Hi guys. This is my first fic and I don't even know if I'm uploading this correctly lmao. Pls be nice and I hope you enjoy. Also if you recognise it, it belongs to JKR.

Scorpius Malfoy did not like the Potter-Weasley kids. The Potter-Weasley kids did not like Malfoy. Rose and Albus, who were in his year level, had made that especially clear. Malfoy had made his dislike of them equally clear too.

Despite this, Lily Luna Potter had never been able to see anything particularly wrong with him. She saw her brother and cousin pick flights with him more often than she saw him starting things with them. Whenever she passed him alone in the corridor between classes he had never even so much as thrown a dirty look her way.

She supposed that Malfoy fought his battle against them by taking the top spot academically, which drove Rose insane, and always beating Albus at Quidditch. They were both seekers, and both captains - Albus of Gryffindor, Malfoy of Slytherin. Malfoy had never not caught the snitch. Neither had Albus, except against Malfoy.

Now they were nearing the end of Lily's fourth year and the final Quidditch match was approaching. The game was between Gryffindor and Slytherin and whoever won would take the cup.

Albus had been driving the Gryffindor team almost to breaking point, training 6 out of 7 days a week. It would have been every day, but the rest of the team had flat out refused. Lily was in the reserve team, preferring to play seeker but able to be a semi-decent keeper too. Albus had mainly been drilling her as a reserve keeper. Lily knew that her brother would have to be unconscious or otherwise incapacitated to miss such a game, so the chance of her playing seeker had been next to none.

Or so she had thought, at least. The very night before the match a group of Slytherins had ambushed Albus and Rose as they were leaving the great hall after dinner. Rose, who played chaser, had gotten away relatively unscathed. Albus, however, had been hit with a hex that caused thick fur to grow rapidly all over his body. It was so thick and fast growing that he was unable to properly move his fingers, so he would have no way of physically being able to grab the snitch.

So here Lily found herself, dressed in her red and gold quidditch robes in the changing room with her team feeling like she was going to be sick. She had played a few proper games before - as a keeper. This would be her first real game as a seeker, and she hadn't even been practicing seeking the last month. That was why Malfoy occupied her thoughts. In just a few minutes she would be facing him on the pitch.

Rose, the vice captain, was trying to hype them up before they started.

"Ok team," she said, trying to sound fierce, but her tone suggested to Lily that she'd already accepted, at least in some capacity, that they were going to lose. "We've got this. We've been training so hard for so long and it all comes down to this. Although our captain isn't here," she threw an insultingly worried look at Lily, "we're still the Gryffindor dream team. So let's go out and show those stupid snakes what a real championship team looks like!"

The team cheered and followed her out of the dressing room. Lily felt even worse. Seeing Rose's clear lack of confidence in her was both disheartening and frustrating.

Lily had always been the baby of the family. The youngest Potter-Weasley. She was always treated as if she was still a little girl who couldn't cope by herself. She was only 2 years younger than Rose. Not even. Lily had turned 15 in January. Rose still hadn't turned 17 yet, and it was nearly June. Still, Rose clearly didn't think she could do this.

Well, thought Lily, nerves and frustration at breaking point, I'll show her!

She stood with the rest of the team as Rose and Malfoy shook hands, the gold and silver linings of their robes glinting in the sun. Rose glared up at Malfoy and was clearly trying to crush his hand. Malfoy just sneered at her, looking as relaxed as could be. Despite a burning desire to beat him and show her cousin she was wrong for doubting her, Lily felt a flash of admiration for how calm he looked.

Although, she thought, having never lost a match might make him feel like this was nothing special anymore.

Then Madam Hooch, the old quidditch teacher and referee, blew her whistle and she was rising higher and higher, away from the ground.

As she always did, Lily felt like she was leaving all of her problems on the ground. All her nerves, self-doubt and annoyance at others doubting her without giving her a chance, left her. Her head felt clearer. She still had the burning desire to win though. That, she supposed, was not a bad thing that needed to be left behind.

Lily began circling the pitch, aware that Malfoy was doing the same. He was higher in the air than her. Further away from the snitch but better vision. He would also be able to see her if she rocketed towards it too. She, on the other hand, wouldn't take as long to reach the snitch, but couldn't see everything at once.

Damien Jordan, a seventh year friend of her oldest brother James and cousin Fred, was commentating.

"And it's Burns with the quaffle, passes it to Smith, Smith hit by a bludger, good one Potter!" Lily smirked as her oldest brother and former captain smacked Smith in the back of the head with a bludger. Smith had been one of the ones to curse Albus, and James clearly knew that. Smith dropped the quaffle and began flying in a wobbly line. Serves him right.

