Title: Everything and Nothing Author: eMu Rating: R (for naughty language)
Summary: MWPP & co. from fifth year on at Hogwarts through the first war (eventually) will contain non-graphic slash and naughty language. Most likely some violence as well.

Part One: Lily Evans and the Horrible Favour

"Okay, that noise was rather like a deflated balloon, but I'd say on the whole he's more like a dog's chew toy."

"No way, he's totally like a deflated balloon."

"What are you two talking about?" Lily asked curiously, strolling into the Gryffindor common room. Her best friend, Cleo Estrelle, was seated by the fireplace with one of their year-mates, Avaah Rose, commenting on something Lily couldn't see.

She could, however, hear the sobbing noises, and deduced they were poking fun at a distraught housemate.

"Lily, you can settle this for us. Does Ethan sound more like a deflated balloon or a dog's chew toy?" Cleo asked.

Lily scowled at them. "Cleo, you've no sense of compassion. Ethan, what's wrong?"

She walked over to get a better look at him. Ethan Arden-Kare was crouched between two armchairs in a fetal position, rocking back and forth very slowly.

"It's nothing serious. His mum's just died and he can't attend the funeral, because it coincides with the Quidditch match against Slytherin, and Jeremy and the rest of the team would kill him if he misses it." Cleo explained.

"We don't have any reserves this year." Avaah, the Gryffindor seeker, added.

"Well as long as it's nothing serious?" Lily snapped sarcastically.
"M-muuumm…" Ethan croaked.

"So there isn't a single person in the whole of Gryffindor house who can take his place, is there?" Lily demanded.

"None who aren't complete rubbish." Avaah answered.

"You could always disguise a Hufflepuff or something. I hear Jason's quite good." Cleo suggested. "Or you could use the team mascot, Bitey."

"Bitey's a puffskein. Even if we could get him on the broom, he'd die instantly." Avaah said with an eye roll.

"Look, he's only a chaser. Much as I'd hate to compliment the pair, Jeremy and Paglia are pretty decent chasers-" Cleo started, but Avaah cut her off.

"Pretty decent? They're the best we've seen since…well since I've been at the school at least. But still, three good chasers would be nice. They are important positions." Avaah said with a sigh.

"Right. But it's not like you've lost your seeker or keeper or something. There's only one of those." Cleo stated.

"Yeah, but you can survive without a keeper. I don't think Frank touched the quaffle once during that game against Ravenclaw last year. Potter was definitely on his game during that one. Still can't believe he's the captain though. What a shit replacement for Hanes." Avaah ranted. Lily was becoming bored with the conversation.

"I know. They've totally mistaken talent for the game over leader abilities. His ego's been dominating his choices so far." Cleo agreed.

"Not to mention he's chosen Black and Knightly for our new beaters. Black's not bad, I'll admit, but he only got in because he's Potter's best friend, and Knightly's total rubbish. She's only in because she's screwing-"

"So, what are you planning on doing about Ethan then?" Lily asked loudly, effectively cutting off the Quidditch gossip. She loathed sports, had yet to see a match and was hoping to keep that up through graduation.

"Well he's got to play." Avaah said slowly, as though Lily were very dumb.

"No he doesn't! His mother died, give him a break!" Lily exclaimed. She crouched down next to Ethan and handed him a tissue.

"Well we don't have any replacements so he has to, or else we forfeit, and I don't know if you've noticed this Evans, but Gryffindor has a winning streak to uphold." Avaah snapped.

"I'll bet those fucking Slytherins killed his mum. Just because they knew they couldn't beat us in a fair game." Cleo hissed. Avaah nodded, considering the possibility.

"Geniuses, the both of you." Lily snapped. "Ethan, go see professor McGonagall about getting dismissed. I'll play for you."

"Y-you will?" Ethan asked, finally sitting up.

"But…um…Lily?" Cleo said hesitantly.

"What?" She asked, in full glare mode.

"You've never even seen a game. Do you know how to play Quidditch?" Cleo asked.

"I know enough." Lily answered.

"What makes you think this will even be accepted?" Avaah asked.

"Between Jeremy and Paglia I know I'm on." Lily said with an eye roll.

The sad part was, she was right. With no experience, no knowledge of the game and without even trying out, Lily was eagerly accepted as a chaser before the captain even knew if she had ridden on a broomstick before.

"I am regretting the hell out of this." Lily announced to Cleo the next evening during supper. Her first practice with the team was immediately following supper, which was going to cut into her homework time drastically. Lily was in her fifth year, which meant at least double the usual amount of homework in preparation for her OWLs. "I hope this practice doesn't take too long."

