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Hey, look! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's…an UPDATE!
Replies:
Joeyperson—Thanks. Hope this update was soon enough.
FrightninglyObsessed—Thanks. I was afraid you might get mad and I really loved that line! I used it at school and people laughed so hard. Trust me, the next chappie that hasn't been written will go on the board before it goes on FF.net. Could I send you what I've got so far to help me sort it out? I put the James Torture chappie on the board for you.
Bobdogman—Thanks. No torture yet, but it'll come.
J.E.A.R.K.Potter—Thanks. Me too.
Frankie Beeblebrox—Thanks. Me too!
Briana Marie—Thanks. I don't have much control over characters either. They do whatever they feel like. I'm a slave to their whims. Hehe. Yeah, I can't wait until I see the reactions to when I get that chapter up.
Radioactive Bubblegum—Ooh, I HATE my braces, but they come off this spring or summer. The rubber bands aren't so bad after you get used to them for a bit. Anything new for Gwendylon's story? I can't wait for more.
Marauders3—Thanks. It will be many more chapters!
Marina—Thanks. The "womanhood" chapter won't appear for a while now. There's still several chapters between this one and that one. I'm not sure how many yet as I'm only just now on chapter 7 and I'm stuck on it. That's where I was when I first posted this story.
PeRkieGuRL—Thanks, Jenna. I updated early again!
Feline-go-meow—Hope you like this Quiditch chapter! I tried to take a different approach with it…
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Chapter 6: Where's That Quaffle?
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They went into the locker room. James hadn't been lying; his practice gear did reek. It didn't help matters that Lily felt terribly outnumbered. Remus, Sirius, and James were the Chasers. They had the almost psychic connection that allowed them to anticipate each others' moves. The Seeker was a boy named Toby. The Beaters were 2 boys named Gideon and Fabian Prewette (brothers, a 6th and a 5th year). The only girl on the team was a sixth year named Estelle Hooch, who was the Keeper.
James was wrong. Just because he hadn't seen her fly since first year didn't mean she hadn't. In second year, she had gone home with Alice over the Christmas holidays and they'd flown around. Alice had told her, "You can't be a witch and not know how to fly, Lily Evans! It just isn't natural." So she had learned. But now her skills were rusty; she hadn't used them for five years. But didn't they say it was like riding a bike? You'd never forget?
James was officially the captain, but often Sirius led the practices or helped lead them, because he was James's best friend and he more importantly, he just loved to boss people around. "Sirius, my throat's a little sore from singing. You want to call the shots today?" she asked.
"No problem."
She got on the broom and managed to get in the air and they all did laps. So far things were going smoothly.
"Okay, we're going to run some drills now. Sets 4C, 13D, and 12A. Then a 16G in about half an hour. Everybody got it?" asked Sirius.
"Clear!" responded the teammates; obviously familiar with whatever they were supposed to be doing.
Lily just hung back and figured she'd go wherever Sirius and Remus went. Toby released the Snitch and started chasing it around one end of the field while the Prewette brothers focused on keeping the Bludgers they'd released away from him. (That's what 4C and 13D were). Drill 12A was Remus, Sirius, and Lily practicing their Chaser skills against Estelle.
Remus and Sirius practiced tricky maneuvers Remus threw the Quaffle to Lily to put through the center hoop. Lily hadn't anticipated the throw and it hit her full on in the chest. The Quaffle fell to the ground.
"James, are you okay?" asked Sirius.
"Yeah. Sorry. Wasn't paying attention. Won't happen again."
"Don't worry about it. I'll get it." Remus went into a dive and picked up the Quaffle before kicking off from the ground again.
Lily caught it the next time Sirius threw it, but when she tried to throw it back to Remus, she missed by 2 yards to the right and it fell 3 yards short. Things continued in this manner. Sometimes Lily caught it, but more often it hit her. Sometimes when she threw it she got a few lucky shots that were nearly on target, but more often she completely missed.
After about 20 minutes of this, Sirius flew up to her, exasperated. "James, your game is way off tonight. Is something wrong?"
"No. I'm just not feeling well," she lied.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
Sirius shrugged, knowing "James" wasn't being completely honest with him. "Okay, everybody! We're gonna go into the 16G now! Everybody get your stuff!" Everyone started descending to get whatever they needed. Sirius said to Lily, "We'll take care of set up. Do a few laps high up and see if you can clear your mind a bit."
"Thanks, Sirius."
"No prob, mate."
Lily went higher in the air to do her laps. It had suddenly occurred to her she didn't remember how to land. She did laps for about ten minutes before she was aware of the boys on the ground calling her back. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how to get down. They had all leaned forward on their brooms. She leaned forward slightly and started to go down. So she leaned forward more. She went down faster and more steeply. In the end, she was falling not only through the air, but also to the end of her broomstick. She was about 5 feet from the ground when she slipped off and landed with a thud.
Gideon started, "Are you—"
"—alright?" finished Fabian.
"Yeah. Just peachy," asked Lily, trying to rub out the soreness.
"Everybody ready then?" asked Sirius. They all gave replies in the affirmative. "Then lets go. It's time to get some real work done."
