Disclaimer: Sadly, Harry Potter was created by JK Rowling, not myself
Chapter 7: Quidditch Tryouts
The next morning, James dragged himself out of bed. He virtually stumbled down the stairs to the common room to be confronted by Lily. James's brain was little fuzzy due to his lack of sleep, so his first thought was that of relief. Finally, he thought, she's going to start talking to me again! But it soon hit him that she looked a little upset about something. He braced himself for another fight, but was surprised when Lily simply asked,
"So, did you have fun with Remus last night?"
"What?" James, still half asleep was still trying to grasp the meaning of her question.
"Don't try to charm your way out of this one, James Potter!" Lily's calm voice began to rise again. "I know you guys snuck out last night! Alice saw – or rather heard- you leave." James's head was slowly starting to clear, and he began to understand what Lily was talking about. He looked at her for a few seconds, and he noticed her relax slightly and become less tense, like she had made her mind up about something. She began in a quieter voice.
"I'm sorry. I promised myself I would give you a chance to explain this time, seeing as how last time I might have jumped to conclusions. It's just - I was in the hospital wing this morning, I had a headache," Lily began, sounding a little worried, "and I saw Remus in there. He looked pretty bad, like he was really sick, and he had a huge bruise on his head. What happened to him?" James looked at her, she looked really sincere, he longed to tell her about Remus, and their nighttime adventures. But it was not his secret to tell. He couldn't. He wouldn't betray Remus's trust like that, even though he knew Lily wouldn't think any less of Remus if she knew he was a warewolf. Instead he looked down and said quietly,
"I'm sorry, I would tell you if I could, I honestly would. But I can't." James said, lifting his head up to meet her eyes, like he was waiting for something, he looked at her expectantly "Go ahead and yell at me then." His comment struck Lily like a slap to the face. She knew he'd only meant it as a joke, but still... Does he really think that's all I do, she wondered. She looked up at him, he wasn't making any excuses, and he seemed sincere. Lily didn't know what to think. Her anger had all but subsided; all that was left was an intense feeling of confusion. She stared at James, he looked up and caught her gaze, Lily blushed slightly and turned away. Maybe he is entitled to his secrets, she thought. She suddenly realised she didn't want to go another whole week without speaking to him. She looked back at him to catch him still staring at her, her breath caught in her throat at the intenseness of his gaze. James took a step closer to her, strange thoughts began to jump into Lily's head, and her heart began to race. They were still staring at each other. James moved even closer, he looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her, and Lily ached for him to do just that.
"Look, Lily, I-" James began.
"Yes?" Lily urged, her heart pounding more furiously.
"...I better go check on Remus" James said quickly after a long pause. Lily's heart sank as James quickly backed away from her and headed out the portrait hole, leaving a very confused Lily behind. She quickly shook herself out of the daze. But as much as she tried to ignore the fact, deep down inside she knew that she had been thinking James was going to ask her out, just like he always used to.
"And I would've said yes..." she mumbled to herself as she tried to shake off the feeling of disappointment that had come over her. "What is the world coming to?"
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James shook his head as he walked out of the common room. What had he been thinking? He'd almost asked her out! He'd forgotten about Erin, forgotten Lily hated him, forgotten he was supposed to be over her, how could he have been so stupid! Did he really want her to get mad at him again just after she stated talking to him again? James shook his head at how stupid he could be sometimes. He continued down the hall and snuck into the hospital wing while Madam Pompfry was busy tending to a boy who looked like his arms had been transfigured into wings. He walked over the bed containing Remus. James winced as he realized Lily hadn't been exaggerating. Remus did look awful.
"Hey there, Prongs" said a very groggy Remus. James smiled.
"So how's that lump doing?" He asked, trying to sound pleasant.
"Oh, I'm sure it's only twice as bad as it looks!" Remus joked. James looked down, feeling a little guilty.
"Yeah, sorry about that, mate..."
