Chapter 11

How Quidditch Leads to Contraceptives

Quidditch was usually not on Lily's mind at nine o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. However, on this particular April Saturday, she found herself trying to fathom how much her life had changed since the first Quidditch match in November. She couldn't help but smile into her goblet of orange juice as memories of the slaughter of the Slytherin team resurfaced. Thanks to one well aimed Bludger, Gryffindor had taken out the Slytherin Seeker fairly early in the match. He had reportedly woken up almost five hours after the match had ended. The victory caused all of Gryffindor house to leave for the Christmas break in very high spirits. The smile on Lily's face, however, faded as she contemplated how her life had changed after that. Her grieving and guilty conscience liked to whisper late at night that she had squandered her last month with her parents while home on break. It had been all too soon after returning to school that Professor McGonagall had broken the horrible news.

Lily pushed her scrambled eggs around her plate, no longer hungry. It didn't even seem like her life anymore. It was as if she had switched with someone. Suddenly, she was parent-less, homeless, and surprisingly, not boyfriend-less. What had happened to her old life, the James hating, having parents, one?

"Lily."

What a difference six months could make.

"Lily!"

Lily looked up from her half eaten eggs and bacon. "Huh, what?"

"We're going down to the match now," Anne replied, sounding as if it was obvious. "Been listening much?"

"Sorry, I was…thinking," apologized Lily, looking at her watch. "What's the rush, anyway? The match doesn't start for half an hour."

"If we want to sit with Remus and his friends, then we need to go down with them," Anne responded, pointing to the backs of three cloaked boys who were exiting the Great Hall.

"And why do we want to sit with Remus and his friends?" Lily chortled, giving Anne a meaningful glance.

Anne's face flushed slightly as she quickly mumbled, "I, well, I thought you wanted to sit with James' friends to watch him play."

Lily smiled at her best friend. "You're so sweet, Anne, always thinking of what I want."

"I know, I'm such a great friend," Anne shot back. Her brief embarrassment didn't prevent her from walking quicker than normal, so that by the time she and Lily reached the stadium, they were only a few steps behind Remus, Sirius, and Peter.

A steady stream of students filed into the stadium as Lily and Anne took their seats in the Gryffindor section. Anne, Lily immediately noticed, had fixed it so that she sat between Remus and Lily.

Sirius, who perched on the other side of Peter and Remus, rummaged through his bag for something. "I brought refreshments," he finally announced, awkwardly holding out five bottles of butterbeer. "I even remembered Evans and Thatcher," he declared, passing two of the bottles to Anne and Lily, who were pleasantly surprised by his thoughtfulness.

"Always the gentleman, eh, Black?" Lily replied, a frighteningly James-like grin on her face.

"Oh yes," Anne responded softly under her breath, so only Lily could hear. "And it could have nothing to do with the fact he's asked me three more times to go to the dance with him."

Lily couldn't help but laugh as this remark, as she used the sleeve of her cloak to twist of the butterbeer cap. Luckily, Sirius didn't seem to have noticed her sudden outburst, as he and Peter were deep in a discussion of Gryffindor's chances of winning the match. The conversation involved a lot of numbers and statistics for both teams. It escalated quickly into an argument over who would win, with Sirius refusing to see defeat as a possibility for Gryffindor, while Peter worried that Hufflepuff's veteran seeker would bring about Gryffindor's downfall.

Remus ignored both his friends, as he fingered through a worn copy of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. Lily almost choked on her butterbeer when Anne leaned over Remus' shoulder to see the book better while inquiring, "Whatcha reading, Remus?"

Remus, not expecting Anne to suddenly be so close, jumped in his seat. "It's a Muggle story," he told her, smoothing his cloak awkwardly "about a Muggle who travels through time."

"Wow, I didn't know Muggles knew about time travel. Do they use Time-Turners too?" Anne responded in pure-blooded ignorance.

Both Lily and Remus laughed. "No, they don't know time travel exists," Remus explained kindly. "To them it is a thing of fiction, only a theoretical possibility."

Luckily, Remus was saved from any further questions by the start of the match. The noise in the stands drowned out even the magically amplified commentator, as Hufflepuff flew out onto the field. Lily clapped politely, as Sirius booed loudly to her right. The racket became deafening as Gryffindor's team appeared. Over Sirius' shrill whistles, Lily could hear boos from both the Slytherin and Hufflepuff stands.

