all night trying to figure out what."

"And you've figured it out?" I asked, curious to know more about his process.

"The only business the pair of you had outside of Head Duties was Hippogriff, and if you suddenly had a match to prepare for, I think you'd want as much help as possible as soon as possible with the most qualified person possible. But the extremes to which you'd gone—they only made sense if you weren't an expert flyer."

"Remind me never to lie to you again," I deadpanned.

"I won't tell anyone!" he assured me quickly. "It's just how my brain works. It works nonstop on mysteries until it's solved them."

I smiled. "Mine, too, I think. Though, I don't think I would have solved a mystery like this so quickly."

His cheeks tinged pink. "Longbottom couldn't see a mystery if it was wearing a chalk outline and alarms were going off."

I laughed.

"He doesn't realize that he's missed the mark completely! I mean, can you imagine? Prongs and Snape? 'Waning enmity'?" He threw his hands up in the air. "It's absurd!"

I laughed again. "You make excellent points. Still, why were they being so civil to each other? Is it some ancient Hippogriff ritual of old, or something?"

"Oh, no; they simply didn't want to upset you."

I cocked my head to the side. "Why not?"

"Because they both fancy you, of course."

!?

I gaped. I stared at him for a full ten seconds before sputtering, "I—I—they—me? What?"

He blanched. "To be fair, I only say that based on personal observation, so best not take it to heart."

Oh, right, let's not take to heart what this real-life Sherlock Holmes has deduced from his personal observations.

Because he's so bad at solving mysteries.

I continued to sputter nonsense for a few moments before I could finally string a sentence together. "So—their 'waning enmity.' Is that the only unbelievable thing in the article? You never really answered whether or not it's too impossible for the layperson to believe that I am an expert flyer."

I took another swig of pumpkin juice, sweating feverishly under the weight of a problem I was incapable of processing at the moment.

Somewhat relieved, Remus plunged into a detailed analysis of the final moments of our Hippogriff match yesterday. "Your team definitely won, Lily. It's unfair to print otherwise."

I shrugged. "Makes no difference, honestly. Black wanted a rematch anyway. Fat chance she'll get one, now that they've banned Hippogriff matches from O.F.D."

A group of third-years, who had sat themselves besides us as Remus recounted our match in captivating detail, gasped.

"They can't do that!" one of them chimed in.

"Can't do what?" said Sirius Black, plopping down across from me and next to Remus. He stretched an arm around Remus's shoulders casually. Remus blinked down at his plate shyly.

Right. Speaking of mysteries.

One of the third years, a tawny-faced girl with striking green eyes and a sloping nose, brightened up at his arrival and sat up straight. "Can't ban Hippogriff from Operation Fire Dragon!" she answered.

"Sruthi, say it isn't so!" Sirius wailed, his eyes widening.

She giggled. "Ask your boyfriend, he heard so, too!"

Sirius turned to Remus, who blushed openly. "Boyfriend," he addressed him, "is this correct?"

Unable to hide a smile, Remus grinned. "Yes, Boyfriend. It is."

Sirius pouted.

Remus laughed and leaned forward to kiss him on the lips.

REMUS KISSED SIRIUS!?

Sirius smiled against his lips and laughed, too.

Well, so much for that mystery. I made a mental note to let Mary know that she definitely had no chance with Remus. He was absurdly unavailable.

Remus turned to me, happiness filling his usually pale and tired face with color and life. "Is that what McGonagall needed to tell you so early? That Hippogriff's been banned?"

Nodding dumbly, I grabbed for a scone even though I was full, just to have something to do, while another of Remus's mysteries settled into my worldview. It would explain why Sirius was so protective of Remus. Then again, Sirius was protective of nearly everyone.

Sirius picked up the abandoned zine and read through it with seemingly unending amusement until the end.

"The results are vague?!" he shouted. His grey eyes narrowed, panels of steel to match his steely resolve. "Where is he?"