"I think I'll watch from the stands. Maybe give you some moral support." Cleo said with a grin. She'd been helping Lily learn the basics of Quidditch and was very eager to see her friend attempt to play. Books, Cleo felt, could only help you so much when it came to Quidditch.

Lily had a scowl fixed on her face the entire trek to the Quidditch pitch. Her mood lifted somewhat when she noticed how incredibly nervous Jeremy was looking. The prat was always so annoyingly overconfident about himself it was a nice change to see him like that. Then she remembered the conversation Cleo had been having with Avaah, about how this was Jeremy's first year as captain and apparently at least some of the team didn't think he was up to it.

She observed the rest of the Gryffindor team and tried to put together what Cleo had told her about them. Their keeper was Frank Longbottom, a pleasant seventh year and their Head Boy. He was supposed to be very good as a keeper, although he rarely had to do much as the chasers hardly ever let the other team touch the quaffle. There was Avaah Rose, the seeker, who was a fourth year and not one of Lily's favourite people. Her fellow chasers were, of course, James Potter, fellow fifth year, and Tony Paglia, a fourth year. Both were overconfident trouble making top students vying for her affections, and she wasn't very fond of either of them.

Hmm. That was short though. There were supposed to be two other players, unless she'd misheard Cleo.

"Um…is someone running late?" Lily asked.

Avaah scowled. "Black and Knightly haven't shown up. They're supposed to be our beaters."

"Actually they're working on a new strategy in the library together." James answered.

"And what about practice?" Frank asked, looking somewhat annoyed. "They're new players, we need to get used to working with them James."

"How are we supposed to practice without beaters?" Tony demanded, looking equally annoyed.

"It'll give you a chance to work on dodging, since you're pretty lousy at that anyway Paglia. Well I'm sure you've all heard about Evans substituting for Ethan next match." James announced.

Lily gave a nervous wave at her furious looking teammates and decided she was never going to do anything nice for anyone ever again.

"I thought she hated Quidditch?" Frank muttered at Avaah, looking very confused.

"She does. She's probably rubbish. Our damn captain's thinking with the wrong head." Avaah made no attempt to keep her voice quiet. Lily frowned.

"It's not like we need an experienced player anyway. Evans is here so we have enough players in the game. Jeremy and I can handle all the work." Tony said lazily.

Now it was Lily's turn to look annoyed. If they thought she was just going to hover around on her broom and not actually play…

"Right. Well then, let's get to it. Do you two want to get the balls?" James asked Avaah and Frank, who set off for the broom closet whispering at each other.

As soon as the balls were out the team kicked off. Frank circled the goal hoops while James and Tony stole the quaffle back and forth and made their way towards him.

A slow burning anger was consuming Lily. The entire team was ignoring her. They might as well have replaced Ethan with the puffskein.

She took off down the field and caught up with Tony and James easily, who weren't even looking out for her. So it came as a complete surprise for James when Lily's foot connected with his chest. She caught the quaffle easily. When Tony tried to steal it from her, she rammed him and almost unseated him. She scored easily off of Frank, who was too busy gaping at her to protect the hoops.

"Wow Evans, that was pretty good!" Avaah announced approvingly, and then ducked quickly to avoid a bludger to the head.

The practice went on, and the absence of the beaters soon became the overwhelming problem. Last year's beaters had been so good that no one was really used to dodging the bludgers, and they were suffering dearly for it. Practice ended early when Frank lost two teeth from a particularly nasty blow, and the team spent nearly a quarter of an hour looking for them in the field so Miss Pomfrey could put them back.

Lily met Cleo outside the changing rooms, exhausted, but overall happy with the way things had gone. She'd had more fun than she'd thought she would, though she wasn't planning on admitting it. She still felt sports were very stupid and there was too much emphasis on them at school, rather than an emphasis on academic achievement. Hers happened to be a very unpopular opinion, however.

The rest of the team were not nearly as happy as Lily. Frank trudged off to the hospital wing to have his teeth put back in, muttering under his breath about their beaters. Tony, Avaah and Cleo discussed what they thought of Kamala Knightly and Sirius Black's absence at length the entire way back to the common room while James pointedly tried to ignore them. He seemed to be having difficulty, and he finally snapped when they got to the entrance hall.

"Sirius isn't on the team just because he's my best friend, alright!" James exclaimed. "He's actually a good beater, even if you lot refuse to believe it."

"And what about Knightly then?" Tony demanded.

James hesitated. "Well alright. She did make it in because she's dating my best friend, but it's not like I had any better options."

