Disclaimer: I own anything you don't recognize as canon. But that isn't true if you're an idiot, so whatev.
Chapter Three
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
And so the next week went by. Every boy was in love with Gwen Nelson before the first day of term was over, and Gwen knew it. She had been asked to the first Hogsmeade trip (Saturday, October 31) over a hundred times, and she refused each.
"So, Prongs," Sirius began, lifting his head from his Potions essay to look at James, "gonna ask her out, mate?"
The Marauders were working on their homework on the second Thursday of term, gathered in the Gryffindor common room. James looked over at Gwen, who was chatting happily with her new friends (she had become popular very quickly), all of her finished homework stacked neatly beside her.
"You have no patience, Padfoot," came James's reply, and that was all he said on the matter.
"I would ask her to Hogsmeade," Sirius said casually, "but I've already found myself a date, Charlene Vance of Ravenclaw."
"I wonder how many have asked her so far." Peter wondered aloud, his Charms essay lying forgotten in front of him.
"I heard that you asked her," Sirius said amusedly, looking to his chubby friend.
Peter flushed and finally began scribbling on his parchment once more. Remus made a sound that lingered in the limbo between amusement and disapproval.
"Of course Moony thinks we're all babbling, bumbling bands of baboons," Sirius said, rolling his eyes and flipping his hair so that it caught the light magnificently. "I got that from McGonagall. Try saying it five times fast."
James and Peter tried, and failed.
"Well, it's only that she's overwhelmed the minds of most of the male population in this school," Remus replied, not looking up from his homework. "I thought that even you, Sirius, might like going with somebody more practical."
Sirius mouthed something to James, pointing at Remus and rolling his eyes, before continuing with his Potions essay.
Across the common room, a pair of vicious green eyes watched the Marauders from across the room over an upside-down Charms textbook, and a pair of keen ears that belonged to the head which also possessed the eyes listened, trying to catch the words over the noise of the room.
"I can barely hear," Lily murmured irritably to Rosie, who was immersed in her book titled Being the Captain (Rosie, the Gryffindor Keeper, had been appointed the new Captain of the Quidditch team).
"Mmm," the brunette girl replied, turning a page. "If you can't hear, stop listening."
Lily tried settling down again, but to no avail. She threw her book down in frustration and said, "It's almost time to start patrolling anyway. I'll get an early start." And she walked out of the portrait hole.
James noticed her, and taking the chance to escape from Sirius's blathering about his new girlfriend, jumped up and followed.
"So, Evans," he said, once he'd made it out of the portrait hole behind the redhead. "You going to tryouts?"
She looked at him petulantly. "I don't plan ahead like that. I'll come if I come."
"Well, everyone's going to watch." He reconsidered. "Everyone who matters, anyway."
"And I suppose that I don't matter if I decide not to come?" she snapped.
"Well, no, you…matter," James replied lamely.
Lily considered what he said, and they walked in silence for a few minutes, only speaking to tell wanderers that it was almost curfew.
"Well," James said awkwardly a while later, "Gwen's going to try and Seek, so if you want to come and watch…I mean, I'll be playing, too."
Lily looked at him askance. "Does it matter?"
"Well, no…"
"And it's not like Nelson needs my help to play," Lily said, and suddenly an idea struck her like a freight train, only without killing her.
"You call her Nelson now?"
"Why shouldn't I? We aren't close or anything." The last thing Lily wanted to do was talk about Gwen Nelson with James Potter, and she was doing it.
Damn.
"She's really great, though," James argued, and Lily almost gagged as she pictured his eyes clouding over as he said it, though she dared not look for fear of actually vomiting.
"I'm sure." Lilly coughed. "Well, Potter, I'll go off and take the dungeons and the first three floors if you'll cover the top four. Meet here at five till eleven, then?"
"Well, okay." James looked reluctant. "See you."
Lily went off down the stairs, a plan working its way through her mind. A plan of most indecency.
"Lily, please don't," Rosie said as the two girls walked speedily towards the Quidditch field, the reason for their pace being that Lily was trying to shake off her nagging friend, who followed.
"Rosie, stay out."
"But you could hurt her!"
