It's not mine; it's all J.K. Rowling's.

Chapter 16: In Which Lily Reasons with a Crazed Seeker

Or

In Which Gryffindor Finally Wins

Our heroine's previous efforts at problem solving:

Maybe I'll just die of embarrassment now and save myself some trouble later.

ooo…ooo

Sirius' mouth dropped and he let go of my shoulders in shock and consequently had to perform a sloth roll in mid-air to keep from falling off of his broom. What an idiot.

"It's WHERE?" He bellowed, as soon as he was upright once again. James still hasn't moved. I think he's in shock. It's a very shocking thing to be sure. But I think I should at least be more shocked than him. I mean, is it down his shirt? NO! Life is so unfair.

"Down my shirt," I whispered meekly.

"Down your shirt," Sirius repeated sounding like a slightly messed up echo.

"As in down your shirt?" He asked with a lot of gesturing that made it look like he wanted to point at my shirt, but wasn't sure if that would be appropriate.

"Yes, as in down my shirt." This is getting slightly annoying. How much confirmation does this boy need? If this keeps up anymore, I might just have to add him to my list of people I'm planning to kill.

"Your shirt?"

"Oh, for heavens sake, Sirius, the snitch is down my shirt! The shirt I'm wearing right now, at this very instant, the one with the vaguely intellectual pun on communism on the front! Is that so hard to understand?" I shouted, waving my hands in the air out of pure frustration (I mean, I know boys are dense, but this dense? I expect better).

"Looks like there some sort of argument going between Potter, Black, and the girl with the tangerine colored hair. Really, she ought to just be grateful that Potter rescued her, which is more than anyone else would have done, and let them get on with the game. It appears that Davenport's about to end the timeout whether she's off the pitch or not."

TANGERINE! Alright, that's it. This fellow clearly is blind (and has a terribly good thesaurus at his disposal). I'm going to find out who he is and make his life miserable. I'll steal his homework assignments right before they're due and I'll tell all his girlfriends that he's cheating on them and I'll make all his friends hate him! Wow, that's pretty malicious, I don't know if I'm up to it. Why, oh why, wasn't I a Slytherin? They can do this sort of petty revenge no sweat. I'm just too nice. I could probably manage stealing his homework without feeling too guilty (as long as I did it far in advance, so he would have time to re-do it and get it turned in). Ugh, I have a serious problem with revenge … I just can't do it well! I have no finesse … no sense of evil … no sadistic plot for world domination! I suppose it could be worse, though.

I mean, I am really good with empty threats. And speaking of those, if that … that spongified, jumped up, liver lipped, brown nosing, ugly, pathetic excuse for an announcer describes my hair in any way that refers to the color orange or its associates ever again I will string him up from the ceiling of the Great Hall by his eyelashes and sit around waiting for him to fall down so I can laugh at his pancake corpse and insult his hair color (although, his hair is a very nice shade of brown (I would kill to have hair like that (not that I'd ever let him know, of course)))! And this is all really beside the point anyway since my hair is not orange! Nor will it ever be (except on every day ending in 'y', but those really shouldn't count!).

Hmm … do you suppose James is brain dead? He's looking rather glazed over. It could be a possibility.

I waved my hand casually in front of his eyes. He blinked! So he is alive. Now the question is has he become unresponsive because he's upset he has to reach down my shirt or because he's happy about it? Gosh … that's a though one. As an attention seeking female I want him to be happy he has to reach down my shirt, but as a sensible, pepper spray armed young lady, all I've got to say is that he'd better be horrified out of his mind!

"… so technically we have the game in the bag," Sirius said, winding up his rather long and involved description of strategy and odds that I just blocked out because it seemed rather pointless to me. Isn't it obvious? Does no one else get this? James just has to reach down my shirt fish out this little problematic (and possibly perverted) snitch and we win. Yay. Whoop-de-doo. Let's have a party and all that jazz.