Lily grinned, remembering the week or so leading up to Kamala's appointment at the second Gryffindor beater. As far as she could tell, Sirius had followed James around the school saying 'please' to have James respond with 'no' on repeat for an entire week. He even muttered it under his breath during most of their lessons, so that the teachers couldn't hear, and during meals and in the common room, Kamala had joined in with Sirius. Lily felt that anyone would have given in under that sort of annoyance, and couldn't blame Jeremy for letting Kamala on the team, even though it didn't seem like the best choice.

Lily hoped the two beaters had come up with some amazing strategy during the practice, otherwise the rest of the team were likely to have them thrown off.

When they arrived in the common room and found Sirius and Kamala necking on one of the sofas, Lily changed her assessment from throwing them off to lynching them.

Kamala seemed to notice the team first, despite the fact that she had her back to them. She was straddling Sirius and sucking loudly on his neck. She suddenly looked up and turned around, as though she could feel the angry glares upon her.

"What's shakin' bacon?" She greeted pleasantly.

"We were told," Avaah started in an icy voice, "that the two of you were working out some new strategy while we were at practice."

"We finished early." Sirius stated, looking completely unconcerned at the murderous glares aimed his way.

"Um…then you probably should have joined us instead." James said slowly. Lily was pretty sure if they lynched Black and Knightly, they'd get him too.

"Okay. We'll remember that for next time." Kamala said in a little girl voice, pouting at them all. Tony's fists were clenched so hard his knuckles were white, and Avaah's eyes had actually started to water, as she wasn't blinking as much as she needed to for the sake of sustaining her death glare.

"So…big game tomorrow. We should make this an early night. Get lots of rest." James said nervously, attempting to herd his teammates towards the dormitory doors. Lily and Cleo sat down in a couple of arm chairs with a good view of the forthcoming row.

"What team unity." Cleo observed, as Tony and Avaah finally regained the power of speech and blew up at Sirius and Kamala.

"Mmm. My money's on Slytherin for tomorrow." Lily muttered, as Frank entered the common room and joined in the shouting match.

"Not with the way you were flying today at practice." Cleo said, admiration thick in her voice as she turned to face Lily. Lily faced Cleo as well, although it was rather hard to pry her eyes away from the comical shouting match taking place before them. The team were all red in the face, and Kamala's eyes were actually bulging.

"Really? But I thought Slytherin were supposed to be a good team." Lily said. "I mean, they're always the main contender for the Quidditch cup."

"Yes, well they had a very good team, but they lost a lot of their good players to graduation last year. Like Malfoy and Lestrange and Rookwood. They've still got Lestrange's brother though, and he's not bad. It's still far from an ideal team though. And if you think our team fights, you should see them. They've just gotten Edward Lecinq as a seeker, and he takes about as much interest in the game as you do. It's more of an idle curiosity for him."

"Well then why'd they pick him?" Lily asked.

"Because they're chauvinistic bastards, the lot of them." Cleo explained, explaining nothing.

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning there are no girls on their team, and rumour has it Sirius' cousin Bellatrix is supposed to be really something. She's tried out every year since she got here and they've never let her on. But that's better for us anyway, since the last thing we need is a truly talented player on Slytherin." Cleo explained.

Lily was getting frustrated. "But I thought you said they were a good team."

Cleo smiled. "It's not so much talent as…well Lily they tend to cheat. But you'll find out all about that tomorrow."

"Yes, I suppose I will." Lily said distractedly.

TBC

Author's Notes: Well, as some of you might have noticed, this is the first Harry Potter fic I've written in…quite some time. I've been distracted by a new fandom, and I hope to be able to write both fandom equally frequently. To tell you the truth, I think I got a bit too obsessed with HP and needed some air…and some time to come back down to canon.

So anyway, instead of writing lots of little ficlets that don't go in chronological order and confuse the hell out of me, not to mention contradict the hell out of each other, I'm going to try for one long fic. I think I've brewed up enough ideas over the past four years to sustain it. It will encompass all of my other fics, so some of the chapters will just be revised, rewritten sections of the other fics. IE, you will see a reworking of the Home fic in here, as well as the Wedding fic. I'm also hoping to keep with canon, although I fully expect Rowling will drop some sort of bombshell on my in July that I wasn't prepared for.

I'm very sorry for my extended absence, once again, and I hope you all enjoy this fic.

By the by, the Jeremy that was mentioned was actually James. For some reason or other, people who don't like him refer to him as Jeremy, and it annoys him. My sisters developed this awhile ago, I adopted it and I actually forget the origin at this point. It is just something that is done and should not be questioned.