Disclaimer: The characters are the property of the amazingly talented J.K Rowling. I'm only borrowing the characters and world that she has so brilliantly created.

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

Chapter Three: Falling

This chapter is dedicated to Rednose, in the hopes that it brightens your day.

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

Poland?! Holy hippogriffs!

James opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. My mind was positively reeling from his news that he had received a tryout offer from the Polish team the Grodzisk Goblins.

I-I mean…Merlin's beard! Thoughts whirled through my head at an increasingly alarming speed. The Goblins…Poland…James wanted to tryout for a Quidditch team based in Poland. I hadn't expected this. Not even close.

The thought of James in Poland - so far away - made panic suddenly flood through my entire body. I didn't want him to leave me here in Britain while he moved to the continent.

"In case you haven't noticed, Poland is on the continent. You couldn't Apparate from England to Poland everyday. You couldn't even use the Floo Network for that. It's too far. You'd have to live there, James. You wouldn't get to see your family very often. We wouldn't get to see each other very often. I mean, this would be the tryout of a lifetime - the team Wronski played for - but holy hippogriffs! You just can't up and move to Poland of all places!"

I had picked up speed considerably as I talked. When I finished, James looked taken aback.

"What?" I challenged him.

"It's just that –" he began, but I didn't let him finish.

"Don't go. Please. I…I want you here in Britain. With me."

I felt a blush rise in my face to accompany that statement. I was such rubbish at stuff like this, but James couldn't go off and live in Poland. He just…he couldn't.

James leaned down and kissed me gently. As he pulled away, he brushed a stray piece of hair behind my ear.

"I wasn't planning on moving to Poland," he told me, his voice suddenly quiet. "I just wanted to tell you that I'd received the tryout offer. I'm flattered, but I'm not going to accept it. I want to stay here in Britain. With my family, and with you."

"Y-you…you…" I stammered extremely incoherently, eyes wide. "You let me blather on thinking you were seriously contemplating moving to Poland!"

"You didn't let me get a word in edgewise!" James protested with a smirk. "You were too busy jumping to all sorts of conclusions."

"Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable," I huffed, but I wasn't cross. Far from it. Relief was flooding through me and I wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let go.

"Did you really think I'd up and move to Poland after you turned down the tryout offer from the Heidelberg Harriers for the same reasons?"

Honestly, I'd forgotten all about the offer from the Harries the moment James had brought up the Goblins. I supposed that I should have known better all things considered, but in the moment that knowledge had vanished from my mind and all that remained was panic.

"I might have temporary forgotten about that," I admitted somewhat sheepishly.

If anything, James's smirk grew. "I'd have a harder time making you fall in love with me if I spent most of my time in Poland."

As if he needed to try. I practically threw myself into his arms. He easily caught me and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, clinging to him.

"Don't you ever do that to me again," I whispered against his neck.

"I'm sorry," he replied, a hint of surprise in his voice. One of his hands reached up to stroke my hair and he tenderly pressed a kiss to the side of my head. "I didn't mean to upset you like that. I didn't realize…."

He hadn't realized that I'd be so upset if he had wanted to try out for a team in Poland; that I would find the mere thought of him living in another country so far away distressing.

I pulled away to look up into his face. "Don't you know how much I care about you, James Potter?"

The thought that he didn't know was almost as upsetting as the idea of him moving out of the country.

His gaze was warm and steady, his brown eyes reassuring. James nodded slowly. "I do know."

"I don't want the lad I'm falling in love with even thinking about leaving Britain."

James slowly blinked and a smile started creeping across his face.

"You're not just saying that because you thought I was going to go off and live in Poland?"

"You know how it was when I realized I fancied you?"

My feelings for James had developed so gradually and crept up on me so slowly that I didn't notice until one moment it had been like being hit from behind with the full body bind curse.

James nodded.

"This was kind of like that," I explained, reaching up and running a hand through his untidy hair. "I was falling before I even knew it. And the thought of you moving away…it made me realize what I would lose."

"You're falling in love with me," James breathed, his smile now blinding. I had never seen him look so completely happy, and the knowledge that my feelings for him had put that expression on his face made me warm down to my toes.

I tilted my head and cradled his jaw in my hand. Reaching up, I kissed him, feather light.

"I'm falling in love with you."

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

The Holyhead Harpies, my final tryout. Frankly, I was burnt out. The last couple of weeks had been filled with intense training and tryouts and interviews.