"Ah, Prongs, are you kidding? It was my own fault. Perhaps tonight we should steer clear of the forest, though, ok?" James willingly agreed, laughing, and would have stayed to talk to Remus longer if Madam Pompfry hadn't discovered him and shooed him out of the wing.
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Lily was sitting curled up in the comfiest chair in the common room, reading through the assigned section of her transfiguration book when Alice sat down in the chair across from her.
"Here you go Lily. It's all done. Are you sure you don't mind taking a look at it for me?" Alice asked as she handed Lily a long roll of parchment. Lily took it from her.
"Not at all," Lily replied as she smiled at Alice. She began to unroll the parchment to reveal Alice's Muggle Studies essay entitled 'Muggle Tales of Magical Creatures: Fact or Fiction". She was about to begin reading when she noticed that Alice was still sitting staring at her and fidgeting with her hands in her lap. Lily put the essay aside.
"Is there something wrong, Alice?" Lily asked concerned. Alice looked down,
"Well, it's just that Frank has been acting really weird all week. He's mad at me and I can't figure out why. He keeps avoiding me whenever I try to speak to him. Do you have any idea what's wrong?" Lily suspected she knew exactly what was going on, and that it had something to do with someone's secret boyfriend, but she decided that it wasn't her place to say anything, so she suggested Alice just try to talk to him.
"I already tried that tactic, but it's not really getting me anywhere." Alice replied glumly. Lily just caught the words "And I was hoping things would be good between us again before tomorrow" as Alice mumbled them under her breath. Lily smiled as Alice walked away dejectedly. Those two better hurry up and realize what is so obvious to everyone else, Lily thought to herself as she turned her attention back to Alice's report.
Lily made her way through the sections on vampires, dragons, ghosts, and hags, she was just finishing the section on warewolves when she took a break to stretch and noticed the full moon shining brightly through the common room window. It must be getting late, she thought.
Alice's essay was actually pretty informative and the part about warewolves was pretty interesting, Lily never met a warewolf before, but she found it interesting that the wizarding world also seemed to shun them, as they were thought to be dangerous. But according to Alice, warewolves were just like any other person except for the three nights surrounding the full moon. Alice wrote that currently there were some wizards who were lobbying to change the current laws, 'but even so,' she wrote 'critics say that even if the laws are changed it will take many years for warewolves to become accepted members of the wizarding world.' The transformation process sounded horribly painful to Lily as well, not to mention that for the few days leading up to the full moon and the few days after, the warewolf would feel tired and ill. It must be a horrible way to live your life, Lily thought. She stared out the window. Then suddenly it hit her. She quickly scanned back through the signs and symptoms that identify a warewolf. She glanced outside at the bright, full moon. Hardly believing, she rushed up the stairs to her dorm and began rifling around. She pulled out the notebook she used to record notes from the past two years weekly prefects meetings. She frantically flipped through the notebook, trying to find some evidence against the horrible suspicion that was rising inside her. Her heart sank as she realized that every time Remus had been absent from a meeting was during a full moon. She knew because she always used CopyWell ink at those meetings so that she had an extra copy to give to Remus. Merlin! Lily thought, Remus is a warewolf! James must know. That must have been where they were last night. Suddenly it all made sense to Lily, and for some reason she felt giddy with relief – a warewolf! That's it? She'd thought it must have been something more serious. But then she remembered Alice's essay. It is serious, she thought. No wonder Remus doesn't want anyone to know- poor guy! Lily promised she wouldn't say anything to anybody until she talked to Remus about it first, to let him know that it didn't matter to her that he was a warewolf.
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"Next!" James called, getting a little exasperated. He'd already seen eight potential chasers who couldn't handle a quaffle to save their life. Sirius came over, flying in circles.
"You know, Prongsey, old boy, we could always just have you do it all by yourself. Put two players up there, tell 'em to stay out of the way, let you work your magic!" James rolled his eyes.
