Chapter twelve: Beating the Snakes

On Saturday morning, James was woken by Peter, "Come on James, it's the Quidditch match today" he told him, James got up, and went down to breakfast, the Gryffindor team, who all went down together, were greeted by applause, and the Slytherin's. Unfortunately, they to were greeted by applause. James smirked at his applause, and played up to the audience, making them all laugh, smile and clap even more. Sirius also did the same, and James, saw out of the corner of his eye, Professor Midgeal laughing at the staff table. James just figured out something, after looking at Professor Midgeal, "Why have we got all the head teachers, you know, we have the head of Drama, and stuff?" James asked the group.

"Because all of them were in Gryffindor, the Ravenclaw's have some of the depute heads, and the Hufflepuff's and Slytherin's have the, well, the next inline." Laura told him

"Oh, okay" James said. By eleven o'clock that day, the whole school was out in the stands, and the Gryffindor team were ready for action, in their robes and listening to their captain (Sirius). "Now, were better, and we know it, and there's only one thing in this whole world that is going to make me play crap" Sirius said,

"What's that?" Lily asked him

"I'll play crap if I don't get a good luck kiss from Laura" Sirius said winking at her, "No, but seriously, just play average, and we will have won in five minuets," Sirius said, "Now where's my kiss?" He asked Laura, who kissed him sweetly on the lips, before mounting her broomstick and flying on to the pitch. They were all called to the pitch, after a few laps of honour, which they were applauded for, especially by Professor Midgeal, "Now, where's the Chasers?" She asked. The three girls put their hands up, "Excellent, work together, and play hard" She said to them, "Beaters?" She asked, Remus and Peter raised there hands, "Great, now, keep the Bludger's away from them, and hit them like your life depends on it" She told them, "Keeper?" She asked, Sirius raised his hand, "Good, don't let anything past you, do your best. Now, James, you would be seeker?" She asked James, he nodded, "Good, get the snitch and be as fast as you can" She told him, "Now, everyone, have fun, cream Slythrin and do your best." She told them all encouragingly. They all got into position and waited for Professor Midgeal's whistle. Off it went. James pushed off as hard as he could on his Silver Arrow900, James felt the air sweep across his face, he let out his feelings before actually looking for the snitch, and James saw it. It was half way across the pitch, straight in line with him. Malfoy was some ten feet below it, he couldn't see it, so James decided to let it go. If it went near him, he would catch it, its not like Malfoy could James thought. Ten minuets later, James swooped up to where Sirius was; he just rested his broom in mid air, and casually asked Sirius, "Are you bored yet?" Sirius grinned,

"A bit, yeah" Sirius said

"Okay" James said, before streaking he length of the pitch, feeling the wind in his hair, feeling the great emotion that was freedom, before grapping onto a little golden ball, that flapped hopelessly against his fingers. The crowds erupted with applause, and Malfoy erupted with anger,

"Shows who the better one is, doesn't it, Malfoy" James said, pulling his broom effortlessly next to Malfoy, and smirking.

"I'll get you Potter, I'll get you one day" Malfoy said evilly,

"Yeah, I'm sure you will, and by that time. I'll already be old and dead, and you'll be attacking my coffin" James said laughing. He flashed the snitch one more time in his face, before flying back to the ground. The applause was nothing James was not used to, he lapped up the praise, Lily kisses, the anger from the Slytherin's, saying they were going to kill him, to which he replied, "I'll be waiting" Sirius was getting pretty much the same amount of attention, and so were Remus and Peter. Lily, Laura and Lou were getting tons of attention from the boys, and the Marauders were getting tons of attention from the girls. James turned most of the complements down when the girls said them, all apart from Lily, but Sirius didn't, he had girls kissing him on the cheek, left right and centre, Laura didn't look to happy about this, especially not when Sirius gave one girl a hug and a kiss. Laura then took it in her own stride, all James saw was her going up to a guy who had been praising her, and hug him, right in front of Sirius, Sirius didn't seem to notice much, until she kissed him on the lips. Laura then gave Sirius a dirty look, and dragged Lily and Lou back up to the castle. Sirius was complaining about this all the way back up to the castle to James, Remus and Peter, they all took it in, normally Sirius wouldn't care, but he had told them enough times, "That there was something different about Laura"

"Well, you did do the same to her" Remus pointed out when they got to the Gryffindor entrance,

"I only kissed the girl on the cheek, she kissed him on the lips, big difference" Sirius said.