Remus explained that Longbottom had gone to make extra copies of his sold out edition of the Post.

"SOLD OUT?" Sirius raged. "How many people have read this rubbish? WE WON!"

Marlene ran toward us. "Mate, have you read this?" she asked, brandishing a copy of the zine in our faces.

To her giggling friends, Sruthi said, "Who hasn't?" but it was loud enough for all of us to hear.

Marlene shot her a glare. She only laughed harder.

Sirius gawked at Sruthi. "What's that supposed to mean? How many people have had the misfortune to believe that this group, consisting of two professional Gryffindor Quidditch Beaters, and the bleedin' Wronski Warrior, lost to Slytherins?"

Pettigrew and James ran up next to Marlene.

"This is rubbish!" Pettigrew was saying, while James took a seat next to me.

James.

The bloke who fancies me. I was not mentally prepared to see him.

"It's an outrage!" he said, but I couldn't pay his words any attention.

I suddenly felt like my whole body was on fire. I couldn't move or breathe or look at anything. I was too overwhelmed to tune into the conversation happening around me.

James raided a pile of breakfast pastry before getting up and leaving the table along with Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Marlene.

It took me another moment to gather my wits. By that time, I had lost sight of the lot of them, and had no idea where they'd been headed.

I turned to my left. "Er, Sruthi?" I said, trying to get the attention of my House mate.

"You know my name!" she said, surprised.

"Er—yes," I said. "Listen, where did everyone go? I sort of spaced out."

"We noticed you do that a lot!" She and her friends giggled, and I felt myself blush. "They're just in the doorway, there." She pointed to the doors, and I nodded.

"Thanks," I said, getting up and making my way over to them.

"We'd like to publicly refute the claims that Frank Longbottom has printed in The Hogwarts Post," Sirius was saying to a crowd of students gathered at the doorway.

"James Potter's team won the Hippogriff match!" Marlene shouted over him. When he threw her a dirty look, she shrugged and said, "Get to the point, Black!"

"POTTER WON!" he yelled.

Longbottom pushed his way through the crowd and stood in front of Sirius, a fresh pile of the Post tucked under an arm. "The Wronski Warrior Strikes Again!" he announced. "Get the full scoop in The Hogwarts Post, your source for the most exciting school news!"

Incoming students ransacked his stock of zines as they walked in, no doubt captivated by my heroic act.

"If by 'exciting' you mean 'inaccurate,' then yeah, help yourself!" said Sirius.

Confused, Longbottom Levitated his pile of zines, and got out his notepad and quill. Always in Press Mode. "Could you tell me which inaccuracies you found in the piece, please?"

He was too professional to take anything personally.

"Oi, we won, mate," Marlene said. "And you've written that results were vague."

Longbottom put his quill down. "Yeah, Snape's already tried that one on me. I'm not retracting that part."

"You mean Snape's told you we won as well? And you still won't put it in?" Sirius complained.

Longbottom crossed his arms. "No, I mean, he told me to print that his team had won."

"You can't be serious!" I said amongst a chorus of outraged shouts.

Sirius was out of his mind. "You've got to put it right, mate! We won, and now they're trying to take advantage of the fact that you couldn't get your facts straight to claim that they've won instead! It's a load of rubbish!"

Longbottom put his hands up defensively. "I'll tell you what I told Snape; I only report what I can back up. I'm staying out of this. But please feel free to write a letter to the editor! I'm sure Rookwood will print it as an opinion piece."

Sirius sighed.

He spent the rest of the morning telling anyone who'd listen that he'd won the Hippogriff match against his cousin. It turns out, she'd been doing the same thing, and the whole school was equally divided on the whole thing, as though they had all been there to witness it for themselves.

Apparently, Bellatrix Black started a rumor that I'd cheated and used force to break Nott's arm midair. "Only a Muggleborn could be capable of such brute force!" she'd said (allegedly).