"And that would be bad…how?" Lily quickened her pace, but the taller girl easily caught up and jumped in front of her.
"Lily, you just…can't. You're Head Girl."
The redhead pushed past her friend. "I won't get caught. I mean, she has to be bad at something."
Rosie let out a cry of frustration. "Lily, stop, please. You have no right. And I'm the Captain. You're not going to mess up my team."
"So you're going to tell, are you?" Lily growled, rounding on her friend. "Listen, Rosie, I'm seventeen. I'm of age. And I am not in the mood to be told what I can and cannot do, especially by someone who read my open diary! I make my own decisions now, and if I get in trouble, so be it. Respect my choices." And she promptly turned, her long, thick braid smacking her friend in the face, and tromped away through the dewy grass.
Rosie showed no intentions of continuing to argue, only slung her broom over her shoulder and trudged after.
It was the second Saturday of term—the Saturday of Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts. There were many students out on the field on this particularly wet, foggy, and dewy morning, some coming to try out for the vacant spots (one Chaser, a Beater, and the Seeker), some coming to try and take the long-held positions of previous players.
Lily Evans pulled the hood of her Muggle jacket over her head, drew her wand, and edged up the side of the locker room building located just off the edge of the field. All of the students who were going to try out had deposited their brooms against the wall there while they waited for Rosie to get onto the field and give her talk (the reason the players had not kept their brooms with them during the exercises Lily knew not, but was very relieved that they hadn't), giving Lily the chance to look over the models and find the one she wanted. She had snooped earlier in the seventh-year girls' dormitory, supposedly waiting for Rosie to finish showering, and found Gwen's broom—the Comet 216. (Except Rosie had been looking for her in the Head Girl's dormitory—that's where she read Lily's diary.) Lily was unable to do anything with the broom then because Gwen had just entered the dormitory.
Lily noticed one broom standing at a distance from the others, and saw that it was, in fact, a Comet 216. Jumping forward in excitement and anxiety, she grasped the handle, looked about herself to be sure nobody was looking, and muttered, "Exsisto
Vomica!"
Satisfied with her spell, and not feeling a bit guilty about it (most unusual for the rule-abiding Head Girl), Lily turned and skipped off towards the stands to watch the effects of her scheme unravel.
Apparently, Rosie had just finished talking to the students who were going to try out, and she spotted Lily walking past as they all started stretching out as a group, a triumphant smile playing on the redhead's lips. The brunette shook her head in disappointment and continued stretching with the others as Lily found a seat in the stands next to Remus.
Once they had all finished their stretching, they bustled to the locker room wall to retrieve their brooms. There was too much of a throng to tell if Gwen had received her broom yet, though she was not a bit unsure—after all, how many people in the world would have the same broom as Gwen had? Especially if she had bought it in the United States.
They started by choosing the two Beaters; Rosie had set up a difficult challenge for each person trying out for the two positions. In the end, the old Beater, Preston Shepherd, and a new one, Derek Burke ended up with the positions, and then they began by choosing the new Seeker.
Rosie and the two new Beaters who were now supposed to be helping her instruct the tryouts each had a bucket of golf balls and began throwing golf balls up into the air and out every which way while the eligible Seekers raced off after them. Lily noticed with disappointment that Gwen's broom seemed to be having no trouble, even though she had jinxed it, because the blonde girl became a blur as she darted after the little white balls, catching any one she pursued. At the end, Rosie counted up the number of golf balls each person had caught and recorded it; Lily noticed with a sinking feeling that Gwen had caught the most.
Next, Rosie explained that she had released three Snitches at the beginning of tryouts, and how they were all supposed to try and find them. When the three golden balls were caught, one of those three people was then chosen for Seeker by how impressively they had performed the golf ball task. The students then tore off, all in a mad hunt for the Snitches. As Lily watched Gwen cut easily through the air on her obviously safe broom, she began to panic.
What if she knew what I was doing and knew how to reverse it? What if she'll tell on me? And as much as Lily hated to think it, she did; And what if they don't just make Comet 216 models in America?
Gwen caught a Snitch first; the other two were caught a while later by a sixth year boy and a third year boy. Rosie looked over her papers and announced to the crowd and to the students who were trying out:
"Our new Seeker is Gwen Nelson!"
