Chapter 144

Inspection

Sirius was still peeved the next morning, James had attempted to explain himself but it did little to calm the younger Marauder down. He honestly didn't care about having a thirteen-year-old girl on the team, especially one that was tough enough to beat up boys three or four years older than her, the problem was that said little girl was his replacement. James tried to insist that her older brother was actually Sirius' replacement and the girl was Andrea's but that had just been an attempt to save his own skin when Sirius finally caught up with him.

Sirius was determined to come to practice that night to make sure she didn't suck. He didn't care if he got caught, he didn't care if he earned more detentions. He'd just blame James anyway, it was his fault after all. The idea that he could even be replaced by anyone who thought pigtails were an acceptable hair style made him want to throw something else at the stag.

Sirius didn't give James the option to refuse his company when he went down to the quidditch pitch. He wouldn't so much as listen to a word the stag said until he could see for himself that she could rival him so they climbed down in silence. James looking at him every so often like he was going to explode at any minute and he could very well do just that.

"How does a little girl hit a bludger hit hard enough to get on the team anyway." Sirius scowled as he stormed towards the quidditch pitch, the wet grass from this morning's drizzle making sloshing noises under his boots at his heavy footsteps.

"She says she plays baseball," James answered carefully to keep his tone light.

"What's baseball?"

"Muggle sport, we talked about it in class." James jogged a little, as though he was less afraid that Sirius would hit him now. Padfoot considered taking a swing at him just for that alone but refrained, he'd already healed a black eye and cured at least three different jinxes. Any more and James might actually start to take offense.

"The one with the girls in bikinis?" Sirius asked, stopping for a second and trying to not get his hopes up.

"That's beach volleyball, Padfoot, and you only learned about that from a sports magazine, not from class. Baseball is the one with the diamond shaped pitch and hot dogs."

"Oh, right. The guy named after the candy bar."

"You remember the weirdest things from class, you know that?" James studied him for a moment. "You're honestly disappointed aren't you."

"You got me expecting a beach babe for a minute!" Sirius argued as though that was a perfectly reasonable argument.

"She's thirteen!"

"And I'm fifteen, that's only two years mate, not that big of a difference." Sirius rolled his eyes, though a little worried that James was getting the wrong idea. "Besides, it's not like I was talking about actually y'know. There's nothing wrong with just looking."

"It's called sex, Padfoot. You're not five, you can say the word." James laughed at him when Sirius flat out winced at the term. "Really? You are fine with bikinis and half-dressed girls on motorcycles but if anyone even mentions sex…"

"Shut up! I'm still mad you, you're not supposed to be talking." Sirius pushed ahead of him hoping his face wasn't as red as the thought it was and trying to pretend he couldn't hear James laughing at him.

"You're incredibly weird, y'know."

"I'm not talking to you," Sirius called back throwing the door to the changing room open and slamming it shut in his face before pulling out the practice equipment.

Two players were already out on the field when they left the room, James carrying the box as Sirius hadn't offered to help. Kathy and some black kid Sirius had never seen before were sitting in the middle of the field chatting and pulling up the grass.

"Hey, Sirius, I wondered how long you'd be able to stay away." Kathy greeted him with a grin.

"Sirius this is Anthony Dale, seeker." James introduced him to the other kid who stood to shake his hand.

"Yo." Sirius waved but turned to Kathy. "Yeah well I had planned on being a good boy and staying away until I heard I got replaced by a little girl."

"Aww, does someone need a hug?"

Sirius turned at the sound of the falsely cute voice mocking him and saw the thirteen-year-old in question smiling at him.

Or rather, smirking at him.

He saw right through her. Her deceptively cute blond pigtails, makeup that made her bright blue eyes look bigger and more innocent, the knife bulge in her boot.

There was nothing innocent about this little girl.

"Nice touch with the eyeshadow." He commented noticing how tense James had become at her arrival. Sirius didn't even blame him. This girl looked ready to kill at any moment, though he couldn't imagine James had noticed any of this.

"Thanks," she said cheerfully, "I like it too."

"Fool anybody yet?"

"Everyone but you." She winked her broom over her shoulder.

"Um, what's going on?" James asked but she just smiled at him and Sirius knew better than to say anything so he just turned away from her and greeted the other beater in the language the older boy could actually reply in. He was surprised but looked pleased nonetheless responding likewise.

"Oh good, there's Keth, Lissa, and Rose." James looked at the three approaching. "That means Rose can practice with you guys while I do captain stuff."

