QUIDDITCH 2

James had timed it perfectly that he does not wait for the Daily Prophet in the morning. He will walk into the Great Hall and sit down for breakfast always seconds before the mail is delivered each day. He was not a patient man, so timing himself perfectly to make sure the paper was in his hands the second he sat down when he needed to read the news seemed to be the only reasonable and rational thing for him to do. Otherwise it would invoke the jittery and nervous James who was unaware of the scores of the games last night.

He'd get the paper, flip to the sports section, then find the scores and skim the articles.

Seventh year was different in a lot of ways, becoming Head Boy was different of course, but even more different was dating Lily Evans. And once that became serious, lots of little things changed. The ritual that he had tied to his religion of Quidditch was not as rigid as it used to be. In the beginning of the relationship, he had slid on a lot of mornings. Sometimes he'd stay in the common room with her and skip the Great Hall altogether, and sometimes she'd want to discuss something with him and he'd have to just keep the paper in his hands without turning to read it while she talked to make sure he seemed interested, because he knew once he read the reports of the game last night, he would be less likely to engage in a conversation. Today was different however as the Ballycaster Bats were against the Tutshill Tornados and his favorite chaser was being showcased, almost certain to be the MVP. So he did what he hadn't done for a while, timed things perfectly, and began to walk down. When he sat down at the table, he smiled as he spotted the flurry of owls making their way towards the tables. He heard Lily's voice and for the first time in his life, he tensed up- freezing for a second so small he pretended it never happened at all, hoping that she would just leave him alone. Quickly that melted away from him and he turned to smile at her, already feeling his fingers tapping the table, itching to open the paper but instead gave Lily a weak smile.

Then sunlight was beating down on the pair of them as they decided to take advantage of this Sunday morning by strolling the grounds of Hogwarts. James finally did get to see the scores and he wasn't able to stop himself from talking and just talking- and Lily actually seemed interested. Lily liked Quidditch and loved supporting their Quidditch team of course and James tried to steer away from the play by play of old Quidditch games but he began by talking about how great Stinson did this morning which evolved into explaining a play by play of the world cup of 1974, which he not only attended but was even participated in as the dissimulator he was holding became his wand, even though he couldn't use magic anyway, it was the principle of the whole thing.

"Stinson is just so fast Lils, it's insane- you'd think he was pumped with some kind of potion but it's not that, he also has skill an-"

"It's just a game though," Lily said without even thinking, a smile at her lips.

James, who had been excitedly telling her all about Stinson's first game showcase had almost tensed in place, his hands falling closer to his sides instead of up in the air like when he was explaining. When James had stopped walking Lily had looked behind her for a moment looking confused and then realized what she said. "Oh- James," and she sighed softly, "I didn't mean to call it just a game," she said easily, almost chuckling. "Sometimes you just take things really seriously."

James gave her a hard smile, 'Of course. I know. It is really just a game though, I guess." He hadn't really had a girlfriend before- at least one that he liked this much and he was learning how to respond to things slowly- at least for him. ( She did let him touch her knockers, which was a real bonus.. ) He had been realizing that he had to pull back on some aspects of his life and knew that girls just generally didn't want to hear about Quidditch.

Quidditch was the most important thing to James but he did have friends to talk about it to, but honestly, he never wanted to stop talking about it.

He realized though that his best friends actually cared very little for the sport- at least compared to him. James follows every game and when he gets the newspaper in the morning, he seldom reads anything else besides the news about Quidditch and while they knew how to play, only Sirius was on the team (and for only a year at that) and Peter and Remus certainly liked to talk about other things if they could. Sirius didn't keep up with him, and actually now that he considered it, the only person who he'd really been able to talk to about it all was Emma. Sure they had stopped talking after he and Lily got more official and Emma had that ring on her finger signaling which pureblood she'd have to mate with- but he knew she still got it more than anyone else. He'd actually feel like she knew her stuff- not only did she get the subtle jokes when he sarcastically calls a team good that's been doing bad or reference a player randomly in conversation (because that was the most relevant thing he could think of to describe so and so and so ) it was Emma who actually got it.

Later that day when he was just close enough and no one else was around he snuck up behind Emma and repeated, "Appleby Arrows were something last night, weren't they?"

"Something horrible," Emma repeated almost instantly and James couldn't believe he was actually holding his breath for her answer. She turned around to face him, "You think that Jenkins would understand that you have to actually be a good chaser to stay on the team- I'm sure he thanks merlin every night that he's related to Johnson, although the beaters had good technique, but really not as good as Jerrico, they really know their stuff."

James quickly agreed.

Emma gave him a huge grin, "I saw Stinson's score last night, his shooting percentage is off the charts."

James eagerly nodded, "He's a shoo in for MVP."

Emma scoffed and James already knew what she was going to say. "Being MVP is political, not statistical, you KNOW it's going to be Johnson for his underdog thing."

"You can't be serious…" he said, but suddenly they heard someone rounding the corner and Emma's smile faded, and she gave him a small little wave before hurrying away.

Later that night he tried to think of how he would set up plays for the other two chasers on the Tornados with Stinson if he was running the team but his mind kept falling back to Lily's words, 'it's just a game," and it was hard to fall asleep.