Lily almost hurled over the edge of the stands. Or on Remus. Or on Sirius, who sat next to him.
Below, James's eyes flicked in Lily's direction, but only for a millisecond, for now it was time for Chaser tryouts. Hoisting his own Comet 216 over his shoulder, he congratulated Gwen, high-fiving her, and then mounting.
Rosie flew to one end of the field to guard those goal posts, and three people were supposed to try and work as a team to get the Quaffle through as many times as possible.
You can imagine how put out Lily was when James was barely three feet off the ground and promptly thrown off his broom.
Next time, he wasn't so lucky. His broom bucked wildly as soon as he threw one leg over, wiggling out from in between his legs and zooming up to whack him in the face with its handle.
James Potter passed out in the middle of the Quidditch field.
Lily ducked down on the bench, so far that her back was on the seat, and more leg was sticking out in front of her than she knew what to do with.
"Did you do that, Lily?" a soft voice murmured into her ear.
"Remus!" she exclaimed, gasping, righting herself in her chair. "What should I do?"
The two looked out onto the field, where Madam Hooch could be seen inspecting the broom, while the two new Beaters hoisted James up and carried him off the field to lie on a bench on the edge of the field.
"You should tell," Remus replied. "They'll find out anyway. That's what Sirius says, and he knows all about rule breaking."
"Sirius?" Lily hissed, leaning forward to look past the werewolf. "You know, too?"
"Who doesn't! You're over there acting like somebody just put a Bat-Bogey Hex on you, and you expect us, the Marauders, first-class rule breakers, discoverers of the—"
"The point, Padfoot," Remus interrupted gently.
"Oh, right. You expect us not to realize that you, Lily Evans, Head Girl, former two-year prefect, founder of the—"
"The point, Black," Lily interrupted roughly.
"You expect us not to realize that you did it?"
"Go tell," Remus informed her.
Lily drew in her breath and stood, hoisting her bag of books higher on her shoulder (despite the fact that it was a Saturday; she had planned to study after this small errand) and descending from the stands.
On the field, Madam Hooch was talking with Rosie in low tones, and as Lily approached she caught bits like, "jinxed broom" and "Veritaserum if we really need it," until the two spotted her coming and stopped talking. Rosie gave Lily a look of surprise, then muttered that she was going to try and rouse James, and was off.
"Miss Evans?" Madam Hooch inquired, bearing no suspect of the Head Girl, her inclination getting the best of her judgment.
"Madam Hooch," Lily began, clearing her throat, which had caught at some point during the journey from her seat to the field. She wasn't sure how to go about admitting to something like this, because she had been in trouble only a couple of times in her life, but swallowed hard and said, "I did it."
A look of surprise crossed her face, but Madam Hooch was not one to not take a student seriously, and she replied, "You jinxed this broom."
"No, I—" Lily swallowed. "I wanted Potter to…to do really well today, and I thought that maybe…maybe if his broom…well, what I did was stupid, because I obviously didn't know, er, the right spell." Lily knew it was a lame ending, but she figured that, had her wishes been ill, she would have gotten in more trouble than if she had hoped the best for James.
"I see." Madam Hooch surveyed her with knowing eyes; how could Lily think that a member of the staff would believe that she had tried to help James Potter? Lily cursed herself. "Well, cheating is prohibited at Hogwarts, but since you have shown exemplary behavior in the past, I'm only going to take twenty-five points from Gryffindor and give you a detention on Saturday, October the fifth."
"Thank you, Madam Hooch. I swear it won't happen again."
The flying instructor nodded primly and departed towards James, who had come to and now needed an explanation.
Lily almost left as the Quidditch practice commenced once more, but she supposed that she owed James an apology, so she waited, leaning against the locker room wall.
Damn. Two apologies for James Potter in a month.
Finally, Lily heard Rosie's voice ring across the field, shouting, "All right, everybody's tried out for Chaser, then?" When there were no objections, she continued. "Our three Chasers for this year will then be Carrie Schweisenburger, new to the team, and returning Chasers Molly Jackson and James Potter."