James had been the captain up until this year, when he passed on the captaincy to Albus. He loved quidditch, but wanted to become a curse breaker for Gringotts in the ancient Roman tombs. This required very high marks, and so James had made the difficult decision to pass his captaincy on to Albus during his final year. Lily also suspected that he secretly wanted to give Albus more than one year of being a captain, seeing as he himself had been captain for two years already.

A bludger shot past her, and Lily cursed herself for getting distracted. In a hasty attempt at covering up her not paying attention and to throw Malfoy off, just in case he had seen something, she shot towards the end of the pitch.

The crowd roared. Damien was excitedly shouting that she must have seen something, and Malfoy, just like she hoped, rocketed after her. She knew he was faster than her. He had a better broom. She hadn't upgraded hers since before she came to Hogwarts, and his was the latest Firebolt, the Firebolt 50. She waited until he was neck and neck with her. She noticed, with no small degree of satisfaction, that he was looking around wildly, trying to see where the snitch was.

Without warning, she slowed and did a u-turn and began drifting above the pitch looking for the snitch as if nothing had happened. She heard the roar of the crowd die down into a confused quiet. Then Rose scored a goal and everyone focused on the quaffle again.

"Nice feint Baby Potter."

Startled, Lily looked around. It was Malfoy. The fact that she had actually managed to trick him made her just a bit smug. Albus had never managed that. She smirked at him.

"There's more where that came from, Malfoy."

He smirked back at her, then rose up a few metres above her, just as before. The exchange had given Lily an idea. As the match continued, she continued to randomly shoot this way and that, as if she had seen the snitch. Malfoy began hesitating before following her, which was exactly what she wanted. If she managed to convince Malfoy that it wasn't worth following after her when she sped up, she hoped that if she did see the snitch first, Malfoy's hesitation would give her the head start she needed to beat him.

The match was turning out to be a dirty game. The scores were 60-110 Slytherin's way. After James had incapacitated Smith, the Slytherin beaters had sent both bludgers at James at the same time. Unable to avoid both, James had been knocked out. Although they still had Liam Wood, they had to sub in Elijah Creevey, who showed promise but was only a second year. The Slytherin beaters now greatly outmatched the Gryffindors. They rained bludgers on Rose, Amelia Thompson and Lucas Williams.

The only reason they weren't being completely thrashed was because their keeper, Scarlette Jones, was so skilled. Slytherin had had at least twenty shots at the goals more than Gryffindor, yet they only led by 50 points.

Lily knew she needed to find the snitch soon. If they continued like this then either Malfoy would find it first or they would be so behind that even if she did catch it they would lose. She focused her entire being on finding and catching the snitch. Every flash of a gold watch, every gold ring, Lily noticed it all as she looked for the snitch.

Lily was just turning around after her fifth feint around the pitch when she saw it. A flash of gold about halfway down the pitch, close to the ground. Without stopping to think, Lily sped up again. Malfoy overtook her almost instantly.

Damn it.

Either he had seen it too, or he had noticed her change of routine. She didn't have time to figure it out.

Lily began to fall further and further behind. Malfoy was an entire broomstick in front of her now. She noticed that the snitch was moving towards the middle of the pitch. The angle it was turning at had started out wide but was now almost at a right angle from when they had started chasing it. She was so far behind now that she would never catch Malfoy.

An idea flashed through her mind, and without even properly thinking about it, Lily changed her course. She had a split second to anticipate where the snitch was going and instead of following and trying to outstrip Malfoy and the snitch, she flew where she thought it was headed instead.

WHAM!

Lily suddenly found herself tumbling painfully over the grass of the quidditch pitch. She threw her hands up to try and protect her head. She came to a stop lying on her back, completely winded. She lay there, staring up at the beautiful blue sky while desperately trying to breathe in, or out, or anything. As her lungs recovered she became aware of the screaming of the crowd and realised she must have intercepted Malfoy. They were both going too fast to stop.

Lily sat up. This new field of vision showed her Malfoy, who had clearly landed close to her, and both of their brooms lying a short distance away. Malfoy was already sitting up. He looked around at her, and she thought she saw a faint expression of concern in his face.

His eyes met Lily's, and she felt like an ice bucket had been suddenly poured over her head. She felt a sense of clarity come over her. Her ears sharpened to hear Damien abusing Malfoy and the Slytherin team over the microphone. She could hear her teammates screaming her name as they flew over to her. She realised that her right hand was clenched around something trying desperately to escape.

Wait. That wasn't normal.

She looked down at her hand. Slowly, breathlessly, she opened her fist.

To her utter astonishment, the golden snitch was there.