Lily groaned, thinking, You mean getting bruised and having your butt start to go numb doesn't count as real work? She sighed and looked around.
Gideon and Fabian set up a series of floating targets to practice against about 10 or 15 feet in the air. The targets were mostly green with a silver S on them, though a couple of them showed the face of a teacher or classmate (Snape) they particularly despised. When the targets were set up, they flew back to the ground with ease and leaned their brooms against the stands. Only then did Lily notice that the Bludgers had been locked away in their case. Gideon and Fabian had 2 soccer balls out that they hit to the targets with their bats. They called out which target they'd hit and ran around the ground hitting it from different directions and angles.
She turned her attention to Toby. He had a small leather bag in his hand and spilled the contents out from fifty feet in the air, scattering them. He took a steep dive and caught several of the falling green marbles on his way down. Three feet from the ground he jumped off the broom. He ran over ground, finding the rest as quickly as possibly and grabbing them back into his bag. When he thought he had all of them, he counted them and started over.
Estelle was practicing punches. All sorts and varieties. The punches were mimics of some of the catches and saves she had done earlier, or rather, the catches and saves were mimics of the punches.
Lily found Remus and Sirius calling her. They were waiting with ropes and blindfolds. "James, get your lazy butt over here. What's with you tonight?" called Sirius.
"Nothing," she lied, coming toward them. She laid her broom (or rather James's broom) next to the other ones. She noticed that Remus and Sirius were tied together at the ankle. Remus tied her ankle to his other ankle. "What are we doing?" she asked.
"16G, James. We already told you that. You know this," Sirius said tying a blindfold around Lily's head. He tied one around Remus and himself as well. "On three," he said.
"Starting with the left?" asked Remus.
"As always. Let's start with a walk and after about a minute we can work it to a jog. 1…2…3…"
Lily found herself dragged the first couple steps as Remus and Sirius started right on three. Then she had to spend another couple of steps trying to get on the right footing as then. By the time she'd managed to walk in pace with them, Remus said, "Jog!" and they started to jog. It was worse than a three-legged race and Lily had always hated those. After about five minutes of jogging, Sirius called, "Run!" and they picked up the pace further. "Left turn!" "Right turn!" "Slow!" "Halt!" The commands continued as they worked at this for a good half an hour. When they stopped, Lily was grateful, thinking she might have collapsed if she had to go any further.
She felt Remus untying her ankle and so she took off the blindfold. They were three separate people again. They blindfolded themselves again and threw the Quaffle to each other, standing in a triangle.
Sirius had the Quaffle, "Hey!" and he threw it to Lily.
She caught it on sheer luck and said, "Hey!" before passing it to where she thought Remus was.
There was no resounding "Hey!" this time. She had missed; so Remus had to crawl around on his knees to look for the Quaffle, then find his way back to his place before saying "Hey!" and throwing it to Sirius.
It continued that way. They had to remember where each other was and what each throw felt like with their arms in order to get it there. They practiced this for an hour. Being blindfolded, Lily didn't see what was going on with other team members.
Finally, Sirius called it quits and called everyone to put his or her things away and sit in the middle of the pitch in a circle. They practiced whistling.
Each team member had a whistle and when they were in a game if they wanted that team member's attention they were supposed to use that person's whistle. The whistles weren't overly complicated. James's was three short notes. Remus's was 2 long and 1 short. Estella's was a short high, followed by a long low, followed by a short high. So it continued. They practiced the whistling for about five minutes and then did some warm-down stretches. "Good practice, team," said Sirius. "But you'd best get on to your homework. We are all needed for this Saturday's game. I don't want to lose a single person to probation for getting low grades. Understand?"
"Sure, Sirius," said Gideon.
"You just make sure you keep your grades up too," added Fabian.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Lily stumbled into the common room nearly half an hour after the rest of the team. She'd had to take rests coming up the stairs. Practice had really taken its toll on her; she wasn't used to this kind of exhaustion. Mental anguish she could handle, but she was most unaccustomed to this sort of physical torture.
"Are you okay?" James asked, surveying her. He'd worried about how well she'd do at practice, but he had also somewhat relished the idea of seeing her realize how much work it was. Now that he saw her, he was afraid that it'd been more work than she could handle. It shouldn't have been though, since she was in his body. She just mentally wasn't used to the physical affects of what was going on.
"We ran the 16G. I feel like I'm dead." She let herself collapse next to him on the couch and lying down facing him.
James gave a smile that was half a smirk. "You've just discovered one of my secrets."
"And what secret is that?" she asked, propping herself up on her elbows.
"The secret to how the Gryffindor Quidditch team wins. 16G is a strategy that I, along with Sirius and Remus, concocted a few years ago. Ever wonder why our practices are secret? Why we never let anybody watch? The 16G. Nobody else trains like that. We win because we sharpen our skills at things other than their direct uses in Quidditch. Sitting on a broom for a few hours, ha! The other teams have got nothing on our strategies; 16G isn't the only one, just one of the tougher ones."
"I didn't understand the purpose of some of it," she admitted.