"I'm good, but I'm not THAT good!" James growled as turned his attention back to the next potential chaser. It was a young second year with bright red hair. He looked a little gangly, but, well, you never know.
"Alright, Bill, is it? Let's see what you can do!" James watched as Sirius and Frank ran Bill through a series of drills. James was impressed, he definitely saw potential in the tall redhead, he was pulling moves that James hadn't mastered until his third year. He began to smile, maybe these try-outs aren't a complete waste of time after all. He put a big check next to Bills name on the list
The next name on the list came as a complete surprise. Alice Whitter. Alice? James thought, he had no idea she could play Quidditch. Alice came out on the pitch. James immediately noticed a change in Frank. He flew right down to her and asked loudly,
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm trying out for the team" Alice replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which, James had to admit, was pretty much the case.
"Is that so?" Frank muttered as he mounted his broom. He looked over at the stands where some students sat watching the tryouts. James noticed him staring at one boy in particular, James recognized him as Andrew White, a seventh year Hufflepuff.
Frank and Sirius began to run Alice through the drills. James noticed that Frank kept going out of his way to make the tryout as difficult as possible. He kept throwing her virtually uncatchable passes (of which she caught quite a few, James noted with a smile). It finally went too far when Alice was made to dive for a pass Frank had thrown and nearly crashed into the ground. He was just about the blow the whistle to call Frank over to him when Alice manoeuvred her broom to land on the ground. Frank dived down and landed next to her. Alice looked livid.
"I don't know what's been bothering you lately Frank, and frankly right now, I DON"T CARE, but I DO care that you're messing up my chances of getting on the team!" Alice was so furious she was shaking.
"Why?" Frank yelled back, "You want to impress that boyfriend of yours?" Frank said waving his hands wildly in the direction of the stands.
"Boyfriend? What boyfriend?" Alice sounded completely taken aback.
"The one you've been meeting in secret! And don't try to deny it! Emma and I saw the two of you!" Frank was shouting now.
"You mean Andrew?" Alice asked, confused.
"If Andrew is that short, little stump of a guy sitting up the stands cheering you on, then yeah, I mean Andrew." Frank shot back.
"For your information, Andrew is my COUSIN!" Alice replied.
"Your cousin?" Frank asked after the few seconds it took for this new information in sink in.
"Yes, my cousin." Alice replied evenly.
"Than why have you been meeting in secret?" Frank asked in a slightly more subdued tone.
"Because he's been helping me practice Quidditch – I wanted to try out for the team, and he's been coaching me." Alice explained, anger still very evident in her voice.
"Well if it was so innocent," said Frank, still not sounding convinced, "then why didn't you just tell us what was going on? I could have helped you practice."
"Because," Alice replied coldly, "I wanted it to be a surprise!" Frank looked down at his feet a little sheepishly.
"So there's no boyfriend?" he asked in an almost hopeful voice.
"No!" came the emphatic reply from Alice.
"Well, ah... right then, I'm, well... I'm ah... really sorry then..." Frank looked a little embarrassed, as he ran a hand through his hair. "you know, about all this... and ...ah, about the way I've been acting lately...."
"Thank you!" interrupted Alice coldly, "But if you don't mind, I'd like to continue to try out WITHOUT your unfair tactics!"
"No need," said James, who had decided to stay out of the whole exchange. He walked forward and exclaimed. "I think we've found a new chaser! Welcome to the team Alice!" James announced, grinning. Alice's face lit up with a huge grin. She looked at Frank, and her grin dropped slightly, but a second later it was back, and she threw her arms around Frank's neck.
"Oh, darn it all! I'll be mad at you later! Right now I want to celebrate!" Alice exclaimed, too happy to care about anything else. Frank looked more than a little surprised and a faint hint of red stained his cheeks, he backed off quickly as soon as Alice released him, not able to meet her gaze. James smiled. It looked like they would have a good team this year after all, he thought.