Except instead of rallying people to disqualify our contested win, it backfired and only made me even more popular, especially amongst those who let their imaginations run wild. However, two sixth year Ravenclaw girls demanded to know how it was possible to break someone's arm whilst flying belly-down in a Hippogriff race.

I fixed them with a look that clearly said I-am-a-goddess-you-are-not-worthy, and replied, "The answer, I think you'll find, is that I didn't."

Then Bellatrix tried again, this time saying that I'd deliberately clubbed Mulciber in the face to keep him from flying in the race. But after the first rumor proved impossible, no one really believed her, and I never found myself having to defend my actions regarding that particular incident.

The rest of the day passed in much the same way; random students approached me, not to ask the Head Girl for her renown wisdom of the ages, but to ask the Wronski Warrior for either her autograph (I mean, really?), or her opinion on the Hippogriff Controversy ("We won, obviously.").

It was a controversy now. But it just seemed like that sort of day.

By dinnertime, the question of "Who Won?" created a shouting match between a group of students so fantastically inappropriate, that James and I had to intervene before any of the professors got involved.

"It's so obvious the Head Girl cheated!" said a Hufflepuff boy.

A Ravenclaw girl, the blonde one of the aforementioned sixth year girls who had approached me earlier, rolled her eyes. "Well, clearly, you haven't thought this through. Why would the Head Girl cheat? She's the Wronski Warrior—do you really think she'd need to cheat at a game of Hippogriff?"

The boy balled up his fists and stepped towards her. "She beat up Mulciber before he could get on a broomstick!"

"Lily, did you really?" James asked me, scandalized. He was just loud enough for everyone to hear.

I played along, smiling as though I'd been caught. "I mistook his head for a Bludger," I explained.

"Easy mistake," he rejoined lightly. "Although there is the matter of his head being attached to his body."

I shrugged. "I don't believe in the mind-body split."

"I don't think Mulciber did, either, but you nearly made the decision for him!" James accused.

I shrugged unapologetically. "Allegedly."

The students, save for the Hufflepuff boy, all laughed.

James smiled warmly at him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Now, Hamish. I understand it's disappointing when your favorite in any match doesn't win, but that doesn't mean it's alright for you to go spreading ugly rumors about their opponents."

Hamish pursed his lips angrily, staring down at the floor, silent and fuming.

"Anything you'd like to say?" I asked.

Hamish lifted his chin and looked me square in the eye. "Yeah. I'll be watching you during the rematch, so you'd better watch it!"

My eyebrows went up in astonishment.

Why would he so readily believe that I was at fault and deliberately emaciating my opponents? I mean, I was the Head Girl, like Blondie said—why would I need to cheat? What could I hope to gain?

The Ravenclaw girl looked equally shocked, her dark eyebrows disappearing beneath her dark blonde fringe. "You're having a rematch?" she asked.

"Er, no—" James started, probably going into the spiel about Hippogriff getting banned, etc., but I cut him off.

"Yes, yes we are. The terms are still up in the air—no pun intended"—I got a few laughs—"but there will most definitely be a rematch."

A wave of excitement passed through the crowd, and they all broke off to their respective tables chattering away and spreading the news of the rematch faster than I could say "Wronski Warrior."

James turned to me, expectantly. "So, how are we having this rematch? Hippogriff's been banned, or don't you remember?"

I smirked. "Aren't you the one that's supposed to bend the rules?"

"I can't disobey a direct ruling," he answered.

"Well, McGonagall said the school governors banned Hippogriff from O.F.D., but that doesn't mean we can't play Hippogriff at all, right?"

James returned my smirk as understanding hit him. "Right."

"Sooo," I said, elongating the vowel playfully, "when is the pitch free?"

A/N: McGonagall is definitely secretly shipping James and Lily because she just KNOWS that between the Gryffindor Champion Captain and the Winged Wronski Warrior, they're bound to produce probably the best Quidditch players of all time. And she'll be damned if they don't play for House Gryffindor!

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying this so far. :) If you have a mo', I'd love to know what you think!