Chapter 159

Defacing Sacred Ground

For the first time since the incident with Snape finding out he's a werewolf Remus actually wondered if Sirius' punishment was a little too severe.

It was one thing to kick him off the quidditch team, but it was something else entirely to not let him watch the games at all. The view from McGonagall's office was great, but Remus had the feeling it was lonely, watching from a distance like that from the way he gloomily parted with them as they walked out into the grounds with the quidditch field as their destination. Remus pulled his jacket tighter around him against the early spring wind and wished he had whatever it was that allowed Peter to come out in just a thin long sleeved shirt.

"Do you think Jams can pull out another win like last time?" Remus asked as they climbed the shockingly quiet stands. They weren't early enough for the field to be empty.

"He'll be ticked if that's all he manages to pull off. Ravenclaw's almost four hundred points up after the way they trashed Slytherin last month," Peter shrugged when Remus raised an eyebrow at him, "what? James has been complaining about it ever since."

"I mostly just drown him out nowadays," Remus smiled at Peter as Peter giggled. "They've been training so much it would be a huge disappointment if they lost."

"They won't lose," Peter said shaking his head and sounding confident as they emerged from the staircase and into the stands. "James won't let them."

Remus opened his mouth to respond when he saw it, the response turned into an open-mouthed gape as he stared at the quidditch field.

There, engraved into the ground of the quidditch field was a signature. Each letter was at least twenty foot long and highly illegible, like a child trying to make his signature look fancy.

Peter followed his shocked gaze and looked down at the pitch as well.

They stared in silence for a while, brains frozen in the processes of who would be stupid enough to deface the quidditch pitch, illegible or not the name was in plain sight.

"James is gonna be pissed," Peter said slowly but didn't move.

Remus looked out to where the Gryffindor quidditch team would emerge, his enhanced sight showed him what he feared. James and the team were exiting their locker room and coming out onto the field.

Time slowed down for Remus as his brain tried to decide what to do next. Should he stay? Could he do any good at all if he tried to stop James from seeing it? He was so far away. James wouldn't hear him from here no matter how loud he screamed. Remus wished Sirius were there, Sirius could have screamed loud enough for the team to hear him, though whether Sirius would have been willing was another story. He looked around to see if anyone else was going to warn the team that their leader might be about five seconds from murdering someone. No one moved to climb down their stairs or yell at the top of their lungs. Even Peter appeared to just be interested in watching the spectacle.

Remus swore loud enough to make the girls behind him glare at him and ran back for the stairs. James was going to flip if he saw that name, Remus was faster than normal people, but he doubted he'd get there in time to stop him from getting himself kicked off the team, but he might be able to stop him from getting himself thrown in Azkaban for murdering a Ravenclaw first year. He'd figured out who the signature belonged too. Not by reading it, of course, it was beyond hope of legibility, but just knowing there were only two people in the school who would deface a quidditch pitch and if James had done it it would have been a marriage proposal to Evans. Though it would have been easier to recognize the owner than that signature had been.

Remus throws himself down the stairs, jumping over banisters and thanking God that there was still several weeks before the next full moon, or he would not have made several of those landings. People stared at him as they climbed up wondering where the fire was. He pushed through the late arrivals and jumped over the fence onto the field, running towards James.

James was standing there, frozen staring at the ground. Remus had expected to be too late, but James was just standing there. Maybe the shock of the thing had bought him some time? He ran closer and saw that Kathy had grabbed ahold of James, Keth was talking to him as well, soothing him with meaningless words.

Remus ran up beside him his breath heavy and labored, he would see that James' were just as deliberate.

"My field..." James muttered Remus could see the force James was using to refrain himself. "That ruddy first year violated my quidditch field."

James had figured out who had done it as well.

"I'm going to take him back to the locker room before he hyperventilates or murders someone." Remus told the team, "can you convince them to delay the game for a bit?"

"Sure, whatever it takes to keep him from getting his badge taken away." Kathy nodded and walked over to where Madam Hooch was arguing with Professor Flitwick over whose signature it was.

"It's alright, James, they'll clean it up. It'll be just like new in a few minutes."

"I want to beat the tar out of him, Moony," James said when they'd gotten far enough away from the team that they couldn't be overheard.

"You'll lose your badge if you do, Prongs. You know that."

"Not if she doesn't know it's me," James growled sounding suspiciously like Sirius. The shock of the thing was wearing off and anger was replacing it.

"She'll know it was you, James. McGonagall's not stupid. He get's hurt any time in the next week and you'll be the first person she's going to suspect."

James picked up the nearest random object and threw it at a locker door, heaving a cry of frustration. It crashed, and there was a satisfying dent in the locker as a result. James then sighed and sat on one of the benches, waving his wand at the locker. The locker repaired itself.

"Anything inside might have broken too,"

"It's unused."

Remus gave a relieved nod and sat beside him. "I'm proud of you for keeping your cool back there."

"I still want to beat the tar out of him."

"Yeah, but you haven't yet." Remus smiled at him, though he didn't look up to see it. "That's good enough."

Kathy and the team climbed into the locker room. "The games' been delayed until they clean up the pitch, and they figured out who did it. Flitwick's taking him to his office to receive detention."

James snorted at the punishment, detention was nothing to him.

"What an idiot," Faye stretched casually, "what loser vandalizes something with their own signature. You may as well scream 'oh I'm a criminal! Come get me!"

"It was an attention-seeking gesture," Remus explained. "He wanted people to know who did it."

"Loser," she shrugged.

"Well at least we have a few more minutes before the game," the dark-skinned kid Remus thought was named Anthony, but he wasn't sure, sat on the bench as well. He looked nervous.

"You'll be fine," Kathy reassured after it became clear that James wasn't in a mood to do so. "You've been practicing really hard."

Anthony looked away, but Remus had caught a glimpse of a smile and a blush.

"James, you okay?" Remus asked.

"If by okay you mean I'm not going to go murdering first years, then yeah, I'm alright," he nodded, thanking Remus with a small smile.

"Okay then. If you guys can handle him from here I'll go back up to the stands." Remus looked at the others, there were varying degrees of confidence but Remus stood anyway. "Don't let him punish the Ravenclaws too much, okay?"

Kathy laughed, "I can only promise to try to talk him out of cheating after that..." she shrugged.

Remus left the locker room with a smile.

He hadn't been lying to James, Remus was really proud that he'd had managed to keep himself under control. Maybe there was hope for their stag yet.