"I won't lead you through everything, just the Chaser stuff you did. The one where your legs are tied together shows you how to work in time and in rhythm with each other. How to keep pace with each other and make sure things run smooth. You've got to be aware of each other at all times when you're in the game. That's the way it works. That's the only way teamwork works. Next was probably blind-shots. Am I right?"
"Yeah, the one where we have to throw the Quaffle to each other blindfolded?"
"That's it. The purpose of that one was to form muscle memory. Don't rely on your eyes. You've got to be able to able to know how to throw, even if you can't see someone you have to be able get the Quaffle to them if you know where they are. Sometimes they might be just behind you, just out of your corner of the eye sight, but if you know they're there, it doesn't matter that you can't see them if you know how to get the Quaffle to them."
"I guess I see that now."
"After that was the whistling one, wasn't it?"
"Yeah."
"Whistles are good. You can hear them more easily above the screams and shouts. A long time ago, people used to train warhorses to respond to whistles rather than calling or shouting because it was easier to pick out and hear in a battle full of shouts and clanging weapons. The only problem is we don't always remember to do that in the game. Most of the time we just yell out the other person's names. When we remember to do it, it works though. Glad to see you survived. There's only 2 more practices this week."
She let out a groan. "I'm bruised all over and my butt's gone numb."
James laughed.
"How'd your tutoring session go?"
"Not bad. Not great, but not bad." He didn't elaborate on the fact that he had forgotten how to do the charm he was supposed to be teaching and had had to look it up once the student had found him. "What are my appointments for tomorrow?"
"You're supposed to tutor Nikki and Alex, they're second years. They need help with their essays on the importance of mugwort in a dissolving potion. Then you've got to oversee the club that meets for animal rights; they want to get the Owlery heated so that it's more comfortable for the owls. I think that's everything. Why?"
"We've both got detention tomorrow from 7 to midnight, I think. Looks like we've got to clear that schedule."
"Wednesday's too. I won't be able to make the chess club meeting since we've got to go to glee club."
"And you've got Quidditch again after glee club," he said.
"I do? Wonderful," she said sarcastically. "You can fob Nikki and Alex off on Alice. She won't mind; she does great in potions. Remus'll oversee chess club if you ask nicely."
"Or if you ask for me."
"You do it."
"Fine. Sirius can handle Nikki and Alex if Alice can't do it."
She sighed. "What's your schedule supposed to be this week?"
"Nothing planned for tomorrow except detention and playing a prank on Snape. Wednesday, we've got glee club and then there's Quidditch practice. Thursday, Quidditch again. Friday, nothing that I know."
"Great, great, great," Lily muttered, rubbing her temples. "I am so tired."
"So am I. You seriously do not know how long it took me to get that third year to understand how to do a cheering charm. She just couldn't get it! Like she had a block at it. I hate those. It took a couple of hours. Then once she managed to learn it, her cheering charm was so strong that I couldn't stop smiling for an hour. My face hurts so much!"
Lily chuckled, "The price you pay for helping those in need. You were tutoring Patsy, right? The girl with the black hair and really dark blue eyes?"
"Yeah, that's her."
"She has trouble with a lot of spells. Once she learns them she's terrific, but the process of getting her to learn them…" Lily shook her head. "You should have seen her trying to learn levitation. It was mess. At one point she levitated a desk instead of the parchment she was trying for and brought it about 6 feet in the air before sending it down with such a big crash that it broke in several pieces. A nightmare." She sighed and leaned back with closed eyes.
"Hey, Evans?"
"Yeah?"
"How about tomorrow, we try not to fight?"
"You think that's possible?" she mumbled.
"Always worth a try." He found himself drifting off as well. Today had been a long day.
James woke up at about 2 in the morning. He'd fallen sideways as he slept and woke up with his head on Lily's (or rather his own) knees. He rubbed his eyes and nudged her awake.
"Evans? Lily Evans?"
She just grumbled in her sleep.
"Lily, wake up." He leaned over to look at her. "Lily, wake up," he said, touching her cheek. Even if she looked like himself, she was still Lily.
Lily opened her eyes blearily and he removed his hand, "Huh?"
"Get up. We fell asleep. You've got to go upstairs and go to bed."
"Oh, right," she said groggily. She stood up and stretched her arms.
"Goodnight, Evans," he said, pushing her toward the boys' staircase and up the steps.
"Goodnight, James," she mumbled.
James smiled to himself. James. She'd said his name. James went upstairs to the girls' dormitory, put pajamas on, and crawled into bed smiling. She'd called him James!
Lily stumbled up the steps and went into the room. She changed into pajamas, still half asleep. She pulled back the covers, threw herself on the bed, and pulled the blankets back up over her. She was sleep the second her head it the pillow.
James was lying down on the bed, still smiling. Lily had called him James! A lot of times he liked to sleep on his stomach with his face buried in the pillow (it kept him from waking up with his hair overly mussed). But in his new body, this was very uncomfortable way to sleep. He grumbled and rolled over onto his back, thinking about all the extra knots there would be when he woke up the next morning. But it didn't matter. She had called him James!
END OF DAY 1
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