The Keepers took their positions, looping slowly around their respective goal hoops, while the Seekers glared at each other high above the stands. The six Chasers faced each other at the center of the pitch while the four Beaters impatiently drummed their bats on the palms of their gloved hands. Lily wondered if James felt the thick anticipation for the start of the game as strongly as she did, or if he was so pumped with adrenaline that he didn't even notice. Half a second felt like thirty. The referee finally kicked open the box, allowing the Bludgers and Snitch to rocket skyward, before picking up the Quaffle and throwing it straight into the air.

The anticipation snapped like a taut elastic band as the players shot forward. Lily could never figure out how Quidditch games started without a huge pile up, with six players vying for one small ball. However, a Gryffindor player emerged from the tussle with the Quaffle tucked under her left arm. Close behind her zoomed the other five Chasers.

"Walsh takes the Quaffle in the toss up," shouted the commentator, a Ravenclaw fifth year. "Walsh passes to Potter, Potter to McDoogle, and McDoogle misses the pass because he's dodging the Bludger hit by Kline. Hufflepuff's Bogdon recovers the Quaffle. He's tearing down the field toward Dunn, looks like he's going for the score. No! He passes to Lavan at the last second, Lavan shoots…and Dunn manages to knock it away."

The Gryffindor section exploded in cheers again as their Keeper made a spectacular save. "I can't believe she's only a third year," Anne shouted in between loud whooping.

"McDoogle with the Quaffle. He dodges McCauley's Bludger successfully this time. McDoogle passes to Potter, Potter back to McDoogle, and now back to Potter."

Lily held her breath as James approached the Hufflepuff goals. He gripped the Quaffle with one hand, ready to make a shot at the goals, and, then, impossibly, he dropped the ball. Lily gasped, but then cheered as Walsh shot straight up from beneath Jame, heaving the crimson ball through the goal posts and earning Gryffindor their first points of the game.

Just audible above the crowd the announcer remarked, "what a feint by the Gryffindor Chasers, 10-0 Gryffindor."

An amazing transformation occurred at Hogwarts when Quidditch was played. Individual students suddenly became part of one teeming, screaming, conglomerate. Individual voices were lost to the roar of hundreds in perfect synchronization as their favored team either faltered or persevered. A unanimous groan rippled across the Hufflepuff section as Rancing, a Gryffindor Beater, caused Hufflepuff Chaser, Scott, to drop the Quaffle.

"Walsh grabs the dropped Quaffle, passes to Potter, who shoots…and Gryffindor scores again! That's too bad for Mulgrew. It was just off the tips of his fingers. Bogdon recovers the Quaffle and races toward the Gryffindor goals."

The crowd hit another thunderous note as a Bludger nearly collided with Bogdon, who dodged it at the last possible second with an impressive barrel roll.

"Bogdon to Scott, Scott to Lavan, Lavan takes a sharp left and throws…Hufflepuff is on the board!"

Sirius' booing and hissing and Lily's disappointed "aww" were drowned out by Hufflepuff supporters. As the match continued, it seemed with every score, the crowd screamed louder than last time. An hour into the game, Gryffindor was winning 120 to 90. A bizarre silence fell as spectators pointed to the sky, where Melinda Diggory, the Hufflepuff Seeker, dove toward the far end of the pitch. The Gryffindor Seeker, Merwine, chased hopelessly after her.

"It's a feint, you idiot," Sirius shouted hoarsely toward Gryffindor's young Seeker. And indeed, two seconds later, Diggory sharply ascended leaving her confused opponent far behind.

The display did not go unnoticed by the other players either. Believing it to be the real thing, Lavanfoolishly slowed down, allowing James to punch the Quaffle out from underneath her arm. The crowd, realizing the Snitch had not been sighted, went back to their usual cacophony as James shot toward the Hufflepuff goal post.

It happened in less than a second. Kline, hoping to distract James, smacked a Bludger directly at him. In an odd coincidence, the flying canon ball collided with a Bludger hit by Gryffindor's Burgoyne, redirecting both at odd angles. All James could do was roll away sharply. He wasn't quick enough, however, and the bludger collided with his right ankle. The crowd issued a collective "Ooooohhhh," as the commentator remarked, "and Potter looks as though he's just had his ankle broken by a Bludger."

Lily grabbed a pair of omnioculars from Peter without even asking permission. She raised them to her own eyes and squinted at the now magnified James. His ankle did indeed look broken, if the strange angle it now rested at was any indication. James, quite understandably, dropped the Quaffle, gripping his broomstick rather hard with both hands. His face appeared a pale green color.

"Why doesn't someone call time out?" Anne shouted.