"So…Eva Wood."

Celestia Pendergast might have had one of the most pretentious names I'd ever heard, but the woman sitting across the desk from me looked anything but pretentious. She was wearing a pair of robes of such dark blue that they appeared almost black. This was contrasted by her icy blue eyes and startling blonde hair.

"Yes," I said, trying to project confidence.

"You turned down our offer to try out for main team. Most interesting. I can't say we've had that happen very often. Young Quidditch players immediately out of Hogwarts are usually ecstatic to receive a main team offer."

"I know," I admitted. I had been worried about the fact that I had requested a reserve tryout rather than one with the main team. "And I was absolutely thrilled to receive that offer. But I don't think I'm ready for main team yet. I saw what happened with - er…that is…"

"Your brother."

"Ye-es," I replied slowly.

Ms. Pendergast gave me an appraising look. "Don't worry about making your brother's mistakes. That was him. Just worry about you. Now," she said, bringing her hands up to her desk, "I want you to know, Eva, that I don't give a fig who your family is. If you're fortunate enough to be selected for this team, you'll be a Harpy and all I'll care about is if you show up to practice, training, and matches ready to give it everything you've got. What you do here, in this place, is what matters to me. Quite frankly, I don't care about my players' personal lives as long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to play the game."

Well, that was a welcomed policy after the sort of reactions I'd gotten from nearly every other team. The other exception had been the Catapults, whose coach had told me that he didn't care if I was a Wood; he expected discipline and hard work from every one just the same.

"Now," Ms. Pendergast said again, "I believe when you play with a team of all women, a group with the right temperament is essential. So you'll be meeting the reserve team."

I must have looked surprised, because she smiled. "We want our team members to get along well and to trust each other. I'm certain you know from your time as the Gryffindor captain that cohesiveness is paramount. Without the right group, there isn't the right spark, and that spark is essential to playing together as a team."

I nodded. I did know. My Gryffindor team had had that spark she talked about. The thought of my old team made me miss them and the dynamic we'd shared.

"The team – the reserves, I should say - are waiting on the pitch. You might have noticed that you're the only young woman trying out today. We believe in individual tryouts in order to properly assess how potential members interact with the current team."

I blinked in surprise. This was getting more and more surprising. Harpies tryouts were widely regarded as eccentric and were a closely guarded affair. I hadn't quite known what to expect, but this certainly hadn't been it.

Grabbing my broomstick, I followed Ms. Pendergast through a series of hallways, one of which sloped upwards. At the end of the tunnel, she waved her wand and a large set of double doors opened wide. Sunlight streamed in and she spread her arms wide.

"Eva Wood, meet the reserve Holyhead Harpies."

"Hi!" said a girl with deep, glossy brown hair, making the first attempt at interaction. "I'm Teagan. Teagan Hart. I saw you play that final match at Hogwarts. Your Gryffindor team played so well together. Can't always have been easy when you've got so much inter-team dating."

All of this was said extremely quickly.

"What? How did you…" I stammered, feeling very confused.

Teagan laughed. "My sister plays for Ravenclaw, so I was at the match. And doing a bit of spying, of course. Just to check out the prospects, you know."

I found myself laughing a bit, too. "I would probably do the same thing," I confessed. "I wouldn't be able to help myself."

"It's in our blood," Teagan agreed. "Say, that James Potter – my sister says he's your boyfriend. He's one hell of a player, isn't he? The lucky team that signs him."

"He supports the Harpies, actually," I smiled at her words. "Since his mum played on the team and all."

"Stop hogging her, Teagan," a woman with a strong Irish accent complained in a joking tone. "Give the rest of us a chance, why don't you?" She winked at me. "Teagan here is a regular old chatterbox. I'm Siobhan O'Connor."

Siobhan then steered me towards the remaining three women on the pitch, pointing to each of them in turn.

Branwen Milligan was short with dark brown hair and dark eyes. Isabel Miller was tall with strawberry blond hair, and Annika Bauer had light brown hair and green eyes.

Annika waved cheerfully and said, "She won't tell you herself because she doesn't like to brag, but Isabel's mum is the author of the Infiltrator series. I'm sure you've heard of them."

"Heard of them?" I echoed, astounded. "They're only my favorite books of all time! They're brilliant! Your mum wrote them? So then is the main character named after you?"

Isabel gave a shy grin. "That's right."

How had I not known this before now? One of the Harpies reserve players had a mum who wrote my favorite books!