End of Chapter 7
Reviewers, you are the greatest people in the world! Thank you for making my day! (
Chapter 7: Quidditch Tryouts
The next morning, James dragged himself out of bed. He virtually stumbled down the stairs to the common room to be confronted by Lily. James's brain was little fuzzy due to his lack of sleep, so his first thought was that of relief. Finally, he thought, she's going to start talking to me again! But it soon hit him that she looked a little upset about something. He braced himself for another fight, but was surprised when Lily simply asked,
"So, did you have fun with Remus last night?"
"What?" James, still half asleep was still trying to grasp the meaning of her question.
"Don't try to charm your way out of this one, James Potter!" Lily's calm voice began to rise again. "I know you guys snuck out last night! Alice saw – or rather heard- you leave." James's head was slowly starting to clear, and he began to understand what Lily was talking about. He looked at her for a few seconds, and he noticed her relax slightly and become less tense, like she had made her mind up about something. She began in a quieter voice.
"I'm sorry. I promised myself I would give you a chance to explain this time, seeing as how last time I might have jumped to conclusions. It's just - I was in the hospital wing this morning, I had a headache," Lily began, sounding a little worried, "and I saw Remus in there. He looked pretty bad, like he was really sick, and he had a huge bruise on his head. What happened to him?" James looked at her, she looked really sincere, he longed to tell her about Remus, and their nighttime adventures. But it was not his secret to tell. He couldn't. He wouldn't betray Remus's trust like that, even though he knew Lily wouldn't think any less of Remus if she knew he was a warewolf. Instead he looked down and said quietly,
"I'm sorry, I would tell you if I could, I honestly would. But I can't." James said, lifting his head up to meet her eyes, like he was waiting for something, he looked at her expectantly "Go ahead and yell at me then." His comment struck Lily like a slap to the face. She knew he'd only meant it as a joke, but still... Does he really think that's all I do, she wondered. She looked up at him, he wasn't making any excuses, and he seemed sincere. Lily didn't know what to think. Her anger had all but subsided; all that was left was an intense feeling of confusion. She stared at James, he looked up and caught her gaze, Lily blushed slightly and turned away. Maybe he is entitled to his secrets, she thought. She suddenly realised she didn't want to go another whole week without speaking to him. She looked back at him to catch him still staring at her, her breath caught in her throat at the intenseness of his gaze. James took a step closer to her, strange thoughts began to jump into Lily's head, and her heart began to race. They were still staring at each other. James moved even closer, he looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her, and Lily ached for him to do just that.
"Look, Lily, I-" James began.
"Yes?" Lily urged, her heart pounding more furiously.
"...I better go check on Remus" James said quickly after a long pause. Lily's heart sank as James quickly backed away from her and headed out the portrait hole, leaving a very confused Lily behind. She quickly shook herself out of the daze. But as much as she tried to ignore the fact, deep down inside she knew that she had been thinking James was going to ask her out, just like he always used to.
"And I would've said yes..." she mumbled to herself as she tried to shake off the feeling of disappointment that had come over her. "What is the world coming to?"
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James shook his head as he walked out of the common room. What had he been thinking? He'd almost asked her out! He'd forgotten about Erin, forgotten Lily hated him, forgotten he was supposed to be over her, how could he have been so stupid! Did he really want her to get mad at him again just after she stated talking to him again? James shook his head at how stupid he could be sometimes. He continued down the hall and snuck into the hospital wing while Madam Pompfry was busy tending to a boy who looked like his arms had been transfigured into wings. He walked over the bed containing Remus. James winced as he realized Lily hadn't been exaggerating. Remus did look awful.
"Hey there, Prongs" said a very groggy Remus. James smiled.
"So how's that lump doing?" He asked, trying to sound pleasant.
"Oh, I'm sure it's only twice as bad as it looks!" Remus joked. James looked down, feeling a little guilty.
"Yeah, sorry about that, mate..."