"I should get out of the way," Sirius said nodding at James to indicate he was alright. It was surprisingly true. He missed quidditch, but he wasn't that put off that he could no longer play. It gave him time for other things and honestly, he knew he'd deserved much worse than just losing quidditch privileges. It had been fun, but he didn't have James' level of devotion to the sport. So he was pretty content to sit in the stands and watch.

Or he would have been if the team itself was halfway competent.

By "captain stuff" James apparently meant "teach the seeker how to fly," as that was all he did for the first half of practice. But Anthony Dale wasn't the only problem, the female beater- Faye, James had called her- while impressive at both reaction time and aim, focused way too much on her fellow beater. The poor guy could hardly get near the bludger until James yelled at her for it. And for Liam's part he was strong but a little slow, having a lot of trouble keeping up with the bludgers and the chasers. Sirius could also tell he'd have trouble actually hitting the other team with the bludger from the way he was so careful to hit it as far away from anyone as possible, while Faye seemed to enjoy getting the violent balls as close to her teammates as she could. He supposed there could be a bit of a balance there, but it would make an already rag-tag team even more complicated.

The chasers were trustworthy at least. Kathy had always been reliable, predictable even at times. It was a bit of a disadvantage, but it made her easy to play with. And in a team like this, it was a God-send. She outright took over training the other chasers while James focused on the seekers and two beaters. The new chaser, Lissa, was quick. The girl could fly without a doubt, but he was afraid to even count how many times she dropped the ball. Clumsiness born from nerves, he could tell by the way she kept looking around to see if they were watching her, and not in the way James tended to do either. Medows, the backup, was decent. A bit of a ball hog, which would cause a significant problem if she and James worked together, and her aim was off but she never dropped it at least.

As for Keth, he'd clearly been practicing. He blocked all of the ones Medows threw, all the ones that weren't obvious misses anyway, and everything Lissa threw as well when she actually made it to the scoring zone. Kathy's shots were a bit more telling as she was actually competent and he saved most of them. Her predictability likely had a part to play in that, but it was still better than he'd done last year. James was right, the kid really had the potential to be a brilliant keeper.

He knew James well enough to be able to look past their many flaws, though. Prongs were brilliant when it came to quidditch if he picked them Sirius trusted them to pull through. What Sirius was really worried about was how much time it was going to take James to make this team usable, though. He felt like his entire life revolved around the schedule Remus had built for them, nowadays, and he just couldn't see such a time-consuming team fit into that schedule. There were only five weeks until their first quidditch game, and this team would take every second of that just to reach the minimum of competitive skill. James wasn't one to plan with a future goal in mind either, he lived in the now, which means he believed they could win that first game. Was he that confident in his own skill as a chaser to think to have a decent seeker was optional? Kathy had already proven she could move without much help from beaters, or other chasers really, so there was that. Did he expect to have another victory that relied on only a small portion of the team?

Regardless, James was grinning from ear to ear when he broke up the practice. He'd given his team homework, something that never happened, but was clearly necessary in this case.

"Wha'd you think?" James asked as he climbed up the stands to where Sirius sat. The team was talking amongst themselves as they made their way up to the castle. That's one thing he'd give them, thus far they got along surprisingly well. It was hard to find a team that actually liked each other this early in the season. Usually, they were arguing about different playstyles or fighting over who was the weakest link, especially when there was a new captain. Older members had trouble trusting a new captain's judgment and newer members wanted to play how they had always played at home. That would help them a lot in the long run if they could keep it up.

"How much time are you planning on spending practicing? You know it's going to take a lot, right?" Sirius looked up at him watching him take the seat next to him. He was still grinning, but he hummed in thought.

"I know they're a bit… unconditional, but I think they'll be really good in time. We're really close to being finished with Moony's furry little problem, so that'll help a lot." James looked at Sirius, and Sirius could see how much this meant to James. To build a winning quidditch team from scratch. This way he could say he'd actually worked for it, that he had led them to victory, rather than just picking all the best players and having a champion team to start with.

"And until then?" Sirius wasn't going begrudge that dream. He didn't expect him to give up everything he wanted to help Remus, it was difficult for him to remember that his friends had things they wanted that had nothing to do with the animagi transformation, mostly because he couldn't really think of anything else he wanted. Not anything obtainable anyway. The only hopes and dreams Sirius could think of for himself were impossible and hurt too much to think about anyway. He didn't fancy getting married with kids someday, and the idea of fame and success in the ministry was dull and uninspired. His desire to aid in the coming war was less a dream and more an inevitability at this point, and even his graduation from Hogwarts meant little when he could learn more on his own anyway.