"The fourth book was phenomenal!" I gushed, unable to help myself. "That moment when Jack found out her secret – my mind was blown."

Isabel laughed kindly. "I'll tell her you liked it. I think that one was my favorite book so far. She's started to work on the fifth book already."

"All right," Ms. Pendergast said, approaching us. "Now that you've met everyone and had a chance to mingle a bit, let's get formally started. This is Joelle Smith, our reserves trainer."

"She's a hard taskmaster," Teagan commented cheekily and with a wink in my direction. "But we love her just the same," she added quickly as she received a withering look from the trainer.

"You're a twit Hart." For some reason, this only served to make Teagan grin.

I really had no idea what was going on. I wasn't sure if Joelle Smith was cut from the same cloth as Trainer Day at the Puddlemere side, or if she was more like the Magpies trainer who had had a gruff exterior, but underneath was really a sweet older gentlemen.

"Joelle Smith, but you can call me Joelle," she extended her hand to me and I took it in a firm handshake.

"Nice to meet you," I told her.

"That remains to be seen," she answered her eyes never leaving mine. "Now, grab your broomstick and let's see what you can do."

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

I threw the Quaffle as hard as I could at the golden hoop. It hit the rim and bounced off as I let out a muffled yell of anger.

Godric Gryffindor, could I have played any worse? I hadn't played that badly since…since…well, I couldn't even think of a time I'd last played that poorly. Maybe third year? Second year?

My Harpies tryout had been an unmitigated disaster from beginning to end. I'd been training so intensively and been under such high pressure for so many weeks now that it had caught up with me, and it had done so with a vengeance.

Thankfully my life's ambition wasn't to play for the Harpies, but I had hoped not to make a complete idiot out of myself at any of the tryouts. The Harpies didn't invite just anyone to try out for their team – and they had offered me a main team tryout! Good job I had asked for a reserve tryout instead. What if I'd actually tried out for the main team playing like I had today? Holy hippogriffs, it didn't bear thinking about.

"Didn't go so well?"

I turned on my broom to see my dad standing below me. I hadn't been able to face everyone at the house after that horror of a tryout, so I'd gone straight to our Quidditch pitch instead. I had briefly thought about going to see James, but I wasn't really in the mood to see anyone.

"You could say that," I replied, angling my broom downward and jumping to the ground once I got close enough.

I knew I wasn't supposed to talk with Dad about any of my tryouts, but the words came pouring out and I didn't try to stop them. He didn't try to stop me either, just let me talk.

"Dad it was…really, really terrible. I mean, horrid. And the worst part is that it started out so well! The interview portion was first and that was good, and the people I met were brilliant, but then we started the actual Quidditch portion and I just… I…I fell apart. I played like I was a beginner. I didn't score against their Keeper. I dropped the Quaffle!"

Dad reached out and pulled me into a hug. I was so angry with myself that I didn't feel like crying, but it felt nice to be enveloped in his arms just the same. He smelled like his usual aftershave, which was comforting. It made me remember when I was younger and upset that I couldn't score a goal against him no matter how hard I tried. He would give me a hug and tell me that someday I'd be able to, that I just had to work hard.

"I'm so angry with myself," I admitted, shaking my head wearily. Holy hippogriffs, what a day.

"Professionals drop the Quaffle too, Eva. No one's perfect," he told me. "You pick yourself up and keep going. That's what maters. Then you do everything you can to be better next time."

"But there is no next time!" I cried angrily. "Why did I have to have a horrible day during a tryout? Holy hippogriffs, all of the days to fall apart on the pitch. I'm such a bleeding failure."

"Eva," Dad put his hands on my shoulders and forced me to look at him. "You tried. That's all you can do. There isn't an equation to these things. Believe me, I've tried to figure it out. I have the notebook from my Hogwarts days to prove it."

I almost laughed. I had come across that particular notebook once in his study. It was obsessive, even by my standards.

"Don't let this get you down for long. It'll be all right, you'll see."

"Thanks, Dad," I told him.

At least my other tryouts had gone well, and my Puddlemere tryout had been the best of all. Even I was still amazed at how well I had played.

"Do your best to put it out of your mind. Now you're just waiting for offer letters."

"Well, there's one letter that certainly won't be coming," I muttered as we walked towards the house together.

"I had an awful tryout too when I was your age," Dad told me as we started to walk towards the house.

He had never told me this before. "What team?" I asked, wondering if he would say Puddlemere.