"That must really hurt," Peter remakred stupidly, causing Sirius to whack him upside the head.

"No, you really think so, Wormtail?"

"Why hasn't Walsh called time out?" asked Lily, echoing Anne's concern.

Remus gently took the omnioculars from Lily's grasp and peered toward his friend. "Because the git just told her he is okay."

Lily couldn't believe her eyes. James sped determinedly toward Scott, who had possession of the Quaffle.

"You have to give him credit," Anne remarked. "He knows how to grin and bear it."

"Like the bloke he is," Lily returned disapprovingly.

"He doesn't want to leave his team a Chaser short," replied Sirius, sounding proud of James' stubborn stupidity.

For the second time in the match, an eerie silence moved over the crowd as the two Seekers shot past overhead. Lily glanced up to see the Gryffindor Seeker two broom lengths in front of a rapidly gaining Hufflepuff Seeker, a barely visible gold glint only a yard in front of him. The brooms drew even as the Seekers jostled each other. All Lily could make out was a tangle of arms reaching for a speck of feathers. Amid a sudden explosion of sound from below, Merwine closed his hand around the tiny ball and shot upward, holding his prize above his head.

"Gryffindor wins!" yelled the commentator. "Gryffindor Wins, 270 to 90!"

Gryffindor students rushed the field to congratulate their players. Lily made a beeline for James, who used his broomstick like a crutch while he congratulated Merwine on the catch.

"Brilliant game, mate," cried Sirius, giving James a stout pat on the back.

"Thanks, Padfoot," James responded through gritted teeth after the sudden movement.

"You need to see Madam Pomfrey," Lily advised, eying his now obviously swollen ankle.

"I don't even get a 'good flying James, you were bloody brilliant out there' first?" he replied cheekily.

"You were 'bloody brilliant' up until you got hurt and insisted on continuing to play."

"Yes, but I had perfect confidence that Merwine would catch the Snitch in no time. So why bother the referee with a time out, make all the fuss, and then send Gryffindor back into the air one player short, when the game was just going to end in a few minutes anyway."

"Shut your gob," Remus remarked. "You're just bloody stubborn and we all know it. Now come on, Lily is right, we ought to get you to Madam Pomfrey."

Together, Sirius and Remus supported James between them as he hobbled toward the castle. Peter, Anne, and Lily, who carried James' broomstick, followed behind. Madam Pomfrey, tutting in her usual manner when she saw James, had Sirius and Remus deposit him onto one of the immaculate hospital beds.

Lily, Anne, Peter, Sirius, and Remus all hovered silently to one side as Madam Pomfrey gently- though James looked as if he didn't find it very gentle- took off his right shoe and sock. His ankle, not only swollen to three times its normal size and laced with sickly black, blue and yellow bruising, pointed to the left more than it normally should.

"I'm going have to set the bones back into place before healing them," she told James before taking hold of his ankle and turning it quickly back to the right.

James, having seized two handfuls of sheets when she did this, exclaimed through clenched teeth, "bloody hell!"

"Had you come to me immediately," she continued, ignoring his curse, "there would have been far less swelling and that would have been far less painful." She then waved her wand over his foot, muttering an incantation. "That mended the bones," she explained, pocketing her wand once more and propping his foot up on a pillow. "However, you'll have to stay here for at least a day until all the swelling goes down. I'll give you a potion to hurry it along." She walked into a back room, returning shortly with a steaming goblet. She waited to make sure James downed the entire thing, before giving one last set of instructions. "Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin, and Mr. Pettigrew, would you please help Mr. Potter get out of his Quidditch gear. Ladies, please wait in the hall."

"But why can't Lily help?" James shouted, and Lily felt herself go scarlet. Anne giggled next to her.

"It's not funny," Lily growled as the hospital doors closed behind her and Anne.

"No, it's sweet," Anne replied, leaning against the wall opposite the doors.

"Very sweet," Lily agreed sarcastically. "So sweet that anymore comments like that and Madam Pomfrey will sit me down to talk about contraceptive charms and potions."

Anne giggled, recalling the memorable talk McGonagall gave all the Gryffindor fourth year girls. Once was bad enough. "I concede. It's not sweet."

A/N: In an interview, J.K. Rowling said James had been a Chaser. He was made a Seeker in the movies. I decided to go with what Jo said. Also, the Diggory who played Seeker for Hufflepuff in this chapter, in my mind, is an aunt or older cousin of Cedric Diggory. I just liked the irony of having James play against a Diggory. If you liked this chapter, please remember to leave a review.