"TWWEEEEEEE"

"And that's the whistle folks! The game is back on. Bryson's flying a bit lopsided, but at least he doesn't have a clunky mango headed bird riding on his broom. That'll sure put a crimp in Potter's flying style. Oh, for heavens sake! At least put her on Black's broom, so she might get hit by a bludger!"

The whistle had immediately shaken James out of his frozen-ness and he looked around a bit like he was confused about where he was. He seemed to decide he was on a broom after looking down for a few seconds, but then he looked up and saw me and gave a rather girly squeal and tried to scamper away from me onto Sirius' broom. Unfortunately Sirius moved out of the way, so James was left rather precariously balanced on the end of the broom with nowhere to go but back my way and he seemed to be trying to avoid that at all costs. Well now I know that he's most certainly horrified, which I suppose is a good thing (although my inner female is now curled up and bawling in the corner).

It was adorable to watch him, though. In fact it was almost so cute I missed that … that … well, let's just say there are no words my mother would approve of to describe him … announcer saying that my hair was … oh, what was it again? Right, MANGO colored! Has he ever even seen a mango? Obviously not because my hair doesn't resemble one in any way shape or form. Wait … I've figured out the problem, he's colorblind! That's clearly it; he just can't tell what color my hair really is. Poor fellow. I almost feel sorry for him. I know I wouldn't want to be colorblind.

Alright, I clearly don't have time to fixate on this right now, but as soon as all of this drama is over I swear I'll come up with some wicked awesome ways to kill him with no one suspecting it's me. So that's all nice and decided. Now I've just got to figure out why James has his fingers in his ears and is muttering, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." Gods, how I pity myself.

"James?" I ventured. No response, but that could be due to the fact he can't hear me. Or he could be ignoring me.

I looked at Sirius, who seemed to be desperate to get back to the game that we were floating over. He distractedly glanced my way as I called his name. I pointed at James. He looked at James. Then he let out a rather lengthy string of words I shan't be repeating here for the sake of fragile ears. Below I've recorded the translation of what he said into decent people speak:

What is he doing?

Does he think he's dreaming?

What an idiot, this is not a dream.

Where did I put my wand?

Ah, here it is.

Aguamenti!

James finally stopped muttering as Sirius drenched him with a high-powered jet of water.

"What in the bloody blazes was that for?" James cried, wiping water out of his eyes.

"Something seems to be going down over the game. Black just drenched Potter with water and the girl with the sweet potato pie colored hair appears to be caught in the middle."

See, he is blind. I'm not in the middle. I'm slightly to the side (and Sirius only got me a little wet, although, you'd think he would try to reason through these ideas of his a bit before implementing them).

"For being a (censored with good reason), that's why! This is a game Potter; get your head in it! You can't sit around and pretend you're dreaming!"

Sirius does have a point.

"I wasn't pretending I was dreaming. I was fruitlessly wishing I was. And yes there's a difference, Black!"

I suppose there's a little bit of a difference, but not in what it causes a person to do. So really it's all just a silly issue of semantics that is far too trivial to deal with right now. I mean, do you see me dealing with trivial things? No. I'm not even commenting on that jumped up, colorblind, unfortunately shaped, dropped on his head repeatedly as an infant, sorry excuse for an announcer and his comments about the color of my hair, now am I? See, they ought to follow my excellent example.

"Well you aren't dreaming, so get over it!"

"I'm over it already. Take Lily down to the stands will you? I'm going to go find the snitch, now won't that make you happy?"

Maybe he has amnesia. I, however, do not and there is no way in the great wide universe that I'm letting that boy drop me off anywhere (or his friends drop me off anywhere) without getting this thing out of my shirt! It's coming out like it or not! Amnesia or not! And gods, I just realized how sincerely wrong that sounded. I bet those government agents are having a good laugh over that, but it's not like it sounds (sort of) in my defense. And none of it is my fault at all. It's all the snitch's fault. If it weren't down my shirt, I wouldn't need to get it out of my shirt and that would just save me so much trouble.