"The Cannons," Dad laughed.

Wow…to think how different my Dad's career path could have been if he'd signed with the Cannons all those years ago.

"You made a good choice choosing Puddlemere," I told him.

He nodded, then said, "Now that you're finished with tryouts, you can have a bit of a rest. Your Mum made treacle tart for dessert."

A bit of a rest – that sounded marvelous. And so did treacle tart.

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

"Pass the Quaffle, pass it," I muttered angrily to myself as I flew towards the goal posts at the end of our Quidditch pitch behind the house.

A family Quidditch match was well underway at the Wood household. Tristan had shown up, but naturally he had brought Elena along and suggested she play with us. She was being a complete Quaffle hog. My previous assessment of her skills when I we had first met was correct – good, but not willing to listen to others or take advice. I had had the great misfortune to be on the same team as her, because Richard flatly refused to have her on his team.

We were playing with the Quaffle only, so James was currently playing as the third Chaser on our team. I had seen him play Chaser not that long ago and he wasn't half bad, really. With some work, he could actually be quite exceptional. Tristan rounded out our team as Keeper. Dad was playing Keeper for the other team, while Richard, Gareth, and Lily served as Chasers. Mum was serving as announcer and referee.

"Elena, pass!" I shouted as Lily came alongside her and swiped at the ball. The damage was done, and Lily knocked the Quaffle from Elena's loose grip.

Holy hippogriffs, not again.

From beneath, Gareth scooped up the Quaffle as it fell and sped off down the pitch towards Tristan.

"And that's 10 points for Gareth!" Mum commented from the ground as Tristan got overconfident and misjudged the throw.

I rolled my eyes in extreme exasperation. Why couldn't that stupid bint just listen? This was the fourth time she'd lost us the Quaffle and all of them had been avoidable. I mean, I knew it was just a match for fun, but she was ruining what should have been enjoyable with her inability to be a team player.

James signaled for a time out and I angled my broom down to the pitch. We gathered around the benches and grabbed our water bottles.

"Why didn't you pass the Quaffle?" James asked Elena as we circled up.

Elena fixed James with a disbelieving look. "Um, this isn't like a professional match you know. It's supposed to be fun."

"That doesn't mean you should just hand over points to the other team!" James pointed out. "We can have fun and play halfway decently. It doesn't have to be one or the other."

"Hey, don't be hard on her," Tristan spoke up, "She hasn't played in a while."

I tried to keep in mind Christine's words about Tristan wanting Elena around for support, I really did. But they made it so difficult when they were in front of me acting like such prats.

Elena smiled gratefully at Tristan and clutched at his arm. Ugh.

I placed my hands on my hips in a challenging stance borrowed from my days as Quidditch captain. "James doesn't even play Chaser and you don't see him ignoring everyone else."

"What's your point, Eva?" Elena asked, head tilted to the side.

Was she being actually serious right now? I wanted to go find a Beater's bat and hit her upside the head.

"Just pass the Quaffle once in a while," I ground out, refraining from pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers.

"You're not exactly passing either, you know."

I stared at her in disbelief. "Sorry? I've been passing the Quaffle. When I have it, that is. Almost every time you get a hold of it you try to score instead of the three of us passing it back and forth and keeping it out of the other team's hands. That's how this game is played."

Elena rolled her eyes. "You pass to him way more than to me."

"If she does, it's because she knows I'll pass it back," James retorted, anger creeping into his voice.

Elena clicked her tongue and ignored this comment. "Like I've been saying, this isn't a real match."

"Yeah, let's just have fun," Tristan backed up his girlfriend. "Stop bossing everyone around and acting like you're in charge, Eva. You're not the captain here."

His harsh words hit me like a jinx to the chest. Merlin, when had Tristan become such a plank?

"Oh, and I suppose you are?" I challenged him.

"I am a professional athlete."

It took all of my self-restraint not to roll my eyes. Merlin, he was being such a thickheaded git.

"Your time out is well over!" Mum called out to us. "Back in the air."

Excellent. Our time out had accomplished precisely nothing.

"Look," I said, trying my utmost to keep my voice level and calm. "Let's all pass the bleeding Quaffle, yeah?"

Tristan and Elena merely shrugged and mounted their brooms.

"Hey," James said, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. "You okay?"

"Would you think I'm terrible person if I said I wanted to throw a Quaffle at their faces?" I asked, perfectly serious.