The only thing he could honestly say he wanted, and he wanted it more than anything, was to keep his friends alive. Everything else was just a passing interest. He couldn't even remember who'd won the house cup the last four years. It just didn't matter when one of his friends could literally die at least once a month, or when there were obituaries in every single daily prophet Remus received, Andrea's death had been hard enough to deal with and he'd hardly even known her. He couldn't lose them, refused to lose them. They would survive if he had to kill every last person on the planet to ensure it. It was his responsibility to protect them.

And right now that meant becoming an animagus and ensuring that his mother had no excuse to force him to transfer (after all he couldn't protect his friends if he never saw them.) So nothing else mattered, things like quidditch games and classes and other people, they just got in the way, wasted the precious time he could be using to prepare for a time his friend's lives could be in danger.

"Eh, I need an excuse to get out of that stuffy room anyway." James shrugged and Sirius looked away. He couldn't understand how he could be this relaxed with everything going on. James always seemed so sure that everything was going to turn out okay. "You okay?"

Sirius looked back at him quickly, not sure how much of his thoughts were readable on his face. "Yeah sure, just thinking."

"About?"

"I dunno, Prongs. It just seems so pointless." Sirius replied and James gave a loud groan in response. He glared at the stag in offense. "I'm serious, James."

"I know you're serious, that's the problem. You have got to stop being so negative, mate. Constant pessimism gets old pretty quickly, y'know." He leaned against the bleacher behind him, running a hand through his hair in his frustration.

"People are dying, Prongs!"

"Yeah and?" he sat up quickly his face now stern, "What exactly is brooding over it constantly going to do about it? Hm?"

"So what do you want me do, pretend to be happy all the time? Put on a fake smile and act like nothing's wrong? I tried that, Prongs, it only made things worse."

"No, I want you to actually be happy. You still remember what that's like, right? It's not so bad once you give it a shot. But you can't do that, because by the time I manage to bully you into trying it the school year's over and you're stuck going back to that… that… prison and they make you even more miserable than when I started and no matter how hard I try you won't do the smart thing and just come home with me so it's an endless cycle of misery that just keeps getting worse and worse!" James growled no longer looking at Sirius but glaring at the goal hoops in front of them.

Sirius didn't answer at first, just drinking in his words. He couldn't help but wonder if maybe that was James' end goal after all. Maybe he'd already just left protecting them to Sirius and was focusing on making them enjoy life instead. He'd never considered this before, but it was very… James.

"I'm sorry." It was all he could say in response. He couldn't say he'd run away because that was a lie, the couldn't promise to be happier because James would see right through any attempt at pretense.

"I know. It's not your fault. I get it, you leave and Regulus doesn't have a chance. But, Padfoot, I'm not all that convinced you can save him anyway." James turned back to look at him, Sirius wasn't sure what he could read on his brother's face, but it wasn't pleased.

"Reg is a good kid. He just needs some help, that's all. A push in the right direction or a good influence."

"I wanna believe you, Pads, really I do. But even if that's true, is watching you and how they treat you really going to be that influence? Because, honestly Padfoot, if it were me, it would only push me away."

Sirius couldn't look at him anymore, in his head, he knew it was true, and James was a lot braver than Regulus. "I have to try."

"Yeah, I know. It's your job as big brother to protect him. But I'm a big brother now too, don't forget." James gave him a smile and nudge on the shoulder, and Sirius smiled back.

"Thanks, James."

"anytime, Si." James stretched, appearing to be glad that was over. "Now will you tell me what you think of my team or not?"

"I think even Hufflepuff could tear them apart, to be honest." Sirius teased receiving a much more painful nudge to the shoulder this time. "Then again, their captains pretty good this year so they might have a chance."

"He is, isn't he." James laughed standing and maneuvering around the benches to go back down to the pitch, Sirius following. "So are you disappointed?"

"About the team?"

"About your replacement." James clarified not looking back at him so he could focus on not falling on his face as they climbed down.

"Oh, her." Sirius thought for a second. "She's less a little girl and more a monster in disguise if you ask me."

James laughed, "you think so too?"

"Honestly? I'm more disappointed that she's not a beach babe." Sirius laughed and ducked as James magicked a quaffle at his head.

"So are you going to tell me what you two were hinting at earlier?" James asked before magicking the ball back into its spot in the box.

"Nope," Sirius said with a Cheshire cat grin and one hundred percent ignoring all of James' protests on the matter.

A/N) Sorry it's a little late, NaNoWriMo's got my brain all focused and this just slipped a little. ^_^ lol But It's technicly still the weekend so... DON'T JUDGE ME!