"James, we can't put Lily back in the stands until you get the snitch," Sirius said, in a quiet sort of 'I think you've just lost your last marble and don't want you to kill me' voice.

"Why ever not?" James said, looking honestly confused. Merlin, that boy is so adorable when he's confused.

"Because … umm … well … the snitch …. you see … it's … and … well … Why don't you tell him Lily?"

Oh, that's noble, pawning the job off on me. Sirius Black you shall get it through the nose one day for your artful dodging. I know it and you know it and everyone knows it, so therefore it shall be. Humph. I hope your retribution is in the form of a dump truck full of bananas being dumped over you. Hehe … that would be funny. Imagine him covered in bananas. And we could get pictures. Oh, the blackmail. And yellow so isn't his color. Charming idea, I must remember that for a later date.

"The snitch is down my shirt, James!" Really, I don't see how anyone could forget that. It seems rather memorable (or maybe it's just memorable to me, although, you don't see Sirius forgetting, now do you?).

All of the color drained straight out of James' face and he started muttering again while pinching his arm. "This is all a dream, this is all a dream."

Fat chance, sweetheart (I've already tried that and it so didn't work).

"It's not a dream, for crying out loud!" I yelled, obviously rather frustrated (and who wouldn't be).

"It has to be a dream!" James cried, grabbing my shoulders and looking at me like a stag caught in the headlights, "There is no way, I mean, no way ever in the entire universe, that a snitch would fly down the shirt of the girl I lo … like, so that only I can get it out. Do you understand me? No way, it's impossible. It's impossibly impossible. I AM DREAMING!"

"If you say that any louder that annoying announcer kid might hear you and announce it for the whole world to hear," Sirius said wryly. I hate his wry-ness, I have a half deranged mad man hanging around my shoulders and he's being wry. Yeah, I'm going to have to kill him.

"If you like me so much, why is it such a problem to reach down my shirt?" Good question if I do say so myself, although, I could have phrased it a bit more delicately if I'd put my mind to it.

"I'm not reaching down your shirt!" James yelled, letting go of my shoulders (about time he did to, he was pressing rather hard).

"Why not?" Sirius asked, looking honestly perplexed. He may be annoying, but at least he's in my boat on this one. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, isn't this every guy's fantasy. Here I am, the girl he supposedly likes and I need him to reach down my shirt! I don't know much about men, but that seems like something they'd want, not be utterly terrified of. It's not like I'll kill him or something. I understand that it's not his fault and he did just save my life. Well, if he tries something I'll kill him, but other than that.

James made a frantic gesture at Sirius that clearly said, "Come here right now I have utterly life and death important things to discuss with you in a secretive manner."

Sirius rolled his eyes and flew over to James' end of the broom and they started whispering. I tried eavesdropping, but I couldn't hear anything. The noise from the stadium completely drowned out their quiet words.

So what am I supposed to do while they're having a confidential conversation without me? I feel very left out. I should do something exciting, so that I don't feel left out. I could look at people's noses. Wow, look at that kid's nose. Now that is sweet, I've never seen one with that kind of curve to it. Ok, this is boring. Umm … I know; I'll go back to that list of ways to kill that annoying announcer boy.

Top 10 Way To Kill That Squirrelly Announcer Boy Without Anyone Suspecting I Was The One Who Did It

1. Hire someone else to do it (but where's the personal satisfaction of a job well done in that?)

2. Poison in his drink (very classy, but where to brew it and where to find the ingredients; rather hard to sort out)

3. Anti-freeze in his drink (oh now that is clever, no one would ever know, but I'd have to wait until I went back home to pick some up at the store)

4. Broom accident (or so it would seem)

5. Dig his heart out with a rusty spoon (the rust being for purely malicious reasons (might be too easy to trace to me))

6. Scare him to death (heh heh heh, now that could be fun)

7. Accidental drowning (does he know how to swim, though?)

8. Stealing Godric Gryffindor's sword from Dumbledore's office and conveniently arranging for him to trip and fall on it (stealing from Dumbledore could be difficult)

9. Arranging for him to catch a dreaded disease (like the plague) and consequently die (intriguing, but the dreaded disease might be curable these days)

10. The Dementor's Kiss (one word: Sweet)

Now, that was fun and exciting. I bet James and Sirius are sad they missed out on that one. They don't appear to have noticed they're missing out and they're still whispering intently without me. Stupid boys.