James smirked. "I'd help you. I used to like Tristan..."

"You're a bloke. What does he see in her?"

"Sex," James decided after a momentary pause.

Fantastic. We'd never get Tristan out of her clutches.

Grabbing his broom, James leaned forward and smirked. "Keep your elbows tucked in."

"Incorrigible prat," I told him with a slight smile.

"You love it."

Back in the air, I shook my head in an attempt to clear my mind. Just play for fun.

It came as no surprise to me that we lost. In the remaining half hour of the game, Elena passed the Quaffle to me exactly five times. She also earned us a grand total of ten points while the other team scored sixty points in the same amount of time.

All in all, I was in a foul mood by the time we made our way back to the house for dinner. I was highly competitive; I knew that about myself. But I was also capable of playing a match for fun. We did it as a family all the time. I had played with James's family and it hadn't truly mattered then who won or lost. But this….this had me positively fuming.

Back at the house, I told James that I needed to quickly run upstairs. In my bedroom, I grabbed a tube of lip balm for my chapped lips. Of course, my real reason for coming up to my bedroom was to take a few moments to breathe and calm myself down. I didn't want dinner to erupt into some sort of row and I needed to let everything that had happened out on the pitch go.

As I was about to open my bedroom door and head back downstairs, a pair of voices stopped me in my tracks.

"Your sister can be kind of a bitch, can't she?" Elena was commenting in an off-handed manner.

"She's just really competitive," Tristan said as my heart pounded in my chest.

"I'm always perfectly nice to her but she's so stand-offish and arrogant."

Elena thought she was being nice? What a joke.

"She's not going to get signed to a team with that attitude," Elena continued. "I mean, she's a decent Chaser, don't get me wrong, but –"

Then they disappeared down the stairs and their voices faded. I stood behind my bedroom door, rooted to the spot. Stand-offish. Arrogant. Bad attitude. Decent.

"Eva?" Gareth's voice came from the other side of the door.

I squared my shoulders. I had been called the same or worse by my old archenemy, Lyra Rinaldi. I couldn't let what one person said about me dampen my spirit. Especially someone who didn't really know me.

I took a deep breath and opened the door. "Sorry, just getting some lip balm," I told Gareth, holding the tube up as evidence.

He didn't look completely convinced. "I can't believe she lost you the match," Gareth muttered as he shook his head ruefully. "The teams weren't even matched fairly and she still caused enough problems to make your lot loose."

"It isn't that," I said, "I don't like how she –" I stopped, and then shook my head. "I'm trying to calm down. I don't want dinner to end up like the last time they visited."

"You're not the only one responsible for that," Gareth pointed out.

Well, that was true enough, but I still needed to do my part to be civil.

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

"I meant to ask last time I saw you," Tristan said as he pushed some peas around his plate, "Which trainer did you work with at your Puddlemere tryout?"

I tried not to grimace in front of Dad. "Trainer Day."

Having no sense of discretion, Tristan visibly winced at the memory from his short time at Puddlemere. "Merlin, she was a right horror."

"I remember you warned me about her," I told him quietly with a quick glance at Dad, who was talking with James, "But I think you might have undersold the ice glare."

Tristan shrugged. "Didn't want to scare you too bad. She bloody hated me from the moment I stepped on to that pitch. Thought I didn't deserve to be there and that I only got on the team because of Dad. We clashed a fair bit while I was on the reserves there."

I thought back to my own tryout and interview. I suspected that Trainer Day didn't particularly like anyone, but she really hadn't seemed to like me. Still, there wasn't much I could do about it at this point. Once I was on the reserves, I could prove to her that I was a hard worker and that I planned to put my blood, sweat, and tears into the sport.

"Laranda Day isn't much of a trainer, if you ask me," Elena spoke up. "She's much too –"

"Elena," I said in an attempt to move the subject away from Quidditch, "what is it that you do? For a living, I mean."

"Triss has never mentioned it?" she gave him a sidelong look.

If he had – which I doubted – I wouldn't have bothered to remember anyway. I was only asking because every time Quidditch came up in conversation with Elena around, a row wasn't far behind.

"I don't have a very good memory for detail," I explained as Tristan shot me an annoyed glance.

"I design dress robes for Twilfitt and Tattings," Elena told me proudly. "Of course, I'm only a junior designer right now, but several of my designs have gone over very well. I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't promoted in the next couple of years."

"That's…nice," I replied.