"Ah, Prongs, are you kidding? It was my own fault. Perhaps tonight we should steer clear of the forest, though, ok?" James willingly agreed, laughing, and would have stayed to talk to Remus longer if Madam Pompfry hadn't discovered him and shooed him out of the wing.
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Lily was sitting curled up in the comfiest chair in the common room, reading through the assigned section of her transfiguration book when Alice sat down in the chair across from her.
"Here you go Lily. It's all done. Are you sure you don't mind taking a look at it for me?" Alice asked as she handed Lily a long roll of parchment. Lily took it from her.
"Not at all," Lily replied as she smiled at Alice. She began to unroll the parchment to reveal Alice's Muggle Studies essay entitled 'Muggle Tales of Magical Creatures: Fact or Fiction". She was about to begin reading when she noticed that Alice was still sitting staring at her and fidgeting with her hands in her lap. Lily put the essay aside.
"Is there something wrong, Alice?" Lily asked concerned. Alice looked down,
"Well, it's just that Frank has been acting really weird all week. He's mad at me and I can't figure out why. He keeps avoiding me whenever I try to speak to him. Do you have any idea what's wrong?" Lily suspected she knew exactly what was going on, and that it had something to do with someone's secret boyfriend, but she decided that it wasn't her place to say anything, so she suggested Alice just try to talk to him.
"I already tried that tactic, but it's not really getting me anywhere." Alice replied glumly. Lily just caught the words "And I was hoping things would be good between us again before tomorrow" as Alice mumbled them under her breath. Lily smiled as Alice walked away dejectedly. Those two better hurry up and realize what is so obvious to everyone else, Lily thought to herself as she turned her attention back to Alice's report.
Lily made her way through the sections on vampires, dragons, ghosts, and hags, she was just finishing the section on warewolves when she took a break to stretch and noticed the full moon shining brightly through the common room window. It must be getting late, she thought.
Alice's essay was actually pretty informative and the part about warewolves was pretty interesting, Lily never met a warewolf before, but she found it interesting that the wizarding world also seemed to shun them, as they were thought to be dangerous. But according to Alice, warewolves were just like any other person except for the three nights surrounding the full moon. Alice wrote that currently there were some wizards who were lobbying to change the current laws, 'but even so,' she wrote 'critics say that even if the laws are changed it will take many years for warewolves to become accepted members of the wizarding world.' The transformation process sounded horribly painful to Lily as well, not to mention that for the few days leading up to the full moon and the few days after, the warewolf would feel tired and ill. It must be a horrible way to live your life, Lily thought. She stared out the window. Then suddenly it hit her. She quickly scanned back through the signs and symptoms that identify a warewolf. She glanced outside at the bright, full moon. Hardly believing, she rushed up the stairs to her dorm and began rifling around. She pulled out the notebook she used to record notes from the past two years weekly prefects meetings. She frantically flipped through the notebook, trying to find some evidence against the horrible suspicion that was rising inside her. Her heart sank as she realized that every time Remus had been absent from a meeting was during a full moon. She knew because she always used CopyWell ink at those meetings so that she had an extra copy to give to Remus. Merlin! Lily thought, Remus is a warewolf! James must know. That must have been where they were last night. Suddenly it all made sense to Lily, and for some reason she felt giddy with relief – a warewolf! That's it? She'd thought it must have been something more serious. But then she remembered Alice's essay. It is serious, she thought. No wonder Remus doesn't want anyone to know- poor guy! Lily promised she wouldn't say anything to anybody until she talked to Remus about it first, to let him know that it didn't matter to her that he was a warewolf.
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"Next!" James called, getting a little exasperated. He'd already seen eight potential chasers who couldn't handle a quaffle to save their life. Sirius came over, flying in circles.
"You know, Prongsey, old boy, we could always just have you do it all by yourself. Put two players up there, tell 'em to stay out of the way, let you work your magic!" James rolled his eyes.