I looked down at the game. I think Gryffindor is losing something awful (any sort of losing is just awful, this is Slytherin after all!). James better just hurry up and get this snitch before I go completely bonkers, lose my temper and have to go do something hen-witted like offer to let Mr. Hulk get it out just to make James jealous enough that he'll come and do the job himself.

I watched as someone nearly got knocked off their broom by a bludger. The Gryffindor fans seem to be quite upset with James and Sirius (not that I blame them, I'd be upset too except that I'm kind of too upset to be properly upset right now).

"James, that's ridiculous!" I froze. Oh my gods, at this exact spot I can hear what James and Sirius are whispering. Merlin, this is awesome! I moved my head a bit to the left, nothing, back to the center, "your reasoning is flawed," a bit to the right, nothing, back to the center, "it's not like this should be hard." Have I mentioned this is awesome? I wonder what James is going to say.

"Sirius, this is the woman I love (HE LOVES ME! I LOVE CONFIRMTIONS!), and I'm not going to be groping her in public before I've done it in private! Hell, even then I'm not going to …"

"That doesn't make sense!" Sirius interrupted.

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to let people watch me feel up my girl. I don't think so. She's either mine and mine alone or nothing." Wow, he's a possessive bloke. Not that I mind as long as the same rule applies to him.

"For Merlin's sake, James, you've just got to get the snitch! If you don't we lose!"

"Well, actually we can't lose until someone catches it."

"Oh, so you're going to let Bryson reach down your girl's shirt?"

My point exactly, Sirius really does have more sense than most people give him credit for.

I screamed as a bludger whooshed by my head. James practically dove at me and swept me away from where the bludger had been (so really it didn't do anyone much good, although, it might have made him feel like he was doing something constructive, which would be good for him I suppose). Sirius raced after the bludger and whacked it in the direction of the Slytherin chaser with the quaffle; the Gryffindors roared as the bludger nearly took the chaser's head off. Sirius is really too good at what he does. His aim is impeccable. He really could kill us all. Thank the gods he's not an assassin.

"James," I whispered quietly in his ear from where he had me crushed in his arms, "Please, just get the snitch."

He pulled away from me like touching me was burning him. I'm feeling kind of insulted now. I mean, I won't be letting him "feel me up" even if we do start going out. Nope, he can just keep his hands to himself. If I'm not good enough, that's just fine with me.

"James, just get the snitch out of my shirt, it's not that big of a deal."

He shook his head frantically. Alright, the boy has problems, it's official.

Sirius flew over and looked at us. I transferred my intimidating glare from James to him. "For gods sake, James, just do as the lady says so we can end this!"

James kept shaking his head frantically. Maybe his head's stuck on repeat and he really means yes. I helpfully pulled the collar of my shirt out a bit. James recoiled nearly off the end of the broom. Sirius had to fly around behind him and shove him back on.

"James, just get the snitch!" I cried. I don't get it. I don't get it. Why won't he just get this filthy piece of metal out of my bra! Doesn't he realize how uncomfortable I am? I've put up with his antics long enough.

"It looks like the drama is continuing up in the sky's folks. Who knows when Potter and Black will be rejoining the game. Luckily for them it doesn't appear that Bryson is having any luck finding the snitch, but that will only last so long."