Elena's face lit up. "You should absolutely come in for a fitting sometime. I could help you with your wardrobe. I'm told I have excellent taste."

I caught Richard's eye across the table and had to struggle not to laugh at the face he was making.

"Er…" I stammered, unsure of how to get myself out of this mess I had unwittingly created. "I, that is –"

"Eva's not much into fashion, babe," Tristan said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

Although what he was saying was strictly true, it still somehow felt like an insult. Maybe I was being too sensitive.

"She'll need outfits for interviews with reporters, though," Elena protested, then turned back to me. "I can think of this one set of robes already – this beautiful light blue that would make your eyes positively sparkle. You could be quite pretty if you tried."

All right, now that was an insult. She made it sound as though I didn't pay attention to my appearance at all.

"I promised my friend Christine that she could help me pick out interview robes," I said, trying (and probably failing) to sound apologetic.

"You're still friends with her?" Tristan asked.

I frowned in confusion. "Of course I am. Christine's my best friend."

"I could never figure that out," Tristan mused, "She always seemed like such a swot and she never had much interest in Quidditch."

"She's not a massive fan," I admitted, "but Christine came to every Gryffindor match. And she came with me to tryouts Second Year. She's always been supportive of me."

"If so say so."

Holy hippogriffs, was no subject safe?

"I'm going to, uh, get some more water," I grabbed my glass and stood up, beating a hasty retreat.

Standing at the kitchen sink staring out the window, I heard someone come up right behind me.

"How's it going?" James asked quietly, conscious of the lack of doors between the kitchen and dining room.

"Ugh."

"That bad, huh?"

"I've managed to avoid any rows that involve Quidditch," I answered, "so that's something."

I could see him smirking in the glass of the window in front of me. "Quite an accomplishment."

Merlin, wasn't that the truth?

I turned around to face James and slid my arms around his waist. He reached up to play with my hair.

"How's your talk with my dad?"

"I think he really likes me," James said with a wide grin. "Which is good, considering his daughter is falling in love with me."

"You're going to make me sorry I ever told you that," I teased with a grin of my own.

James gave a fake, dramatic sigh. "Reckon I'll just have to move to Poland, then."

I let my head fall against his warm chest. "I'm glad you're not going."

"Me too." He paused, then said, "We should probably go back in there."

"Do we have to?" I sighed, even as I turned towards the doorway.

"We do unless you want your mum and dad to get suspicious."

Well, he put it like that... They probably already thought we were using the opportunity of being out of sight to snog.

"We can toss a Quaffle around later and pretend we're throwing it at their heads," James offered with a smirk.

I sent a smirk of my own his way. "Count me in. I have a feeling I'll need the stress relief."

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

"Ugh," I coughed as I stepped out of the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron. "I think I swallowed some ashes."

"Here," Christine held out a glass of water. "I thought it best to be prepared."

I took the glass she offered gratefully and took a long drink. Ah, much better.

"Best stand out of the way," Kieran gently took my arm and steered me away from standing right in front of the fireplace. "Unless you want to be knocked down."

It wasn't a moment too soon, because a few seconds later the flames turned green and then James was stepping out of the fireplace right where I'd been standing.

He brushed some ashes off his robes, and then saw me holding a glass of water.

"How do you almost always end up swallowing ash in the Floo network?" he asked, seeming genuinely bemused.

"I don't know!" I cried, throwing up my hands. "It just happens."

James just shook his head and smirked. Prat.

"Well, where to?" Kieran asked, looking around at our small group.

"I know where they want to go," Christine grinned.

"Quality Quidditch Supplies," James and I both said without missing a beat.

As if I'd make a trip to Diagon Alley and not stop at my favorite shop. That would practically be heresy.

We were about to exit the Leaky Cauldron when an older woman with iron-grey hair and a slight stoop approached James.

"You're Harry Potter's son, aren't you?" she asked, looking up at James with an almost reverent expression.

"Yes, I am," James replied. I could hear the pride in his voice.

"Your father's a great man, great man," she said reaching out to clasp one of James's hands tightly in her own. "I might not be alive if it weren't for him. I'm Muggleborn, you see? He and his friends, they stood up for us. A great man."

"I'll tell him," James told her sincerely. "What's your name?"

The woman seemed beside herself with delight. "Harriet. Harriet Wight."

As we made our way out into the street, I reached out and took James's hand in mine. He looked at me with some surprise. Although I enjoyed holding hands, James was usually the one to initiate it.