There was an uproar at this, and Lily caught certain objections that drifted across the field, like:
"He fell off his broom!"
"Didn't even try out!"
"In the air for two seconds!"
"Fell off his broom!"
That was before Rosie took full advantage of her powerful vocal chords, her shout drowning out the others.
"Yes, I know, he was in the air for two seconds, and that he was knocked out and couldn't try out again," she yelled. "But I know what happened today with James Potter, and the rest of you don't, so shut your mouths. Plus, I've been on this team with him for a few years now, and I've seen him fly, and he's going to be Chaser. And for those two seconds in the air, he was great. The end."
Once it was obvious that Rosie's tirade was finished, there was an outbreak of muttering as everyone drifted from the field. Nobody looked in Lily's direction, and she was grateful that Madam Hooch had not told any onlookers what had happened with James's broom.
Lily peered over to where James was sitting on his bench and spotted Gwen doting over his bruised forehead. Indignant, the redhead marched across the field towards James.
He spotted her coming, and stood up, swaying slightly, as Gwen squeaked and gripped his arm.
"James. I mean—Potter," Lily said once she had stopped in front of him. She lifted one foot to scratch her other calve awkwardly, giving Gwen a meaningful glance that the blonde obviously didn't catch. "I suppose Madam Hooch told you what…er, happened?"
"Yeah," he said, making no move to remove his arm from Gwen's grasp.
Lily took a deep breath, possibly her hundredth of the day. "I'm really sorry."
"It's okay. You were trying to help, right?" James gave her a look that said he didn't buy the story.
Lily didn't want James to be mad at her. She didn't hate him. And she didn't want her apology to be for nothing.
"Are they fixing your Comet 216?" Lily asked, realizing that she probably sounded stupid using the name of the model instead of the word "broom."
"Ye—" James began, but was interrupted by Gwen's squeal.
"That's what you fly! I fly a Comet 216, too! My grandfather, well, he knows how to spoil—after all, he did marry a half-veela, but…"
As Gwen rambled, James looked at Lily in surprise, and then a look of realization crossed his face, only to be replaced with a cocky smile.
Lily realized then that she probably shouldn't have given away her intentions to him, but had no way of communicating that she didn't mean what he thought.
"…So he gave me this broom before I left and said, "Gwennie, now you—'"
"I'm, er, going to go and talk to Rosie," Lily said, interrupting Gwen and receiving a scathing look in return. Lily turned on her heel and walked to her friend shyly.
"I'm glad you told," the brunette girl said, throwing her broom over her shoulder.
"I dunno if I am," Lily admitted. "I have a detention."
"Oh, no!" Rosie said sarcastically. "This is the first, I'll bet."
"Well, no…" Lily scratched the back of her neck. "I punched Potter in fourth year—you remember that…and there was last year, when I accidentally got too frustrated with Potter and—"
"Potter, Potter…" Rosie smiled. "Oy—Potter!" She walked over to the boy, who was still listening to Gwen. Lily reluctantly followed.
"You should go up to the Hospital Wing, see if Madam Pomfrey sees anything wrong."
James nodded, and as the two girls said goodbye and turned to leave, Lily heard him say, "So, Gwen, d'you want to come with me on the first Hogsmeade trip?"
Lily tripped over her own foot and fell flat on the ground.
There was a shriek, and then a thousand 'Yes's in a row from Gwen, and before any of that began, Lily felt her feet picking herself up off the ground without any of Rosie's help, and then carrying her body away faster than they usually did, and then she was running, her braid whipping wildly in the chill air, and she did not stop running until she was safely up on the seventh floor, in Gryffindor Tower, behind the locked door of the Head Girl's dormitory.
And then a scream of frustration emitted from her mouth, and Lily wondered how something so small and petty could make her feel so miserable.
A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter seems rushed, but whatever. Not so much Gwen in this one, I hope everyone is pleased to know!
So, this chapter wasn't the best, but they should get better. I'm thinking that every other chapter is going to be good, so next one should be worth reading!
Virtual cake is now being passed out to all my chapter two reviewers, baked with love.
Stick around, and virtual ice cream for all chapter three reviewers!
-Carrie!
(Why, yes, I did name a Chaser after myself.)