"James, look, the likelihood of you ever and I mean ever," (well with the notable exception of when, I mean if, (if) we're married and then, well … maybe not even then), "Being TOLD, as in ORDERED, to stick your hand down my shirt is slim to none," (please note the same disclaimer about the "let's spend our lives together gig" also applies here), "in fact, just none, zero," (see disclaimer), "so stop being such a gentleman and do it!"

James doesn't seem to be taking this very well. Do you think he might have been petrified or something? Is the idea that horrifying to him? But about what I heard earlier … maybe he just didn't want to admit that he doesn't find me attractive to Sirius. Although, that doesn't make mush sense because if there was anyone he would admit it to, it would be Sirius. And it's not like he has a problem kissing me senseless (and sure this is a little bit different, but it's not like he's going to do anything (because if he even tries I'll force rat poison down his throat and dig his heart out with a rust spoon instead of that announcer's)).

Does Sirius have to keep smiling like that? I mean, is anyone else disturbed by the crazy eyebrow wiggles he's giving James? Not to mention I don't think they're doing James any good. I'm just saying I want to get this over with for the sake of everyone's sanity!

James hesitantly reached his hand out toward me. He's so dumb. He's not near close enough to reach the snitch. I slid myself a little closer to him very slowly, so I wouldn't spook him into trying to jump off of the broom again.

He literally jumped as his hand hit my collarbone. I smiled nicely at him. The poor boy doesn't seem to be able to get enough air. Maybe we should be hooking him up to a respirator. He ran his thumb along the collar of my shirt. Maybe he doesn't realize that the snitch is under my shirt. Should I tell him or would that cause a panic attack? I think I'll hold off, we are making progress after all. Before you know it I'll have this snitch out of my shirt, just you wait.

"Lily," he whispered, leaning closer to me. Heck yeah, I think we're making progress. I mean, check it out, he moved toward me instead of away!

"Yes," I whispered back.

"I just … I want you to know that what I said … in the common room last night … I …" His fingers slipped gently under my collar.

I absolutely can't move. If I spook him now I'll feel dumb. I want this snitch out NOW! And after that whole mess is taken care of I hope he says "I love you" and then I can say "I love you" and then he can give me a nice magnetic kiss. I like magnet-y kisses.

"So you've decided to feel up your mudblood instead of search for the snitch, is that it, Potter?"

Note to self: Next time someone sneaks up on you and says mean things, don't jump in surprise before checking that you have somewhere to land.

Note to self (take 2): I owe Sirius my life (again), must pay him back sometime.

Bryson deserves to be kicked. But I do have so smashing news. The snitch is no longer in my shirt. I actually knocked into James' broom as I flipped over it and out that ol' snitch-y boy popped. It was brilliant. I feel so much better.

Now this is actually rather enjoyable, I get to sit from the safety of Sirius' broom and watch James and Bryson race after the snitch. Isn't James cute? He's just so kissable. I want a kiss.

"Potter, Potter, Potter, POTTER, POTTER!" I joined the shouts coming from the Gryffindor stands, apparently all thoughts of their previous anger forgotten in the thrill of the chase.

"They're neck in neck, but Potter has the definite edge, it almost looks like Bryson can't even see the snitch, but is simply following Potter. They're rounding the Slytherin goal posts and heading back to the center of the field and … Merlin, they just took one heck of an upward turn and it doesn't like they're coming down. I can barely see them now."

I felt a tendril of panic and unthinkingly grabbed Sirius' arm.

"Uh … don't worry. He does this all of the time," Sirius said awkwardly, while attempting a reassuring pat on my arm.

"They're coming down. Who's in front? I can't even make out the robe color. Wait … it's Potter and, yes, YES, he's got the snitch!"

ooo…ooo

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. If you have some free time feel absolutely free to review.

Apologies for not updating sooner, but I've been so busy it's crazy. I hope the extra long chapter makes up for it.

Thanks and Hugs to all reviewers!

Since no one complained, I'm going to stick with responding to reviews with that new "reply" button.

Merry Christmas!