"You were really sweet to that woman," I motioned with my free hand behind me at the pub. "Does that happen often?"

He nodded with a smile. "More people stop Al because he looks so much like Dad, but yeah, it happens a fair amount. When I was a kid, I was so proud when we were out as a family and people stopped Dad to thank him. Still am, really."

"I think it's really touching," Christine chimed in. "The way people stop your dad, and how you all take it so seriously."

"Hey Eva! James!" a familiar voice called out, interrupting our conversation.

"Zara!" I cried happily as I spotted my former Gryffindor team member and fellow Chaser. "How are you?"

"Bloody brilliant," she grinned widely, teeth gleaming in the sunlight. "There was some rather fantastic news for me in the post this morning."

"Oh?" I asked with an excited smile, knowing full well to what Zara was referring. After all, Richard and Gareth had received their Hogwarts letters too.

"Congratulations!" James told her, having quickly picked up on the reason for Zara's elation. "You'll be such an ace captain. The Quidditch team's in good hands with you."

"I like to think so," Zara replied, a touch of worry in her voice. "I'm a bit nervous of course, but you laid such a strong foundation and set such a good example. But how I'm ever going to replace you two, I don't know."

"You'll be fine," James reassured her. "Every captain has to replace players that have left school."

"Yeah…" she trailed off, then said, "Hopefully Bree and Nico are on good terms by then or things could be a bit awkward."

"What happened?" I asked in surprise. Bree and Nico were great together, or so I had thought. "They didn't break up?"

Zara nodded ruefully. "Yeah, and it wasn't too pleasant either. Bree met someone when she was on holiday with her family. Some bloke named Étienne. Poor Little Chap was really broken up about it."

Oh no, poor Nico. He was such a sweet lad, and he had always seemed to feel strongly for Bree. Almost proud, that Bree fancied him.

James grimaced. "Who would throw over a great lad like Nico for someone they met on holiday?"

"Bree, apparently," I said without thinking. "Like you said, I hope that doesn't cause any problems for the team dynamic."

"Me too," Zara agreed, then said, "I don't mean to leave on a sour note, but I don't want to hold you up," she motioned to Christine and Kieran who were examining a display in the window of the Apothecary.

"Don't worry about us," Christine called, waving a hand in our direction. "You lot catch up."

"No, no," Zara insisted. "Really, I've got a date in a few minutes anyway. This is all rather new so I don't want to be late."

"Anyone we know?" James asked with a grin. "More importantly, do they like Quidditch?"

A sensible question, that.

Zara nodded enthusiastically. "She doesn't play, but she's a massive fan. Supports the Harpies, actually."

Ugh, the Harpies. My horrendous tryout was the last thing I wanted to be reminded of.

"Her name's Verity Gainsford; she's in Ravenclaw," Zara further explained with a smile.

Nobody I knew, but that was hardly surprising seeing as this girl didn't play Quidditch and, being older, I would never have had lessons with her.

"Congratulations again, then," I told her.

"Absolutely," James echoed my sentiments. "Good on you."

"Let me know if you need any Quidditch advice, I'll be happy to help," I promised. "But I won't be offended if you want to do it all yourself."

"Thanks, Eva," Zara said gratefully, "That means a lot. Truly. You were the best captain I've played under."

"She's only played under two captains," James remarked as Zara strode away in the direction of the ice cream shop.

"Thanks," I said drily, even though I was inclined to agree with him. Considering that Sean O'Mara – one of the biggest planks to ever walk the Earth – had been the Gryffindor captain before me, the fact that I was the best in comparison wasn't saying much. But I appreciated Zara's words all the same.

"You know what I meant," James said. "O'Mara's a git."

I nodded. "A massive git. But in any case, Zara seemed happy. I'm glad for her."

"She's a good choice as captain," James commented. "I would have picked her too."

"She has the most experience," I agreed, "and I think she'll be able to keep everyone in line. Professor Longbottom had to agree with me of course. But I came with a list of reasons why I thought she'd do well, and he agreed me. For a while, I actually considered recommending Lily," I admitted somewhat tentatively.

"Really?" James sounded surprised by my admission. Lily had only been on the Gryffindor team for one year.

"She's an excellent player and she's only going to get better," I explained. "And I think she has the qualities of a leader. Must run in the family."

James grinned happily. "We have had quite a few Quidditch captains in the family."