"I think she only did it to make you jealous, or at least because you did it first" Remus told him, entering the Gryffindor common room,

"Well, at least one of you understands girls" Laura said, she was sitting with Lily and Lou, not a piece of parchment in sight. So obviously, to James they were talking about the earlier event, "Oh, Peter, Remus, I need you to look at err, something in our room" James said, he realised what a lame saying that was after he said it, but it worked. James, Peter and Remus went upstairs and grabbed the invisibility cloak. Lou and Lily had also gone up to their room,

"You're the one who thinks your all it," Laura was saying loudly to Sirius

"I am not, I am just trying to give the people what they want" Sirius said

"Oh, look, there you go again, give the people what they want? How do you know they want you? You know your problem, your problem is that you don't care about anyone else, all you care about is being popular with all the girls, even though you had a girlfriend" Laura said, James noticed that she had said 'had' and that her face was screwed up in pain, she looked although she didn't want to break up with him, but he also thought that she felt she had to,

"My problem is that I spent to much time with you" Sirius shouted at her. "There are tons of girls out there who would give their life to be my girlfriend." Sirius said again,

"There you go again. Mr popularity. Mr I'm better than everyone else, and you know what, I don't care, go ahead, go get your tons of girls, then go cheat on them, and watch how they'll come crawling back to you like slugs, like it was them who did something wrong, not you, see if I give a damn, Black" Laura said, she then strode over to the girls stairs, flicked her beautiful hair, and walked up the stairs and out of sight.

"Who needs her?" Sirius asked himself

"Well, just a rough guess, but I'd say. You do" Peter said, emerging from the cloak.

"I don't," Sirius, said, not paying any attention to Peter's sudden appearance, "She can do as she pleases. Anyway, there's this really hot chick in Ravenclaw, who has the nicest body you will ever see" Sirius said, just as the words were right out of his mouth, Laura chose the precise moment to come back down the stairs,

"Your so typical Black, the minuet you get rid of one, 'chick' your on the look out for another one" Laura said spitefully,

"What do you want?" Sirius asked her coldly
"Well, I was. High light. Was. Going to apologise for me being so stupid, but now. Now I think I'm going to go get Lou, and were going to go out and find two capable boyfriends, ones that don't cheat on us" Laura said flashing them her pretty, but this time, sarcastic smile. Laura went back up the stairs again, the boys began to talk, but they shut up, ten minuets later, when Lou and Laura came back down the stairs. Laura was dressed up slightly again, she had her kitten heals back on, but this time they were black, she had a pair of black, elegant, slightly flared jeans on. She had a V-neck top on, her make up was subtle, but noticeable, she had glitter all down the V part of her V-neck top, bringing James to look there automatically. She had a blue shade of eye shadow, to match her blue V-neck top and a light pink lip-gloss. Lou also had changed, she was wearing a light pink crop top, and she had the kitten heels on, this time white, with a pair of while jeans. Lou's make up was sparkly as well, she had a pink sparkly lip gloss on, not glitter on any of her body but she had a metallic eye shadow on, that bought out the blue in her eyes. Lou had the purple denim jacket that Lily had been wearing on, and Laura also had the light pink denim jacket that Lou was wearing the other week. All in all, both Laura and Lou looked beautiful, both of the girls had seemed to notice the attention they were getting, but they ignored it. Laura ignored them completely, and made her way, elegantly flipping her hair, to the exit of the common room, while Lou, shot all four of the boys a look of total loathing, clearly making them feel as though she was more than unhappy about there way's of treating her best friend.

"God she looked hot," Sirius said out loud once Lou and Laura had left the common room, James nodded in agreement, so did Peter and Remus.

"They both did" Peter said, once again, James, Remus and Sirius nodded in agreement. The conversation topic then went on to girls, and since James had a girlfriend, he thought it would be best if he went and talked to her. James knew about the spell on the stairs, the one that didn't let boys on the staircase, so he just did the counter spell, and went up. Lily was in her room reading a book, "Hi Lily" James said, almost shyly, she looked up,

"Hi" she said, [I] okay, she's giving me the cold shoulder [/I] James thought to himself. "How are you?" He asked her

"Fine" She replied, not looking up from her book. James asked her more and more questions, and each time he got a better answer, so after he had been up with her for an hour and a half, she was talking to him like normal. James went back down later on, saying he would leave her to her homework; he kissed her good bye, and just as both of them intensified the kiss, Laura and Lou walked in, James and Lily sprung apart, he gave her a kiss on the cheek and mumbled good bye, before smiling nicely at Lou and Laura, (Lou glared back at him,) and exiting. Peter wasn't down stairs when he got into the common room, but Sirius and Remus were still there, James didn't bother asking where Peter was, he knew he was with Penny,

"She has got quite a set of daggers on her, doesn't she?" Remus asked as James sat down,

"Who?" James asked

"Lou, she can give a death stare like there's no tomorrow," Remus told him,

"Yeah, I know, I just got a full blast of it, up there" James said.