"I'm good, but I'm not THAT good!" James growled as turned his attention back to the next potential chaser. It was a young second year with bright red hair. He looked a little gangly, but, well, you never know.
"Alright, Bill, is it? Let's see what you can do!" James watched as Sirius and Frank ran Bill through a series of drills. James was impressed, he definitely saw potential in the tall redhead, he was pulling moves that James hadn't mastered until his third year. He began to smile, maybe these try-outs aren't a complete waste of time after all. He put a big check next to Bills name on the list
The next name on the list came as a complete surprise. Alice Whitter. Alice? James thought, he had no idea she could play Quidditch. Alice came out on the pitch. James immediately noticed a change in Frank. He flew right down to her and asked loudly,
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm trying out for the team" Alice replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which, James had to admit, was pretty much the case.
"Is that so?" Frank muttered as he mounted his broom. He looked over at the stands where some students sat watching the tryouts. James noticed him staring at one boy in particular, James recognized him as Andrew White, a seventh year Hufflepuff.
Frank and Sirius began to run Alice through the drills. James noticed that Frank kept going out of his way to make the tryout as difficult as possible. He kept throwing her virtually uncatchable passes (of which she caught quite a few, James noted with a smile). It finally went too far when Alice was made to dive for a pass Frank had thrown and nearly crashed into the ground. He was just about the blow the whistle to call Frank over to him when Alice manoeuvred her broom to land on the ground. Frank dived down and landed next to her. Alice looked livid.
"I don't know what's been bothering you lately Frank, and frankly right now, I DON"T CARE, but I DO care that you're messing up my chances of getting on the team!" Alice was so furious she was shaking.
"Why?" Frank yelled back, "You want to impress that boyfriend of yours?" Frank said waving his hands wildly in the direction of the stands.
"Boyfriend? What boyfriend?" Alice sounded completely taken aback.
"The one you've been meeting in secret! And don't try to deny it! Emma and I saw the two of you!" Frank was shouting now.
"You mean Andrew?" Alice asked, confused.
"If Andrew is that short, little stump of a guy sitting up the stands cheering you on, then yeah, I mean Andrew." Frank shot back.
"For your information, Andrew is my COUSIN!" Alice replied.
"Your cousin?" Frank asked after the few seconds it took for this new information in sink in.
"Yes, my cousin." Alice replied evenly.
"Than why have you been meeting in secret?" Frank asked in a slightly more subdued tone.
"Because he's been helping me practice Quidditch – I wanted to try out for the team, and he's been coaching me." Alice explained, anger still very evident in her voice.
"Well if it was so innocent," said Frank, still not sounding convinced, "then why didn't you just tell us what was going on? I could have helped you practice."
"Because," Alice replied coldly, "I wanted it to be a surprise!" Frank looked down at his feet a little sheepishly.
"So there's no boyfriend?" he asked in an almost hopeful voice.
"No!" came the emphatic reply from Alice.
"Well, ah... right then, I'm, well... I'm ah... really sorry then..." Frank looked a little embarrassed, as he ran a hand through his hair. "you know, about all this... and ...ah, about the way I've been acting lately...."
"Thank you!" interrupted Alice coldly, "But if you don't mind, I'd like to continue to try out WITHOUT your unfair tactics!"
"No need," said James, who had decided to stay out of the whole exchange. He walked forward and exclaimed. "I think we've found a new chaser! Welcome to the team Alice!" James announced, grinning. Alice's face lit up with a huge grin. She looked at Frank, and her grin dropped slightly, but a second later it was back, and she threw her arms around Frank's neck.
"Oh, darn it all! I'll be mad at you later! Right now I want to celebrate!" Alice exclaimed, too happy to care about anything else. Frank looked more than a little surprised and a faint hint of red stained his cheeks, he backed off quickly as soon as Alice released him, not able to meet her gaze. James smiled. It looked like they would have a good team this year after all, he thought.
End of Chapter 7
Reviewers, you are the greatest people in the world! Thank you for making my day! (