Except he hadn't been one of them. I knew there was nothing I could do about it, but there was a part of me that still felt guilty that O'Mara's interest in me had kept James from having a fair shot at being captain.

My thoughts were interrupted as Christine and Kieran rejoined us.

"So," Kieran said with a knowing smile, "On to Quality Quidditch Supplies, then?"

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

Our pockets were considerably lighter and our shopping bags more plentiful as we sat down at Florean Forteque's for ice cream at the end of the afternoon.

"I forgot to ask, do you have any job news to share?" I asked Christine hopefully, but she shook her head.

"I haven't heard back from The Museum of Magical Antiquities yet. But I should be hearing something within the next week or two. They did ask to contact my references, though."

"That sounds like a good omen to me," James commented.

Kieran nodded in agreement. "That's what I think. Most places don't ask to contact references unless they know who they'd like to hire."

"Well, this is a surprise," Fred greeted us as he approached our table.

I couldn't see how, considering I had been there when James told Fred that we couldn't have a scrimmage because we already had plans for the afternoon.

"Is it?" James asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I meant here, specifically," Fred clarified, motioning with his arms wide to indicate the ice cream parlor.

"Oh Godric, this is about that girl, isn't it?"

Fred narrowed his eyes. "Need I remind you - you said you'd be supportive? And she has a name, remember?"

"Have you found out her last name yet?" I asked as innocently as I could.

"Not yet," Fred replied, seemingly undaunted. "That's what I'm here for, actually."

What, so we could all be witness to him making a fool of himself in front of this girl?

"Wish me luck," he winked and then strode towards the shop doors.

"Good luck," the four of us mumbled half-heartedly.

Diagon Alley was busy today, so Christine and I had found a place to sit while James and Kieran got the ice cream. Out of curiosity, I wondered what Theia looked like. Was she someone from Hogwarts? (Not that I'd probably recognize her if she was.)

"So…I'm guessing he doesn't stand a chance with this girl?" Kieran asked. Having been a Ravenclaw, he wasn't as familiar with Fred's previous romantic disappointments.

"We probably shouldn't say that he doesn't stand a chance," Christine admitted. "After all we've never met her. Fred just has a history of being interested in girls who aren't remotely interested in him," Christine further explained for her boyfriend's sake.

"That's rotten. He's a great bloke," Kieran said.

James nodded wearily. "Hopefully he finds someone that actually fancies him back."

Five minutes later, the shop door opened and Fred strolled out, a swagger in his step.

"I," he announced proudly, "have a date tomorrow night with Theia."

"You did find out her last name, yeah?" I asked, just to be sure.

"It's Wooten. So there."

I smiled and held my hands up in surrender. I stood corrected. And really, I was glad. Maybe things were looking up for Fred.

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

Ms. Eva Wood

Ivy Cottage

Affpuddle

Dorset

This was it.

In my hands was a crisp, white envelope with an embossed Puddlemere United logo. I took a few moments to savor the feeling, letting it all sink in.

Carefully, I slid a fingernail under the lip of the envelope and tore it open. The sound of my heart beating rapidly seemed to drown out everything else happening around me.

I read the words printed on the parchment. So neat, so formal. My heart rate sped up and my breath caught in my throat.

As though I was hearing through a tunnel, I faintly heard someone calling my name.

"Eva!"

My focus torn from the letter, I looked up in confusion. James was standing at the back door, waving at me. In a daze, I walked over and let him in.

"Look what came in the post this morning!" he pulled a piece of creamy, white parchment out of the pocket of his robes and waved it happily in my face. It looked exactly like the parchment I currently held.

"Puddlemere wants me for their reserve team!" he exclaimed. Pure and ecstatic excitement covered his features. "Isn't this brilliant? I would have been here sooner, but I already owled them and told them I'm ready to sign the contract. I reckoned you'd be fine with me playing for Puddlemere too. This means we can keep playing together!"

I handed James the letter clutched in my hands, the parchment shaking slightly as I did so.

"Puddlemere isn't offering me a spot, James. They don't want me."

~…~…~…~…~…~…~…

Thank you for all of the lovely reviews, favorites, and story alerts! I appreciate everyone who reads my story and everyone who has let me know how much they enjoy it! And a special thanks to my beta, blue and gold, for the helpful suggestions and fabulous beta abilities.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Favorite quotes? I'd love to hear what you thought!

Next chapter: Eva reacts to her letter, James and Eva have a talk, and James's family celebrates.